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List added by The Mighty Celestial on 8 January 2009 12:01
2008: My Top Ten Favorite Movies By Year |
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 303  8  8.1 Good horror movies come so rarely into my life. The same with good vampire movies. And the same also goes for good love stories (I refrain from using the term "romance movies" since I find Hollywood's idea of romance is always so impossibly & ridiculously fairy-tale-like). This movie is 2 outta 3 (Though there is some, it's very light on the horror). Told more in an adult manner, yet still with enough of an escapist sensibilty that is respective to the genre, this is a soft, beautiful & beguiling story (which is really saying something since I don't know what that word means) of two 12 year olds finding love for the first time thru the flaws of each of their separate (& sometimes desperate) life situations.
The lead actors for this movie portray their characters with a true down to earth awkwardness that is usually found with kids at this age, along with a longing that is both sincere & convincing. As far as vampire love stories go, I find myself agreeing with those who compare this one with another human-falls-for-bloodfeeder film that was released around the same time : the 15 year old girls can have their Twilight. I'll take LTROI.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
 
1073 8.3 8.6 It seems like these days, every season, an animated movie comes out displaying the next level of computer-generated visuals. For the year of 2008, it was this film & Kung Fu Panda. While not so surprising in that I (we?) expected the details in the graphics to be as detail & realistic as they were, it's still quite stunning to behold.
And even though Wall-E contains the basic formula elements one would expect from such a family film, it's still quite surprising how often & consistantly filmmakers are able to intergrate the amazing graphics into the quality of the storytelling in a manner that seems fresh & keeps the messages from feeling too cliche. At the rate that these types of highly sophisticated computer animated flicks are being released, it's remarkble that the ratio has been so much more good than bad. A futuristic story that despite it's epic themes of environmentalism, technological over-dependence & the effects of idleness on the soul of humanity when it is stripped away from the natural strife of life, at it's heart, it's also an effective story of loneliness & longing between two computer-animated robots that despite their mechanical make-up, offer up enough heartfelt human emotion that is depicted with just a simple vocabulary that consists of nothing more than their names & a directive.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
657 6.7 7.5 This movie gets an extra point just for the surprise factor of how much I ended up enjoying it. I really didn't expect to like this as much as I did. I saw this flick with my brother-in-law, & remember that when the lights in the theatre came on, we both looked at each with an expression of "Whoa" on our faces.
As an adult, one of my absolute favorite things about going to the movies is when I see a film that brings back those feelings that I used to experience as a kid whenever I saw something that was too fantastic that it was beyond the realm of our realty & yet watch it come to life on the big screen in front of me. A giant alien monster rangin' thru the streets of the Big Apple is a pretty good f'rinstance.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
 
396 7.5 8.1 Every once in a while, a film comes into my life that will provide more than just a sliver of escapism. Sometimes, it will enrich my life with a bit knowledge that will leave me not just entertained, but also just a bit more educated. For instance, this movie. After watching In Bridges, I came to find out that a lot of midgets tend to kill themselves. A disproportionate amount, actually. Villechaize off of Fantasy Island. Possibly somebody from the Time Bandits. And another famous midget, but can't remember.
It's not the R2D2 man; no, he's still going. Oh, and I also learned that you can't sell horse tranquilizers to a midget. Well, you can, just don't expect 'em to wave back hello. It's also a film that, when it comes to the of subject killing for money, brings up certain queries of a contemplative nature. Like, what's a 50 year old lollypop man doing knowing f*#kin' karate?  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
438 7.9 8.3 A down to Earth tale that takes place behind the scenes of the squared circle lifestyle that is the "rasslin' world. The Wrestler is a film that shows what can happen when the accumulated effects of one "passed his prime" superstar's "bad" decisions catch up to him before his dreams do.
When they talk about a "performance that makes the movie", this film is almost as pure of a definition of that statement as it gets. Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy the Ram" Robinson is this movie. And it's definitely my favorite single acting performance of the year.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
1652 8.5 8.9 Considering that it seems like everyone & their grandma went out to go see this, do I really need to explain why this one kix so much ass...?
Gotham City is falling apart, Bruce Wayne is becoming more distant, chaotic vigilantism is growing more rampant & on top of it all, there's some crazy make-up wearing Joker out there taking advantage of it all. Heath Ledger in a final performance that marks a high point in his all too short career.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
987 7.6 8 As a comicbook nerd, it's really cool for me that more of these types of movies are being made with more attention to the quality, visually & "creatively".
I found this one a much more cohesive origin story than Marvel's major player, Spiderman's first go-at-it. The problem with the first film of any superhero flick is to be able to show enough of a detailed origin while still leaving enough room in the film for a transition of the character learning to deal with his/her powers & then some kind climatic confrontation with some sort of antagonist figure. I found this movie to be much better paced than other initial efforts of Marvel properties like the Hulk or Spiderman, with a much more naturalness to the characters, as evidenced by Downey Jr's humor & the comfortable chemistry between he, Gweneth Paltrow & Terence Howard.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
 
216 7.4 7.7 Take what Cloverfield took from The Blair Witch Project, add a dash of 28 Days Later, and then sprinkle on some sub-titles (at least, in my case),
& there you go. A quality zombie flick of which I rarely get to see without a giant glob of gooey camp splattered all over it.  BTW, even though this movie s credited as 2007, it was not released here in the U.S. til early 2008, so that's why I'm including it on this year's list. The Mighty Celestial's rating:
674 7.1 7.7 Alot of the same stuff I said for Wall-E, though Kung Fu Panda has enough of it's own style to stand away on it's own. I don't think that the story was told as successfully as Wall-E's, but the next level of the "anthropormorphic" facial expressions & the characteristics of the movements reached in this film seem to make up for it. The humour is displayed as much in the way the characters move & "act" as it is in the jokes in the script.
(Quick side note: This year I also watched the two Appleseed movies on video. And looking at the evolution of these two anime films just made a few years ago, coupled against the more westernized works such as this years's entries of Kung Fu Panda & Wall-E , I truly feel that we are living during a good time in the making of 3-D animated features.)  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
17 6.8 7.2 A film in the spirit of City Of God or Kids, in which it comes as very close to seeming like it's a documentary. At certain points of the movie, it feels as though this is happening in real life. The storyline's non-linear structure helps to emphasize this feel, but there's enough there to sense that a tale is indeed unfolding.
Great acting from all involved.  The Mighty Celestial's rating:
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2008 was a really lite year for in terms of my movie-viewing. This list could probably be updated a few times, depending on when & if I get the chance to catch up on other releases from this time-period. But for now, this is what I got. List cont. 11. Role Models - Role Models is a film that, with it's plot of grown men learning to grow up with the help of a couple of non-grown-ups, in my opinion, came off sort of as a waterdowned Apatow movie. However, it still provided me with more out-loud laughs than I had expected walking in. Not to mention that it's a comedy that comes with a message: "Don't try to bulls#t the bullsh#tter". I think. 12. The Fall - A fairy tale fantasy of hope told by a "real-world" stuntman who has given up on it "all". A visually creative film with claims of no CGI (?). A refreshing & yet still stunningly lavish epic for those who want a break from the usually computer-generated eye candy that has become the norm. 13. The Pineapple Express - Story wasn't as strong as an earlier Apatow film from this year, Sarah Marshall, but the laughs were more constant & consistant. Though still not in the range of Super-Bad, Knocked Up or especially 40 Year Old Virgin, but, if Apatow was able to keep his moves over-all at this level, I'd still go see 'em. 14. The Incredible Hulk - Even though I agree with the general consensus that this is the better flick, I'm not surprised that this movie only fared as well at the box office as the Ang Lee's. The Hulk always seemed to me to be a superheroic Frankenstein's monster (or maybe a more diminutive King Kong?). Therefore, it's theme has been basically the same as we've seen many times before, with no real difference in respect to a unique emotional angle. In both versions, the effort to be able to create a character that the audience could connect to never was successfully established. Or at least, established to a degree that could hold that audience during the inevitable "battle-royale". Personally, I was able to crossover a bit more just because as a comicbook nerd, I already had a nostalgic connection to this character (the Incredible Hulk was one of my favorite comicbooks as a kid). But as everyone knows, a comicbook geek is not very representative of the every-man. 15. Frost/Nixon 16. The Bank Job - Mr. Statham takes a break from the typical role of bad-ass that seem to have dominated his career of late, but chose a very good movie to do it in. Now, while this movie has been advertised as being based on a true story, it does seem to take quite an amount of liberty in it's depiction of filling in the holes of a true bank heist that was never solved. But it does so in such a creative fashion, that I can't deny the fun escapism that is the end-result for me. 17. Tropic Thunder - While I'm not much of a fan of the more in your face & slapstick kind of comedy, this one still worked for me. Plus, Robert Downey's performance alone was worth the ticket price. 18. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - For me, one of Apatow's lesser efforts, yet still enjoyable none the less. 19. Slumdog Millionaire 20. Quantum Of Solace - I've never been a big fan of the 007 series, but Casino Royale really took me off guard as a quality action flick (in fact, my fave action flick of that year). And though, this one isn't on par to Casino (choppy action sequences, looser story) it's high energy & emphasis on characterizations between Bond & "M" were enough to still keep this installment entertaining to the eyes of this non-Bond fan. Films from this year that I have not seen but am interested in seeing: - Waltz With Bashir Other lists by The Mighty Celestial: My Top 20 Female Movie Bad-Asses http://www.listal.com/list/my-top-10-female 10 Movies That Feature A Dancin' Travolta In 'Em http://www.listal.com/list/my-list-9158 Yep. When It Comes To Comicbook Movies .... http://www.listal.com/list/yep-am-huge-comicbook WAATAAAH!! My Top 10 Favorite Martial Arts Flix! http://www.listal.com/list/my-list-thecelestial The Final Frontier Of Space... & Time. My Top 50 Favorite Sci-Fi Flix Ever http://www.listal.com/list/final-frontier-space-time Can't We Be Dysfunctional Like A Normal Family? http://www.listal.com/list/dysfunctional-family-movies/edit My Other Top Ten Favorite Movies By Year Lists: http://www.listal.com/list/19551959-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1976-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1982-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1983-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1984-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1992-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1993-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1995-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1997-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1998-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/1999-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/2003-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/2004-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/2005-my-top-ten-favorite http://www.listal.com/list/2007-my-top-ten-favorite
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