Best Films of 2008

After one of the best years for movies I can remember in 2007, 2008 was one of the worst, at least in terms of the top films. While I sincerely believe the 11 films on this list are deserving of the recognition, I also feel compelled to say that none of them would have made my top ten from last year. These things move in cycles, I suppose, but 2008 was even lower than 2004, the last notably weak year. It may have beat 2001, although I probably didn’t see enough that year to know for sure.

The links in the titles are for the official Gone Elsewhere reviews, where applicable.

1. Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme); review by Jackrabbit Slim
Demme and screenwriter Jenny Lumet accomplish one of the hardest things to do in movies, making it believable that family members in a film have a long and complicated history together outside of the events in the movie. The film also features two outstanding performances: one by Anne Hathaway, who was justly nominated for an Oscar, and one by Rosemarie DeWitt, who was unjustly not.

2. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman)
Ari Folman’s animated documentary about his experiences during the 1982 Lebanon War is one of the few films this year to feature both cutting-edge filmmaking with a solid emotional core. By the end of the movie, the psychological weight is truly tough to bear.

3. Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols)
Independent film about two sets of half-brothers engaged in an ever escalating rivalry, starring Michael Shannon, intense as usual. Jeff Nichols’ first feature film is a fascinating look at hatred that never dies and the culture of revenge in the American South.

4. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton); review by Jackrabbit Slim
The second half is just a little weak, but the first half is as incredible as anything I’ve seen in years. Pixar’s consistent high level of creativity and quality – and in a genre that typically brings out the worst in studio instincts – can only qualify as miraculous at this point.

5. Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes); review by Jeanine
I had some issues with the ending of the film, but it’s still a lightning bolt in a lot of ways. For one thing, future generations will laugh at the Academy for ignoring both the work of both Leonardo Dicaprio and (especially) Kate Winslet, who does the best work of her distinguished career in this film. But it’s also a very timely film, arriving just at a time when American suburban life appears to be starting to undergo radical changes.

6. Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
Quiet film starring Michelle Williams as Wendy, a girl stranded in an Oregon town with her dog, Lucy, while en route to Alaska for mostly unexplained reasons. Reichardt’s film gives us very little of Wendy’s background, choosing instead to focus on her interactions with the people she meets. I took it as a counterpoint to Reichardt’s previous film, Old Joy. That film focused on a brief retreat from everyday life; this film is about people who can’t escape it.

7. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan); also reviewed by filmman
Oh boy. Nolan’s Batman opus was the year’s (and the decade’s) domestic box office champion, and has inspired something of a backlash. I watched it again last week, and I remain impressed despite a couple of obvious flaws. The Nolans put the Batman mythology to the test, even going so far as to question if Gotham City may be better off without the Caped Crusader. And the Heath Ledger’s Joker was the most terrifying villian of the year, a character that is the living embodiment not of insanity, but of fear.

8. Burn After Reading (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen); review by Jackrabbit Slim
The Coens’ follow-up to No Country for Old Men poses as a slight (if nihilistic) comedy, but several months later it’s stuck with me. It’s very funny, with Brad Pitt’s Chad Feldheimer leading a cast of goofballs, but I think it also carries an undercurrent of deeply felt rage. It’s hard to imagine the Coens making an overtly political film, but especially on the heels of the passive and defeatist No Country, it’s easy for me to see the film as a reaction to the bungling by the US intelligence community during recent years.

9. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
In a year when Twilight (which I didn’t see) made teen vampires all the rage, this Swedish film explored the friendship between a 12-year-old outcast and his very strange next door neighbor of the same age. The two child actors both find just the right notes for their performance, and despite some story weaknesses this is one of the most convincing films about the awkwardness that children feel among their peers in a long while.

10. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman); review by Jackrabbit Slim
Kaufman is well known for his screenplays of Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, and his directorial debut is even more mind-twisting than those two films. Using the story of a playwright working on his masterpiece to contemplate the hopelessness of ageing and the fleeting nature of human relationships, Kaufman’s work here is unquestionably original, and occasionally brushes up against the profound. Only an off-key performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead holds it back.

11. Funny Games (Michael Haneke)
Haneke remakes his 1997 German-language film, changing the actors and virtually nothing else. I’m not sure there’s much of a reason to do this, but taken on its own terms, the film is a powerful examination of the effects of onscreen violence. A film that invites – and even encourages – misreadings, it was on the receiving end of much critical hand-wringing upon its March release, and was a box-office dud, but I think it points out the moral callousness of other films more than it demonstrates it on its own.

Honorable Mentions, in very rough order of preference:
The Wrestler, Transsiberian, Milk (review by Jackrabbit Slim), The Class, Trouble the Water, My Winnipeg, The Visitor (review by Jackrabbit Slim), The Fall, Chop Shop, Alexandra, Reprise

This year, I want to start a new category for movies that are daring, challenging, or otherwise innovative, and which have my full respect for being more interesting than a lot of other, better movies, even though I found them ultimately unsuccessful. I’ll call it the “Honorable Intent” category, and this year there were three movies that deserve the designation:
Che (review by Jackrabbit Slim), Blindness, Speed Racer

Sad I Missed It:
The Edge of Heaven