The Best of 2008 With One Month to Go

By Brad Brevet

Can you believe it? There are only 30 days left in 2008! Every year I get together with my family at Thanksgiving and that realization hits you and you ask, “Can you believe it’s Thanksgiving already?” The reply typically comes, “Well can you believe we have less than a month until Christmas?” Time just never seems to slow down allowing any of us to take a break and with the awards season in full swing and top ten lists just around the corner I thought I would take a quick look at the year that has been and what is left.

A quick check in the RopeofSilicon movie review archives tells me I have reviewed 118 films so far this year (easily a record for me) and currently have the reviews for Waltz With Bashir, Defiance, The Wrestler, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Wendy and Lucy and Frost/Nixon yet to write and things aren’t slowing down as this week has me seeing Punisher: War Zone, Revolutionary Road, Doubt and The Reader. Those ten will take the tally to 128 and things just keep on from there.

I have seen many refer to 2008 as an awful year for film and I have seen it mentioned more than once recently. Has it really been that bad? Is that why my five month old top ten list offering up the Top Ten Best Movies Midway Through 2008 is getting a lot of reads lately?

Considering that fact I decided I better start taking a closer look at what will ultimately become my actual top ten films of 2008. I also thought it would be an appropriate time to help people distinguish between what my personal favorite films are as opposed to the Oscar predictions I have been making. They are not one-in-the-same. As much as I wish the Academy would award the truly best films of the year (by “best” I mean my personal favorite) by adding entertainment value to their barometer we all know that will never happen. I believe this makes personal top ten lists all that much more important.

The ten films I listed as my favorites through the end of June went as follows:

  1. WALL•E
  2. In Bruges
  3. The Edge of Heaven
  4. The Fall
  5. Definitely, Maybe
  6. Kung Fu Panda
  7. The Incredible Hulk
  8. Iron Man
  9. The Bank Job
  10. Rambo

At the time I wrote that list up I said I imagined the top 3 or 4 would hold up and make it onto my year-end top ten, but I am not too sure if that will end up being the case. I went into my review archive and pulled out the twelve films I have given either an A-, A or A+ over the course of the year and this is what those look like in no particular order (please note I never did official reviews for The Fall or The Edge of Heaven).

As you can see four of my earlier top ten films are among that group, but I don’t necessarily make my year-end top ten lists based on the grades I have given films. Things change, films don’t hold up to second viewings. So many factors go into one’s personal opinion of film, which is what makes the discussion so intriguing. Take for instance The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I gave the film a “B” after seeing it in the theater, but it would be lucky to get a C+ out of my after watching the Blu-ray. While that doesn’t necessarily surprise me, and theatrical reviews are often written based on the one-time experience, which I think Prince Caspian manages to live up to quite well, it’s the repeat viewings that hurt that flick. The same goes for documentaries in my case. After I have seen a documentary there is very little chance of me watching it again considering they are more informative than entertaining and once you have the information there is little need to go back and get a refresher. On top of that I am just not a guy that seeks out docus, which is weird since I tend to enjoy so many of them.

With that taken into consideration here are my current top ten films in alphabetical order when it comes to making my list of the Best Films of 2008:

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  • The Dark Knight
  • The Edge of Heaven
  • The Fall
  • In Bruges
  • The Incredible Hulk
  • I’ve Loved You So Long
  • Vicky Cristina Barcelona
  • WALL•E
  • The Wrestler

Obviously there are still plenty of films for me to see as I expect such films as Revolutionary Road, Doubt, Gran Torino, Valkyrie and The Reader to have a chance to slide into that list. I also hope Steve McQueen’s Hunger will be screened here in Seattle as I haven’t heard a peep about it from my local publicists despite its limited release this Friday for its Oscar run before its wider release in March 2009. Other films that have been absent from the Seattle scene so far include The Class, Che, Last Chance Harvey and Nothing but the Truth.

As for my current list, I can tell you right now of the ten films above there are five locks, which leaves five vulnerable spots. My Special Award will go to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a film I consider one of the absolute best films I have ever seen, but one I would never want to see again it is so devastating. Every frame of that film appears to have been thought out to the smallest detail and in terms of technical achievement it is a monster. Unfortunately, in my case entertainment value plays a role and there is very little to find entertaining in that feature.

So that’s where I stand so far, but more importantly where do you stand? I want to know what your favorite films of 2008 are so far. I am sure your list will be different than mine and may even offer up one or two I may have missed (is that possible?). So share below and let’s get a bit of conversation on the subject going. On top of what are your favorites, are there any you are specifically looking forward to seeing?

Brad Brevet

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