The 2008 Mini-List

[Lowry_Sam]

Thanks again!

1 Happy-Go-Lucky
2 [Summer Hours]
3 John Adams
4 Pageant
5 Mesrine
6 [Gomorrah]
7 Doubt
8 [Involuntary]
9 Prince of Broadway
10 Revanche[Revenge]
11 Hunger
12 Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story
13 Milk
14 Chris & Don: A Love Story
15 Bush's War
16 The Wrestler
17 Idiots and Angels
18 [Everlasting Moments]
19 [The Headless Woman]
20 [Tōkyō sonata]
21 Frost/Nixon
22 Hot Dog
23 [Three Monkeys]
24 [I've Loved You So Long]
25 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

[Toland's Mitchell]

I worked at a movie theater for eight months during undergrad in 2008, and I have very fond memories of cinema that year. It seemed like every other week, there was a new fun movie my co-workers and I would be quoting and/or recommending to each other. My first free movie was some crime-comedy starring Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell by a first-time director I hadn't heard of, that went on to become one of my favorites of the year. From there, the good times kept rollin'. I liked The Fall, an indie that flopped big time in the theaters. However, what impressed me was the mainstream. After a hit-or-miss 2007 (probably more miss than hit), the mainstream was having a both a creative and financial rebound year in 2008. And it was checking all the boxes...adult comedy (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder), family-friendly animation (WALL-E, Kung Fu Panda), and big-budget CGI spectacle (Dark Knight, Iron Man, Speed Racer (who voted Speed Racer #1!? I really want to know)). I'm not saying I liked all these films, but they generated interest and had their fans (yes even Indiana Jones 4 still made bank and had its defenders). My last free movie as an employee was Burn After Reading, a fitting bookend to In Bruges, I might say. I love that movie, an underrated Coens gem. After I left that job, Awards Season was underwhelming, as Slumdog Millionaire seemed like the only standout from the pack of meh Oscar bait films. Regardless, my fondness for 2008 has grown in the years since as I later caught some very documentaries (Man on Wire, Dear Zachary), non-English films (Revanche, Still Walking, Summer Hours, Let the Right One In), and smaller films I either missed or weren't on my radar yet (Synedoche, NY, Doubt, Wendy and Lucy, Hunger). Overall 2008 isn't my favorite of the past 25 or so, but it's up there. And finally, it felt like one of the last years the mainstream offered a healthy balance of both quality and unique, before franchise mentality went overboard in the 2010s.

[The Narrator Returns]

(who voted Speed Racer #1!? I really want to know)

That would be me (and I would’ve forgotten to submit if not for swo’s night-of reminder). This year has some great movies but that’s such an easy #1 to me, for how far it pushes cinematic language (farther than hardly anyone since, in spectacle or experimental filmmaking, has been brave enough to go) and for how overwhelmingly sincere it is in imagining the possibility of a better world and a perfect family unit.