Top Thirteen Movies Of 2008

I thought 2008 was a pretty good year for movies, although I don't think I realized that until around December, when I began contemplating my "top ten" list (this year it's thirteen).

The Academy award nominations came out the other day, and (unlike many years) I think almost everything on it (that I'm familiar with) is "reasonable"... with two glaring exceptions. "The Reader" has been nominated for "Best Picture". Huh? That feeble excuse for soft-core porno? Even though it did feature my ideal woman Kate Winslet (physically speaking) - well, at least she was before she became anorexic. But no, they're not kidding.

There was also an astoundingly glaring omission - my "Number 1 Movie Of 2008" (see below) was not only not on the "Best Picture" list, but received absolutely no nominations - for anything! What's that all about? Could it be me? (I don't think so).

However... considering only what was actually nominated, here's how I think the awards should go:

Best Picture:

"Milk". "Frost Nixon" is a very close second

Best Director:

Ron Howard ["Frost Nixon" ]. Gus Van Sant could also reasonably get it for "Milk", but I thought I'd spread the awards around a bit.

Best Male Actor:

FRANK LANGELLA ["Frost Nixon"]. For an incredibly brilliant performance as Nixon. Langella should have gotten it last year for "Starting Out In The Evening" but didn't even get nominated (Academy bastards!). So he should definitely get it this year, even though Sean Penn gives an equally amazing performance in "Milk". I mean, Langella has never gotten it before, and Penn got one for "Mystic River". So, let's be fair about this, huh.

Best Female Actor:

Meryl Streep [Doubt]

Best Male Supporting Actor:

Michael Shannon [Revolutionary Road]. His role was brief, but his performance memorable. I did not see Heath ledger in "The Dark Knight" however.

Best Female Supporting Actor:

I have no preference here. I didn't think any of these performances were extraordinary.

*******

My Top Thirteen Movies Of 2008 Are (the first five are in order of preference, the rest in alphabetical order) :

1. Appaloosa [Ed Harris]
Appaloosa is unlike any Western I've ever seen, although it features many elements of the more "conventional" Western. To begin with, it has a real "tough guy" marshal, Virgil Cole, played by director Ed Harris, and seeing Harris's performance is a real delight. He and his long-time partner Everett (Viggo Mortensen) are "free-lance" law men, who hire themselves out on as "as needed" basis.

Well, they're badly needed in the tiny frontier town of Appaloosa, New Mexico, which is on the verge of collapsing into anarchy because of the intimidation tactics of a gang run by the "bad guy", Randall Bragg, played by the English actor Jeremy Irons. I noticed right away that Irons still seemed to have a bit of his English accent, and wondered why (after all, he's playing a "bad guy" in an American western), because the accent gives him an aura of sophistication rather than menace, which one would expect.

I understand now that this was part of the humor that runs through the film. Yes, Appaloosa is quite funny. Actually, that's too strong a word. I think "witty" is perhaps more appropriate. Consider the scene where Virgil has Bragg locked up in the tiny jail cell in his office. Bragg, on noticing that Virgil is reading Emerson, begins to comment at length on Emerson's qualities as a writer. Virgil finally tells him to "shut the f**k up".

There's the pretty widow too (Renee Zellweger), and the possibility that she's going to create some serious tension between Virgil and Everett. And that gets worked out in an amusing and unusual way.

Appaloosa is beautiful visually, and unlike the Westerns of old, one really believes the action is taking place in 1882.



2. Vicki Christina Barcelona [Woody Allen]
A few years ago, I concluded that Woody Allen was “washed up" as a filmmaker, and I felt a bit sad about it, because I'd always considered him “America’s Greatest Director”, having created several film “masterpieces”, as well as at least 20 movies that were excellent (if not quite masterpieces). I was wrong. After a string of four “disasters”, beginning with the unfunny “Small Time Crooks” in 2000, followed by the absolutely terrible“Curse Of The Jade Scorpion”, 2001, followed by a couple of more bombs in 2002 and 2003, Allen began to “rise from the dead” in 2004 with the “pretty good” “Melinda and Melinda”, followed by the absolutely superb “Match Point” in 2005.

I was tentatively hopeful that he was “back”. Well, that was followed by the excellent “Cassandra’s Dream” in 2007, and now, in 2008, my #2 film of the year. I think I can at last say with some confidence that Woody Allen is back, and that I’m back to looking forward to seeing his next film, which is called “Whatever Works”, and which takes place in the “real” New York, as opposed to the “romanticized” New York that has been so much a part of many of his films.

How do I explain his temporary decline? Well, I think that being publicly accused of child molestation could have an adverse affect on one’s creative powers. I’m cautiously optimistic that he’s recovered from that trauma.

Anyway, Vicki Christina Barcelona is about two young woman (Vicki and Christina) who travel to Barcelona one summer for a vacation, and how they both become involved (in always interesting, at times funny, and at times quite sad ways) with a charismatic and seductive artist played by the great Javier Bardem. It’s filled with the humor and psychological insight of the “great” Woody Allen, and was beautifully shot in Barcelona, one of the most visually pleasing cities in the world.



3. Milk [Gus Van Sant]
I always knew that Sean Penn was a great actor, but I also assumed that his naturally sullen nature (or at least, that's the way he seemed to come across in many interviews I saw of him) limited his acting range. I'm happy to see that I was wrong about this, because his performance in "Milk" is more of a transformation than acting. He's phenomenal, and should of course get the academy award, but as I explained above, in a just world, that would go to Frank Langella this year.

Harvey Milk was a political activist in San Francisco back in the 70's. He eventually managed to be elected to the Board of Supervisors, and thus become the first openly gay politician elected to a significant office.

"Milk"is his tragic story, and I must say that I wept the end, when Milk was shot and killed by a deranged fellow supervisor, chillingly portrayed by Josh Brolin (who also played George Bush in "W").



4. Revolutionary Road [Sam Mendes]
Sam Mendes is a very special director for me, because one of his films ("American Beauty") is # 2 on my "all time great" movie list. While "Revolutionary Road" doesn't quite make that cut, it's still quite impressive. But, it's a grim story, about a young couple (played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, who were together in "Titanic") in 1950's America who are disillusioned with their life in the Connecticut suburbs.

I think the film exaggerates the bleakness of the 1950's, but the young woman's plight (which I would diagnose as being severe depression, as opposed to something about the times) is very powerfully presented to us by Kate Winslet, who received the Golden Globe award for best actress but for some inexplicable reason wasn't even nominated for the Academy award.



5. Frost Nixon [Ron Howard]
I saw the play at the Kennedy Center, in which Stacy Keach played Nixon. I thought he mimicked the voice better than Langella did, but overall, I greatly preferred Langella's performance (he captured Nixon's essence more, I thought). It may have had something to do with the different directors (the way they instructed the actors to interpret the material), but I found Langella's interpretation of Nixon quite moving, whereas Keach's seemed more like a caricature (almost a comic character at times). Langella played the role on Broadway, and won a Tony in 2007 for "Best Leading Actor".

Frost and Nixon were both "outcasts" at the time of the interviews. Frost had come to be regarded as a "lightweight", suitable for interviewing the likes of Gsa Gabor, while Nixon... well, we all know his story.

Frost took a gamble in paying Nixon $600,000 (mostly of his own money) to sit down and talk with Nixon. Both parties had much "on the line". The build-up to the confrontation reminded me of the atmosphere prior to a heavyweight championship flight, and the movie conveys that sense of fear (especially on the part of Frost's producer) and excitement.

As it turned out both Frost and Nixon won the "fight". Frost managed to revive his career by getting Nixon to admit to certain things that people needed to hear (and that perhaps he needed to say). And, in doing so, Nixon was able to (in a sense) at last put the Watergate mess behind him.



Ballast [Lance Hammer]
I was lucky to have been able to see "Ballast" when I was in Denver, because I don't think it even got a distribution in the D.C. area. And, that's a shame, because while it was obviously made on a limited budget, it is a powerful drama, about a poor black family living in the Mississippi Delta region of Louisiana.

Ballast begins with the image of Lawrence, an almost catatonic, large black man sitting in a chair, trying to assimilate the suicide of his twin brother, whose body he's just found. His brother had a 12 year old son James, who's on the verge of being sucked into the lethal world of some small-time drug dealers.

The story focuses on the relationship that Lawrence comes to have with his brother's embittered widow, and on their attempt to provide some sort of stability for James.

The character’s lives are bleak, and their futures seem hopeless, and these facts come across so compellingly on the screen that we feel bleak and hopeless too. These people seem real. And, since several of them are nonprofessional actors, in a certain sense, they are.

"Ballast" is a very powerful drama.



Boy A [John Crowley] (England)
"Boy A" was the name given to Jack, when he was tried as a pre-adolescent along with another boy ("Boy B") for having killed a girl their age many years ago. As the film opens, Jack is being released from prison, with a new name, new job, fake background story, and the hope of assimilating himself into civilized society.

The film is the story of what the shy, rather sweet Jack experiences as he tries to become a part of the world, which is not so willing to forgive him, once his secret is revealed.



Burn After Reading [Joel and Ethan Coen]
Well, the Coen brothers have done it again, they've created another really funny, really quirky, yet exceptionally intelligent film with a great cast.

The Coen's have said that this film completes their "idiot trilogy" with George Clooney (the first two being "Oh Brother Where Art Thou", and "Intolerable Cruelty"), and that's too bad, because Clooney is great in those movies, and in this one. As are Frances McDormand, John Malkovitch, Tilda Swinton, and (yes) even Brad Pitt.



Chop Shop [Ramin Bahrami] >
This film takes us to what seems like another universe (or at least a third-world country) until we realize that we're in a part of New York City very rarely seen in movies. We're in the "Iron Triangle" of Willet's Point, Queens, the location of numerous auto body shops, where Alejandro (Ale) a twelve-year old orphan lives and works.

He lives (if you want to call it that) in a dingy room above one of these shops, and he earns his meager living by doing odd jobs around the shop, and also by various other enterprises (like selling candy on the subway).

It's a pretty grim existence, but Ale has so much spirit, that one always feels that somehow, he'll "make it".

The director, Ramin Bahrani, is an Iranian-born American director who I predict will someday be very well-known.



In Bruges [Martin McDonagh]
Bruges (pronounced broozh) is a beautiful city in Belgium (and the cinematography of the film emphasizes that), and therefore an unusual place to set a black comedy about two hit men forced into hiding by their boss because one of them has accidentally killed a young boy while in the process of killing a priest (that was his assignment).

But, this is a black comedy (although it is also much more) so Ken, the relatively "nice guy" hit man (Brenden Gleeson) and Ray, the "hothead" who's totally oblivious to the charm of Bruges (Colin Farrell, finally using his natural Irish accent) are in Bruges.

"In Bruges" manages to combine the disparate elements of hilarious comedy, travelogue cinematography, and horrific violence in a way that somehow seems natural. It's the first film of an Irish playwright named Martin McDonagh (he wrote it too), and I think he has a future as a first-class film "auteur".



I've Loved You For So Long [Phillipe Claudel] (France)
Kristin Scott Thomas gives a remarkable performance here, more outstanding than that of any female actor nominated for an academy award (which of course she's not eligible for).

She did win the Best European Actress award at the 2008 European Film Awards held in Copenhagen. And, she has been nominated for the 2008 BAFTA (British Academy Of Film And Television Awards) Bafta Home - The BAFTA site .

She plays Juliette (a former physician), a woman who has just been released from prison after fifteen years there for committing a horrendous crime. Her sister Lea reluctantly takes her in, obviously against the better judgement of her husband Luc, who is wary of Juliette and not at all comfortable with her being around his children.

The details of Juliette's crime remain vague, and we're not always quite sure what to think about her. All we know for sure is that she's extremely depressed, and Scott-Thomas's ability to project this is memorable. The film is in essence a depiction of an intelligent and sensitive woman's adjustment to a horrifying and tragic incident in her life.



Let The Right One In [Tomas Alfredson] (Sweden)
This film has an unusual mixture of themes, which one would not necessarily expect to work well together.

It's a "coming of age" story, about two twelve year old misfits who become close friends. His name is Oskar, and he's neglected by his parents, he's harassed by bullies at school, and his life in general is miserable. One day he meets Eli, a new girl his age, who's just moved into his apartment building with her strange father. She's strange too, and has a pale emaciated quality that's unsettling. But, there turns out to be a reason for that: she's a vampire, and doesn't get much sun.

Amazingly, it works! The film I mean, in spite of the implausibility of it all. It's painfully realistic, though sensitive and compelling in its depiction of the difficulties of pre-adolescense. So much so that the "surrealism" of the vampire motif really doesn't diminish the believability of the "coming of age" story.



Slumdog Millionaire [Danny Boyle]
Danny Boyle is another significant director for me, because he too (like Sam Mendes, mentioned above) has a film on my "all time great" movie list. And since there's only eleven movies (out of about 4000 I've seen) on that list, that's significant. It's called "Trainspotting".

"Slumdog" is worth seeing if only for the cinematography, which features vivid shots of some of the most poverty-ridden slums of India. And, I thought I was from the slums!

It also features one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen, although this scene won't appeal to everyone (if you see the film, you'll know the scene I mean). I very seldom laugh uncontrollably, but I did here. I've had that happen only one other time at the movies - when I saw Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times".

But the story itself is fascinating. About an orphan named Jamel, a real "survivor" if there ever was one (we can't begin to imagine what it's like to be a homeless orphan in the slums of Bombay, and that in itself is a good reason to see the movie).

Well, Jamel miraculously winds up on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", and even more miraculously (and suspiciously to some people) is on the verge of winning the grand prize.

How Jamel knows all the answers is gradually revealed in flashbacks, which tell the story of his amazing life.

There's a poignant love story too!