My picks for 2008's top films (and then some other bits, too)

[galactic_jack]

I haven't posted in an age, but I wanted to just post up my picks for the best flicks of last year. There's top 10 films, runners-up stuff, M/F acting, worst, disappointments and unexpected gems, too. Though there's no waffle about the lists this year, as I have done - or, more to the point, will do - write-ups on my film blog, which is where I do

Comments

[danschank]

we're the only two people in the world who liked margot at the wedding.

i wish i lived in europe, where steve mc queen films are (i assume?) screened in places other than NYC galleries.

[galactic_jack]

Heh, that could be true. I really thought that Margot was passed over all too abruptly and with unnecessarily negative feedback overall. Baumbach is coming into his own, out of Wes Anderson's shadow, making better films than him and it seems he got the cold shoulder for Margot, which some said contained hard-to-like, cynical characters, but actually were shaded in with just the right balance of awkward and robust. But the brilliance of the direction/writing/acting, or what-have-you, was so rewarding in the minute moments (Leigh's half-cocked leg, as she nearly kicks the babysitter down the stairs, the vacant panic on Kidman's face halfway up the tree, the dinner with the pregnant pauses etc). In a -full-circle-comment kinda way, I was actually in a NY art cinema when I saw Margot, the memories of the trip mixed well with the film, but it worked just as well in my front room 6 months later.

McQueen's shorts are equally hard to see here, I'm afraid. Hunger got a wide-ish release (wide in the smaller cinemas way), but his Harold Lloyd

[danschank]

i haven't really seen enough to do a year end tally yet, honestly. so far i think flight of the red balloon is my #1, followed by wall-e and happy go lucky. but there's still tons to see.

in total agreement about baumbach emerging from anderson's shadow. i think people wanted something different from margot, and it got dismissed based on those desires, instead of what it actually had to offer.

[sheldrake]

Cool stuff - enjoyed reading it. Much more interesting than the Baftas! Have to get round to seeing a few more of these! :)

Ta, J!

[galactic_jack]

Well, you can tick The Mist off, for starters. Blindness will be a def. for film night when it comes out and I really want you to experience James Franco's adorability in Pineapple Express at some point, too.

[lapin_agile]

I'd love to read your discussions of these. Could you point me to your film blog?

[galactic_jack]

Yeah, cool - I've got a few more bits of tinkering to do on it then I'll pass on the link next week (it's having trouble updating some pages etc).

[tame_the_cunt]

I've seriously only seen one movie in your 10.

Blindness. And man, I didn't like it really at all!!

I think you'd really like Garage

[galactic_jack]

But that's cool. Blindness wasn't received too well most places, but it seems to have attracted a few fans though. Taken as an allegory it works, and if the audience doesn't require too many logical answers it's fine, too. There were a few bits I read where folk seemed to want to compare it with other - mostly zombie-centred - apocalyptic flicks, but I really liked that there can still be (sort of) apocalyptic tales told where the "menace" isn't so pronounced. It did waver slightly heavy on the metaphors though, but my leniency ignored them mostly. Heh.

I thought you might have caught The Mist perhaps?

[coeur_de_noir]

I wish I lived near you to simultaneously indulge my love of high brow goodness and low grade cheese. I really want to see Pineapple Express... I have... a strange yearning... for Seth Rogen.

Going to have a wire brush bath now, toodles!

I'm with on Seth Rogen - prime piece of man-chunk!

[galactic_jack]

If only you stayed in Blighty longer, high-brow cheese would've been the order of the day.

What I want is Andrei Tarkovsky's Dude, Where's My Soul?, still starring Seann William Scott & Aston Kutcher, but now set in an unknown Soviet hinterland known as The Zone, where the a gross-out skits revolve around artfully burning buildings and stray mangy dogs. And the loss of all faith and human repentance... done as a series of fart gags.

But he's all skinny now. Bitch lost his mojo.

[coeur_de_noir]

You make me laaaaugghhh. I'm stealing that movie concept for this thing I'm doing, its completely IC for the guy I'm writing.

LOVE YOUR WORK.

Re: But he's all skinny now. Bitch lost his mojo.

[galactic_jack]

Thieve away darlin'!