The Best Movies Of 2008: #10-1

Continuing yesterday's list, the top ten films of 2008:

10. Cloverfield - One of the philosophies of filmmaking that I buy into the most is the idea that any film can be as strange as it wants, as long as it plays by the rules of the universe it's created for itself, so that it all makes some kind of sense when the end credits roll. To this end, "Cloverfield" is absolute genius. Its central conceit is the reason a lot of people hated it: One man's shaky hand-held camera captures their attempts to escape New York City as it's being laid to waste by a gigantic monster of some kind. The characters are human; they crack bad jokes, bicker and worry about seemingly pointless things. Wouldn't you go running to find your significant other in a time of crisis, even if it was a foolish and potentially life-threatening knee-jerk reaction? Because of the nature of the film's narrative, there's no scientist appearing to offer helpful exposition midway through the film; this also helps, as there's no comfort zone to hide within. The film is sheer survival terror for all of its 85 minutes, which in and of itself is novel. When's the last time you saw a major Hollywood release run under an hour and a half and work?

9. Synecdoche, New York - The first time I watched "Synecdoche," my mind was absolutely blown. I knew I'd just watched a frustrating, confounding work of genius that's impossible to process on a single viewing. About three weeks later, I saw it a second time, and this time was deeply aggravated that it hadn't yet revealed all its secrets and explanations to me. Only upon further reflection did I finally understand what Charlie Kaufman said about the film, that it's meant to be felt, rather than explained. If you embrace that idea, it's one of the most haunting films released in the past few years. On the most basic level, it's about a director (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who tries to re-create life itself in a play and fails. Really, it's a tale of the dangers of playing God, the power of lifelong love, the agony of regret, the ability of a single event to be equally comic and tragic, the dangers of becoming consumed with one's art and about a million other things. All these ideas build to the bleakest of climaxes, but for as tragic as this film is, I think the Onion's A.V. Club hit the nail right on the head: "At the least, it's likely to be challenging viewers long after most of this year's Oscar-bait has been forgotten."

8. My Winnipeg - A movie that is beyond strange, "My Winnipeg" is the result of the highly questionable decision of the titular Canadian city's tourism board to ask notoriously strange director Guy Maddin to write and direct a documentary on his hometown. In a sense, it is a documentary, but only if the term can be applied to a movie that's based partly in urban legend, partly in fantasy and occasionally in actual events. As Maddin feverishly narrates the film, imagining the intersection of major rivers as the space between a woman's legs and asserting that all major city streets are named after famous prostitutes, there seems to be nothing but hate on his part towards his hometown. This couldn't be further from the truth. As he tries to fight the town's natural lulling properties long enough to leave, he remembers being born in the old Winnipeg Jets' NHL arena and living above a beauty salon, picnicking on a lake filled with dead, frozen horses and stumbling into a school filled with hazardously beautiful teenage girls. Beneath the bizarre animation sequences and the re-enactments of events that may or may not have actually happened, there's a genuinely moving love letter to not only Maddin's hometown, but to the universal idea that we can go wherever we may in life, but whatever place is home to us exerts an irresistible pull, which for all our hate or disregard cannot ever be escaped.

7. The Wrestler - I'll avoid talking about the genius of Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, because every other critic under the sun has been lavishing him with word-jobs ever since this film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He's phenomenal, as is Marissa Tomei as his pole-dancing love interest (though I have to wonder if she plans on being naked in every film she stars in from now on, not that I have complaints), but the real magic of "The Wrestler" is its unwillingness to judge professional wrestling in the way everybody from Congress to elitists have over the years. The film features a host of actual wrestlers and nails every detail, down to the calling of moves during matches and the verbiage used. It also illustrates Robinson as a representation of several ex-wrestlers I've read about over the years, who so desperately tried to cling onto their prior spotlight that they sunk into various addictions, squandered their riches and either disappeared or up and died. That the film makes a sympathetic, honest character out of Robinson is a near-miracle. That it does the same for wrestling, in a film made for the sort of viewers and critics that have dismissed it as redneck for the past few decades is nothing short of incredible.

6. In Bruges - The film starts off by posing the question that we all wonder: "Where the fuck is Bruges anyway?" The answer? "It's in Belgium." As it turns out, Bruges is a quiet little medieval town filled with history and nighttime beauty and wonder; basically, hell on earth for Ray (Colin Farrell), as well as Ken (Brendan Gleeson, best known as Mad-Eye Moody in the fourth "Harry Potter" film), who gets the thankless task of trying to corral the petulant, borderline-sociopathic Ray while they lay low on the orders of their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) after an assassination goes horribly wrong. The film, directed by oddball Irish playwright Martin McDonaugh, starts off as a black comedy and ends purely black. As Ray and Ken negotiate an increasingly strange scenario involving some terrifying medieval artwork, a mysterious woman, a dwarf with a penchant for hard drugs and eventually a hilariously pissed-off Harry, the film descends into madness, and never once does it misstep. There's no attempts to make these characters sympathetic, just some explanation for why they are the way they are, and the situation doesn't allow for any epic third-act redemption. The Golden Globes recognized this film, which given its early February release is a shock, but a wholly welcome, and deserved one.

5. Let The Right One In - This Swedish vampire film has unfortunately been reduced to being named the anti-"Twilight" by a lot of people, including me. It's so much more than that. It's at once a touching love story and the year's best horror film, tender and bracingly violent often in the same scene. If you've seen it, I have the final scene in mind while making that claim. A lot of analyses of the film have rendered the story far bleaker than what it really is; boy meets girl, boy finds out girl is a vampire, boy and girl tentatively become close regardless, violence ensues. As a parable about the awkwardness of adolescence, it's great. As a vampire movie, it's even better. The title is derived from the old bit of vampire lore about how they have to be invited into someone's home and cannot enter on their own. We are shown in graphic detail what happens when they break this rule, and it's terrifying. Of any foreign film released this year, this one probably had the best chance to catch on with a wide audience. It never got a fair shake, though, so one can only hope it finds further life based on its DVD release in the wake of all the top 10 lists that it's been featured on.

4. The Dark Knight - What is there to say about this movie that hasn't been said, honestly? I'm not even going to give it a full paragraph, because I could talk all day about how Heath Ledger may have created the greatest screen villain of all time with the Joker, about how it's forever changed the way superhero movies can and should be made, how it's an all-too-timely tale of greed, redemption and the battle between light and darkness, and so on and so forth. I'll just say that you know a film is great when the best argument contrarian critics can bring against it is that it's not as good as everybody says. At this point, it's become an Untouchable on the level of "The Godfather." You see where it ranks on my list. Make of that what you will.

3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - My biggest issue with last year's "Knocked Up" is that it lacked the timelessness that a comedy needs to be great. "Superbad" was on my top 10 last year, but on repeat viewings, the Tourettes-tastic non-sequiturs wear just a little bit thin. "Sarah Marshall," on the other hand, and I say this next part without the slightest hint of hyperbole, might be one of the single funniest movies I've ever seen. The opening breakup sequence alone is the stuff of immortal comedy, but the film's leisurely pacing allows for us to fall in love with Peter (Jason Segal), understand both why Sarah (Kristin Bell) is so hard to get over and so necessary to do so and become engrossed in what's really a slice-of-life story. Not one supporting performance misses a step, not one joke falls flat. Amidst all the hilarity, though, there's a lot of painful reality to this movie that hits uncomfortably close to home for anybody who's ever had their heart broken. The scene in which a drunken Peter pounds out a garbled, half-cried version of the Muppet Show theme song on a piano in his hotel room might be the loveliest single sequence in any movie released this year, because on one level it's hysterical, and on another we all see somebody we've known or been doing the exact same thing.

2. Wall-E - Back when I did my beginning-of-summer movie release roundup, I said that "Wall-E" had the potential to forever change the way animated films are made and viewed. Even with that level of expectation going in, I was absolutely floored and took about a week to fully process the absolute genius of Pixar's masterpiece. The thing is, Wall-E isn't just a romantic hero, he's every romantic hero. He's the grizzled soldier in every cinematic war epic who fought his way home to be with his beloved, he's the awkward teenager who just wants to be loved, he's the doe-eyed poet who struggles to win over a tough-edged love with sentiment. When he ends up in a futuristic world that hits a "Brazil" level of future-shock terror in its own G-rated way, we cheer for him. No other filmmakers besides the Pixar think tank could get away with releasing a film in which the first third features next to no dialogue. The scene in which EVE's security camera footage kicks on and she sees Wall-E suffering endlessly to protect her is an absolute tearjerker on the highest level.

1. Slumdog Millionaire - Numbers 2 and 3 on this list both came extremely close to being at the top. After thinking heavily about it, and re-watching all three films, there was only one film that I could name the best film of 2008, and that's "Slumdog Millionaire." Danny Boyle's fairy tale about a boy's journey through the life of an impoverished hustler brims with danger and gritty realism around every turn, but it's also a sweeping romance and an ode to the larger-than-life attraction of the world to game shows and any other escape from everyday life. The film is a love letter to both Bollywood filmmaking and India itself, timely when Mumbai is fresh in peoples' minds as the site of fevered violence. It's also a film to be loved by anybody struggling through life; the previous generation had "Scarface," and so I think in time this generation will have this film. The narrative smoothly glides from hilarious to nail-bitingly tense, devastating to standing-ovation-level joyous without ever ringing false. Years from now, when people look back on 2008 as a major year for movies, I'll be proud to say that a little Indian movie about "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" was the most unforgettable of them all.