Cinephemera

This is a good time to be a film lover. I’m not sure how cinephiles were able to live before the days of video cassettes. These days, we don’t even have to go to the store or even pay to see a ton of classic and newer movies. There are now many sites out there that host movies that you can watch for free! Here are some of the best ones that I’ve found out about.

Crackle
Looking at the movie selection on Crackle , I refused to believe that they were completely free. I clicked on a few and to my great astonishment, they are completely 100% free to watch on demand. Like Hulu, they are interrupted by commercials every so often but this is certainly one of the best selections of movies you’re going to find on the web for free.

Notable Choices: A Few Good Men, Big Fish, El Mariachi, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, The Karate Kid trilogy, Muppets from Space, The Professional, Spider-Man 2, St. Elmo’s Fire, and at least 9 Godzilla movies!

Hulu
I mentioned Hulu in my last post and I’ll mention it again now because it’s such a great source for movie watching. They recently added a documentary channel and they update their available movies frequently. There currently have around 300 choices making it one of the biggest offerings of free movies on the net. You can see all of them here .

Notable Choices: Africa Screams, Anastasia, House on Haunted Hill, The Lady Vanishes, Carnival of Souls, Inherit the Wind, Slacker, Air Force One.

Joost
This site is harder to get around and find something you might want to watch but if you dig around you might just find that diamond in the rough. They have a good collection of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton shorts and a lot of classic cult horror films. There’s a lot of good content here but the difficulty in navigating the site is rather annoying.

Notable Choices: The 39 Steps, Carnival of Souls, McLintock, His Girl Friday, Nosferatu, The Toxic Avenger, Metropolis, Gojira, Road to Bali.

SnagFilms
SnagFilms is your place for documentaries. There are so many documentaries here (over 500) I don’t even know where to begin. They’ve got documentaries on nearly every subject you can think of from panda bears to Led Zepplin. Most of these are independently made so you won’t find “bigger” docs like Mad Hot Ballroom or Fog of War but there are a few notable docs and there’s more than enough here to keep you interested for a very long time.

Notable Choices: Confessions of a Superhero, Super Size Me, Farther Than The Eye Can See, The Times of Harvey Milk, Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

YouTube
I mentioned YouTube in my last post as being a shadier method of movie watching but now YouTube has begun releasing movies legitimately. Most are in high quality and best of all, no ads beyond the usual occasional YouTube pop up. Their selection seems to primarily consist of old horror movies with some other movies thrown in.

Notable Choices: Carrie, Day of the Dead, The Little Princess, Casino Royale (1967), Satan’s School for Girls, Who’s Harry Crumb?, 7 Days in September.

Movies Found Online
Movies Found Online is a great directory of movies that have been located across multiple sources. They have a ton movies and documentaries available for free.

Notable Choices: Battle Royale, Night Watch, Akira, Waking Life, Yellow Submarine, Battleship Potemkin, Freaks, M, It’s A Wonderful Life, Don’t Copy That Floppy.

Source

If you’re like me, you love movies but you don’t have a lot of money to spend on them and with theater’s charging around $10 a pop, going to the movies often can leave your wallet feeling empty and little to show for it. Fortunately, there are a few ways that you can see a lot of movies cheaply or completely free (and legally for the most part) if you don’t mind waiting a couple months for newer releases.

Everyone knows Netflix. The Blockbuster killer (potentially) is a great way of getting a lot of movies and TV shows for little money. For just $9 a month you can get one DVD and unlimited watch instantly movies. With over 100,000 DVDs and more than 12,000 available for instant streaming, you aren’t going to run out of movies or TV to watch anytime soon. I always have 100+ titles in my respective queues because I just keep finding new movies that I want to see. My instant queue currently has 250 titles and fluctuates constantly. Maybe someday I’ll get my queue down but at this rate, it doesn’t seem likely.

These aren’t shabby titles either. Looking at the watch instantly page they have a variety of titles ranging from popular to obscure and older to newer. A few examples are His Girl Friday, Animal House, Bottle Rocket, Barton Fink, Let The Right One In, Man On Wire, Ratatouille, Casablanca, Ghostbusters, No Country For Old Men, Eraserhead, Blade Runner, and Maniac Cop.

Again, for the price of one movie at a regular theater you could potentially watch all of those movies in a week. My current record stands at six movies in one day.

Good ol’ standby Blockbuster hasn’t been doing so well lately. They’re a household name in movie rental but did you also know that they sell used DVDs for pretty dang cheap? If you go in store they usually have stacks of recently released DVDs available to buy. The newer ones generally run for $15 but you can get two of those for $20 and their older (but not old) titles go for anywhere between $10 and $3 and you can get four of those for a mere $20.

I tend to visit the store next door to my work at least once a week to see what new DVDs I can score and I usually walk out with a stack of new DVDs. On my latest trip I got The Bank Job, El Dorado, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Ruins, The Forbidden Kingdom, Doomsday, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Lars and the Real Girl for just over $40.

For the most part I’ve had few problems with the DVDs themselves and have only had to return one because it had some skip inducing scratches on it but they replaced it straight away without asking for a receipt. Perhaps we’re just gotten to the recognition stage of our relationship.

Hulu is well known as a streaming TV provider but they also host a wide variety of movies as well and like their TV service, it is completely free. Most of the provided titles tend to be older or pretty obscure but with a decently sized collection and relatively frequent additions, you’re likely to find something that you may have glossed over or that sounds interesting. Also like the TV shows, the movies are interrupted about six times for a commercial but they break at appropriate times and it’s a small price to pay for a completely free movie.

Specialty Theaters

If you live in or near a place like Los Angeles there are plenty of small specialty theaters that are often cheaper and/or offer double features. In L.A. there’s the New Beverly and The Silent Movie Theater (which shows more than just silent films) where you can see themed double features for less than $10. These places also usually have special guests such as the directors and stars of the films they’re showing. Last Halloween night I went to the New Bev to see Shaun of the Dead and Riki-Oh with SotD director Edgar Wright and it was enormous fun. The theaters are small and the staff all very personable and obviously have a great love of cinema. Anyone who claims to love movies should go out and support these small theaters.

The Internet Archive is a tremendous source for all things free. They have an extensive music library of copyright free songs and concert bootlegs and a large database of free movies. The only downside to this site is that the movies are either incredibly old or incredibly bad or both. Look hard enough and you can find some gems such as Night of the Living Dead. Most videos also come in a wide variety of formats to download in.

This is a more shady method of movie watching and it’s difficult to find a particular movie without randomly stumbling across it. Google video allows for movies to be uploaded in their entirety but YouTube is confined to 15 minute chunks so it makes watching spotty at best. It’s also usually not great quality and sometimes downright awful but there are a few gems out there if you look hard enough. It’s also generally a good source for films who’s copyright has expired. A friend of mine tells me that someone has uploaded Twilight onto YouTube so if you want to get your angsty teen vampire out of your system, go for it.

Now I’m not about to condone piracy and I certainly do not condone downloading movies illegally but in the name of completeness I’m going to list this option as well. Though I will say that in general I agree with this guy.

So there you have it. Happy watching.

Were there any movie sources that I missed? How do you watch your movies?

I’m no stranger to Asian gore flicks. I’ve seen a few (Riki-Oh, The Machine Girl) and I’ve also seen Peter Jackson’s early work so I came into this thinking I’d already seen it all when it comes to gore.

Oh how wrong I was. There is literally nothing that can prepare you for this two-hour, visual onslaught on your gag reflex. Within the first five minutes a head is exploded, there’s cannibalism, a woman slashing her wrist to ribbons, the screen is soaked with blood, an arm is dismembered and there’s pressure hose bleeding. At that point I thought, “Okay. This is what the rest of the movie is going to be like.”

Wrong!

30 seconds later, a man regrows his severed arm into a fleshy chainsaw and another guy is then decapitated by it. Even this did not adequately prepare me for what I was watching.

Among the other events that happen on screen is a guy has gun barrels for eyes, a girl squirts acid from her breasts, a woman is ripped into four quarters by cars, a man’s face is cut off in a perfect circle by a broken bottle, a gun shoots dismembered fists, a man is impaled by four of these flying fists giving the finger, a man’s amputated leg stumps become blood jets that propel him around a room, a quadruple amputee walks around on her elbow and knee joints in an S&M costume and later attaches swords to these limbs and even later, machine guns.

And then there’s a scene about an hour into the movie that is so… I’m not really sure how to adequately describe it. Picture a collaborative project between David Cronenberg, Paul Verhoeven and Adrian Lyne (Jacob’s Ladder) and then you’ll get just an inkling of an idea of what this scene is like. I’m still not sure if what I was watching was really happening.

If you’re a fan of over-the-top, Asian gore cinema, this is made (with love and gallons of blood) especially for you. It is no exageration to say that this is the strangest and goriest film I’ve ever seen. So thank you Tokyo Gore Police for opening my eyes to the heights of Asian gore cinema. Now let’s see the sequel top this.

That ain’t kool-aid coming out of his arms

After last week’s explosion of movies, this week was a lot lighter. I imagine next week will be as well since Netflix just added a ton of Discovery Channel shows to Watch Instantly. Any free time I might have had will now be occupied by an endless stream of Mythbusters, Extreme Engineering, Survivorman, Future Weapons and Deadliest Catch. God, I love Netflix.

Atonement
Rating: Worthy

When new movies come out, I strive to know as little about them as possible so that I can watch them with a blank slate. Sometimes this works and oftentimes not. With Atonement, all I knew was that it won an oscar or two, it looked like a sweeping romance movie and there was supposedly a twist. All of this is true but I wasn’t expecting such a devastating story to go along with it. For being over two hours long, it moved swiftly so that I never got bored and for a romance movie, that’s quite a feat. The last 1o minutes felt rather rushed and almost detached from the rest of the movie.

This movie definitely fits the descriptor of “sweeping” and is well worth a watch. Guys, watch this one with your woman, you can show her your sensitive side and still enjoy the movie. Win-win.

Sukiyaki Western Django
Rating: Worthy

Sometimes the Worthy/Unworthy rating system can give me a lot of grief. There are just some movies that I know aren’t that good but still got some enjoyment out of. Such is the case with Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django. This is a bizarre western set in Japan and the story borrows heavily from Akira Kurasawa’s Yojimbo and Sergio Corbucci’s Django and other spaghetti westerns. It’s a fun, but ultimately shallow movie. I never cared about the characters involved and there wasn’t much going on storywise.

In an odd move, Miike has all his actors speak English which some do well but others… well I ended up wishing it had subtitles. The movie is fun and stylish to look at and most of the actors seemed to be having fun playing their over the top characters. This isn’t a particularily deep movie but I think that was Miike’s intent. Have fun paying homage to the Spaghetti westerns of old.

What did you think of this week’s movies?

So I renewed my Netflix subscription this week and went kind of crazy with the “watch instantly” feature. There’s 11 movies this week and 7 of them were from this magical Netflix feature. A good mix of docs, drama, animation and horror this week.

Mad Hot Ballroom
Rating: Worthy

After this documentary was over I wanted to go learn how to dance. I didn’t end up doing that but I wanted to. A large amount of this doc’s charm and heart comes from letting the children talk for themselves without much adult intervention apart from their dance teachers and a few parents. It’s a rare documentary that makes you want to cheer at the end but this is exactly that kind of doc.

The Birth of a Nation
Rating: Worthy

Yeah, it’s obviously racist but it’s also a pretty epic story that anyone interested in film history or in epics should give a watch. Just make sure you watch it during the daytime or you may fall asleep before it’s halfway done.

Fall from Grace
Rating: Unworthy

A documentary about Westboro Baptist Church. It doesn’t really say anything new about them or dig that deeply into the family. I at least appreciated that the doc was clear in pointing out that this particular church did not represent the Christian mindset.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Rating: Unworthy

This sequel, like most sequels, kinda sucks. The elements of imagination and terror are severely lacking from Freddy’s second outing. This coupled with a few laughable scenes that are supposed to be scary really kill this movie’s chances. There’s almost nothing more stupid than a family being terrorized by a parakeet for a few minutes before it spontaneously explodes. Hitchcock has already got the market cornered on bird terror.

Spaceballs
Rating: Worthy

I can’t believe I waited so long to see Mel Brooks’ spoof of Star Wars. This is the kind of movie that those “movie movie” guys only wish they could make. There are a few misses but the amount of comedic hits and laugh out loud moments more than make up for them.

Revolver
Rating: Worthy

If you go into this movie expecting Lock, Stock or Snatch, you’ll be severely disappointed. If you go in expecting a philosophically minded gangster film, then you’re on the right track. It’s one of those movies that you might not understand on first viewing and if a film gets me to think about it and question it for longer than 5 minutes, then it’s worth watching in my book. You might not agree with the Ritchie’s philosophy but at least he’s doing something different and challenging. Props to him.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Rating: Unworthy

This movie was a lot sillier than I was expecting. Unfortunately for the makers of this film, silly does not always make funny. There were certainly some funny moments but unlike Spaceballs, the misses outweigh the hits. I usually like Reilly but those have mostly been his more dramatic roles.

Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera
Rating: Unworthy

As the title divulges, this is a doc about the existence or non-existence of snuff films. It appears that the director took the lazy route and didn’t really research his topic at all. The talking heads consist of two video store owners, a guy who had something to do with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a retired policewoman and an anonymous “cinephile”. Not exactly the people I would go to for insight into this sordid topic. Apart from this, the documentary is utterly boring and devoid of life. It kind of just limps around the topic but never goes anywhere or offers any real compelling information or insights.

Coraline
Rating: Worthy

From criminally under appreciated director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach comes his magnum opus of claymation, Coraline. There were times on occasion during the movie when I would suddenly remember that I was watching a claymation movie. After being assulted by computer animated movies these last several years, it is a breath of fresh air to see something so fantastical coming from something physical. There were obviously some moments where they used computer tech but it blended in so well that I never noticed. Speaking of blending in, the 3D effect in this film were perfect. It was never gimicky or drew attention to itself but only helped to enhance the experience and to put you further into the movie. Like visual effects, I think that the best 3D effects are the ones you don’t notice.

Lars and the Real Girl
Rating: Worthy

There’s so many ways that this film could have turned out bad. There are obvious jokes to be made from a situation like this and in different hands, I’m sure that this is what would have happened. Fortunately, it happened to be these folks. Rather than looking down on or making fun of the protagonist, we feel sympathy for him. The movie never stoops to the expected raunchy material and instead infuses the film with a caring and compassionate heart. It uses the situation not for laughs but as a way to examine human relationships and how we ought to care for each other. I loved it both for what it was and for what it refused to be: a cheap joke.

Meet the Robinsons
Rating: Unworthy

Disney’s answer to Pixar. In this case, they should have just stayed silent. The film was way too random and silly for my tastes and that’s saying quite a bit. The humor and style just never really gelled with me. Their use of time travel also struck me as being silly but then I was raised on the Back to the Future theory of time travel. I do have some problems with the way BTTF uses it but for the most part I think it’s a good theory. There were also some elements of the story that I thought were outright cheats. All that said, there were elements I liked and they all involved The Bowler Hat Guy. I loved his character a lot and his animation. That was about it though. I’d almost recommend the movie for him alone but he just wasn’t in it enough.

What did you think of this week’s movies?

Nanook of the North
Rating: Worthy

One of the first documentaries ever made, it still manages to be interesting despite having no sound apart from the accompanying music. If you can’t stand not hearing people speak in movies, then this ain’t for you. Anyone who’s interested in seeing how Eskimos survive the wilds of the North, look no further.

The Kite Runner
Rating: Worthy

For the most part, an emotionally involving story with some surprising story developments. It ultimately is kind of a downer but it’s nice to have a story from another viewpoint.

Voyage to the Moon
Rating: Worthy

Amazingly innovative with amazing visual effects for the 1920s. Some of the things they do here put anything I could do to shame. I dare you to not be impressed by this silent short.

The Great Train Robbery
Rating: Worthy

Along with Voyage to the Moon this is one of the first narrative films to come from early cinematic history. If you have any interest in film at all, this is not to be missed. Of course, it’s mostly cheesy but there are some moments that will knock your socks off.

Transporter 3
Rating: Unworthy

Ok. I know that action movies are supposed to be exciting and push the limits of awesome action sequences but when did we start letting them be so silly? I’m not expecting complete realism here but would it be too much to ask for the filmmakers to at least follow the laws of physics? There’s nothing here that you couldn’t see done better in superior action films.

My Bloody Valentine 3D
Rating: Unworthy

The only thing this movie really has going for it is the 3-D. Without the added dimension, it would just be another half-descent horror remake. There’s nothing noteworthy about this horror flick. It follows all the conventions without any innovation and has the obligatory horror movie twist ending which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It also has one of the lamest excuses for having a woman run around naked that I’ve seen in a long time.

What do you think of this week’s movies? Worthy or unworthy?

DeliveranceRating: WorthyThat’s it. I’m never going out into the woods again. Screw nature. This movie does for rural forest what Jaws did for beaches and what Psycho before it did for showers. At least that’s how it was for me. There’s just too many animals that can eat you, bugs that suck your blood, weather that will either give you heatstroke or freeze your digits off, and now hillbillies that will anally rape you. So thank you, Deliverance, for giving me just one more reason to stay inside, remain pasty white and get fat off hamburgers and ramen. Oh yeah. If you do have to go into the woods, make sure you bring Burt Reynolds along with you.The Third ManRating: WorthyI’m beginning to think that Orson Welles had a clause in every one of his contracts saying that he must be given the best character introduction in the movie in which he was appearing. While Orson Welles is not the main character, and really doesn’t have that much screen time, he is certainly the most memorable part of the movie. His commanding persona steals every scene he’s in (what precious few there are). The use of tilted horizon on what felt like nearly every shot was a bit distracting but noir enthusiasts will have much to like in this great mystery story.

So this is the second week in a row that my roundup has been late. I think it’s the long weekends that I’ve had lately that have been throwing me off. Next week will be on time as scheduled even if I’m dead. That’s just how dedicated I am.

Hamlet 2
Rating: Unworthy

This was a weird viewing experience. Me and my roommate watched it together and more than several times we looked at each other with a look that said, “Am I supposed to be laughing at this?” I knew that there were funnies happening on screen but the laughter just wasn’t coming. In a way, it reminded me quite a bit of the first time I watched Napoleon Dynamite. I didn’t like it at all. The quirky humor didn’t latch onto my funny bone right away and it wasn’t until the second viewing that I was able to laugh at it. I don’t know if that’s the case with this quirky movie but somehow I doubt it. I got a few mild chuckles out of this but a few chuckles are not worth sitting through this.

The Pacifier
Rating: Unworthy

I didn’t expect much from this Disney flick and that’s exactly what I got. Really, what else can you expect from Disney these days? This is nothing more than the usual this and that. It goes through all the motions that we’ve seen a couple dozen times before. Nothing to see here people, move along. On a related note, I really, really, really don’t understand why kids in these kind of movies are always such jackasses to whatever authority figure is in their lives. It’s always like, “SHUT UP! YOU’RE NOT MY DAD! WAH!” or “YOU SUCK! STAY OUT OF MY LIFE!” or “YOU’RE RUINING MY LIFE!” It seems like every single movie that deals with kids has to have one or more of these lines in it at some point. For reals you dumb kids, just shut up already.You’re ruining my life!

 There Will Be Blood
Rating: Worthy

Let me get a few things out of the way here. First of all, this is a stunning technical achievement. The directing, cinematography and music are all fantastic. The acting is superb, blah blah blah. I think Paul Dano is vastly overlooked being in Daniel Day Lewis’ shadow but I found both of their performances to be amazing. Bottom line, this is a fantastically made movie.

All that said, I didn’t really like the movie that much. In the end, nobody grew, nobody changed, nothing really happened to any of these characters. Daniel Plainview is a greedy bastard at the beginning of the movie and at the end, he’s still a greedy bastard. Eli Sunday is a egotistical faith healer at the beginning of the movie and at the end, he’s still an egotistical faith healer. The only thing that changes is Plainview gets richer. Nobody is sympathetic or even likeable. There’s no reason to care about what happens to anybody. Now despite these words of critique I still think that this is a must see movie for its artistic prowess. I only wish the story had been more interesting or payed off somehow.

Bullitt
Rating: Worthy

What makes nearly every 60s action movie so cool? Pretty much everything that Bullitt has. A cool and smoothly dressed detective, sweet cars, high speed chases in sweet cars, bullets, blood, intrigue, hot ladies, and did I mention high speed car chases? In sweet cars? Yep, this detective thriller has everything you’d ever want. Honestly, what else do you need?

Bloodrayne
Rating: Unworthy

After two good vampire movies last week, it was inevitable that I would see a bad one. This also has the distinction of being my first Uwe Boll movie. As a connoisseur of bad movies, this has been a long time coming. Not that I’ve been consciously avoiding his movies, just never gotten around to one.

I never knew that anyone could make such bad fight choreography but now I know that it is entirely possible to completely bore your audience during an action sequence. How on earth did they convince Michael Madsen to be in this? Then again, he was recently seen in the not-quite-as-bad-but-still-pretty-bad movie, House. Has he too gone the way of Sam Jackson and will appear in any movie you stick under his nose? In any case, his appearance is the least confounding aspect of this film. About halfway through the movie there is a sex scene that literally occurs without story or character context. It just happens without any kind of pretext and the only reason this scene is there is so that the two characters can somehow feel “connected” and make the audience sad when one of them dies. Before this sex scene, they’d maybe said two or three sentences to each other. Why bother with character development when they can just have sex? That gets people involved in the characters right?

NO!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Rating: Worthy

David Fincher is another one of my directors and Benjamin Button is a departure from his usual work which is rather kinetic and stylish. One could almost see his previous feature Zodiac as being a stepping stone toward this film. This is not to downplay Zodiac because I love it dearly but both of these movies are rather slow and have long running times. Normally this would entail the movie would be boring but somehow he manages to keep it interesting. Despite the fact that Benjamin Button is 20 minutes shy of 3 hours in length, I never felt the length.

The cinematography is absolutely stunning and special effects are fantastic. Brad Pitt gives one of his most subdued performances to the point where I never really thought about him as being Brad Pitt. The makeup they put on him is incredible. Each stage of his life looks completely believable and it’s amazing how young they were able to make him look toward the end. It was almost like having pretty boy Brad back before I respected him as an actual actor.

The Wrestler
Rating: Worthy

A David Fincher movie and a Darren Aronofsky movie in the same week? It doesn’t get much better than that. Aronofsky’s previous film, The Fountain is one of my favorite movies ever and The Wrestler is another great film to add to his resume. This is not a happy film but like any great movie, it’s sparked some great debate among friends. All of the performances in this feel so authentic that you’d swear Mickey Rourke was an actual wrestler surrounded by other actual people. On all technical levels, it is just as stunning as Rourke’s performance.

Beyond that, any movie that can make me respect professional wrestling is doing its job.

Ahh, 2008. You gave us some great movies this year. You managed to get me out to the theater more often this year than any other. In all, I saw 32 movies released this year with 22 being at the theater. With average ticket prices being 10 bucks, that’s around 300 dollars I’ve shelled out to my local cineplex. You’re welcome movie industry. There’s been so many great movies that I’m actually excited to see the Academy Awards this year. I’ve got a few choices that I’ll really be pushing for but with such great choices all around, it’ll be hard to be disappointed. So here they are in ascending order: my 10 best movies of 2008.

10. Cloverfield

I think a lot of people have forgotten all about this one. Not surprising since it came out in January but what a way to kick off the year. I still remember the insane amount of hype and irritating level of secrecy that led up to its release. I must give a standing ovation to whoever was in charge of marketing this thing because he/she/they are a genious. From that first image of a decapitated Lady Liberty to the first trailer without an actual title it all just made me want to see it more and more. It seemed impossible that it would be able to live up to expectations but this movie not only met those expectations, it surpassed them. If any movie deserved the descriptor of being a rollercoaster ride, it is Cloverfield. This movie also holds the 2008 record for most times I saw a movie in the theater at 3.

9. City of Ember

I know very few people who have seen this and I only hope that it becomes a hit on DVD because it really is a fun little children’s film. I saw this at a local dollar theater one day when I was bored and had a few hours to kill. Nothing else there sounded appealing and I remembered hearing that Bill Murray was in this so I decided to give it a shot. In the theater was just me, a homeless looking guy and two young women. I propped my feet up and pretty soon, I was swept up in this fantastic adventure tale. The production designer deserves some major kudos for this. The story is a rather simple one but I was so captivated by it that I didn’t care. And honestly, sometimes you just need a break from heavy material and this is just the movie to see if you’re looking for a fun, adventure movie. I walked out of the theater an hour and a half later feeling like a kid again.

8. The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. The Fountain is one of my favorite movies ever and The Wrestler is yet another fantastic movie on his resume. It’s been said many times before but Mickey Rourke truly does give the best performance of the year. Seriously, if he doesn’t get the Oscar, the academy is off their rocker.

7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Fincher is another one of my directors and Benjamin Button is a departure from his usual work which is rather kinetic and stylish. One could almost see his previous feature Zodiac as being a stepping stone toward this film. This is not to downplay Zodiac because I love it dearly but both of these movies are rather slow and have long running times. Normally this would entail the movie would be boring but somehow he manages to keep it interesting. Despite the fact that Benjamin Button is 20 minutes shy of 3 hours in length, I never felt the length. The cinematography is absolutely stunning and special effects are fantastic. I never thought I’d be able to say it but I actually respect Brad Pitt as an actor. He’s a keeper.

6. The Fall

The Fall is one of the most visually dynamic films I’ve ever seen. The amount of imagination on display is, at times, jaw dropping. There are things in this movie that you have never seen and will probably never see again. It is a fascinating story to watch unfold as you learn more and more about this stuntman and the demons he is battling within himself and how it correlates with the story he tells to the little girl he befriends. I don’t want to give too much away here but the ending is truly a thing of beauty and incredibly moving.

5. Burn After Reading

I’ve always been more of a fan of the Coen brothers’ comedies than their serious material although I think they do both spectacularly. Burn After Reading is just absurd comedy that only gets better the more absurd it gets. Every actor in this movie is completely ridiculous and obviously having a great time. Old Coen film standby George Clooney and newtimer to the Coen world Brad Pitt are delightful to watch and side-splittingly funny. Their first meeting (you know the one I’m talking about) had me rolling for minutes afterward. This year we got to see Brad Pitt at his goofiest in this movie and at his most subdued in Benjamin Button and he’s just fantastic in both of them.

4. Slumdog Millionaire

As I said in my previous review, this movie is bursting at the seams with life, energy and optimism. Not an easy thing for a movie that also features brutality and heartbreaking sadness. It’s a story about rising up out of the dirt and grime and being alive. What really got me was the love story and the never tiring search for one’s true love.

3. The Dark Knight

Honestly, what can I say about this that hasn’t already been said a billion times before? Heath Ledger’s performance alone is enough to give this movie a high ranking but it also benefits from deep subject matter and great direction. There is simply no way that any superhero movie will be able to topple this film. Seeing this in IMAX was one of the best theater going experiences of my life.

2. In Bruges

This movie caught me completely off guard. Me and a friend were hanging out in Downtown Brea and decided we wanted to see a movie. It was still pretty early in the year so there weren’t a whole lot of standout movies yet. My friend suggested we see In Bruges because he’d heard some good things about it. First of all, I was bowled over by the fact that I actually liked Colin Farrell. Secondly, I was impressed by the both hilarious and emotionally engrossing script. I’m very glad I hadn’t seen the trailer beforehand because it makes this movie look like a rollicking madcap shoot-em-up. It’s much better and deeper than that. The dialogue is fast, fun and witty.

1. WALL-E

Who woulda thunk it? The movie that tugged my heart strings the hardest, that made me fall in love with the characters the most, that brought tears to my eyes, is a movie about two robots in love. The space dancing scene was simply the most beautiful moment of any film that I’ve seen this year and I never wanted that moment to end. WALL-E is my favorite Pixar film right before Finding Nemo. Coincidentally, both are by the same director, Andrew Stanton. This post is taking forever to write because every time I think about the movie, I start remembering different scenes and remembering just how in love I am with this movie. I just can’t convey how in love with this movie I am.