Doug's Favorite Movies of 2008

Forgetting Sara Marshall
The Wrestler
Slumdog Millionaire
Teeth
Wall-E
Gran Torino
Quarantine
Choke
Burn After Reading
Tropic Thunder
Kung Fu Panda

Honorable Mention:

Doubt
The Dark Knight
Hole in a Paper Sky
The Bank Job
Zombie Strippers
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
The Brothers Bloom

Special Category: Love, Hate, Great & Terrible:

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Doubt

Like There Will Be Blood last year and Notes on a Scandal the year before, Doubt showcases the highest (or deepest) levels of technique. I’ve been known to criticize ambiguity, because it’s often used as an excuse to justify lame storytelling. But in this case, the movie’s called Doubt, so I’ll give it the benefit. And the ambiguity here is sublime, driven by the great performances shrouded with subtlety. The many close-ups are filled with stern faces, trying but failing brilliantly to restrain innuendo. Thankfully, too, the movie plays more like a thriller than an unsavory drama. The potential creepy, rapey-ness of the story is almost invisible. The moral rests in the capable hands of Amy Adams’ Sister James, who even at the bitter end finds her faith in the goodness of humanity to be more powerful than her doubt.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Cluttered with sub-plots, it strays too far from the key relationship for lengthy periods. Ideally, it would enrich a saga to fill in backgrounds and back-stories. But here, it’s done at the expense of some key eras, shortened or left-out of the movie entirely. As I watched, I couldn’t wait for Benjamin’s high school years. How would Fincher/Pitt/Blanchette approach Benjamin’s life-long wisdom, as he is trapped in the body of a teenager? He would have to be schooled, right? It would be illegal if he weren’t. They glossed COMPLETELY over this very impressionable part of a person’s life, as well as others I won’t divulge. So it was frustrating. They violated David Lynch’s number one rule: pay attention to the doughnut, not the hole. It’s not a bad movie. It just could have been much, much better and still have a shorter running time.

Frost/Nixon

It’s a fantastic history lesson. (Not as good as Milk, but still…) The acting is superb by everyone, including Patty McCormack! The filmmaking is consummate. But I had trouble connecting with this emotionally. I walked away from The Queen with a clear idea of the theme. But here, I’m not so sure what to take away. Nixon wasn’t such a bad guy??

Revolutionary Road

I know, I know. I’m supposed to like this kind of thing. I WANTED to like it. It’s Sam Mendes. It’s Kate and Leo. It’s got oodles of merit and pedigree. But it took too long to become honest, and the stilted, blue-blooded socialites, the people “Frank” and “April” believed they were supposed to be, started to drive me crazy after a while. Thankfully, mid-way through, a truly honest character barges onto the screen. Michael Shannon’s wise, electro-shocked malcontent swoops in like The Dark Knight and tears everybody a new one. I wish the whole movie was about THAT guy. It’s skillfully made, superbly acted, but it just didn’t do it for me. If I wanted to watch people argue for two and a half hours, I’d rent Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

The Reader

Kate Winslet was great in this, of course, and I was pleasantly surprised that it went in some unexpected directions. However, I was a little disappointed in the Ralph Finnes flashback structure. He was so dour and somber, I just wanted Winslet back on the screen. (And not just because of all the nudity.) It seems to be a movie struggling to break free from the constraints of the source novel. And it’s very British in that way that there’s drama found in characters ALMOST doing things. In spite the gloomy final third, I found this worthwhile if only for Winslet and the clever plot shifts.

Gran Torino

What would “Dirty Harry” be like as a grumpy old man? Gran Torino fashions such a caricature of that old coot that at one point he actually barks, “You kids get off my lawn!” But the surprising screenplay by Nick Schenk skillfully and carefully eases Eastwood’s overt bigot through a lesson of tolerance. The script walks the finest of lines, spewing racial slurs, but delivering them from mouth of a sympathetic boor. And in context, Eastwood manages to land these offenses as laughs. There are more laughs in Gran Torino than in most comedies. How did they do it? Racism isn’t supposed to be funny. Ask Michael Richards. This could have gone down in flames. But the first few times Eastwood calls the neighbor a “zip” there’s a nervous mumble from the crowd. By the end, every one of Eastwood’s racist tirades gets a roar like an Apatow comedy. I’m not 100% sure why it works. Just like I’m not sure why Tropic Thunder’s “full retard” scene nearly gave me a hernia. I would like to think that this means some taboos will be a little less taboo, and easier to discuss in the public discourse. So if a writer writes about race relations it doesn’t automatically make them a racist. Or, maybe Clint’s just funnier than we thought. Anyway, it's a hell of a lot better than Changeling.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Keanu’s perfectly cast for this and the movie grabs you right away, skillfully showing the terrifying urgency of how an alien encounter might be handled behind the scenes. Jennifer Connelly stoically services the story in her impossibly pretty way and for a while there it seems like it’s all going to be okay. Then we start to get to know her son, played by Jaden Pinket-Smith and it all starts to go down hill. He’s the most hate-able little fucker to roll up on the big screen since Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds. He was ungrateful, bratty, and had all the subtlety of a flying brick. I hated his hair! To be fair, the script is partially to blame, creating such an unlikable little bastard. It would be a tough character for anybody to take on, much less a child actor. And so much of the story rests on this kid, all engines fail very quickly. There is also a really frustrating negligence of logic near the end that completely nullifies the neat opening. There are some things to like here. Keanu’s perfectly nestled in his sci-fi element. And there’s some nifty robotic locusts that show up at one point. But yow! The ending was a dud.

Milk

Sean Penn is outstanding in what is otherwise a “straightforward” bio-pic. The cast of characters ends up being far more interesting than the plot itself, which is comprised of slightly disjointed episodes. The movie takes too long to introduce Dan White, a key figure in Harvey Milk’s life, well-portrayed by Josh Brolin. I wonder if the story would have been better served if Van Sant and company began the movie with the introduction of Dan White and went on from there. Nevertheless, the acting is top-notch and it introduced me to an amazing event in history that I new absolutely NOTHING about.

Transporter 3

A phoned-in action sequel. Statham’s likable, but hardly present. The karate’s so cutty, it’s difficult to enjoy the choreography. Adequate, but barely.

The Punisher

Indeed.