Top 250 Grossing Films of the Year

Unlike the Top 25, I'm NOT going to comment on every single one, but I just thought the list was pretty interesting. I noticed a lot of the critically acclaimed movies, the ones up for awards this season didn't get so much cash. That's to be expected - no one watches Mad Men, and no one is paying $12 (that's the going rate for movies in NYC) for art house movies. Part of it is obviously the number of theaters these movies are released in, and I'm glad that people had the good sense to (for the most part) skip How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and Sex Drive. The first because ever since I started reading WWTD, I can't stand Kirsten Dunst and her silly snaggle-tooth, and the second because it was destined to be a bad movie - despite the presence of Clark Duke.

Either way, this was a long-winded way of giving you a link from Variety. word.

All My Posts Are About Remakes. Read This One.

I was just watching The Golden Globes - I still have no idea why I'm wasting my time watching this when I can just look up the results later, but I am - and Drew Barrymore / Jessica Lange presented an award as a mini-ad for their upcoming film, Grey Gardens. Now, first off I hope they were in character for their presentation because they both looked like sh**, especially Drew's hair... I digress. More importantly, when I heard "grey gardens" I remembered the documentary of the same title and thought: "no, no they wouldn't butcher the awesomeness of that movie and try to re-make it with Drew Barrymore of 50 First Dates and Fever Pitch." ..... But they did.

If you don't know what Grey Gardens (1975) is, you have to find out. I will tell you.

It is essentially a camera crew following around the aunt and first cousin of Jackie O (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). This phenomenal mother-daughter duo (both named Edie) live in a decaying Hamptons mansion, in the same room of a huge estate they share with raccoons, cats, and whatever other wild creatures seem to wander in. They have both been completely isolated from the world and become entirely delusional. During the filming, the daughter falls in love with one of the filmmakers and it's just delightfully hilarious and disturbing how far down the rabbit hole these ladies have crawled. The whole movie you're asking yourself: "wait, seriously? This is a documentary?!" But it is. And it is really worth watching.

Drew Barrymore, I don't particularly like you. Except for E.T. ..... and Never Been Kissed, but I don't normally tell people that second one.

The Last House on the Left.... again.

Since I mentioned The Last House on the Left in my last post, and I found out they're releasing a remake with the chick from Aquamarine, Lizzie from Superbad and Joaquin Phoenix's sister's kid in Gladiator (I dunno why I chose those roles to mention), I thought I'd write about how not happy I am about it. The remake looks eh, but more importantly it's lost the message of the original. The trailer essentially gives away the entire movie, so I'm not likely to see it - but if I did decide to watch it, I'm pretty sure I'd see a crappy movie.

Movies You Probably Didn't See That I Think You Should, 2008 Edition.

As promised, here are some of the less financially successful movies of 2008 that I think you should check out. Some of them will be earning awards this season, some won’t, but I liked them all.

In Bruges elicits one of my favorite Brendan Gleeson performances ever, and a really fun Colin Farrell performance as well. It’s a funny, Murphy’s Law non-action action movie penned quite well from Martin McDonagh and it deserves more attention from a wider audience. Think a subtler Guy Ritchie film.

Funny Games is a shot-by-shot re-make of a 1997 Austrian film of the same title, with the same writer / director Michael Haneke. This movie evokes the type of horror found in The Last House on the Left. It is one of the creepiest, most well-done horror movies I have ever seen and the performances from Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet as the polite serial killers are phenomenal. See it.

Superhero Movie is a pretty low-brow release but I only mention it, because unlike Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, or Disaster Movie, this film was not the brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, and it’s slightly better.

The Visitor is a really heart-wrenching film that takes a unique approach to issues of immigration. It’s one of my shorter reviews, but this is in my Top 5 of 2008.

Anamorph wasn’t one of my favorite movies of 2008, but it was a really interesting release. You gotta love Willem Dafoe playing a detective, at least if you’ve seen The Boondock Saints (p.s. WHY are they making a sequel). The concept of anamorphism is really cool and you’ll find yourself wanting to press pause to reexamine many of the shots.

Son of Rambow is a really great action / kids comedy for adults about two boys who decide to make their own film as if one of them is the son of Rambo (I think they added the “w” for copyright purposes). It’s got such a great spirit that I found myself smiling the whole way through (except for the serious parts).

The Fall comes from director Tarsem Singth of The Cell fame. It’s more of the same super interesting images juxtaposed on a mediocre plot. I just loved the visuals and it was worth the iffy story to check it out.

The Wackness is the first real adult role for Josh Peck, and he shines. The film also features a strong performance by Oliva Thirlby of best-friend-to-Juno fame. It’s the summer of 1994 and Josh Peck is dealing with growing up, women, and therapy… it’s better than it sounds and has a killer hip-hop soundtrack.
American Teen doesn’t feel like a documentary because many of the shots are too perfectly planned – but it is the real stories of teenagers in high school while still having a She’s All That quality to the thing. It was likable.

Religulous: Already recommended it. See my earlier post.

Repo! The Genetic Opera has a 30% on rottentomatoes so this movie is clearly not for everyone. I liked it despite its flaws, and if you’re into Rocky Horror you’ll either think this dark musical is fantastic, or a failure.

Milk is a beautifully directed, beautifully acted biopic about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician, and his untimely end. There were great performances from James Franco and Sean Penn, a really brilliant film.

The Wrestler was a really good effort by Darren Aronofsky and featured a really memorable performance from Mickey Rourke. The guy is a bad-ass who’s still got it, (have you seen Spun or Sin City? come on!) and The Wrestler is a great reflection of his abilities as an actor. I wouldn’t give him too much credit though, because I’m pretty sure the role wasn’t too much of a stretch emotionally. Only one real complaint: the final shot of the movie. Dumb. Overall… definitely worth seeing.

Some movies I have yet to see that are at the top of my list: Waltz with Bashir, Wendy and Lucy, Good, City of Men, Man on Wire, The Class.

There were a lot of other more commercial movies that I'm pretty sure you don't need me to recommend (Pineapple Express, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Blindness, Burn After Reading, and a personal favorite cute-teen movie: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist)

2008: It's Called a Recession, so what were we thinking?

The top 25 grossing films of 2008 were released in list form on IMDB today, and in case you don't care to click on the link, here's the list... and my reactions.

25. You Don't Mess With the Zohan: Didn't see it. Heard it was not funny. I'm not surprised. Adam Sandler was a comedian of the 90s the way Kevin Smith was a director of the 90s. 'Nuff Said.

24. Stepbrothers: had 3 moments where I chuckled, I'm so glad I watched this online.

23. Eagle Eye: I love Michelle Monaghan because she was awesome in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but you add Shia LaBeouf to any movie and I picture him back in the Even Stevens days on the Disney Channel and cry to myself because we're the same age and he has way more money than I do. Why did you go see this movie? You knew it was bad but you went anyway.

22. Journey to the Center of the Earth: I actually loved this movie. It was stupid, unbelievable and yet predictable at the same time, but if you just go along for the ride it was really entertaining because it didn't take itself seriously. Plus I'll pretty much watch anything with Josh Hutcherson (no, I'm not being a pedophile), I just loved Little Manhattan and he's still got some afterglow from that movie working in his favor. Also RV was surprisingly funny.

21. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: I'll forgive Brendan Fraser for Journey to the Center of the Earth because I personally liked it, but come on! Rachel Weisz got out of the franchise, and Snoop Dogg was in the sequel. There's nowhere to go but down and you know it.

20. Bolt: I personally thought it was boring, and the only redeemable character was Rhino the Hamster. I understand why it's in the Top 25, and it should be, but it's no The Incredibles.

19. Tropic Thunder: This movie deserves to be in the Top 10, if not in the Top 5. Ben Stiller is a great director, (but I think he was by far the weakest actor in the movie). The movie was the perfect blend of great action, situation comedy, and overall a fantastic dissection of the nature of Hollywood as an industry.

18. Four Christmases: I didn't see it, but I didn't need to to know that it would be terrible. Reese Witherspoon is a decent comedic actress, and the schtick that Vince Vaughn pulls in every single one of his movies always works at least to some degree, but couldn't you tell that the plot would be four vignettes with equally outlandish family members full of gross out humor? Or did you actually want to see that?

17. Juno: I think we gave Diablo Cody the Oscar (last year, which is why it's weird that Juno grossed so much in 2008) because she was all indie and made little Ellen Page say the darndest things. I thought this movie was a "smart" comedy for dumb people. More importantly, it was pretty atrocious the way it treated teen pregnancy.

16. Get Smart: When I finished watching this movie, the only thing I could think was that the projector had skipped lines of dialogue throughout the film. It was poorly edited- the jokes seemed edited for TV and I always thought Maxwell Smart was supposed to be an idiot. Steve Carell's version seemed ultimately quite capable. Didn't like it.

15. Wanted: Badass action, stupid plot. Reminds me of the Angelina Jolie from Gone in 60 Seconds: flat. Also, she would never have sex with James McAvoy, and I thought his casting was an awkward choice.

14. The Incredible Hulk: Didn't see it. Saw enough with The Hulk and while I heard this one was significantly better, I never thought the Hulk was a particularly good hero to put on screen, especially using CGI.

13. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: I fell asleep during this movie. From what I did see (about 3/4ish) it was definitely better than the first one, but there's a reason Disney dropped the franchise.

12. Mamma Mia!: My God. Make it stop. I saw this movie in a 99 cent theater, and it wasn't even worth that. It's a musical filled with actors who can't dance or sing! Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard can't sing or dance. This movie was so awkward to watch that I couldn't even laugh at it. It was THAT bad. The one standout performance by Amanda Seyfried was nice, but even that was ruined by me picturing her as Karen in Mean Girls telling me her boobs could predict if it was raining.

11. Sex and the City: I loved the series, though surpisingly I was never fond of any of the characters. I never understood that. Anyway... this movie was dreadful. I understand why it made the Top 25 and it deserves to make this list, but what a poorly edited, painful-to-watch story. Better than Mamma Mia! but still boring, predictable, and stupid.

10. Horton Hears a Who: Didn't see it. I'm surprised such a short story could fill up a full-length movie, but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button went from a short story to a 3-hour epic... I guess anything's possible.

9. Quantum of Solace: Marc Forster is one of my favorite directors, but this is a mediocre movie. I'm also not a big fan of Paul Haggis, (mostly because Crash is a self-important movie about race that says nothing revelationary or meaningful about race), but the story itself is pretty eh. I'm not a fan.

8. Twilight: Gosh Edward Cullen is just the dreamiest! Whatever. I saw it, it was a teenage vampire Harlequinn Romance movie. Might as well just put Fabio in the thing. If you want to see a cool vampire flick, watch Let The Right One In.

7. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: Didn't see it. I heard it was actually pretty funny. I liked the first one well enough. David Schimmer plays a hypocondriac giraffe to perfection.

6. Kung Fu Panda: Didn't see it. Thought it would be awful. It got good reviews. I guess I was wrong.

5. Wall-E: It was really cute. Shoe-in to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film.

4. Hancock: I really liked this movie. For the first 5 minutes all I could think was: why does the black superhero have to be the alcoholic, but once I got over that it was pretty great. I thought the Charlize Theron / Will Smith relationship was really weird and I would have been satisfied watching more of a character driven story about Hancock's identity issues and foregone the big finale, but whatever, I liked it a lot.

3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: I would like to defer to a review of this film in the form of the episode of South Park entitled "The China Problem."

2. Iron Man: Hilarious. Robert Downey Jr. delivers. He's really good. Except in the movie Johnny Be Good. There he was bad.

1. The Dark Knight: We all know this was a fantastic movie.



So.... those are my opinions about the Top 25 at the Box Office last year. I know this isn't a reflection of the best films of 2008, but it's kind of disappointing that it doesn't reflect a higher calibur of filmmaking. My next post, FYI will be a list of some films from 2008 that didn't make this particular list that are well worth checking out.

Book to Movie

I really want to see Tim Burton take a stab at Franz Kafka's short stories. "In the Penal Colony" is my personal favorite, but there are so many great little tales that I could see Burton transforming into something really special. If he used the dark visual images of Sweeney Todd with some of the animation from The Corpse Bride (for the cockroach in "The Metamorphosis"), it would look awesome. I'm pretty positive there's a recurring role in there for Johnny Depp, so come on Tim, do it for me.

Book to Movie

"Death Be Not Proud" by John Gunther was one of those books I read as a teenager that really got to me. It's "Brian's Song" sans football meets The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (a splendid movie and book) from a parent's perspective. I'd love to see it done.