Tulpan – Somehow this one missed out on a 2008 Oscar nomination for Foreign Language Film. What a shame. Director Sergey Dvortsevoy and cinematographer Jola Dylewska manage to capture some truly spectacular images. The landscape looks otherworldly, like a credible stand-in for Luke Skywalker’s childhood home on Tatooine. The farm animals put on spectacular performances, threatening to upstage their human counterparts. And a several minute-long lamb birth scene is at once both disgusting and beautiful. It would appear that life (from beginning to end) is both of these things.

Paranoid Park – I really like where the cinematography and soundtrack/score of this movies puts you. You’re caught somewhere between dreary desperation and dreamy escapism. It is both frustrating and soothing. It also happens to make me want to revisit Gus Van Sant’s oeuvre.

Perhaps I could start with what was my first introduction to Van Sant as director of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge” video, here literally interpreted:

Right at Your Door – There were a few head-scratchers in this one, such as a flat tire and a heavy accent that were magically and instantaneously resolved. But these goofs were minor and likely the expected detritus from a very small budget. Still, this was a fairly fun thriller that played on recent uneasiness of the color-coded variety but one that would have benefited from a tighter, trimmed-down edit.

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

Dwight’s Top 10 Movies of 2008
1. A Christmas Tale
2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
3. Wall-E
4. Man on Wire
5. Paranoid Park
6. The Dark Knight
7. Son of Rambow
8. Chop Shop
9. Milk
10. Trouble the Water

Still haven’t seen: Wendy and Lucy, Ballast, Happy Go-Lucky, Let the Right One In, Synechdoche, NY, My Winnipeg, Waltz With Bashir, Flight of the Red Balloon, Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.

Even though this blog is primarily focused on movies, I can’t resist including my music lists. While I did a piss-poor job at listening to music in ’08 (and came to it late at that), I did manage to come up with lists for my best albums and songs of the year.

Dwight’s Top 10 Albums of 2008
1. She & Him – Volume One
2. Fleet Foxes – s/t
3. Frightened Rabbit — The Midnight Organ Fight
4. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Jolie Holland – The Living and the Dead
6. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
7. Conor Oberst — s/t
8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
9. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
10. (3-way tie) Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers — The Confiscation EP, The Decemberists — Always the Bridesmaid Singles, The Mountain Goats — Satanic Messiah EP

Dwight’s Top 10 Songs of 2008
1. “Mexico City/Corrido Por Buddy/Palmyra” – Jolie Holland (OK, it’s 3 songs. But it’s what I consider to be the best 13 minutes of music in ’08.)
2. “Valerie Plame” — The Decemberists
3. “Sentimental Heart” – She & Him
4. “I Will Possess Your Heart” – Death Cab for Cutie
5. “Skinny Love” — Bon Iver
6. “See Fernando” — Jenny Lewis
7. “We Call Upon The Author” — Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
8. “White Winter Hymnal” – Fleet Foxes
9. “Dancing Choose” – TV on the Radio
10. “Head Rolls Off” — Frightened Rabbit

Paranoid Park- I like Gus Van Sant. I’ve really enjoyed all the movies of his that I’ve seen. I still need to see some of his earlier stuff. I’ve never seen Drugstore Cowboy. Even Psycho, I don’t have a problem with. It is what it is. Maybe it’s just an experiment or an indulgence. But I can’t complain. And, I’m really looking forward to his upcoming Milk. Paranoid, like some of his more recent movies, has this way about it that both hypnotizes and lulls you in while at the same time remaining eerie and suspenseful and keeping you on the edge of your seat. And, as Sarah mentioned, it’s both weird and reassuring seeing the punk rock, tattooed guy playing the father.

Scenes from a Marriage- We saw the nearly three hour theatrical version of the film. Now, of course, I’m curious about the 295 minute TV mini-series version. Two more hours? I may just have to spring for the Criterion DVD and then I can watch it at my leisure. But the version we watched was eerily good. An absolutely wonderful screenplay that absolutely nailed marriage and long-term relationships. Even when what’s happening on screen has little similarity to your own life, it still seems like a polished mirror. You can’t help but look and you also often want to do nothing more than to look away. And, the movie was shot in such a way that was equally intimate and claustrophobic, capturing the essence of the relationship acting out on screen. At this point, I’m not going to say that I’m Bergman’s biggest fan or anything, but I can certainly say that he’s got some great films that are quite accessible.