The MRFH Revue 2008 – Kyle!

Perhaps due to a childhood head injury (my very first scar!), I have never manifested any kind of nostalgic longing for years past. I never understood it myself: I’m ‘half empty’ regarding nearly everything else, but remain convinced that each year has been better than the last and that this trend will continue . . . forever!

Looking back at the films released in 2008, I see a definite trend towards improving quality in films. Yes, I will admit that The Dark Knight and Iron Man certainly contribute mightily to the sense of an upward spiral, both being such massively entertaining and accomplished films that they skew the entire year towards perceived goodness. But for arguably meeting the astronomical expectations, they deserve the VIP status that comes with wrecking 2008’s bell curve of “awesomeness.” (NOTE: I don’t completely understand statistics or their applications, so there you go)

But I’ll leave such comprehensive examinations of artistic merit to those without sore throats and a full day of NFL playoffs to watch. This is about MY year in review and as much as general critical consensus overlaps with my own thoughts on ’08, there are a few instances where taste and circumstance elevated some films and doomed others in my eyes. That’s probably why they call it “taste.” Except that it’s visual. Whatever.

I’m horrific at any kind of ranking, as I strive always to see as many facets as possible. For example, while my initial feeling is that I prefer hamburgers to hot dogs, I have to observe that due to my Chicago roots I have very particular ideas about what constitutes a “great” hog dog. In addition, I’ll happily drive a treacherous mountain road to get to one of the best hot dogs I have ever had in my life, whereas I’m a lot less particular about my hamburgers, since Fatburger would seem (having already had 3 in 2009) to be my preference. I guess it’s a lot easier to be satisfied with any random hamburger than any random hot dog, is my point. And if I had a choice, I’d go with a big cheese pizza anyway.

In one’s own mind and defined reality, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and ‘possessed of a certain quality that carries more weight than what society-at-large calls “great”’ are so variable, any honest attempt to explain why The Ruins is one of the top ten films of 2008 depends upon very personal rationale and the pleasant distance/anonymity that comes from writing primarily for the Internet. Dig?

Top ___ Lists are amusing, to be sure, but I’m not entirely interested in the exhausting introspection such an endeavor requires. Not that I don’t believe you the reader deserves it, but I think it’s a richer experience for both of us to explore the year without any kind of ‘A is better than B but not quite as good as C’ criterion. But I’m certain at least one fellow Mutant will hew a little closer to that ‘best of list’ format if that is specifically what you’re looking for.

The first half of the year was naturally overshadowed by those two aforementioned films, The Dark Knight and Iron Man, and all I really want to say about them is that they delivered. Above and beyond. Both absolutely fantastic. We knew, but we worried, you know? Looking back now, it’s like, why were we so worried? They were money, they knew it, we knew it. Hooray!

I will say that the first film of the year I was truly excited about was Cloverfield. Much like the hero of that film, my situation in seeing it both times in theaters revolved around girls I was very much interested in, and like New York City in the film my romantic interests were trampled mercilessly by a monster: the monster of self-doubt. Actually, things turned out pretty well for me later, whereas NYC got trashed potentially beyond repair, and (spoiler!) if you stay through the whole credits, record some final gibberish and then play it backwards, the monster is apparently still alive. Cloverfield 2 anybody? I say yes, please!

Beyond that initial release, it seems like everything else got unfairly lumped into a ‘just killing time until Batman’ classification, although perhaps that placed more emphasis on the films to succeed. If they couldn’t make me forget that Batman was coming, then they probably weren’t great movies anyway.

Certain movies gave me enough of a positive vibe that I was willing to drive a great distance (a hot dog distance, in fact) to see them in the smaller theaters that took a chance on screening them. Teeth, In Bruges, and Married Life were all exceptional ‘smaller’ films that deserve (and will surely receive in coming years) much more acclaim than they’ve received; In Bruges especially standing out in a full year. Let the Right One In is the best film I had to go far out of my way to see, and easily my favorite film of 2008 (but #2 isn’t so bad, Dark Knight!). If there is one film I hope you come away thinking “I need to seek that movie out,” I recommend it being Let the Right One In.

Whittling down the release list from these titans, it’s easy to see how the emphasis was on films that connected emotionally because of certain small pleasures they offered: the parts being better than the sum of their whole (does that count as statistics?). So while Jumper is really, really dumb and Hayden Christensen is really, really wooden, I enjoyed seeing it because Rachel Bilson is the absolute coolest EVER. And so on and so forth:

• Rambo – whatever, but that final firefight is crazy-awesome!

• Charlie Bartlett – whatever, but Robert Downey, Jr. and Kat Dennings are super-awesome!
• Street Kings – utterly ridiculous, but I guess you can watch this instead of five seasons or so of The Shield and The Keanu can do no wrong
• Get Smart – stupid, but amusing enough when I was on vacation but couldn’t yet check into my hotel
• The X-Files: I Want to Believe – in retrospect, just a totally bad idea, but seeing Mulder and Scully was fun
• Eagle Eye – exactly what you would expect, but I love Shia LaBeouf!
• Frost/Nixon – actually pretty solid, but not in a flashy/rewatchable way
• Religulous – I’m glad it exists, but make sure it’s part of your exploration on the subject and not the only thing
• Choke – lets the book down completely, but Sam Rockwell is, as they say, “mesmerizing” as is Kelly MacDonald
• The Incredible Hulk – not bad, but so overshadowed by Iron Man it was almost tragic
• Wanted – strong cast, ‘whatever’ adaptation of a solid comic book

There were letdowns and surprises. I didn’t think as much of W. or Burn After Reading as so many did, although I was entertained by them. I didn’t think Righteous Kill was anywhere near as bad as they said, although I struggle to understand why Pineapple Express was as acclaimed as it was. Tropic Thunder was great but forgettable, Mamma Mia! was everything I hoped and more! One mild Sunday evening I snuck into two different films, The Bank Job and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and snuck out without finishing either: bleh. I feel asleep during Doomsday and didn’t feel like I missed too much, but wanted to fall asleep during Vantage Point but stayed sadly lucid.

It is also greatly amusing to see what films remain that I want to see but never got around to: U2 3D, Definitely, Maybe, Be Kind Rewind, Paranoid Park, 21, 88 Minutes, Rogue, War, Inc, The Mother of Tears, Transsiberian, and Synecdoche, New York. Could be a crazy weekend viewing party coming up soon: sign up via email if you want to bring a warm dish or a cold one!

I haven’t seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 yet either, but when I went to buy Doctor Who Season 4 they had this cool $20 set where you get both Sisterhood films in those cool thin DVD cases and the original novel: score! (I love Blake Lively!). I sort of want to see Quarantine but I know it’ll be horrible; anyway, the original film [REC] is so amazingly good I can’t even believe it. If you haven’t seen Quarantine yet please don’t! Wait until you can see [REC], you’ll thank me later!

Oh, I haven’t seen Garden Party yet, either, but another great actress from The OC, Willa Holland, is in it, so I’m fairly certain it will be AMAZING.

What remains are the solid films of 2008 that I feel brought something that will allow them endure at least in my DVD cabinet for a very long time. The Ruins was a tremendous surprise, as was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I had low expectations for The Strangers, disliking Liv Tyler as I do, but that really delivered. Role Models was probably the funniest film I saw all year, while Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was the most touching and personally-relevant. I don’t know how you felt about it, but I thought Quantum of Solace was a wonderfully inventive take on the James Bond formula: absolutely fantastic!

2008: not so bad after all. Wow! As much as I love to close it out by calling Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the most disappointing film of the year, the circumstances under which I saw it (surrounded by bubbly, happy hot girls) made watching it enjoyable, even if my soul was crying inside.

But that doesn’t matter anyway. The Happening is one of the worst films I have ever willing sat through, the end. If you take anything away from this article I hope it will be this plea: do not see The Happening.

See you next year!