Every year I do a top ten movie list and every year it causes me tons of anguish. Have I seen all of the top rated films? If I see just one more movie will it be one of the best? Am I really placing the movies in the order that I liked them most? Do I even remember that movie I saw last Feb? I could probably come up with ten variations on this list but what it comes down to is there is just a time to throw down and pick ten, and that time was a month ago, so here goes.
- Slumdog Millionaire – This was just a great movie, the epic setting in India, the love story, and the method of telling the story of a dramatic past through the ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ answers was as entertaining as it was unbelievable.
- Milk – The movie did a great job of capturing not only Milk, Sean Penn did an amazing job, but the characters and flavor of the time, it might have been even more impactful as a SF resident viewer during Prop 8.
- The Dark Knight – I love Christian Bale and the whole new Christopher Nolan take on this franchise, and though I actually thought the last Batman was a better story, you can’t argue with the Heath Ledger Joker performance and Maggie Gyllenhaal was a refreshing change from Katie Holmes.
- Frost/Nixon – I might have liked this movie so much because I walked in expecting not to, reenacting the time around the famous interviews it was a piece of history I wasn’t as familiar with and a captivating story of these two well played men at a momentous time in their lives.
- The Wrestler – A rough look at the life of a has-been, and who better than Rourke to bring it to life, what’s painful, and therefore good, is seeing how it could go either way and seeing why it went the way it did.
- Changeling – This Clint film tells the ‘based on a true story’ that is just crazy enough to be interesting, beautifully set in the 20s with an impressive performance by Jolie as we look for her missing son and see her stand her ground with the police.
- Rachel Getting Married – Hathaway makes us feel incredibly uncomfortable as she returns from rehab for her sister’s wedding and we get a glimpse into the layers that can bring a family together and drive them apart.
- Speed Racer – Ok so this movie isn’t for everyone, but I was a fan of the original series (which i retried and is admittedly unwatchable), but I thought the update captured the sentiment of the original and by taking the cartoon aspect to a special effects crazy it made it a fun film.
- The Visitor – Jenkins’ character comes alive with the beat of the drum of illegal immigrants, whose lives he becomes enmeshed in, and watching the personal impact that the deportation can take on those around him was compelling.
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – I saw this movie early last year and just remember it being a delightful day to spend with McDormand and Adams, the romance, the period costumes, and the pursuit of true love just felt like an update to an old Hollywood film.
And for the record I haven’t seen everything, though I thought I did pretty well this year, and I’ve noted the critic’s picks that I’ve seen.
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