Top 4 Films of 2008: The Top Layer of Creaminess

I bet you all could barely wait! My top 4 picks of 2008 are now here. I could write nothing but crap now because you greedy little bunnies will skip ahead until you see the number 4. I know because that's what I'd do. After all, I said this was a site about movies. Not about whether I had a good day, or if I was feeling ugly, or not wanted, or horny, or a variety of complicated clusters people blog about.

Now I want to preface that I am not the type of person that would dislike you or despise you or slash your tires if you happened to not like any of my top four theatrical selections. We just might not talk a whole lot. Or watch movies together. And I might tell people you have bad taste. You could do the same, but then, if you don't have a blog, well, you understand where I'm taking this. Like I said, utter crap. My jumping jacks before the marathon.


4. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) -- British auteur Mike Leigh's latest effort makes my number four slot for the year. Leigh is another amazing artist to watch out for. Past favorites of mine are Life Is Sweet (1991), starring Jim Broadbent and a hilarious Jane Horrocks (Bubble from "Absolutely Fabulous"), and Secrets & Lies (1996) starring Brenda Blethyn, are both wonderful films. (I have yet to see Naked (1993) -- but I have a good excuse, I never really loved David Thewlis). Anyhow, I'm going to sound all pretentious again because I saw Happy-Go-Lucky at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival at which Mike Leigh AND Sally Hawkins (who was cute, lovely, and had a cast on her arm) attended. However, the screening was sold out and I had to wait an irritating amount of time in the rush-line and I had to immediately hike it across town afterwards to make it to a film that I did have tickets for (an excellent film from Bosnia called Tears for Sale). So I was a little irritated with this very bubbly, effervescent film. I saw it when I was in a mood for cheap whiskey and this film is more like a moderately priced champagne. Originally, the film pissed me off and I was not in the mood to watch someone so happy she almost a little light in the head. You know what I mean. Special. So special you just smile and nod and grit your teeth until you can get away and do something bad for your health. I was lucky enough to see it again at the Walker this October were they hosted a retrospective of Leigh's work. With a clear head, I fell in love with the film and Sally Hawkin's performance. I left the film resolving to have a better attitude in life. In other words be more happy-go-lucky. And it worked (I fell in love, quit smoking, started going to the gym). So maybe, dear reader(s), you should see this movie.

3. Savage Grace (2008) -- My third favorite film of 2008 is quite another beast indeed---John Waters coined Julianne Moore's performance as this year's Isabelle Huppert doppelganger (you just won't understand unless you've seen The Piano Teacher or Ma Mere). Julianne Moore, another favorite performer of mine, gives a truly ballsy turn as Barbara Baekland, who married into the plastic industry with the Baekelite clan. A bit demented, a bit sexy and frankly, a bit up my alley, the lovely Julianne spins this neurotic characterization straight into the velvet lined gutter. If you don't already know, this true story contains heavy elements of incest and murder in the American haute couture of the 50's. How tragically like the classic VC Andrews I yearned for as a child. The next best thing would be Julianne Moore playing that creepy Austrian man who was discovered last year to have locked his daughter in a homemade dungeon for a few decades. Favorite Scene: Julianne Moore monotonously convinces her son to let her hump him on the couch; and when Julianne chases down her cheating husband in the airport. Good stuff! Directed by Tom Kalin, one of the New Queer Cinema auteurs (I'll bring that up again later). Kalin hasn't directed a feature length film since Swoon (1991). Truly a film that's getting me all excited (not sexually) just thinking about it.

2. Let the Right One In (2008) -- I don't really think this is a bias, but Swedish pop stars always entertain me to the nth degree. There were those vacuous little blondes that sang that 'Lucky Twice' song a few years ago that I found to be delectably melancholy in that techno-I've done a few uppers-dance all night kind of way. The same can be said for the recent group called September, that icy blonde woman named Petra singing "You'll Never See Me Again, So No One's Going To Cry For You." Oh, Petra. So, if you didn't guess it, my number two film for the year is from Sweden, the wonderful country of Ingmar Bergman, Lukas Moodysson, lingenberries, Svedka, and ABBA. This film is the sophomore effort of Tomas Alfredson (Four Shades of Brown) and I am excited to see more of his work. Let the Right One In tells the rather touching story of a lonely young boy named Oskar, who befriends a strange young child (the gender is a bit contestable) named Eli, who turns out to be a vampire. Part thriller, part love story, and part growing up drama, the film is stupendously awesome. Watch for a flash of Eli without undergarments and your skin might crawl. Apparently the novel this is based on explains this a bit more, but if unfamiliar with the source material, that's alright. See the original version as a Hollywood remake is already in the works for a 2010 release. Oh America. How we must bastardize.

and my number one favorite film of 2008 is ----

something you probably never had the chance to see in the theater as it only played in about 3 cities (one of which was not my city) ---

1. Les Chansons D'Amour (2008) -- That's right, I'm having a movie night for it and I've already done the proverbial blog about it. Starring Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme, Louis Garrel, and Chiara Mastroianni (daughter of Catherine Deneuve), and directed by Christophe Honore (Ma Mere; Dans Paris), I fell in love with this film. It's quirky, it's touching, it's fun, and a bit bi-sexual. One of my favorite days ever at the cinema was in Toronto, 2007, when I got to see this and immediately afterwards the World Premiere of The Girl in the Park with Sigourney Weaver (the bastard Weinsteins aren't giving Girl a theatrical release in this country, though it did in Great Britain).

And I have a film tied for number one. Yes my little darlings, one more little gem from the past year. It also went mostly ignored...

1A. The Life Before Her Eyes (2008) -- I know this received some mixed reviews, but this film stuck with me for a long time afterwards. Relating the story of a woman fifteen years after surviving a Columbine-like incident, the film stars Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood as the central character at different ages. Eva Amurri (daughter of Susan Sarandon) co-stars. Directed by Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog), who is now re-making Poltergeist, most likely because his excellent independent projects haven't made any money due to the fact that Americans don't like their cinema to make them think. Please see independent film if you insist on living in this country. And so, I have taken it upon myself to help spread the word. DVD sales are lucrative, right?