Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 4

I think this shall represent the final purging of the trivia rattling around my brain from 2008.

Welcome Miscellaneous Events of the Year: Nicholas Stoller and David Koepp making good use of Russell Brand and Ricky Gervais


I'm not really a fan of either British comedian, but in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Ghost Town both were great, playing to their strengths and their public personas perfectly. It's even made me like them a bit. It's miraculous.

Honourable Mentions:
Kate Beckinsale's strong performance in Snow Angels. So much better when not modelling rubber pants.
Seeing RADA-trained Shakespearean actor Adrian Lester playing a gun-toting hardass in Doomsday and seemingly relishing it.
The arrival of Rebecca Hall as a formidable screen presence.
Tim Roth's excellent performance as Emil Blonsky in The Incredible Hulk (usually I'm not a fan of his).

Unwelcome Miscellaneous Events of the Year: Fox being the biggest assholes in the world for trying to ruin the release of Watchmen. Will there be a boycott of X-Men Origins: Wolverine as a result? I'd like to hope it happens.


Dishonourable Mentions:
The incomprehensibility of the action scenes in Quantum of Solace and Eagle Eye.
The truly disheartening career choices of Al Pacino.
Taraji P. Henson's bizarre stereotypical acting choices in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
George Lucas's decision to make the character of Ziro the Hutt a weird lisping cross-dresser with Truman Capote's voice in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. An entire planet says, "WTF?"

Best Poster: The Dark Knight



Worst Poster: Bangkok Dangerous


Best Advertising Campaign of the Year: Cloverfield


After the trailer from last year, the campaign never really put a foot wrong. By the time the movie came out, there was no way even the worst reviews would have stopped us watching it.

Worst Advertising Campaign of the Year: The Incredible Hulk

Slender trailers, a couple of crappy TV spots, an inability to control the grouchy star (other than a funny bit on Jimmy Kimmel), and eventually, just before the release, a huge emphasis on the appearance of Robert Downey Jr., and the end of the movie being re-edited to give that tiny scene more prominence. No wonder the movie didn't make as much money as hoped. It all made the movie look like this rush-job trying to find an empty weekend during the busy summer season, but even a cursory look at the extras on the DVD show the astonishing amount of hard work and thought that went into it. Such a shame. Anyway, here's the Kimmel thing. It's the only vaguely good thing to come out of the shockingly mishandled campaign.



Least Discreet Advertising Campaign of the Year:


Wanted's many trailers gave away pretty much every WOW moment of the film. As the plot (minus the crazy Loom of Fate and exploding rats stuff) was very similar to the comic, it felt like a waste of time actually sitting through the movie. I can see that the movie was a tough sell, but couldn't they have kept some more stuff back for the film?

Coolest and Most Apt Cameo Sadly Relegated to a Deleted Scene on a DVD: Ghostface Killah in Iron Man

Most Deliriously Batshit Action Movie of the Year: Rambo


Honourable Mentions: Vantage Point, Eagle Eye, Chocolate

Vocal Sound Effect of the Year: “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” (Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino)

Catchphrase of the Year: "Let! Us! Fuck!" (Zack and Miri Make A Porno)

Most Welcome Trend of the Year (Other Than The Grudging Critical Respect Aimed At The Superhero Genre): The New Horror Renaissance


It's been going on for a while now, but even so, this year we were lucky enough to get Eden Lake, [Rec], The Orphanage, Let The Right One In and, arguably, the interesting adaptation of Scott Smith's horror classic The Ruins, all of which were of varying degrees of quality but definitely in the "very good" column. I feel like adding Neil Marshall's hugely entertaining Doomsday to that list, for being in such debt to John Carpenter, James Cameron, and George Miller, who all know how to make a suspenseful or horrifying movie. Marshall has shown he can duplicate those talents with ease. If I'm going to add that, I'll even make a case for Stuart Gordon's excellent Stuck, which is macabre, ghoulish, nail-biting suspense, as well as being a terrific comment on poverty and the pressures put on the working class, and features an excellent performance from Stephen Rea. It's been a long time since I was excited by the horror genre, and it's an odd feeling.

Least Welcome Trend of the Year: Post-Modern Cinema-Verite Movies about the War in Iraq

Don't get me wrong, it's vital we keep our eye on that war, and never forget that people are suffering there in simply horrible ways, but whereas documentaries like No End in Sight, Taxi To The Dark Side, and Standard Operating Procedure do their best to illuminate by giving voice to as many different observers as possible, Nick Broomfield's Battle For Haditha and Brian De Palma's Redacted try to create a different kind of "truth" by either recreating an atrocity or by staging a po-mo video collage of a fictional atrocity based on a real one. Both movies come from an honest place but mangle the truth through their different approaches; Broomfield with his docu-drama retelling, De Palma with his formalist tricks (fake French documentary footage, YouTube videos, CCTV, hand-held camera shots from soldiers documenting the events). Both movies intentionally feature non-actors playing unconvincing characters (more like avatars) saying clunky expositional dialogue, and featuring some bizarre choices.

For instance, Broomfield invents a composite character who is a major protagonist during the horrifying massacre of innocents. If you don't see the accompanying documentary (the name of which eludes me, regrettably) then you wouldn't know this, and you would assume that somehow that person had given his consent to Broomfield that he could show him in the film, or had had some hand in telling Broomfield what he was thinking and feeling throughout. As he didn't, all of that is now suspect, and whatever horrors the film presents are dulled by that knowledge. Just as annoying, Redacted is not based on a real event, due to legal difficulties, and as such seems like little more than a remake of Casualties of War. Even though we know there was indeed an incident similar to this, the film just muddies the waters and makes it harder for the viewer to figure out what is really going on over there.


As for the hand-held camera, it's not a convention I usually object to. I just think it really only works in movies like Cloverfield and [Rec], where using the participant frame as a method of generating new ways of delivering shocks to the audience is far more tasteful than, say De Palma's use of it. Even more annoying is that is has been proved that a docu-drama can be made that hews as close to the objective truth as it is possible to. Paul Greengrass' astonishing United 93 should be a template to follow, made with as much attention to detail and first-hand accounting as it is possible to. Admittedly Broomfield couldn't get the same level of access to the real participants as Greengrass, but still, there are avoidable choices made that damage his movie.

It's doubly frustrating because these are stories that need to be told and, especially in the case of Haditha, were done with such incredibly good intentions. This article by Broomfield shows how committed he was to telling this story to the best of his abilities. Unfortunately, in the telling of them, by blurring the lines of fact and fiction, and by filling the characters' mouths with words that no normal person would ever say, they have inadvertently distanced the audience from the real horrors. They're still essential viewing, though.

Most Relentless Use of Religious Imagery in a Science Fiction Tale: Dante 01


Dishonourable Mention: Wall*E

Best Hair: Viggo Mortensen's face fuzz (Appaloosa)


He looks like a bit of a dandy but he will fuck you up, for reals.

Worst Hair: Nicolas Cage (Bangkok Dangerous)


Does using shampoo ruin his deadly assassin's aim or something?

Most Improbably Styled Hair: Camilla Belle's pristine dreads in 10000 B.C.


Apparently we're descended from Rasta Valley Girls.

Best Use of Kristen Wiig: Ghost Town


Worst Use of Kristen Wiig: Cutting her entirely out of the cinema release of Forgetting Sarah Marshall



Adorable Screen Couple of the Year: Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man)


Honourable Mentions:
Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno), Mos Def and Melonie Diaz (Be Kind Rewind)

Crap Screen Couple of the Year: Vin Diesel and Mélanie Thierry (Babylon A.D.)


Dishonourable Mentions: Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye), Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson (Jumper)

Inappropriate and Just Downright Creepy Screen Couple of the Year: Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson (Let The Right One In)


"Oh Man, At Last!" Couple of the Year: Harrison Ford and Karen Allen (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)


"Jesus, Just Split Up Already!" Couple of the Year: Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel (The Happening)


Dishonourable Mention: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road), Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman (The Strangers)

Most Awkward and Unconvincing Couple of the Year: Edward Norton and Liv Tyler (The Incredible Hulk)


Utterly Improbable Couple of the Year: James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie (Wanted)


Dishonourable Mention: Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth (21)

Most Gratuitous Kissing Between Two Hotties Just So The Director Can Get His Rocks Off: Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona


Worst Ending to a Relationship: Kate Beckinsale and Hott Sam Rockwell in Snow Angels


Dishonourable Mentions: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road), Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman (The Strangers)

Likeable Manic Pixie Dream Girl of the Year: Rachel Jansen (Mila Kunis - Forgetting Sarah Marshall)


Honourable Mention: Chloë - (Clémence Poésy - In Bruges)

Unlikeable Manic Pixie Dream Girl - Valentina (Natalya Rudakova - Transporter 3)


Dishonourable Mention: Fox (Angelina Jolie - Wanted)

Convincing Lust Object of the Year: Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace)


Honourable Mention: Javier Bardem (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)

Unconvincing Lust Object of the Year: Al Pacino (88 Minutes)


Dishonourable Mention: Kate Bosworth (21)

"Kate Winslet In Little Children" Award For Least Believable Unattractiveness: Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler


We're supposed to think Tomei, as stripper Cassidy, looks so old that no one wants her to dance for them? Bullshit. She's looking as good as ever, though kudos to her for selling that plot point.

Most Amusing Critical Crush of the Year: Stephanie Zacharek's potentially compromising soft spot for Jason Statham

At the end of the year, Stephanie Zacharek, film critic for Salon, had her end of year list (somewhat smaller than mine), with a big list of honourable mentions. Among the usual suspects, there was also The Bank Job and Transporter 3, two movies that really are just not that good. When we had a closer look at her reviews for both movies, we found out why: Stephanie + Jason 4evah!


Hilariously, her reviews for both movies (and Death Race, which she was also easy on), were basically mash notes to the Brit Bruiser. Here are some highlights:

"Statham is sexy all right, with that beefcake-pinup chest, but the sexiest thing about him is what's going on upstairs, and his voice alone is delectable: It sounds like a cat's tongue feels." (Transporter 3)

"The look in Statham's eyes reassures [Keeley Hawes] more than his words ever could -- they have a melting quality that counterbalances the rough, masculine raspiness of his voice. In the press notes for "The Bank Job," Donaldson says that Statham reminds him of a British Steve McQueen, and the comparison makes sense. In "The Bank Job," Statham is a sex symbol with a soul..." (The Bank Job)

"Anderson's camera [casts] its unapologetically erotic view on Statham's perfectly chiseled mug -- his stubble is so artfully dappled it could have been painted by Carravagio... There's no doubt he makes a fine physical specimen in any picture: His muscles have that mysterious filmic quality of looking both rock-hard and pillowy at once... Statham moves with such easy grace that you don't have to work hard to believe him. And if he can stand up to Joan Allen, melting her predatory stare with his own molten gaze, then it's clear he's not just the prettiest guy on the prison block, but also the toughest." (Death Race)

I wish she had reviewed In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale as well. I'd wager she definitely owns it.

Okay, I reckon that should be enough. Normal service can be resumed now.

Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 3

As I had feared, it's not three posts about the movies of the year, anymore. This one got so big I've split it in sort-of half. The other will be up tomorrow, if you can bear the wait.

Best Hero: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. - Iron Man)


Honourable Mentions:
Racer X (Matthew Fox - Speed Racer)
Po (Jack Black - Kung Fu Panda)
Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor - Redbelt)
Zen (Yanin Vismitananda – Chocolate)
James Bond (Daniel Craig – Quantum of Solace)

Best Villain: The Joker (Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mentions:

Brett (Jack O'Connell - Eden Lake)
Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson – Jumper)
Tai Lung (Ian McShane - Kung Fu Panda)
Prime Minister Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang - Red Cliff: Part One)
Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons - Appaloosa)

Worst Hero: D’Leh (Stephen Strait - 10000 B.C.)


Dishonourable Mentions:
Rick O’ Connell (Brendan Fraser - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino - 88 Minutes)
Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra - Doomsday)
David Rice (Hayden Christensen – Jumper)
Joe the Depressed Assassin (Nicolas Cage - Bangkok Dangerous)

Worst Villain: Jon Forster (Neal McDonough – 88 Minutes)


Dishonourable Mentions:
Gallian (Ray Liotta – In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Marriage and the restrictions placed on the human soul by societal conventions (The 1950s – Revolutionary Road)
Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man (Humankind at its worst – Blindness)
The cynicism of people in modern Britain (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Random vaguely Arabic looking Warlord ZOMG Fear of the Other!!! (Affif Ben Badra – 10000 B.C.)

Most Tragic Villain: Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart - The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mention: Prince Nuada (Luke Goss - Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

Most Lovable Character: Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim - Kung Fu Panda)



Character Who Is An Affront To Humanity And Logic And Must Never Be Emulated: Poppy (Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky)

Most Annoyingly Passive Character: Jamal Malik (Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire)


Dishonourable Mention: Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Most Thought-Out Character of the Year: Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)


It was a hell of a tough sell, making the audience care about and accept the young turk who would, if rumour was to be believed, take over the whip and fedora in future Indiana Jones movies. That's less likely now, but even so, Spielberg, Lucas, David Koepp (and Frank Darabont from his previous draft) took great care in crafting the character of Mutt Williams, and Shia LaBeouf brought him to life beautifully. Sadly, all involved should have spent as much time getting the final half of the film right as well.

Character We Want To See Suddenly Appear In Every Movie Ever Made Just To Insult Everyone With His Piercing Insights Into The Hypocrisy Of Bourgeois Middle-Class Life: John Givings (Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road)


Gupta of the Year: Jack Lira (Diego Luna – Milk)


Dishonourable Mentions: Professor Harold 'Ox' Oxley (John Hurt - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), Ashley Kowalski (Dreama Walker - Gran Torino)

Most Lovable Cranky Hardass of the Year: Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood – Gran Torino)


Honourable Mention: The Chief (Alan Arkin - Get Smart)

Badass of the Year: Zen (Yanin Vismistananda - Chocolate) If you don’t believe me, check out the stunt at 3:14.



What a woman. Can we make her the Queen or something?

Best Scene: Scary prisoner Tiny Lister makes a fateful decision in The Dark Knight.


Honourable Mentions:

Philippe Petit completes his high-wire walk between the Two Towers in Man on Wire.
The twenty minute single take conversation in Hunger.
Tony Stark bickers with his enthusiastic robot helper in Iron Man.
The BPRD enter the troll market in Hellboy II.
Po's kung fu dream in Kung Fu Panda.

Best Action Scene: The various mini-battles within the Eight Trigrams Formation in Red Cliff: Part One.


Honourable Mentions:

Tai Lung escapes from prison in Kung Fu Panda.
The mid-movie blowout chase sequence in The Dark Knight.
The first stage of the Casa Cristo 5000 from Speed Racer.
The eighteen minute showdown at the end of Chocolate.
The mental car chase at the end of Vantage Point.
Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) defends the honour of himself and his training academy against thoughtless corporate exploitation in the final few minutes of Redbelt.
General Ma Xinyi (Jet Li) takes on a line of cannons in The Warlords.

Most Upsetting Sight of the Year: Whatever the hell that thing was that terrorised poor Manuela Velasco in the apartment penthouse at the end of [Rec].


Honourable Mentions:

A topless Robert De Niro having rough sex with Carla Gugino in Righteous Kill.
Mickey Rourke getting stapled in The Wrestler.
Tim Roth getting kicked across a campus into a tree in The Incredible Hulk.
Jeff Anderson discovering the downside of filming anal in Zack and Miri Make A Porno.
Stephen Rea trapped in a windshield for several hours in Stuck.

Long-Awaited Showdown Between Action Icons of the Year: Jet Li versus Jackie Chan in The Forbidden Kingdom.



Not-So Long Awaited Showdown Between Action Icons of the Year: Jason Statham versus Craig Fairbrass in The Bank Job.

Scene I Cried At Most This Year: Matthew Fox's final scene in Speed Racer. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.


Honourable Mention: Mutt Williams picks up his father's hat in the final scene of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Most Satisfying Finale of the Year: The Dark Knight


Honourable Mentions: The Wrestler, Speed Racer, The Orphanage, Step Brothers

Worst Garbled and Re-Edited Ending of the Year: Babylon A.D.


Dishonourable Mentions: Dante 01, Jumper

Most WTF OMG Brain-Altering Applause-Inducing Moment of the Year: Batman brings the Batpod to a very abrupt stop during the bravura chase sequence from The Dark Knight.

Best Bad Guy Death: Random Burmese soldier shot in the head with an arrow prior to falling onto a landmine in Rambo (It's at the two minute mark.)



Honourable Mentions:
Rosie Perez crushed by an exploding car in the pitch-perfect action-homage finale to Pineapple Express.
No. 8 (Pongpat Wachirabunjong) plunges several floors to a very painful death (see also several of his cronies who suffer a similar bone-crunching fate) in the demented finale of Chocolate.
The tragic fall of Prince Nuada in Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Best Location Shooting: The Dark Knight

As silly as it sounds, filming almost entirely in Chicago is one of the things that makes The Dark Knight such a distinctive movie. Even though Chicago has been used many times before as a location, Christopher Nolan and his crew made it feel like a new place, somewhere that doesn't exist in our world. Here's a feature showing the locations, which is making me want to visit and do a big tour. Nolan's attempt to show as much of "Gotham" as he can, making it a character in the movie, means he also films a lot of interiors in corner offices with large windows looking out over the city. Especially in IMAX, the effect is breathtaking.

Honourable Mentions:
The Incredible Hulk - Judicious use of New York locations make the big FX finale shot in Canada look more convincing, and the early scenes in Brazil, with astonishingly long shots of the huge favelas, are fantastic.
In Bruges - Obviously.
Slumdog Millionaire - When you can tell what the hell is going on.

Right, the next one will be the last one, I hope. It'll be even more miscellaneous than this one, if you can believe that.

Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 2

The second part of my long-gestating List trilogy is ready to go. Man, finding pictures can take up an entire day.

Best Actor: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder)


Honourable Mentions:

Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Redbelt)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Colin Farrell (In Bruges)
Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Eden Lake)

Best Actress: Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)


Honourable Mentions:

Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Julianne Moore (Blindness)
Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading)
Lina Leandersson (Let The Right One In)

Best Supporting Actor: Aaron Eckhart / Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mentions:

James Franco (Pineapple Express)
Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges)
Eddie Marsan (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Adam Scott (Step Brothers)
Matthew Fox (Speed Racer)

Best Supporting Actress: Emily Mortimer (Redbelt)


Honourable Mentions:

Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Dame Judi Dench (Quantum of Solace)
Laura Ramsay (The Ruins)
Amy Poehler (Baby Mama)
Wei Zhao (Red Cliff)

Best Performance by Hott Sam Rockwell: Snow Angels


Honourable Mention: Choke

Worst Actor: Mark Wahlberg (The Happening)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Al Pacino (88 Minutes, Righteous Kill)
Hayden Christensen (Jumper)
Jim Sturgess (21)
Steven Strait (10000 B.C.)
Vin Diesel (Babylon A.D.)

Worst Supporting Actor: Burt Reynolds (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Tom Wilkinson (Cassandra's Dream)
John Hannah (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
Ray Liotta (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Jamie Bell (Jumper)
Tyrese Gibson (Death Race)

Worst Actress: Liv Tyler (The Incredible Hulk, The Strangers)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Kate Bosworth (21)
Camilla Belle (10000 B.C.)
Zooey Deschanel (The Happening)
Renee Zellweger (Leatherheads, Appaloosa)
Alicia Witt (88 Minutes)

Worst Supporting Actress: Charlotte Rampling (Babylon A.D.)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Leelee Sobieski (88 Minutes, In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Saffron Burrows (The Bank Job)
Claire Forlani (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Betty Buckley (The Happening)
Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Performance Hiding Behind An Uncanny Impersonation of a British Icon: Michael Sheen as Sir David Frost in Frost/Nixon

Most Unexpectedly Demented and Entertaining Performance in an Unexpectedly Demented and Entertaining Movie: Matthew Fox (Vantage Point)


Most Glorious Ham: Matthew Lillard (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)

Best Uncredited Performance: Steve Martin (Baby Mama)

Worst Uncredited Performance: Gerard Depardieu (Babylon A.D.)

Most Entertaining Actor in an Appalling Movie: Al Pacino (88 Minutes)


Most Entertaining Actress in an Appalling Movie: Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!)

Most Depressing Performance From a Talented Actor Trapped in a Schlocky Movie: Morgan Freeman, seen here posing in front of a destroyed Loom of Fate (Wanted)


Some Loom of Fate. It didn't even see a bunch of exploding rats coming. Pathetic.

Dishonourable Mention: Kevin Spacey (21)

Most Depressing Performance From a Talented Actress Trapped in a Schlocky Movie: Joan Allen (Death Race)


Dishonourable Mention: Maria Bello (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)

Most Egregiously Wasted Cast: Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh and Anthony Wong Chau Sang (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)

"Where The Hell Have You Been?" Actor of the Year: Lance Henriksen (Appaloosa)


Honourable Mention: Brian Dennehy (Righteous Kill)

Best Director: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mentions:

Matteo Girrone (Gomorra)
David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Snow Angels)
Gus Van Sant (Milk, Paranoid Park)
John Stevenson, Mark Osborne and Jennifer Yuh Nelson - (Kung Fu Panda)
Darren Aronofsky - (The Wrestler)

Best Directorial Debut: Steve McQueen (Hunger)


Honourable Mentions:

Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)
James Watkin (Eden Lake)

Worst Director: Jon Avnet (88 Minutes, Righteous Kill)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Robert Luketic (21)
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Woody Allen (Cassandra's Dream)
Roland Emmerich (10000 B.C.)
Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!)

"Where The Hell Have You Been?" Director of the Year: John Woo (Red Cliff: Part One)


Honourable Mention: Marc Caro (Dante 01)

Best Screenplay: Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)


Honourable Mentions:

Christopher Nolan / Jonathan Nolan / David Goyer (The Dark Knight)
Seth Rogen / Evan Goldberg (Pineapple Express)
David Mamet (Redbelt)
John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let The Right One In)
Matteo Garrone / Roberto Saviano / Maurizio Braucci / Ugo Chiti / Gianni Di Gregorio / Massimo Gaudioso - (Gomorra)

Worst Screenplay of the Year: Gary Scott Thompson (88 Minutes)

Dishonourable Mentions:

Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb (21)
Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Woody Allen (Cassandra's Dream)
Russell Gewirtz (Righteous Kill)
Jason Richman (Bangkok Dangerous)

Best Sound Design: Ben Burtt (Wall*E)



Honourable Mention: Leslie Shatz (Paranoid Park)

Best Score: Hans Zimmer/John Powell (Kung Fu Panda)

Honourable Mentions:

Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard (The Dark Knight)
Michael Giacchino (Speed Racer)
Tarô Iwashiro (Red Cliff)
Jeff McIlwain/David Wingo (Snow Angels)

Best Original Song: Another Way To Die – Jack White and Alicia Keys (Quantum of Solace)

Honourable Mentions:

What Happens After - Explosions in the Sky (Snow Angels)
The Wrestler – Bruce Springsteen (The Wrestler)

Most Unexpected Vocal Performance: Clint Eastwood dueting with Jamie Cullum on the title song to Gran Torino.



Honourable Mention: Ed Harris singing You’ll Never Leave My Heart over the end credits of Appaloosa.

Best Cinematography: Caleb Deschanel (The Spiderwick Chronicles)


Honourable Mentions:

Christopher Doyle/Rain Li (Paranoid Park)
Colin Watkinson (The Fall)
Sean Bobbitt (Hunger)
Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight)

Worst Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire)

Dishonourable Mentions:

Haris Zambarloukos (Mamma Mia!)
Simon Duggan (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
Decha Srimantra (Bangkok Dangerous)

Most Disappointing Photography: Roger Deakins (Revolutionary Road)

After his stellar work last year on No Country For Old Men and especially The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, it pains me to say his work on Sam Mendes' adaptation of the Richard Yates novel left me cold. It's very nice work, and he doesn't do anything wrong, per se. It's just kinda limited. Was this Sam Mendes' fault? Or was I expecting too much after he excelled himself last year? Only one shot stuck in my mind; the bravura overlighting while Kate Winslet looks out of a window at the end of the movie. That was awesome. Other than that, I was frustrated. Perhaps it's my fault for expecting fireworks every time out, but I kept thinking about how gorgeous Antonio Calvache made suburbia look in Todd Field's Little Children, and it irked me greatly. I'm sure King Deakins will thrill me again in the future, but for now, ::pouts::

Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Honourable Mentions: Speed Racer, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Seriously, those effects in Benjamin Button were insane. Digital Domain and their cohorts have the effects Oscar sewn up for sure. Anyway, one more installment to go, best filed under the heading "Miscellaneous". I'll be stuck looking for more pictures again tomorrow. Oy...

Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 1

Later than just about every other best movies list in the world, here is my overly elaborate take on 2008, completed now in frustration over yet more bullshit release date nonsense which means, in addition to never having the time to see everything, many promising movies won't come out in England until mid-Jan to late Feb, if we're lucky. Especially annoying is that, apart from a couple of truly terrific and left-field movies (I'm thinking primarily of The Wrestler here), the stuff we get early is the sub-Miramax tripe that openly begs for Oscar attention, especially if it stars Kate Winslet. Meanwhile Rachel Getting Married, Frozen River and Synecdoche, New York (for example) are delayed until an annoyingly late date or not given a release date at all.

This renders list-making a futile exercise, as some truly great films end up on UK screens long after the rest of the world has moved on from them. A couple of UK press end of year lists that I read this week featured No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, two films from 2007 that got released here way too late to get on UK lists. Even worse, two movies I definitely would have put on my 2007 list (Sweeney Todd and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) came out here too late for me to see them. Though I thought both films were stunning, I won't put them on my 2008 list as I would feel bad for dropping two recent films out of the list. For the record, Sweeney Todd is Tim Burton's best film since Ed Wood, and Diving Bell should have swept the Oscars. And now I can relax about it.


Of course, I could have delayed this even more, and Canyon was lobbying for a further delay until we'd finally caught up, a plan completely ruined by the news that Synecdoche’s UK release has been changed from February to, get this, FUCKING MAY (!!!!!!!!!), but even if it was coming out soon, after a couple of weeks of insane movie-watching marathons I'm just about spent, and the delay has been exacerbated by illness. Sorry, newly-released Che and The Reader, and sorry other missed movies such as Standard Operating Procedure and Seven Pounds and Changeling and the potentially coma-inducing BBC Films costume drama trio of The Other Boleyn Girl, The Edge of Love and The Duchess, you'll all have to wait. Consider this list the almost definitive one for 2008, with the proviso that if Synecdoche and Rachel Getting Married are as good as we hope, this list is subject to change. Further to that, if we see any turds from 2008 that have yet to be released, my worst lists might change as well.

N.B. Yes, I know I've cheated by shoving eleven movies into my top ten, but The Wrestler completely ruined my original list by being absolutely amazing. Blame Darren Aronofsky and his wonderful cast and crew for excelling themselves. Also, there are a lot of Honourable and Dishonourable Mentions, but I've tried to match them up so there are an equal amount of each. It makes sense in my head. Please just indulge me and my listophilia.

Best Movies of the Year:

1. The Dark Knight - L.A. Confidential featuring a man dressed as a bat, a psychopath in makeup, and a fallen hero with half a face. Nothing else this year could top the thrill of seeing the superhero genre show its potential for complex emotional and intellectual storytelling.

2. Kung Fu Panda - A love letter to a genre and a culture, a beautiful spectacle, an inspirational tale, and a perfectly pitched comedy. Repeated viewings have not yet dimmed its good-natured genius. And when I say repeated viewings, I mean obsessive-level rewatching.

3. In Bruges


Martin McDonagh’s debut feature, a perfectly constructed blast of cynicism and optimism, made me laugh harder than anything else this year, before sending me to the edge of my seat in the final act and keeping me there until the credits rolled. McDonagh has very definitely arrived.

4. Red Cliff: Part One - John Woo’s return to form, a glorious big-screen blend of heroism, romance, and trademark uncynical bromance, is a perfect crowd-pleaser. China now has its Lord of the Rings, and if you’re lucky enough to see the uncut original, so do you.

5. Gomorra - Five tales intertwine to explore the extent to which organized crime in Italy corrupts and destroys everything around it. The palpable sense of moral and physical decay pours from the screen. A staggering achievement.

6. Redbelt


Mamet’s pared-down classic, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor at the height of his powers, generates suspense through mundane threats to the life of an honest, honourable man, and resolves them in an outrageously exciting fashion. The final ten minutes had me alternately gasping and cheering.

7. Speed Racer - THAT’S RIGHT!!! Delirious, kaleidoscopic, overwhelming, sincere, thrilling, and like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Building from a hectic, information-packed opening to a breathtaking climax, the Wachowskis rewrote the rules of cinema and yet the public spat on them for their efforts. Ingrates.

8. Pineapple Express - Just like Hot Fuzz before it, the maligned action genre is sent a mash note in the form of a comedy. Also like Hot Fuzz, I expect to be rewatching this and finding new funny moments for a long time to come. As Seth Rogen says several times during the movie, "Nice!"

9. Iron Man - If The Dark Knight is a vision of the future of the superhero genre, Iron Man is the perfect encapsulation of what the old school can do when it’s done right. The best Marvel adaptation since X-Men 2, and the perfect delivery vehicle for concentrated bursts of Downey Jr. genius.

10.= The Wrestler - Some critics who have written about this movie have complained at how much it depends on redemption story sub-genre clichés, but seriously? Have they even seen it? The most uplifting depiction of bleak despair of recent years, beautifully performed and shot, and deeply moving.

10.= Eden Lake


Where the hell did this come from? Borne of the raging torrent of fear and mistrust that infests Mail-reading England, James Watkins’ debut feature recalls Straw Dogs and Deliverance, but still feels utterly modern. Horror movie of the year, with a kickass finale too.

Honourable Mentions:

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Man On Wire
Hunger
Wall*E
[Rec]

Worst Movies of the Year:

1.= 21


Formulaic, anodyne, sickeningly white-washed, unambitious, boring, stupid, poorly cast, and just plain offensive. When people bitch about Hollywood product being trash, this is the film they are imagining in their head.

1.= Cassandra's Dream - The worst and most inept student film about morality ever made, with terrible amateur dramatics and shaky production values. Except it’s not a student film. It’s by the director of Manhattan, and is made by professionals. How does this happen?

2. 88 Minutes - Something this wrong-headed achieves a kind of perverse beauty. It’s not the only film on this list that I love for being bad, but it’s possibly the one I had the most difficulty believing existed (see also: Jon Avnet’s follow-up Pacino project Righteous Kill)

3. Slumdog Millionaire - I have more to say on this sorry excuse for a movie below. Much more.

4. Bangkok Dangerous - Bad Nicolas Cage movies are often a thing of pure joy. This, however, is a boring, poorly-made chunk of pointless junk. Depressing, predictable, inept; how did this get made? Why did this get made? My environmentally conscious self weeps for the landfills bloated with unwanted copies of this tripe.

5. Happy-Go-Lucky - It’s beloved by many. It’s sure to get Oscar nominations. It also features a starring performance of technical brilliance that is, nevertheless, almost unwatchably annoying. The phoniness of Leigh’s appalling movie made me gag with revulsion, but it’s the almost blanket critical praise that aggravates my soul the most.

6. Mamma Mia! - As I am not a middle-aged woman with very low standards, I did not enjoy this film at all. Pierce Brosnan’s singing haunts my dreams. Still, the studio made enough money to pay for my therapy, right?

7. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor


More on this in a forthcoming post, but, as with 21, the archetypal mindless spectacle used as an example to justify hatred of populist cinema by pseudy asshole critics who think King of Phonyland Mike Leigh is an artiste.

8. The Happening - Watched with the right people, it’s one of the most entertaining films of the year. In the cold light of day? A startlingly ill-conceived mess. Even then it’s still somehow lovable. But, you know, shit.

9.= In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale - Dr. Uwe Boll brings the pain. A hero called Farmer (because he's a farmer), acres of pure ham from the bad guys, hectic and incomprehensible action scenes, and respected actors openly cashing a paycheck and sullying their careers horribly? I feel compelled to keep watching it.

9.= 10000 B.C. - Usually I don’t care if a movie plays fast and loose with historical truth, but even though we don’t know much about life 12000 years ago, this is still amazingly improbable. Makes Independence Day look like the original Day The Earth Stood Still.

10. Babylon A.D. - I feel bad adding this to the list. Fox’s usual army of mindless film-wrecking idiot accountants sabotaged the project, but even so, it’s tough to get through without lots of depressed sighing. And yet the director’s cut just got released on DVD. So I want to see it. Though I refuse to give Fox any more of my money. What to do? What to do?

21 and Cassandra’s Dream are at the top of the poll as 21 made me angriest of all the films I’ve seen this year, but Canyon, who considers Cassandra's Dream the worst and most poorly made movie of the decade, made a compelling case for it to get to the top spot. Who am I to argue? Ah, but why are 10000 B.C. and In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale vying for the coveted ninth place? Because of an imminent Face/Off post that I’ve been planning for months now but never got around to. Will I manage to in the near future? Probably not. There’s a drum peripheral and a game of Civilisation IV calling out to me. If I get around to it, all will be made clear.

Most Disappointing Movie of the Year: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

As with the announcement of all of David Fincher’s movies, anticipation for it rendered me almost unable to function as a productive member of society for the majority of 2008, which makes its mediocrity all the harder to bear. Ambitious, sprawling, beautiful to look at and technically an award-worthy marvel, it’s also a million years long, mawkish, and rendered absurd by some third-act character decisions that defy logic. Comparisons to screenwriter Eric Roth’s previous work on Forrest Gump have not been made idly. Several beats are similar/identical, the main characters are innocents dragged across the historical events of 20th Century America like a bouncing ball on a karaoke lyric screen, and sentimental visual motifs crop up in the final scenes (a feather in Gump, a hummingbird in Button).


The same reliance on dire platitudes and cutesy asides, and a similar structure are bad enough, though we entertained ourselves by finishing every sentence in the movie with the phrase "box of chocolates". Also amusing to us was that the movie spent most of its length showing what happened to Benjamin between the 1920s and the 1960s, skipping the last few decades of his life. Of course, Roth had already covered those years in Gump, and didn't need to go over it again. We reckon his next script will be about a three hundred year old man, and Roth can pick over the first two hundred years of American history.


It's especially galling as I wanted to embrace a Fincher movie that was so different from his other movies, hoping that a whimsical tone would work just as well as the cynical tone of some of his better movies, but sadly, I now feel like the archetypal outraged internet ranter bitching about how Fincher "pussied out" because he didn't make Seven II: The Sevening or whatever. It's not that at all. If anything Button is less sentimental, more cynical than Gump, though not by much. It just never kicks into a higher gear, and then, after idling for two hours, stalls completely. Still, a lot of the performances are great, and the effects are the best of the year. I spent the first ninety minutes muttering, "How? Seriously, how did they do this?" So it's got that going for it.

Dishonourable Mentions:

Tropic Thunder (not funny enough)
Transporter 3 (not exciting enough)
Hancock (a frustrating mess)
Son of Rambow (charming but frustratingly slight)
Choke (about as cinematic as a table reading)

Overrated Movie of the Year: Slumdog Millionaire

For the majority of the year I was convinced I would be having another rant about Mike Leigh in this post, but I get to put the boot into Danny Boyle instead. Currently topping innumerable critics polls, Slumdog Millionaire has captured the imagination of the audience in such a complete way that I strongly suspect there is some witchcraft involved. Did no one see what a hollow and tedious mess it is? Did the astonishing ugliness not make anyone want to vomit? Is no one bothered by the bewilderingly fatuous script? I gather the numerous illogicalities, contrivances and insultingly two-dimensional characters have been explained away by many as conventions of a fairy tale, which Slumdog Millionaire, despite paying lip-service to the terrible poverty of India, most certainly is, but that defence is a huge insult to the writers of actual fairytales. The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen were better writers than this. The other comparison made was that the film is Dickensian. Again, why do people suddenly think Charles Dickens was an idiot?


My biggest problem with Danny Boyle's directorial style in the past is that he has no impulse control, and no understanding of how shots should relate to each other, approaching even the most unassuming shot with the intention of making it as kinetic and unusual as possible. Slumdog Millionaire is the worst example of this so far, with almost every shot on a Dutch tilt, lit with garish colours, usually with characters on different focus planes, and then made even more ugly with rapid-cutting and the same kind of fractured and smeared slow-motion that occasionally ruins Peter Jackson's otherwise pristine films. After a couple of minutes I had a terrible headache, made worse when I concentrated on the deeply unlikeable characters, piss-poor performances, and embarrassing hokey plot.

That's even before we considered the patronising treatment of Indian poverty, the simplistic understanding of human nature, the childish humour, and, worst of all, the fact that this film is produced by Celador Films. Celador is the company that makes Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, so please don't tell me this movie is about opening Western eyes to the terrible conditions in Indian shanty-towns, or a celebration of Bollywood conventions (the few times that genre of movie is directly addressed are horribly awkward and poorly done, especially the crappy dance number over the credits). It's an advert for a TV show, which means Boyle has done this kind of shilling twice (the first time was Millions, a film about the UK National Lottery funded by proceeds from the UK National Lottery Fund).


Just to really annoy me, I'd finally embraced the guy after Sunshine, the only film he's made (other than Shallow Grave) that matched the style with the substance and created a beautifully choreographed suspense experience, where his worst impulses were ignored. Slumdog Millionaire is, sadly, a return to form, and we're worse off for it. If it does indeed become the dark horse contender at the Oscars, I expect a slowly dawning realisation not long after that that Boyle has made this year's Crash. At least, I hope that does happen.

Dishonourable Mentions:
Happy-Go-Lucky, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Underrated Movie of the Year: Speed Racer


I won’t bang on about it again, but the blanket critical dismissal of this movie has become an almost impregnable barrier to reappraisal. Nevertheless, fans won’t be silenced, and talkbacks and comment sections still feature outbreaks of praise for the Wachowski’s insane vision. May time absolve it of the imaginary sins against cinema it has supposedly perpetrated. This, Danny Boyle, is how sensory overload is done.

Honourable Mentions: Pineapple Express, Be Kind Rewind, Blindness, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

That's a lot of bitching about movies. And there are two more posts to go! Hell, I watched over eighty movies this year, almost a personal best, so I've got a lot to say. Expect kudos for Robert Downey Jr., and an unwanted award for The Bandit himself, Mr. Burt Reynolds.