2008 End of the Year Wrap Up

What follows are Nathan’s picks of the best films of 2008.

1. The Dark Knight (2008)

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Premise: A sequel to Batman Begins. As Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) close in on Gotham City’s organized crime syndicate, the local crime lords turn to The Joker (Heath Ledger), an anarchic criminal genius with no scruples and a hidden agenda.

Why It Made the List: There are very few instances in cinematic history where wide box office appeal and high cinematic craft intersect and one is not sacrificed for the other. The Godfather, The Sound of Music, Pulp Fiction, Jaws, and The Empire Strikes Back are a few examples and The Dark Knight deserves to sit in this company. This is a film that delivers the excitement and thrills audiences expect from a superhero film but then combines that with an extremely intelligent screenplay and acting performances that are on par with so called “serious” dramatic films. Where Batman Begins took a step away from formula and convention in the superhero genre, The Dark Knight takes a leap, grabbing elements from crime films like Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and Michael Mann’s Heat and placing them inside of a superhero context. The transposition works extremely well and the combination elevates the picture beyond a superhero film or a crime film and into something nearing a Greek tragedy. The dramatic heart of The Dark Knight is supported by some tremendous performances. The most celebrated has been Heath Ledger as The Joker and it is a performance that will enter the archives of cinema as one of the most memorable villains ever committed to film. Like other actors who have played the role, Ledger captures the maniacal nature of The Joker but what sets his portrayal, and the film, apart from other superhero adventures is that this may be one of the only times where the filmmakers realized the true potential of superheroes and super villains; they are flesh and blood characters as icons or metaphors for complex sociological, psychological, and philosophical ideas. The conflict between The Joker and Batman in The Dark Knight is not just a man dressed up in a cape chasing another guy in clown makeup. These characters are hypertexts of ideas, representing the conflict between chaos and control, the line between cop and criminal, and the tricky areas where lawless action may be morally correct and lawful action could be immoral. And as Ledger’s Joker embodies the anarchic glee of a man who just wants to watch the world burn, Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart play men who try to stop him and in their efforts risk being corrupted themselves. Christian Bale steps up his work from Batman Begins and takes the character down darker roads and expands on the flaws that were established in the previous film. Where most superheroes struggle with duality, trying to balance their heroic alter ego with a normal identity, Bruce Wayne has at least three faces and in this film he’s not clear which, if any of them, are the real Wayne. Aaron Eckhart’s work is also very strong and he has the biggest leap to make as an idealistic district attorney who is corrupted by his own desire to have justice seen through. His story is the biggest tragedy of the film and one of the most pertinent to the film’s probing questions about justice and heroism. And that is what makes The Dark Knight such an amazing piece of work and my pick for the best film this year: this picture fully realizes where a superhero film can go and in the process it puts contemporary anxieties about heroism, urban blight, terrorism, and justice on display for all of us to ponder. 

2. Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by: Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan

Premise: Jamal (Dev Patel) gets on the Indian version of the TV game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” in an attempt to win the money he needs to buy a new life for himself and the woman he loves (Freida Pinto). The story cuts between his time on the show, an interrogation by authorities who believe he has cheated, and flashbacks to his childhood in Mumbai which he encounters the answers to the questions on the show. 

Why It Made the List: Slumdog Millionaire is a beautiful film even when it dwells on very ugly subject matters. The picture is a romantic fairy tale told in with style, characters, and locations that disguise its conventions and make it a fresh and unique film. The storyline of Slumdog Millionaire is broken into three temporal sections and uses different actors for the three lead characters in each section. Very impressively, the film manages to transition between the three sections and the nine actors and do it seamlessly. The picture takes place over the course of about ten years, jumping in and out of the timeline, but it is edited together so well that it is always clear exactly where the characters are in their lives and what is happening. The story has equal parts tragedy and comedy and it slides easily between the two extremes while depicting the difficult life of Jamal and his older brother Samil growing up in the slums of Mumbai. The economy of storytelling in Slumdog Millionaire is very impressive as each scene accomplishes multiple goals, developing the love story between Jamal and Latika, increasing the tension between Jamal and Samil, and describing how Jamal knows the answers to the questions on the game show. Broken down linearly to its most basic components, the story of Slumdog Millionaire follows that of a prince who has to save his love from a dragon in a tower, but the way that this story has been told brings lots of new and fresh perspectives to that story and its performers add a lot of humor and humanity to the film. As the adult Jamal, actor Dev Patel brings dignity and sensitivity to a role that might otherwise be buried by sentimentality or ruined with too much sarcasm or machismo. Instead, the film allows Jamal humor, intelligence, and earnestness that makes him a great character. The other standout performance in the film is Madhur Mittal as the adult Samil. The character is very much the moral opposite of Jamal as he is corrupted by life on the street, but the picture’s theme of hope penetrates the dark life of the character and gives him a shot at redemption. Like last year’s The Kite Runner, Slumdog Millionaire is a truly international film, including dual directors (one British and the other Indian), a cast of Indians, and a story that synthesizes the Horatio Alger themes of Hollywood, the sound and energy of Bollywood, and the edginess usually reserved for independent cinema. In an age where films are being viewed by increasingly diverse audiences, this multicultural combination is a vision of what the future of cinema could be, and if it is, the future looks very bright. 

3. Doubt

Directed by: John Patrick Shanley

Premise: A power struggle erupts in a Catholic parish and its adjoining private elementary school when a conservative nun (Meryl Streep) suspects the church’s progressive pastor (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of a abusing a child. 

Why It Made the List: Doubt is a nearly perfect film. The performances are remarkable, the technical qualities are top notch, and the story is as well written and thoughtfully executed as could be wanted. The script contains lots of sharp dialogue that the actors, especially Meryl Streep, are able to deliver on. Yet, as smart and as occasionally witty as it is, the film does not give itself over to Aaron Sorkin-like sassiness that would be out of character for the religious figures in the film. Instead, it blazes a different trail, using its drollness to build character and comment upon the issues of power and tradition. The story keeps the audience on tenterhooks as effectively as any thriller and the performances sell the ambiguity of the mystery, maintaining it until the end of the film. Streep is terrific as an old school nun who believes she has figured out the world. The character is presented initially as cold and even heartless, but the script and Streep’s performance very slowly reveal the human being underneath the habit. This contrasts with Hoffman’s role as the church pastor, who is initially very warm and sociable but as the accusation is made he reveals his owns sexism and harbors the possibility of evil. Amy Adams plays a young nun who is largely innocent to the world and gets caught between the two authority figures. As a result of her position, Adams gets some of the most emotionally charged moments in the film and she is able to provide the average audience member with a perspective to view the events of the story. As a technical piece, Doubt makes highly artful use out of its cinematography. For anyone looking to learn about how to effectively use lighting, staging, camera angles, or editing, this film is as good as any textbook, yet it never gets too flashy. As a piece on Catholicism, Doubt is full of interesting perspectives and presentations. The film takes place in the mid-1960s during the Vatican II council and the conflict between the Hoffman and Streep’s characters brings out many of the controversies of the reforms and changes that occurred to the church at that time. Yet, enjoyment or engagement with the film’s themes is not limited to Catholics. Doubt is a portrayal of a crisis of faith that goes deeper than religion and speaks to the very moral and hierarchical structure of society and what happens to individuals and to institutions when human frailty creates cracks in that foundation.  

4. WALL-E

Directed by: Andrew Stanton

Premise: In the future, the earth has become so polluted that humans have left the planet while Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class (WALL-E) robots are left to clean up the mess. After 700 years only one robot remains until the planet is visited by EVE, a robot looking for vegetation. WALL-E is infatuated with EVE and follows her into space, where humans live sedentary lifestyles on luxury starship.

Why It Made the List: The year 2008 saw some impressive animated films such as Kung Fu Panda and Horton Hears a Who!, which are a testament to the power of this medium. However, WALL-E may well be the Citizen Kane of the computer animation genre. The character of WALL-E ranks among other iconic robotic characters like R2-D2 from Star Wars, Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Number 5 from Short Circuit. He is a full character displaying as much emotion and complexity as a human actor, and that is the real revelation behind this film. For the first third of the picture there is virtually no dialogue and even as humans come to figure into the story, dialogue is sparse. WALL-E, EVE, and most other robots speak only in chirps, beeps, and word fragments but the film is able to completely convey their ideas, motivations, and emotions by letting the visuals and intonations of the characters speak for themselves, trusting in the intelligence of the audience to follow along. This is essentially a silent film and WALL-E and his co-stars put on a show that is equivalent to the work of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin; WALL-E’s adventures after EVE are consistent with Keaton’s character in The General and the robot’s physical comedy is very akin to Chaplin’s work in Modern Times. WALL-E is up to the standard set by Keaton and Chaplin and the animators have created an awkward but loveable character and given him great bits of comedy alternating with scenes of drama. EVE is given the same kind of treatment and she has some very touching scenes with WALL-E, which is amazing considering she has no face and her body resembles an egg. Aside from what the film does with the robots (or perhaps through them) WALL-E is able to make a switch in its second half and make some very sharp social satire. The wasteland of the future is not just the stacks of garbage left on Earth’s surface; it extends into the perpetual vacation of mass consumption the humans have allowed themselves to be lulled into. WALL-E includes a lot of allusions to other science fiction films but instead of using them for cheap laughs, WALL-E situates itself into a genre context; this is the science of 2001 and the used future of Star Wars and Alien with the politics of Blade Runner and Metropolis. The result is a next step for the science fiction film; WALL-E brings together the themes and visuals of science fiction’s past and adds, of all things, a romantic comedy between a pair of robots, to bring the genre into a more human place than it has been in a long time.

5. Milk

Directed by: Gus Van Sant 

Premise: A biopic of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a gay rights activist and the first openly gay elected official in California. 

Why It Made the List: In a year that was marked by the mainstreaming of politics, Milk is a terrific political film and a very timely picture. The film is smartly assembled, using Milk’s tape recorded memoir to narrate and structure the story, showing the political maturation of a man and a movement. The picture moves through expository information very well, showing the intricacies of Milk’s political decisions and how he weighed and balanced his political desires with his integrity. The screenplay and Sean Penn’s performance present Harvey Milk as a crafty politician but also as an earnest but flawed human being. Although he is able to maintain his integrity, Milk struggles to balance the professional and the personal and his love life is often impacted by his political life. These sacrifices give Milk’s struggles a personal cost that pays off and increases his heroism and raises the stakes through the first two acts of the story. Milk builds nicely into its final act as Milk leads a struggle against Proposition 6, a ballot initiative that would have prevented openly or suspected homosexuals from holding jobs in schools. This ratchets up the stakes and draws on the characters and strategies established in the first two acts of the picture, linking the specific political struggles of Milk’s career with the larger cultural movement toward equality and fairness. The film’s portrayal of homosexuality is one of the most progressive of any recent film as it displays the issue without dwelling on it unnecessarily but also refusing to shy away from moments of affection between Milk and his partners. The film is also a period piece and it shows the homosexual subculture of San Francisco in the 1970s and how that subculture interacted and in some cases clashed with the dominant culture and how both were changed by their interactions. Aside from Penn’s performance, which is very strong, the film also features a terrific supporting performance by Josh Brolin as San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White. Brolin has a very interesting approach to the character; he does not play White as a raging homophobe or as an overtly corrupt politician but a man who relinquishes control over his life and allows himself to be sucked into a funnel of anger, envy, and irresponsibility. The film’s finale is tragic but Milk is able to shape the events dramatically to create meaning out of it and end on a message of hope not only for homosexuals but for all who care about equality and justice.

6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Directed by: David Fincher

Premise: Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is a child born into the body of an eighty year old man and as he ages his body regresses, growing younger. The film follows Benjamin’s life as he grows up and his body grows younger, as witnessed by the love of his life (Cate Blanchett).

Why It Made the List: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is another great film by director David Fincher, who consistently delivers highly crafted films like Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac. Although much different from those films thematically and tonally, Benjamin Button showcases Fincher’s talents for production design and narrative unity. The story of the film deals very skillfully with the theme of mortality and uses Benjamin’s unique situation to shed some new perspectives on the subject. The character and the film conveys Benjamin’s major life experiences, from his first job, to his first sexual experience, to leaving home for the first time, while reversing the physical age at which he goes through them. The inverse relationship between the man’s body to his mind gives the film the opportunity to separate the two and reexamine how we have generally thought about these events in the grand scheme of our our lives. This is part of the genius of casting Brad Pitt in the role, as the film takes Pitt’s status as a sex symbol and as a movie star and is able to pick at the superficiality of age and beauty. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has some very good performances by Pitt and especially by Cate Blanchett as Daisy. Blanchett is allowed a lot of the big emotional moments and Pitt breaks some new ground for himself as an actor, playing a character who is less in control and less confident than the characters that he usually plays. While dealing with the intimate details of life and death, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button also takes the audience on a journey through the past century of American culture. While it leaves the major historical events mostly in the background, the picture does capture subtler changes in America and as Benjamin changes with the scenery around him the film is able to put its meditations on mortality and passing of time into a broader context. The end result is a story that is among the best films of David Fincher’s career.

7. The Visitor (2008)  

Directed by: Thomas McCarthy

Premise: Walter (Richard Jenkins), a bored academic, has a chance encounter with Tarek and Zainab (Haaz Sleiman and Danai Jekesai Gurira), an illegal immigrant couple. They become friends, bonding over music, until Tarek is arrested and imprisoned in a detention center.

Why It Made the List: The Visitor is a film about the immigrant experience, which is a distinctly American genre. In dealing with foreigners, The Visitor does a terrific job characterizing people of another culture. Many films tend to portray people of color in flat terms, either turning them into characters who are otherwise white or making ethnicity an exotic state of otherness. Even well intentioned pictures often fall into this, and when it happens, the characters are robbed of real human dimensions. The Visitor sidesteps these potholes, allowing its characters to retain their culture but also give them a chance to live and breathe on screen. The film makes a point about this through the drum circles that Tarek plays in, the handcrafted jewelry that Zainab sells on the street, and their interactions with white culture. This raises The Visitor to a higher level of cultural awareness; it’s not very confrontational, but it does make the point without bogging down the story. There are some terrific performances in this film, especially from Richard Jenkins as a man who is shaken out of his malaise and becomes conscious to the diversity of the people around him. Equally good is Hiam Abbass as Mouna, Tarek’s mother. As Walter takes in Mouna and begins a relationship with her, the two actors deliver some quiet scenes with great sexual tension.As an immigrant story, The Visitor is partly about American life in the post-September 11^th world. While many immigrant narratives are about visitors from another country adjusting to life in America, The Visitor reverses this, making Walter the one who really sees America for the first time. What Walter discovers through his interaction with this immigrant family is that the culture and government that he thought he knew is gone and after his multicultural experience he–and the audience–will never see his country or his culture in the same way again. 

8. The Wrestler 

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky

Premise: Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a semi-retired professional wrestler who has been reduced to performing on weekends in high school gymnasiums. After a heart attack, Randy has to quit wrestling and attempts to patch up his relationship with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) while attempting to initiate a romance with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei). 

Why It Made the List: Among American directors there are lots of filmmakers but few who can be called cinematic artists. With Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and now The Wrestler, director Darren Aronofsky has proven himself to be one of the most original and truly visionary directors working in American cinema today. The Wrestler is distinctly different from his other work; it is shot very low tech without the gloss or formalism of so much of his other work and yet the film demonstrates Aronofsky’s willingness to push boundaries and show the audience things they have not seen in mainstream film. The Wrestler does this in a number of ways but most impressive is its willingness to break the viewer’s heart. The picture sets up character relationships that, in a typical Hollywood product, would rescue Randy from himself and wrap up the picture with a neat ending and a feel-good-bow on top. The Wrestler refuses to do that; this film has more respect for its main character and for the audience than to sell out at the last minute. What the film leaves the audience with is a character study unlike anything since Raging Bull. Like Scorsese’s film, the picture portrays the violence in the ring as savage but The Wrester also makes it quite clear that this is theater and Randy and his companions are muscled-out thespians playacting for the crowd. In this, The Wrestler finds a great deal of humor and compassion as these men beat each other to pieces in the ring and then nurse each other’s wounds backstage. The key to The Wrestler is Mickey Rourke as Randy. Rourke has the physical qualities for the role but he also contributes humor and fallibility that bring the character down from the mythic level and make him a likable and vulnerable man. Randy’s misguided attempts at reconnecting with his daughter have an awkwardness about the scenes that betray the man’s indestructible facade and makes him look weak and pitiable. It’s in these scenes that Rourke really shines as an actor, and his character’s failure at everything but entertaining the crowd culminates in a finale that is as emotionally devastating as the beating he takes in the ring. Like it’s main character, The Wrestler is savage in the ring but sensitive outside of it, resulting in a film that captures the humanity of a man who has lost everything but his dignity.

9. Son of Rambow

Directed by: Garth Jennings

Premise: In the mid 1980s, a pair of boys (Will Poulter and Bill Milner), one a rebellious outsider raised by his brother and the other the well behaved son in a super-religious family, see the film First Blood and begin to make a sequel with a home video camera.

Why It Made the List: There is a small niche of films about the joy that cinema can bring for audiences and filmmakers. Pictures like Sullivan’s Travels, Adaptation, and Be Kind Rewind satirize Hollywood while casting a loving eye on the filmmaking process, and others like Scream, The Dreamers, and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers explore the relationship between the cinema and life. Son of Rambow hits right in between these two categories and nails it perfectly. Rather than just recapitulating the original film, Son of Rambow uses First Blood as a starting point and explores how the film spurs the boy’s imaginations. The creativity of each of the junior filmmakers is borne out in the process and each deals with their personal problems through their film. The relationship between the two boys is as real as any seen between two prepubescents on film and the development of their friendship is organic and never feels forced. The tomfoolery of the boys, the recreation of the film, and their misadventures at school are very funny in a smart way. The story has some great supporting characters, namely a New Wave foreign exchange student (Jules Sitruk) who is adored by all the girls at school and the film is able to unify all of its major and supporting elements. Something else the film does extraordinarily, is to satirize the clichés of the Hollywood success story seen in a million other films, sending the boys through the process of starting as a nobody, then gaining fame and having success endanger their relationships and their art, and eventually finding a balance between their success and their creativity. The technical craft of the film is at a surprisingly high level. Despite being a modestly scaled film, Son of Rambow has some terrific cinematography and in spots it uses sound quite effectively. There have been quite a few films about the love of cinema and Son of Rambow ranks among the best. It is a rare gem of a movie that combines high cinematic craft with meaningful substance, a great story, and an all around good nature that is very endearing.

10. John Adams (2008)

Directed by: Tom Hooper

Premise: An adaptation of David McCullough’s book. The film is a mini-series of the life of John Adams (Paul Giamatti), the second president of the United States. The film follows Adams from his participation in the American Revolution through his presidency and into his retirement years.

Why It Made the List: John Adams is an excellent piece of historical filmmaking. The film balances between the micro and macro levels of the story, by show the events through Adams’ point of view. As a result, the film is able to give a rounded and complete view of history, incorporating many of the major events of the revolution, such as the Boston Massacre and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and using them as a backdrop for the immediate, intimate story of Adams’ family and his political career. One of the great elements of the film is its portrayal of the relationship between Adams and his wife, Abigail (Laura Linney). Their marriage does a lot to humanize Adams through humor and intimacy and Adams’ ongoing and turbulent relationship with his sons also grounds the drama in something that is much more immediate and accessible to the viewer. As a historical dramatization, John Adams does a great job of taking the Founding Fathers and presenting these men in such a way that the film reinterprets the culture’s myths and beliefs about these historical figures, making them much more human and allowing us to see ourselves in them. Benjamin Franklin (Tom Wilkinson) is presented as an adept politician who is very much Adams’ opposite in his willingness to play political games even if they come at some cost to others. George Washington also figures prominently and David Morse plays him as a quiet and reserved man of the highest integrity but ultimately a flawed politician. Stephen Dillane plays Thomas Jefferson and his relationship with Adams is the most interesting with the biggest rises and falls in temperament as the two men differ greatly on how the republic should be run and their political aspirations force them to become rivals. Aside from all of the character work, John Adams also works as a historical film by capturing the flavor of life at the time and portraying the revolution and the culture as brutal and difficult. Like Ken Burns’ documentary The War, the film is able to dismiss the sense of inevitability that often kills suspense in these kinds of films and makes it clear that the revolutionaries could have lost the war. As a result, the film is able to convey an appreciation for the work of these men and maintain the dramatic tension of the story. John Adams demonstrates one of the great opportunities of historical filmmaking: the chance to recreate history in a way that brings the audience closer to the events of history and provide an understanding of where we have come from. 

What follows are films that were either runners up to the Top 10 list or other pictures that came out in 2008 that are worth mentioning.  

The Bank Job – A lean and mean heist thriller.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – A worthy follow up to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that does its duty as a sequel to present something different and more complex. 

Cloverfield – A terrific popcorn film that uses a unique approach to resell a familiar storyline.

Gran Torino – A little too heavy handed to make it into the top ten, Clint Eastwood continues his extraordinary string of directorial efforts with Gran Torino, which is among the better films he has made.

Horton Hears a Who! – The best feature length adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book and one of the best animated films of the past few years.

In Bruges – As funny and as hip as it is, the film also manages to include some very interesting character work that makes it more than just a collection of wit.

Iron Man– Ranks among the upper tier of comic book films and Robert Downey Jr. creates one of the most unique and enjoyable superheroes on film. 

Kenny – An Australian film originally released in 2006, Kenny finally saw American release in 2008 and is a terrific film, deserving a spot next to other pseudo documentaries like The Blair Witch Project and This is Spinal Tap.

The Reader – Kate Winslet makes this film and the story raises some interesting issues about forgiveness.  

Recount – A terrific dramatization of the 2000 presidential election that uses the procedure of law to further the entertainment value of the film rather than drown the audience in exposition. 

Religulous – An anti-dogma documentary that might not convert believers but is an entertaining bit of social criticism. 

Revolutionary Road – Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Michael Shannon all give extremely good performances in a film that was a little too shallow to make it into the top ten.  

Speed Racer – The newest film by the Wachowski Brothers was one of the most under appreciated films of the year.

Tropic Thunder – The best comedy of the year also manages to say some critical things about Hollywood and its product.

W. – A fascinating look at the forty-third president that ranks among Stone’s better work, certainly one of the best film’s he has produced in this decade.

These are films that were released in 2008 and have strong word of mouth, and in some cases award nominations, but Nathan was unable to see them in time for the year end summary, usually because they did not open here.

Changeling – Angelina Jolie’s performance has gotten a lot of recognition. 

Happy Go Lucky – This film about an optimistic school teacher has earned some award nominations.

Last Chance Harvey – A romance between two older singles has gotten praise for performances by Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. 

Frost/Nixon – This adaptation of the stage play has been winning lots of praise for Frank Langella’s performance as Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen’s performance as David Frost. 

Standard Operating Procedure – Errol Morris’ latest documentary on incidents of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has received a lot of positive attention. 

Vicky Cristina Barcelona – Woody Allen’s latest film was named best comedic picture at the Golden Globes. 

Waltz with Bahir – An animated film about the 1982 Lebanon War. The film won the top award by the National Society of Film Critics. 

Wendy and Lucy – Named best picture by the Toronto Film Critics Association, the film has gotten a lot of praise for Michelle Williams’ performance. 

This is a list of some of the great performances in 2008, although not all of them were in great movies. 

Che Part I – T he film features great performances by Benicio Del Toro as Che Guevara and Demián Bichir as Fidel Castro. 

The Dark Knight – Heath Ledger’s now legendary performance as The Joker stands out but Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart also make great contributions.  

The Duchess – Although the film wasn’t much more than a Lifetime Network picture, the performance by Keira Knightley is very good. 

Gran Torino – Clint Eastwood does great in this film, using his charisma to make the audience sympathize with a very difficult character.

In Bruges – Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes are all terrific in this film, selling the comedy and the drama of it. 

Iron Man– Robert Downey Jr. creates one of the most unique and enjoyable superheroes on film. 

Milk – Sean Penn’s performance as the late gay rights activist Harvey Milk was sensitive, funny, and humane. 

Rachel Getting Married – Anne Hathaway gives a fabulous performance in a film that is only so-so. 

The Reader – Kate Winslet proves that she is one of the best actresses of her generation and largely saves this film. 

Revolutionary Road – Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Michael Shannon all give extremely good performances in this film.

Tropic Thunder – Robert Downey Jr. plays a pretentious white actor wearing blackface and manages to make us laugh at him rather than at the blackface. 

The Visitor – Richard Jenkins is great in a film that takes his character on a journey of illumination.  

W. – Josh Brolin and the supporting cast are really terrific here, elevating a film that might otherwise have been a Saturday Night Live sketch into a comical but interesting portrayal of government gone awry. 

WALL-E – The animation work on the characters of WALL-E and EVE are as good and as emotionally involving as any by a human actor this year. 

The Wrestler – Mickey Rourke has rightfully been praised for his work in this film. 

What follows are the very bottom of the cinematic heap for 2008. 

1. 10,000 B.C.

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Premise: An epic that follows a young tribesman (Steven Strait) on a transcontinental journey to rescue his love (Camilla Belle) from slavery under an Egyptian pharaoh.

Why It Made the List: Comedian Richard Jenni used to say that there are some movies that just slap you in the face with how bad they are. 10,000 B.C. is one of those movies. It would be charitable to say this is a B-movie on an A-movie budget but at least with most B-movies, the filmmakers don’t treat the audience with such contempt. The laziness in the filmmaking demonstrated in 10,000 B.C. is an insult to the intelligence of the viewer. Character development is nonexistent, the dialogue is inane, the romance is stock, and the action sequences are sloppy. The picture has scope but as the hero journeys across it, he learns absolutely nothing about himself or about the world. The film has no antagonist; the Egyptians do not really do anything on screen and the Pharaoh is kept underneath a veil for the whole picture. The story has no sense of pacing either within scenes or across the narrative, with emotional and plot beats hit grotesquely on the nose. The picture tries for big ideas in the end but the attempt to end on a big message is disingenuous because nothing is done before the conclusion to work up to that message. The action scenes lack any build up or showmanship; the film just slips into an action sequence here and there and slips out without anything gained. Most bothersome is the understated racism of the film; Africans are portrayed in generic tribal fashion seen on old TV episodes of Tarzan, languishing under oppression, waiting for the white guy from the mountains to free them. For a major studio to put all these creative and financial resources on screen for this is downright criminal and makes 10,000 B.C. the worst film of the year. 

2. College (2008)

Directed by: Deb Hagan

Premise: Three high school seniors (Kevin Brewer, Andrew Caldwell, Kevin Covais) visit a college campus for a weekend and end up staying in a fraternity house. The brothers of the house turn them into recruits and set about hazing them. In the process, the senior boys meet a trio of women at a sorority house.

Why It Made the List: College is easily the most disastrous comedy released in 2008. The three male leads are pathetic, paper-thin imitations of the characters in Superbad but without the innocence and good heartedness that made Superbad’s characters so much fun to watch. The fraternity brothers are more disgusting and less funny versions of the same character types in Van Wilder and Old School, and their actions cross over from adolescent shenanigans and into downright psychotic behavior. Beyond being just cliché ridden and unfunny—it hasn’t got a single laugh in its entire ninety-four minute running time—it’s also misogynistic, homophobic, and all around obnoxious. You know a comedy is in trouble when the only funny thing in it are the outtakes that run over the end credits.

3. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

Directed by: Dennis Dugan

Premise: An Israeli super-spy gives up his career in the army and travels to New York to become a hairdresser. He finds work at a salon run by a Palestinian and tries to hide his identity.

Why It Made the List: It takes a lot to be Adam Sandler’s worst film, but You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is quite possibly it. Zohan is one of Sandler’s most grotesque creations. Unlike Will Ferrell, who is an expert in creating obnoxious idiots and making the audience love them, Sandler’s approach to this character and others has been to just keep pressing the annoyance buzzer over and over again until the audience leaves the theater or surrenders and goes along with the joke. Every attempt at humor in the film is lame and can be seen a mile out. What’s worse, the film makes a halfhearted attempt at commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but whenever the film needs a laugh it runs to ethnic humor in the same way that I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry  ran to homophobic humor while trying to take a stand for gay rights. Ethnic stereotypes and idiosyncrasies can be funny if they are done with a sense of irony and self-deprecation, but You Don’t Mess with the Zohan just keeps running back to exploiting Middle Eastern jokes that aren’t funny and are totally unoriginal.

4. The Spirit

Directed by: Frank Miller

Premise: An adaptation of the Will Eisner comic book. The Spirit (Gabriel Macht), an invincible crime fighter, takes on criminals in his beloved city and reunites with his childhood crush (Eva Mendes).

Why It Made the List: Frank Miller just does not seem to understand that what works on the comic book page does not necessarily belong on the movie screen. Although Sin City was a great film, its weaknesses were rooted in its strict adherence to its source. The Spirit makes this weakness the rule rather than the exception by borrowing the style of Sin City but not demonstrating the same finesse or skill with the filmmaking tools. The Spirit constantly uses highly stylized sequences that do not advance the story, and they often cloud what is going on. The picture is a gaudy display of meaningless style and hyperactive editing that makes Speed Racer look like The Blair Witch Project but makes much less sense. The picture’s regard for women is rather bothersome and downright sexist. Like Sin City, all the female characters are presented as highly sexual beings but unlike Sin City, The Spirit does not allow them the intelligence, independence, and characterization that marked the females of the former film. In time, The Spirit might find an audience that will appreciate its flaws but for now the film is a low note in what has been an otherwise stellar year for comic book adaptations.

5. Bangkok Dangerous

Directed by: Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang

Premise: An experienced assassin (Nicolas Cage) finds his mission and life in danger when he takes time to develop relationships with a deaf pharmacy clerk (Charlie Yeung) and a pickpocket (Shahkrit Yamnarm).

Why It Made the List: Bangkok Dangerous is a ludicrous action film almost to the point that it’s hard to believe this is not a joke gone awry. The film casts Nicolas Cage as a coldhearted assassin and he absolutely does not work in this role. The script tries to build sympathy for the character through two subplots: one involving a young street hustler who Cage’s character takes on as an apprentice and the other a romantic story between the assassin and a good hearted pharmacist. Both subplots are really ridiculous, with the scenes of Cage training his apprentice looking like outtakes from The Karate Kid and the romantic scenes feeling like they are from a completely separate movie. By the time the climax arrives, the film throws together an action scene that is incomprehensible and finally ends the film on a hopeless note of self sacrifice. Bangkok Dangerous should have been a direct to video release staring Steven Segal or Dolph Lundgren and if Nicolas Cage isn’t careful he is going to end up right next to them on the shelf at the video store. 

6. Semi-Pro

Directed by: Kent Alterman

Premise: In the 1970s, a low ranking ABA basketball team rallies under a goofy owner and head coach (Will Ferrell) to save their season before the league is merged into the NBA.

Why It Made the List: The fatal flaw of Semi-Pro is its inability to reconcile the sports story with the screwball comedy. The promotions put on by Ferrell’s character are only relevant for the moment they appear on screen and they are just excuses for Ferrell to act like an idiot. These stunts divert attention from the cliché riddled basketball story, which relies on scenarios that have been done before and done better in a million other movies. The humor of the movie is very scattershot, with the filmmakers leaning on Ferrell to pull out his likable moron routine whenever they need a laugh. But it’s not enough to save Semi-Pro, and the entire film has a lazy feel about it; apparently no effort went into the story, the jokes, the characters, the acting, or the basketball choreography and that lack of effort is painfully obvious on screen.  

7. Eagle Eye

Directed by: D.J. Caruso

Premise: Two strangers (Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan) find themselves coerced into following the instructions of a mysterious cell phone caller. The pair struggles to complete the tasks set before them while being pursued by government anti-terrorism agents.

Why It Made the List: Eagle Eye is a mish-mash of Enemy of the State, I, Robot, and Saw. If that sounds like an odd combination, it is. What starts out as a North by Northwest-style wrong man story quickly gets out of control with implausible scenarios and holes in the plot that push the film away from being entertaining escapism and into being insultingly stupid. This film plays so fast and loose with its own logic that it takes a road map to keep up with it and as it moves from a detective story and into a science fiction story, the film gets stranger and sillier. The technology of Eagle Eye is played out as some realistic portrayal of spy games but to anyone with a modicum of knowledge about telecommunications or electronics, it quickly becomes apparent that the screenwriters are just making this up as they go along. In addition to the ridiculousness of the story, the action scenes are so sloppy that it is hard to tell if the heroes even survived until they pop up in the next scene. Eagle Eye is a movie desperate to impress the audience with how clever it is and so sends the audience through twists and turns but in the end it’s so convoluted and so stupid that it actually insults the intelligence of the viewer. 

8. Max Payne

Directed by: John Moore

Premise: An adaptation of the video game. A hardboiled police detective (Mark Wahlberg) searches for the killer of his wife and child years after the case has gone cold when new clues linking the killer to a pharmaceutical company show up. 

Why It Made the List: Max Payne plods along, fumbling for what exactly it is attempting to do. The picture starts out as a supernatural thriller but then it reveals that all of this was the product of drug induced hallucinations. That might have worked if the film had taken care to execute those scenes in such a way that suggests a subjective point of view. But the film does not do that and so what Max Payne is left with are visuals in the background that have no relevance to what is going on in the foreground. The story follows a plot similar to the Marv storyline in Sin City or the conspiracy of The Fugitive but the filmmakers apparently were just not that interested in detective work and opt for Max Payne breaking down doors and hitting people with the butt of his gun until they talk. It’s lazy writing that kills the mystery and makes every scene predictable. Max Payne is just another bad video game adaptation short circuited by its own lack of focus.

9. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Directed by: Nathan Frankowski

Premise: A documentary film, hosted by Ben Stein, following the controversy over suppression of academic freedom and scientific discourse on intelligent design.

Why It Made the List: Expelled is a documentary ostensibly about the suppression of academic freedom,  but it spends most of its time advocating intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinian theories of evolution. As Stein states early on in the picture, bad science, like the view that the world is flat, should not be taught in classrooms and the middle portion of the film attempts to untangle intelligent design from religious traditions and argue that it ought to be evaluated by the scientific method. But Expelled never does that and then undercuts itself as it shifts gears to impugn evolutionary theory for being godless. The picture gets really childish as it juxtaposes evolutionary science with stock footage of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, trying to make an analogy that isn’t there. This hyperbole makes it impossible to take the film seriously and in the end, Expelled conflates intelligent design and religion into one, backtracking on its own arguments and setting up false dilemmas. The originally stated intent of the film, to expose infringement upon academic freedom, is really just a ruse to advocate for a discredited theory and then accuse anyone who disagrees with that theory of being the moral equivalent of a Nazi.  

10. The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Directed by: Scott Derrickson

Premise: A remake of Robert Wise’s 1951 film. An alien spacecraft lands in Central Park with an emissary named Klaatu (Keanu Reeves). After warning the Secretary of Defense that human beings will be exterminated if they do not stop harming the planet, Klaatu finds himself on the run with a scientist (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson (Jaden Smith) as they attempt to dissuade the extraterrestrials from destroying the planet.

Why It Made the List: The remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still  manages to tell a story about the impending end of humanity and have absolutely no tension. For long stretches the film has little or nothing going on and fills the screen time with the lead characters sitting in a car. Science fiction films often deal with social issues and politics but there is a difference between tapping into relevant anxieties and just superficially using them as window dressing. The Day the Earth Stood Still does the later and the film’s halfhearted attempt to capitalize on the political zeitgeist of 2008 is cheap and largely thoughtless. 

Comic Book Films:
If 2008 had any one feature, it was the mainstreaming of comic book films. With a few exceptions, these pictures were consistently excellent both in narrative qualities and in technical craft. 

• The Dark Knight 
• Hellboy II – The Golden Army
• The Incredible Hulk
• Iron Man 
• The Punisher: War Zone 
• The Spirit 
• Wanted

Excellent Animated Films
The animation genre continued to prove it was a cutting edge form with films that challenged story telling conventions and often outdid their live action counterparts.  

• Bolt! 
• Horton Hears a Who! 
• Kung Fu Panda 
• Speed Racer 
• WALL-E

Adult-Themed Films
There were a number of films dealing with themes or including content that would have earned an NC-17 a previous years, but managed to slip through the censors and provide truly grown up entertainment. 

• Forgetting Sarah Marshall  
• The Reader 
• Tropic Thunder 
• The Wrestler   
• Zach and Miri Make a Porno