At eight days, the Transsiberian Express from Beijing to Moscow is the longest train journey in the world. So why wouldn’t it be the perfect backdrop to one of the most suspenseful journeys in quite some time? Paul Anderson’s (Beirut, The Machinist) presents the Transsiberian in a way that makes you think of Alfred Hitchcock. It’s dark. It’s moody. It’s twisted. It’s purposeful. It’s rooted. It’s intense. It makes you feel like a fellow passenger on this train, watching everything unfold next to you rather than on a screen projected in front of you. Oh. And it’s cold. It’s like an Arctic cold. We feel that sense of dread in the deepest of winter in the coldest places. Yet, it never feels like we are even close to approaching freezing. So it certainly adds to the ambiance of our film.
Category Archives: Top 10 Movie of 2008
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
To say that the Jonathan Demme-directed Rachel Getting Married is the role that Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries, Love and Other Drugs) could be considered by the ultimate compliment and, simultaneously, something that you hope isn’t true. I say that for a couple of reasons. First of all, if this is her crowning achievement, then what a movie to hang your hat on. With all due respect to 2012’s Les Miserables, Hathaway’s one performance as, of the end of 2018, that has earned her an Academy Award win, I personally have a difficult time comparing that movie to Rachel Getting Married for no other reason than because, while I have from time to time, I don’t typically review musicals. Much like documentaries or animated movies that I never review, I don’t know if I have a lot of insight or much that I can offer when it comes to a singing film. With that said, I did review Les Miserables and found Hathaway’s scene-stealing performance as Fantine to be the highlight of a movie and a story that I enjoy. But, to me, it didn’t compare to the powerhouse delivery she delivered four years earlier in her first Oscar-nominated performance as 25-year-old Kym, a recovering drug and alcohol addict current living in a treatment recovery program who is given a weekend release so that she can partake in the festivities of her older sister wedding in the infrequently seen Rachel Getting Married. The second reason that I hope this is not her career-defining performance is that, at the time of this writing in January 2019, Hathway is just 36 years old and already has a Best Lead Actress Oscar nomination (for this movie) and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar win. My fear, though, is that it’s been six years since she’s done a film of that nature or magnitude and the trajectory of her career seems to be leaning towards more fun, crowd-pleasing, and revenue inducing roles (The Intern, Oceans 8, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Rio, Rio 2, etc.) than some of the thicker, heavier stuff that earned her early critical acclaim. However, as I look at her IMDB page, she already has a movie called The Lifeboat scheduled for a 2024 release.
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Sure David Fincher’s (Fight Club, Se7en) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is Forrest Gump meets Legends of the Fall. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great movie. I saw this movie opening weekend six years ago and remember being intrigued by the premise but not exactly sure how I’d react to it. The trailer was superb, and Brad Pitt is excellent in almost everything he does. This movie was screaming Academy Award Nomination for him, and this would prove to be his first Best Actor nod. I’m also very high on Fincher and Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine, Elizabeth: The Golden Age). At nearly three hours, this movie is way much too long, but, at the same time, I’m not exactly sure what I would cut it out. To me, each scene is integral to the story. And while Forrest Gump achieved more critical acclaim (6 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor and six other nominations), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button fared very well (3 wins and ten more nominations). Are the stories similar? They are. And while Brad Pitt’s character in this movie isn’t quite the same as his character in Legends of the Fall, his Benjamin Button character does follow many of the same fight versus flight battles that Tristan faced. If I had to rank these three movies, I think I would still go Forrest Gump first, Legends of the Fall second, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but that is one heck of a list. All three of these movies currently rank in my All-Time top 125, and I think each of these movies will continue to stand the test of time, meaning I don’t see these movies sliding down as I revise my list yearly.
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The Wrestler (2008)
Darren Aronofsky’s (Black Swan, The Fountain) The Wrestler was my most anticipated movie of 2008. Professional wrestling is my guilty pleasure. I don’t watch it every week, and I never order a pay-per-view (okay, maybe Wrestlemania now and then), but I know what is happening. I also have a few compilation DVDs of some of my favorite wrestlers. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) really is a soap opera in an alternative form. When I first heard a movie coming out called The Wrestler, I figured it would be some lame comedy that made fun of the world of professional wrestling. When I heard that it was not, but was being referred to as not just one of the top 10 movies of the year but the performance of Mickey Rourke’s (A Prayer For The Dying, 9 1/2 Weeks ) career, I knew it was a movie I would see just as quickly as I could. The main problem was that I had to wait forever to see it. It was only filmed in cities like New York and Los Angeles for the longest period. Once it came closer to Washington DC, it was still in just one theater which was not very close to my house. Finally, some two months after dying to see the movie, I got my wish when it came to our local artsy theater. By then, the film could not live up to its hype.
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Revolutionary Road (2008)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Gangs of New York, The Departed) and Kate Winslet (The Reader, Little Children) reunite for the first time since they smashed the box office record as Jack and Rose in 1997’s Titanic. Revolutionary Road is also a love story, but it’s about a couple falling out of love rather than falling in love. Both are superb in this movie. It is easy to identify with each of their characters. And while Winslet and especially DiCaprio are at the top of their game, they are overshadowed by two scene-stealing scenes involving Michael Shannon (Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, Take Shelter). Shannon plays the mentally unstable son of their real estate agent, friend Helen (Kathy Bates – Misery, Dolores Claiborne), and her husband. Michael has no filter between his brain and his mouth and thus tells anyone and everyone exactly what he is thinking at any given moment. This is not a good thing, as Michael’s outlook on life and people, in general, is as pessimistic as one can be. It creates moments of intensified drama resulting in unfiltered anger. Rightfully so, Shannon was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award (the award went to Heath Ledger for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight), even though he was on the screen for fewer than 15 minutes.
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