better late than never

I've been waiting to do this year end wrap-up of movies for the last few weeks. I was basically waiting till I had watched most of the Oscar contenders before I gave you my personal opinions on them, lucky for you I had just finished the Wrestler yesterday. After watching that it gave me the confidence to make a half assed list which really has no merit to anyone but me. Now I am hardly a film major, or really any kind of critic. Honestly, anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt, If you have read many of the posts here you may realize that I might be half retarded, I'm at the very least I'm only partly literate. Anyway, I'm going to skip the rest of the pillow-talk and get to the goods, so here goes.

THE 6 BEST MOVIES OF 2008:

6) Wall-E - I loved this movie, It seemed like a real departure for Pixar to make such a sophisticated movie. Honestly, there isn't a line of dialogue in the first 20 minutes of the movie and it never slows down. Really that script could not have been longer than 50 pages and what they accomplished visually was unbelievable. The way that Pixar was able to give Wall-E the kind of emotions that they did was amazing.

5) Gran Torino - Clint Eastwood was the best thing about this movie. There wasn't anything else that was special about this. Actually, the script was so simple that it was almost a comedy as you get desensitized to blatant racism from Clint Eastwoods character. The script was so over the top that it was unfortunate. What could have been a good movie about a man overcoming himself was widdled down to a comedy. Unfortunate.

4)The Wrestler - Great movie about how you can't change what you are. Heath Ledger may have had the best supporting role of the year, but here you see Mickey Rourke walk away with the lead. His portrayal of a down on his luck wrestler who was as happy-go-lucky as it gets was fun to watch. Also props to Bruce Springsteen for writing one of the best songs of his career on the soundtrack to this. I even have the video here for you.



3)Dark Knight - I didn't spend more time watching any other movie as much as I spent watching this. From top to bottom amazing. You can bitch about Batman's voice, but don't let that take you away from the shear intensity of this movie. This movie also wins the "30 Rock Award" for having the most amazing ensemble, though in this case, for a movie. Even if you don't like comic books, Christopher Nolan and company deliver one of the best Cop and Robber movies since Heat. This is without a must see for ANY movie fan.

2)Slumdog Millionaire - What a great story about love and destiny, this movie was so fun to watch, even at it's most depressing the movie still keeps you at the edge of your seat. Though the story was able to give some levity occasionally, it was still a very serious story of 2 brothers hustling there way through some very miserable situations. The creativity of these brothers was fantastic, it's almost as if M.I.A. wrote "paper planes" specifically for this movie. Actually here is a scene where that song appears.



1) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - UNFREAKINBELIEVABLE!!! What a magnificent fairy tale. I Walt Disney had made movies that were a little more mature than what he had produced he would have came up with Benjamin Button. This really sealed for me the notion that David Fincher is the most meticulous director there is. Also the special effects that were used in this were amazing. I didn't know there was a way to digitally make someone look older so convincingly. This is exactly what movies are supposed to do, to take you to some other believable world where the impossible seems possible.