My Top 10 Movies of 2008

1. Slumdog Millionaire

I keep a running list of movies I need to see throughout the year. I specifically remember putting Slumdog Millionaire on the list after it won in the Toronto Film Festival, because I didn’t want to forget before it was released on DVD and I could get it on Netflix. Who knew?

There isn’t much left to really be said about this movie. I’m sure most of you have seen it, and if you haven’t, you should.

2. The Dark Knight

I was a big fan of Batman Begins. Loved it. But the last scene in that movie, where Lt. Gordon gives Batman the joker card, setting up The Dark Knight, made me really pessimistic. I had loved the realistic tone and the focus on exploring Bruce Wayne, and I felt that going back to a regular Batman villain, especially THE Batman villain, would ruin what Batman Begins created. I was very worried about TDK, until I saw the first trailer, and realized the movie was going to be epic.

Moral of the story: Never doubt Chris Nolan. Which brings me to another point: Chris Nolan should have been nominated for Best Director. I read an article about this, arguing that since TDK was nominated for all of the technical awards, Nolan should be as well, since he is in charge of all of those groups. I’d go even farther. He created an epic movie without losing gritty realism. He and Heath Ledger had the balls to completely alter the most recognizable Batman villain. And it worked. But instead Stephen Daldry gets nominated for The Reader, which was only decent because of a good script and because Kate Winslet is an acting god.

3. In Bruges

Awesome movie, and it’s a shame most people don’t know about it. Funniest movie of the year. The script was clever and witty, and even though it was really funny, it also was very deep and emotional. And the balance worked perfectly. I’d also like to point out that the acting was great in this movie, especially by Colin Farrell. I used to make fun of Farrell constantly, but this movie was so good, I forgive him for any past and future bad acting performances.

4. Man on Wire

“Man on Wire” is a documentary about a French tightrope walker who committed the “artistic crime of the century” by tight-roping (is that a word?) across the World Trade Center. I doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an amazing documentary. It was very interesting that there was absolutely no mention of 9/11 in the documentary, which I think was a good move. Instead of focusing on destruction, they focused solely on something beautiful.

5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This is simply a really good story, executed very well. I mean, a man who ages backwards! How cool is that.

6. Milk

Regardless of stance on gay issues, every straight guy watching Milk going to be a little tense and uncomfortable watching Sean Penn and James Franco make out for the first time. I think it was a great move to have a lot of guy on guy action at the beginning of the movie. That way, it’s out of the way, we’re used to it, and we can focus on the point of the movie.

As you know Sean Penn won Best Actor for this movie, but there were great performances all around. Josh Brolin was awesome as Dan White, and it’s nice to see Brolin carry on his No Country success. James Franco is no longer “that guy from Spider-Man” with a great performance in this movie and in Pineapple Express. And Emile Hirsch is no longer “that guy from Girl Next Door” thanks to this movie, and Into the Wild.

7. The Wrestler

This movie depressed me, but was very good. I really wanted Rourke to win Best Actor for this movie. Even though he screws up and does stupid stuff sometimes, it was impossible to not feel really sorry for him.

8. Vicky Christina Barcelona

I’ve always liked Woody Allen. This was definitely an enjoyable movie, but hey, if all we watched were movies like “The Wrestler” we would be pretty depressed. It’s nice to have variety.

Also, Penelope Cruz is not sexy. Sexy is Penelope Cruz.

9. Rachel Getting Married

A very foreign-esque American movie. Each character was really original and was deeply explored in this movie. Most movies are plot-based, and it’s always refreshing to see a movie made solely to explore certain characters. I would have gone with Anne Hathaway for Best Actress, but she was facing the unbeatable Holocaust-nudity-Kate Winslet should already have multiple Oscars combination.

On a related note, Rachel’s fiancé in the movie, Sydney, was a kind of weird black musician, and I remember thinking “This guy looks like he should be in TV on the Radio.” Turns out the guy who played Sydney is actually a member of TV on the Radio! Crazy!

10. Frost/Nixon

I don’t remember the Nixon era (obviously), so I can’t really comment of how accurate the portrayal was of Nixon. I thought the movie was really interesting, there was a lot of fascinating stuff about the interviews I would have never known. It was a good movie, but in the end was probably just a really well acted History Channel feature. That’s not a total insult, because I would have watched it on the History Channel in a heartbeat, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to be a great film.

Movies I haven’t seen yet, that could be in the Top 10 eventually: Wall-E, Che, Synecdoche New York, Let the Right One In, Waltz with Bashir.

Goa Mixed Inspiration

One of my roommates loves to listen to trance music while studying (well all the time, really). I don't know much about the genre, and I always thought his habit was really strange.

Two things happened this weekend. First, said roommate introduced me to Paul Oakenfold's Goa Essential Mix, which (in my slightly influenced state) I thought was one of the coolest things I had ever heard. I quickly stole it and put it on my computer.

Second, I had a brutal Civil Eng. homework project, which involved me writing an excel code to solve an engineering problem. I had worked on it for a huge portion of the weekend, but had hardly gotten anywhere. By Monday morning I was still trying to figure it out, and trying not to panic. That's when the Goa Mix came on my computer. Within 15 minutes I had the code figured out.

You know how they say listening to Mozart will help you do better on tests? Well, I guess Oakey is the new Mozart. Needless to say, I'm going to be stealing a lot more trance music from my roommate.

My Library

One of the overlooked benefits of going to college is you finally get rid of all the excess stuff you own. When I left for college, my room was cluttered with bits and pieces collected during my 18 years of life. In fact, when I go back, my room still has a ton of stuff. 10% of this stuff has actually monetary value (here's looking at you, binders of baseball cards) or are framed photos or something like that. That means 90% of the stuff in there is completely expendable. It has no value, and I have lived a year and a half without needed any of it (and probably longer).

Yet I have never thrown this stuff away. I guess it's because I am really sentimental. It's actually kind of embarrassing. And I don't mean that I excavate my third grade projects and wistfully think of the "good ole days". No, I'm not that kind of sap. The only time I ever look at a huge majority of this stuff is when I'm trying to decide whether to dispose of it or not. I know it sounds silly, but I can't throw away that stuff. It would just depress me. At one point or another, everything I still own was really important to me, gave me a lot of joy. And throwing it away seems like making that all for naught, admitting to myself that I was invested in things that turned out to have no impact or relevance. It makes me feel like my childhood was wasted, as dumb as that sounds.

Long story short, college forces you to ditch all that garbage. Or rather, leave it behind for your parents to ditch.

Which brings me back to the title of this post, my library. I carefully selected the books I would take with me to college. I was forced to ditch the Redwall series I once loved, and finally had an excuse to get rid of the Boxcar children. My library now consists only of the essentials:

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (My favorite author)
Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac (My religious book)
A Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (Is this now cliche?)
Chronicles Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan (One of my favorite musicians)
Our Dumb World by The Onion (In case you didn't pick up my liberal, coffee drinking, elitist streak)