The Best of 2008

THE BEST FILMS OF 2008
10. DOOMSDAY I saw Neil Marshall's third directorial effort early in the year, and I remember thinking it was a really messy batch of homages to other films, like THE ROAD WARRIOR and EXCALIBUR. But when I watched it again on DVD, I was struck by how closely it mirrored the time-honored traditions of the grindhouse cinema: violence, gore, beautiful women, and stuff that blows up real good. Marshall filmed it all at a breakneck pace, or as fast as you can film it without resorting to jerky-cam. Thank God. DOOMSDAY was the best grindhouse movie since -- well, GRINDHOUSE.
9. THE INCREDIBLE HULK A great year for comic book films begins with this re-invention of the Big Green. (I still refuse to call it a sequel.) Edward Norton, Tim Roth, William Hurt, and even Liv Tyler imbue the flick with some excellent acting chops, but there's plenty of well-orchestrated action to go around, and the set pieces are first-rate. I had a lot of fun with this movie -- it was the film that Ang Lee's movie should have been, but wasn't.
8. ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO This was my introduction to the world of director Kevin Smith. I was warned ahead of time that Smith's movies are notorious for their heavy use of profanity, and that turned out to be true -- this movie made SCARFACE sound like TOY STORY. But at its heart was a very sweet romantic comedy about a couple of old friends and housemates who discover true love by getting into amateur porn (as a means to pay the rent. No, really.) Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks make a winning couple, and their chemistry is undeniable. Bottom line -- there was only one other movie this year that made me laugh harder. (More on that in a bit.)
7. APPALOOSA Just when I think that the western genre truly is dead, along comes a guy like Ed Harris to prove me wrong. Harris and Viggo Mortensen are perfectly cast as two old friends who make a living going from town to town as enforcers, kind of "marshals for hire." Their arrival in the town of Appaloosa is met with relief; the chicken-hearted town fathers hire Ed and Viggo to give bossman Jeremy Irons the boot (or the bullet). Renee Zellweger arrives to throw a garter belt into the festivities and screw everything up. But I liked the movie anyway. Harris, as a director, knows exactly how to film a western. The film is gorgeous and consistently interesting.
6. IRON MAN During the first half of the year, it seemed that comic geeks were waiting anxiously for a certain bat-themed movie to have its premiere, so when Jon Favreau's glorious adaptation of the Marvel comic character Iron Man arrived in early May to steal some of the bat's comic geek thunder, it was something of a shock. In hindsight, we really should have seen it coming. Robert Downey Jr.'s career was on life support, but no more: I couldn't imagine anyone else playing Tony Stark with such conviction. He was that good. Favreau treated the source material with respect, but not to the point of slavishness; the story was updated for a new millennium, and it all worked. I can't wait to see what Downey and Favreau do with the sequel.
5. DOUBT Regretfully, I had missed the original stage version of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play when it was in residence at the Hippodrome last year. (I'm even more regretful now, knowing that Cherry Jones, the Tony-winning actress who brought her part to Baltimore, will be all over the new season of 24 as the first female president.) But I was drawn to the film by the cast: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and rising star Amy Adams. Watching Streep and Hoffman go toe-to-toe was to watch a master acting class in session. Streep plays the principal of a New York catholic school circa 1964, and Hoffman plays the parish's much-loved priest. Adams is worried that Hoffman might be a pedophile, but she has no proof -- just suspicions and some very flimsy circumstantial evidence. When she brings her fears to Streep, the stage is set for a confrontation like no other onscreen this year. It is to writer/director Shanley's credit that the ambiguity of the play has been kept intact; I couldn't imagine another film this year bringing on more arguments after watching it.
4. TROPIC THUNDER This was the funniest film of the year, no contest. It was also a comeback of sorts for Tom Cruise, a scathing satire of the movie biz, and a balls-out attack on the prima donna attitudes so common in Hollywood. I laughed a lot -- at Ben Stiller's thick-headed action hero, at Jack Black's usual comic anarchy, at Robert Downey's take on "playing black," and especially at Cruise's profane producer, pulling the strings of Stiller's Vietnam film-within-a-film from afar. The cast is packed with funny guys: Nick Nolte as the technical advisor who doesn't know as much as people think he does, Steve Grogan as the put-upon director (who exits the movie quickly and hilariously), and Danny McBride as the tech whiz who knows how to blow stuff up. This is a movie you have to watch from the very beginning to the very end -- nuff said.
3. U2 3D/SHINE A LIGHT Here's where I'm cheating a little, squeezing 11 films into a ten-film list, but I couldn't separate these two high-energy concert films. I saw the U2 film at the Maryland Science Center last winter, in IMAX and a new process called Real3D; I was immersed in the sights and sounds of a U2 concert, and at times I felt like I was truly in the middle of it. SHINE A LIGHT was Martin Scorsese's powerful documentary of the Rolling Stones' final concerts of their 2006 tour, filmed at New York's Beacon Theater. The U2 film sticks strictly to the concert and lets the IMAX and 3D effects provide the "wow." Scorsese intercuts his concert footage with some archival interviews of the Stones when they were much younger and a little more innocent. Both films breathe new life into a genre previously thought to be deader than the western.
2. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON I respect David Fincher as a director, although I still have a hard time trying to figure out FIGHT CLUB. His earlier films, especially SE7EN and ZODIAC, showed how skillful he is at illuminating obsessions onscreen. But nothing he had done before prepared me for the wonders of BENJAMIN BUTTON. The movie's epic feel is something alien (no pun intended, Undead) to Fincher's work, but he grounds his epic in a simple romance that spans decades. I think people will compare this film needlessly to FORREST GUMP, since both films were written by Eric Roth, and they both contain some striking similarities in tone and character. But Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are perfect in the lead roles, Pitt in the title role of a man who is born old, getting younger as the years pass, and Blanchett matching him as his star-crossed love. There is important CGI work here that showcases Pitt as he regresses in age, but it's not really overly showy -- it works. I enjoyed every minute of BENJAMIN BUTTON. It's the best film David Fincher has ever made.
1. THE DARK KNIGHT I thought long and hard last night about this film's place on the list in relation to BENJAMIN BUTTON. Twice before, I had felt certain that a particular film would take my no. 1 slot, only to be dethroned on the very last day of the year (MUNICH dethroned SIN CITY, and SWEENEY TODD did likewise to GRINDHOUSE.) Not this time, folks. THE DARK KNIGHT was the movie of the year for me, a peerless spectacle of action, acting, storyline, cinematography, music, and atmosphere. By now, everyone knows about the late Heath Ledger's bravura performance as the Joker, but let's not forget Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart -- the list goes on. It's not just the greatest comic book movie ever made -- it's simply the best overall film I've seen since THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It's due to be re-released in late January, around Oscar nominating season, and into IMAX theaters, to boot. I can't wait to see it again.

I can't let this year's top ten list pass without acknowledging the second best time I had at the movies in 2008 -- the night I introduced No. 1 Son to the pleasures of THE GODFATHER. We were lucky enough to see a newly-struck remastered print at the Senator, and it was one of the highlights of the year for me. For my son, too. Being a stickler for the rules, though, I decided to leave it off my list. I'm such a wuss.

HONORABLE MENTION There were a number of films that I really liked last year, but they just missed making the top ten. Special "Eleventh Place" awards go out to THE RUINS, KUNG FU PANDA, WANTED, HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, STEP BROTHERS, ROLE MODELS, and MARLEY AND ME.

THE BIG DISAPPOINTMENTS There were a few movies that I enjoyed on first look, but after thinking about it, it became clear what I enjoyed was the reputation -- the fun of seeing one of my past favorites brought back to the screen. In every case, I left feeling let down. The following films really left me feeling nostalgic for the old days: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, GET SMART, THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE, SAW V, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, and especially THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

THE "ALLIE" But those films mentioned in the previous paragraph still had craft. (Yes, even SAW V.) There was one film I saw last year that not only disappointed me for expecting so much more, it also was just plain bad. As in sloppy bad. Sloppy acting, sloppy story, sloppy editing, just plain dumb. I'm speaking, of course, of RIGHTEOUS KILL, the long-anticipated reunion of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. What an unmitigated piece of crapola. It's two hours of my life I wish I could have back.

THE BEST DVDs OF THE YEAR
CLINT EASTWOOD: DIRTY HARRY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITION
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: THE COMPLETE THIRD AND FOURTH SEASONS
THE DARK KNIGHT: BLU-RAY (2-DISC SPECIAL EDITION)
THE MIST: 2-DISC SPECIAL EDITION
BONNIE AND CLYDE: 2-DISC SPECIAL EDITION