The Top-10-of-2008 List You've Been Waiting For (Review #900)
May 06 '09
The Bottom Line THEY'RE ALL GOOD
Ebert? Dargis? Tobias? Psh, what are those critics in the scheme of a universe where T. Speaker exists? Four months behind schedule -- and finally having seen all of the films that seemed worth my time -- I provide you with my favorite films from 2008 (note: these are not necessarily the "best" films; for example, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is a more tightly constructed work than my #1, but my #1 is dearer to my heart and, in my eyes, possesses more replay value).
10. Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
Despite a cheeky -- and frankly, bad -- Moore-ian opening sequence -- Chris Bell's vast and personal documentary about the complications of steroid use taps at your brain long after you've seen it. Congressmen single out our pastime, baseball, as something that should pure and beautiful, but they ignore the musicians who take beta blockers to calm their nerves -- and if that helps them to play better, how different is it from steroid use? It's all artificial performance enhancement, choosing drugs over the capability of the human mind and body.
9. Paranoid Park
Supposedly Gus van Sant's final weirdo-time-jumping-uber-stylistic drama, Paranoid Park succeeds by placing us in the brain of its traumatized protagonist at his every turn -- majestic skateboard ollies are captured in slow motion, while a walk down to the principal's office is as tedious for us as it is for the protagonist. Perhaps the most striking moment is the removed perspective that we're provided once the kid has lost his virginity. Its drawn-out moments detract at times, but van Sant's ability to let us see through his character's eyes always take his oeuvre far.
8. Wendy and Lucy
The film this list was waiting for -- and it was everything I wanted it to be. The relationship that Wendy develops with a kind security guard while searching for her dog Lucy is as poignant as they come -- I broke into tears during their last moment together (and just did right now, thinking about it). Some have said of the film, "If you're a dog-lover, bring the Kleenex." I say that goes for people-lovers too.
7. Encounters at the End of the World
Yet another work that is crushing in its beauty and humanity.
It is also, I argue, Werner Herzog's best documentary. Some have criticized its lack of direction, but I think that this plays into Herzog's goals in communicating the lifestyles of Antarctica's inhabitants, both human and animal. When the sounds of the seals came onto the soundtrack during the final sequence, I cried for a long, long time.
6. Tropic Thunder
We always fear that upon a second viewing, every good comedy will lose some of its surprises, or that certain flaws will appear. Not so with Tropic Thunder, which rewards viewers by revealing more of its daring and hilarious complexities the second time around -- best is the fact that the script is written as satire, and Stiller boosts the product by directing the film in the fashion of those he's satirizing.
5. The Dark Knight
This is the film that should have been in the Best Picture place of Stephen Daldry's overly safe and flat The Reader, capturing the bleakness of its title character and posing some necessary questions, such as what the line is when violating civil liberties in the name of justice. Ledger's performance is, of course, excellent, but I find the film most outstanding when Morgan Freeman walks away from Bruce Wayne, having compromised his own values more than he'd ever expected.
4. Rachel Getting Married
Yet another tearjerker that avoids being manipulative. Anne Hathaway, who was and still is in danger of being typecast into Pretty Disney Adult Princess, puts up the best leading performance of the year as Kym, a well-intentioned woman just out of rehab and struggling to not ruin her sister's wedding. By the end, it doesn't even feel like you've seen a movie, but real life captured in all its dynamic range.
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Like a fictional version of Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire, 4M3W2D is bound to make you question your stance on abortion, covering a woman's plight as she tries to help her friend pay for one in 1980s Romania (where it was illegal at the time). While it doesn't have the all-encompassing inquiry of the #1 film here, director Cristian Mungiu is as effective as one can be with the topic, providing a worthwhile heroine, and scene after scene of devastating images and decisions.
2. Reprise
At times a mindfuck, but a consistently hilarious and moving one. The opening "scene" of Reprise perfectly sets up its themes about success, failure and possibility, and then moves swiftly into a story more complicated and real then we could ever come to expect; the romance between the two protagonists and their girlfriends show us people at their grittiest, nastiest and warmest.
1. Synecdoche, New York
Perhaps this is the indie-kid choice of the year, with SNY showing up at #1 on all sorts of Pedro the Lion message boards, but that's because those people -- and a handful of critics (this earned #3 at the AV Club) -- are the only ones who will give Charlie Kaufman's delicate, dense and altogether wonderful masterpiece the time it deserves. It's easy to watch this and declare that you don't know what it's about -- especially with how philosophically stacked a film it is -- but on repeat viewings, it becomes ever so more clear. And really, we should be able to see it on the first time, particularly with that near-ending monologue, ""What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived, understood, disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this ... As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place." I've seen it three times, and I'll see it many times more.
Other supposed "this-should-be-on-your-top-10" movies I saw this year:
taxi to the dark side
man on wire
flight of the red balloon
milk
wall-e
burn after reading
doubt
slumdog millionaire
iron man
vicky cristina barcelona
pineapple express
chop shop
happy-go-lucky
the edge of heaven
the reader
benjamin button
stuck
up the yangtze
gran torino
the wrestler
in bruges
redbelt
waltz with bashir
the class
the fall
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Member: Tom Speaker
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