Kinsey and Wade's Top 5 films for 2008

The big event, our top 5...

Wade:

5. Wall-E

Another great film from Pixar. The first half of this movie, almost completely silent, is amazing. From the gorgeous landscapes to the subtle Chaplinesque humor, it's as good as it gets. The film drops off a bit when Wall-E makes it up to the spaceship and its human inhabitants, but still a great film.

4. Slumdog Millionaire

So much has already been said about this film, and its probably on its way to an Oscar win for Best Picture. I found the visuals about this film to be the most intriguing aspect, with its frenetic pace and saturated images. This was probably the "feel good" movie of the year, at least of the movies that I've seen.

3. The Wrestler

You can't talk about this film without focusing on the performance of Mickey Rourke. The best performance of the year, incredibly natural, moving, and heartfelt. Also, an A+ directing effort by Darren Aronofsky.

2. Rachel Getting Married

Ten minutes into this film, I was hating it. I thought it was cliched and forced. And then something happened. I became sucked in to the lives of this family and all its difficulties. This was the closest I came to crying at the movies this year.

1. Man on Wire

One of the best documentaries I've ever seen. It is amazing how much suspense a film can develop when you already know the results beforehand. It might be the subject matter, but Man on Wire was just as entertaining and intriguing as any narrative film this year.

This Top 5 list is tentative until I see one more film that I'm looking forward to: Wendy and Lucy.

Kinsey:

5. The Wrestler

A great movie with a real and touching look at some amazing characters. Well acted and very well directed.

4. Milk

Inspiring and informative. While a standard biopic format, it succeeded in express a clear concept and was very powerful.

3. Wall-E

Fantastically beautiful! An incredible achievement, heartfelt, topical, humorous, and memorable.
2. Man on Wire

Its hard not to be swept away by the charisma and passion of Phillipe Petit. The format of this documentary leads to excitement and suspense despite the audience knowing the outcome.

1. Slumdog Millionaire

This movie deserves all the praise and awards it has earned thus far. This movie takes the viewer through some of the worst happenings imaginable, yet still conveys such hope in mankind. I can't remember leaving a theater with so much excitement and happiness as I did with this film. Once it is available on DVD, I expect that I will rewatch it over and over again.

Rachel Getting Married

You ever have a movie experience where you feel like you've checked out after about 30 minutes? That's what happened to me when we saw Rachel Getting Married. I just wasn't into it. Thankfully, that changed.

Rachel Getting Married is about, well, Rachel's marriage. Anne Hathaway stars not as Rachel, but her sister Kym, an ex-junkie coming out of rehab for her sister Rachel's marriage. Family difficulties ensue.

As I was saying earlier, I had written this movie off about a half-hour into it. I wasn't buying the family interactions. It seemed like everyone was trying too hard. I know that Kym was trying too hard to have normal relations with her family, but it came off as an actress knowing that her character needs to try too hard so she tries too hard to look like she's trying too hard, if that makes any sense. Anyway, there was that and a couple of unbelievable exchanges ("Didn't I see you on Cops?") that made me feel like this movie wasn't going to work. And so about a half hour in, I'm glancing around the theater, feeling bored, and we get to the rehearsal dinner scene. There are a bunch of toasts and then Kym gets up to speak. It started out as I expected, with forced references and rough dialogue, but as Kym kept speaking, talking about her time in rehab and the mistakes she had made, she started to suck me in. And then, as the movie kept going, I got even more sucked in. The more details the movie gave me, the better it became. I got to admit, there was a couple of times that my "allergies" nearly kicked in. The middle and last part of the film really drove it home for me, emotionally-wise. (By the way, Kinsey thought the total opposite about the beginning of the movie. She liked Rachel Getting Married all the way through.)

Let me finish this post with a little bit about Anne Hathaway. I've never been a big Hathaway fan. She was sufficient in the Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada. She ruined Becoming Jane while James McAvoy acted circles around her. She was the weak link in Brokeback Mountain. So I was pretty surprised when I heard all the Oscar hype around her performance in Rachel Getting Married. The preview certainly didn't convince me. But, after seeing the film, I think she deserves it. The scenes with her mother (played by Debra Winger) are especially good. And she is able to convey so much emotion with just a stare, which is something I definitely didn't expect from Anne Hathaway.

Wade: first half hour 1.5 stars, rest of the film 5 stars

Kinsey: 4 stars