2 February 2009

This article is a review of the movies of 2008 and a preview of 2009.

By Hemanth Kissoon

How was your 2008? Perhaps beginning to look like a distant memory? There were a bumper crop of movies, some excellent, though a serious amount of rubbish. So close, I nearly hit the big 300 films in one year mark, but I did break my personal record and saw 288 films at the cinema...

LET’S START WITH THE WORST FILMS OF 2008:

There were so many stinkers that I’ve had to divide this list up.

Firstly, the remakes of previous movies: Bangkok Dangerous and Death Race.

Next, sequels: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.

Those who should have known better: Righteous Kill [De Niro & Pacino], 88 Minutes [Pacino], Babylon A.D. [Vin Diesel + director Matthew Kassovitz], X- Files: I Want to Believe [director Chris Carter], Baby Mama [Tina Fey], Love in the Time of Cholera [writer Ronald Harwood + director Mike Newell], Max Payne [Mark Wahlberg] and The Love Guru [Mike Myers].

The others that nearly made the list:

Deception, D-War, Sex and the City, The Oxford Murders, The Possibility of an Island, The Wackness, Wanted, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Death Defying Acts, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Twilight, Inkheart, My Best Friend’s Girl and Nuncigen Haus.

The Love Guru

Righteous Kill

The Overall worst:

15. Quantum of Solace

Ineptly made, could anyone see what was happening in the action sequences? Compounded by a ho-hum plot and wafer-thin characters.

14. The Other Man

Theatre director Richard Eyre is an awful film director, picking projects ladled with saccharine tripe pretending to be intellectual analysis.

13. Star Wars: Clone Wars

You didn’t think the Star Wars prequels could get any worse?

12. The Mutant Chronicles

How could I have not seen this hitting the list? The story of a future Earth, when an ancient technology is awakened turning people into bio-mechanical zombies.

11. Un Lac

The sort of film that gives art-house a bad name; an almost unparalleled tedious film masquerading as experimentalism.

10. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

How do you end up with a boring movie about kung-fu mummies?

9. Never Back Down

A Karate Kid rip-off that is so badly written that it makes the pop culture classic look like Raging Bull.

8. 27 Dresses

If I was a woman I would be totally offended by this inane, weak, conservative pap. See also Sex and the City for a similar patronising formula, where marriage is the only real goal in life, to the point where women are told that that is their raison d’être at all costs.

7. Assembly

Think of every war cliché going and then tick them off while watching this.

6. Bedtime Stories

Adam Sandler has sunk to a new low: a kids movie where any self-respecting child will feel they have wasted a huge chunk of their so-far short lives.

5.10,000 B.C.

Pop quiz: did you know that woolly mammoths were harnessed by our ancestors to help build pyramids, and if you free a trapped sabre-tooth tiger it won’t eat you cos it, you know, has like bonded with you like a pet spaniel? According to the director of Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow these are credible plot developments that won’t have audiences throwing popcorn at the screen in derision.

4. Incendiary

A really stupid movie about terrorism, tragedy and guilt.

3. Doomsday

A film that rips off Mad Max, Escape from New York and 28 Days Later, and turns that mix into a laughable, derivative mess.

2. The Day the Earth Stood Still

Everything that was great about the original (50 years old and still standing up to today’s scrutiny) has been dismantled and rebuilt so incompetently it is hard to believe.

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

After George Lucas flushed the Star Wars saga down the toilet with the absolutely dire prequels, he and Spielberg have done the same with one of cinema’s grandest heroes.

Quantum of Soalce

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Favourite Films of 2008:

While the above shows how bad cinema can be, this year has also been one of extreme quality.

The ones that nearly made the list: Il Divo, Changeling, [Rec.], In Bruges, Lonesome Jim, The Mist, The Chaser, and Hamlet 2.

12. Country Wedding

In the vein of The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Flight of the Concords, a hilarious Icelandic road movie following two buses (one carrying the bridal party, and the other the groom’s) trying to find the wedding church.

11. Cashback

Surreal comedy celebrating beauty.

10. Paris

Like a French Robert Altman mosaic, with some of the cream of current French actors providing us with a charismatic tale off overlapping lives highlighting love not completely returned.

9. Cloverfield

Innovative horror is rare. A cross between The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla, this was adrenaline pumping.

8. There Will Be Blood

A hugely impressive collision of capitalism, religion and the American Dream, coupled with a monumental performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.

7. Rachel Getting Married

A masterclass in ensemble acting. A slow-burn, compelling and cringe-worthy family drama set over one weekend. Anne Hathaway is the standout as a bruised, complicated woman.

6. The Baader-Meinhof Complex

Juggling a large cast to cover a 10 year period is no mean feat, but to do it so the film turns into a thrilling political epic is a fantastic achievement. Along with The Edukators and The Lives of Others, German cinema is on fire.

5. Death Note + Death Note 2: The Last Stand

This awesome morality tale is a police procedural and fantasy mash-up over two films where no character is guaranteed to cross the finish line.

4. The Fall

Along with Zhang Yimou’s Hero, one of the most strikingly beautiful films ever made; but there is also an interesting story about storytelling, the power of the imagination and the toll of hopelessness.

3. Che

In its entirety this is north of four hours long. Biopics rarely get more gripping.

2. The Good, The Bad, The Weird

If you’re going to make something purely, wildly, extravagantly entertaining – this is up there with Raiders of the Lost Ark as a benchmark of how to do it.

1. The Dark Knight

Not only the best comic book film of all time, but one of the best crime thrillers. An allegory to the times we live in – about the prices paid and choices made when engaged in the War on Terror and the War on Drugs.

The Fall

The Dark Knight

HEMANTH’S MOVIE AWARDS

Favourite Male Performances of 2008:

Matthew Amalric – A Christmas Tale
Christian Bale – The Dark Knight
Javier Bardem – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Paul Dano – There Will Be Blood
Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood
Benicio Del Toro – Che
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Ralph Fiennes – In Bruges
Ben Kingsley - Elegy
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Jet Li – The Forbidden Kingdom
John Malcovich – Changeling
Peter O’Toole- Dean Spanley
Lee Pace – The Fall
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Charlie Wilson’s War


Favourite Female Performances of 2008:

Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins – Happy Go-Lucky
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Emily Mortimer – Lars and the Real Girl
Ellen Page – Smart People
Kristen Scott Thomas – I’ve Loved You So Long
Sarah Silverman – Jesus is Magic
Ammara Siripong - Chocolate
Meryl Streep – Mamma Mia!
Audrey Tatou - Priceless
Anna Tsuchiya - Sakuran
Catinca Untaru – The Fall


Favourite Directing:

Paul Thomas Anderson – There Will Be Blood
Ari Folman – Waltz with Bashir
Kim Ji-woon - The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Errol  Morris – Standard Operating Procedure
Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Steven Soderbergh – Che
Paulo Sorrentino - Il Divo
Andrew Stanton – Wall.E
Tarsem – The Fall


Best Documentaries:

- In Prison My Whole Life
- Taxi to the Dark Side


Favourite Animated Films

This has been an amazing year:

Dragon Hunters
Kung Fu Panda
Vexille
Wall.E
Waltz with Bashir


Favourite Line:

Get Smart
Agent 23 [Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson], “If you don’t follow the rules here then what are we?”
The Chief [Alan Arkin], “I’m telling you what we’re not, we’re not people who jam staples into other people’s heads, that’s CIA crap!”

There Will Be Blood

Che

2009 PREVIEW!!

Films that could already be in next year’s favourite list that have hit in January are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk, what about the rest of the 2009 though? It’s easy to get caught up in hype, but let’s hope the following deliver:

26. Where the Wild Things Are
Spike Jones hits the fantasy button. Who knows what such an original mind could bring to a genre that seems quite tired of late?

25. The Box
After the mess that was Southland Tales, hopefully a return to form for the director of Donnie Darko. Stars Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella.

24. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Heath Ledger died part way through this reteam with director Terry Gilliam. Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell have split the part between them for what is sure to be imaginative. Geddit?!

23. The Burning Plain
Directorial debut of the writer of Amores Perros, 21 Grams, The Three Buriels of Melquiades Estrada  and Babel; and starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Is unlikely to be cheery but will hopefully deliver high intensity drama.

22. The International
Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Perfume) teams up with Clive Owen, Naomi Watts and Armin Mueller-Stahl for a timely corporate thriller.

21. Knowing
From the director of The Crow and Dark City, Nicolas Cage discovers a way to predict future catastrophes. He hasn’t said whether this will be one, joining the likes of National Treasure and Ghost Rider, instead of Lord of War or Con Air.

20. Sherlock Holmes
He knows how to make energetic, fun films and Guy Ritchie could deliver a satisfying revisionist Holmes, especially with Robert Downey Jr. as the world’s greatest detective.

19. Broken Embraces
The latest from Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz, need we say more?

18. Drag Me to Hell
Director Sam Raimi takes a hiatus from the Spider-Man franchise and goes back to his horror roots.

17. Bruno
Can Sacha Baron Cohen bottle lightening twice? His third character to hit the big screen, will this be more Borat than the Ali G movie?

16. Bronson
The director of The Pusher series turns his eye to one of Britain's most notorious inmates.

15. Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese’s latest. Based on the novel by the author of Mystic River and Gone baby Gone. Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams, Jackie Earle Haley, Elias Koteas and Max von Sydow. Scorsese can sure attract a quality cast.

14. Up
Pixar's latest. 3D. Nuff said.

13. The Green Zone
Director Paul Greengrass (The Bournes Supremacy and Ultimatum) reteams with Matt Damon, adapting the excellent and scathing book about the inept setting up of the Green Zone in Iraq.

12. The Road
From the author of No Country for Old Men, and director of The Proposition, should be satisfyingly bleak. Stars Viggo Mortensen.

11. The Hurt Locker
Bomb disposal in Iraq.  Katherine “Point Break” Bigelow style.

Where the Wild Things Are

Up

10. The Informant
Soderbergh's latest about corporate corruption starring Matt Damon. The two rarely make career misjudgements.

9. Star Trek
I was worried until I saw the trailer. Star Trek begins. Can J.J. Abrams reinvent this franchise which has been tedious for so long? Looks exciting.

8. Watchmen
I was even more worried until I saw the second trailer. Adapting the greatest graphic novel seemed beyond the capabilities of director Zack Synder (300, Dawn of the Dead remake), but he could have nailed it.

7. The Tree of Life
Director Terrence Malick is the opposite of prolific. This is his fifth film in like 30 years. He teams up with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn for what could be something compellingly spiritual.

6. Ponyo on the Cliff
Along with Walt Disney and Pixar, director Hayao Miyazaki is in the animation genius triumvirate. This is the latest from a directorial back-catalogue that includes My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and Porco Rosso.

5. 1906           
Pixar goes live action. Incredibles and Ratatouille director Brad Bird’s latest is shrouded in secrecy . A mystery surrounding the San Francisco earthquake of the title’s year.

4. The Lovely Bones
A Peter Jackson film is always an event. In between King Kong and Tintin is his adaptation of the best seller from Alice Sebold.

3. Inglorious Basterds
Not a typo, fingers crossed Quentin Tarantino is back on form. Brad Pitt heads up a Dirty Dozen-style mission to cause havoc to the Nazis during the Second World War.

2. Public Enemies
He’s the director of The Last of the Mohicans, Manhunter and Heat, Michael Mann is a truly gifted filmmaker. Set in 1930s America with Johnny Depp as gangster John Dillinger and Christian Bale as the cop after him. Sounds bad-ass.

1. Avatar
James Cameron is one of the most extraordinary technical directors of all time, who lets technology facilitate his stories, rather than the reverse: Terminator 2, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies and Titanic.  Rumoured to be boundary pushing, possibly taking to cinema in a new direction, it is a love story set during an interplanetary war.


Fingers crossed for 2009!

Watchmen

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