Best Movies of 2008

[LordHomerCat]

Postal

Wow.  I enjoy bad movies, and I basically never leave early or turn a movie off that I have not seen.  I could not watch more than like 15 minutes (although I'll admit, I almost quit during that opening scene).  I was wrong when I said Jumper was the worst.  I'm pretty sure this movie was worse, but I could not bring myself to keep watching to find out for certain.

[Dr. Sylvan]

--------------v "I want my two hours back" v BREAK POINT--------------------
Revolutionary Road

What about this movie didn't do it for you?

The single aspect which turned me off most was the melodrama. Nearly every scene was acted with "end of the world" intensity, faces on the edge of tears, raised voices, etc. They even dialed it up to 11 within the first 5-10 minutes when they were fighting in/near the car, before we could possibly know who these characters are. The movie defined the leading couple based on their need to argue, or, as I began to think of it by the end, to toss angst-bombs across the room at each other. After the movie, I began referring to them as "1950s emo kids".

I didn't have a problem with the movie being extremely dialogue heavy, but the presentation of the dialogue was annoying. I also don't think we were supposed to really like any of the characters. That could be fine, but only if there's something else making you pull in favor of the protagonist(s) or care about what happens, which I didn't feel.

The characters didn't earn much sympathy from me by their unwillingness to consider small/incremental change as a solution to their problems; they presented it as an all-or-nothing choice between big change and the status quo. That false dichotomy by itself made the movie painfully unrealistic. One of the key supporting characters, the crazy guy, was transparently a walking plot device meant to provide a reason for yet another melodramatic scene.

So I guess my complaints were with the acting, writing, and plot. I'm not sure I'd say I hated it, but I definitely had a strong dislike and thought it was a mediocre movie masquearading as a "Good Movie". It was raising a good question about how we find happiness, but it was too angst-ridden and overwrought to take the viewer to any worthwhile conclusions.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Tropical Thunder - feast or famine on the quality here; brilliant bits amid general cluelessness

Wrestler - surprisingly good, not for everyone

Dark Knight - I really don't get it.  Ledger was solid, cast was impressive, action scenes were pretty good, two boats game theory thing was cool, but seriously, what is everyone raving about?

Besides Ledger and maybe Freeman, the acting was mediocre at best.  It wasn't nearly as gritty as I was hoping (they should have gone R).  The plot had no rhythm and little direction.  It could have been less than two hours with a more discerning director and I didn't really see much to brag about for special fx or cinematography.  Can anyone convince me this was anywhere near the hype?

[Dr.KnowMaD]

I don't think I can emphasize my hatred of The Happening enough. I've heard some people like it. These people make no sense to me. Allegory my ass, that movie was a train wreck of plot, acting, and writing on an epic scale.

I might find this more excepting if Dark Knight wasn't your second fav. movie.  Talk about a Train wreck!  I chalked the movies horrid acting up to everyone figuring that Heath just out shown them so why try, yuck.  The all around story was slow and mildly entertaining, so..

The Happening's acting all around was better, not Heath Ledger but even Marky mark didn't do That bad.  The direction and the story was on par with what I have like in the past with M.Night.  I do like the creativity with the movie and think it is worth seeing over most compost out there.

As for Postal, yes this movie is bad, I found it however not bad like the others under Uwe Bolls direction (15 minutes is very generous for crap like Bloodrayne, I think I gave it ruffly 6),  more like bad in a over the top, mad crazy crazy bad.  Team America is also terribly bad and I most likely will not sit through it ever again but I have both in my 2k+ movies because they're so @!*#$^ up.

One of the worst movies in my opinion was Meet the Zohan.  What was this rubbish.  I did finish it and I have seen and stopped watching much worse but Adam Sandler gave us a dump of a movie and I expect a little more from that crew.  The premiss could have been good but the writing was a pile.  And it smelled bad too.

Honorable mention to Wanted for setting the ridicules bar very high for action flix to come.


Dr.KnowMaD

 

[Demonic Attorney]

Can anyone convince me this was anywhere near the hype?

SPOILER ALERT














Well, so much of art appreciation is subjective personal preference, but I'll give it a shot.  The Joker character in TDK was, as far as I could tell, a brilliantly-executed analog to the Satan character in Judaism.  He tests the worthiness of those who claim to be good and perverts the efforts of the people who fail his tests to become the exact opposite of the principles that they claim to stand for.  The movie is faithful to that concept in a number of respects; the Joker uses tools of scientific testing in many of his schemes-- knives, fire, acid... all these are tools humans use to test the subjects of scientific experiments to uncover the truth about them.  The Joker says as much in the police station: "Do you know why I use a knife?  ...  In their last moments, you find out who a person really is.  Would you like to know which of your friends are cowards?"  

The Joker's test for Gotham is relatively simple and pretty clearly articulated in the movie dialogue.  The Joker wants to show that the "rules" of civilization are little more than posturing and wishful thinking by people who, when the chips are down, aren't above the Joker's barbarity if it's in their interest.  This leads to the boat scene, as you mentioned.   Consistent with that, I envisioned that if either boat did press the button on their detonator, they'd succeed not in blowing up the other boat and saving their lives, but destroying themselves by detonating their own bomb, having fallen for the Joker's lies.  I guess we'll never know.  

The Joker tests organized crime, too.  He puts pressure on criminals' loyalties to each other, suggesting at one point that "we'll see just how loyal a hungry dog really is."  This shows up for the first time in opening bank heist when he encourages his cohorts to kill each other for a greater share of the money.  Later on, he forces the henchmen of the mobster who took a contract out on his life to kill each other during his "tryouts."  Analogously, he takes a page out of Dante Aligheri's book (not our Dante), in applying a dose of contrapasso to the Chinese banker, burning him alive atop a pile of the money he spent the movie trying to get and preserve.  In that way, he turned the efforts of the banker against him; the banker tried to stay in the major crimes unit detention center to preserve his own life, but in doing that, the banker put himself in the clutches of the Joker, who subjected him to an even more horrible fate than he would have met in prison.

Similarly, he tests the Batman lookalikes and their imitation of Batman's courage.  After capturing one, he makes sure to elicit from him the mission of the Batman imitators-- to make sure that the people of Gotham don't have to fear people like the Joker.  But of course, the Joker maims and kills the lookalike he captured on video and sends the tape to the mass media, ensuring that the Batman lookalike played a major role in getting the people of Gotham to do exactly what the Batman imitators were trying to prevent-- live in fear of the Joker.

He also tests Batman in a different way.  He learns of Batman's one rule (preserve life above all else), and he earnestly tries to drive Batman to the point of breaking his one rule when put to the Joker's test.  First with Coleman Reese, the Joker presents Batman with a situation where it's in his personal interest to let Reese die, even when his code compels him to intervene.  Then the Joker offers himself as a test for Batman, charging towards him on the streets of Gotham saying "Come on, hit me, hit me, I want you to do it."  This happens again atop the tower towards the end of the film, when he falls from the top, laughing aloud towards his death.  People who saw the movie questioned why he'd do that, having lost the battle with Batman; I responded that, in that moment before Batman saved his life, he hadn't lost.  Precisely the opposite.  He'd won, by finally tearing down Batman's last principle.

Incidentally, while Batman passed that test, he nevertheless played a part in sacrificing some of the other principles of "civilized" society, in constructing his spy network of cell phone sonar.  That is of course a directly topical metaphor for America's current position with the so-called War on Terror.  When confronted with the horrors of 9/11, America was faced with the dilemma of sacrificing its own principles of civil liberty and privacy in its attempts to protect itself; similarly, Batman invaded the privacy of every resident of Gotham in his search for the Joker.  Like Alfred's men in the CIA, Batman metaphorically "burned the forest" to find the Joker; he destroyed part of the very thing he was trying to protect in the face of such an overwhelming danger.

And of course, the Joker tests Harvey Dent.  Dent was capable of only good (the two "light" sides of his coin) before the Joker, who forced a dark side in Dent to come to the surface.  Succeeding there, he again compelled a choice between two evils in Gordon and Batman-- sacrifice the principle of truthfulness and lie to everyone to preserve their symbol of hope in Harvey Dent, or be honest and watch Gotham's hope disappear when everyone is confronted with the Joker's victory over Dent.  

The Joker perverted Dent's principles into the exact opposite of what they were.  The law exists to ensure that human beings aren't left to the vagaries of violence and chaos in their daily lives.  Dent worked to ensure that something more, something meaningful, determined those outcomes instead.  Yet when the Joker was finished with him, Dent's methods were exactly force and randomness, and nothing else.  He left the fates of everyone he crossed paths with to chance.

As an aside, I really liked how they introduced some of the characters.  The Joker was given the blank, mysterious introduction that major figures in Norse mythology got.  Rather than trying to construct some elaborate heritage and background, TDK made the origins of the Joker a blank slate-- fingerprints, DNA, clothing...nothing leads to any information about the Joker's origins.  In fact, he repeatedly lies to people about his scars, telling them stories that he presumes reflect their own struggles with fear and chaos.  The Joker tells an inner-city thug that an abusive father scarred his face after murdering his mother; he tells a young woman in love that he scarred himself in a twisted act of love for his wife.  Again, we'll never know, but I envisioned him telling Batman that he was scarred in the process of some heroic effort to defend a helpless child.   It's as if the Joker sprang from the cold, indifferent chaos that surrounds human civilization, always just a "push" away from leaking in.  

Also, the introduction of the Riddler was pretty seamlessly worked into the story.  Coleman Reese (aka "Mr. Reese", phonetically mysteries) should show up in the next installment, though I hope with a different actor.

Well, those were the things that stood out to me that I can recall off the top of my head as I type this out on my lunch break.  As I said in the beginning, movie taste is ultimately about personal preference, so far be it from me to criticize anyone who just wasn't that into TDK.  But for my money, those are some of the reasons why I did indeed believe that TDK lived up to the hype, even when I went in not at all expecting it to.  I was very, very pleasantly surprised.  

[Grand Inquisitor]

The Joker character in TDK was, as far as I could tell, a brilliantly-executed analog to the Satan character in Judaism.  He tests the worthiness of those who claim to be good and perverts the efforts of the people who fail his tests to become the exact opposite of the principles that they claim to stand for.  The movie is faithful to that concept in a number of respects.

I certainly valued this aspect of the movie.  The effort to incorporate these themes is one of the most ambitious things I've seen in this type of movie in a while.  That being said, I felt a sizable chasm between the magnitude of what they attempted and the effectiveness with which they executed.  Without better characters and acting to receive and oppose the force of Ledger/Joker, his contributions lose traction.  Compared with recent stuff like Momento, Children of Men, etc, I'd say the insertion of symbolic material into the plot was pretty poor.  That being said, it's really tough to get so much out of the medium when you're working within such a well-defined structure like the Batman series.

I appreciate the effort, DA.

[Smmenen]

*Sigh*

It's nearly the end of January, and there are still a bunch of films I intended to see that I have not. 

In 2006, I think I saw 33 films.  Last year I saw 26.   This year that number is at a record low. 

Here's what I've seen from 2008 (in order of release):

Vantage Point
Iron Man
Indiana Jones
Wall-E
Hancock
Hellboy 2
The Dark Knight
The X-Files 2
Pineapple Express
Tropic Thunder
Religulous
W
Slumdog Millionaire
Quantum of Solace
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

(Note that I saw a stage production of Frost/Nixon)

15 movies is a new low for me per  year.   Almost half as many as I saw last year. 

Since I only saw 15 movies, it makes little sense to have a top 10 list.  Instead, here are my top 5.

5) Wall-E
Wall-E was an incredible film, but only the first act really held me (except for the finale). The rest was too much geared toward children and the message was a little too in-your-face. I did adore the main character.

4) Tropic Thunder
Hilarious, and comes with an actually deep message about identity (Tom Cruise and others).  This is the funniest movie I've seen in a theater since Borat.

3) The Dark Knight
I'll admit to having somewhat low expectations. Tim Burton's Batman is a classic film, in my view. Jack Nicholson is a hollywood Icon at the peak of his career in a visually stunning masterpiece. Although I thought Batman Begins was a very well crafted film, I think the whole thing sort of fell apart by the end.

The Dark Knight blew me away. I felt like a WWII geriatric who had enjoyed Howard Hawks and Busby Berkeley films all my life only to be transported 80 years in the future to watch something 100% different. In a sense, this movie felt like the first truly 21st Century film I've ever seen. Everything about it, the plot, the acting, the technology, it was a brilliant film from start to finish.

There were some minor things that one could criticize, and the politics are a little iffy, but the film really is a masterpiece.

Most fascinatingly, the film is not really about the Joker or Batman - which makes this a transcendent film, not a super-hero film. It's about a character that has been put in the middle. Batman and Joker were sort of the furniture of the film rather than the film being built around them... which is the complete opposite of Tim Burton's Batman, where the climax of the film is when they finally square off (somewhat anti-climatically).

Tim Burton's Batman intentionally evoked 1940s film noir. The trope of the investigative journalist (Knox), the detective work (figuring out the chemicals that caused the disfiguration), the 1940s style mob bosses (Jack Palance as boss Grissom, etc), the fast newsroom chatter, dialogue evoking Howard Hawks "His Girl Friday," and on and on. This movie has no such tropes. That's what made it so modern, I think. This movie was a pure 21st Century Batman, reconceived and rebuilt. It will hold up for decades to come.

2) Religulous
Bill Maher's "Religious" is hilarious, although a bit strident at times.   Although his ending is a bit over the top, the movie, overall, is hysterical, and in many ways unprecedented.   

1) Slumdog Millionaire
The narrative structure of this film follows a young, Mumbai resident as he answers trivia questions on the Indian analog to "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire"?   The questions are the frame for the story, and each question triggers a flashback explaining how the protagonist discovered the answer.   This is probably the best movie I've seen in 2008.   It does so much, it's hard to know where to begin.   

The movie so vividly and effectively conveys many of the horrors of modern life, not simply in India, but as manifested in India.   It touches on them, and moves along like a frog leaping from lillypad to lillypad accross a pond.   Things such as the mutiliation and exploitation of children, ethnic violence, extreme poverty and childhood prostitution, government corruption are all forced down the pallet, and they are done in such a matter-of-fact way of reality that it never felt like preaching or emotional manipulation. 

The story is entrancing, almost lyrical.   It is not simply one of the most beautiful and best films I saw from 2008, it might be one of the better films I've ever seen. 

Films I missed but intend to see:

Gran Torino
Man on Wire
The Wrestler
Milk

[Hspecter]

The Happening's acting all around was better, not Heath Ledger but even Marky mark didn't do That bad. 
 

Wow, I don't think you saw the same movie as everyone else.

[reaperbong]

Films I missed but intend to see:

Gran Torino
Man on Wire
The Wrestler
Milk

You might want to think about seeing the Incredible Hulk. It was cool.

[EnialisLiadon]

@Smmenen:  You should consider adding In Bruges to that list.

Has anyone seen Brick?  It's the best movie that no one ever saw.  Everyone should also watch that.  Anyways, In Bruges is this year's Brick.  Hardly anyone saw it, and I don't think it's getting its due from some people who have.

[Smmenen]

I saw Brick in the theater, and I didn't care for it.  Mostly because I don't like movies about teenagers. 

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Gran Torino is fantatic, the second time I watched it I cried. Also Doubt, Milk, and The Wrestler.

[Twaun007]

Also, the introduction of the Riddler was pretty seamlessly worked into the story.  Coleman Reese (aka "Mr. Reese", phonetically mysteries) should show up in the next installment, though I hope with a different actor.

I don't mean to just randomly pop in here but, isn't the Riddler's name Edward "E." Nygma?

[EnialisLiadon]

I saw Brick in the theater, and I didn't care for it.  Mostly because I don't like movies about teenagers. 

I thought the film noir in high school was an interesting approach and was very well done, but there's no getting around that they are indeed teenagers I guess.  Anyways, the comparison I draw to Brick and In Bruges is merely that they haven't gotten a lot of press when (I feel) both are more than deserving of it.

[Nefarias]

Also, the introduction of the Riddler was pretty seamlessly worked into the story.  Coleman Reese (aka "Mr. Reese", phonetically mysteries) should show up in the next installment, though I hope with a different actor.

I don't mean to just randomly pop in here but, isn't the Riddler's name Edward "E." Nygma?

From imdb's FAQ, concerning possible villains for the third movie:

In an interview with Movie Hole, Gary Oldman said, "Maybe we don't need the Joker. Because we'll have the Riddler." There has been speculation on the web that one of three existing characters might become the Riddler: Coleman Reese (or Mister Reese - "Mysteries" - played by Joshua Harto); Mike Engel (played by Anthony Michael Hall); or the unnamed bank manager (played by William Fichtner) at the beginning of the movie. None of these characters has the traditional origin or characteristics of the comic books' Riddler, whose real name is Edward Nigma (E. Nigma). Rumors of potential stars to play the character include: Johnny Depp; Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under and Dexter; Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Eddie Murphy.On the debit side: the Riddler appeared in the earlier series. (But then so did the Joker and Two-Face.) Trivia note: In one of the newspapers released with the viral marketing, there is a letter to the editor that is authored by Edward Nashton, a common alias of the Riddler.

[policehq]

It's all total crap. The only person Warner Brothers has talked with about a new Batman movie is Nolan, and Nolan is taking his time deciding if he wants to do another different film before tackling another Batman movie. He hasn't even committed to definitely doing another Batman yet. There is no treatment of a new story on anyone's desk at WB. So there is not even a SLIGHT POSSIBILITY of any villain rumors to be anything other than pure crap.

[Smmenen]

I saw Brick in the theater, and I didn't care for it.  Mostly because I don't like movies about teenagers. 

I thought the film noir in high school was an interesting approach and was very well done, but there's no getting around that they are indeed teenagers I guess.  Anyways, the comparison I draw to Brick and In Bruges is merely that they haven't gotten a lot of press when (I feel) both are more than deserving of it.

Yeah, I heard In Bruges is good.  I'd like to see it.

[chrissss]

It's all total crap. The only person Warner Brothers has talked with about a new Batman movie is Nolan, and Nolan is taking his time deciding if he wants to do another different film before tackling another Batman movie. He hasn't even committed to definitely doing another Batman yet. There is no treatment of a new story on anyone's desk at WB. So there is not even a SLIGHT POSSIBILITY of any villain rumors to be anything other than pure crap.

Indeed. They are just rumours to keep the fans entertained and its also free publicity to keep people talking about batman.

I might find this more excepting if Dark Knight wasn't your second fav. movie.  Talk about a Train wreck!  I chalked the movies horrid acting up to everyone figuring that Heath just out shown them so why try, yuck.  The all around story was slow and mildly entertaining, so..

There is a reason the dark knight is top 5 on imdb of all time. Everyone acted well except perhaps Maggie Gyllenhaal whom I didn't find very convincing. Everyone was overshadowed by Heath ledger, this doesn't mean that the others were bad.

And the happening..... are you serious?

[ReAnimator]

@Smmenen:  You should consider adding In Bruges to that list.

Has anyone seen Brick?  It's the best movie that no one ever saw.  Everyone should also watch that.  Anyways, In Bruges is this year's Brick.  Hardly anyone saw it, and I don't think it's getting its due from some people who have.

In Bruges was alright but it didn't really do anything new and exciting that other UK thug/gangster movies hadn't already done, i also found the pacing really bad in certain areas, and could have been edited more.

Brick was fantastic, but my love of film noir is pretty big so maybe i was biased and picked up on some subtleties that some people may not be familiar with or knew to look for. A few of my friends had that problem with the film, where they enjoyed it but didn't understand why certain things were done or happened.

[Juggernaut GO]

I saw the day the earth stood still.


WHY THE FUCK DOES HOLLYWOOD INSIST ON PUTTING SNIVELY WHINEY LITTLE BITCH KIDS IN DISASTER MOVIES???

Dakota fanning ruined war of the worlds, and that stupid kid ruined this movie.  On top of the annoying child actor, the ending left a bit to be desired but I think they really could have done a lot more with the concept.

I would bet that about 98% of the american population doesn't even know what the concept of grey goo means, so the entire movie might have been preaching to deaf ears.

[Smmenen]

I saw the day the earth stood still.

Me too.

Oh, i mean the ORIGINAL one.  I watched it on DVD last week.   It was sweet.   

I wouldn't see the new one. 

[LordHomerCat]

I just watched the new one.  And, at no point does the earth actually stand still...

Plus, the rest of the movie sucks too.

[EnialisLiadon]

In Bruges was alright but it didn't really do anything new and exciting that other UK thug/gangster movies hadn't already done, i also found the pacing really bad in certain areas, and could have been edited more.

I thought In Bruges was the most hilarious film I saw all year, and it didn't keep it from being an incredibly effective drama about bad men searching for atonement.  But I will agree that the movie could've flowed better.

[Anusien]

Needs more Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Anyone who dislikes Kristen Bell has no soul.

[M.Solymossy]

Needs more Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Anyone who dislikes Kristen Bell has no soul.

I'm actually a fan of Russel Brand, so this movie was good to me.   That, and Mila Kunis is gorgeous. 

[LordHomerCat]

Needs more Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Anyone who dislikes Kristen Bell has no soul.

I'm actually a fan of Russel Brand, so this movie was good to me.   That, and Mila Kunis is gorgeous. 

I didnt ever see the movie since it looked pretty bad, but Kristin Bell is awesome indeed.  Hard to argue with that.