Like so many of the best films of the year, no one really saw this one despite it being the coolest most – well – badass of the year. “This is a film about the making of a film,” we learn at the beginning of Mario Van Peebles autobiographical account of the making of ‘’Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassssss Song’’ the first real African-American indie film. Shot with the same anxious, chaotic, almost desperate energy that no doubt existed while the director’s father scraped together every penny he could, risking bankruptcy and his own personal health, to make this film. “Baadasssss!” feels as gritty and real as almost any this year, but that’s why it just kind of sticks with you, making itself the underdog tugging at your heartstrings without an ounce of sentimentality, just a raw dose of fist pumping fuel.

Much (maybe too much) has already been said about “Sideways.” Some critics seem to resent the raves the film has received, as if some beautiful little secret has been stolen and exploited to the masses – but isn’t this a good thing? Basically a buddy movie about old friends that have grown apart but are given the chance to reconnect, “Sideways” views of life through the metaphor of wine. Where this idea could have fallen easily victim to painful cliché “Sideways” risks it all on the on extracting four largely impeccable performances that provide a looking glass into the human soul. In life there will always be pain, moments of joy, and the reality being trapped in an under whelming existence. But “Sideways” succeeds in reminding us that occasionally we are offered the chance to start again, and when this happens open your throat and drink it in.

In 2001 two young Norwegian kids recorded a mind-blowingly good folk record cut lovingly from what seemed like a cloth left behind by Nick Drake. This time out the duo takes on Simon and Garfunkel. At times the songs sound like that stark, harmonious bridge of over troubled water, at others they spin their melodious yarn into impossibly perfect gentle disco songs that would make Burt Bacharach smile. Unlike many sad sophomore efforts, the Kings don’t so much try to reinvent the wheel or merely pick up where they left off, they wisely just kind of change like the seasons – softly, happily glad for something new.