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.

Quantum of Solace

On its own, Quantum of Solace is a solid action movie, but it works much better when viewed as the second part of the story started in Casino Royale. In a way, they're very different films, but their differences make the arc of Bond's character much stronger. Royale was fairly long, and not full of the goofy villains and over-the-top action scenes that characterized Bond movies for a long time. It had some pretty good action, but the focus was on the spy thriller stuff. By comparison, Solace is significantly shorter and pretty consistently violent, with a new chase or brawl seeming to occur every fifteen minutes or so. You see some of the shaky-camera treatment in these segments that has plagued Hollywood action for too long now, and it can hinder comprehension of some really complex and entertaining scenes, but Marc Forster didn't go overboard with it. Still, you get the feeling that if the old filmmakers from the medium's begining who were apprehensive to do any jump cutting at all saw one of these movies, their heads would probably explode.

Daniel Craig's Bond is the most interesting treatment of the character that I've seen, and he's a big part of why I've been enjoying this reboot so much. He still has moments of humor and suaveness, but he really hasn't reacted too well to the events of the last movie and the coldness he treats the world with fuels the shift towards more action than we saw before. There's a lot of running time spent showing Bond fight people, but everything that happens makes sense with the character and what he's trying to do, so it's better justified than a lot of the big budget summer movies that come and go every year. The movie starts to introduce a shady evil organization that has its fingers in everything, and you can see how it's all leading to something a bit closer to older Bond movies, but Forster and the producers still make a good effort to keep it more grounded in reality and a bit darker. There's nobody with iron teeth or a bullet lodged in their brain, and the bad guys are controlling the world more subtly than SPECTRE ever did. It's a new James Bond for a more modern age, and Craig is apparently closer to Ian Fleming's original character than guys like Roger Moore ever were. I look forward to where they take the series from here.

Stranger than Fiction

Stranger than Fiction was a bit of a surprise for me. I thought I'd have some laughs, but I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did. It's definitely not the standard Will Ferrell comedy. He does some of his familiar stuff, but it's not what you usually see, and in addition to being funny, he shows some signs that he really does have some talent as an actor. The movie succeeds by being completely likable. The whole cast is pretty good, I like everyone that I recognized. The comedy is a good mix of smart dialogue and bizarre situations, and of course Ferrell's reactions to the voices he's hearing in his head.

The plot is interesting if not explained too well. The way it works and comes together is clever and unique. You never really are told exactly how this is all working, but it's okay to just let it happen. It's not about how Ferrell is a character in someone else's book, it's about what happens to his life because of it. It's just a cute movie that almost anyone could probably enjoy.