Top films of 08

The average person sees five to seven films a year, but chances are that people reading this article are above average film-goers.
Film mavens can always muster enthusiasm for a year that delivers movies as diverse as Wall-E and The Dark Knight as well as more iconoclastic choices like Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour Che, or British director Steve McQueen’s amazing feature about imprisoned Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands, Hunger. There’s even the first-ever animated feature from Israel, Waltz With Bashir.
How odd is it that Tell No One a French film from 2006 grossed right around $6-million and it’s considered the most successful foreign film domestically released in 2008 whereas The Dark Knight has topped $530-million and is not only the year’s most successful film, but the second highest grossing film ever behind Titanic. Obviously there’s no relation between quality and the amount of money a film makes.
As good as some of those films are 2008 pales with 2007 a year that saw bona fide classics like There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men, not to mention more esoteric pleasures like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
That said, my top ten list for 2008 unwinds as follows:
1. Man on Wire
2. Tell No One
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. Miracle at St. Anna
5. Ghost Town
6. Revolutionary Road
7. The Wrestler
8. The Fall
9. Synecdoche, New York
And at number 10. Waltz With Bashir

If I had a top twenty there’d be a few more foreign titles and a couple more late year platforms and even a Disney cartoon (Bolt not Wall-E), but why complicate things in a weak year? The thing about the films listed one through ten was the sense of not wanting any of them to end. When they did finish was a feeling, although I may return to any of them in the future, of completion and satisfaction at having met a new friend.
Many of the titles have already opened and a couple of them are rolling out in January. Waltz With Bashir (opening January 23 at the Angelika) was such a combination of agitprop and animation that I didn’t even know where to start with my admiration. This cartoon docudrama tells the tragedy of the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila camps during the 1982 Lebanon War. The story’s told from the point of view of director Ari Folman, who was a teen soldier in the Israeli army at the time. Waltz With Bashir recreates Folman’s memories through present day conversations with other soldiers who were also there and surreal scenes that illustrate their memories. The film ends with actual footage shot in the camps (dead children) and you realize that the horror was real.
Man on Wire simply is one of the best docs ever made. It moves with the tempo of a suspensful crime thriller. Everybody who saw Tell No One that I know said they liked it. I watched this murder mystery based on a novel by American author Harlan Coben a couple of times. This is the kind of movie where the smallest parts are as interesting as larger roles.
Ghost Town and Miracle at St. Anna are way underrated but then by the end of January maybe Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler will also be under appreciated, they just haven't opened yet. The Fall's helmer Tarsem is second unit director on Benjamin Button. Other titles to keep your eye peeled for would include Che, which explores the mindset of living in the jungle and engaging in guerilla actions, and Gomorrah, an Italian crime film with a bouncy soundtrack and Mafia intrigue that will remind some of Goodfellas in its scope.

Frost/Nixon

In an instance of clarity it's easy to see the emperor with no clothes that Frost/Nixon is. A totally enjoyable film with top notch production values in every department Frost/Nixon goes down smooth yet hardly bears repeat viewing or even deep introspection. A part of this lies with director Ron Howard's penchant for self importance where there's none.
Don't get me wrong, I like Opie but as accomplished a filmmaker as he's become I never leave his films with the kind of exhilaration of, say, a Robert Zemeckis film. Howard's not out of his league with this tale of Brit talk-show host David Frost interviewing Richard Nixon after the disgraced president has been under the radar for three years after his resignation, it's just that Howard makes his most interesting films when he's dealing with rouge characters like in The Missing or genre comedies like Nightshift.
The Nixon camp considered Frost a lightweight and thus saw his interview as a return to the limelight. The conflict of Frost/Nixon revolves around who will be the victor of the interview sessions. A clever script by Peter Morgan based on his play only revisits his earlier themes: no matter who wins both sides end up respecting their adversary. Just like in The Queen, Morgan's previous work.
Part of the conundrum lies in the way Howard treats the subject. Other Nixon movies have taken different stances to the man. The interpretations of Nixon are as different as Secret Honor's Philip Baker Hall, Dick's Dan Hedaya and Oliver Stone Nixon biopic with Anthony Hopkins. Frank Langella here reprising his stage role goes for a physical and vocal impersonation that paints Nixon as complicated and yet conflicted. Drunk on a bender he calls Frost but has forgotten the incident the next day.
Other actors are sufficient to the task although they seem to be playing more off their persona than creating memorable characters. Oliver Platt was better as a political operative in Bulworth, Sam Rockwell's the shaggy haired radical dude, while Rebecca Hall plays a babe who does nothing for the story but provides eye candy as Frost's girlfriend. Diane Sawyer, today arguably more well known than Frost or Nixon, is a character yet we never hear what she thinks. Kevin Bacon's turn as Nixon's chief of staff is the film's most theatrical invention.
Frost/Nixon wants to be profound but only serves to remind us that we're all pawns in politicians games. Perhaps not oddly Nixon's crime is so petty you feel sorry for the whole state of the union. Current heads of state get away with so much shit as to make Nixon's transgressions look like the petty crimes they were.

HOUSTON FILM CRITIC'S SOCIETY

THE HOUSTON FILM CRITICS SOCIETY WILL OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE THEIR 2008 WINNERS DURING A CEREMONY AND RECEPTION AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON ON DECEMBER 20TH, AT 4:00 PM IN THE MUSEUM’S BROWN AUDITORIUM.





Formed in 2007 from members of print and electronic entertainment associated with media outlets in Houston and the south coastal Texas area, the HFCS has 17 members who choose their own nominations and ballots to determine the awards.
Winners include best picture and performance categories as well as special attention to accomplishments such as achievment in cinema, The presentation ceremony will spotlight brief clips from films representing a critical array of the year's finest filmed entertainment. Members of the organization will announce the awards in major categories. The presentation is free and open to the public. Events will wrap with a desert reception in the museum's African Gold gallery.