V FOR VENDETTA

A day after seeing it, I'm still a bit shaken by John McTeague's graphic-novel adaptation V for Vendetta. Action blockbusters - not to mention action blockbusters based on comic books - have been so dour and pedestrian of late that I don't know if I've fully grasped the extent of Vendetta's greatness yet; it's the kind of explosive, overwhelming work that gets better and better the more you think of it. The film is a little 1984, a little Phantom of the Opera, and, with its screenplay by the Wachowski brothers, more than a little Matrix-y, but it casts an extraordinary, devastating spell. It may be the most fully realized film of a graphic novel the genre has yet seen, a movie you want to talk (and argue) about long after the closing credits.

DAVE CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY

Dave Chappelle's Block Party is teeming with something that has been sorely absent from 2006's movie crop: joy. In the late summer of 2004, Chappelle, fresh from signing his now-legendary - and currently defunct - $50-million contract with Comedy Central, spontaneously decided to throw a block-wide bash, and recruited a batch of rap and R&B performers (including Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Kanye West, Jill Scott, and Lauryn Hill and the reunited Fugees) to perform a day-long gig in Brooklyn; the resulting concert doc features highlights from the concert interspersed with scenes of Chappelle kicking back with the stars and the block-party attendees, and the movie, directed by Michel Gondry, is a giddy, oftentimes exhilarating spectacle. It's hard to determine who's having more fun - the musicians, whose on-stage performances are heartfelt and vital; the Brooklyn masses, whose enjoyment of the show is palpable; or the movie's audience.

FINAL DESTINATION 3

Final Destination 3 is, almost unequivocally, the least successful of the franchise's entries. But you know what? The movie is still pretty terrific. It's easy to resent sequels that's don't deviate at all from the proven formula of their forebears, especially in regards to horror flicks; audiences want these follow-ups to give them what they loved about the original but not merely what they loved about the original. (The most common complaint I hear about horror sequels is "It's just like the first one.")

BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2

In the second season of TV's Arrested Development, struggling wannabe actor Tobias, separated from his wife and daughter, devises a brilliant strategy for insinuating himself back into their lives: He dons a wig and a frumpy housedress, speaks in a high, quasi-British falsetto, and greets his family as Mrs. Featherbottom, hired by "the agency" to serve as housekeeper and nanny. (Tobias, as the narration points out, is giddily - and ridiculously - enacting the plot to Mrs. Doubtfire.) His family is, naturally, unconvinced by Tobias' disguise, but they're happy to let him continue the ruse anyway - the house never looked cleaner. This subplot was a typically, fiendishly clever one for the series; by finally addressing the "Are you kidding?" element of this comic staple - where seemingly smart characters are fooled by a touch of latex and rouge - it subverted expectation by making our "hero" the butt of his own joke. Tobias' drag act made it impossible to ever again watch Mrs. Doubtfire - or even Tootsie or Some Like It Hot or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - in quite the same way.