2008 Movies to See

This is one of the better Harry Potter installments, I think. Yates has really found his own beneath Rowling's sometimes overly dense material. He experiments with parting camera movements and flying split scenes, which was a nice diversion from Chris Columbus's stocky, stagnant trash. And the balance between typical teenage love problems and darker Voldemort-ey stuff was performed pretty admirably. He cuts incisively and nonsparingly and despite frequent plot holes, he manages to cut down the movie to the bare minimum. Still doesn't top Goblet of Fire, though, simply because the Yule Ball is. Awesome.

Wall-E emotes histories of worlds far away through a pair of binocular eyes. I love how Pixar can transcend the boundaries set by mere animation - this is a company unafraid to leap out of the box and create something genuinely worthwhile to see. Animation can have a tendency to get too cutesy, and while this is cute (my god is it CUTE), it has a message, a story, and an ATMOSPHERE. It doesn't go for the cheap tricks of parody like the Shrek movies have evolved into. Wall-E remains that one centerpoint around which hope congregates while the background stays trash-filled and grayish. Undeniably this movie tries to see the best in people (because those people all of a sudden want to clean up the world after 500 years of sitting in chairs...yeah ok), but I like that it tries to stay positive despite our excessive gluttony...maybe we all have a little Wall-E in ourselves.

One of my favorite films of 2008. David Fincher kind of runs hot and cold for me - hated Fight Club, loved Se7en, despised Zodiac, ADORED this movie - but I can always appreciate his meticulous attention to detail. He manages to harness his painstakingly exacting energies into a circularly flowing, organic movie. It's beautiful and cold at the same time, but the emotional connections are ever present all the same. Watching the characters age and Benjamin youthify explains without words the cycles of life, no matter if you're flowing backwards or forwards. One of the few movies where themes snap into my brain as easy as Lego pieces. This is not an actor's film; it's all Fincher's and he revels in his creation. The audience bathes in the glory of Brad Pitt's heyday and those brief moments Daisy and Benjamin can meet up in the middle, emotionally and physically prepared for each other. Blanchett is an absolute gazelle. Brad Pitt...words cannot describe his visual magnificence. I like how this movie is mainstream enough to appeal to the public but sophisticated enough to extend to the rest of us picky people. Christopher Nolan, eat your heart out. David Fincher has ARRIVED.

At this point, you have probably seen the "Where the Wild Things Are" trailer taking up every other commercial spot on TV, blaring an earnest rendition of the Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up.” You have probably looked through the windows of Urban Outfitters, which peddles the film's characteristic stuffed animals, T-shirts and leggings – maybe you have even bought yourself a shirt or two. The “Wild Things” franchise has literally turned into a hipster’s nirvana, and most people haven’t even seen the movie yet. But let this review be a warning: Don’t expect too much, because you will inevitably be disappointed.

Director Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”) and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers (“Away We Go”) have adapted Maurice Sendak’s timeless children’s picture book "Where the Wild Things Are" into a full-length film, extending 10 lines of plot into 94 minutes of cinema. Max (newcomer Max Records) is a rebellious kid trying to cope with the changes in his life after his mom (Catherine Keener, “The 40 Year Old Virgin”) brings her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo, “Zodiac”) over. After being sent to his room and biting his mom, Max angrily sails off into the land of the Wild Things, where he subsequently becomes their king.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is a film in which things aren’t wrapped up in nice, kid-friendly boxes. The Wild Things are scary. These huge-headed creatures do horrific things like destroy trees, push whole boulders off cliffs and eat the humans they don’t like. But simultaneously, their destruction is beautiful. When Carol, a Wild Thing voiced neurotically by James Gandolfini (TV’s “The Sopranos”), balletically body slams his friends and annihilates their nests, it’s frightening, but also magical. Directors often tend to romanticize childhood as a time of painless bliss. “Wild Things,” on the other hand, is a perfect encapsulation of a child’s monstrous capabilities without appearing too threatening.

The dialogue is delivered strictly in “kid speak” — it's doubtful that any word in the screenplay exceeds two syllables. In this way, Jonze stays faithfully true to a kid’s world. Max is a kid acting like a kid, a kid who can’t completely express his thoughts in understandable sentences. While this is at first charming, viewers will eventually find themselves in a world they don't completely understand. If the emotions evoked from the film can’t be described in words, they need to be made up in some other kind of intangibility, and in that regard, Jonze fails to deliver. When the Wild Things pile up in a huge sleeping heap, it’s cute and everything, but there’s also an overwhelming feeling of alienation. It’s like Jonze tries so badly to capture the spirit of childhood that he doesn’t consider that maybe the adults watching can’t keep up.

It’s difficult to sift through the feelings evoked from this movie at first because it looks so damn gorgeous. The casting is as close to perfect as it can get. Max’s face could have been cut out of a Renaissance painting. Sunlight liberally bathes each camera shot, and it’s as if some minimalist Japanese designer dreamed up the scenes where Carol and Max tread through a land inundated with sand. In the film's soundtrack, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tenderly vocalizes through conflict and resolution alike. If emotions could be told purely through visuals and hipster music, Jonze has literally made the most perfect film of the year. But while this might well be the most beautiful movie of 2009, it’s also the most underwhelming.

The thing is, there is no way Jonze could have executed the movie any better. The visuals stay true to Sendak’s haunting, soulful drawings — even adding a layer of depth to them. It is undeniable that Jonze has captured the voice of the book perfectly; however, that is not enough to translate into a working movie. Whereas the book focuses on one beautifully illustrated scene, Jonze tries to turn that scene into a long parable on life. Somehow it just doesn’t ring true.

This conundrum leads to a larger question: If something like this doesn’t completely gel with adults, will kids be more forgiving of, or even feel, the film’s emotional disconnect? The viewer is expected to see the world through Max’s lens, and, for some, this may prove nearly impossible. Yet this is a film that necessitates the absence of adult bias in order to truly appreciate its subtleties. Perhaps Jonze made a film targeted exclusively toward kids and adults who act like kids, a kind of Rorschach test that only the few sincerely connected to their childhood could pass.

“Where the Wild Things Are” isn't a disaster — there are some scenes that are truly sublime. But a movie like this, for all its lush, slightly unorthodox visuals and standoffish childlike simplicity, builds itself up to be brilliant. And it’s just not brilliant.

After literally a thousand weeks, I have finally gotten around to seeing this. I was so prepared to overrate this I overlooked the fact that is a quality piece of cinema. HEATH LEDGER...there is nothing I can say that hasn't been said...he put his heart and soul into this role, and it shows.

I like that this story is cohesive enough to introduce a whole bunch of villains but keep the action moving. It doesn't assume the audience is stupid and actually reveals new things when rewatched. The visuals are also really, really good.

It's too long though. I do think Chris Nolan has problems with resolution. But wow...I usually hate all superhero movies.

A bit confusing is the understatement of the year. I guess I expected one thing and got something else. This movie is not in want of ideas but the ideas aren't really digestible. I feel like I'm thinking deeply about one thing and then he switches into a whole new gear altogether. So many thoughts fell out of my head over these two hours. It was too long but too short. The humor comes in a steady stream but nothing ever comes of it. Is there even a denouement? When you see all those empty streets of real New York and then fake New York it somehow lacks the emotional punch even though it's such a pronounced effect. Kaufman is really good at making weird become emotionally beautiful but I only felt that once (with the fairy stuff and the daughter) in this movie. I don't know; I guess what I missed most were the epiphanic jolts coming at me like a traincar. It's like you get one thing and then they just keep on coming and coming and then it culminates into something even better. But I didn't even get the first thing with this. Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand it.

I will say this for Kaufman: he knows how to pick his women. Michelle Williams has never looked more beautiful. And each time Caden starts a new tryst with a woman they are briefly brought into the spotlight and they, too, are beautiful. Then they quickly fade away, yielding to another. I can appreciate the acting that went into this and I feel that all the actors, at least, understood what they were doing. So I guess watching this movie was like some Lynchian nightmare, like everybody understood what was going on except me.

Surpassed my expectations extensively because I thought it was going to be typical melodrama fare. Throwing a bunch of beauties together in rich costumes can often come up short but in here efforts appealing to the pathos were definitely made, British accents aside (no, Natalie Portman, just no). But at the same time I could feel the actors straining for emotions, and nobody was capable of coming close to embodying their characters. Thus, the omnipresent emotional disconnect. The story maintains interest, but I just never got into it. Also, I like Natalie Portman with her hair up better.

For some reason I always feel a little unsettled with Allen's transition into the 21st century...now that I think of it it might be the different colors he's been using now - less browns and foliage, brighter lighting, and sharper too. I always see him as a discoursing 80s man, or even 90s.

But whatever, enough lamenting. I did like this. I think Woody is good at recognizing the limitations of his actresses (cough Scarlett Johansson) and she's cast as merely a sexual being, which everyone knows, is all she is (she's good at it too). The story had the same touches of wavering infidelity and themes of love and sex in any Woody Allen film, but was updated into this century. Again, a little unsettling...but still good.

Penelope Cruz is a tour-de-force. This movie would have been nothing without her, no lie. Whenever she comes on screen it's a completely different ball game and I'm so glad she's marrying Javier Bardem because smoke sizzles off their bodies when they touch. They both have great comic timing. Rebecca Hall is also a good find.

This is the one of the movies I can't take seriously but like nevertheless. It's no Oscar winner, that's for sure (at least, it doesn't deserve to be, at this point I'm not even sure how strong the Clint love is), but I think that might even be part of the charm. Like, it tries so hard to be "serious" but moves so fast it's impossible to feel an emotional bond with anyone. Angelina Jolie was seriously miscast but I like watching her try to change the character to match herself, even though she fails. So much stuff happens it's ridiculous to make sense of things. Let it flow. Things I liked: Angelina Jolie is beautiful. The cute 20s hats. The random but charming anachronisms. Jolie freakouts even though they were kind of inappropriate given the time period and the scene. The score (was it composed by Eastwood because that guy is TALENTED man, not to mention smoking). The positive things sound really lame but I guarantee they are what made the movie not-boring and good entertaiment.

The premise is one of the better ones I've heard, but Michel Gondry did NOT deliver. There were slivers of scenes that evoked memories of Eternal Sunshine, but mostly I got flat jokes and busted-up Jack Black. The sweded movies were cute but too short and plotless. The one redeeming feature was the ending.

Wow, I appreciated this movie a lot more than I thought. The action was not over-the-top, it doesn't have too much of a plot and consequently it doesn't obsess over it, and Gwyneth Paltrow is AWESOME. I am SO burned out by all these superhero movies but Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. just barely pull it off. I had fun.

How unexpected that this be the film that really caught my interest in 2008.

I always appreciate play-based movies, to be sure, but all that history crap turned me off before I could even give it a chance. But this isn't a history movie - this is a character study of the highest degree. Nobody has praised Frank Langella enough. He doesn't play a well-coiffed irritation, he inhabits the soul of Nixon. He has managed to strip away everything but the essence of Nixon's compulsion to be loved and morally ambiguous actions. It's like that scene in A Few Good Men but less knowingly explosive.

This is a less a history movie than a balletic duel between two inimitable forces. There is parallelism but we're not beaten to the ground by them. Scenes are shown to create emotions. The ending is a bit of a simplification but the movie is aware of that, how television simplifies everything. Rebecca Hall provides some much needed sex appeal. Michael Sheen's performance should rightfully be recognized but Langella makes us forget about him, sadly. I am SO impressed by Ron Howard I don't even know what to say.

Good fairy tale essence mixed with real life experience. Christina Ricci has just the right kind of face to pull this off, kinda oddball but all the same adorable. Judging from the storyline, this movie is 100% what I expected it to be. It was too long, though.