The Best Films of the Year 2008 (in order):

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Wrestler (tie)
2. The Dark Knight
3. WALL-E
   
4. Milk
5. Frost/Nixon
   
6. Slumdog Millionaire
7. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
8. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
   
9. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
10. Snow Angels

There's still about four major releases I have yet to see, so I may end up changing this list slightly.

Frost/Nixon, and The Reader

Frost/Nixon
An extraordinary film and one of the best "political" films since All the President's Men.
This is a firecracker of a movie. Ron Howard is a director that understands how to take complicated matters and put them into layman's terms on screen (think Apollo 13), and this is no exception. With Hans Zimmer's excellent score driving the film forward, Howard is able to take scene after scene of, well, people sitting in rooms talking, and turn it into some of the most compelling stuff of the year. Excellent cast - right down to the supporting roles - and a great script by Peter Morgan (The Queen), who adapts his own play for the screen. Wonderful movie. Go see it.

The Reader
Wow... where to start? This movie has no business being nominated for Best Picture. It's not terrible by any means, but certainly not worthy of being listed among the other four nominees. The entire first half of the film simply doesn't work. It's even more frustrating because it's nothing you can put your finger on - it just never really "clicks". The second half is another matter - it's a much better movie after the first hour. But because the first half has come and gone with little to show for it, there's little emotional impact to be had. Director Stephen Daldry (The Hours) does his best with the material, but I have a feeling that hardly anyone could have adapted this story for the screen. The screenwriter, David Hare, was committed to adapting Bernhard Schlink's novel without using voiceover. A commendable challenge, but it ends up hurting the picture, as we're never able to get inside anyone's head. There are several montage sequences in which a character is reading aloud from a book - not his own thoughts. These scenes stand out, and the editing is excellent - but that's it in terms of voiceover. These five minutes or so are a rare glimpse inside of his head, but it only serves to highlight how good the movie could have been. Kate Winslet is excellent (is she ever not?) but this is nowhere near her best performance. It looks as if she'll finally win for this movie, but her other nominations were far more deserved.
"Best Actress" really should have been this film's only nomination, but unfortunately it's right at the top with the four other nominees for Best Picture. Why not The Dark Knight? Or The Wrestler? Or even WALL-E? Oh well... this is the Academy, after all. It's not common sense.

Tomorrow night: My "Top 10 Films" list.

Real Time

Here we have a Canadian film from 2008, which wasn't even given a theatrical release in the U.S., save for a couple of festival showings. It's unfortunate, because it's truly an undiscovered gem of a picture - easily among the best of the year.
I must preface this review by pointing out how astonishingly bad this film could have been. The plot is wafer-thin, and something we've seen many times before: A hit-man (Randy Quaid) gives a compulsive gambler who's $68,000 in debt (Jay Baruchel - Knocked Up, I'm Reed Fish) one hour to live. The movie takes place in "real time" - thus the almost cringe-worthy aptness of the title. So yes, by reading the paragraph above, it seems like an interesting diversion, but not exactly something to put on your must-see list.
But somehow, some way, this movie works. Credit a great script by writer/director Randall Cole and wonderful performances by the two leads for this movie's success. This is a film about dialogue. It's a low-budget picture, and mostly consists of the two men talking to each other in a car. It's sort of what I call the "holy trinity" of independent film. Some people may not be into it, but for my money, if you have two great actors speaking great dialogue, it's just as exciting as a car chase.
In this picture, all three guys step up to the plate and hit immediate home runs. Baruchel is great as lovable loser Andy Hayes, a guy who's most definitely getting what he deserves, but who somehow makes you feel that he deserves yet another chance. Randy Quaid turns in a career-best performance as Reuben, the hit-man who gives Andy one last hour to settle his affairs. Quaid has taken some real chances as of late, playing the homophobic ranch boss in Brokeback Mountain, and now this. In this picture, he plays the role with an Australian accent. What could have been a laughable mistake turns out to be a pitch-perfect and memorable character. People these days remember Quaid from his role as "Cousin Eddie" in the Vacation movies, but I always remembered him most from his early role in Hal Ashby's 1973 film The Last Detail (for which he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor), where he played a quiet, timid Navy man. In all honesty, if you compare these four roles - Cousin Eddie, Brokeback, Real Time, and Last Detail - this guy has some amazing range. Kudos to Quaid for taking these increasingly risky parts.
Last but not least, Randall Cole's script manages to be both funny and somber, at exactly the right moments - all in the span of a scant 77 minutes. And while there's only a few characters to speak of, they're all pretty well-drawn, given their short screen time. His direction is fittingly sparse, letting the actors take center stage.
The movie's not perfect - one sequence taking place at a fried-chicken restaurant (Andy's old job) feels strangely out-of place as it tries to hammer the humor home. But even this isn't a complete failure: I understand what Cole was trying to do, and the ending of the sequence provides a nice moment for the character of Andy. Hey - you can't have everything, right?
There are two moments in the film which I particularly liked. Two brief things which probably take up 10 seconds of screen time. Early in the film, speaking of long lost memories, Andy mentions playing with a Playdough barber shop toy when he was a kid. It's a short, fleeting moment, but it's a nice little detail. Later on, at his grandmother's house, he opens the refrigerator and presents Reuben with a deformed, flattened bottle of soda. As he does this, he explains how his grandmother would squeeze every last bit of air out of a two-liter bottle of soda, in order to maintain its freshness longer. Another nice little moment. A movie can't quite survive solely on things like this, but when they're present, they add just that little bit extra to push a good movie over into being great. I'm still thinking about this movie two days after I've seen it. Who knows if I'll be thinking of this movie two months or even two years from now, but at this moment, I still think it's pretty damn good.

I would just like you guys to compare these two...

Joaquin Phoenix last night on Letterman:

Here's CBS's "official" shortened version, in case they take this one down:


Crispin Glover's infamous appearance on Letterman in 1987:


Déjà vu...
As a side note, I really hope this thing with Joaquin is all an elaborate joke.

Revolutionary Road

I actually saw this about a month ago, but never felt compelled to write about it. I still don't, I suppose. This movie is just.... ehh. I never really cared about anyone or anything in this movie. It's based on an acclaimed novel from the early sixties, and while the content of the book was, well, revolutionary at the time, lots of time has passed since. In the movie world, we've seen lots of similar films covering similar subjects, and while this picture is definitely solid work from everyone involved, it's just all been done before, and better.

Lux Interior (1946-2009)
Lead singer of The Cramps

James Whitmore (1921-2009)
Actor (The Shawshank Redemption)