Ok, some lighter fare for a blog that's been a bit heavy-handed lately. I know I'm SUPER late in getting this out, especially since the final word has already been said with the close of the Academy Awards Sunday night, but I still wanted to get my own top ten list up before I start working on 2009!

Before reading this, it's probably helpful to know that my main criteria for rating a film is this: "Did it exceed my expectations?" A moviegoer's expectations are (or should be) very different depending on what film he is going to see. Hence, I found the summer bomb "Speed Racer" to be a fantastically entertaining time because I had almost no expectations, while the bar was set so high when I finally saw "Slumdog Millionaire" that I left a little confused as to what all the hullabaloo was about. (Neither of those made my own list.)

So, without further ado - my favorite films of 2008.

10. Marley and Me
I am an avid dog lover, and also a fan of cathartic crying. This film supplied both in healthy doses. Half feel-good movie of the year, half emotional breakdown - it's an assault on the emotions (and my emotions like to be assaulted).






9. Kung Fu Panda
A certain other digitally animated film received most of the love this awards season, but darn it if I didn't laugh harder at this than anything else all year. "Skadoosh" was my catchphrase for weeks after seeing Po take on the art of kung fu.





8. Then She Found Me
This was a little-seen passion project by one of my favorite actresses, Helen Hunt, who poured her heart and soul into this small story of a woman who experiences a midlife crisis of sorts when her adopted mother dies and her biological one shows up. Hunt does a phenomenal job as writer, director, and actor in a story that you think is about identity, family relationships, and romantic love - which it is, until the final chapter when Hunt's protagonist reveals that the true nature of her crisis is... well, you'll just have to watch it for yourself, won't you? A cast consisting of Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth, and Bette Midler should help convince you to pick it up.

7. Frost/Nixon
Apparently much of the minutiae of this plot is fabricated, but the setting for the story is well-documented history, and part of history about which I knew very little. So fascinating is this story that I spent most of the night after watching it voraciously reading any historical account I could find of the David Frost interviews with Richard Nixon. Pitch-perfect acting and a cohesive film from the deft director Ron Howard make this a must-watch.



6. Australia
By golly, when I go to the cinema to see a Baz Luhrmann film, I'm not going to see historical accuracy, or subtle nuance, or even a seamless storyline - and all of the movie critics who complained that Australia was lacking in these categories can just go on a walkabout to Faraway Downs. Lurhmann films unabashedly embrace the spectacle of cinema: sweeping vistas, swelling music, costuming, passion, and a larger-than-life story. And it's ok to go to the movies and hope to be taken away to another time and place to experience adventure, romance, danger, and laughter. Australia excelled at all of these things and for that, it most certainly makes my top ten list.

5. The Dark Knight
No best of 2008 list would be complete without this film on it. As has been said countless times, Nolan & Co. have elevated the superhero genre into a potent and relevant parable for our time. Fine acting by all and a knockout performance by Mr. Ledger as Joker won the world, myself included, over.





4. Milk
This film honors a man who had a vision beyond himself. The current-day fight for marriage equality is both amplified and dwarfed by the reality of an America where gays and lesbians were threatened with the loss of their jobs simply if their orientation were made public. Harvey Milk, portrayed with honor, personality, and electric life by Sean Penn, stood up in his day and declared to the GLBT community, "You must come out!" knowing that until Americans had a face and name to associate with "the gays," it would always be easy to write off a group of people that were feared and hated. Until people knew of their friends and family members who were gay, there was no reason for the nation to care about this group of people whose rights were being suffocated left and right. A very moving story.

3. The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Yes, I'm a devout X-Phile. Yes, this is a biased pick. Yes, this movie rocked my socks. In terms of sheer satisfaction, nothing trumped this film for me this year. It played like a long episode of the show my family spent so many hours watching as I grew up, and I couldn't have asked for a better send-off for the characters I love so much.




2. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Some might call this light fare, and on many levels, they would be right. But this period piece about being true to your heart's heart at the expense of everything flashy and fake in the world hits all the right notes. An inordinately talented cast (the unstoppable Amy Adams, Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace, a sublime Frances McDormand, and even Shirley Henderson - 'Moaning Myrtle' from the Harry Potter films) delivers the story at a clip pace - literally the events of one day - with only the slightest of pauses for the audience to ruminate on how we, too, deny our own passions for things that placate rather than satisfy.

1. Doubt
I hinted a few weeks ago that this film would end up on my top ten list; indeed, it claims the spot as my favorite film of 2008. I'm simply fascinated by this fable (based in an all-too-real universe) of one nun's suspicions that her parish priest is molesting a young boy at her school. Of course the cast is amazing (all four principal actors were nominated for Academy Awards), and the stage play upon which it is based has already become a modern-day classic since it debuted off-Broadway in 2004. But I'm mostly drawn to the layers of social deconstruction that unfold as the story develops: gender roles in and out of the church, the nature of institutional religion, traditional and progressive worldviews, and, naturally, the very thin line between conviction and doubt. The cast is so adept at handling playwright John Patrick Shanley's material that I don't for a minute feel I'm watching Meryl Streep play a nun, but instead am immersed in four very distinct perspectives on how society operates, or should operate. There's no doubt this movie is my favorite of the year.

And there you have it! Hopefully I'll post 2009's list before next year's Oscar ceremony!

-M