Hola all. Massawyrm here.
So it’s that time of year again. List time. Time for the movie news output to slow to a crawl and us entertainment and movie writers to try to fill the space by quantifying everything down into nice neat little lists. So here’s mine. The TOP TEN BEST films of 2008 – from my vantage point, that is.
10) Cloverfield
9) Iron Man
8) Curious Case of Benjamin Button
7) Wall-E
6) Milk
5) The Dark Knight
4) The Wrestler
3) Slumdog Millionaire
2) Gran Torino
1) Frost/Nixon
None of these should require any introduction or explanation – save maybe CLOVERFIELD which I’m pretty sure most critics simply forgot was even this year. A few of you who have compiled lists of your own are probably slapping your heads over that omission. Maybe not. I love it, saw it Thrice in the theater and think it belongs on the list with everything else.
But this was an incredible year, the very best for film lovers, especially genre lovers, since 1982. I know, I know. A few of you seem to think that ’99 was pretty sweet. But it wasn’t as good as ’08, or ’82 for that matter. The summer was fun and filled with scads of truly great, entertaining flicks. There were six different comic books movies, the worst of which was merely fun, the best of them Oscar caliber. Even some of the panned films (or bombs) are slowly gaining fan followings. There were a slew of really great family films (both animated and live action) to boot. And comedies worthy of big, raucous audiences seemed to just slip out of the woodwork.
All of that…before we even discuss Oscar season. Which is AWESOME this year.
No, 2008 was one for the record books. One in which a top 10 list simply won’t do. So in my usual fashion, here are my very favorite things that don’t fit on a list – but instead go down with qualifiers.
MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF THE YEAR – KUNG FU PANDA. Is it the best animated feature of the year? No. It’s not even the second best. Both WALL-E and WALTZ WITH BASHIR not only tackle huge, important issues – but shatter the modern conventions of animated storytelling. WALL-E proved that you could entertain families for entire stretches without dialog. And WALTZ WITH BASHIR proved that you could actually animate a documentary and create the same pathos as a standard documentary in an entirely different medium. But KUNG FU PANDA is FUN. Lots of fun. I’ve watched this thing half a dozen times already and I’ll no doubt watch it a couple dozen more before the next year is through. I may never revisit either of those two movies. I love WALL-E, but don’t feel the need to own it. I had Kung Fu Panda before it was out and had it in my player practically right out of the mailbox. In fact, once I’m done here I think I’m gonna pop it in again. If you STILL haven’t seen this delicious piece of awesome on a stick, treat yourself. Rent it tonight.
THE VERY BEST MOVIE NOBODY SAW - BLINDNESS. A genre treat unlike many others, this poorly placed and marketed gem was about a sudden debilitating illness that struck most of the world blind. Julianne Moore plays a woman who is mysteriously resistant to whatever causes the illness but feigns blindness to go to an internment camp with her sick husband (Mark Ruffalo.) Fear, panic, anarchy, despotism and eventually Armageddon follow. And somewhere in the midst we find humanity. A beautiful, elegantly told piece of genre fiction that feels like it belongs in the same universe as CHILDREN OF MEN. But it is far from a happy, hope inspiring film. Definitely worth a look.
MY VERY FAVORITE MOVIE I KNOW I’M GOING TO TAKE SHIT FOR – DEATH RACE. Is it a great movie? Fuck no. Is it faithful to the original? Not even close. Is it a loud, functionally retarded, bloody piece of guilty pleasure filmmaking? Yes. It sure as hell is. And I loved every blood soaked, testosterone fueled second of it. It is the very epitome of Saturday Afternoon I’ve-got-nothing-to-watch-and-I-want-to-watch-something-awesome filmmaking. It won no awards, garnered little praise and will not even be mentioned come Oscar season. It’s just dudes in cars shooting the shit out of one another. Making things even better is that Anderson decided to forgo using CG and everything you see on screen REALLY happened – so to speak. And it looks it. I’ve tried to stop using the phrase GUILTY PLEASURE as I feel that there’s no reason to feel guilty about liking a movie – it either entertains you or it doesn’t - but for those that still feel it appropriate, this is the epitome of that sentiment.
THE BEST MOVIE CRITICS ARE STILL BEATING TO DEATH – SPEED RACER. I love Capone. Really, he’s a great guy who I love discussing film with the one time a year I get to see him. But MAN…when I began collecting my thoughts on my Worst Of list (following this in short order), I had my sights set on Richard Roeper and his penchant for selecting films he simply didn’t like and daring to put them in with the truly despicable bottom of the heap (more on that later as well.) But then Capone had to call out SPEED RACER. And call it the worst. Capone, I love you. But FUCK THAT.
I love SPEED RACER. And I’m not alone. It’s weird, but ever since its release I keep ending up in conversations with all sorts of folks from all walks of life and the minute I earn their “movie trust” – you know the moment I’m talking about, that moment when someone trusts you enough to admit that they think Kubrick is overrated or that The Cutting Edge is too addictive to be ignored or that the Coens haven’t made a funny movie in almost a decade – they lean in, look both ways and in a hushed voice utter the same, magical phrase. “But you know what movie I really like? Speed Racer.” Then with a big, shit eating grin I loudly say “Speed Racer?” Then their heart skips a beat and their eyes dart about the room. “Speed Racer is awesome! How can you NOT love Speed Racer?” Then some guy leans in and says “You guys like Speed racer?” “Yeah.” “Dude, I show that to my kid every weekend. We LOVE it!”
Next thing you know you’ve got five guys standing around at a party in a sort of cinematic circle jerk singing the praises of this one, adorably awesome little piece of our childhood brought back to us. Did it bomb like a Kevin Federline record? You bet your ass it did. It got smoked by an Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz romantic comedy for fucks sake. And did horde of critics rush to jump on its still bleeding corpse, delighting as each testicle popped out and rolled across the floor? Yep. But it is still awesome. And it is ours. And as people slowly get introduced to it over time and get blown away by the giddy, sugar coated wonder of it all, our numbers will grow. Once in a long while there is a film like this that defies the critics, that defies the box office and goes on to be its own thing, loved and cuddled and defended by fans. This movie looks to be becoming one of those.
THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVIE YOU’LL SEE NEXT MONTH. WALTZ WITH BASHIR. Open now in I believe just a handful of markets, this goes wider in short order. Beautiful, highly original and probably the most timely, important thing you’ll see on the big screen anytime soon. It’s about an Israeli filmmaker trying to find out what he did during the 1982 Lebanon war. If ever there was a movie about how deeply conflicted a people the Israelis are and how complicated a situation it is, this is the movie. I saw it coming up on two months ago and it still haunts me – even more so that the news sites are flooded once again with the images of war in that region. If this is playing near you, see it now. If it’s coming, plan to see it.
Now, onto the fun part…the Worst of 2008…
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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