Top Ten Movies of 2008
-
I still need to see a few key movies (Milk, The Visitor), but here is my list of my favorite movies so far:
1. Twilight. An enchanting story, perfectly told. This is one of the best adaptations of a novel that I've ever seen---including just the right elements, in just the right amounts, and told at the perfect pace. And if you think a movie about teenage vampire romance is juvenile, consider that love, war, and death are the timeless themes of art throughout the ages, and this movie combines them all. There's no story more important than how we come to find love in this world, how we emerge from loneliness into intimacy.
2. The Duchess. People sometimes think of costume dramas as being prissy and irrelevant. But most costume dramas take place at a very specific and interesting nexus of history, when individual desires are emerging as legitimate while societal constraints are still very much in force. This is a very poignant story about just that nexus.
3. Vicky Christina Barcelona. It's been years since I've seen a film that reminded me how it felt to be young and traveling abroad, when the very air of a foreign city was filled with romance and possibility. So what if three out of four Woody Allen movies these days are failures? Every fourth one is a masterpiece, and that's a hell of a record.
4. Doubt. This story of accusation within a Catholic school is, again, perfectly told. It was directed by the playwright himself, and it shows, as scene after scene includes shots full of symbolism and suggestion. And it rescued Meryl Streep for me: I really hated her performances in The Hours and Mamma Mia, and this restored my faith.
5. Wall-E. Yowza. An art film masquerading as a summer blockbuster.
6. Priceless. For some reason French dramas are touch and go with me, but I almost always love French comedies. This one with the lovely Audrey Tautou joins the list with The Dinner Game, Les Comperes, and others.
7. Slumdog Millionaire. In a way this movie reminded me of Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto, because I found myself caring about and rooting for the protagonist more than I have about any character for years. It almost aches, how much you want this character to overcome.
8. Burn After Reading. Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button: HATED. Brad Pitt as bouncy, energetic, yet dumb gym dude: LOVED.
9. Tropic Thunder. Just flat-out funny. And Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise had my head spinning.
10. In Bruges. It's got an unpredictably deep friendship, a course on business ethics (don't kill children), and, of course, "f**kin' Bruges."
Bonus: The Dark Knight. It was precisely 50% too long (they should have held the Two-Face plot for the next movie), but it was otherwise great, clever, surprising. And I really hope Heath Ledger wins the Oscar, because there's no other supporting character who did more for a movie this year.
-
I still need to see a few key movies (Milk, The Visitor), but here is my list of my favorite movies so far:
1. Twilight. An enchanting story, perfectly told. This is one of the best adaptations of a novel that I've ever seen---including just the right elements, in just the right amounts, and told at the perfect pace. And if you think a movie about teenage vampire romance is juvenile, consider that love, war, and death are the timeless themes of art throughout the ages, and this movie combines them all. There's no story more important than how we come to find love in this world, how we emerge from loneliness into intimacy.
2. The Duchess. People sometimes think of costume dramas as being prissy and irrelevant. But most costume dramas take place at a very specific and interesting nexus of history, when individual desires are emerging as legitimate while societal constraints are still very much in force. This is a very poignant story about just that nexus.
3. Vicky Christina Barcelona. It's been years since I've seen a film that reminded me how it felt to be young and traveling abroad, when the very air of a foreign city was filled with romance and possibility. So what if three out of four Woody Allen movies these days are failures? Every fourth one is a masterpiece, and that's a hell of a record.
4. Doubt. This story of accusation within a Catholic school is, again, perfectly told. It was directed by the playwright himself, and it shows, as scene after scene includes shots full of symbolism and suggestion. And it rescued Meryl Streep for me: I really hated her performances in The Hours and Mamma Mia, and this restored my faith.
5. Wall-E. Yowza. An art film masquerading as a summer blockbuster.
6. Priceless. For some reason French dramas are touch and go with me, but I almost always love French comedies. This one with the lovely Audrey Tautou joins the list with The Dinner Game, Les Comperes, and others.
7. Slumdog Millionaire. In a way this movie reminded me of Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto, because I found myself caring about and rooting for the protagonist more than I have about any character for years. It almost aches, how much you want this character to overcome.
8. Burn After Reading. Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button: HATED. Brad Pitt as bouncy, energetic, yet dumb gym dude: LOVED.
9. Tropic Thunder. Just flat-out funny. And Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise had my head spinning.
10. In Bruges. It's got an unpredictably deep friendship, a course on business ethics (don't kill children), and, of course, "f**kin' Bruges."
Bonus: The Dark Knight. It was precisely 50% too long (they should have held the Two-Face plot for the next movie), but it was otherwise great, clever, surprising. And I really hope Heath Ledger wins the Oscar, because there's no other supporting character who did more for a movie this year.
-
posted by Anonymous at
11:34 AM
2 Comments:
I kind of feel that Wall*E should have been in the best picture category. It's great that animated films have their own category now so that they don't get overlooked, but it isn't really fair for a movie of that caliber to get shut out of the best picture race just because it is animated.
I have to see Vicky Christina Barcelona. I keep hearing great things about it. . . .
Yeah, I sometimes feel that way about honoring young actors as well. It would be nice if the Oscars had a special category for young actors, but that might exclude them from the main categories forever. Lynn
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home