Best and Worst of 2008

Best Films of 2008 (all lists are in alphabetical order):
881 (Royston Tan)
Angel (Francois Ozon)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood)
Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
Recount (Jay Roach)
Reprise (Joachim Trier)
Smiley Face (Gregg Araki)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke)
Synecdoche New York (Charlie Kaufman)

Honorable Mentions: I Could Never Be Your Woman, Frost/Nixon, In Bruges, Ghost Town, the Last Winter, Mongol, Shotgun Stories. 

 
Worst:
27 Dresses (Anne Fletcher)
Appaloosa (Ed Harris)
Australia (Baz Luhrmann)
Bordertown (Gregory Nava) - Full post here.
Che (Steven Soderbergh)
Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
Frownland (Ronald Bronstein)
the Kingdom (Peter Berg) / War Inc. (Joshua Seftel) / Iron Man (Jon Favreau)
Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)
Savage Grace (Tom Kalin)

Best Documentaries list at Greencine.

Worst Documentaries:
Billy the Kid (Jennifer Venditti)
Crazy Love (Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens)
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Alex Gibney)
Heavy Metal in Baghdad (Suroosh Alvi, Eddy Moretti)
I Think We're Alone Now (Sean Donnelly)
Operation Filmmaker (Nina Davenport)
King of Kong (Seth Gordon)
Religulous (Larry Charles)
Sharkwater (Rob Stewart)

Discoveries in 2008:
John Brahm
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, 2007 (Rory Kennedy)
Sorcerer, 1977 (William Friedkin)
Watermelon Man, 1970 (Melvin Van Peebles)
What a Way to Go, 1964 (J. Lee Thompson)

Most Misunderstood:
Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh)
The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan)

Comments

[KXB]

I understood The Happening perfectly; windy tress as the "villians" and Marky Midget talking to PLASTIC plants! Oh yeah, King of Kong RULES, lame-o blogs don't!

[Erin Donovan]

King of Kong is a terribly made documentary about a subject of niche interest. That Seth Gordon spent this year making Four Christmases confirms my theory that "point a camera at a trainwreck" does not an auteur make.

Thanks for the salute, Andrew! Enjoy that John Brahm box set.

[Andrew James]

Oh yes, and while I have not seen it yet, I am very skeptical of your listing Steven Soderbergh's "Che" on your 'worst of' list. The man was not done a film yet which should be on any list that has the word "worst" on it.

Not to mention Del Toro's Oscar buzz. I'm becoming increasingly uncertain about my statement earlier about refined taste.

[Andrew James]

You have some really good choices here and it seems your taste in film is fairly refined. Nice to see "Happy-Go-Lucky" there as well as "Let the Right One In" and "Synecdoche." It's rare to see so many film titles I've never heard of. Very rare. Some of these (like 881 and Frownland), must be ultra-indie or didn't get much of a release? PS - Bordertown is '06 I think. I saw it on DVD a long time ago.

But there are some truly baffling choices in your negative lists. TDK certainly isn't on my top ten of the year, but WORST of the year? Really? Same goes for "Paranoid Park" and "Appaloosa." Again, I guess I can understand that they're not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but WORST movies of the year? If that's the worst you've seen, then I salute you.

And seeing King of Kong on your "worst of" list is beyond baffling. It's damn near blasphemous.

Otherwise, interesting read. I'll definitely check out your "discoveries" list more closely.