The Best Movies of 2008
Feb 27 '09 (Updated Aug 14 '09)
The Bottom Line It may not have been the best year for movies overall, but there were a couple of gems that qualify as absolutely not to be missed.
How will I remember 2008 at the movies? Until I started making up this list, I really thought reviewers were being overly harsh on last year. There were movies I really, really liked, and good number I remember enjoying. But when I finally narrowed it down to a top 20, I was mighty surprised at what had snuck in. Maybe 2008 was an average-to-lousy year after all.
It took a while, but I finally rounded up the stragglers and watched the presumed top films of the year. To make up this list any later than February seems incredibly lazy, so I'm just sneaking it in here under the wire. I don't pretend to have seen every movie of last year, but I did see a pretty decent number, and feel pretty comfortable with the top ten I've concocted. Here we go, 2008! Stand up and take a bow!
10. Son of Rambow - This charming little British film was virtually ignored when released stateside (grossing a paltry $1.8 million), which was a shame. Two wildly different schoolboys in the 1980s attempt to make a film of increasing complexity based on their mutual admiration for First Blood. A very funny and very compelling story charts this bit of amateur filmmaking through its hectic ups and downs. Young actors Bill Milner and Will Poulter make a touching comedic pair as the leads, Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter. Plus, I have sort of a soft spot for movies about movies, which leads me easily to...
9. Tropic Thunder - Perhaps my favorite movie of the year, but I recognize its shortcomings. Well, somewhat. This tale of out of touch with reality actors sent into the jungle to make a war film only to become embroiled in actual life or death battle is nth degree ridiculous, and yet it works brilliantly. Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise received the lion's share of the praise, and deservedly so, but upon repeated viewing you can more appreciate the work of Jack Black's somewhat underwritten comedian Jeff Portnoy and Matthew McConaughey's exuberant, clueless agent Peck. The cast is tremendous almost across the board, from Brandon Jackson's Alpa Chino to Jay Baruchel's Sandusky to Nick Nolte to Bill Hader to the great Steve Coogan to Danny McBride. It may come apart a bit by the end, but it still is tremendously funny and entertaining. The best all out comedy of 2008.
8. Slumdog Millionaire - If it hadn't gotten hyped beyond imagination since its release, this would be the type of film you'd run across one day and be surprised how good it is. The premise doesn't seem terribly intriguing. It's pretty contrived and at times overly saccharine, even with its beatings and rapes. But despite the conveniences of the plot, this story of a poor kid from the slums of Mumbai tracking down his long lost love through the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is gripping, emotional filmmaking. It's no wonder it cleaned up at the Oscars, but this was a rather weak year. Is it good? Yes. Very good? Yes. Eight Oscars good? Well...
7. Man on Wire - One of the most suspenseful, taut, thrilling crime capers in years. Oh, and it's a documentary. Extraordinary doesn't begin to describe the way this film is put together, with the overall danger of tightrope walking a seeming metaphor for everything at stake. It's not just that Petit, the artist of balletic wire walking, is going to traverse the twin towers of the still incomplete World Trade Center in 1974, which alone is psychotically dangerous, he also has to set up the rigging illegally and hide out from guards overnight in the under-construction building before reaching his moment of triumph. It's a magnificent, gorgeous picture that manages to stay focused on this inspiring event in lower Manhattan, while to its credit never mentioning the tragedy that would occur there so many years later.
6. Iron Man - It really was a Downey love-in for me this year. But honestly, how much fun was Iron Man? We got a different twist on the traditional superhero formula, with Tony Stark a rich, womanizing jerk forced to use his skills at high tech weaponry to save himself from desert warlords, who are armed with his own guns and missles. Here he sees the downside to being the "Merchant of Death," as a reporter tells him, and decides to use his inventions to help and protect, becoming Iron Man. But the real joy of the film is how it manages to rise above the tech-y gloom and comic book-y set up to have fun with itself. Downey's Stark is a jerk, but one you come to like quite a bit, through his sly delivery and selfless transformation. The supporting cast is solid - Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard - but without Downey, this thing could have easily turned into Daredevil.
5. Rachel Getting Married - Dazzling, gritty, real performances abound in the story set over the weekend of Rachel's wedding. Her sister Kym is out of rehab for the occasion, and the tension instantly permeates the entire proceeding. What follows is a gripping, uncomfortable series of conversations, arguments, and marital celebrations that threaten to tear this already fractured family apart. The terrific script, in the hands of Jonathan Demme doing his best work behind the camera in years, coupled with the dynamic, devastating performances of Anne Hathaway as Kym, Rosemarie DeWitt as the titular bride, and Bill Irwin as their conflicted father, make for a wholly surprising film.
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - This is the extraordinarily impressive movie you always knew David Fincher was bound to make. Sure, his earlier films are terrific in their own right, from Fight Club to Alien3, but here's where it all came together as a more "conventional" movie. And that's only if you consider a man aging backwards conventional. It's so well put together that you can overlook the slightness of some of the characters. The script is marvelously constructed, bearing virtually no resemblance to F. Scott Fitzgerald's more allegorical short story, which would have been impossibly dull on film. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are good, but really don't seem to have too much stress placed on them to perform. It's the haunting inevitability of the narrative, and the beautiful visual composition of the film, that leave the more indelible impression on the viewer.
3. The Dark Knight - Of course, this will be remembered as the year of The Dark Knight. A big screen experience like no other in recent times, the movie became much bigger than the sum of its parts, as the frenzy and mania of it seemed to grow exponentially through the summer leading up to its release and then explode for weeks and weeks after. The amazing part was how it fully lived up to expectations. Interest ran so remarkably high for this film for so long that it was no shock it was such a massive hit out of the gate at the box office. But the fact that it kept going and going after that was a testament to the quality of the picture. So much has been written about the film that it's hard to add anything new, but boil it down and you've got a wonderfully complicated plot, terrific performances from Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne/Batman, Heath Ledger's Joker, Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent, and Gary Oldman's Gordon, and stunning visuals that made Gotham City more a character than it had been in any previous film version. Pretty much without question the best comic book film ever made.
2. Milk - There was nothing I saw in 2008 that surprised me as much as Gus Van Sant's Milk. I've never been a huge Van Sant fan, and honestly thought that his more experimental work in recent years showed that he didn't have much interest in making more traditional films anymore (if you can call his early work "traditional"). So seeing this straight-forward, well-crafted underdog story was, to me, pretty incredible. It doesn't hurt that Sean Penn gives his best performance ever, completely disappearing into the role, along side a great supporting cast, including James Franco, Emile Hirsch, and Josh Brolin. Milk is an inspirational, tragic biopic that does have a very traditional feel in its layout, but manages to incorporate some of the more inspired filmic choices Van Sant has been working out the past few years.
1. Wall-E - It is nothing short of astounding that Pixar can continue to make classic after borderline classic after excellent film, year after year after year. With the possible exceptions of Cars (which was merely very, very good) and A Bug's Life (which was just very good), every one of their other films has either been a total masterpiece or an exceptional semi masterpiece. Finding Nemo. The Incredibles. The Toy Story movies. Monsters Inc. Ratatouille. And they saved their best for '08. Wall-E, at risk of sounding hyper-exaggerated, may be one of the top four or five animated films ever made. It combines the stunning lyrical presence of an early Disney film with the eye popping visuals of the modern computer generated Pixar production. The super high concept story, of a robot left to clean up a decimated Earth of 700 years in the future, was a tricky proposition. The fact that the robot doesn't really speak, and the film spends its first forty minutes without dialogue, was a dicey decision. Then it transforms from a pastoral wasteland meditation into an action film set on a gigantic space ship, which requires no difficult transition internally and for viewers. Plus, essentially, the entire film is a romance. Between robots. This could've been a complete disaster, something even the mighty Pixar team couldn't pull off. But wow, pull it off they did. The first half of the film is better than the latter, without question, but that's not to denigrate the second act. It just couldn't possibly be asked to hold up to the genius work of the silent opening. That Wow of an opening sequence, traveling through space to the strains of an old Hello Dolly (!) song. The slapstick machinations of the quirky trash compacting Wall-E. The melancholy loneliness of this destroyed planet. The development of the touching relationship between Wall-E and Eve. It's as good a stretch of cinema as you're likely to see produced by modern filmmakers. Director and co-writer Andrew Stanton should be commended for even attempting this put this story on film. It's a terrific achievement, one that can only make you excited for whatever Pixar has in store next (er, this summer's Up).
Just outside the top 10: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Frost/Nixon, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Kung Fu Panda, Role Models, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, Bolt, Shine a Light, Doubt, Definitely, Maybe, Hamlet 2.
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Member: Joe
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