Having already put you folks through so many top 10 lists so far on this site, I’d say an introduction is pretty much unnecessary. So without further ado, let’s get started on my list of the best new films I saw from the year 2008, beginning with #10 and working our way up to #1:
10. Stuck
For all of my highfalutin’ airs, I’m still just as prone as anyone else to the charms of a good B-movie. And Stuart Gordon’s scruffy thriller- his best work in over two decades- definitely qualifies. Yet like so many of the best B-movie directors of the past, Gordon hides his social commentary in plain sight. Taking his cue from the curious case of Chante Mallard, Gordon has made a bleak, ground-level drama about the blinkered survival instinct that exists in our society, especially among the lower classes, and the ugliness that can result when our need to get ahead outweighs our tendencies toward empathy. Of course, such eggheaded concerns will have to wait until you’ve finished watching the film- you’ll be too busy wincing in almost unbearable sympathetic pain with Stephen Rea as he attempts to pry himself loose from the windshield, or cackling with glee at the priceless moment when our “heroine” (played by Mena Suvari) realizes she’s forgotten her cell phone in the car.
9. Burn After Reading
In the wake of the triumph of last year’s No Country for Old Men, any follow-up would be almost guaranteed to disappoint most viewers. But then, let’s not forget that a similar reaction faced the Coens’ follow up to Fargo. Time has of course been kind to The Big Lebowski, and I’m guessing that it’ll be just as kind to Burn, a movie that, for my money, takes just as pessimistic a view of human nature as No Country. That it manages to generate so much laughter- both in terms of quality and quantity- should count as some kind of miracle. Credit that famously caustic Coen humor, coupled with the game performances of a killer cast highlighted by the pompous boob John Malkovich, the vanity-free Frances McDormand, and especially Brad Pitt, the most lovable doofus to come along since, well, The Dude.
8. WALL*E
With their first five films, the geniuses at Pixar perfected the formula for top-notch family animation. But with The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and now their latest, they’ve exploded the formula and set out to create something altogether new. WALL*E is their boldest experiment yet, combining a sweet romance between two robots nine centuries into the future with a dystopian portrait of a human race that’s given itself over to its most gluttonous and pleasure-driven impulses, a more humanistic take on Idiocracy. That WALL*E never manages to find a way to satisfactorily merge these two halves is the only thing keeping the film from placing seven spots higher on the list. But as it stands, it’s a dazzling piece of work, the most thought-provoking movie yet from a studio that continues to reach for the stars.
7. The Dark Knight
Perhaps you’ve heard of this one? So much has been written about Christopher Nolan’s uber-blockbuster take on the Batman universe that it seems foolish to try to find a new angle on it. But while most reviews, essays, and think-pieces on the film have focused on how damn clever it is, the truth is that there’s no way The Dark Knight could’ve caught on like it did if there wasn’t a reason to care. For all of its politics, ruminations on evil, and injections of old-school game theory into the comic-book plot, The Dark Knight takes all of its characters and their problems seriously, so that when they’re forced to make decisions, they actually mean something rather than simply being a function of the plot. R.I.P. Heath Ledger, whose performance is so brilliant (and justly celebrated) that it’s all the more tragic to realize that he’ll never give another.
6. Man on Wire
Most Americans tend to think of the World Trade Center as the site of one of the most horrifying bits of public theatre ever witnessed by human eyes. But in 1974, the Twin Towers were the site of a spectacle that was no less breathtaking, and far more triumphant, than the events of 9/11. James Marsh’s documentary- the year’s best, to my eyes- re-creates Philippe Petit’s immortal tightrope walk between the towers as an elaborate heist, complete with months of planning and culminating in a literal high-wire act that resulted in the perpetrator’s arrest. Yet for all the uncomfortable associations that the WTC Towers conjure up in our minds, the primary emotion one takes from Man on Wire is awe, particularly awe at the breadth of human achievement, the idea that many men could get together and construct these monumental buildings, and that one crazed Frenchman could get the nutty idea that the space between them we meant to be crossed by him.
