Have you noticed that your taste in movies has changed as you’ve gotten older? What about your willingness to drop $12.00 (the average ticket price here in Vancouver) on a film that you’re not sure you’ll like?
What follows is a list of movies I saw in 2008. Those I enjoyed most appear in bold. It was quite a year for superheroes, if my list is any indication. I’ve also noticed that I’m far more likely to go see a “popcorn pusher” in a theatre, but I usually rent smaller films on video.
In order of release date:
- How She Move
- Leatherheads
- Baby Mama
- Iron Man
- Get Smart
- Wall-E
- The Dark Knight
- Pineapple Express
- Tropic Thunder
- Ghost Town
- Nick + Norah’s Infinite Playlist
- Religulous
- Zack and Miri Make a Porno
- Slumdog Millionaire – my pick of Best Film of 2008
- Quantum of Solace
- Milk
- Doubt
Are you surprised that Milk didn’t make my list of favorites for the year? While it wasn’t one of my favorites, it has stuck with me for weeks now, primarily because I can’t quite put my finger on why I was so dissatisfied with it in the first place. It may have something to do with the overt sexuality of the film. More correctly, I think it has to do with the fact that Hollywood wasn’t able to make a movie about a Gay historical figure without making Gay sex such a large part of it. Many movies have been made about other political figures, and short of the HBO miniseries John Adams, I can’t think of one that I’ve seen that featured sex scenes.
I understand the other side of the question, though. If they hadn’t shown Harvey Milk in loving relationships with other men, some LGBT activists might’ve gotten upset, saying that he wasn’t a fully drawn, fully realized character, that Gus Van Sant was playing it safe by not showing sex in the film(when has he ever done that?). I knew going in that Harvey Milk was gay, so I didn’t necessarily need to see Sean Penn macking on Diego Luna or James Franco. Let me be clear, I wasn’t put off by the sex, it just seemed like a curious addition to a movie about a historical figure.
I’m still working this one out.
What movies did you see in 2008? What made your best of the year lists?