[Movie] "You'll Be Like Oh Shit Thats The Jam!" - Best Movies You've Seen In 2008

Heres how the thread works - it doesn't require you to have gone to a theater to post here. You can post about *any* movie you saw this year, provided its the first time you saw it.

You can also do them in order, not in order, whatever. Just post shit you liked and say why. If you want to do things you DIDN'T like or honorable mentions or whatever, stick it in a seperate catagory and under spoiler tags because no one really gives two shits what you think about that.

In order, starting with stuff that was good and ending with stuff that was fantastic:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Right out of the gate, I'm here to confuse and anger you! The Clone Wars was a stupid, stupid movie that we would have loved if it was made in 1984. Its great that George Lucas is still making movies for a generation of kids that are grown up and on 4chan now and forget what it is to have a little fun. The only thing that seperates Clone Wars from the Christmas Special cartoon is the times in which they were put out.

Flesh + Blood

Paul Verhoeven could be the most underrated director working in the last 25 years. I'm not going to say people don't understand his stuff or that the public is stupid, but people don't understand his stuff and the public is stupid. (Wait, I said the quiet part loud and the loud part not at all) Flesh + Blood is a great sword and chainmail movie about some bandits who inadvertantly kidnap, gangrape and then fight a bunch of people in a castle. Okay, so the gangrape part is a little...adolescent (basically, as shes getting raped, she gets into it, which is all sorts of unsettling) but it has Rutger Hauer shoving his face full of communion wafers like they were cocktail peanuts.

The Proposition

What a great, weird movie this is. Kind of like Quigley Down Under but ... not as goofy and with less gunplay. Good acting, very good use of music. Its basically a journey into purgatory, as a man must save his younger brother from a hanging by killing his crazy rapist/murder/horse-thief older brother. A lot of people said this was gory as heck, but I think we've all seen a lot worse.

The Naked Spur

I'm tired of writing, so heres the Amazon.com description of this fine movie: The Anthony Mann-Jimmy Stewart Westerns in the 1950s infused the genre with a psychological intensity and psychopathic edge. The brutal The Naked Spur, their third collaboration, is generally considered their best work together and one of the finest Westerns ever made. Stewart is a hard, angry bounty hunter tracking outlaw Robert Ryan in this lean five-character drama set in the deceptively beautiful mountain wilderness of the Midwest. Stewart finds himself saddled with two unwanted partners, sourdough prospector Millard Mitchell (his sidekick in the earlier Mann Western Winchester '73) and dishonorably discharged cavalry officer Ralph Meeker. Ryan's tomboyish sidekick Janet Leigh becomes increasingly torn between duty to her desperate guardian and her growing attraction to Stewart. The rugged landscape of jutting peaks, narrow passes, and torrential rivers is as gorgeous as it is dangerous: a well-protected plateau becomes a sniper's perch, an old mine turns from protective cave to dangerous cave-in. Stewart delivers the most ruthless performance of his career as a man haunted by betrayal, unwilling to trust and unable to love. Ryan's jovial banter and charm masks a cold-blooded savagery (he once remarked that it's his favorite performance). The tension stretches to the breaking point in this taut battle of wits, which culminates in a standoff next to the white water of a raging river, where Mann brilliantly uses the jagged landscape as a deadly battleground--nature itself becomes an enemy.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

If I have to explain to you why this movie is good, you're need to drown in a cold Connecticut river. Indiana Jones movies are stupid fun with people getting beat up and guns and fights ontop of vehicles. No amount of internet angst can ruin what is basically a series of great action sequences at a breakneck pace.

All That Jazz

Answers the eternal question: What would it be like if Stanley Kubrick made a musical? Bob Fosse directs an off-the-wall, self-centered bio about... himself. Roy Scheider gives it his all as Joe Gideon, a man addicted to percs, coffee and Vivaldi. A man who stretches himself beyond his own limits, it combines a question of mortality, morality and musical dance numbers. Keep your eyes open for John Lithgow in a very small role.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

2008 is turning into the year where I'm starting to think the problem isn't Hollywood making bad movies but Hollywood having stupid audiences. For the nihilistic, "damned if you do, damned if you don't" popular morality blather that is the new Batman movie, the new X-Files movie will fail in every possible way. No one is shot, no one is dead-then-alive only for someone else to be dead instead, there is no pastiche of a superior film in attempts to glob another movie's ideas. There is no overblown nonsense of Oscar nominations. There is little preconceived notions about the film and the ones that are are thrown out the door after the first two thirds. The plot's reveal is a good one in that you don't see it coming.

I won't go into the "monster of the week" format - since it isn't there. In fact, there is no monster - and not in the overplayed "humanity is the real monster!" copout or its variations. The "monster" takes a backseat (perhaps too far back) from the rest of the story, revolving around a missing FBI Agent and a local woman. Mulder (complete with crazy man beard) is eventually pulled back into the investigation world by his former partner Scully (who looks great, even though she looks like she could stand to sleep more). Billy Connolly plays a role of a priest with a very dirty background; his part is part-paranormal, part moral center of the film. And in the end, the movie leaves you to ask you where you stand, instead of telling you what to think (which was really the most insulting element of TDK).

Its not a perfect mix - somewhere around the middle it lags and Amanda Peet is simply not convincing in the role. There could have been one more chase and a little less criminal justice science just to give it a little more punch but thats a small misgiving considering the end result.

Its a slowly paced character drama, reminding us that a movie without good characters and a good message is not worth seeing. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that as far as summer blockbusters go - the morality in this is almost reaffirming of something greater than I can describe here. Its not a concrete feeling or a specific moral quandary solved - its simply a lot of good questions and a lot of ernest hope for the future. But being you and I are in this world where people pay to have their intelligence and morals trampled on so long as they can agree that someone dead deserves an acting award as a consolation prize - this film will not be popular, not even for its fanbase. I would go as far to say that the movie is in many ways the movie everyone says they want to see, but end up actively avoiding. After all, how dare we have hope in each other when we can bury ourselves in self-actualizing narcissism.

Chris Carter directs (Frohike is first assisstant director!) what is essentially the biggest valentine of a movie a fan can hope for. If there is no other X-Files movies to follow, he went out on the best note possible and for a man whom I've derided for years as losing track of what made the show great in the beginning, has reaffirmed my faith in him as a writer.

I originally hesitated at the subtitle to the movie. It had long been established as one of the show's catchphrases - but as a movie title, it didn't quite roll around in your mouth. But I wouldn't change it for anything because it really gets the whole idea down pat - I want to *believe*.

Quantum Of Solace

This movie is great for all the reasons that the internet wag idiots dislike it. It shows Bond willing to do anything to get revenge, to the point where he "breaks" most Bond conventions - It doesn't have the exotic locales of Casino Royale because it's reflecting Bond's state of mind - the deeply affected Bond out for revenge isn't dancing through weird body museums or gambling at beautiful island casinos. He's suffering and oblivious to all that, and it's a very courageous choice to make the audience suffer in the same way. Narrow, driven filmmaking that makes Casino Royale look all that much better.

Open Range

Kevin Costner loves Americana - from westerns like Wyatt Earp and Dances With Wolves to baseball like Field Of Dreams and Bull Durham. This, though, is the best thing he's ever done. Free grazing cattle hearders take revenge against the townsfolk who harass them, leading to one of the best gunfights in a Western (and probably the most accurate, as people are blown through walls by black powder guns).

YouTube Video

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Remember when this thread was about movies you enjoyed.

It was only 4 posts ago.

SpaceOddity ruins everything.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by wvlfpvp

I'd like to toss in both There Will Be Blood... and Enchanted. The first is because Daniel Day Lewis is fucking awesome, and the second is because I'm a homo/was raised on Disney.

I think you mean "Because Amy Adams is fucking insanely hot"

Musharraf - please go see Soldiers Of Orange if you liked Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Kishin

TWBB and Enchanted were 2007 movies

Please read the opening post, jackass so I don't have to call you jackass a second time.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Encephalon

I've heard this movie is one of the most amazing westerns ever made but I haven't got around to finding it on DVD.

It was good - but it was no Open Range.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Encephalon

Yeah, Open Range is probably my favorite Costner flick ever. I still haven't seen "3:15 To Yuma" either and I hear that one is good.

I actually perfer the original 3:10 To Yuma but the remake is very good. Different but almost equal - like the Dawn Of The Dead remake.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by wvlfpvp

Inland Empire

I own this and haven't even finished it. I love David Lynch movies but this one made no goddamned sense at all - and the digital camera photography looks more like a college student's thesus than a professional movie.

FELIPE NO

She's filled with secrets!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Mulholland Drive looks like fucking Barney compared to the RABBIT SITCOM SEQUENCE in Inland Empire.

Jam it back in, in the dark.