Top Great Movies Of 2008
May 28 '09 (Updated May 30 '09)
The Bottom Line Simply, my favorite movies for the year of 2008.
10. Quantum of Solace - I was never too big on the James Bond series, or on the who spy genre in general. And for the latest incarnation of James Bond, I didn't think that Daniel Craig had the right look to be an Agent 007. However, taking a chance on Casino Royale, I ended up walking away totally taken aback at what a high quality action flick it turned out to be. In fact, it was my fave action flick of that year.
And though, this Quantum Of Solace isn't on par to Casino, with Quantum's choppy action sequences & looser story, it's high energy & emphasis on characterizations between Bond & "M" were enough to still keep this installment entertaining to the eyes of this non-Bond fan.
The momentum of "refreshment", high energy & no-holds barred espionage are still in high gear for this high class spy vehicle.
9. [rec] -Take what Cloverfield took from The Blair Witch Project, add a dash of 28 Days Later, and then sprinkle on some sub-titles (at least, in my case),
& there you go. A quality zombie flick of which I rarely get to see without a giant glob of gooey camp splattered all over it.
(BTW, even though this movie is technically credited as a 2007 film, it was not released here in the U.S. til early 2008, so that's why I'm including it on this year's list.)
8. Kung Fu Panda - Alot of the same stuff I said for Wall-E, though Kung Fu Panda has enough of it's own style to stand away on it's own. I don't think that the story was told as successfully as Wall-E's, but the next level of the "anthropormorphic" facial expressions & the characteristics of the movements reached in this film seem to make up for it. The humour is displayed as much in the way the characters move & "act" as it is in the jokes in the script.
(Quick side note: This year I also watched the two Appleseed movies on video. And looking at the evolution of these two anime films just made a few years ago, coupled against the more westernized works such as this years's entries of Kung Fu Panda & Wall-E , I truly feel that we are living during a good time in the making of 3-D animated features.)
7. The Fall - A fairy tale fantasy of hope told by a "real-world" stuntman who has given up on it "all". A visually creative film with claims of no CGI (?). A refreshing & yet still stunningly lavish epic for those who want a break from the usually computer-generated eye candy that has become the norm.
6. Iron Man - As a comicbook nerd, it's really cool for me that more of these types of movies are being made with more attention to the quality, visually & "creatively".
I found this one a much more cohesive origin story than Marvel's major player, Spiderman's first go-at-it. The problem with the first film of any superhero flick is to be able to show enough of a detailed origin while still leaving enough room in the film for a transition of the character learning to deal with his/her powers & then some kind climatic confrontation with some sort of antagonist figure. I found this movie to be much better paced than other initial efforts of Marvel properties like the Hulk or Spiderman, with a much more naturalness to the characters, as evidenced by Downey Jr's humor & the comfortable chemistry between he, Gweneth Paltrow & Terence Howard.
5. The Dark Knight - Considering that it seems like everyone & their grandma went out to go see this, do I really need to explain this one?
Gotham City is falling apart, Bruce Wayne is becoming more distant, chaotic vigilantism is growing more rampant & on top of it all, there's some crazy make-up wearing Joker out there taking advantage of it all.
Heath Ledger in a final performance that marks a high point in his all too short career.
4. The Wrestler - A down to Earth tale that takes place behind the scenes of the squared circle lifestyle that is the "rasslin' world. The Wrestler is a film that shows what can happen when the accumulated effects of one "passed his prime" superstar's "bad" decisions catch up to him before his dreams do.
When they talk about a "performance that makes the movie", this film is almost as pure of a definition of that statement as it gets. Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy the Ram" Robinson is this movie. And it's definitely my favorite single acting performance of the year.
3. Cloverfield - This movie gets an extra point just for the surprise factor of how much I ended up enjoying it. I really didn't expect to like this as much as I did. I saw this flick with my brother-in-law, & remember that when the lights in the theatre came on, we both looked at each with an expression of "Whoa" on our faces.
As an adult, one of my absolute favorite things about going to the movies is when I see a film that brings back those feelings that I used to experience as a kid whenever I saw something that was too fantastic that it was beyond the realm of our realty & yet watch it come to life on the big screen in front of me.
A giant alien monster rangin' thru the streets of the Big Apple is a pretty good f'rinstance.
2. WALL-E - It seems like these days, every season, an animated movie comes out displaying the next level of computer-generated visuals. For me, it's this film & Kung Fu Panda. While not so surprising in that I (we?) expected the details in the graphics to be as detail & realistic as they were, it's still quite stunning to behold. WALL-E is a futuristic story that involves themes of loneliness, environmentalism, technological over-dependence & the effects of idleness on the soul of humanity when it is stripped away from the natural strife of life.
And even though these are all themes that we've seen many times before, it's still quite surprising how often & consistantly the 3-D animators of these films are able to intergrate the amazing graphics into the quality of the storytelling in a manner that seems fresh & keeps the messages from feeling too cliche. At the rate that these types of highly sophisticated computer animated flicks are being released, it's remarkble that the ratio has been so much more good than bad.
1. Let the Right One In - Good horror movies come so rarely into my life. The same with good vampire movies. And the same also goes for good love stories (I refrain from using the term "romance movies" since I find Hollywood's idea of romance is always so impossibly & ridiculously fairy-tale-like). This movie is 2 outta 3 (Though there is some, it's very light on the horror). Told more in an adult manner, yet still with enough of an escapist sensibilty that is respective to the genre, this is a soft, beautiful & beguiling story (which is really saying something since I don't know what that word means) of two 12 year olds finding love for the first time thru the flaws of each of their separate (& sometimes desperate) life situations.
The lead actors for this movie portray their characters with a true down to earth awkwardness that is usually found with kids at this age, along with a longing that is both sincere & convincing.
As far as vampire love stories go, I find myself agreeing with those who compare this one with another human-falls-for-bloodfeeder film that was released around the same time :
the 15 year old girls can have their Twilight. I'll take LTROI.
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thecelestial
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Member: The Celestial
Location: Alnilam, 2nd star in the Orion Belt
Reviews written: 17
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About Me:
All I'm wearing is a mustard-stained wife-beater T-shirt, no pants & a massive sombrero.
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