Best of 2008 - Top Two!

The final part of the countdown then, and you may be wondering why I left the last two films to a separate post.

It's because I'm going to declare it a tie. I couldn't pick between the two so for the first time I'm declaring the film of the year to actually be two films.

They couldn't be further apart either.

On the one hand we have a two-and-a-half-hour, big budget, box-office smashing Hollywood blockbuster comic adaptation, which dominated the box office in 2008. In the other corner it's a low-budget, 80-minute, emotional drama based on a stage play which has yet to even find a cinema release in the UK.

In case you've not already guessed, the best two films of 2008 according to my humble viewing are Christopher Nolan's THE DARK KNIGHT and Declan Recks' EDEN.

So there.

Best of 2008 (5-3)

Almost at the top - here's the next few films in my countdown of the best fifty films of last year...

5 JESUS CHRIST SAVIOUR
Documentary made up of archive footage of Klaus Kinski, arguably the maddest actor ever to chew up the screen, on an evangelical tour of Germany. It's just him on stage for most of it, but it's testament to his crazy appeal that it's still brilliant.

4 ATLANTIC
A short film by Conor Ferguson which I saw twice at last year's Cork festival and described previously as "three minutes of cinematic perfection".

3 JANEY MARY
From one heartbreaking Irish short to another. You probably remember I raved about this one at length.


And the Freakpit's choice of best two films of 2008? Find out tomorrow...

Best of 2008 (10-6)

Ooooh, we're in the top ten now. Are you getting excited yet?

10 WALL-E
See, every so often I do like a nice little family film, even if it is one set in a barren post-apocalyptic wasteland.

9 HUNGER
Breathtakingly arty take on the Irish hunger strikes, centred around Michael Fassbender's towering performance as Bobby Sands.

8 THE KING OF KONG
David versus Goliath tale of a quiet, unassuming family man on a quixotic quest to overthrow the villainous leader who rules over all. Despite the fact that it's a documentary about people playing arcade games.

7 TIME CRIMES
Mind-bending Spanish sci-fi horror in which a man witnesses a crime being committed... by himself. Then it gets really weird.

6 MAN ON WIRE
James Marsh's critically acclaimed documentary/heist movie about the artistic crime of the century (a high wire walk between the twin towers of the WTC) is simply stunning. It should win the Oscar this year too.

Best of 2008 (15-11)

15 THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Daniel Day Lewis deserved his Oscar for a terrific performance, although it perhaps overshadowed what was an overall triumph of filmmaking.

14 CLOVERFIELD
Or, GODZILLA with a handycam. There are certain lapses of logic but most only become obvious when you stop to think about it - which, during this rollercoaster ride, you're not likely to do too often.

13 NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD
Brilliant documentary about the world of Australian cult cinema.

12 A BLOODY CANVAS
Fascinating documentary about an incredible boxing match that took place on St Patrick's Day in Dublin during the Irish civil war.

11 PASSAGE
The accepted history of the discovery of the North West Passage gets a good kicking in this inventive and sadly under-seen documentary which I saw at Hot Docs but which also got aired on BBC Scotland.

Best of 2008 (20-16)

20 WAITING FOR THE LIGHT
Ciarin Scott gives George Morrison the biography treatment - it's about time someone did. Talking of which, MISE EIRE is getting an anniversary screening at the Dublin Film Festival next month - buy a ticket now!

19 THE JOHN AKII BUA STORY: AN AFRICAN TRAGEDY
This documentary is a sad tale of what might have been, detailing the rise and fall of the legendary Ugandan athlete who conquered the world but fell foul of Idi Amin's regime.

18 A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH
This year's Wallace and Gromit special from the BBC's Christmas schedule was as impressive and funny as we've come to expect.

17 THE GIRL BY THE LAKE
Laid-back but suspenseful Italian murder mystery with beautiful location work.

16 THE ORPHANAGE
One of the best horror films in recent years, a Spanish take on THE INNOCENTS with great performances, plenty of chills and an ending that satisfies while leaving you wondering.

Best of 2008 (25-21)

25 VIRTUAL JFK: VIETNAM IF KENNEDY HAD LIVED
Fascinating "what if?" documentary that draws interesting parallels between then and now, and offers an insight into exactly what the title suggests.

24 DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH
Science fiction's angry man Harlan Ellison gets the biography treatment in this insightful and amusing documentary.

23 OF TIME AND THE CITY
Terrence Davies offers a love song and eulogy to the city of Liverpool to coincide with its year as City of Culture, mixing music, archive footage and his own portentous voiceover about growing up there.

22 SHETLAND LONE STAR
Part of BBC's "Scotland's History" strand, this one-off documentary was a wonderfully entertaining look at the life and career of Thomas Fraser, a man who sung country songs in his spare time in a remote village in Shetland, only to become a country music star thirty years after his death.

21 THE WAVE
German film based on a true life experiment from the sixties in which a bunch of kids are taught a practical lesson about the power of fascism, only for the teacher to lose control as the experiment goes too far.

Best of 2008 (30-26)

30 IN BRUGES
Glad to see this one has been nominated at various awards as it's a terrific black comedy, in which hitmen Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson hide out in Belgium after a hit goes wrong. Marketed very badly, this should surely find a wider audience on DVD.

29 PRESTO
It's the short film that preceded WALL-E in cinemas. I loved it. Now Oscar-nominated.

28 STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
One of the better Iraq documentaries, although you'd expect as much from the veteran Errol Morris.

27 TRULY, MADLY, CHEAPLY: BRITISH B MOVIES
Excellent BBC4 documentary in which Matthew Sweet explores the cheap and largely unknown British exploitation cinema. If you've not read his book SHEPPERTON BABYLON, you should buy it right now.

26 RED
Low-budget Jack Ketchum adaptation boasting a powerhouse performance by Scotland's greatest actor, Brian Cox.

Best of 2008 (35-31)

35 ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Werner Herzog's latest documentary is as odd as ever but also charming and beautiful. Got him his first Oscar nomination too. Won't win, due to another film which I'll be getting to in due course, but deserved all the same.

34 STRANDED: I'VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS
I suspect this will be the longest title on this list. Great documentary examination of the rugby team who crashed in the Andes and had to endure all manner of horrific ordeals to survive.

33 AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR
You can't fail to be moved by this story of a death row pastor who has his beliefs turned upside down by the fate of a prisoner he believes is innocent.


32 THE INHERITANCE
This low budget Scottish movie did well on the festival circuit and was a hit with me too. It's not without its flaws, although it's a rare example of a film that may actually benefit from TV over cinema. Watching the DVD on a modest-sized TV the limitations of the equipment were not so obvious as they were on the big screen and the film actually looks a lot better as a result.

31 KISSES
Two kids go on the run in Dublin and take the film's colour scheme with them. Visually inventive little gem of a film.

Best of 2008 (40-36)

40 32A
Charming coming-of-age tale set in 1970s Dublin. Clearly a film for young girls, but what the hell, I liked it. Nominated for an IFTA Best Film award too, though I don't see it winning.

39 JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY
Certainly not "just" another anything. I don't suppose that modern Danish film noir is a gigantic genre, but I bet this is still one of the best entries all the same. Terrific thriller.

38 CHANGELING
For all my complaints about Jolie's overacting, Eastwood's study of the dark side of LA's modern history is still a great film.

37 WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Bold, daring and timely animated movie from Israel that should get an Oscar nomination, even though Pixar own the actual awards. It has made the foreign language shortlist though, so watch out there. [UPDATE: I wrote this a few days ago, and the nominations have since come out - no animated nomination, which is a shock, but it is nominated for in the foreign language category]

36 DIARY OF THE DEAD
Like the previous entry, some people thought George Romero's latest zombie movie was an anticlimax and hated it. I thought it had its flaws but was still immensely enjoyable and felt that the back-to-basics approach really paid off.

Best of 2008 (45-41)

45 GONE BABY GONE
This terrific thriller should have been in the 2007 list but its UK release was delayed until the new year because of certain events in the news.

44 NOTE BY NOTE: THE MAKING OF STEINWAY L1037
I missed this when it played at Stranger Than Fiction, but at least caught it when it appeared at the inaugural Illuminations documentary film festival at Filmhouse. Come to think of it, I saw half a dozen films at that festival and forgot to write about any of them. Oh well, it's not the last one from that festival to appear in my top fifty. The film's about how Steinway make a piano, by the way.

43 THE MORSE COLLECTORS
Haunting Northern Irish short film which I saw at a couple of festivals in 2008.

42 THE THIRD PINT
South America, a man with a dodgy beard, some holiday footage on 8mm and some weirdly hypnotic synth music. This oddball entry might never be seen anywhere again and even if you do see it you might very well hate it. I was entranced.

41 LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
Ryan Gosling gives another terrific performance as the emotionally unhinged loner who falls in love with an inflatable doll... who promptly wins over the local community.

Best of 2008 (50-46)

So here's the start of the Freakpit's film favourites of 2008. If you've only just discovered this post, you should probably read yesterday's introductory post so that you won't feel quite so angry when you disagree with my choices later.

Links to my blog writings are included where I bothered to write anything at the time.

50 THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX
Flawed but entertaining German drama taking on the history of the infamous terrorist group.

49 THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD
Totally insane Korean film which I saw at Cork. Imagine a mash-up of Leone spaghetti western with the style and energy of KUNG-FU HUSTLE.

48 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS
Eastern European drama about illegal abortion? Sounds like a laugh. Critically acclaimed and then single-handedly resulted in one of the biggest criticisms of the foreign language Oscar ever when it failed to be nominated.

47 GOMORRA
Stylish and in-your-face drama examining various strands of Napoli's lower classes and the effects of the local organised crime syndicate on their lives.

46 ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED
Balanced and thoughtful documentary which does not excuse Polanski's actions prior to his fleeing America, but does make an interesting point about the fairness of the trial.

The best films of 2008 - it begins!

Okay, it's time for my usual end-of-year Best Films list. Well, I say "usual" but last year it was almost the end of 2008 before I covered 2007, so I guess I've improved. And just to show how much effort I've put in...

When I did this first time, it was a top 30 of 2006. When I covered 2007 last year, it was a top 40. There's only one way to go now - that's right, I'm compiling a top 50!

A top fifty. None of your wimpy little top ten nonsense for me. But before you read what I think were the fifty best films of 2008, I need to go over the rules for what gets included:

1) Any film which was released elsewhere before 2008 but didn't get released in the UK until 2008 counts towards this list.

2) Any film which hasn't had a release but which I saw at a festival in 2008 counts.

3) While predominantly feature-based, short films are eligible too if I happened to see them at 2008 festivals.

4) Anything premiered on TV in 2008 counts. This could be a film that never made it to cinemas, or it could just be something made for TV - a good film is a good film regardless of where it ends up playing. The quality of TV might be going down the toilet, but that's more reason than anything to recognise when it's good. Obviously I don't count series though.

5) I'm biased. Not deliberately, you understand, but given that I watch more of certain kinds of films than others, there will always be an inevitable leaning towards certain kinds of films. In other words, there will probably be more documentaries and Irish films in this list than any others. Come on though, if you just want a generic best-of list, you wouldn't be reading this blog, would you? What do you want me to do, just make stuff up?

After compiling the top 50 from a list of my favourite films of 2008 - helped a lot by the IMDb, just in case you thought I actually spent loads of time sitting here thinking of them all - I was left with a few that didn't quite make the cut. So here's a brief summary of the films that didn't quite make it into the top fifty but which are still excellent and should be seen whenever you get the chance.

On the documentary front, there's WAITING FOR HOCKNEY, in which an artist spends eight years of his life on one painting; WAR CHILD, about a former child soldier who is now an accomplished rapper; CHOSEN, a depressing look at abuse in a boys' school; HOW OHIO PULLED IT OFF, telling of how the Bush v Gore race wasn't the only one that Bush may not actually have won; HOW TO BE A GOOD PRESIDENT, a one-off BBC documentary in which various figures pick their favourite president and why - incredibly LBJ was one of the choices; and BODY OF WAR, yet another recent war-themed doc but one of the better efforts.

Also very good but not quite making it are NORTH FACE, reviewed here recently; MARTYRS, a nasty horror film which kind of grew on me; SURVEILLANCE, a mystery tale from Jennifer Lynch; SOMERS TOWN, the latest from Shane Meadows; THE VISITOR, which should be enough to get Richard Jenkins an Oscar nomination but probably won't; HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Mike Leigh's critically acclaimed hit; MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD, a reasonably intelligent and entertaining art-house drama from Italy; EMPTIES, a rather funny Eastern European effort that hasn't had much of release yet; and JUNO, which you'll have heard all about at last year's Oscars.

Join me next time when I'll start mentioning the ones which actually did make it onto the list... Ooh, I'm such a tease.