Late Night at the Movie Emporium: January 2009

First, a couple of things about 2008. It was a great year for comedies - with the cream of the crop being Role Models, The Foot-Fist Way, Pineapple Express, Step Brothers, Tropic Thunder, Hamlet 2, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Burn After Reading, Ghost Town, and Zack and Miri Make A Porno. None of these made my top 15, but they are all in my top 50 (out of 131 so far, so I'm not damning them with faint praise here).

And it was also a fantastic year for blockbusters - particularly after 2007, where Transformers was one of the few blockbusters that actually delivered on its promise. This year gave us three of the best superhero movies of all-time with Iron Man, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and The Dark Knight. And as I said before, the big summer comedies all delivered. And even the bad blockbusters, like The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor were still fun (and occasionally boasted not one, not two, but SEVERAL yeti).

Anyway, I've been keeping a list of the films of 2008 throughout the year, and figured with only a few left - none particularly likely to make my top 15, I'd finalize and post my list.

#15. Happy-Go-Lucky
Let's see - this is the first Mike Leigh film I've seen and I was more than a little surprised to find myself watching it not just a second time, but a third time after that. Sally Hawkins is great, of course - she deserves the Oscar this year, but if she doesn't win I shrug and move on with my life. Eddie Marsan also gives a phenomenal performance - one that's been largely overlooked this awards season, but is every bit as deserving of recognition. And although I didn't mention this under the comedies of the year, it's easily one of the funniest films of the year (and also relies heavily on improvisation, as typifies the work of Mike Leigh). The DVD drops March 10th, but if you can only get one DVD that day - you're getting Howard the Duck. If you get two, pick this one up. And if you get three, get another copy of Howard the Duck. I can't really stress that enough.

#14. The Wrestler
Mickey Rourke gives at least his best performance since Barfly in this understated little film. A lot of year-end lists have been placing this near, and often at the top - and, while I agree it's easily one of the best films of the year, and also easily the best film yet from Darren Aronofsky, I still have a few minor issues with the few times the film - which, like I said, is for the most part understated - drops any pretense at subtlety to nakedly state its themes (i.e. the 'Passion of the Christ' line). Definitely a great film, and also one I've already seen a couple of times.

#13. In Bruges
Here's a sneaky little film. For the first six or seven months of 2008, this was my number 1 of the year. Martin McDonagh makes a pretty seamless transition from the stage to the screen, Colin Farrell reminds everyone he can act, racist midgets are....this is a movie that has racist midgets in it. Everything about this movie just clicks - from the mournful score to Ralph Fiennes pitch-perfect performance as a short-tempered, but principled, crime boss. McDonagh makes great use of Bruges as a location and manages to maintain an odd, mournful tone not usually suited to a black comedy. Cannot recommend this movie enough, one of the most enjoyable movies of the year.

#12. Funny Games
When this was released (on Valentine's Day weekend no less), I had only recently seen the original, so I waited patiently before ingesting what is, for all intents and purposes, the exact same film - only in English. I don't know if it's the fact that Haneke has a budget, and (arguably) a better set of actors this time around - or if it's just the fact that the film's in my native language now, but I reacted so much more strongly to this version of the film. I love the kind of sadistic film where the filmmaker is in full command of his form and uses it to tease the audience mercilessly -this is what Hitchcock was so good at, and the highest compliment I could pay either version of this film is that Hitchcock would've been proud. And maybe a little jealous.

#11. Silent Light
IMDB considers this a 2007 release. However, the bulk of the lists this film appeared on were from 2008, and the AV Club didn't review it until about a week ago. Regardless, it makes my list. This is probably a pretty polarizing work. I'm not 100%, because I don't actually know anyone else who's seen it, but it's a very particular kind of film made to appeal to a very particular kind of filmgoer. It's impossible to praise this film without mentioning just how gorgeous it is. Every single frame of the film is breathtaking. The film begins with a sunrise and ends with a sunset - each leisurely paced. The film moves at the clip of a Bela Tarr or an Andrei Tarkovsky film, and, with this film, Carlos Reygadas earns his place alongside those filmmakers of a very particular type. Apparently his first two films are pretty different from this one, so I'm incredibly curious to see where he goes from here.

#10. Synecdoche, New York
Here's a maddening film. Charlie Kaufman is without a doubt one of the best screenwriters working today, and probably THE best. And this film is a Rorschach test. It's a glorious mess of a film - or is it? It defies easy analysis, and I'm sure will reward multiple viewings [insert tirade against Ben Lyons' non-review of the film vs. praise of Ebert's careful and considered take on the film]. Is it self-indulgent? Hell yes it is, but this is such an earnest, heart-on-its-sleeve work, that it's almost sheepishly self-indulgent. It knows it's being self-indulgent, and apologizes on behalf of itself with the cutting self-deprecation common to all of Kaufman's work. This is not a movie for everyone, and at the moment it's defying my attempts at some kind of useful summation. Philip Seymour Hoffman is, of course, great in the film - as are the many women in the supporting cast, particularly Samantha Morton. And Tom Noonan's gonna be good no matter what cast you surround him with. I highly recommend this movie, but I also know that some people are just going to hate this movie with a passion.

#9. Waltz With Bashir
An animated documentary? It could have easily come off as simply a gimmick - the gimmick would have sold itself, and the film, even as a simple novelty, would have been worth seeing - but no, filmmaker Ari Folman had to take this opportunity to make a fascinating, multi-faceted portrait of the horrors of war, and the fallacy of memory. The animation in the film is incredibly expressionistic, often given to some deliriously gorgeous flights of fancy into the psyches of these, the war-torn and remembering. And the forgetful. The final few shots of the film, in theory, really drive home the themes at play here, but in execution they actually kind of weaken the work overall. Regardless, this is a fascinating and unforgettable film.

#8. Ex Drummer
Not only can this movie beat up your movie, it probably already has. Comparisons to Trainspotting are unfortunate, but inevitable. This film is clearly its own beast. Its only contemporaries can be found in some of the more vicious European films of the decade (Irreversible springs to mind), but even then - here is a film that marches to the beat of its own drum. It's a steel drum and inside rattle the tiny crushed skulls of thousands of aborted fetuses (fetii?). Here is an incredibly well-made, brutally frank and, at times, even gleefully expressionistic film that will still, for all its flights of fancy, probably rape your mother and murder your father while shooting your dog up with heroin and ripping your dick off.* It's never pleasant, but the visual imagination on display and the giddy, beyond-pitch-black sense of humor really make this film into something special. This movie probably thinks I'm a pussy. Oh, and Belgium just got a whole lot scarier.
*Actually happens in the film.

#7. Let the Right One In
This could possibly be the single greatest vampire film of all-time. It's at least the best since Near Dark. Here's a film that tells an extremely disturbing story, featuring instances of violence and brutality that the (possibly magical) camerawork renders gorgeous, and at times darkly humorous. Lina Leandersson gives such a masterful performance, it's hard to believe she ISN'T an ages-old vampire trapped in the body of a 12-year-old girl. There are maybe one or two moments where the film isn't clicking on all cylinders - one involves cats, but is quickly followed by one of the greatest fire stunts/digital fire effects/whatever, that I've ever seen (which is more than enough to wipe the bad tase of obviously CGI'd cats out of my mouth). Here's a film that is everything it was hyped-up to be by almost every geek-friendly news outlet on the internet. Coming from a species frequently given to hyperbole, this is a feat of epic proportions.

#6. Reprise
Here is a film that took me completely by surprise. It had popped up on a couple of end-of-the-year lists, and it had also been compared to the French New Wave, of which I'm an almost-unrepentant fan. All the same, I did not expect it to be quite as heartbreaking and hilarious as it proved to be. Essentially the film's about two best friends who want to be novelists - and as Roger Ebert so eloquently put it, a film is not about WHAT it is about, but HOW it is about it. The storytelling skill on display here is staggering. We get voice-over narration, as well as the best use of, for lack of a better term, 'pop music' in a film all year - redolent of Scorsese or Tarantino in its song selections. And the film tells an absolutely massive story in such a short amount of time. It doesn't cover near the ground that 2004's The Best of Youth does, but that's the one other film Reprise calls to mind. Largely the dynamic of 'two best friends against the world,' but also the device of the mental illness of a loved one throwing everything out of balance. In the end, we are told that things can be good again, but we never know for sure whether or not they are.

#5. A Christmas Tale
France apparently felt that they would be better-represented at the Academy Awards this year by The Class. Granted, this is a film I have not yet had the opportunity to see - but if it manages to be as enjoyable as this Altman-esque tale of a family coming together for Christmas (and to determine a bone marrow donor for the matriarch of the bunch), I'll eat my hat. And it's a big hat. And I'm not hungry.
Mathieu Amalric, in this film, gives a performance of alarming douchebaggery, and yet - in the end, I found myself sympathizing with his character infinitely more than anyone else in this family. I enjoyed him a great deal in Quantum of Solace, as well - but here he is playing much more than Roman Polanski, Supervillain. He's playing, basically, a complete and utter asshole. Who never does anything for any other reason than to be an asshole. Arnaud Desplechin, the wonderful filmmaker behind this amazing film, manages to sway the audience's allegiances from Amalric's character, to the sister who ostracized him from the family, and eventually back to him, as morally reprehensible and emotionally bankrupt as he is. This movie plastered a shit-eating grin on my face throughout the duration, and it lingered long after the film ended. Somewhere in Heaven, Robert Altman is...well, he's probably smoking a cigar actually.

#4. The Dark Knight
I've mentioned the tendency of the geek species to indulge in hyperbole already. Let's not mince words here - this movie has a TON of flaws. Far more than its fair share. There are elements of this film that can only be described as poorly-executed. There are multiple awkward cuts, there are a few plot threads some have labeled extraneous, and nobody actually likes Christian Bale's Bat-voice, we all just tolerate it. We all tolerate it because we love Batman - we WANT to see a great Batman movie. And this year we finally got not just a great Batman movie, but an overall fine work of cinema. This movie aims SO high, that it's bound to fail somewhere along the way. Were this entire film as precise and pitch-perfect as the performances turned in by Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger, this would easily be one of the greatest films ever made. What's astounding is that so much of the movie DOES live up to those performances, and that those performances deliver on the promise of a staggeringly ambitious screenplay. This is a film that juggles multiple plotlines, where one of them just happens to be a billionaire playboy/superhero dedicated to keeping the peace in Gotham City. This film functions as an ensemble piece, and every character gets their chance to shine.
Here is what we expect from a blockbuster in the golden age of television. Broad, sweeping tales with fully-realized characters and sure, their fair share of flaws - a storyline that doesn't work that's dropped after an episode (the disgruntled Wayne Enterprises bookkeeper), or resolved quickly enough in time to move on to a much more fascinating and relevant thread (Bruce Wayne's highly suspect use of his technological means). The Dark Knight plays like the best 6-episode miniseries HBO could never afford to make.

#3. Wall-E
39 minutes without dialogue, plays like a Kubrick film, if Kubrick had a heart instead of a dark, soulless recess where the only sound is the sound of the only sound you never want to hear again. The rest of the film brings some of the most vicious and bleak science fiction satire ever seen in a film, let alone what is ostensibly a kids' film. And, of course, they couple their optimistic images of fat, baby-floaty-chair cartoon humans-of-the-future with a manic, Modern Times/Beauty and the Beast rampage through the spaceship, and the most adorable love story since last year's Once. This is a tale of two cartoon robots that manages to compare to a film featuring two real human people who were actually falling in love with each other on the set. In the end, we the human race have been gifted with the finest non-Brad Bird Pixar film, hands-down, no contest. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go re-watch this film now and silently weep into a pillow.

#2. My Winnipeg
It is so rare that a truly original film comes along. The only real precedent for this film is Guy Maddin's previous work - most notably 2006's Brand Upon the Brain!. Dubbed a 'docu-fantasia' by its maker, here is one of the most deeply-felt films I have ever seen. Guy Maddin is an artist throwing himself (I imagine with the aid of a catapult) completely into his work. The fact that, in the film, he's making up stories about his childhood - a show called "Ledge Man" where each week a man tries to kill himself and is talked down from the ledge by Maddin's own mother, the fabricated urban legends of a legendary seance held by the town fathers, and of an all-time all-star hockey team playing in the ruins of a mostly-demolished arena as it falls apart around them, the tale of the sleepwalkers of Winnipeg, with their keys to every house they've ever lived in, or the tale that ends with the frozen horses, pictured above - the victims of a flash-freeze whilst running from a town-consuming fire - renders the film all the more true because of its blatant fabrications.
Like Waltz With Bashir, this film calls into question the reliability of memory - and, like my #9., this film also dares to replace the forgotten with the fabricated, or the memories recollected by others.
In an unfortunate turn of events, the film served as fitting an epitaph as any to the passing of Ann Savage (of Detour, also she plays Maddin's mother here), whose most famous work also used the concept of an unreliable narrator, recollecting the story from a skewed point-of-view.

#1. Rachel Getting Married
Jonathan Demme is a peculiar filmmaker. He's made plenty of noteworthy films, but nothing of his truly connected with me until I saw this wonderful little film. The basic story - family fuck-up comes home for special occasion - is vaguely similar to the plots of both my #5. and the Kristin Scott Thomas film, I've Loved You So Long, and - as usual - the major difference here is the style. Shot entirely handheld, the film uses the technique to make you feel like you're genuinely AT this wedding. Cameos from Demme's mentor Roger Corman (as a priest, of course), Robyn Hitchcock, and a surprisingly major supporting role filled by TV on the Radio's lead singer, Tunde Adebimpe, give this film plenty for the film/music aficionado like myself to recognize and appreciate, which encouraged a kind of kinship with this film.
To me, it felt like more than any other film from this year, I existed on the wavelength of this one. I identified more with Anne Hathaway's character than I'm probably comfortable admitting to, which makes the conversations between her and her family, particularly between her and Rachel, that much more affecting, and that much more devastating. Here is a film that not only manages to approximate that Altman feel - it arguably transcends it. This has been at #1 on the list since I saw it in late November. One of the select few films from this year that belongs in the same category as last year's Holy Trifecta of There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Zodiac.

Noteworthy/Honorable Mentions:

Gus Van Sant made maybe the two best films of his career with Paranoid Park & Milk.
The Good, the Bad, and the Weird - impeccably well-made and entertaining as all hell. In a year that gave us a sub-par take on Indiana Jones, this film more than makes up for it with its incredibly well-shot and choreographed action sequences and its seamless blend of practical and digital effects.
Hunger - well, it's the second-best debut film of the year (to my #8.), and it's nearly as brutal. Michael Fassbender is amazing as Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands.
Jason Statham: The Bank Job >>> Death Race >> Transporter 3 >>>>> In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Iron Man/Tropic Thunder - this was the year of Robert Downey, Jr. Everyone else, thanks for playing.
Man On Wire/Dear Zachary/Not Quite Hollywood/Encounters at the End of the World/Surfwise - It was a damn good year for documentaries. A couple of these very nearly made the top 15.
Splinter - Fantastic, thoroughly-conceived idea, well-executed. A damn solid horror movie.
Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - three films likely to be nominated for Best Picture, each has its fair share of flaws. All are impeccably well-made, and definitely worth checking out, but none of them ever quite achieve the level of greatness they're aiming for.

Bring it on, 2009. You've got a tough act to follow.