Many deem Christopher Nolan’s (Interstellar, Oppenheimer) The Dark Knight the best comic book movie ever. Those and others consider Nolan’s three Batman films the quintessential superhero trilogy. The Dark Knight is the franchise’s standout, successfully eclipsing the superhero genre and delivering an eerie tale of good versus evil that requires many chief characters to make layered, moral decisions at a moment’s notice. In particular, The Joker (Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain, Monster’s Ball), the film’s villain, continually requires its protagonists to choose between what is best for them and society’s greater good. Fans of superhero movies and those who traditionally have little to no interest in that genre can equally appreciate The Dark Knight.
Category Archives: Top 10 Movie of 2008
Transsiberian (2008)
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.
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 the ultimate compliment and, simultaneously, something that you hope isn’t true. I say that for a couple of reasons. First, 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 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 I never review, I wonder if I have much insight or more to offer regarding a singing film. With that said, I reviewed Les Miserables and found Hathaway’s scene-stealing performance as Fantine to be the highlight of a movie and a story I enjoy.
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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