Best Movies of 2008

Some people also said this wasn't a great year of movies either, but when I compiled a list of what I saw it easily featured the most solid titles of any of the three times I've done this. I feel comfortable going all the way to ten this time. Not making the cut included such films as Cloverfield, which I thought succeeded at doing exactly what it wanted, Tropic Thunder, a fun collaboration by a bunch of funny guys, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, another likable film in the Apatow repertoire.

Best of 2008

10. Hellboy II: The Golden Army


More here for being so amazing visually than a great film. I can't quite tell whether del Toro is a great filmmaker or just has an uncanny knack for neat effects, although I can't say I'm not terrible excited about what he could do with The Hobbit.

9. Valkyrie

I guess in the end I did quite like it. Wonderfully filmed, takes the subject matter very seriously, and it's a sad story that people should know about. A good tribute to the men who tried to stop the world's greatest evil.

8. Pineapple Express

Rogen and Franco are great together in the perfect fusion of buddy stoner comedies with an action film, albeit a mostly grounded one. Although I kind of wish the whole thing lived up to the opening scene with Bill Hader and Dexter's dad a bit better.

7. Burn After Reading


Far from the best Coen film, but far from the worst too. Not quite what I hoped for but a nice entry in their kookier milieu. Am I even using that word right? I can't believe I used that word. What the hell.

6. The Wrestler


I haven't blogged about it yet, but I watched it yesterday so give me a break. Mickey Rourke's performance, which won a Golden Globe (haha) on Sunday, is the most notable aspect, but I thought it was a very good film in general.

5. Quantum of Solace


A lot of people complained about the editing in the action scenes, but they're all a bunch of dopes. There, I said it. I'd be fine with it if every violent film for the next ten years was styled exactly like this one.

4. Iron Man


The runner-up for best comic book-based super hero movie about a man with a heritage to live up to who fights crime by using his vast wealth to create a special suit instead of an extraordinary power of his own. I love Robert Downey Jr.

3. In Bruges


I was a bit surprised to see Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe for this, not because he wasn't good, but because it wasn't really a "Comedic" performance. Really good movie, funny but still with a strong emotional depth.

2. The Dark Knight

The best comic book-based super hero movie about a man with a heritage to live up to who fights crime by using his vast wealth to create a special suit instead of an extraordinary power of his own. All three films featuring a Golden Globe-winning male performance appear on this list. What does that tell you? Nothing, really.

1. Wall-E


And the best movie of the year's only dialogue from the two leads consists basically of "Wally!" and "Eva!" over and over again. It really did touch me though, with a strong message, gorgeous visuals, and heartfelt story. One of the best family films ever.

Valkyrie

I'm feeling a bit mixed on Valkyrie. Overall, it does a lot of things right. Despite how insane he might seem in real life, I still think Tom Cruise is a solid actor, and he's as fine as always here leading an army of less famous but still very good performers, with lots of people you recognize and like even if you don't know their names. The movie looks really great, with some stunning cinematography in some scenes, good enough to help me almost completely ignore a scratch on the film running along the left side side of the screen the entire time. Bryan Singer's back to doing something a little smaller after the first two X-Men movies and the fairly mediocre Superman reboot, and I have few qualms with any of the decisions he made. Despite the overall fairly good production though, something about the film is still rubbing me the wrong way a little bit. I think it's an important story and they did a good job of keeping up the tension despite the outcome's inevitability, but I still feel that I didn't quite really enjoy it, that it ran a little too long and that it was just a bit boring.

It's possibly just a case of bad editing. There's not a scene that doesn't have some value to it, that's not well filmed or put together, but all of them combined don't have as much impact as they probably should. If twenty minutes combined were cut from the planning and after-effects of the attempt on Hitler's life, it might flow a lot better. As it is, there's just not as much excitement as I probably would like from a movie about people fighting back against Nazis. I still respect the movie for its emotional weight and showing how not every member of the Third Reich was a bastard. I also liked how they handled the language issue - it starts out in German with subtitles, and quickly transitions to English. Just a way of acknowledging that this is a movie and they're making a compromise to make the experience easier for its audience without resorting to phony German accents. Too many films just have the actors put on an accent, some more successfully than others, but even if it's completely accurate, it's still a very fake authenticity that really annoys me. If the characters aren't speaking the right language anyway, it's not going to help. Anyway, Valkyrie was all right.