[Film: best of 2008]

First, the numbers:
Total: 67 (fewer than 07, one more than 06)
Festival: 22
Revival: at least 12
Foreign or documentary or shorts not at the festival: 9
Free: 12
What’s left, being the total regular releases that I paid for like a normal person: 12. See, that’s not many at all.

::

Best film: Man on Wire & My Winnipeg, both of which were genre busting in the best of ways. For one thing, they’re both technically documentaries. For another, they’re both awesome.

Best film not coming to a theater near you: Sita Sings the Blues. This, folks, is a perfect example of why current copyright law BLOWS. Seriously. Also, Che, unless you’re in a city that got the roadshow edition. Screw the two part release.

More categories than you can shake a stick at after the jump.

Best Hollywood feature: Wall-E, until they left Earth.

Best ensemble: Milk, Frost/Nixon.

Best shameless use of formula: Slumdog Millionaire (also best cinematography, best closing credits, best soundtrack, and the Fox Searchlight award for the most overrated film of the season. Previous winners include Juno & Little Miss Sunshine.)

Best argument for the big screen: revivals of Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather Parts I & II, Ashes of Time, Sunrise (with live score by the Album Leaf), everything at SIFF Cinema ❤

Movies I enjoyed the hell out of, to the surprise of people who apparently don’t know me that well: Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. *Hello*, Rogen.

Most forgettable title: Fugitive Pieces, which was gorgeous, but which I always have to look up. It’s the second Stephen Dillane movie I saw this year. The first was Savage Grace and the third was John Adams. Which wasn’t a feature, obviously, but which was excellent & so I recommend it. (And skip Savage Grace. Rent Swoon instead.)

The film that out-Bond-ed Bond (and I really liked Bond): OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies.

Best foreign film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. I don’t care that it was technically 07.

Most original vision: The Fall.

Most inspiring straight-ahead documentary: Young @ Heart. LOVE.

Best queer film: XXY, Be Like Others (in spite of the glaring lack of FTM subjects).

More stuff worth watching (including some 07): The Band’s Visit (also best courtship scene, like, ever), Boy A, Cherry Blossoms: Hanami (which I think is actually getting released — there was a poster for it at the Varsity this weekend), Jellyfish, Let the Right One In, Nocturna, The Orphanage, Please Vote For Me, & The Visitor (which, I disagree with whoever it was who slammed it as another “white person discovers self through members of minority population” film. It was far more complex than that. It was certainly no Secret Life of Drum Circles. Also, Richard Jenkins <3)

Movies I haven’t seen yet, though a bunch I was waiting for DVD: Revolutionary Road, Rachel Getting Married, Gran Turino, Frozen River, I’ve Loved You So Long, Synecdoche, New York, The Wrestler, Waltz With Bashir. (The last three I will almost definitely see yet.)

Movies I am not going to see: too many to list. Most recently, Seven Pounds. Also The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Um. No.