Top 10 Movies of 2008

My annual top 10 movie list:

1) Slumdog Millionaire
5 out of 5 starts

This movie of the year deserves all the accolades it is receiving. It is suspenseful, dramatic, inspirational, and romantic and teaches an incredible message. The story is set around a game show and a brutal police interrogation. The cops don’t believe that a poor homeless, orphan teenager from the slums, Jamal Malik, could possibly know all the answers he has give on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” that have earned him one question shy of the top prize. After being tortured, Jamal explains the dramatic story from his past behind each one of his answers and we go back with him. The film has been called a love affair with Mumbai and I can see why as these flashback stories introduce us to an India that I want to get to know better. This movie is directed by Danny Boyle who normally directs very dark, intense films like Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later, but who has also shown a softer side with the family movie Millions. Slumdog Millionaire reminds me more of Millions with its upbeat inspiring story (albeit with some very dark and tragic elements). I feel I am a better person for having watched it. It is the best movie of the year.

2) Wall-E
5 out of 5 stars

Once again Pixar, the filmmakers with the most consistently excellent record in the last two decades, has hit a home run. For me, every Pixar film that has been made can be divided into two categories: 1) the well made entertaining movies like A Bugs Life and Cars, and 2) the step above classic, great movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille. After several months to think about Wall-E, I still put it in the second category. This is an incredibly, wonderfully inventive, sci-fi film, that is also funny and romantic, and with a timely environmental and taking care of our bodies message. Brilliant story telling techniques allows much of the communications throughout the film to be wordless. There are only a couple of spoken lines in the film. The story is simple. In the year 2700 a robot named WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class) has been doing the same job of cleaning up garbage for several hundred years since human kind left the planet to live in spaceships after the Earth became uninhabitable due to pollution. While he is a robot, he also has human characteristics such as his friendship and caretaking of a pet (cockroach) and falling in love with another robot named EVE. The film takes us on a great adventure as WALL-E visits the spaceship where the descendants of Earth now live where we see obese humans living in a pampered luxury that enables them to live without even having to stand up, let alone exercise. I have heard criticism that the message of the movie was too in your face and judgmental but for me it worked completely. A great movie for anyone.

3) Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
4.5 stars out of 5

Nick and Norah makes the list of my favorite high school / coming-of-age / romantic / comedy films of all time. Growing up in the 1980s I was able to see some of the best films in this genre such as Breakfast Club, Stand by Me, Heathers, and Ferris Buehler’s Day Off. Recently I would put Mean Girls and Juno on the list. Nick and Norah fits in the group fine. The story is simple; Michael Cera is Nick, the ultimate awkward yet likeable teen geek (really the same character he played in Juno. He’s the straight bassist in a gay band and is hurting over his recent break-up with Tris, his beautiful but shallow ex. Kat Dennings is Norah. She is pretty but not as beautiful as Tris, but has everything that Tris does not when it comes to personality (actually she is supposed to be less attractive than Tris, but I actually liked her better). She has that teenage girl balance between being cocky and insecure down perfectly. The story is a mad cap night of crazy fun as they search the city to find where their favorite band is playing while falling in love. However, the real story for me was the great alternative soundtrack (which is a must for any coming of age film). In this case the music is from Richard Hawley, The Real Tuesday Weld, Chris Bell, and Army Navy. I plan on buying the DVD but first I will buy the soundtrack. A very fun film.

4) Rachel Getting Married
4.5 stars out of 5

Up until now, I didn’t get Anne Hathaway. She kind of bothered me in her early Disney rolls and when she later tried more adult rolls, I kept seeing her as the Disney character. However, in Rachel Getting Married I finally see the incredible acting ability that she has. The story is really a weekend with a dysfunctional family (as if there was such a thing as a perfect functional family). Hathaway plays Kym, nervous and edgy as she re-enters the world after six months in drug rehab. She has come home just in time for her older sister Rachel’s wedding. Overshadowing everything is the pain she caused the family during her years of drug use and it’s not clear whether she can truly be given a second chance. She resents both the grudges and the sympathy she receives and counters with cruel verbal attacks. Sounds like an unsympathetic character, but we come to feel for her. Hathaway is the star but the other performances are good as well, particularly Debra Winger as the icy cold mother. A brilliantly acted great film.

5) The Duchess
4 stars out of 5

I saw the Duchess on an airplane and I was very happy that it was the movie they were showing as it is something I doubt I ever would have seen otherwise. It certainly didn't seem to be my type -other than the fact that the super hot Keira Knightly is the star. However, I was very impressed and was sad to see it end. Keira plays the Duchess of Devonshire, a true life ancestor of Princess Diana. She is married to the Duke, played with emotionless distance by the great Ralph Finnes. He really doesn't know how to show love and only wants a male heir while his wife keeps having girls. Keira is the real star here. It is amazing to see her play this incredible woman who was a political and fashion star, beloved and almost worshiped by a nation, and yet she is at the same time this lonely woman maltreated by her husband. Powerful yet helpless. Very well done and I recommend it to everyone

6) Dark Knight
4 stars out of 5

Dark and complex, this is the best of the Batman films, and maybe the best comic book / superhero movie ever made, at least from an artistic perspective. It is moving, thrilling, exhilarating, well acted and written and excellent while at the same time dark, depressing, violent and real. The greatness in this movie is in large part thanks to the late Heath Ledgers turn as the Joker. It has been said a thousand times by everyone and I can’t really add to it, but it is true that Ledger really does give the performance of his career in this movie as a creepy and menacing criminal who is evil just for the sake of being evil, not for gain. Amazing to watch.

7) Iron Man
4 stars out of 5

This is the type of movie like Star Wars or Indiana Jones that made me fall in love with movies as a kid. In some ways it is the stereo-typical summer blockbuster with fast paced action, dazzling special effects and dramatic and suspenseful energy. However, in many other ways it transcends the typical blockbuster mainly due to the talented Robert Downey who is having so much fun.

8) Burn After Reading
4 stars out of 5

Many critics panned this movie, even those who normally like the dark and quirky Coen brothers. I had a great time however watching these people who act like morons who find themselves in a madcap, screw-ball comedy, spy thriller. Frances McDormand gives her best performance since Fargo.

9) Changeling
3.5 stars out of 5

Critics were really disappointed in this Clint Eastwood directed film but I found it satisfying for a number of reasons. Both Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich appear in two of the movies that made my top 10 list. They give outstanding performances. Jolie gives the best performance of her career as a mother who’s young son goes missing. She was very believable. But what I liked best was the way Eastwood used color and ambiance to make this film, that took place in the early part of the 20th century, look and feel very much like an old Ingrid Bergman or Joan Fontaine film noir one might have seen in the 1940s. I loved those movies and this one too.

10) Wanted
3.5 stars out of 5

OK, this one is the 14 year old inside of me (although it is too violent for a 14 year old). It is a thrill ride, action pack escape type movie. You are on the edge of your seat the entire time with some of the coolest special effects I have ever seen. It is not great film making , but I had a really good time. Sometimes that is good enough.


Runners up – Gran Torino, Saving Sarah Marshall, Body of Lies