If 2007 was a banner year for the Arthouse movie, with films such as No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Juno leading a strong, independently minded charge, then 2008 was the year when the blockbuster decided to strike back. Sure, this year still had a core group of strong, “smaller” films, but rarely have I seen a year where the bulk of its quality pictures came from the big budget Hollywood machine, a machine that would usually prefer us to not think too hard when it comes to shaking their big money makers. Thing is, what’s happened is all of those Indie film makers that lit up your local art theaters, have really kicked it into high gear and started lighting up multiplexes instead. Case in point was 2008’s summer season, which turned out to be simply outstanding; featuring two “soon to be” classics (which will soon be mentioned), and a slew of hits made by real film makers and not just Michael Bay money men.
While not every flick was as solid as it needed to be (What happened in the last hour of Hancock?), I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun during the popcorn season without feeling the least bit guilty about it. Comparing the summers of 2007 and 2008 were like night and day, as every week seemed to provide another opportunity to be really entertained, instead of just being disappointed by another remake or Spider-Man 3-like sequel that wouldn’t live up to the hype. Sure there were some clunkers, but this year the deck seemed to be really be stacked in audiences’ favor, and we absolutely ate it up.
Thankfully, quality films weren’t just relegated to my favorite movie season either. Despite fewer Oscar contenders than I expected to turn up at year’s end, 2008 ended strong nevertheless, with various stories of love and loss working to perfection and comeback attempts like that of Mickey Rourke’s, Harrison Ford’s, and to some degree even Tom Cruise, showing us why we loved these actors in the first place. Even periods that usually don’t feature a single passable film, like January or September, months usually reserved for also-rans and Oscar bait holdovers, got a big boost this year with films like the return of Rambo or fun features like Cloverfield and Burn After Reading.
2008 just simply turned out to be a great year to be a movie fan. The biggest stars shined bright, and most of the movies you expected to be great turned out to be just that or even better. To be honest, it was kind of hard to whittle this list down to just 10, with plenty like Rambo or Speed Racer that could have slipped in there, but these represent the movies that I’d most like to remember from this year. Hopefully, 2009 can try to come somewhere close to bringing me as much fun at the movies as I had this year.
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall – When I looked at the lineup of Comedies that were coming out in 2008, I didn’t expect Forgetting Sarah Marshall to end up being my favorite. The trailer looked only kind of funny, and I wholly expected one of the big Summer Comedies (Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Step Brothers) to be the one I’d really remember, but all these months later its still Forgetting Sarah Marshall that makes the biggest impression on me. Not only did the movie make me laugh harder than any other movie that came out in 08, but the flick also had maybe the biggest heart and had me almost in tears in several places. Stars Jason Segel and Mila Kunis showed a “Bogie and Bacall”-like chemistry that few comedy teams could even dream of matching, and the movie’s love story always felt genuine, avoiding a lot of the usual Rom-Com clichés while still working the Judd Apatow crass humor/genuine emotion formula to perfection. Overall, nothing Comedy-wise even ended up coming close to this one.
9. (Tie)The Forbidden Kingdom/Kung Fu Panda – Alright so maybe having both of these films on this list is cheating, but I still couldn’t include just one of these pictures without the other. For me, both of these movies represent the same thing; they’re both gateway films to a genre that I hold very dearly to my heart, the classic Chopsocky flick. Just like Big Trouble in Little China, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins and The Karate Kid did for me in the 80’s, I believe these movies can do the same thing for youngsters of this era, which is open a door to the masterpieces of a genre that is loved by millions of film fans around the world, but one that often gets little respect from many critics.
First up, not only is The Forbidden Kingdom the first time that Hong Kong movie legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li have worked together onscreen, but this movie also represents the best work done stateside by either of them. Honestly, the pairing seems to bring out the best in both performers, as they both seem to be having more fun than I’ve seen either of them have in a long time. As a Kung Fu movie fan, few pleasures this year could top watching Li and Chan go at it, in a scene choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/ Fist of Legend/The Matrix), being shot by Cinematographer Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/The Killer). If John Woo or Tsui Hark had actually directed the movie, my head might have exploded from all the excitement.
Surprisingly, Kung Fu Panda works just as well as a gateway, if not even a little better. Utilizing many of the elements of classic Kung fu pictures, Panda is an effort by its film makers to pay serious homage to the genre instead of making a spoof, and this goes a long way to really making this a wonderful picture. Jack Black does his best work in a long time as the goofy Po, who must learn the ways of Kung fu in order to save his village, and along the way you get a terrific adventure leading up the final glorious battle, gorgeously and hilariously staged and executed by Directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson.
8. Valkyrie – I don’t exactly know what happened along the way when it came to United Artists finally releasing Bryan Singer’s tremendous WWII Thriller. Constant release date changes and Tom Cruise’s current career slump seemed to give this movie a reputation as a failure even before it came out, but that was all until the movie actually hit theaters. Turns out Valkyrie is a pretty terrific genre yarn, with Singer doing a fine job of melding his Usual Suspects roots to his current epic, saga-type film-making to create a tense assassination movie with incredible performances and a wonderful and real historical back drop.
While the performances of one of the year’s best casts are all amazing, one of the things I really love is the look of this movie, as Singer and Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel give us the Nazi Germany that you would believe it to be in our minds’ eye. Huge bannered swastikas, buildings of stone and steel, and brilliantly realized uniforms all craft this ultimate picture of this period in time, and not the war-torn ravaged Berlin you often see in movies about this era. All while giving you this gorgeous setting, Singer and company craft a nail biting story that mesmerizes you even as the ending of the film becomes more inevitable. No cute camera tricks or stylistic overload here; this is old school storytelling and editing, keeping you on the edge of your seat until the film’s final moments.
7.Iron Man – It’s hard to think of a way that the summer could have blasted off better than with Director John Favreau’s breakout picture. Leaving Marvel’s 2007 failures in the dust, Iron Man simply takes off and never looks back, riding the shoulders of Robert Downey Jr. to the finish with style and humor. From its incredible action set pieces to it’s very Thin Man-like comedy, the movie is simply a winner from top to bottom, giving us the fun that we’ve missed from Comic Book adventures for a while as they either got grimmer or campier in 2007. Iron Man showed us how to have a blast again with these pictures, without having to check our brains at the door.
6.Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – I know fandom is really split on this one, but there’s a simple emotion that this movie gives me that made me include it on this list; joy. Nostalgia is a tough thing to beat down if it’s really working right, and with me I felt that engine of it running on all cylinders for most of this picture, making me a 5 year-old again while I watched Indy punch those Commies in the face time and again. The biggest part of that feeling may have just been watching one of my heroes really do his thing at least one more time, as it’s been a long while since Harrison Ford has really been Harrison Ford up on the big screen. Instead of some aging has-been, Ford is full-on the Indiana Jones we’ve needed, and that’s a special thrill that no special effect could ever replicate onscreen.
5.Hellboy II: The Golden Army – Is Guillermo del Toro the only guy working in film today with this much imagination? I’m talking about the same imagination that used to give us scenes like the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars or films like Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. That’s the type of mad genius that seems to be running all the way through Hellboy II, as Director del Toro builds on everything that worked in the first movie and ditched everything that didn’t to give us an adventure halfway between the pulp of Indiana Jones and the fantasy of The Lord of the Rings. More so, he just gave us worlds that we’ve never seen before, as the movie’s “Troll Market” and finale sequences showed us incredible creativity and ingenuity on about half the budget of Hancock or The Incredible Hulk.
4.The Wrestler – As a lifelong Hulkamaniac, there’s this weird guilt that pops up when watching The Wrestler. Even though Mickey Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson is a fictional character, you can’t help but feel that he’s a real person, in part because of the baggage brought about by Rourke’s real life past, but also because of the documentary style used by Director Darren Aronofsky, which makes you feel like you’re watching a real life account of this once great star’s later years of tragedy. Like so many actual professional wrestlers, The Ram is just a broke has-been always looking for his one last shot at glory, or maybe just some personal redemption. Again, that guilt keeps coming around as Robinson lets his body fall victim to hardcore matches and drug use in order to keep us entertained, and somehow you can’t help but feel culpable in his fall from grace.
You really can’t say enough about Rouke’s performance here, as its raw intensity absolutely never seems to let up as the movie keeps rolling to its conclusion. There’s never a fake moment in this film, which is saying something considering this a movie telling a story about an industry that prides itself on its ability to create an illusion for its audience. Thankfully, Aronofsky lets this story make its own power. The director has always been heavy on style and flashiness in his previous works, but his style here is that all of that is absent. He simply tells this story and lets his amazing cast do their thing, and the result is one of the most heart-wrenching movies of the year.
3.The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – There’s almost too much stuff going on in this movie to able to do it justice in just a few sentences. There’s just magic here. David Fincher is working at the top of his game, using all of the Hollywood wizardry at his disposal to create an movie that’s as personal as The Wrestler and as epic as Gone with the Wind. There’s been times when film makers have tried this type of film before, such as Big Fish and Forrest Gump, but Benjamin Button simply outshines them on every level.
I honestly can’t wait to see this movie again, and to take it all in, from the amazing nuanced performances from Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett to every minute detail of this magical world that Fincher has created. It just seems like nothing is impossible when you watch this film for the first time, and everything is so finely crafted that you can’t process it all on first viewing. This is big thinking, big budget Hollywood at its absolute best.
2.WALL•E – To say that it shocked me with just how good it is upon first viewing is an understatement when it comes to WALL•E. Coming from the most consistently entertaining studio in the world right now in PIXAR, you just expected WALL•E to be great, and it was…and then some. As a huge Incredibles fan, I would have thought it impossible to displace Brad Bird’s superhero awesomefest as my favorite film from the studio, but I was wholly wrong. Wrapping me up in its whimsy, messages, look, and amazing love story, WALL•E is near perfection and I have no doubt that soon it will be named a classic, not only of its various genres of Animation, Science Fiction and Romance, but of all films in general.
This is film making on its very highest level. From its opening dystopian minutes to humanity’s intergalactic triumph at film’s end, WALL•E simply never stops with its amazing sights and sounds, conveying storytelling and emotion that 99% of live action films never even come close to. This isn’t just a great animated film, WALL•E is a great film period.
1.The Dark Knight – You know when you watch a film and fall in love with it, and then after months of hype you watch it again somehow the movie just can’t hold up to your original opinion of it? Well with The Dark Knight that isn’t the case at all. After all of the hoopla and hullabaloo over it, you would think that there’s no way that this movie can be as good as you remember, and then you come to discover that somehow it’s even better. It would make it a lot easier to talk about it, if there was just one element of this movie that made it great above all others this year, but there just isn’t.
You could try to pinpoint Heath Ledger’s Joker for the movie’s success, but even great villains don’t work without a worthy adversary, and could you say that Christian Bale or Aaron Eckhart’s work in the picture wasn’t spot on as well? The Dark Knight is the culmination of a great director, writing team, cast, and crew all trying to make a movie that dared to defy the expectations for it, and then make something even better. There’s a pattern with Superhero and popular entertainment that leads a path right to up this movie’s creation, and that path may just lead up to this film being declared the film of the decade.
A sequel to a reboot of Comic book franchise shouldn’t be up for Best Picture consideration, but that’s exactly what’s happened here. Finally after several attempts, Hollywood got exactly why we’ve always loved Batman as much as we’ve loved any superhero that’s ever been created. As a movie, The Dark Knight also represents exactly what was so great about this year; a director with Independent film roots showing the same power at $180 million as he did with $1 million without having to water down his vision one bit. The Dark Knight is without question the movie of the year, and will a film that all others like it will be compared to from now on.
