It's been a really light year for me, so I haven't gotten to see that many. And there are still a few that I have yet to see but
really want to, like In Bruges or Frost/Nixon. Of the few that I've seen tho,
these are my top ten faves (so far):
10. [REC]
Take what Cloverfield took from The Blair Witch Project, add a dash of 28 Days later, and then sprinkle on some sub-titles (at least, in my case),
& there you go. A quality zombie flick of which I rarely get to see without a giant glob of gooey camp splattered all over it.
9. Fear[s] Of The Dark
A really cool anthology horror flick that's done all in black & white animation. Five different short stories, each written by one of five different artist and/or comic book creators with a style based on that particular creator's artstyle. The film also includes 2 intervals stitching the whole thing together. Each story's animation done with a real sense of vibrancy, despite the monochromatic color scheme, enhancing the feel of creepiness that is the heart of this film's intention.
Just plain good stuff all around.
8. The Fall
A fairy tale fantasy of hope told by a "real-world" stuntman who has given up on it "all". A visually creative film with claims of no CGI (?). A refreshing & yet still stunningly lavish epic for those who want a break from the usually computer-generated eye candy that has become the norm.
7. Kung Fu Panda
Alot of the same stuff I said for Wall-E, though Kung Fu Panda has enough of it's own style to stand away on it's own. I don't think that the story was told as successfully as Wall-E's, but the next level of the "anthropormorphic" facial expressions & the characteristics of the movements reached in this film seem to make up for it. The humour is displayed as much in the way the characters move & "act" as it is in the jokes in the script.
(Quick side note: This year I also watched the two Appleseed movies on video. And looking at the evolution of these two anime films just made a few years ago, coupled against the more westernized works such as this years's entries of Kung Fu Panda & Wall-E , I truly feel that we are living during a good time in the making of 3-D animated features.)
6. Iron-Man
As a comicbook nerd, it's really cool for me that more of these types of movies are being made with more attention to the quality, visually & "creatively".
I found this one a much more cohesive origin story than Marvel's major player, Spiderman's first go-at-it. The problem with the first film of any superhero flick is to be able to show enough of a detailed origin while still leaving enough room in the film for a transition of the character learning to deal with his/her powers & then some kind climatic confrontation with some sort of antagonist figure. I found this movie to be much better paced than other initial efforts of Marvel properties like the Hulk or Spiderman, with a much more naturalness to the characters, as evidenced by Downey Jr's humor & the comfortable chemistry between he, Gweneth Paltrow & Terence Howard.
5. The Dark Knight
Considering that it seems like everyone & their grandma went out to go see this, do I really need to explain why this one kix so much ass...?
Gotham City is falling apart, Bruce Wayne is becoming more distant, chaotic vigilantism is growing more rampant & on top of it all, there's some crazy make-up wearing Joker out there taking advantage of it all.
Heath Ledger in a final performance that marks a high point in his all too short career.
4. The Wrestler
A down to Earth tale that takes place behind the scenes of the squared circle lifestyle that is the "rasslin' world. The Wrestler is a film that shows what can happen when the accumulated effects of one "passed his prime" superstar's "bad" decisions catch up to him before his dreams do.
When they talk about a "performance that makes the movie", this film is almost as pure of a definition of that statement as it gets. Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy the Ram" Robinson [is] this movie. And it's definitely my favorite single acting performance of the year.
3. Cloverfield
This movie gets an extra point just for the surprise factor of how much I ended up enjoying it. I really didn't expect to like this as much as I did. I saw this flick with my brother-in-law, & remember that when the lights in the theatre came on, we both looked at each with an expression of "Whoa" on our faces.
As an adult, one of my absolute favorite things about going to the movies is when I see a film that brings back those feelings that I used to experience as a kid whenever I saw something that was too fantastic that it was beyond the realm of our realty & yet watch it come to life on the big screen in front of me.
A giant alien monster ragin' thru the streets of the Big Apple is a pretty good f'rinstance.
2. Wall-E
It seems like these days, every season, an animated movie comes out displaying the next level of computer-generated visuals. For the year of 2008, it was this film & Kung Fu Panda. While not so surprising in that I (we?) expected the details in the graphics to be as detail & realistic as they were, it's still quite stunning to behold.
And even though Wall-E contains the basic formula elements one would expect from such a family film, it's still quite surprising how often & consistantly filmmakers are able to intergrate the amazing graphics into the quality of the storytelling in a manner that seems fresh & keeps the messages from feeling too cliche. At the rate that these types of highly sophisticated computer animated flicks are being released, it's remarkble that the ratio has been so much more good than bad.
A futuristic story that despite it's epic themes of environmentalism, technological over-dependence & the effects of idleness on the soul of humanity when it is stripped away from the natural strife of life, at it's heart, it's also an effective story of loneliness & longing between two computer-animated robots that despite their mechanical make-up, offer up enough heartfelt human emotion that is depicted with just a simple vocabulary that consists of nothing more than their names & a directive.
1. Let The Right One In
Good horror movies come so rarely into my life. The same with good vampire movies. And the same also goes for good love stories (I refrain from using the term "romance movies" since I find Hollywood's idea of romance is always so impossibly & ridiculously fairy-tale-like). This movie is 2 outta 3 (Though there is some, it's very light on the horror). Told more in an adult manner, yet still with enough of an escapist sensibilty that is respective to the genre, this is a soft, beautiful & beguiling story (which is really saying something since I don't know what that word means) of two 12 year olds finding love for the first time thru the flaws of each of their separate (& sometimes desperate) life situations.
The lead actors for this movie portray their characters with a true down to earth awkwardness that is usually found with kids at this age, along with a longing that is both sincere & convincing.
As far as vampire love stories go, I find myself agreeing with those who compare this one with another human-falls-for-bloodfeeder film that was released around the same time :
the 15 year old girls can have their Twilight. I'll take LTROI.
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