Well, I have finally seen twenty-five films from 2008, so here is my much-delayed (not to say anticipated) round-up of the 2008 films that I've seen. Not enough really for a Top/Bottom ten list, but enough to write an article about them.
(Order may not reflect where I rated them initially)
1. Slumdog Millionaire - This year's Oscar darling, and absolutely deserved in my opinion - it held up very strongly to a second viewing and thus I lift it over the two below films. It may not be cinema's greatest masterpiece but it's an endlessly fun Dickensian Valentine to India, with extremely likeable characters, good direction, fun music and an ingeniously constructed plot. If you don't enjoy this movie, you just don't have a heart; even I was grinning during the final dance sequence.
2. Doubt - Manages to overcome being a filmed play (unlike another film further down this list); Mr. Shanley has skill as a director. But more than that, the movie strikes the right tone of humor and tragedy throughout. Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are always going to be great, but who would have thought Amy Adams capable of such a compelling performance? Damn, that girl can act! The only false note is an incredibly lame final line, but I can live with that.
3. Australia - Baz Luhrman pays affectionate homage to the old school epic film and does so marvelously. A bit too long and perhaps it drags at times, but for the most part it excells as an epic and an adventure film. If nothing else it's a visual wonder, one of the most strikingly beautiful films of the last decade. David Lean, eat your heart out.
4. Valkyrie - I was pleasantly surprised due to the massive amount of pre-production trouble and anti-Tom Cruise buzz, but I ignored the morons and took the movie on its own terms. A top-notch historical thriller that never lets up on the tension, with absolutely beautiful production values. Fine performances from a truly great cast of character actors, as well, though some get short shrift.
5. Gran Torino - Clint Eastwood goes out with a bang in one of the greatest character/actor exits since a terminally ill John Wayne faced down a trio of scumbags in The Shootist. The rest of the movie is pretty good, a well-done mixture of comedy and drama, but Clint is the main attraction and he does not disappoint.
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - In spite of low expectations and a none-too-promising story, Button actually managed to be... a very good film. The visual effects and cinematography are worthy of praise, but the film's wonderfully elegiac tone and well-constructed story make it work beyond expectations. Brad Pitt is pretty good although the scene is frequently stolen by the likes of Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, and Tilda Swinton. And stop the Forrest Gump comparisons; if anything this is the anti-Gump.
7. Frost/Nixon - I have trouble rating this one so high since it never really breaks out of its status as a filmed play, the basic plot/character arcs are taken from any number of other films/plays, and the throat-clearing exposition is a bit hard to get through. But it maintains a high rating because when the actual debates get under way, the movie becomes endlessly gripping - and Frank Langella's phenomenal performance is alone worth seeing the movie for. Wouldn't be surprised if it went down after a rewatch, though.
8. Changeling - Clint's second effort is a bit lacking compared to his first; the movie goes on for half an hour too long and relies a bit much on cliche and sentimentality. But the wonderful direction and sense of period detail, and a great cast headed by the fabulous Angelina Jolie, manage to make it work for the vast majority of its length.
9. The Dark Knight - This year's summer phenomenon is a very good crime/superhero film that goes on about half an hour beyond all reason; everything after the Harvey Dent/Joker confrontation in the hospital is borderline pointless and should have been left for the sequel. Still, the film excells at what it does, and remains an entertaining action film, worthy of a lot of its praise though not most of the hype. Although, in my opinion Heath Ledger is the third-best performance of the film after Aaron Eckhardt and Gary Oldman.
10. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Harrison Ford inhabits his best role like he never left it, and the result is a fun if goofy adventure flick. The movie is extraordinarily silly and campy but so were the originals - there's zero sense in pretending otherwise. The truck chase through the jungle is alone worth the price of admission. Extra points for a not-annoying Shia LaBeouf, superhot Cate Blanchet and CGI army ants.
11. Iron Man - A much more typical superhero pic than that Batman flick. It's nothing we haven't seen many times before, but it's done fairly well, and Robert Downey Jr. alone makes it worth checking out.
12. The Other Boleyn Girl - Well-acted and visually gorgeous film that falls apart when Anne Boleyn actually becomes queen - the pacing becomes abrupt and what should be the most interesting part of the film becomes a footnote. Epic fail. Plus Eric Bana is a worse Henry than Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, which is saying something. Still, Natalie Portman is ravishing and commands the screen as Anne Boleyn, and at least the movie works up to a point - and yes, the cinematography is stunning.
13. Kung-Fu Panda - Striking/visuals animation and great voice work somewhat overshadow the fact that this is the same "zero to hero" animated flick done for the 83,000th time. I haven't seen Wall-E though.
14. Tropic Thunder - Gets off on the right foot with some hilarious fake trailers, stumbles with juvenile Hollywood "satire" (think The Stunt Man For Dummies) and surprisingly gets good when the actual plot gets going; Ben Stiller's Colonel Kurtz impersonation is hilarious. Robert Downey Jr. and Nick Nolte give great comedic performances, although the rest of the cast is largely along for the ride and Tom Cruise is as annoying as he is funny in his much-hyped cameo.
15. Milk - Glossy Hollywood Biopic #459 - except it's about a gay rights activist. Yawn. All that means is another douchebag Oscar speech from Sean Penn. Decently made and mildly interesting, but nothing remotely original or particularly entertaining.
16. Quantum of Solace - Slightly better than Casino Royale, but the Bond series still errs drastically in its attempts to be more serious and realistic - because that of course is what we want out of our James Bond films. Daniel Craig is a great Bond but he's used very badly; the only really worthwhile scenes are his showdowns with Judi Dench's M. The plot is uninvolving and yet again we have extremely unthreatening, uninteresting bad guys. Add lots of shaky cam and chimps-on-speed editing and you've removed whatever appeal the film should have. When a Bond film can't even get the action right, you know you're in trouble.
17. The Bank Job - How many times am I going to use the words cookie cutter and routine in this article? As often as they fit. If you've seen just about any heist film you should have an inkling of what goes on here.
18. Bolt - Another cookie cutter animated film about being the best you can be while still being yourself. Okay, enough.
19. Body of Lies - Basically Syriana-lite, which fortunately means lacking the horribly convoluted and labrynthian plot of that film, but it also means it's fairly dry, boring and predictable without much of interest to say about the Middle East or the CIA that hasn't been said many times over. Leo DiCaprio is pretty good but what Russell Crowe is doing in a worthless part that could have been played by any 60 character actors is beyond me. The final showdown between Leo and the terrorist leader is, however, a wonderful scene in and of itself; too bad the rest of the film never approached that level.
20. 27 Dresses - A typical, by-the-numbers innocuous romcom and worthy of no more comment than that. Katherine Heigl sure is cute though.
21. Twilight - Now we're getting to abominally bad stuff. The book at least was fun to read as campy, pulpy garbage, but the film absolutely fails for one simple reason: it takes itself extremely seriously. Not even so bad it's good, it's just there, a nonentity that arouses no interest at all in terms of story or characters or even visuals. Just a flat, boring, lifeless, uninteresting piece of meh. With vampires.
22. Be Kind - Rewind - This movie is centered around a one-joke premise that isn't all THAT funny. After all, any idiot and his friend can (and have been) "sweding" movies on YouTube for ages now, so the joke is more or less pointless. The attempts to add poignancy and unearned sentiment are cloying and just end up making a lame comedy obnoxious.
23. The Reader - Pretentious, posturing Oscar bait that starts out as a soft core porn film and then turns into an obnoxious morality tale without the moral. Even after the actual plot gets underway it remains boring, shallow and uninvolving; the fact that the movie revolves around a character's literacy is just ridiculous, and the final half-hour is just painful to sit through.
24. Rambo - Just an insultingly-bad, mind-numbingly-stupid super-graphic-ultra-maxi-violent action flick with a roided up Sly shooting faceless evil Asians into bloody mist. Nothing to see here, move on.
25. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - I liked the first two Mummy movies well-enough, so I went into this with a reasonably open mind, but when Jet Li went "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" by exploding into chocolate, followed immediately by Brendan Frasier shooting at a school of fish, I gave up all hope. The movie is so crass, shallow and idiotic that I don't see how anyone over the age of six could possibly enjoy it. And you REALLY have a problem when you're ranked lower than fucking Rambo on a list of the year's movies.
26. W - Oliver Stone has been out of it for years, and I honestly don't know what the fuck he was thinking of when he decided to make this film. From the bizarre casting to the sub-SNL level script and "satire" to the complete lack of narrative focus (as the movie can't tell whether it likes Bush or hates him) and even the mediocre-to-poor technical qualities, there's absolutely no reason for this film to exist except for Stone to take one last cheap shot at a man he obviously doesn't like. To think that the man who brought us JFK and Platoon also made this piece of utter shit is truly mind-blowing. Offensively, hideously bad, and definitely worthy of being crowned worst film of 2008.
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