Best Feature Films of 2008

Jonathan Valin -- Sat, 01/24/2009 - 12:06

Here is this year's edition of my picks for best motion pictures of the year, in order of merit. I believe the only major contenders I haven't yet seen are Benjamin Button, Frozen River, Happy-Go-Lucky, and The Class; I may add one or more to the list at a later point. That The Wrestler (which has to be the worst highly praised movie I've seen since, oh, The Departed), Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Milk, etc. aren't on my list isn't a mistake; the fact that Frost/Nixon (a movie that infuriated me because it made me feel an unjustified and unjustifiable pity for Richard M. Nixon) is is, but it's a mistake I'll live with because of Frank Langella's performance.

As usual the Academy has picked its share of dogs for BP and blithely omitted any number of terrific performances--the five most galling being Clint Eastwood for Best Actor (at a later point I will explain why I think Gran Torino is not just a good but a great film), Josh Brolin for Best Actor (as George W Bush in W.), Benicio Del Toro for Best Actor (as Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Che), Jason Butler Harner for Best Supporting Actor (for his unforgettably chilling turn as the serial killer Gordon Northcott in Changeling), and Brad Pitt for Best Supporting Actor (as the hilarious, ill-fated Chad Feldheimer in Burn After Reading). Alongside Eastwood's Walt Kowlaski, the year saw one other career-defining performance, Anne Hathaway's Kym in Jonathan Demme's superb Altmanesque melodrama Rachel Getting Married.

JV's Best of 2008
Gran Torino (dir. Clint Eastwood)
Rachel Getting Married (dir. Jonathan Demme)
Slumdog Millionaire (dir. Danny Boyle)
Redbelt (dir. David Mamet)
Changeling (dir. Clint Eastwood)
Che (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Vicky Christina Barcelona (dir. Woody Allen)
W. (dir. Oliver Stone)
Frost/Nixon (dir. Ron Howard)
The Happening (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

If I were giving out awards, the Valins would go to:
Best Picture: a tie among Gran Torino, Rachel Getting Married, and Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actor: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Best Actress: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Supporting Actor: two-way tie, Jason Butler Harner (Changeling), Brad Pitt (Burn After Reading)
Best Supporting Actress: Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Director: a tie among Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Changeling), Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married), and Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)

Of those pictures and actors actually nominated for AAs, the best are:
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actor: Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Best Actress: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Supporting Actor: None
Best Supporting Actress: None
Best Director: Danny Boyle

llad -- Sat, 01/24/2009 - 15:09

Well, well, well, Jon, except for The Happening, I agree with all of your selections. With the exception of The 6th Sense, I've found M. Night Shayamalan's work to be "...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and of Fincher's work as director.

Jonathan Valin -- Sun, 01/25/2009 - 00:48

Larry,

I'm glad we agree.

I wrote at some length about why I liked The Happening in the last ish of Playback (http://playback.avguide.com/issue/16). It's been scalded by critics--IMO, very unfairly. It's a truly creepy, extraordinarily deftly made, and curiously moving movie in spite of the sentimental and logical weaknesses Shyamalan always brings to the table.

I'm an on-again/off-again Fincher fan (I thought Zodiac was terrific). And I'm a big fan of Brad Pitt. I thought he gave last year's best performance and that Casey Affleck gave last year's best supporting performance in Jesse James (but let's not start that again). This said, I've been deliberately ducking Benjamin Button because I'm afraid it's going to turn out to be another lily-livered Candide like Forrest Gump--and one Forrest Gump is one too many.

llad -- Sun, 01/25/2009 - 15:24

Jon,

I haven't been a Fincher fan until this film, even though I did like Zodiac for it's inherent creepiness and some of the performances. Maybe it's because I know Fincher's roots are in commercials and music videos rather than narrative cinema or TV. However, with this film he transcends his previous work.

Yes there are many Forrest Gump comparisons that can be made with Benjamin Button, right down to the fact that they were both written by the same screenwriter. Maybe it's because I'm on the DGA Visual Effects/Digital Technology Committee I appreciate the cinematic achievement of the Fincher film from a technical standpoint, however, I still felt an emotional connection watching it, more so than with Forrest Gump. Pitt is fast becoming an actor who finds constantly challenging roles rather than sit back on his looks and collect a paycheck each outing. I am a fan of Cate Blanchett, and she turns in turns in another memorable performance here. I think it is the melding of the technical elements with the emotional elements that made Benjamin Button stand out for me. As I've said elsewhere, up until this film head replacement has never been used to enhance an actor's performance rather than a stunt sequence.

I'm glad you liked Gran Torino and pissed that the Academy didn't recognize it or Clint Eastwood in any category.

Larry

Elliot Goldman -- Wed, 01/28/2009 - 16:50

I also thought Grand Torino was a great film and loved it. I don't know whjy the academy acted like the movie ddid not exist.
I see it came to your home town JV better late than never :)

Cemil Gandur -- Thu, 01/29/2009 - 07:23

I saw Slumdog Millionaire a couple of days ago and totally agree - it's an excellent movie, the best I've seen in a long time. I look foraward to seeing GT and Rachel Getting Married.

Jonathan Valin -- Thu, 01/29/2009 - 20:55

Slumdog is wonderful. What a terrific contemporary fairy tale!

llad -- Fri, 01/30/2009 - 15:17

Elliot, Zeb, glad to see that it's not just JV and myself that are fans of good cinema. Slumdog is a wonderful film, the energy Danny Boyle captured in the performances was amazing.

Jonathan Valin -- Sun, 02/01/2009 - 15:32

A new addition to my Best Films of 2008 List:

Che (dir. Steven Soderbergh)

I'm anything but a fan of Soderbergh's lib "theme" movies. But this one's different. Cool and slightly removed in the manner of a sympathetic documentary, Che has been (unfairly) criticized for holding its controversial subject--the charismatic Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara--at a bit of a respectful distance. This was the same criticism that was leveled at Roman Polanski's great, sobering, fact-based theodicy, The Pianist, and although Che isn't as subtle or as thoughtful or, ultimately, as devastatingly sad, as The Pianist, Soderbergh is trying for something like the same effect that Polanski achieved: A vantage from which he can view the man's courage, idealism, and romanticism in action and in historical context--to show us revolutionary idealism rather than to preach it, without any of the usual melodramatic "beats" of a conventional biopic. I think he does this quite successfully, and I know that Benicio Del Toro gives an exalted performance as Guevara. Though long (the movie is in two roughly two hour segments--one covering Che's sensational triumph in Cuba, the other his abysmal failure in Bolivia), Che will repay the time spent. (As an aside, the film was shot in 4k Redcode RAW digital using Red One digicams and lenses and, IMO, it lacks the richness and dimensionality and dynamic range of filmstock. But, and alas, I'm quite sure I'm fighting against a tide that has already begun to turn.)

llad -- Mon, 02/02/2009 - 14:20

TV has already lost the digital battle. With Screen Actors Guild botching it's contract negotiations with the AMPTP, all the pilots for next season are being shot on digital cameras and covered under AFTRA contracts. AFTRA has traditionally been the actor's union that covered shows shot on tape, while SAG covered shows shot on film. Almost all of the basic cable series are now AFTRA, and shot digitally.

If a show has a lot of visual effects it makes sense to shoot it and keep it in the digital domain through post production, then film out. The savings in shooting digitally is not in production however, it's in post production (lab costs, test prints, etc.) The film that I'm prepping now is going to be shot on film stock, a decision that was made by the director, who agrees with you about the richness of film. The blacks are different in digital, they lack the depth that film has.

I have a producer friend who shot a comparison with 7 digital cameras and 1 film camera on 8 different sets. Of the digital systems, the one that worked best was the Panavision system. He told me a horror story about working with the Viper camera system where several takes were lost because they were recorded over by the Digital Imaging Technician. That would never happen with film, which of course has it's own source of heart attacks, like magazine's chewing up footage and lab screw ups, but that's what constant vigilance, good camera assistants, and insurance coverage are for. All in all, film was still found to the the fastest and most reliable, but there's no fighting progress.

I did a pilot last fall with two Red cameras and was not impressed.