The Best of 2008

It was hard, hard to come up with a top ten for 2008. It feels as though its a year that has been severely lacking in great movies. Apart from the top four I don't think there any genuine classics in this list just lots of very good movies. Previous years its been easy to come up with ten genuine greats, this year not so much.

Anyway for better or worse these are my favorite ten movies of 2008.

10. Pineapple Express

While it didn't live up to the fantastic trailer that made it look like some kind of indie Tarantino spin off, Pineapple Express was still the best comedy of 2008. Its a strange concoction of a movie as its laugh out loud funny as well as providing some great action beats and violence that you usually associate with the cinema of Seagal or Van Damme. Will probably go down as the most quoted film of 2008 just as Superbad was in 2007. Great performances from Seth Rogen and James Franco as the two leads and also Craig Robinson and Danny McBride in great supporting roles.

9. Cloverfield

The marketing strategy for this film was awe inspiring and paid off in spades at the beginning of the year. Most critics seem to have forgotten this film when it came time to write their top ten lists for the year. Along with my number one movie this was the thrill ride of the year. Its a sharp, thrilling and bleak hour and a bit of giant monster thrills. When I first saw this I complained that the leads were not really actors and more Calvin Klein models, therefore I didn't give a rats ass when they died. This has since faded after viewing it 8 times or something. Great special effects and just the right level of gore. Its all gone quiet on talk of a sequel, anyone know what's happening with that?

8. In Bruges

In Bruges was pretty much ignored by the cinema going public in the spring. Since coming out on DVD its slowly started to gain a following. Along with Pineapple Express this will be quoted for years to come. Colin Farrell got his mojo back with a performance that manages to be both funny and tragic at the same time. Brendan Gleeson plays the nicest gangster ever seen on screen and Ralph Fiennes was just perfect as a nasty piece of work with principles. In Bruges is a film that gets better the more you watch it, especially if you apply the whole purgatory theory against it as some people have done. Proof that you don't have to follow Guy Richie's example to make a great British gangster movie.

7. Hellboy 2 – The Golden Army

I thought long and hard about whether or not to put Iron Man in this slot but I finally decided to put Del Toro's magnificent sequel into number seven. Both Hellboy 2 and Iron Man are effects geek wet dreams, On blu-ray both films are a joy as you can really make out all the detail in the effects and production design. On first viewing Hellboy 2 flies by and you are presented with so much visual delight that its a sensory overload. However watch it again and you can focus on both the cracking script and the visuals. Eliminating the sympathetic human character was a risk but they really made it work here, there isn't any doubt about who your sympathies lie with from the moment where Hellboy is pelted with rocks by angry humans.  Del Toro piles on sequence after sequence of fantastic imagination and proves that he was the best possible choice for the Hobbit. My only fear is that now he is busy with the middle earth prequel and the ten picture deal at Universal we may have to wait a while for Hellboy 3. Maybe Del Toro can get one of his new on the scene Spanish contemporaries to take over. I would love to see where they take the story after the ending of this one.

6. Son of Rambow

I frequently moan about the lack of originality and the sheep mentality in British cinema. In 2008 a wholly original British movie came out and nobody paid any attention. Son of Rambow is one the most touching and heart warming tales of childhood friendship since Stand by Me with great performances by its young cast. Anyone who had their mind blown by one particular film at a very young age can appreciate this movie as will anyone who ever felt like an outcast during that terrifying time between the ages of 11 and 13. Garth Jennings really delivered the goods with this movie, its a film that has the ability to make grown men weep.

5. The Orphanage

Spain is currently producing the best horror cinema in the world and has overtaken Japan as the worlds number one distributor of stylish adult chills. The Orphanage oozes class and chills with every twist and turn and luckily is supported by a great great performance from Belen Rueda as a frantic mother who just wants to know where her son went and if there really is anybody there or if she is just going mad. This film is further proof to Hollywood that you don't need CGI and tons of gore to be scary, all you need is solid performances and a great script and a director who knows how to produce tension. Sadly it seems most of the world are under the impression that Guillermo Del Toro directed this movie as his name was placed all over the advertising. The actual director Juan Antonio Bayona is definitely going to be a name to watch.

4. No Country for Old Men

Apologies to anyone in the states who read about this film on everyone's list last year. One of the bum things about living in the UK is that the real quality films from the previous year get released in January. No Country for Old Men is one of my favorite films to win Oscars for a long while, well since Return of The King anyway. The Coen brothers masterpiece sneaks up on you slowly. On first viewing I was thrilled by the initial cat and mouse chase between Llewellyn Moss and Anton Chigurgh but then puzzled by the ending. A few days later I could not get the ending out of my head and in particular the final mournful scenes of Tommy Lee Jones as the ageing lawman approaching retirement. It was then that I got the film and the fact that its all about how times have moved on and murder has become a more commonplace event in this crazy world that the previous generation no longer understand. Yeah I know its kind of given away in the title. I've watched this film many times since and every time I find something new that stands out. It is absolutely perfect and like a classic album will get better as the years go on.

3. The Mist

November 2007 this came out in the US, July 2008 it then came out in the UK, showed on about two screens between Kung Fu Panda and Wanted and disappeared. That this film got that sort of treatment is shocking but its good to see that since it came out on DVD its gotten more and more acclaim and its reputation as a horror classic will grow and grow. Upon my first viewing of this I thought it deserved its place alongside The Thing and Dawn of The Dead as a horror classic. I was worried that as a I watched it more that level of hyperbole would no longer be justified. Well guess what? the hype IS justified. I've seen this five or six times now and every time it gets me where it hurts. This is a classic horror that is less about the creatures than it is about how people react in a crisis and the sad fact is we are simple creatures who will look for a quick and simple answer and this is what evil people will take advantage of. That's the scariest part of this movie. All the performances in this film are top notch. Marcia Gay Harden could have been over the top as Mrs Carmody but she pits it just the right level between downright hysteria and vulnerability so that come the ending you don't know on which side you would fall if you were in this situation. Thomas Jane, Toby Jones and Laurie Holden are all very solid too but the unsung hero of this movie is William Sadler. His character Jim is really the one to watch in this, he embodies the common man in crisis. The ending is one of the most harsh and shocking endings to a movie ever but somehow just feels right given what has come before. Frank Darabont needs to make more horror. Absolutely the best adaptation ever of any of Stephen Kings horror stories.

2. WALL – E

Pixar's latest movie is their best so far. Its an absolute joy from bleak start to touching finale. At the beginning of the year I was convinced that this and Prince Caspian would be the ones to beat this year. WALL-E didn't really turn out to be the big big movie of the year but made a lot of critics lists at the end of the year. Don't be surprised if this ends up winning an Oscar in February. So many scenes of this movie are beautiful and make me well up with tears but the dance in space has to take the prize. Further proof that Pixar are the best studio of modern times.

1. The Dark Knight

Not sure what else I can say about this dark crime/superhero masterpiece that has not already been said. Sure Heath Ledger's final performance as the Joker is remarkable but the more I watch this the more I realize that Aaron Eckhardt was also really good as Harvey Dent/Two Face and is ultimately the dark troubled soul of the film along with Gary Oldman as a constantly conflicted Jim Gordon. Watching this on Blu-ray the action scenes are presented in the Imax format and you can really appreciate how much work must have gone into them to make them as amazing as they are. The Dark Knight has changed the way comic based movies are perceived and will more than likely change the way they are made going forward. After this the time has never felt more right for a faithful adaptation of Watchmen. It is not just the best comic book movie of all time but one of the best movies of all time as well.

Also very good but not worth adding to the DVD collection until they go cheap:

Sweeney Todd, The King of Kong, Iron Man, Doomsday, Wristcutters – A Love Story, Wanted, The Bank Job, Appleseed – Ex Machina, The Incredible Hulk, Gone Baby Gone, Rec, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Death Note, Eagle Eye, Burn After Reading, The Ruins, Cashback, The Forbidden Kingdom, Kung Fu Panda, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Quantum of Solace, The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian, Chocolate.

The Worst Films of 2008:

Donkey Punch: Badly acted trash that could have been written by the editor of the daily star.

The Happening: Not as bad as you have heard, actually far worse. So bad that its possible Shyamalan may never recover.

The X-Files I want to believe: a complete waste of a franchise and the final nail in the coffin for a once great TV show.

Funny Games: Imagine coming out of Hostel part two and finding an angry German who beats you over the head repeatedly with a VHS copy of Faces of Death whilst screaming 'naughty'. That is basically Funny Games.

Semi-Pro: Will Ferrell in a 70s setting was funny once, here it just feels tired and stale.

Paranoid Park: Part skateboard documentary, part guilt trip, all snooze fest.

Balls of Fury: One of the most badly written and directed comedies in years.

The Tripper: What happens when an average actor and his friends go away for a hazy smoke up in the woods and take a video camera? This film is the answer to that question.

10,000 BC: Seriously, what was this all about? why did I not care?