Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Movies of 2008











Top two:

Paranoid Park
Flight of the Red Balloon

Next tier:

My Winnipeg
Wendy and Lucy
Happy-Go-Lucky
Up the Yangtze
Alexandra

Still good:

A Christmas Tale
Milk
The Man from London

Still need to see (top five of many):

In the City of Sylvia
Waltz with Bashir
Silent Light
The Class
Che

Top tier if they count:

The Headless Woman (unreleased)
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (maybe 2007)

Previews from hell:

La Misma Luna
The Visitor (why was a boom visible multiple times in the theatrical preview but not online?)
Doubt/Slumdog Millionaire/The Reader/Revolutionary Road/other gratuitous award season wanks I didn't have the displeasure of having to sit through

Favorite performances:

Juliette Binoche
Ann Savage
Sally Hawkins
Eddie Marsan
Galina Vishnevskaya
Emmanuelle Devos
Michelle Williams
Emile Hirsch

Predictions for 2009:

-Diablo Cody's slasher movie will be delayed at least one more time, get panned, and bomb
-Michael Cera will play himself in at least five major indie films
-Daniel Radcliffe will play a female sociopath with a Russian accent in another attempt to distance himself from the HP franchise
-More sci-fi, less Western
-David Fincher will make a movie that is one minute longer than Berlin Alexanderplatz and will include a 3-hour close-up of Brad Pitt's nearly motionless face set to the post-digital music of Stephan Mathieu

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where does Pineapple Express land on this list? Or Zach and Miri...?

Anonymous said...

In the spirit of an angry, defensive-sounding, attempt at self legitimation after lengthy pseudo-existentialist pondering called a "blog" that has recently appeared on the interweb, I will answer my own question -- a question, mind you, that no one seems to be caring about, but if you don't then this is a reflection on your taste and the fact that I know mine is superior. Except when my friend Boeekwaa says otherwise, in which case I change my mind and then blog angrily and defensively about why you simply don't understand the synthesis of Kant and Bourdieu's notions of aesthetics. And if you disagree you can't vote against me on contradictions because doing so would be a contradiction of the original premise in an argument that violates the perpetually a priori standard about debate being a game and the game not mattering unless it's fair so I win thank you I have 15 seconds left so you should give me 15 extra speaks.

So to answer the question, both those films belong in a new genre of stoner comedy I will soon proceed to bash in the form of a top 17 list of recent movies that I take issue with.

If you found any grammaticular erroneousness above, just know that I don't have time to check, so I won't. But give me a minute to rant about why it still disappoints me.

Charlie!!!!!!! said...

I couldn't have said it better myself!