Top Ten: The Best Films of 2008

By Zack McGhee | Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 02:24 AM

It’s that time. To be eligible for the list, a film must have opened theatrically in Cincinnati, Dayton or Columbus for the first time in 2008. Movies that never played here theatrically but appeared on U.S. DVD in 2008 were also eligible. (This means several films that are receiving awards attention won’t be eligible ‘til next year, including The Wrestler, Gran Torino, Wendy and Lucy, and countless others.)

What follows are my ten favorite movies of the year:

10. The Wackness (Jonathan Levine) This indie flick about an aimless teenage pot dealer takes us wistfully back to New York City, 1994. I was taken wistfully back to a time when movies like this were getting made a little more often.

9. Burn After Reading (Joel & Ethan Coen) I may have misunderestimated the Coens’ first post-Oscar outing; subsequent viewings reveal a more knowing and funnier movie about the ways we try to gain control over our lives.

8. WALL•E (Andrew Stanton) When there are no human characters on screen, WALL•E is as good a movie as there is. Simply magical.

7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Nicholas Stoller) Star Jason Segel’s screenplay had more quotable lines than any other film this year, and even gave us a Dracula musical (with puppets!).

6. Speed Racer (The Wachowski Brothers) Bursting with fruit flavor, The Wachowski Brothers’ mind-blowingly beautiful Speed Racer perfectly staddles the line of cultural comment and pure cinematic joy.

5. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman) Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut is this delightfully self-indulgent, outright hilarious near-masterpiece, obsessed with the nexus of life, art, time — and women. As self-conscious theater director Caden Cotard, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a man who stages a play of his life, and then stages the play within that play, and so on. Like all of Kaufman’s work, it is bizarre, funny, and humane; he tries to better understand the nuances, the joys, and the unpleasantness of how we interact with people we love, as well as with our own images and projections of ourselves. Though it doesn’t make a wrong move for most of its running time, Caden’s ending is imperfect. But then, mine probably will be too.

4. Southland Tales (Richard Kelly) A fiasco, to be sure, but a marvelous one. Intentionally hilarious, ambitious, and borderline incoherent, Richard Kelly’s follow-up to the cult hit Donnie Darko has winded a needlessly tough road since it premiered in Cannes two-and-a-half years ago (!). Southland imagines a 2008 with a quasi-fascist, reality TV-obsessed U.S. on the verge of destruction. Finally arriving on DVD and Blu-ray this spring, Southland Tales was already dated (the movie’s Democratic ticket is “Clinton-Lieberman”), but that only adds to the fun. There are few joys greater than Sarah Michelle Gellar as Krysta NOW — “because it’s all about NOW” — singing the year’s best original song, “Teen Horniness Is Not a Crime.” Simultaneously preposterous and weirdly prophetic, the heightened alternate reality of Southland Tales is the most appropriate reflection of our time(s).

3. Love Songs (Christophe Honoré) Honoré may have received more attention in his homeland for Dans Paris, but Love Songs makes my heart sing. A musical in the style of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (one of my favorites!), Love Songs honestly examines what happens when an already turbulent relationship is cut unexpectedly short by death. As the handsome but arrogant Louis Garrel grieves the gorgeous Ludivine Sagnier, he is relentlessly pursued by the unbearably sexy Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet. A gay perfect storm.

2. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson) Though I’d been a fan of PTA’s, here is his first brush with greatness. Darkly funny, genuinely epic, with that killer performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. Has the war between religious fanaticism and secularism ever been so bitingly, cleverly articulated as it is here? The score by Jonny Greenwood is genius. Sure it goes off the rails at the end, but what a way to go: “I’m finished!”

1. Cloverfield (Matt Reeves) A videotape is recovered from the aftermath of a catastrophic attack, code name “Cloverfield.” Brilliantly conceived, masterfully constructed, and ballsy enough to claim the title of “monster movie” without ever fully revealing the monster. Widely dismissed as a mere gimmick, no movie to my memory has so accurately captured the stomach-wringing anxiety of being suddenly thrust into a life-threatening global event. As the subjects of this highly classified footage wander urgently through the streets of New York, screenwriter Drew Goddard and director Matt Reeves artfully convey their characters’ growing humanity in the face of panic, though the sense of doom and hopelessness mounts. Even as our world feels increasingly like it’s going to come crashing down around us, Cloverfield reminds us of our capacity to hope, love, and survive.

Finally, a few superlatives:

Best Lead Performance
1. Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
2. Sean Penn, Milk
3. Guillaume Depardieu, The Duchess of Langeais
4. Juliette Binoche, Flight of the Red Balloon
5. Colin Farrell, In Bruges
6. Jeanne Balibar, The Duchess of Langeais
7. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
8. Julianne Moore, Savage Grace
9. Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10. Anna Faris, Smiley Face
11. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Synecdoche, New York
12. Vera Farmiga, Quid Pro Quo
13. Michael Pitt, Funny Games
14. Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
15. Emile Hirsch, Speed Racer
16. Meryl Streep, Doubt
17. Naomi Watts, Funny Games
18. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Southland Tales
19. Josh Peck, The Wackness
20. Asa Butterfield, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Best Supporting Performance
1. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
2. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Southland Tales
3. Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
4. Russell Brand, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
5. Justin Long, Zack and Miri Make a Porno
6. Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder
7. Emile Hirsch, Milk
8. Samantha Morton, Synecdoche, New York
9. Hope Davis, Synecdoche, New York
10. (tie) Hardbodies crew, Burn After Reading (Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand)
13. Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Love Songs
14. Lina Leandersson, Let the Right One In
15. Ralph Fiennes, In Bruges
16. Emily Watson, Synecdoche, New York
17. Amy Adams, Doubt
18. Mos Def, Cadillac Records
19. Olivia Thirlby, The Wackness
20. Viola Davis, Doubt

Best Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Director
Matt Reeves, Cloverfield

Best First Feature
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York

Best Documentary
Chicago 10

Best movie I mistakenly put on last year’s list
The terrifying Joshua, starring Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga

Movies everyone swears are good that aren’t
Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Embarrasingly long list of acclaimed movies I didn’t see
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Shotgun Stories, Stuck, Inside, Control, The Counterfeiters, The Last Mistress, Before the Rains, Chop Shop, Mister Lonely, Before I Forget, Woman on the Beach, Boy A, Still Life, Australia, Role Models, A Girl Cut in Two, The Edge of Heaven, Frozen River, Roman de Gare, Pineapple Express, The Midnight Meat Train

Be sure to have a look at Sir Critic’s Top 10, as well.

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