Best Films of 2008

This is a more difficult post than usual. This was a disappointing year. Not so much in terms of films I saw - it was a spectacular year for rep series: Manoel de Oliveira, Jose Luis Guerin, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Lee Chang-dong, Joseph Losey, Edward Yang, Vincente Minelli, Lucrecia Martel, Claire Denis, Nagisa Oshima - and that's just at the HFA. With Guerin, Weerasethakul, Lee, Wu Nien-jen, Martel and Denis in person. Nor was it a bad year in the cinemas - mainly because 2007 seems nearly inexhaustible, and many excellent foreign pictures arrived in our theaters this year... It's for the best, since the brand new films have been remarkably underwhelming. Some nice ones - but after last year? Part of the problem is obviously that 2007 was a great year for American films: so a bunch of superb films had already come out by the end of the year. (Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Diving Bell and Butterfly, Assassination of Jesse James, etc.) The American prestige pictures that have come out this year have been quite underwhelming...

Enough complaining. This is my list of the best films to get a (more or less) legitimate commercial release in Boston in 2008:

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - from last year's class
2. Flight of the Red Balloon - 2007 again
3. Christmas Tale - this one, though, is new - hooray!
4. Exiles - this year's superb rediscovery and rerelease.
5. Don’t Touch the Axe - another 07 film
6. My Winnipeg - an 08 documentary, sort of - a theme!
7. Encounters at the end of the World - another 08 doc - told you there was a theme.
8. Man on Wire - see?
9. Romance of Astree and Celedon - last year of course
10. Chop Shop - another 07 film
11. Up the Yangtze - and another documentary
12. Ballast - an 08 film, that keeps rising in my estimation
13. Burn After Reading - very entertaining Coen brothers comedy, though nothing special
14. Momma’s Man - another nice 08 indie
15. Married Life - another 07 films, one that seems to have dropped off the earth
16. Rachel Getting Married - 08, nice film, nice return for Demme, though in the end, just a nice film...
17. Happy Go Lucky - another new film, pretty good, not sure how good though
18. A Girl Cut in Two - another 07 film by an old Frenchman
19. Speed Racer - look, if you're going to go overboard on the CGI, Go Overboard on the CGI!
20. Paranoid Park - last year's Gus Van Sant
21. Milk - this year's Gus Van Sant - pretty good itself
22. Witnesses - another 2007 French movie, Andre Techine this time
23. Curious Case of Benjamin Button - looks great, less filling
24. The Wrestler - nicely made film, but as cliched and predictable as a wrestling match
25. Operation Filmmaker - another documantary

And now - the best films made in 2008, whether they were released here or not: an okay list so far, though the film at the top is outstanding. Nothing wrong with these films, just very little else that seems like a timeless classic.

1. The Headless Woman - Lucrecia Martel
2. A Christmas Tale - Arnaud Desplechin
3. My Winnipeg - Guy Maddin
4. Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog
5. Man on Wire - James Marsh
6. Ballast - Lance Hammer
7. Burn After Reading - Coen Brothers
8. Momma's Man - Azazel Jacobs
9. Rachel Getting Married - Jonathan Demme
10. Happy Go Lucky - Mike Leigh