2008 Top 10 Movies

I have been quite slack during the past year about my movie reviews, but I haven’t been slack in going out to the movies. Here are my top 10 movies for 2008:

10. Speed Racer

The Wachowski brothers brought the originality that so brightly shone through the first Matrix movie into this live action adaptation of 60s popular Japanese cartoon series. It is in the same creative veins as in Matrix, yet it has a very different feel. It is colorful, humorous and super fast. Too bad a lot of audience didn’t catch this movie in the theaters. I bet they would have all danced to the catchy theme song from the original series by the time the end credit was rolling.

9. Iron Man

The writers and director Jon Favreau of this movie understand the importance to keep a superhero action movie light. It is not just another superhero vehicle loaded with constant action sequences and loud explosions. It has plenty of side winding conversational riffs, wordplay and witty banter. The script, at its sharpest, has really made Iron Man worth seeing for me. Robert Downey, Jr. is the best action hero on screen.

8. Slumdog Millionaire

This is Little Miss Sunshine and Juno of 2008. It is a modest charmer – the sort of feel-good movie that people may want to see under current recession. The script is very clever and original. It connects each question of Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to the contestant/protagonist’s real life experience. His life is a modern day hard knocked life of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Director Danny Boyle’s directing style is flashy, fast and eye-catching. I think that may explain so much attention that has been paid to this movie, which in my opinion is far from the best movie of the year.

7. The Counterfeiters

The movie won the best foreign language film award at last year’s Oscar. It is based on a true story of the largest counterfeiting operations in history set up by the Nazis in the concentration camps. We are not given the usual victimizers and victims. The filmmakers deal in paradox. In the end, it is a story of survival. People are always so eager to find heroic figures in any historic event, but sometimes the most basic heroism is simply trying to survive under most stringent circumstances.

6. Rachel Getting Married

Director Jonathan Demme takes an almost documentary look at a dysfunctional family around the wedding of its oldest daughter. Anne Hathaway gives the best performance of her career so far. At times, the movie may be too much like real life and too slow, but it contains some most amazing soundtrack of the year and its heartbreaking story made me cry for most of the time. No other movie this year has made me cry this much. It must have done something right to touch my heartstring.

5. Milk

The story of the country's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, is very relevant in current times. Californians recently passed the Proposition 8 which denies marriage right to homosexuals. For anyone who have seen the 1984 Oscar winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, it is an extraordinary feat achieved by Sean Penn whose performance captures both the mannerisms and the essence of Harvey Milk. Penn’s voice even sounds just like Harvey. It is actually a little eerie. I am glad that director Gus Van Sant finally stopped making movies about teenage boys and returned to making movies that are important and relevant to our times. This is a biopic done in a conventional way and tells a good story about a very interesting man.

4. Frost/Nixon

Whether you sympathize or hate Richard Nixon, you have to agree this ex-president certainly makes an interesting entertainment subject. Playwright Peter Morgan and director Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon is a biopic done very differently from, say, Milk. It uses one event to create a character drama. Both Frank Langella and Michael Sheet have their field days drinking up all the theatrical juice in this little cinematic gem. Unlike Sean playing Milk, Langella looks nothing like Richard Nixon. It is distracting at first, but then his interpretation slowly grabs you. The movie works best when it simply lets those two first-rate actors do their jobs.

3. Revolutionary Road

I read Richard Yates’ novel a few years ago and had serious doubt about how director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe could possibly adapt this dreary reflective story. The end result is a big WOW. It actually makes me appreciate the novel much more – the movie is that good. The movie certainly solidifies Kate Winslet’s status as the most talented actress of her generation or maybe any generation. Winslet’s performance is so powerful that all other actors become merely her shadows when she is on screen. Now over five years after Katherine Hepburn’s death, we have got ourselves another great Kate.

2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

It is amazing that in one year we could have two great adaptations on screen. Button stretches F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 24-page short story into a movie epic. I have read the short story and the movie has the basic premise in the story, but makes a rich story going through some of major events in our history. Director David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth’s film is shot beautifully and delves into many important philosophic issues such as aging, death and love. The technical prowess of this movie is spellbinding; however, Brad Pitt is only interesting when he is an old man. Once he looks like Brad Pitt, we lose interest in his performance.

1. The Visitor

This movie embodies what good filmmaking is all about. It doesn’t require flash cinematography to capture our attention, it doesn’t require a clever plot to keep us interested, it doesn’t require big movie stars to make the characters come to life, all it needs is to make a film down-to-earth and make the characters relatable. Despite the plot involving post 9-11 immigration policies, it doesn’t fall into the usual trappings of a political treatise. It is a movie about human relationship – love and friendship. There is never an explosive moment in the movie even when the characters are hitting the wall in their struggle for justice. There is a calm undertone throughout the movie and the audience feels like that they are watching real life unravel in front of their eyes. The movie doesn’t waste time giving us any unnecessary information about the characters. I don’t feel there is a single moment not worth watching in this movie. Richard Jenkins finally gets some due in the industry after playing supporting character roles for so many years. His performance doesn’t have a single false moment. His understated and nuanced performance gives us one of the most unforgettable characters of the year – a decent ordinary citizen. Watching his brisk, confident walk in the New York subway at the end of the movie is the most gratifying moment in 2008 movie history.