2008 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 2008:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. Kung Fu Panda
4. Hancock
5. Mamma Mia!
6. Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa
7. Quantum of Solace
8. Iron Man
9. WALL-E
10. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

What are your top three films for 2008? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Synecdoche, New York
2. Summer Hours
3. Still Walking

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

1. The Wrestler
2. Step Brothers
3. Burn After Reading
4. The Dark Knight
5. Changeling
6. Frost/Nixon
7. Slumdog Millionaire
8. Tropic Thunder
9. Milk
10. Benjamin Button

 

Let the Right One In is great atmospheric horror, minus a bad cat scene. Medicine for Melancholy and Nights and Weekends are both low-key directorial debuts by two emerging titans of the industry. Our Beloved Month of August only scratched the surface of what Miguel Gomes is capable of. Happy-Go-Lucky was a great change of pace for Mike Leigh. The Happening is one of the best b-movies of the century. A Christmas Tale, 35 Shots of Rum, Che, and Frontier of Dawn are from the greats. Despite a weird crack on another topic, Tulpan is the only Kazakh film I have seen, but it has a great feel to it.

 

1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. Tropic Thunder

 

I forgot Wendy and Lucy, Night and Day, 24 City, Rachel Getting Married, Wendy and Lucy, Burn After Reading, and Somers Town. A lot of truly great movies.

The Headless Woman gets a lot of praise, but it hasn't ever clicked for me.

 

1. Synecdoche, New York
2. Two Lovers
3. Rachel Getting Married

Summer Hours delayed the process, but I went with Rachel Getting Married. One of Demme's best. Synecdoche, New York is a singular work, it's rare to get such sprawlingly introspective and personal art from anyone. Two Lovers is my favorite James Gray. I think.

Others I thought about were Night and Day, Speed Racer (the only anime adaptation that has embraced the absurdity of the source material's visual language), Burn After Reading (up there with the hardest I've laughed in a theater), Sugar (one of the best baseball movies ever made), Let the Right One In, Wendy and Lucy, and the Dark Knight is a fun mix of Heat and Batman that I enjoy despite some flaws.

 

1. The Dark Knight
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. Ponyo

4. Wall-E
5. In Bruges
6. The Good, The Bad, The Weird
7. The Wrestler
8. Ip Man
9. Bronson
10. Happy-Go-Lucky

Also love Let the Right One In, Pineapple Express, Slumdog Millionaire, Hunger, The Brothers Bloom, Gran Torino, The Chaser, Iron Man, Doubt and Tokyo Sonata.

 

That cat scene is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

 

1. Synecdoche, New York
2. In Bruges
3. Step Brothers

 

1. The Dark Knight
2. The Fall
3. Man on Wire

 

1. The Strangers
2. Milk
3. Repo! The Genetic Opera

 

1. The Dark Knight
2. Hunger
3. Doubt

This is probably overall my lowest rated year out of the films I've seen. Beyond those three, I'd mention Pineapple Express, Role Models, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Wall-E, and Hurt Locker. I saw some real duds in theaters this year.

 

Synecdoche, New York
Doubt
The Dark Knight

HM: In Bruges, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Tropic Thunder, Step Brothers, Man On Wire, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Speed Racer, Burn After Reading, Sugar, A Christmas Tale, Summer Hours, The Square, Wall-E, Let The Right One In, The Wrestler, Slumdog Millionaire

 

A bit of a lightweight year but still one of that has plenty of all-time favourites with the following three being some of them -

1. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
2. In Bruges
3. WALL·E

Those in bold are other favourites while the rest are notable releases I enjoy; The Good, The Bad, The Weird, A Matter of Loaf and Death, The Dark Knight, Burn After Reading, Eden Lake, Mesrine: Public Enemy #1, Mesrine: Killer Instinct, Quantum of Solace, Ip Man, Lake Mungo, Iron Man, Gran Torino, Bolt, Horton Hears a Who!, Changeling, The Bank Job, and JCVD.

 

1. Synecdoche New York
2. Let the Right One In
3. In Bruges

the top 2 are two of my favorites of the decade. Rachel Getting Married was close for the 3 spot. WALL-E might be the best of Pixar. Let the Right One In might not be so high if I didn’t see it in a really cool indie theatre, perfect for such an atmospheric movie. If we were ranking movie trailers Let the Right One In would be my # 2 all time, just behind the Prometheus trailer.

 

1. Tropic Thunder
2. Wall-E
3. The Dark Knight

 

1. Synecdoche, New York
2. Bronson
3. Che

Synecdoche, New York creates its own world where art and life being to blur together and eventually start sprawling outward. I have watched this film many times and every time find a new line to follow or some detail to appreciate, I look forward to watching it again as it been a few years since I last viewed and I'm sure I'll have another unique experience.

Bronson starts a turning point in Refn's career, we get his classic man seeking redemption through violence story, hyper stylised visuals matched with outrun dark techno music but hes yet to start the process of distilling dialogue & acting out of his films. I love this film, so fun to watch, Tom Hardys body transformations is one of the best ever and its matched with an electric performance.

I enjoyed The Happening when it came out but Its very reminiscent of the feeling I've had watching the absurd behaviour of people during a pandemic and catching yourself acting in your own weird ways in reaction to an invisible threat.

 

1. Synechdoche, New York
2. Wall-E
3. Burn After Reading

Honorable mentions:

The Dark Knight
In Bruges
Step Brothers
Rachel Getting Married
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Let the Right One In
The Wrestler
Tropic Thunder
Pineapple Express
Frost/Nixon

I'm glad I didn't see Synechoche when it came out, because I don't think I would have appreciated it. I saw it for the first time 5 or 6 years ago and was awestruck. It's frustrating to see how it was received when it came out.

Wall-E is just so great. Visually spectacular, with a vision of the future that seems more prescient as time goes on. Ahead of its time.

I'll admit I don't really know what to do with the Dark Knight. The film as a whole is overrated relative to the attention it gets, but I do enjoy it and Heath Ledger's performance really is that good. One of the best ever.

Similar to the comment I made in the 2007 thread, it's crazy to remember that mainstream comedies like Step Brothers, Tropic Thunder, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall all were released in the same year. All great stuff, and they hold up pretty well in my opinion.

 

i just need dark knight not to win

 

1. Synecdoche, New York
2. In Bruges
3. Let the Right One In

 

The Internet has collectively discussed it to death, but the part that is most infuriating is that the movie spends a lot of time teasing a conflict between privacy versus security, making clear parallels to the Bush Administration, with the climax being Batman's super machine that can spy on every phone in the city in order to capture the Joker. Morgan Freeman talks about the moral questions this poses, but it is all wrapped up in a nice little bow because Batman made it self-destruct once the Joker is caught and it is never mentioned again in the next movie. The only way The Dark Knight gets a pass is because the politics of The Dark Knight Rises are so much worse.

I would rather take a mindless superhero movie than one that makes a desperate grab for themes it is never going to fully address.

 

1. In Bruges
2. Still Walking
3. Love Exposure

In Bruges is without doubt one of my favourite films, a brilliant blend of comedy and tragedy, and full of stupidly quotable lines. I went to Bruges a few years ago, and I can confirm it's much closer to a "fairytale fucking town" than a "fucking shithole".

Still Walking is Kore-Eda at his best - a naturalistic family drama, involving multiple generations, and turning a relatively slight and grounded story into something remarkable.

Love Exposure is Sion Sono's demented four hour film about ultra-violence, sin, guilt and sex, and pretty much everything else. Full of energy, the time flies by, and it's the quickest four hour film I've ever seen.

Honourable mentions;

The Story of Anvil is one of my favourite documentaries - a touching and absurd story about a band just wouldn't quit. Love it - though not enough to actually listen to Anvil's music.

Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky is a lighter film from him, about an optimistic young woman living in London, who doesn't let anything get her down.

A couple of very silly, very violent Japanese films, The Machine Girl & Tokyo Gore Police, both of them are part of a little sub-genre of bloody, but totally charming little films, of which there was a flurry of in the next 5 or so years.

Very different vibe, Departures, also from Japan, is a touching drama - it's a little emotionally manipulative, but quite heartfelt.

The Coen's Burn After Reading is a little light for them, but some great comic performances from a big ensemble cast here.

Hunger is a very powerful Steve McQueen film about Bobby Sands, and the hunger strikes. It has this wonderful ~20 minute unbroken take of a conversation between Sands and a priest, that's captivating.

Two very different animated films, the child-friendly and delightful Ponyo, and the harrowing Waltz With Bashir.

Pablo Larraín's little hot streak of films starts this year with Tony Manero, a wonderfully bizarre film about a guy obsessed with John Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever. Has an incredible ending.

Summer Hours is a good family drama from Olivier Assayas, starring the always great Juliette Binoche.

Finally, Kazakhstan's Tulpan is a simple little drama from a part of the world you don't see too often in films. My favourite little moment is where we see two young men sitting around looking at centrefolds in a magazine; one looking at pornography, the other looking at Prince Charles and Diana.

 

1. The Chaser
2. The Wrestler
3. Ip Man

For my money Na Hong Jin is the best popcorn thriller director currently doing it. The Chaser is up there with any Fincher movie for me

 

To be fair, Heath dying could have maybe changed it up. Probably not but who knows.

I’m easy to please so I guess I was okay with what they did with it, other than maybe it’s just too neat to have Batman/Wayne just destroy it all no questions asked. Like obviously real world billionaire ain’t giving that up hah. But for a super hero movie, that was good enough for me. The rest of the movie was just too damn good for me to let that message (or lack thereof) mess it up for me

 

The Dark Knight is a good superhero movie with some major flaws in philosophy but it is not a great film above other good superhero movies in my humble opinion. It certainly doesn’t approach the top 5 of 2008 and I promised myself I’d stop rehashing all the reasons it’s just a good superhero movie around 2009