Friday, December 19, 2008

Sam's End of 2008 List



Ed.: For those of you who don't know, Sam "Cinema" Song is a film major at NYU and the resident film snob. His "best of" list isn't the usual music list because he claims "he doesn't know anything about music" even though he bleeds hip. I'm glad that he's around so that we can throw stones at... what's the phrase? I'm not sure the phrase even works in this situation, but who really cares? Well, whatever it is, we both do it; I'm glad to have a friend that understands snobbery like me. Anyways, here's a special best of 2008 presentation.

favorite films of 2008, because i know nothing about music. there's still a lot that remains to be seen (a christmas tale, the curious case of benjamin button, etc.) but i feel pretty confident that this list will stay the way it is when all's said and done.

1. rachel getting married (dir. jonathan demme)
that tunde adebimpe sings "unknown legend" to his betrothed at the altar (he's who rachel is getting married to) is reason enough for this to be the best film of the year. pulsates with the rhythms of life, replete with its unpredictable undulations between joy and pain conveyed through the delicious combining of pathos and humor, all handled deftly by demme. anne hathaway is astonishing relative to what she's done up until this point, but she is by no means the star despite her abundance of screen time--this is an ensemble piece through and through, and everyone is perfect. this movie restores my love of the medium as it is everything a great film should be. i only have appreciation and affection for rachel getting married, a beautiful and generous film.

2. flight of the red balloon (dir. hou hsiao-hsien)
i can't not love a film by hou hsiao-hsien, this one made all the more irresistable by its evocations of the beautiful short film le balon rouge. gracefully meandering camera movements, long takes, and juliette binoche's bravura performance give this loving hommage/meditation on cultural displacement and memory a poetic vitality that can only be achieved by hou.

3. momma's man (dir. azazel jacobs) / my winnipeg (dir. guy maddin)
two films, thematically linked, one spot on the list so i can make room for more. both are intensely autobiographical, so personal that it verges on the uncomfortable and are all the more rewarding for it. one is a narrative feature about a man who, after visiting his parents at his childhood home, can't seem to leave (momma's man), and the other an attempt by the filmmaker to escape a sprawling documentary essay about it (my winnipeg). oedipal undertones (or in maddin's case, ubertones) and surrealist imagery abound in these truly original films.

4. don't touch the axe (dir. jacques rivette) (u.s. title: the duchess of langeais)
an underappreciated member of the french new wave, jacques rivette's adaptation of another work by balzac (he previously adapted la belle noiseuse to the screen) is a sensuous costume drama and a marvel of economical filmmaking. max ophuls' influence can be felt throughout, from the fluid and meaningful camera movements to the thematic exploration of human pleasures. jeanne balibar seems to have become his new muse. she's no juliet berto, but she'll do. as is the case with any good period piece of this era, muted passions brim to unbelievable tension and like all of rivette's films, sustains and earns its length. he's one of the few filmmakers i'll accept a running time of over two hours from knowing full well that he'll make use of every second of it.

5. wendy and lucy (dir. kelly reichardt)
transposes vittorio de sica's umberto d. to bush era hard times. the story is profoundly simple--girl is broke and wants to go to alaska to find work, but loses her dog along the way--and is appropriately pared down in its telling. like old joy, it uses the personal to achieve to political, expressing a kind of anxiety and disillusionment unique to this generation, this time and place, and for that if nothing else is an important work. wendy and lucy is a small, quiet film that builds slowly to pack quite the emotional punch.

6. milk (dir. gus van sant)
its prescience in light of all that is proposition 8 is eerie, making the act of watching the film a surreal experience unto itself. as traditional as biopics get, but van sant embellishes the film with aesthetic flourishes and an earnestness that elevate the film to the realm of the sublime. decidedly conventional considering what van sant's been up to with his last four films and the temptation exists to write this film off because of that, but to see the ideas he's developed through his aesthetic experimentation and apply them to a more familiar form is fascinating and inspiring. this is american sentimentality at its best.

7. the dark knight (dir. christopher nolan)
modernity steeped in a greek sense of tragedy and rightfully so, all by way of an american icon restored to power. the darkest and perhaps greatest of comic book movies (my heart will forever belong to ghost world). the dark knight has the sense of a new mythology in its ability to envelope an audience on a textual level while remaining pertenant to the context it comes from, which admittedly can get a little out of hand--the film can easily be read as a bush apologia--but that a film of this kind of entertainment value can be so immediate is enough for me. nothing can be written about this movie without the mention of heath ledger, who will win a posthumous academy award. gary oldman is the unsung hero of this film. batman's motorcycle 180 off the wall and the montage + voice over that ends the film are the giddiest moments the 14 year old in me got to experience at the movies this year.

8. chris and don: a love story (dir. tina mascara & guido santi)
this lovely documentary about the incredible relationship between christopher isherwood and don bachardy is the single most moving testament to the power of love(!!!) of the year. i was so wrapped up in the emotions of their story that i'm not quite sure what makes the film such a sucess, but it's pure and achingly beautiful. passages from isherwoods diaries are read that are moving not only because of the sentiment expressed but also the eloquence and mastery of words, which i guess might be the key to the film's greatness--the inclusion of their lives as artists in the context of their relationship (as opposed to a general statement about artists). a simple and unpretentious joy of a film.

9. pineapple express (dir. david gordon green)
needs no explanation.

10. wall-e (dir. andrew stanton)
a great sci-fi robot romance that only the near-perfect pixar could produce. the first half of this film is so perfect it hurts. once on the spaceship though, we enter typical pixar territory which isn't necessariliy a bad thing, but prevents this film from being truly great. didn't much appreciate having its greenness hit me in the face either. randy newman's song might be the worst song ever written for a disney movie. but these are all bad things. the shades of chaplin in wall-e's mannerisms to the inclusion of hello, dolly!, wall-e is made by people who love the movies, a quality that's severely lacking in recent output.


honorable mention: the wrestler, redbelt, happy-go-lucky, ashes of time redux, trouble the water

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