jim's ten best favorite movies of 2008: the movie

No flash in Blackberry. No internet connection at home this weekend. No way to see this baby till Monday. Hurm.

This is great, I really enjoyed last years as an alternative to all the text-based lists, and this is just as much fun. I've seen them all this year too. (Besides the bonus anyway...)

I'd also suggest adding "Snow Angels" to your 2009 discovery list if you haven't already seen it. David Gordon Green put out two great movies in 2008.

Great job. I like it.
One needs to have all the DVD screeners to be able to do this though...

JE: Actually, I got a lot of the footage from trailers and promotional clips available online. What you need most of all is tool (like KeepVid.com) that can capture Flash files and save them as QT or MPEG4, so you can edit them. Most of these are already available on DVD in the US: "Still Life," "Edge of Heaven," "Shotgun Stories," "Chop Shop," "The Fall," "In Bruges"... and "Pineapple Express" is officially released Tuesday (Jan. 6).

Heavens. Tremendously well done, Jim.

Watching this made me sad. Most of these movies haven't yet played in Portugal, or did so only in a few theaters, or will only be available in DVD, eventually.

Thanks for doing your list this way again. It's a real treat to try and guess the movie, especially those I've read about but have not been able to see yet.

Great list. Opportunity is what it's all about. Of your top 11, only, #'s 10, 4 and 1 opened in my city. I have decreasing hopes for maaaaybe #'s 3 and 6. A couple others I've seen on DVD, the rest are in my Netflix queue. Living in a non-movie city in the Midwest can really SUCK sometimes. As much as I want to see everything in the theater, I don't regret any dime I spend on my home setup.

That shot from Wendy and Lucy is my favorite of the year, and I wrote rather glowingly about it:

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/theatrical-review-of-wendy-and-lucy/6204

Wendy walks through the woods with her golden lab retriever Lucy, playing fetch. The camera hangs back at a distance, gliding along for more than a minute simply to watch a woman and her dog play. It is the most luminous shot in any film released in theaters this year.

The sheer pleasure of watching bodies move through space and time has become even more precious as Hollywood editing has become increasingly frenetic. Employed at the beginning of the film, the long tracking acts like a decompression chamber, allowing viewers the chance to slowly acclimatize to the film before diving headlong into the first close-up. It also situates its two leads tangibly in an environment that will play such a crucial role in the story.

Interesting choice for number one, Jim. It's suffered the same fate as "Zodiac" did last year by coming out so early in the spring; far too few remember it by the time the new year rolls around.

I managed to identify #10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and 1 off the top of my head, but I'm definitely intrigued by the others. And "Generation Kill" has my pick for the best of television this year.

Great list and a great way to present it. The only one I have not seen, and therefore did not recognize, was Shotgun Stories. That shot in Wendy and Lucy, especially considering the ending, is heartbreakingly stunning. Also so glad to see such love this year for Let the Right One In - a beautiful film that deserves the recognition. Again, great show.

I still think Tommy Lee Jones was the best Laura Linney!

Great film essay idea: the use of pieces of other films and TV shows within a movie. Transformers in Leon, Felix the Cat in Ghost Dog, Coyote and Roadrunner in The Shining, Fantastic Planet in The Cell, The Third Man in The Man Who Fell to Earth...

One Bruge, Two Bruges, The Three Stooges in Bruges.

Now I never expected to see a scene like that in A Christmas Tale. That is striking!

Now why haven't I seen an Ebert review of Still Life yet?

Actually, I got a lot of the footage from trailers and promotional clips available online.

Same here. The majority of clips I use for my montages, of which I've now done several, come from my DVD collection but for the occasional clip I need from something I don't have on DVD I go online and, like you, use software to capture the vid and save it to my hard drive. I got about three clips that way for my "Happy Holidays" montage just a couple of weeks ago. It helps to have an audio converter too to snag sound and music from clips to use over other clips. And all that said...

Great job as always. Sometimes I wish I could do all my blog entries as montages where I could take one film and break it down with music to express how I feel about it but, alas, I just don't have the time. I'm glad to see you doing this more and more though as an expressive video form of film criticism. Bravo!

Gosh, I am here in New Zealand limited to a modem connection. Any hope of a list?

Thanks,

Marsha

@ Christopher Long: Great review of "Wendy and Lucy", also my favorite film of the year (Oorah!). I'm so very grateful I received this screener, having no clear contender for the top prize before hand. I'll be considering this when it comes to best of the decade listmaking about 700 days from now.

I've only seen 3/11 on the list and recognized 4...

The problem with salvaging trailers is:
1) there is a voice over or graphics over the scene
2) the scene is re-cut (not director's cut)
3) the samples are selected by the publicists and you can't pick the scene you liked the most yourself. I want to take the scene I thought was most significant/representative to me, not the one everyone saw in the trailer (that was the most catchy for marketing).

Hopefully one day these things will be as easy and free to do as newspaper clips...

Very nice video of a very good list, Jim. I've seen them all except Pineapple Express -- not my kind of movie really. I also love the genre assignment, though I would place Chopshop under 'heartbreaker' and Wendy and Lucy under ... 'a real roadtrip.'

Once again, kudos to you, Jim. Absolutely fantastic, and truly original.

Re: Wendy and Lucy – That is a glorious scene, and I just knew that you’d pick that one.

Re: Let The Right One In – SPOILER ALERT: The way I see it, Oskar and Hakan (the older unsettling fellow with Eli) are reflections of each other through time. I am going to elaborate on this later this week (which, in Alispeak, means in 2011, if you’re lucky).

Re: The Fall – That flick’s splendour is unlike anything I’ve seen this year – hell, this decade.

Re: The Edge of Heaven – Fantastic scene, with the wonderful imagery and great score complementing the exquisite camerawork.

Re: Pineapple Express – That James Franco’s pot-dealer has a “Footprints in the sand poster” up on his wall is seven kinds of awesome.

Rob,

Thanks for the kind words. I was lucky enough to see this one in Toronto w/ Kelly Reichardt in attendance, and let's just say I liked her as much as I liked the movie. I will be rooting big-time for her from here on out.

Ali,

I think you're spot-on regarding your Let the Right One In comments.

[SPOILER WARNING]

I don't think Eli has found a new friend at the end; she's gone shopping for a replacement for the old "assistant" that she got tired of. And I bet she found him the exact same way. Poor Oskar was better off with the bullies.

Sublime, Jim. But credits, slow down, damn you! My old-man eyes couldn't keep up! (Had to punch the pause button.)

So happy to see Shotgun Stories and In Bruges represented, but most of all Wendy and Lucy (Be still, my heart) and Let the Right One In (Be still, my heart and jugular vein). All of these will figure in my own list somewheres. I am most agonized to have missed Edge of Heaven and especially A Christmas Tale, which came and when here in L.A. before I'd digested my Thanksgiving dinner. And I really admired Up the Yangtze, so I'm sure I'll appreciate Still Life. (I also appreciate you indicating which of these is available on DVD.) Our main divergence is your inclusion of Pineapple Express, which I maintain thinks it is far funnier than it is, and my inclusion of... Well, you can probably guess, but I won't let that shoe drop just yet.

Again, what a lovely way to present your list, Jim. Thanks so much.

P.S. I saw Paranoid Park last night, just before seeing Milk-- an instructive contrast, to be sure, and Paranoid Park maybe the most beautifully visualized movie I saw in 2008. (Have to check my list to be sure!)

Jim:

Great job with the video. I would like to echo Ali's appreciation for James Franco's pot-dealer having a "Footprints in the Sand" poster. When I initially saw the film it provided one of the biggest smiles in already big smile-inducing film.

Yet to see The Edge of Heaven (it's next on the list) as well as Let the Right One In.

I'm glad The Fall is getting some much deserved love.

I love that you love In Bruges so much. Just watched Shotgun Stories this morning and I have to say that Michael Shannon's performance is just as impressive as Micky Rourke and Clint Eastwood, the more conventional (but deserving) choices for Best Actor this year.

I haven't heard a thing about Still Life or Wendy and Lucy (on purpose) and am eagerly awaiting their arrival on DVD.

Christopher: I agree wholeheartedly with you and Ali re the ending of Let the Right One In. It has all the trappings of an out-from-under-the-thumbs-of-the-oppressors, liberated-friends-on-the-run finish, but it only takes a second to sink in what the future really holds for Oskar. What do you think the odds are that this disturbing wrinkle will be, like all the rest, ironed right out the inevitably PG-13 American remake?

Jim,

What is that bookend of the woman on the couch from? I've seen all but two of your top 10, and that is far and away my favorite clip. (Second favorite? A Christmas Tale.)

Its great that you remembered the best comedy of the year (In Bruges) and one of the best overall films of the year (The Fall) than just sticking to those films that come out at the end of the year fighting for a Oscar nomination. My top film is not on the list, Man on Wire, but I'm sure you loved it as well.

JE: Yes I did. "Man on Wire" is... awesome.

I have to say, I really liked last year's list a lot more. Not for the films, but the concept of mirroring Antonioni's final minutes in "L'Eclisse." I found it to be a much more engaging video than the more conventional one you made for this year.

Still, love to see "In Bruges" up there.

JE: I won't make excuses, but I found the movies less inspiring this year. Still, when I thought of Hanna Schygulla, Goddess of Film Itself, as the waker/dreamer who animates the whole sequence, that made it all work for me.

Dennis,

I'm also betting the American remake gives us an origin story for Eli too. Because all that mystery is just annoying and makes you think too much. It would be much better to have everything explained in great detail via flashback. I hope Dakota Fanning plays her. :)

Jim,

I love the fact that you label Che "an instructional documentary." Please bust that line out on your closest right-wing friend and see him froth at the mouth. It's been fun listening to the sound and fury rumbling from the right over a film that dares depict Che as anything other than history's greatest monster.

JE: When I saw "Che" in Toronto I was surprised that it wasn't the hagiography -- or even the biopic -- that I'd expected. It was a manual about How To Do (And Not Do) A Revolution. And it illustrates my theory, borne of a lifetime of experience, that lefties are all about process (as the only way of legitimizing decisions), while righties are all about results -- and to hell with the law or the constitution or anything that gets in their way, Viva la Fascism! Then again, even the lefties DO execute people...

Christopher - Researching for my review on wikipedia, I was informed that there was an origin sequence for Eli, which was shot, but, thankfully, cut. Wikipedia also informs me that, in the original book, Hakan becomes one of the undead after being bitten by Eli at the hospital, after which he turns evil (and probably has a confrontation of sorts with Eli). This sub-plot was discarded, obviously.

I bet the Hollywood version features both sub-plots.

Jim,

I particularly like your mentions of Chop Shop and Pineapple Express, but I urge you to see Reygada's Silent Light if you get the chance. It's the year's only masterpiece, imo. So far ahead, it's not even funny.

Since no one outside of NYC has a chance to see it on a big screen (where it was screened as part of a Reygadas retrospective and is getting a paltry 2-week run this month), I guess you'll have to wait for it on DVD.

Excellent list, Mr. Emerson. I know of all of them aside from Wendy and Lucy and have watched three, the wickedly delightful In Bruges (its pronounced Broozh:) the beautiful Edge of Heaven (I watched the entirety of that final cliched shot of Nejat sitting on the beach) and the mythic violence of Shotgun Stories. I'm intrigued as to why Waltz with Bashir hasn't been reviewed by Roger or you yet. I have been seeing positive reviews, but will be waiting as always on you and Roger for my final verdict.

Great job in Boulder for Conference on World Affairs--loved "Chop Shop" and a great treat to hear from the director of that movie.
Your insight is necessary for most of us.
You and Roger are my Movie Guides #1.