Some years pass by quickly, without leaving big footprints, without serving up a ration of extraordinary moments. 2008 was not one of those years.
2008 seemed long, and rich, and full of stuff. The public year in America was dominated by an endless presidential election campaign, which deserves mention in a movie roundup because campaigns are as stage-managed and scripted as the biggest blockbusters, their outcomes cynically pre-ordained by some unseen studio chief
Many of the dramatic twists and turns of campaign ‘08 were clearly inspired by Hollywood, from the conventions to the commercials to the principal casting. If you wonder whether we still need film critics these days, consider how much of a movie production politics has become, and consider how many voters still fall for the same old storytelling cliches. Maybe we need critics to point out when the filet mignon smells a lot like baloney.
There were movies, of course, and by consensus 2008 wasn’t up to the exciting offerings of 2007. It wasn’t a great year for big Hollywood pictures; last year my list was headed up by “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will be Blood,” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” which all had big stars on board.
This year my list is crammed with foreign films and indie pictures. Only “The Dark Knight” held down its corner of the Hollywood batcave.
The box office results were about the same, if slightly off, the 2007 totals. “The Dark Knight” was huge, James Bond returned nicely in “Quantum of Solace,” and Indiana Jones came back for a much-delayed fourth installment, but most of the moneymakers didn’t seem to catch the public imagination — or hold it for more than a week.
Specialty movies found their pre-made audiences: “Sex and the City” and “High School Musical 3” brought out their fans, “Chronicles of Narnia” and “Twilight” readers got their hits of young adult literature, and comic-book mavens were rarely without a movie to see.
Superhero movies were, in fact, the closest thing to a can’t-miss genre this year. Other winners? Robert Downey, Jr., who cracked into the mainstream with his quirky lead performance in “Iron Man” (his final delivery is the line reading of the year) and his beyond-quirky turn in the hit “Tropic Thunder.”
Vampires had a good year, in “Twilight” (an enjoyable movie, actually) and the exceptional Swedish film “Let the Right One In.”
And old age did well: Clint Eastwood delivered two films, Woody Allen turned in his strongest in years (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) — both septuagenarians — and octogenarians Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette landed new movies on my list. And the documentary “Young @ Heart[“”] stirringly depicted the value of rocking out in the golden years.
The year’s losers included Al Pacino, who didn’t help his career with two turkeys, “88 Minutes” and “Righteous Kill.” Indie distributors took a hit, as many studios shuttered their specialty divisions. And just about everybody involved with “Speed Racer” had a bad morning after their movie opened.
But we’ll get to the dogs of the year below. First, a selection of the best. A free copy of the Joker’s “Dark Knight” makeup kit to the following:
1. “The Edge of Heaven”: It played first at the Seattle International Film Festival and then for a regular run in August, but it came and went quickly. German filmmaker Fatih Akin (“Head-On”) assembled this intricate study of people crossing borders between Germany and Turkey, and nongeographical borders too. This is the movie “Crash” and “Babel” tried to be. Like a number of the movies listed below, it’s on DVD, so check it out.
2. “The Duchess of Langeais”: All year long I could not get Rivette’s challenging, difficult, sometimes perplexing film out of my head. In retrospect, it adds to the film’s power that ravaged-looking leading man Guillaume Depardieu, playing a Napoleonic soldier pursing a mad love with a duchess, died in 2008 (see the next movie for another of those).
3. “The Dark Knight”: How can a piece of pulp fiction, with comic-book roots, so eerily capture the civic mood of the moment? Somehow director Christopher Nolan* did it, with a complicated story of disenchantment about the way things work today. In the late Heath Ledger’s scary/funny Joker, the film has villainy of a high order.
4. “The Romance of Astrea and Celadon”: A love story set in the 5th century, amongst druids and wood nymphs. Huh? Eric Rohmer, now 88 years old, was one of the leading lights of the French New Wave, and with this film (possibly his last) he proves he still has a fresh way of seeing things.
5. “In Bruges”: Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are two hit men stranded in the picturesque Belgian city, where they wait for fate to overtake them. Hilarious and violent, playwright Martin McDonagh’s first feature is a wild one.
6. “Married Life”: It came and went quickly from theaters, but this modern film noir about a dissatisfied husband (Chris Cooper) is a low-key, highly original piece. And Pierce Brosnan, still reveling in his post-007 freedom, is terrific as the husband’s best friend.
7. “Priceless”: This French comedy about con artists on the Riviera presents characters who are defiantly less-than-completely-sympathetic; “Amelie” star Audrey Tautou leads the cast.
8. “Let the Right One In”: From Sweden, a vampire adolescent romance. Is director Tomas Alfredson available to do the “Twilight” sequel?
9. “Wendy and Lucy”: Michelle Williams stars in Portland filmmaker Kelly Reichardt’s film about a woman who loses her dog. I’m cheating slightly — this doesn’t open until January — but its minimalist style is unexpectedly touching.
10. “Burn After Reading”: I’m sticking this one in at the last minute — lists are like that. Superficially a zany comedy, this Coen brothers curio is darker and more horrifying than it first appears, and somehow its depiction of human aspirations is just as scathing as the futuristic zombies of “Wall-E” (another fine 2008 effort).
Very easy to peg a next tier of movies: the current release “A Christmas Tale”; “The Flight of the Red Balloon”; Mike Leigh’s clear-eyed look at optimism, “Happy-Go-Lucky”; Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film, “Shine a Light”; a low-budget paean to miserablism, “Frownland”; the Spanish time-travel thing, “Timecrimes”; a rare starring role for longtime character actor Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”; the old-fashioned “Ghost Town”; and a couple of tough-guy actors—Clint Eastwood and Jean-Claude Van Damme, respectively—reworking their images, in “Gran Torino” and “JCVD.”
If the year in documentaries seemed a little off (if just as busy) from previous years—politics tended to trump art—plenty of nonfiction offerings demanded attention. “Young @ Heart,[“”] [“]Man on Wire,[“”] and “Taxi to the Dark Side” were just a few of the strong ones, as well as the locally made “Great Speeches from a Dying World.”
The worst? Hmm, so many to choose from. A drum roll, or maybe just a series of rim shots, for the dregs:
“Henry Poole is Here”: Luke Wilson was stuck in this “inspirational” number about a suicidal man whose neighbors see the face of Jesus, or something, on the side of his house. The message: believe in miracles and stop worrying.
“What Just Happened”: Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson falls down with a deadly inside-Hollywood tale about a producer (Robert De Niro) in crisis.
“Get Smart”: Steve Carell in a big-screen version of the ’60s TV spy spoof, here played straight instead of funny. Absolutely mystifying.
“Untraceable”: This cautionary tale about that newfangled Internet thing (and a sicko who tortures online) would be laughable if it weren’t so excruciating to sit through. Is Diane Lane taking over the woman-in-peril role from an MIA Ashley Judd?
“88 Minutes”: Al Pacino’s hair grows taller even as he grows shorter. Here, he’s a Seattle forensic psychiatrist action hero, married to his cell phone.
“The Life Before Her Eyes”: Uma Thurman floats through this trick film, which is probably more enjoyable if you know the gimmick going in. I didn’t.
“Pride and Glory”: Even if this dreary police saga didn’t have a scene of a bad guy menacing a baby with a steam iron, it would be unusually unpleasant. Edward Norton and Colin Farrell lead the cast, if you call this leading.
“Deception”: Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor in a “Strangers on a Train” kind of story, shot like a TV commercial and with the same amount of soul.
“Zombie Strippers”: Oh, you think this one gets a free pass because of the good title?
“Jumper”: This moronic story of a teleporter (Hayden Christensen) was incompetent all the way across the board. It was one of the earlier things I saw in 2008 — at least I’m thankful things improved.
*Correction, Jan. 5, 2009: This article originally used an incorrect name for Christopher Nolan.
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