It’s nice to feel wanted. Quite a few organazizations have requested that I participate in their year-end polls, post best-of-year lists on their websites, and so on. It’s kind of hard to keep up. It was all so simple when I was at Première—I’d publish my official list, with comments, in the magazine and/or on the website, and other outlets would get lists only. Now, The Auteurs’ Notebook wants both my list and my thoughts on the year in movies, and other places want, say, my “movie moment” of the year…and, as I say, it’s nice to be wanted. But what about me? What about my blog? You guys wanna talk about the movies of the year, doncha?
1) Né Touchez pas La Hache (a.k.a. The Duchess of Langeaise) (Jacques Rivette)
2) Uné Vielle Maitresse (a.k.a. The Last Mistress) (Catherine Breillat)
3) Razzle Dazzle/The Lost World (Ken Jacobs)
4) The Romance of Astree and Celadon (Eric Rohmer)
5) Synechdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)
6) A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin)
7) Flight of fhe Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
8) Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood)
9) The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
10) Che (Steven Soderbergh)
11) Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)
12) Boarding Gate (Olivier Assayas)
13) Burn After Reading (Joel and Ethan Coen)
14) Diary of the Dead (George A. Romero)
15) Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols)
16 )Wall‑E (Andrew Stanton)
17) Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)
18) Mad Detective (Johnny To and Ka Fa Wai)
19) Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog)
20) Shine A Light (Martin Scorsese)
21) J’Entends plus la guitare (Philippe Garrel, made 1991, got first theatrical U.S. release 2008)
Oh, I’ve seen so few of these. Of the ones I have seen, the only one that makes me wonder what you’ve been smoking is “Diary of the Dead”. Because oh my goodness gracious, did I not care for that film. And I did like “Land of the Dead”.
OK, I haven’t seen your first four, and now I regret missing the Breillat one. Number 2? I underestimated that one, maybe.
Or maybe not. Because you’ve gotta be kidding me with “The Wrestler”. Don’t get me wrong… I loved the film. Who knows? It might even make MY top 10, because I see a whole lot less films than you do. But I didn’t think it was great. Sure it wasn’t just Mickey Rourke’s performance you were lauding?
I’m still working on seeing “A Christmas Tale,” “Gran Torino,” and “Rachel Getting Married,” so I’ll get back to you on those.
Nice to see some love for “Synechdoche,” “Che,” “Burn after Reading,” and “Wall‑E”.
REALLY nice to see some love for “Shotgun Stories” and “Diary of the Dead”.
What, no “Dark Knight”? Cinema Blend may want you ousted from this dimensional plane (bunch of douches). I’m also glad you are not one of the “Slumdog Millionaire” crowd.
I was surprised you left out “Revolutionary Road” and “Elegy,” both of which you seemed to champion.
I liked “Land of the Dead” too. I think I like everything that Romero does. I thought “Diary” was one of the smarter cinematic critiques of new media, and it justified both its structure and medium very cleverly/convincingly.
I have to quit—AGAIN! —but it’s Winstons. Only a couple a day, though.
It’s nice to see Shotgun Stories getting recognised, I loved it too. I also mean to check out Boarding Gate. The reviews I’ve read have been awful which surprises me because everything I’ve seen by Olivier Assayas has been great.
Some of my favourites from this year include Honeydripper, In Bruges and The Unknown (La Sconosciuta).
@Tony: I liked “Revolutionary Road,” “Doubt,” and to a lesser extent “Elegy,” just fine. But as I’m now in a position to give free reign to whatever gets me off the most, I’ve got to admit that I put those movies in a different category. They’re good, but I see them as the best of mainstream midcult prestige pictures, something that my most cinephilic self has never been particularly passionate about. In writing them up, I put my “Première” head on, and adopted a more journalistically objective stance. What this list represents is the movies I LOVED, or came closest to loving, not the movies I merely respected. I dug “The Dark Knight” too, just not enough.
I smoke Dorals. More than a couple a day, but less than half a pack. That’s something, anyway.
So, if you like everything Romero does, does that include “Bruiser” and “Knightriders”?
I’ll play along, too, GK! Charlie trumps Arnaud?! Breillat, too?! I can handle Rivette and Jacobs (I’d be soooooper dumb to argue that) jumpin up top, but, really, it’s like my buddy Martha said about _Synecdoche_ the other day: “I just don’t learn that way.” Cuz we both agree it’s kinda-sorta really good (it did make me feel life, and it did make me feel like talking to people), but our argument is more about, like, where do we locate the value in THIS brand of negation? Cuz, like, _TWBB_ is so fucking good and all it’s doing is abnegateabnegateabnegate! and, of course, VISCOSITY! SWIRLS! WILL TO POWER WHAT!?!!
Also, adding to that choir: good on the _Diary of the Dead_ pick. That thing really jumped out at me. But I’m’a save a lot of my evaluations for some other thing, too. (And even then I’ll skirt any REAL definitive answers.)
Also, somewhat unrelated: Bruce Conner!
Glenn,
“They’re good, but I see them as the best of mainstream midcult prestige pictures…”
Fair enough, and I get you. I’m envious we don’t have the access to so many of these films here in ATL, as you alluded to in your post.
I know you dug “The Dark Knight”. I did too. But I think it’s ridiculous that some of my fellow “new media” think that if you don’t put it in your top 10 list you’re out of touch. Or that they campaigned (for a brief time, successfully, I might add) to have their minions vote it up on the IMDB users’ top 250 movies (as if that list invalidates any kind of critical opinion on the film).
Interesting list, though.
“Knightriders” rocks.
Bill, please educate me on “Bruiser”. Never heard of that one.
@Bill: I find things to admire in both “Knightriders” and “Bruiser,” but don’t count them as among Romero’s best.
@RWK: As I said, the preferential order is vague. My preferred preferential order for this year would have been, believe it or not, groups of three, which would have given equal ranking to Eric, Charlie, and Arnaud. And, yeah, Bruce Conner.
@Tony: I wear my “out of touch“ness like a badge of honor.
Erg…I hated “Knightriders”. I’ve only recently come to understand that it has its admirers. I don’t understand that, but to each his own, and all that stuff.
“Bruiser” was…what was that one about again? Something about a meek guy getting some sort of mask burned onto his face, which inspired him to get back at his enemies, or something. I thought it was terrible, but I do remember liking the first scene, which involved a suicide occurring live on a radio call-in show. I thought the movie was going somewhere interesting after that, but I ultimately didn’t think it did.
Anyway, this list proves to me that I have much Netflixing to do.
Also: super pissed I missed the single Bayarrhea screening of that Garrel flick. That sounds like teh hotness.
Also: really pissed I missed the single Bayarrhea screening of that Garrel flick. That shit sounds like teh hotness.
whoops! work! internet fail!
Pleasantly surprised to see the Rivette on top of your list. Among the many reasons to admire his work is his daring to risk boring his audience while taking them carefully where he wants them to go, much like Bergman. Langeais is an introverted chamber piece of minor notes, yet they accumulate to create a melancholy, surprisingly moving effect. The film works visually, psychologically, and thematically, though Depardieu’s death makes it even sadder. Also pleased to see 5, 13, 18, and 20 on your fine list.
I like your list, except I cannot agree with your about Shotgun Stories. Michael Shannon notwhithstanding, I do not understand why people like this movie. The other performances are barely Lifetime-movie acceptable, especially the absolutely hideous performace given by the middle brother, the “angry” one who is all slouchy and broody in every single scene, the one with the long hair who looks like John Ritter. That guy ruined the movie for me, and the other brother, the basketball coach, didn’t help either. Not to mention that the movie totally cheeses out at the end, and that its whole vibe is so Gordon Greene-ey that his role as Exec Prod. smacks of little more than onanism. I love George Washington and All The Real Girls as much as anyone, but this style is affected and tired and just plain false and this movie is where it stops working and starts becoming parody.
It would’ve been nice to see Team Picture on the list in place of Shotgun Stories. That’s my favorite American film of the year after Paranoid Park.
Fascinating list, although I despair that a number of these films probably won’t come to the Cleveland area (like bill, I have a lot to add to my Netflix list!). And speaking of out-of-touch: I’ll admit that Romero is one of those directors I very much need to catch up on, but I didn’t even know there was a “Knightriders” that didn’t involve David Hasselhoff and a talking car.
David Oldaker:
“The movie cheeses out at the end” – Um, are you serious? So you would have preferred an ending in which senseless violence prevailed and the two sets of brothers continued killing each other? I thought the quiet ending was an extremely powerful repudiation of destructive macho codes.
“This style is affected and tired and just plain false” – Well, every noticable style is “affected” in a way, isn’t it? I’m not sure that’s a meaningful criticism. Van Sant’s style in Paranoid Park is “affected” too, in that it’s a non-natural way of looking at the world that he consciously adopted, but that doesn’t invalidate the film in any way. As for “tired” – really? You’re declaring it “tired” already, after a small handful of films by David Gordon Green and one debut by a new director? Sounds like the problem there might be your fickleness or short attention span. “Just plain false” is more subjective, I suppose, but your baldly declarative phrasing indicates that you think anyone who disagrees with you, anyone for whom Nichols’ style is NOT false, must be some kind of idiot. Well, almost everyone who has seen the film disagrees with you, so that attitude’s not going to get you very far.
Glenn, your list makes 2008 seem a more interesting year for movies than it actually was, to my mind. There are a few on there I think are overrated, but definitely agree with the choice of SHOTGUN STORIES, Asia Argento was Best Actress for the two films you’ve highlighted, and RACHEL GETTING MARRIED and MAD DETECTIVE I’m just about to see in eager anticipation.
Can I give you a heads up from London on great films that might not have opened on your shores as yet? HUNGER, WALTZ WITH BASHIR, FLAME & CITRON, LOUISE-MICHEL, ELDORADO, and PARC (the film REVOLUTIONARY ROAD wanted to be).
I haven’t seen the new Rivette and I feel very sad for it.
Hou should clearly be at the very top. I don’t know any filmmakers around comparable to him in any way…
There are some good Turkish films coming out this year by the way… Try to see Vicdan, Three Monkeys, Tatil Kitabı…
Some films on your list came out in Turkey on 2007 so I’m posting both lists:
2007
1. The Electric Princess Picture House / Hou Hsiao Hsien
2. The Flight of the Red Balloon / Hou Hsiao Hsien
3. Dans l’Obscurité / Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
4. Worldly Desires / Apichatpong Weerasethakul
5. Videos by Kyle Canterbury
6. Syndromes and a Century / Apichatpong Weerasethakul
7. Still Life / Jia Zhang Ke
8. The Dibbuk of Haifa / Amos Gitai
9. Passion of Anna / Eytan Ipeker
10. The Host (Gwoemul) / Joon-ho Bong
http://waysofseeing.org/filmsyear7.html
2008
1. Le Silence de Lorna / Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2. Chelsea on the Rocks / Abel Ferrara
3. La Fille Coupee en Deux / Claude Chabrol
4. Vicdan / Erden Kıral
5. Üç Maymun / Nuri Bilge Ceylan
6. BIO-ELECTRIC PATINA / Oliver Hockenhull
7. Science Lab / Eytan İpeker
8. Alexandra / Alexander Sokurov
9. Tatil Kitabı / Seyfi Teoman
http://waysofseeing.org/filmsyear8.html
@David Oldaker: If it’s any consolation, “Team Picture” is very likely to make my Best DVDs of ’08 list.
@Lord Henry: I haven’t seen any of the films you mention save “Waltz With Bashir,” which I like a lot and am still a bit confused with respect to how it’s rolling out in the U.S. I think I’d like to wait for it to go wider before laying on the kudos.
@Yoel: Thanks for your lists. Some I’ve seen—LOVE “Syndromes,” “Alexandra,” and “Lorna;” the Chabrol only barely missed making the above list. Look forward to catching up with the others.
I’m going to assume that B.W. is Jeff Nichols and chalk his hostilty up to me hitting a nerve.
What I meant to say is that particular style is becoming affected. No one else has nutballed Van Sant’s style yet (although from what I’ve heard, Afterschool is in the Van Sant vein), but that style too will become tiresome once it’s ripped off multiple times.
Jeff Nichols is a crank turner. His direction of the actors was borderline incompetent. Michael Shannon is a good enough actor to slough off the amateur posturings of an fraud auteur.
And yeah, the ending was bullshit. A cop out. Did it have to end in violence? No. Who says it had to do that? But after all the sturm and drang, one family pitted against another, initmations of something biblical brewing on the horizon, we’re treated to a poorly composed and choreographed fight, and then the site of Michael Shannon sitting on his porch, and all is well with the world. Valuable life lessons have been learned. Hokum. Bad writing straight from an episode of One Tree Hill.
Not buying it. Jeff Nichols ain’t your man. Look somewhere else for the next great hope of Indiewood. Aaron Katz or Andrew Nenninger. Those guys are the real deal. They both have very subtle styles and seem interested in being as honest as possible about what it is that they have experienced. Shotgun Stories is warmed over Southern Gothic populated with people who the director has nothing but contempt for. Especially that mother.
BW: Almost everyone who has seen the film disagrees with you…
You take a poll? You personally know all 100 people who saw the movie. And you’re calling out my baldly declarative statements?
David, obviously I don’t agree with you on Nichols, particularly the contempt part. But I am a big booster of both Nenninger and Katz.
“Michael Shannon notwhithstanding, I do not understand why people like this movie.”
That’s right, David. You don’t.
I know somebody already said it and you explained it but I was all primed to say it before I saw that someone else said it, so I’m saying it: DIARY OF THE DEAD?
Love Romero – all things Romero. Love THE CRAZIES. Love LAND OF THE DEAD, saw DIARY with Romero there in person to introduce and stood in line with some real, uhm, well, okay, scary weirdos for the pleasure.
Awful. It took days for the disappointment to wear off. Awful. I can’t talk anymore, it’s all coming back…
Now I’m curious. I understand that there are some out there who just don’t like “Diary of the Dead,” but I don’t understand the flat-out hatred of it as some kind of abomination in Romero’s body of work. WHich is to say, I’d love to hear from a hater just what is so hater-worthy of it. I don’t ask this as a throw-down. I’m only curious—and frankly wondering, by now, just what it is I’ve been smoking. Expound, please!
Didn’t mean to be hostile, David, but I can see that I was a bit overzealous. Chalk it up to two things: my passionate appreciation of Shotgun Stories (as of now, it’s my favorite of ’08) and your tone, which I perceived as glib and assholish. When I see people stirring the pot like that, I sometimes feel the need to correct it by stirring in the opposite direction. Ah, the internet.
Nice list, Glenn; you’ve inspired me to move FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON to the top of my Netflix queue. Wondering: have you seen LET THE RIGHT ONE IN? It’s presently in my top five of the year, and I’d go so far as to say it’s the best vampire-related film I’ve ever seen (edging out NEAR DARK and your boy Romero’s MARTIN). See it before the Hollywood remake drains all the subtlety and atmosphere out of it.
Also, a general recommendation to readers of this blog to check out Brad Anderson’s TRANSSIBERIAN, an excellent thriller in the Hitchcock vein which came and went without ceremony earlier this year. In our depressing era of CGI wankery and headache-inducing quick cuts, this kind of movie – a tension-based thriller in which the suspense derives from the characterization and the skilled unfolding of a story – almost never gets made anymore. It may not be anything new, but TRANSSIBERIAN merits celebration as a return to a rapidly disappearing style of filmmaking.
I’d love to expound, Glenn, but honestly my memory of “Diary” is a little hazy at this point. But do remember thinking that the performances and the writing were close to excruciating. Another problem is that I’ve never been one to think that Romero’s satire was his strong suit, and that’s never been the draw for me to his films. In, say, “Dawn”, the satire is only there if you want it, but he foregrounds it in “Diary” (as I remember). Since I don’t think Romero is especially funny (okay, “Dawn” had its moments), this was a bad move, as far as I was concerned.
+1 on the “SHOTGUN STORIES blows” bandwagon. With very little tweaking, it could be the ZAZ version of that sub-genre. Seemed unaccountably hubristic to write Michael Shannon out halfway through, since he was indeed the only thing keeping it from flatlining.
However, DIARY OF THE DEAD only gets better in the rear-view for me. I found it a bit literalminded at the time (and that insufferable narration is, um, insufferable), but Romero just does microcosms so well, and it’s really quite hypnotic.
Thanks, Tony Dayoub. You win this week’s Captain Obvious Award.
Thanks for making me guilty about missing the Rivette film. I could lie and say I never had a chance, but in fact, I’ve had multiple opportunities. Damn me!
Great list, Glenn. I can’t disagree more with “Don’t Touch the Axe”. I went in with high expectations, based on the glowing assessments from yourself and Noël Murray at the AV Club. After suffering through it, I think I’d rank it somewhere slightly above “W.” and “The Happening”. Tedious and irksome and shapeless from beginning to end. YMMV.
With that point of contention out of the way, I’m glad to see these getting some love from you: “Synecdoche,” “Paranoid Park,” “The Wrestler,” “WALL‑E,” “Shotgun Stories,” and especially “Encounters at the End of the World,” which I think is as visually and thematically rich a documentary as I’ve seen since, well, “Grizzly Man”. “Flight of the Red Balloon deserves props too, although it will probably land an Honorable Mention in my Best of 2008 list.
No “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”? That’s near the top for me. (Or is that a 2007 film? Its general release was in January.) My still-too-long list will also likely include “Wendy and Lucy,” “Stranded,” “Standard Operating Procedure,” “Trouble the Water,” “The Class,” “The Edge of Heaven,” “The Fall,” and “The Dark Knight.” But that would mean excluding “Blind Mountain,” “The Visitor,” “Waltz with Bashir,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Dear Zachary,” “Burn After Reading,” “The Band’s Visit,” “Man on Wire,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Frozen River,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “Wonderful Town”… Oh, and “Of Time and the City,” although that’s probably technically a 2009 film. Then there are the foreign films that never even saw a release outside the film fests at all: “Son of a Lion,” “The Minder,” “Kontakt,” “It’s Hard to Be Nice.” Hmmm… 2008 is looking better in retrospect than I remember.
Wow, out of all the films on that list, I’ve only seen WALL‑E. Christ, I’m lame.
The best movies I’ve seen this year? Uh… Rambo, WALL‑E, and Iron Man.
Very happy to see DIARY OF THE DEAD on your list, Glenn. I love the film, and even though most Romero fans I know seem to loathe it, I think it marks a real creative resurgence. There’s a lot of passion behind it, feeling like Romero is finding his voice again. I can’t wait for the next one (as yet untitled), which Romero has described as Wyler’s THE BIG COUNTRY with zombies!
And anyone who does not recognize KNIGHTRIDERS as one of Romero’s best films cannot rightly call themselves a fan. It’s Romero’s favorite of all his films and a beautiful film all around.
Props for “The Last Mistress”…I totally forgot about how great that was.
Synecdoche, A Christmas Tale, The Wrestler, Paranoid Park, and Rachel Getting Married would all be on my list, too.
Burn After Reading and Flight of the Red Balloon, on the other hand…
The Stones movie? And the Eastwood?
I’m surprised, to say the least.
Steve, I have this theory that “Shine a Light” is actually Scorsese’s most directly personal movie since, oh, “The Age of Innocence.” I’ll have to develop that some time.
Hi Glenn,
Long time listener, first time commenter, just watched DIARY the other night, found it to be an intense disappointment. Why?
1. Lack of interesting/engaging characters. I won’t make any great sweeping claims about the acting in Romero’s other films, but there’s always been somebody to hook into in one way or another. These kids are just bland and blander, with the almost comic gravitas of the professor just coming off as silly.
2. The thudding obviousness of The Major Theme, repeated over and over and over. “If it’s not on camera, it doesn’t exist” – twice? Not to mention such writerly contrivances as the repeat of the opening fake movie as the actual movie, “It’s too easy to use”, “shoot me”.
3. From what I’ve seen (admittedly just the DEAD movies, BRUISER, and THE CRAZIES) Romero’s movies work the best in the solitary, claustrophobic setting. By making this a road trip movie, it really dissipated the tension in favor of ongoing episodic bits … most of which felt like lukewarm tea that we’ve tasted many times over.
4. Possibly not Romero’s fault, but I’ve seen a heap of zombie movies now in the last few years, and I’m thinking the genre really needs a rest. I suspect (perhaps erroneously) that many of the folks giving high marks to Romero haven’t seen, say, [REC], or even RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE, which is a pretty terrible film, but whose first scene is more disturbing, evocative, and well-done than the entirety of DIARY.
5. I’m just completely over first-person horror at the moment. I refuse to believe that you’re not going to put the camera down because you’re COMPELLED! I’ll admit this is one of those cinematic devices you either go with or you don’t, and I’m sure people could point to many similar ones in films that I love, but I didn’t buy it.
6. And even as a first-person horror, there were some bizarre choices, particularly the blue frames and tone pops, which seemed like some kind of film assembly rush device … completely out of tune with the film school meets YouTube aesthetic I suppose he was going for.
That’s off the top of my head.
There were several well-executed moments as far as the horror itself – this film would make a great three-minute effects reel, though some of the CGI bloodsplatters are pretty unconvincing – and I guess Romero deserves credit for trying something different.
Enjoyed the list, but “Burn After Reading”, really?
Seems there’s something on this list to displease everyone!
But, yes, Robert—really “Burn After Reading,” which I just watched on Blu-ray, and which still strikes me as a pretty hilarious live-action cartoon. I know it’s got no “heart.” Not everything has to have “heart.” Debussy’s etudes don’t have “heart”—they’re etudes. Still pretty great. Not that “Burn” is on a level with…never mind.
The Rivette, to me, is a spectacular display of formal control and real (as opposed to Alanis-Morrisette-variety) irony. Slow? To some. To me, deliberate. Every recent Rivette film, I’m totally comfortable with within the first few minutes—like I’m in the hands of a master.
The Romero hit me as politically audacious and a trenchant critique of new-media triumphalism.
Let’s continue…
Do those who complain about the slow pace of foreign films feel the same way about, say, Kubrick or Tarantino?
“Shine a Light” is a great film for thrusting us into the middle of the energy of a Stones’ concert. I’ve attended five in person, and the film is better. It is also a celebration of the artist’s attempt to conquer time through his art. To hell with physiology and chronology, let’s rock and roll.
Lack of heart was not a concern. With few exceptions, the Coen boys have never been big on “heart”. It was the general mean spiritedness of the project that turned me off. Yes, the boys are big on that as well, but it seemed different this time around. In the past no matter how ugly things got (see the underrated 2004 “The Ladykillers”), you still had a sense Ethan and Joel liked the characters they were tormenting. Here not so. And, with the exception of the exchanges between Simmons and Rasche, all other attempts towards humor seemed forced and flat.
Although I have problems with “Reading”, I still find your list (as with previous years) a great reference tool. Your 2007 list lead me to Corbijn’s “Control” for which I am grateful.
And with a handful of films still to be seen (a drawback living in Sacramento, CA) here is what is shaping up with me so far:
Best
Frost/Nixon (Howard)
Kung Fu Panda (Osborne and Stevenson)
Milk (Van Sant)
Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle and Tandan)
The Visitor (McCarthy)
Honorable Mention
A Christmas Tale (Desplechin)
The Duchess (Dibb)
Elegy (Coixet)
Let the Right One In (Alfredson)
Speed Racer (The Wachowski Brothers)
Robert, what can I tell you? I laughed—even more the second time, in appreciation of a lot of the set-ups. Glad you enjoy the list. I’m glad to see a mention of “Speed Racer,” which I’m still of two very different minds about.
Oh, validation! GK, your top two movies are my top two also! But no mention of “Let The Right One In?”
Regarding what you’re smoking: ever try Nat Shermans? I just discovered them. Very expensive, which helps you cut back, and they come in a weird pack that’s hard to get cigarettes out of, which also helps. Few places carry them, and that helps too. Of course, we could all just quit. *Cough*
Speed Racer wasn’t great, but it was actually fun. I think buyer’s remorse/revenge for the Matrix is what provoked the severe beating it got. It’s better than the entirety of the trilogy combined.
Embarssingly, I’ve only seen three of the top 10 (and I live in NYC)! I really have no excuse on missing some of those. I’m also trying to play catch-up before the year is up.
I have to say I was quite surprised by Redbelt. I found the film to be more interesting for what it doesn’t do. Sure, the whole thing is pretty ludicrous, but the slow burn of events leading up to the climax was quite intense, even as I watched it at home with half-a-dozen distractions as the family prepared for the holiday. It would certainly make an interesting double feature with Night and the City.
And I have to agree with Diarmiud on In Bruges. I’m so disappointed I missed it theatrically. The film is so much more complex and tragic than the advertisements sold it as. It may just be my favorite feature film debut of the year. Much praise for Martin McDonagh.
Boarding Gate left me very cold. But special mention should go to Kim Gordon for Worst Actress of the Year. And all of a sudden, I’m more interested in Shotgun Stories. I’ll have to check that out soon.
Glenn, just curious, what’s your opinion on Silent Light? I know it played at NYFF 2007, so did you include it last year? Or are you waiting for Film Forum’s 2009 release? I know it was THE film experience of 2008 for me.
Jovani—I really enjoyed “Redbelt” up until the last 20 minutes—which were no more ludicrous than what came before, but just so much more poorly handled as to look REALLY ludicrous. I agree the buildup was quite intense. Indeed, the first three quarters had me almost as much as the whole of “House of Games” did. A bitter disappointment. I liked much of “In Bruges” a lot, but I think it overplayed its hand. As for “Boarding Gate,” well, I thought for what it was—a smart French cineaste’s recreation of a noirish contemporary B picture—it was pretty (and consistently) great. And Kim Gordon, who I know slightly, is a bad actress on purpose. Really. It’s all very conceptual-art and stuff.
I REALLY like “Silent Light” and can’t wait to see it again, so your suspicion is correct: I am waiting for the Film Forum ’09 release. Such are my self-imposed rules. I’ll surely write about it at more length then.
Great Selection, but I would also include Gus Van Sant’s Milk and Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling. I did find Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married overrated, save for the great performance of Debra Winger (how come she’s not getting the attention she deserves).
Hey Glenn,
I’m so glad to see you have a site up now that your gone from Première. That site has really went downhill since you left, its has if the Professor has left the classroom. Anyhow really strong list there, your one of the best film critics out there. One of the few that appreciated the brilliance behind The Fountain and INLAND EMPIRE back in 2006. I will check out some of those film, this is my top 10 right now. I still have to see The Last Duchess of Langlais, The Last Mistress, Still Life Che, Wendy & Lucy, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, Waltz with Bashir, and Let the Right One In. I think this year has been weeker then ever, and that is why we are finding more and more obscure movies.
Top 10
1. Paranoid Park
2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days
3. Encounters at the End of the World
4. Happy-Go-Lucky
5. Rachel Getting Married
6. The Dark Knight
7. My Blueberry Nights
8. The Visitor
9. Milk
10. Man on Wire
I liked Synecdoche, New York A Christmas Tale as well, but Desplechin films are jarring and overly verbose and abrupt for me. Synecdoche was brilliant, though draining and joyless. I can only endure so much self-pitty in one film.
Glenn,
What did you think of Wendy & Lucy?
I liked “Wendy and Lucy” a great deal, although I thought hanging that cross around the neck of the grocery-store rat was an egregious bit of grandstanding and barrelled-fish-shooting. Many demerits on those grounds.
Glenn, where’s “Towelhead”? Just kidding.
Enjoyed the list. I’m a bit late in commenting. Do you know where, if anywhere, the Garrel film will be available? Needless to say, I missed it. Also, what did you think of “Ballast,” “In the City of Sylvia” and “The Edge of Heaven”?
Really looking forward to seeing “Silent Light” Friday. I’m anxious to hear more about what you think of it.