Top 10 of 2008

Alright this one won't be too hard seeing as 2008 did not end that long ago. Overall it was a solid year for new films with possibly the best summer season ever with great stuff like The Dark Knight, Wall-e and Iron man. The awards season was bittersweet with the best material getting overlooked while the decent offerings were ridiculously overrated (ya I'm looking at you Slumdog). Alright I'll just get to my list now.. Oh and I have not decided if I should list these from 1 down to 10 or from 10 to 1, any preferences??

10. Paranoid Park - One of 2 Van Sant films on this list

9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - A tad overlong but still fine epic storytelling from Fincher

8. Doubt - Hands down best ensemble acting of the year especially from Viola Davis

7. Snow Angels - Probably Sam Rockwell's best performance.

6. Wall-E - Beautiful story and animation from the near flawless Pixar

5. Synecdoche, New York - Kaufman's ambitious debut was worth the confusion it caused

4. The Dark Knight - pretty much mandatory on a list like this

3. Milk - A deeply emotional film that tells a tragic story and avoids the cliches that are expected

2. The Wrestler - Rich character piece that hangs on the sturdy shoulders Mickey Rourke

1. Revoltuionary Road - Sam Mendes' first film disected suburban life in the 90s, here he looks into that same culture around the the time it became common in the 1950s. Dicaprio and Winslet are fantastic in their portrayal of a would-be perfect American family as they combat against the expectations of the culture they bought into.

Honorable mentions-

Funny Games, Slumdog Millionaire, Iron Man

well.. there it is

First post!

Well I sure do appreciate the Internet (do you capitalize internet?) sometimes. Less than half an hour ago I thought since I think and/or talk about movies quite a bit how it would be convenient to have a place spew all my thoughts and criticisms and share them with the 3 and a half people who care, and now this blog exists. The first big project I want to work on is compiling best films lists from years past. Towards the end of the year critic, reporters, bloggers and nerds (I guess those last two are mostly synonomous) create a list of the 10 best films that year had to offer. I have done this for a couple years but want to start with the most recent year and work back as far as I can. I'll also probably share words about new films that I see (but I probably won't do that yet since the last film I saw was Transformers and there is already plenty written that describes it so well "If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination" so there's no need for me too) or movies that I get to watch with my wife that she somehow missed and then I get to watch with her for the first time. This probably isn't a very good introduction since I don't have anything clever to say (coming up with the name for the url is all I have for the night) but I might someday so check in to see how that pans out.