Top Ten Movies of 2008

Okay so I stopped blogging pretty much entirely after I got back from Africa last July because I thought no one really read my blog anymore. This is still probably the case, but whatever, I like to write, and you nowadays with the internet, you never know who is reading what. So I'm back and I'm here to write about one of my favorite things. You guessed it. Movies.

I'm back with my Top Ten Movies of 2008 list. This was an incredibly hard list to make and could be different a week from now. Here goes.

10. The Wackness
(Drama with a bit of Dark Comedy about a young man's coming of age tale in New York (if I remember correctly). Great story about this kid who sells pot to help pay the family bills. His shrink is played by the great Sir Ben Kinglsey, whom he pays with weed. This film does a great job at portraying the conflict, brokenness and longing that all humans share. I highly recommend it. The Writer/Director of the film based the story off of his own life...so it's very realistic and easy to identify with.

9. Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood has become one of the best Director's of our time, and I love the ability he has to tell a story without any fluff. In his most recent acting/directing gig, he plays an old senile racist who has to deal with the new foreign neighbors. A great story about how even the hardest of hearts can be softened with just a little love from the right places.

8. Milk

Just go see this for Sean Penn's Best Acting performance. Seriously, he becomes Harvey Milk. This is a great movie that deserved all the buzz it got. Well directed, well acted, well written. And it came out at the perfect time, right after the whole Prop-8 fiasco. A very relevant movie for our time.

7. Wall-E

All of Pixar's movies seem to take huge risks. A movie about a rat? That will never work. A movie about a robot that can't talk and has no dialogue in the first 40 minutes? People will get bored. Right? Not so fast. This is pixar we're talking about. These guys know what they are doing. Psh. Dialogue? They don't need that to tell a powerful story. With arguably the best visuals we've ever seen from a Pixar flick (in my opinion only rivaled by Finding Nemo) Pixar strikes gold once again with a film about a lovable robot and his quest for love and adventure. Oh and about how the human race is a bunch of fat lazy slobs. Leave it to Pixar to entertain us and make us think about the way we live our lives at the same time.

6. The Reader

You would be hard pressed to find a better actress than Kate Winslet right now. Put her in a movie with a great script and you've got a winner. And that's exactly what The Reader is. What starts off as a risque affair between an aging German and a young high school boy turns into a debate of ethical values. You find yourself thinking "What would I do in that situation?" multiple times throughout this film, with no easy answer. A smart film set in post WWII Germany, with one of the most complicated love stories you've ever seen. Don't miss it.

5. Vicky, Christina, Barcelona

I'll admit it. The main reason I wanted to see this film at first was because it had the beauty of Scarlett Johanssen and Penelope Cruz in it. But once the Woody Allen written/directed film got going, I was hooked immediately. I think it was the combination of the old school narration and the setting of Barcelona, but Allen did a spectacular putting you right in the midst of his creation. The characters were great, the acting was great (Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz have some amazing scenes) and many people will be able to relate to this movie. It questions how we define "relationships" and what society says is okay and what's not okay. What is love? How do we know? Will we ever be satisfied? Do we know what we're looking for or what we want? Does true love really last? Does it go beyond our feelings? These are all questions that Vicky, Christna, Barcelona asks us.

4. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

I was really really really looking forward to this film, and in a sense, it did let me down a bit. But it is at number four on this list for a reason. Fincher is one of my favorite directors, and Brad Pitt one of my favorite actors, and Cate Blanchett is right up there with Kate Winslet as one of our finest actresses, but something about this film just fell a little short for me. The only thing special about this story was the whole aging backward thing. Without that element, this would have been a generic love story with its share of complications. It was longer than it needed to be and Pitt's acting was average. People give him too much credit for this role. It's the CG and Makeup artists that deserve more of the credit. All that being said, this film was done as perfectly as possible. The cinematography was amazing, the script well written, the actors well directed. People compare this film to Forrest Gump, and Gump had something this film didn't have. I don't know what it was. Ben Button just didn't have the...thrust...that Forrest Gump did. I liked Forrest Gump more. I cared for him more. This was an excellent excellent film, I just didn't like it as much as I expected to.

3. Rachel Getting Married

Whoa. Now here's a film that grabbed onto my emotions and threw them all over the room. You want a movies that is real to the bone? That shows meaninful, powerful, authentic family dynamics? Here it is. You will cringe, you will laugh, you will be awkward, you will be scared, you will care, you will cry. I absolutely loved Anne Hathaway in this movie. I think she should have gotten the Oscar this year. We all know Kate Winslet would have gotten one eventually. I think Winslet got it for her reputation and her past work more than for her specific role in The Reader. (Don't get me wrong, she was amazing, I just think the academy felt bad for all the times she got gipped in the past. Hopefully the same thing will happen for Hathaway in the future.) I just hope that Hathaway takes more roles like this one instead of the ridiculous Bride Wars movie she just did. Why make crap like that when you can make gold like this? I don't get it. Go see this movie with people you care about.

2. Slumdog Millionaire

Best Picture. Mmhmm. How can you not love this movie? Great cast, great director, great soundtrack, great script, beautiful shots and locations. It has everything. This film is the journey that we hope all our lives to be. Adventurous. Challenging. Rewarding. Full of love, pain, hope, conflict, reward. I loved this movie and really can't say enough about it. Danny Boyle deserved his Best Director Oscar, and the film deserved the Best Picture Award. We need more movies like this. Movies that are smart with depth, yet full of emotion and power.

1. The Dark Knight

And yet this was my favorite movie of the year, with one of the best performances of all time. The best villain since Darth Vader. My favorite Director of the moment. Throw in Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine and you've got my vote for my favorite movie of the year. I saw it twice in the theater for good reason. You can't digest it all in one viewing. What would you have done if you were one of the civilians on that ferry? Do we have it in us to be "The Dark Knight" if it means everyone hating us for doing the right thing? Is life meaningless and full of chaos? Or do we have hope and something to fight for? Our are decisions decided by chance or something greater? What do we do when we lose everything we loved?

I don't know if it should have won, but I can't believe it didn't even get an Oscar Nod for Best Picture and/or Best Director. Ugh.

Honorable Mentions: Quantum of Solace, City of Ember ( A great, fun family adventure movie), Forgetting Sarah Marshall(my surprise of the year, I love this movie), Pineapple Express (James Franco is way funnier than I knew), Burn After Reading (The Coen brothers rock), Tropic Thunder (Downey Jr. was phenomenal), Australia(Epic movie, but was split into two stories and was too long)

Haven't seen yet: The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road, Defiance, Frost/Nixon, The Visitor