Zach’s Top 10 – 2008

2008 in Film: A Year of Dysfunctional Marriages and Vampire Romances

Last Updated - 2/3/09 

Go to 2008 Top 10 Lists

2008 saw the election of a new President (one who will eventually be portrayed onscreen by Will Smith and, thankfully, not one portrayed a balding Ian Holm), as well as the second highest-grossing movie of all time, The Dark Knight.  While I’m not convinced that the late Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker was quite as uncanny as Tina Fey’s role of a lifetime as Sarah Palin, I will readily concede that the gruff voices of Batman and Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino may actually be the same.  2008 was also a year of seriously messed up cinematic love stories – between an old man growing younger and a young woman growing older, a 1950s couple making even the most dooey-eyed viewer skeptical about why people should ever get married, and a girl vampire and her prepubescent boyfriend (set in Sweden, not in Forks, Washington.)  Here are the ten best features of another solid year in film:

Honorable Mention: Burn After Reading, Seven Pounds, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

10. The Duchess – The recipe for cinematic success these days seems to involve little more than placing Keira Knightley in a British period piece, and this tale of class warfare, polygamy, and lavish 18^th Century women’s wardrobe is endlessly fascinating for the Jane Austen lover inside all of us.  Knightley’s portrayal of Georgiana, Duchess of York, is one of the actress’ finest performances, as she endures a loveless marriage to a brutish Earl (Ralph Fiennes) who falls in love with another woman.  Like Pride and Prejudice, the story is able to blend effective characterizations and stark criticisms of faulty social conventions of the past – namely, marriage for practicality, not love.

9. Let the Right One In – This was the teenage vampire flick of 2008 to see, not the overhyped film adaptation of Twilight.  Thomas Alfredson’s spellbinding tale of a vampire trapped in a young girl’s body as she is befriended and beloved by a gawky boy next door was actually far more about raging hormones than raging fangs.  A great vampire film that dared to be more poignant than scary, and is more luridly erotic than anything Anne Rice could have possibly penned.

8. Changeling – The flip side of Gran Torino; a big, massive movie attempting to tell three or four separate stories by my count, all in one bloated final product which may be a little too long, but is so compelling in its fluid storytelling that excess is completely acceptable.  Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, a woman in 1928 whose son goes missing, and soon unravels the internal corruption of the Los Angeles Police Department (hey, Rodney King wasn’t the first).  Jolie is fantastic, and when one story begins dragging, Eastwood is seamlessly able to transition to another.

7. The Bank Job – A sly, slick heist movie that is, at once, a breezy London caper that is relentlessly fun and superbly constructed, and on another, deeper level, a Citizen Kane-like assortment of oddball characters and circumstances that practically mandate second and third viewings.  Jason Statham is a little more realistic here than most of his other throwaway roles, and director Donaldson knows the genre so well, he bypasses the unnecessary set-ups to create captivating conclusions.

6. Gran Torino – Does anyone tell thuggish young gangsters to get off his lawn better than Clint Eastwood?  Here, in perhaps his last role onscreen, Eastwood plays a curmudgeonly outspoken old-timer (yes, I know, quite a radical departure for Eastwood the actor) who has little patience for the disrespectful young people around him, particularly when a new Hmong family moves in next door. Eastwood’s prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino, which symbolizes his character’s obsession with the past and unwillingness to accept the present circumstances, until he unexpectedly befriends and protects the at-risk Hmong youth next door.  Simple, economical, quick-paced – all hallmarks of an Eastwood picture, and this one ranks up there with his very best.

5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – This has to be one of the strangest and saddest love stories ever filmed; and it is precisely because it is so strange that the love story between Benjamin (who is born old and “grows” young) and Daisy is so relentlessly captivating and heartbreaking.  Fincher’s movie is a long, deliberately-paced look at Benjamin’s life which is not always perfect, but contains scenes of such raw passion and unrequited love between Benjamin and Daisy (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), particularly in the second half of the picture when the two protagonists are well aware of the tragic fate that lies just ahead, that it is hard not to swell up into embarrassing tears by the film’s end.  I know I was guilty as charged.

4. Rachel Getting Married – All the critics said the same, but I’m forced to reiterate: Anne Hathaway is a revelation here.  Her performance as Kym, the rehab-bound enfant terrible going home again for her sister’s nuptials, is the centerpiece of director Demme’s subtle character study of a family in serious denial.  As sad as the movie is, it also contains a great many moments of wit and humor, and contains one great big cinematic wedding, worthy of the likes of The Godfather and The Deer Hunter.  Advice to Rachel and Sydney, the bride and groom: Do not, for the love of Pete, see The Duchess or Revolutionary Road.

3. The Fall – Tarsem may be a visionary, but there is more to this ambitious picture than stunning scenery and boundless imagination (utilizing all non-CGI effects, no less).  There is also warmth and sly humor in the story of a young immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) who, in 1915 Los Angeles, befriends a Hollywood stuntman in the hospital (Lee Pace), who weaves for her a magical tale, with unforeseen dark intentions soon made clear.  A joyous epic in the scale of Pan’s Labyrinth but decidedly warmer, The Fall masterfully evokes what grand-scale cinema used to resemble.

2. Revolutionary Road – Who better than American Beauty’s Mendes to direct this tale of a gloriously mismatched couple (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, having most definitely gotten off their Titanic love cruise) in suburban Connecticut, circa 1955, as they discover that they are literally trapped by their artificial and materialistic surroundings.  DiCaprio and Winslet are absolutely riveting, somehow transcending their characters and the story to more than just a weekend with the Bickersons, but a story about true tragedy, sacrifice, and remorse – all for the failed institution of marriage which may be the only thing holding together the fractured society at large.

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days – A compelling, heart-rending look at a 24-hour period in 1987 Budapest as two young women are forced to sift through auspicious underground networks in order to have an illegal abortion performed on one of them.  A nightmarish tale of selfless acts in the face of unbeknownst and occasionally ignorant outsiders, and what it truly means to be a friend, with Amamaria Marinca quite simply giving the best performance of any 2008 motion picture.  Like the 2007’s best movie, The Lives of Others, this is also a damning portrait of a communist ideology gone awry, where basic civil liberties are thrust aside for the “benefit of the whole,” which, as revealed through one particularly painful long take at a dinner, really only benefit a select aristocratic few.