The 10 Best Movies of 2008

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your night was as raucous as mine. Now that we've entered 2009, and since any self-respecting movie blog has to have a year-end 'best of' list, I've put together a list of my favorite movies of 2008. 

10. The Wackness

A sweet story of summer love and a friendship forged over burning joints, The Wackness thrives on the quirky performance of Ben Kingsley as a therapist who prefers his bills to be paid in dime bags, not dollar bills. Josh Peck also shines in his first real screen role as Luke, a lost teenager finding his way in the sweltering last months before college. A very fun watch.

9. Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood's latest effort is a small gem. Hilarious from beginning to end, this is a poignant story of an old man reconnecting with the world against a backdrop of suburban gang violence. If you don't mind a constant stream of racist epithets (so frequently used and delivered by Eastwood with such deadpan tone that one can't help but laugh), this is absolutely worth the price of admission.

8. Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is a busy movie, cluttered with layers upon layers of art imitating life. Philip Seymour Hoffman turns in yet another terrific performance, and his attempts to understand his own life through theater make for a compelling story.

7. Rachel Getting Married

A very honest movie about the impact of a struggling former addict on her (very alt) family. Anne Hathaway succeeds in becoming completely loathsome as Kym, Rosemarie DeWitt (who is currently stealing my heart on TV in Mad Men) shines as her sister, and a cameo from TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe completely steals the show.

6. In Bruges

Colin Ferrell and Brendan Gleeson kept me rolling in the aisle in this hilarious story of two mobsters forced to hide out in the beautiful (but 'fucking awful') Belgian town of Bruges. Complete with shootouts, botched drug deals, lots of liquor, and an angry midget, this one is a barrel of laughs until the action runs out of control in the final reel.

5. Vicky Cristina Barcelona

For me, 2008 was the year I fell in love with Woody Allen, and Vicky Cristina was the movie that really set me on the path. Javier Bardem simply smolders on screen, particularly when together with the equally excellent Penelope Cruz. Scarlett Johanssen still can't act, but her counterpart Vicky , played wonderfully by the jaw-droppingly beautiful Rebecca Hall, is a treat to watch as she struggles to fit new excitement into her carefully planned life.

4. Ballast

In his directorial debut, Lance Hammer turns in a very sharp story of a broken family struggling to find its feet after the suicide of one of its members. Featuring terrific performances from non-actors, Hammer's film hits a home run with stunning images of the wintry Mississippi delta.  

3. Man On Wire

By far one of the most captivating and entertaining documentaries I've seen, Man On Wire uses the conventions of the heist movie to frame the story of one man's dizzying walk between the World Trade Center towers. Director James Marsh shifts effortlessly between the suspenseful break-in by Philippe Petit and the feats of wirewalking that led him to the towers, and Petit lights up the screen with his hilarious personality. But this movie's greatest achievement is the way in which it revives the towers as wondrous symbols of human imagination. In 45 minutes of wire-walking, Petit wrings art from the ordinary and reminds us all of the thrill of realizing a dream.

2. The Dark Knight

The latest (and greatest) Batman movie blurs the line between art and big-budget entertainment, but its success has little to do with the caped crusader. From the serpentine darting of his tongue to his maniacal laugh, Heath Ledger invests the Joker with a jubilant malice so profound you nearly forget this is supposed to be about Batman; as he himself says, he loves his job, and we love to watch him do it. His performance is quirky, hilarious, and unforgettable. I don't usually like Aaron Eckhart, but he is terrific here as Harvey Dent. The frequent references to terrorism--shaky homemade movies, exploding hospitals, and firemen silhouetted against burning buildings--firmly root the movie to the present and the trend of dark superhero movies made for dark times. The Dark Knight is gripping from beginning to end, and Ledger's historic performance makes his loss all the more tragic.

1. Summer Hours

I had the tremendous pleasure of catching this beautiful movie at the New York Film Festival, and was completely won over by it. Directed by Frenchman Olivier Assayas, whose acclaimed earlier works have jumped to the top of my Netflix queue, Summer Hours is a touching story of three siblings and their families working to move on after the death of their mother. Assayas delivers a thoughtful reflection on the difficulties inherent in the modern family, the role of art in society, and the seemingly growing gap between generations. Gorgeous camerawork and subtly powerful performances make this a true pleasure. I can't recommend this one strongly enough.

Disagree with my picks for '08? Think I left something out? Take all the shots you want in the comments. Bring it on. Here's to another great year of movies!

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Unraveling Taxi Driver

Last night, as is usually the case when I go to the movies, I walked alone on the streets and subway platforms of New York. Dodging cabs and buses, stepping through the clouds of steam that seeped from holes in the city's concrete skin, and illuminated by fluorescent lights and neon street signs I made my way to Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Square. There I saw Taxi Driver and Martin Scorsese's vision of New York in 1976, when the cabs and steam and neon were as much indicators of the city's structural and moral decline as the pimps and whores who walked its filthy streets.

While I appreciate many qualities of Scorsese's breakout movie, I frankly do not understand the tremendous admiration that Taxi Driver has garnered. So, please indulge me as I try to unpack the elements of this movie that mystify me and the phenomenon that this movie has become.

If anything, the movie succeeds convincingly in portraying New York as a decrepit and morally vacuous environment. Scorsese's pervasive focus on neon signs and bared flesh effectively expresses the artificial and carnal qualities of the city; an extended montage of flashing lights and a ticking cab meter further associates these with money. It certainly helps that Travis Bickle, the movie's mentally unstable protagonist, works the night shift; the movie would not pack nearly the same unnerving punch during the day.

Strangely enough, Bickle seems calmer during his long nights spent at the wheel of his cab than in his scattered attempts at living a normal life during daylight hours. When meeting with Betsy, his straight-as-a-ruler love interest, he is alternately sincere and uncomfortably aggressive, and his ill-advised idea of taking her out to a movie at a dirty picture house reflects the height of his disconnect from social norms of romance and personal conduct. The rest of his days are spent stewing in his austere apartment, writing in a diary or trying his new arsenal of handguns on for size. De Niro is at his best here, a restless soul adrift at sea with no moral compass for guidance.

This daytime Bickle and the total alienation he embodies is perhaps the biggest reason why I struggle to like this movie. Now I certainly don't have to sympathize with a protagonist to enjoy his story, but De Niro's inhabits him in such a disturbing manner as to make the viewer as disoriented as he is. His tentative steps toward violence--grabbing Betsy's arm outside the theater, buying a cannon of a handgun, and creepy attempts to assassinate a wholly unremarkable politician--seem scattered and illogical, yet are executed with a singular drive that is truly frightening. For the most part, Bickle's struggle to find an outlet for his malaise defies logic, and consequently makes his a difficult mind to enter and understand as a viewer.

The fact that Travis is at his most unstable during the day--while New York's depravity peaks at night--is equally strange to me, as I would expect his behavior to reflect his environment, particularly in the context of Scorsese's expressive visual style. Perhaps we as viewers cannot fully understand them both at the same time, or are not meant to. However, the two worlds do intersect when Travis reaches out to Iris, an underaged prostitute who is at once an innocent and a tragic victim of the city's vice. The meeting of the two worlds during the day incites a second at night, when Bickle's instability spills over into brutal violence. I suppose that this climactic merger of night and day, of emotional instability and environmental brutality, is likely the motivation behind the Scorsese's previous separation of the two.

The much-debated conclusion of the movie also presents many problems for me. I fail to understand why Bickle, having murdered three (albeit nefarious) people, is hailed as a hero by the community and becomes the object of Betsy's almost lustful attraction. Throughout the movie Bickle is utterly unheroic, a loner with antisocial and illogical behaviors. Why, then, does his sudden act of terrible violence meet with such approval from the community? Even further, why has this shootout scene attained such an iconic status in recent movie history? 

Aside from the gratuitous bloodshed, Bickle's vaguely honorable intentions, and De Niro's crazed performance, I can see little reason. Two of the three men killed barely appear onscreen before the climactic scene, and the presence of the third is merely a product of chance. A simplified explanation could suggest that these three men--a pimp, a dirty hotel manager, and a mafioso--represent the worst of New York, but in my mind their minimal appearances in the film do not allow them enough time to fully embody those vices. While the hotel manager is indeed creepy, the mafioso is only recognizable as such by his clothing and rumors appearing in the newspapers, and the pimp, while his occupation is less than honorable, demonstrates a measure of (or at least the potential for) genuine affection for Iris in an intimate earlier scene. 

I hope to have the opportunity to discuss Taxi Driver with a true fan in the near future, in hopes that I may be enlightened about the qualities of the movie that have made it so loved in Scorsese's oeuvre (did I just say oeuvre?). Please share your thoughts in the comments, I hope this will lead to some interesting discussion. Thanks for reading.

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Essential Scorsese

Today begins the first of six days devoted to one of New York's most revered filmmakers at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The series will feature a whopping ten of Scorsese's best films, including favorites such as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990). For a full lineup as well as ticket information, visit the Film Society's website. Don't let this outstanding retrospective get lost in your rush to 2009.

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Spotlight: Frost/Nixon

I know very little about Richard Nixon, and only slightly more about the Watergate scandal that incited one of the more tumultous periods in recent American history. What I do know about both subjects is an amalgam of anecdotes, hearsay, grade-school history lessons and a dash of Wiki-knowledge, a strange combination that leaves me less than prepared for, say, a discussion of the subject around the dinner table.

Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard’s account of the publicity standoff between a television talk show host and the recently resigned president, offers a similarly disjointed approach to the facts and fiction surrounding the improbable interview that unfolded in the spring of 1977. The film alternates between a faux-documentary style, in which the characters share their recollections of the event, and a glittery world of heightened emotions, where a character’s fuzzy sense of intellectual disorientation can manifest itself literally in soft focus on the screen. It is unclear whether Howard intends for his film to be a glorified slice of American lore or an honest history of four men who successfully extracted an admission of responsibility from one brilliant but reticent politician.

This opposition appears most clearly in the performances of Frank Langella and Michael Sheen who, in their respective turns as Nixon and television personality David Frost, bring contrasting degrees of theatrical brilliance and historical accuracy. Langella, whose utterly transcendent effort in the film’s final twenty minutes makes the complete limpness of the first hundred entirely worth bearing, invests his character with an intoxicating personal conviction and profound thoughtfulness that did not arise so readily from his real-life counterpart. In the actual interviews, Nixon spoke in a softer, more candid tone that lacks the resonating depth of Langella’s version. The actor, whom I had very regrettably failed to see onscreen until this movie, heightened every element of Nixon’s delivery, bringing a tremendous significance to every word and hinting at, for the sake of a supposedly uneducated audience, an intellect beyond the awareness of an angry public.

Unfortunately, Sheen has neither the luxury of a well-written part nor a similar interest from the director in embellishing the character’s persona. His role, despite his best efforts, seems to suffer from a perceived need to balance Langella’s heroic performance with historical integrity. Sheen, from his confident charm to the part in his hair, is every inch the David Frost that brought his far-fetched project to millions of viewers worldwide. He conveys the requisite determination in brining his idea to fruition, his famous womanizing, and (not surprisingly) succeeds in acting as the doormat for Nixon’s preaching in their first two interview sessions.

We learn very little about the man himself during the trials he experienced, as his glamorous lifestyle keeps him largely absent from the film in the days leading up to his bouts with Nixon. During these moments, the story turns to the busy preparations of the sadly underutilized Sam Rockwell and always funny Oliver Platt. While the beautiful and talented Rebecca Hall never has the opportunity to become anything beyond the girl on Frost’s arm, Kevin Bacon makes the most of a small opportunity as Nixon’s devoted chief of staff.

Thanks to Langella, the final act of Frost/Nixon humanizes the disgraced president, whose blunders overshadowed a sincere desire to make a positive mark during his term. In my book, any viewer who can stay awake until the final interview will be rewarded with what is surely one of the most stunning performances of this year. For those who would prefer to save themselves the time, you can get your little dose of history by catching the highlights on YouTube.

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Se7en Films From David Fincher

2009 will start with a bang at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, where seven movies directed and chosen by cult director David Fincher will appear over the first four days of the new year. Culminating in his latest movie, the unwieldy (but promising) adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this impressive lineup should be a must see for any fans of the filmmaker. The classic movies filling out the bill are equally distinguished, and were highly influential for Fincher. The lineup will include:

• Se7en (Fincher, 1995)
• Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964)
• Fight Club (Fincher, 1999)
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)
• Zodiac (Fincher, 2007)
• Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fincher, 2008) (Trailer)

Visit the Film Society of Lincoln Center's website for more information and tickets. I'll be at Chinatown (5:15pm, 1/3/09) and Button (3pm, 1/4/09), get at me if you want to come along!

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...With Me For A Member

I don't know if Woody's principle applies for people who start clubs in the first place, let alone movie clubs, but here we are nonetheless. 

Ladies and gents, our little club has officially broken into the blogosphere. Here's what you can expect to find here regularly in the future:

• Details about upcoming meetings
• Comments/opinions/disagreements/banter about all things movie-related
• Information about screenings, festivals, retrospectives, and movie events in the city
• Links to cool content culled from the web
• Pretty much anything you want

I'd love it if anyone else would want to contribute. If you do, you can email me your stuff, or I'll gladly make you a contributor. Otherwise, feel free to comment on anything here. I'd like this blog to be an online extension of our meetings and a convenient way for us to keep in touch. 

Let's plan to have our first meeting sometime during the first full week in January, right now it looks like people are liking Tuesday the 6th. Stay tuned for updates!

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