"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." - Arthur Miller

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

My Top 5 Movies

I watch a ton of movies every year. I am perfectly happy to spend every Saturday of every week watching Hollywood's latest. My only requirement is to not bore me. Beyond that I am pretty wide open...well unless it’s too "girly" like Twilight and a few others. As a result though, all those movies tend to blur together and few really stick out as "omg you MUST see this." As a result, after racking my brain I could only come up with a top five list instead of the traditional 10. While I know The Cast of Benjamin Button and Frost/Nixon is on everyone's lists, I haven't seen them yet so unable to add them. Nixon is proving especially hard to find, when is the damn thing going into wide release anyway and why take over a month to do it?

5) The Bank Job
Highly entertaining, well paced, intelligent with excellent acting. Why more people didn't watch this movie I will never understand.

4) Iron Man
Great story, great cast, great action, great special effects. The perfect summer popcorn movie that just takes you away for two hours.

3) Speed Racer
It’s bright, even garish. The acting is way to soap opera like for my tastes. The movie however is visual eye candy, highly kinetic, exciting to watch and when Speed Racer is driving, as entertaining as any movie this year. I think this movie, as more people watch it, rather then paying attention to the horrible advertising campaign and critics, will learn to enjoy this movie too.

2) The Dark Knight
Finally, someone who not only gets Batman, but just as importantly gets his Rogues Gallery. Heath Ledger put in a pitch perfect performance as the Joker, truly understanding that the character is not a sad clown but personification of chaos. Two-Face, previously played as Joker light, is truly a torn person, at odds himself. My only complaint is that character should have been created in this movie and further explored in the third. Everything about this movie was not only a school on how to make a great movie, but how to make a great comic book movie that says "this is why comic books are great."

1) Wall-E
A movie of few words that says many things and says it well. It’s a romance; it’s a comedy, its just damn fine movie making. Being animated is almost secondary to the masterpiece that Pixar produced this year.

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