The Best and Worst of 2008
1) Jumper
I can’t believe that I’ve still got this thing on my mind. Seriously, this came out on Valentine’s Day. As if it’s the opposite of The Dark Knight, it seems that all adjectives have been used in any discussion on the subject of Jumper, a movie that makes the over-the-top B-movie antics of a Uwe Boll film look like the Royal Shakespeare Company. Who needs a cohesive plot when you can stare at Hayden Christenson trying to summon a human emotion for 90 minutes?
2) Deception
If this is the price to pay for seeing X-Men Origins: Wolverine next summer, all I’ve got say is that Hugh Jackman and company better do a damn good job, because this psycho-sexual thriller was neither psycho nor sexual.
3) 88 Minutes
If Righteous Kill proved anything, it’s that Al Pacino (and his hair) and only be tamed by Robert DeNiro, and then only barely. All alone, Pacino is stuck swinging for the fences, not to mention swinging for a bevy of young woman who are all a third of his age, in this farce of a real time thriller that got a direct-to-DVD release in Brazil before it ever saw the light of a theatre booth in North America. You know what that means? We need more Brazilians in production approval positions in Hollywood studios.
4) The Love Guru
In an instant, Mike Myers finds himself back in that place he was at between Saturday Night Live and the first Austin Powers: a creative null zone that’s like the comedic equivalent of the Dark Ages. Hope Love Guru was worth it because the only way 
anyone’s going to bank on Myers anytime soon is if the word “Shagaedelic” is employed.
5) Max Payne
I know movies based on video games are supposed to suck, but come on, Max Payne wasn’t even trying. A complete mess from beginning to end, it’s one of those movies that makes you wonder how many studio execs it takes to screw in a light bulb, especially when trying to explain the plot would only waste valuable seconds.
6) Disaster Movie
Any tolerance for the eponymous spoof picture finally evaporated with this flop which not only featured several of its main actors taking on multiple roles like some kind of special ed Monty Python, but for the way its only marquee star is Kim Kardashian. You know it’s rough when Carmen Electra is an also ran in your movie.
7) Passengers
It what was an otherwise banner year for Anne Hathaway, which included box office triumphs (Get Smart) and awards consideration (Rachel Getting Married), the only thing worse than the public shame of a jailbird ex is this mess. Nothing’s quite so bad as “I see dead people”… on a plane.
8) Bangkok Dangerous
As to what exactly guides Nicolas Cage’s decision making process remains as unclear as ever. What I do know is that anyone that looks at Tom Hanks’ haircut 
from The Da Vinci Code and says, “That’s a great look,” obviously has judgment issues. And that’s to say nothing of the mess that is Bangkok Dangerous, which proves that working with John Woo is not the same as being John Woo.
9) Pathology
It’s Flatliners meets Grey’s Anatomy yet somehow dumber than that sounds. But if you can’t somehow standout, it’s nice to know that your at least consistent, and Milo Ventimiglia remains as consistent as death and taxes, while being as interesting as both those things combined.
10) Never Back Down
I was toying with putting Ben Stein’s odious “documentary” Expelled here, but I though if anything disproves evolution better it’s this ultimate fighting upgrade of The Karate Kid. Remember kids: cool martial arts mean nothing when you see them being demonstrated against an inanimate object, like Sean Faris or Cam Gigandet
In the Name of the King/Postal
Memo to Germany: Fix your tax laws. With the utterly unrepentant and thoroughly offensive Postal, I think we’ve suffered enough for what I can only assume is some kind of revenge thing for Hogan’s Heroes. Feel free to stop Uwe Boll any time now. I know he’s a doctor, but if he taught literature as well as he makes movies, there’s probably a generation of university grads in Germany that thinks that Hamlet was the basis for Ghostbusters.
1) Young @ Heart
This is a great documentary about living out loud no matter what your age, with a fantastic soundtrack featuring senior spins both touching (Coldplay’s “Fix You”) and rockin’ (The Ramones “I Want to Be Sedated”).
2) Iron Man
Robert Downey Jr. fills out Tony Stark and the Iron Man armour beautifully, and the film easily joins The Dark Knight as the thinking man’s superhero picture.
3) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
A potent and startling examination of living in a closed society, this movie transcended political opinion and made claustrophobic a world without choice.
4) JCVD
Jean-Claude Van Damme finds brilliance through self-parody in the best celebrity deconstruction since Being John Malkovich.
5) The Band’s Visit
Somewhere in this tale of a lost Egyptian police band in Israel is a political statement of some sort. But really, just enjoy what has to be the most inspired fish out of water comedies in years.
6) The Visitor
The movie itself seems to have been overlooked, but I’m hoping that Richard Jenkins won’t be. His grounded and subtle portrayal of Walter Vale is the stuff of acting classes; the perfect marriage of actor and role.
7) Appaloosa
Ed Harris brings a sure hand, a sharp eye and an ear for dialogue to a character-driven Western in the tradition of Unforgiven. But Harris and Viggo Mortensen take it further though by making Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch two of the coolest talking guns for hire since Vincent and Jules
8) The Rape of Europa
Nazis stole a lot of art. And much of it still hasn’t been recovered 63 years later. This is the utterly devastating truth behind this documentary highlighting the greatest art theft in history organized by Adolf Hitler.
9) W.
I know a lot of people hated it for making Bush sympathetic, but I think I like it for that reason. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy made potent for the fact that these are the times we live in.
10) Repo The Genetic Opera
It didn’t get a wide release, but a better time at the movie you didn’t have all year. After I saw it, I went to iTunes and grabbed the soundtrack and kept it on rotation ever since. It deserved so much better than what it got.
1) The Brothers Bloom
Maybe it’s the allure of the old-fashioned con game, maybe it’s Rachel Weisz as a jack-of-all-trade hobbyist, or maybe it’s Mark Ruffalo in a hat, but there was just something so winning about Brothers Bloom. This is far from a sophomore slump for Rainn Johnson, who proves as skilled combining caper flicks with the old Cosby/Hope “Road to” pictures, as he did putting high school politics and film noir together in Brick. The shame is it won’t get a wide release until next year.
2) The Dark Knight
At this point there’s probably nothing left to say about this Knight, other than this is a rare occasion when criticism and commercialism seem to agree. Justifiably so, because Christopher Nolan’s true talent is that he created the most genuine piece of pop art since the first Matrix, and he did so without betraying the original source material.
3) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Before, it would have nearly unthinkable to make a movie where the main character is completely immobilized save for one blinking eye. But after seeing Diving Bell one can’t help but be struck by the pure poetry of it, or the incredible inspiration it provides. Based on the actual memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, filmmaker Julian Schnabel powerfully demonstrated the pain of confinement and exaltation of freedom of thought and emotion.
4) Amal
This Canadian film captured the hearts of everyone that saw it, with a simple fable about a man with a good heart who wins the fondness of a wealthy hotel owner that leaves him a fortune. The film’s ending surprise exemplifies director Richie Mehta’s easy skill as a storyteller, first hitting you with the twist, and then making you realize it’s genuinely easy to believe once you get past your cultural bias.
5) Man on Wire
On the surface, walking on a wire half a kilometre in the air with nothing to catch you if you fall seems a little loopy. But for this documentary about Philippe Petit’s 1974 jaunt from the roof of one World Trade Centre tower to the other, something much more profound seems to take place. While wrapped in a Mission: Impossible-like, caper set-up that goes through the planning and execution of the stunt, Man on Wire proves a thoughtful and exhilarating thrill ride.
6) In Bruges
Cursing mob bosses, drug dealing assistant directors, a dwarf on horse tranquilizers, a gay hitman, his suicidal charge and a little, Medieval town in Belgium all add up to maybe the best comedy of the year. Filled with dark humour and a stinging kick of pathos, this trip to Bruges won’t soon be forgotten.
7) WALL-E
And a little robot showed them the way… Pixar moves boldly again by telling a tale devoid of humans for the first half, only to reveal the fat, lazy self-indulgent refuse are species will become due to uncontrolled consumerism. And let us not forget the ecological message, all summed up through the struggles of a lonely robotic trash compactor with binocular eyes and R2-D2’s voice box.
8) Heaven on Earth
Deepa Mehta’s once again plunges into the depths of hidden demons in gender inequity and Indian culture and takes no prisoners in this occasionally brutal, 
though frank and hopeful, examination of a woman caught in a strange land with a handful of bad options. But more than a victim’s tale, Heaven on Earth weaves together mysticism, modernism and feminism creating a boiling pot, culture clash portrait of one family on the wrong side of faith.
9) Slumdog Millionaire
Completing our trilogy of Indian set, or Indian centric films, is Danny Boyle’s Dickensian fable on the streets of Mumbai. Full of joy and tragedy; laughter and tears; twists and turns, Slumdog is never dull and always surprising. In keeping with the times, there’s a spirit of optimism that permeates to even the darkest corners of the story, and that’s why it’s so affecting.
10) Let the Right One In
While Twilight got all the fuss in terms of hot, though chaste, human on vampire romance, Let the Right One In quietly became a film to see, albeit difficult to find in limited release. Even Hollywood noticed, optioning the film for Americanization before it even came out as limited as it did. The frighteningly touching love story between pre-teens Oskar and Eli is a thing of gothic beauty against the frozen plains of Sweden.
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