The Filmcake

While there are still a bunch of movies from 2008 that I still need to see (Wendy & Lucy and Slumdog Millionaire are but two),  I’m going ahead with my “final” Best of 2008 list. Without further ado:

1. Rachel Getting Married
2. Wall-E
3. Ballast
4. A Christmas Tale
5. Let The Right One In
6. Man on Wire
7. Paranoid Park/Milk (a Gus van Sant tie)
8. Flight of the Red Balloon
9. The Dark Knight
10. Happy Go-Lucky

Honorable Mention: 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, Son of Rambow, Chop Shop, The Fall, Encounters at the End of the World

January 5th – January 11th

The Dark Knight- I watched this one again from the Digital Copy that was included with the Blu-ray disc. It’s the first movie I’ve bought that included this separate feature that makes transferring to your iPod a painless procedure. It is certainly quite a transition to watch scenes meant for IMAX on a 2″ screen. I certainly don’t envision watching many movies this way. It’s serviceable enough for a movie you’ve seen a half-dozen times and can afford to miss a great deal of scale. And it might be a worthwhile time-killer for a dialogue-heavy throwaway comedy or something. But an iPod screen is anything but cinematic. There’s nothing big about it whatsoever. I certainly will not be watching any movies for the first time in this format (in the foreseeable future anyhow).

Ballast – See previous post.

Iron Man- I really liked the first two-thirds of this one. The evolution of Tony Stark/Iron Man was a joy to watch. Robert Downey Jr of late has continued to amaze. Prison escapes are ready-made for thrilling cinema. And the spoils of the crazy rich and the gadgets they can create (or ordered created) are like visual candy. Whether it be Batman or Iron Man, I could watch the money spending and gadgetry all day. But the last third of this initial installment of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man seemed like just that. It seemed to be more concerned with setting up a sequel than maintaining a story. The secondary characters (Stane, Potts, Rhodes) got short shrift. Not knowing any back story nor which of these secondary characters might play larger roles in the future, the last third seemed a bit empty to me. Maybe this is the best Favreau can do with the material. After all, what pleases the initiated and what pleases the uninitiated are not going to be the same. I can accept that. With that, I’m willing to wait for the next installment and give it a go. This one was likeable enough.

Flight of the Red Balloon- It seems entirely pointless for me to say much about this film after only one viewing. I feel like there was so much to absorb in this film…if not for my own mental saturation. I need my own personal David Bordwell to walk me through the film. At the very least, I need to familiarize myself with Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (which I’ve never seen but is now at the top of my Netflix queue) before I say a word.

Sometimes, when a man’s alone, all you got is your dogs, and they mean the world to me.

–Mickey Rourke, thanking his dogs, upon accepting the Golden Globe for his performance in The Wrestler

While I’m certain I’ve never experienced the hard times that Rourke has endured over the past couple of decades, I know exactly what he is talking about. From my younger days to the present, a dog has often comforted me in my toughest of times. My dogs absolutely mean the world to me.

I don’t know if it’s a canine cinema zeitgeist. Or if it marks some sociological shift away from community (and even family) towards this new kind of nuclear family. Or, more likely, I’m simply noticing what I want to notice. But it does seem that dogs have played an increasingly poignant role in film. They are not just a child’s slobbering companion any more.

Mike White’s Year of the Dog, from 2007, may have gotten things started for me. It was a sympathetic portrayal of a woman who loves dogs. A comedy to be sure, but a film that ultimately understood the seriousness underlying the bond that can exist between dog and human.

In 2008, dogs seem to be all over the place. Jim Emerson even runs down a list of 2008 Dogs of the Year including dogs from Let the Right One In, A Christmas Tale, In Bruges, Wendy and Lucy, Gran Torino, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Perhaps even Emerson’s own loss of his Frances has caused me to focus more on the role dogs can play in our lives.

Just this past weekend, I saw Lance Hammer’s Ballast. Previous to seeing the film, this brief shot from the trailer literally took my breath away:

JimMyron Ross as James

In a few seconds, with no dialogue, a complete set of emotions were conveyed. I was in love with this movie from this one shot alone. A boy, alone, and a dog that provides some measure of comfort and hope amidst an otherwise miserable world. After seeing the complete film, I’m so very in love with it. It more than lived up to my expectations.

I was prepared to see something that simply looked beautiful. Some of the discussion I’d absorbed seem to imply that the film was quite fragmentary and abstract. I thought it would simply be a feast for the eyes. But there was a narrative throughout that more than adequately connected these poetic images. Sure there was minimal dialogue and the story unfolded with some leisure. But it all worked brilliantly. Hammer captured the isolation of the place (the Mississippi Delta) as well as the loneliness and vulnerability of the three leads. Cinematographer Lol Crawley and the non-professional cast deserve a huge amount of credit for creating something so honest, heartbreaking, and beautiful.

The film is up for 6 IFC Spirit Awards. It deserves each one.