2008 saw the debut of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the middle of the best comic book movie trilogy in history, the best G*dzilla update and the first direct sequel in the James Bond saga. The year also included two of the slickest entries in the found-footage genre.
16. Adulthood
15. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
14. Cocaine Cowboys 2
If you happened to see 2006's Cocaine Cowboys, then you know that "Miami Vice" and 1983's Scarface barely scratched the surface of what really took place in Florida's largest city during the 1980s cocaine trade. While true, the sequel is just as hard to believe. This follow-up details the dangerous liaisons between a small-time African-American drug dealer and a Colombian drug baroness.
After hearing about Griselda Blanco's (who was covered to a lesser extent in the first Cowboys) story, Oakland, California-native Charles Cosby boldly wrote a letter to the incarcerated cocaine supplier. Captivated, Blanco fell for Cosby and within months installed him as the head of her $40 million a year drug empire. It's only then that he learns that her nickname is "The Black Widow". Narrated by Cosby himself and complete with photos and interviews with law enforcement officials, hitmen and journalists that were there, this is a story that you have to see -- and hear -- to believe.
13. Quarantine
Quarantine brings zombies into the found-footage genre and leap-frogs way over The Blair Witch Project. After an outbreak of a weaponized version of rabies, an entire Los Angeles apartment building is placed under quarantine while the residents and first-responders fall victim one-by-one. And a local reporter and cameraman are there to document it all.
12. Slumdog Millionaire
How far would you go to reconnect with the one that got away? Eighteen-year-old Jamal Malik decided that his best bet to get that old thang back was to compete on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the most popular game show in the world, because if he could manage to stay on long enough she'd eventually see him. Right? Plus, if he won he'd also be rich. So, you know, win-win.
11. A Good Year
10. Iron Man
Iron Man is the very first installment of the MCU. Understanding that most non-comic book readers are completely unfamiliar with the character, Marvel Studios wisely presented the movie as an origin story -- establishing the precedent for the initial solo film of nearly every Marvel hero to come. Billionaire genius Tony Stark's (the man inside the Iron Man suit) motivations and inner-demons play a pivotal role in a couple of the later movies -- and the fate of the world -- and this one gives you an idea of what kind of guy he is.
While the movie's primary importance lies in its presentation of background information, what you'll love most is seeing Iron Man flying -- and crashing. However, Stark reveals his previously secret identity to the world during a press conference at the end of the movie. As a result, S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division)-director Nick Fury approaches him and lets him know that his organization is considering him for "the Avengers Initiative".
9. Valkyrie
When this movie was released, my old roommate scoffed, "Nazis didn't look like Tom Cruise." He was only half-right. As unlikely as it may seem, Valkyrie's star, Cruise, bore an uncanny resemblance to its central character, real-life German army colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. While von Stauffenberg wasn't a Nazi, he was a German war hero. The film details a little-known aspect of WWII history -- the failed 1944 German assassination plot against Hitler.
8. Love for Sale
If you saw the 2010 movie Let Me In and thought it was original and inventive -- you were dead wrong. That movie is an unnecessary American remake of a truly innovative 2008 Swedish film. Let the Right One In, in turn, is an adaptation of the 2004 novel of the same name.
The focus of the story is Oskar, a 12-year-old loner and misfit who's largely ignored at home and bullied at school.
This eerie horror masterpiece, with its early 1980s, snow-filled setting, steady pace and theme of isolation renders The Shining completely obsolete.
5. Cloverfield
Watch the events unfold by way of surviving footage from a hand-held video camera taken by 20-something party-goer Hud, who found himself in an all-night run for his life, along with a group of friends, during what turned out to be a colossal monster's rampage through Manhattan. You can't help but notice that the combined might of the Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division and a U.S. Air Force bomber is no match for the seemingly invincible creature.
Oh yeah-- after the group retreats to the relatively safe confines of the subway system, they find out the hard way that the monster is crawling with parasites that aggressively pursue life-forms small enough for them to eat (like people).
4. Bachna Ae Haseeno
Bachna Ae Haseeno (Watch Out, Ladies in English) is a Bollywood feature about an Indian player and tech whiz who looks back on his three most memorable relationships: His first, a brief teen romance while on vacation; his first long-term relationship, with the woman whom he leaves at the altar; and the time he spent with the one who got away.
Raj Sharma's love life begins innocently enough when he meets naive and equally inexperienced Mahi on a train to Switzerland. When Mahi misses her train after a stop, Raj offers to get her to the airport, which gives the two teens an opportunity to get to know one another and consequently allows them to discover first love and share a first kiss. Unfortunately, this fling leads to heartbreak for sheltered Mahi.
Raj then recounts that he'd achieved the perfect life years later: a job as a videogame designer for Microsoft and a live-in model girlfriend (Radhika). Life soon gets even better. He's offered a job working on "Halo". However, accepting the job, in Sydney, Australia, means leaving India -- and Radhika -- behind. And though Radhika volunteers to give up her career in order to follow her man, Raj isn't as committed to the relationship. After the two quickly become engaged, Raj catches a flight to the land down under while Radhika waits for him in her wedding dress at City Hall.
Five years later, Raj meets part-time cab driver and full-time business school student Gayatri. Though Gayatri's aversion to marriage mirrors his own, Raj falls hard and proposes. And the ladies' man catches the love boomerang squarely in the chest when his lady-love says no. He then puts himself through his own 12-step program in order to recover from the heartbreak and decides to seek forgiveness from both Mahi and Radhika -- no matter the cost.
Bachna really is a relatable look at relationships in different stages of life, complete with an examination of the emotional toll that comes with being careless with other people's feelings. It's a treat for those unfamiliar with Indian cinema and Bollywood connoisseurs alike.
3. WALL-E
Nemo? Nope. Frozen? Get the hell outta here. WALL-E represents the zenith of Disney Pixar films. In fact, Entertainment Weekly named it the greatest animated film ever. WALL-E is an example of one of the rare times that the AMPAS got it right when the film earned the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 81st annual Academy Awards.
Like many space stories, our hero endures more than his share of isolation and loneliness. At its core, WALL-E is about an unassuming guy living in a desert wasteland, stuck doing menial labor, who travels to outer space for the first time in order to rescue a sophisticated female clad in white. Said female also happens to be pretty handy with a gun. He soon realizes that he, and she, are part of something much bigger than he ever imagined. Sound familiar? The difference is that instead of ending up in one, the hero is a trash compactor.
He barely talks, he looks like he belongs in the landfill in which he resides, and yet, you can't stop watching him. If he were a person, that little dude would be a great one.
Believe it or not, WALL-E is also among the number of films in which a significant amount of its hero's woes can be traced to either an artificial intelligence or a huge corporate conglomerate. In this case, it's both.
There are quite a few barely-veiled Christian themes at work here too: Imagine the spaceship, the Axiom, is Noah's Ark and Eve is the dove who brings back an olive branch. All that and Sigourney Weaver, too.
Like many space stories, our hero endures more than his share of isolation and loneliness. At its core, WALL-E is about an unassuming guy living in a desert wasteland, stuck doing menial labor, who travels to outer space for the first time in order to rescue a sophisticated female clad in white. Said female also happens to be pretty handy with a gun. He soon realizes that he, and she, are part of something much bigger than he ever imagined. Sound familiar? The difference is that instead of ending up in one, the hero is a trash compactor.
He barely talks, he looks like he belongs in the landfill in which he resides, and yet, you can't stop watching him. If he were a person, that little dude would be a great one.
Believe it or not, WALL-E is also among the number of films in which a significant amount of its hero's woes can be traced to either an artificial intelligence or a huge corporate conglomerate. In this case, it's both.
There are quite a few barely-veiled Christian themes at work here too: Imagine the spaceship, the Axiom, is Noah's Ark and Eve is the dove who brings back an olive branch. All that and Sigourney Weaver, too.
2. The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight's importance cannot be overestimated. I'm not referring to the film's impact on Academy Awards policy, wherein it's failure to receive an Oscar nomination resulted in the immediate expansion of the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Knight's most significant contribution -- to not only comic book films, but to comic books themselves -- is the explanation it provides for the existence of Gotham City's many flamboyant supervillains. Though only the Joker, Two-Face and the Scarecrow make their presences known (and never use those names, thankfully), the film suggests that the members of the Caped Crusader's infamous Rogue's Gallery were inspired by one thing: the Batman himself.
The Dark Knight embraces the precedent set by Batman Begins in respecting the fact that some moviegoers and comics readers have brains.
1. Quantum of Solace
Just as 2009's Star Trek was criticized for being too Star Wars-esque (the yang to Trek's yin), Quantum of Solace was similarly condemned for taking on qualities more closely associated with a Jason Bourne film. And just as Trek benefited from loosening up a little and moving a little faster, 007 was vastly improved by a little sobering (but not when it comes to vodka, of course). It was high time that the one-liners and comic book villains were retired. The continued absences of "Q", Miss Moneypenny, invisible cars and jet packs are much-appreciated as well.
The truth is, the gadgets and spymobiles did all of the work in the majority of the movies in the franchise. For a long time, any guy with a British accent could've slipped on a tuxedo (including guys who looked as though they'd never been in a fight in their entire lives -- Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan), flashed his "license to kill" and driven his submarine car straight to the bank. Beginning sometime in the 1970s until 2006's Casino Royale, the guy wearing the tux hardly mattered -- and didn't seem the least bit dangerous. The unintended moral of most James Bond movies: The clothes make the man.
Quantum is the first true sequel in the decades-old series and, in fact, picks up mere hours after the end of its predecessor, Casino Royale. The film's main theme is the very real and primal desire for vengeance. 007 isn't on an assignment to dismantle a plot to poison the world's hot sauce supply, he's working independently of MI6 on a quest to personally murder the people responsible for the death of the love of his life. The film shows that superguns don't kill people -- pissed-off, rigorously-trained assassins kill people. Bond as a human works even better than the cartoon version.
Originally Posted 11/2/18
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