12 months at the movies

The year’s best—and worst—films,
as chosen by our critics

HIGH POINT: Man on Wire

by MALCOLM FRASER, MATTHEW HAYS,
MARK SLUTSKY and CHRISTOPHER SYKES

Mark Slutsky’s
Top 10

1. Man on Wire No movie this year was as purely enchanting and at times vertigo-inducing as James Marsh’s documentary recreation of renegade tightrope artist Philippe Petit’s illegal 1974 World Trade Center walk. Haunting, inspiring, hard to shake.
2. Rachel Getting Married A layered drama that made you feel like you were a silent participant in a tumultuous family wedding, Jonathan Demme’s film was at times both deeply sad and funny. He, and a cast that included Anne Hathaway, Debra Winger and a bunch of real-life musicians (Robyn Hitchcock, Sister Carol and others) created a remarkably intimate and familiar little world with this film.
3. Let the Right One In A perfectly rendered setting—a frosty, nighttime Swedish town in the early ’80s—is the backdrop to this unsettling story of a childlike vampire and her young new friend. It’s been described as a romance, but this film is something much darker.
4. Wall•E The first 45 minutes or so of Pixar’s latest animated feature is virtually wordless, and remarkably bleak for a family film, depicting a devastated Earth and its lone, lonely inhabitant, an ancient service robot. While the rest of the film is great, that extended sequence alone is some of the year’s best filmmaking, period.
5. My Winnipeg Guy Maddin’s “docu-fantasia” about memory, growing up and the strange city that shaped his psyche is a brilliant portrait of a semi-imaginary city, and one of the year’s funniest movies too.
6. Up the Yangtze A deeply touching and haunting document of change and displacement in modern China. Yung Chang’s portrayal of the Yangtze River’s rising waters are as complete a metaphor as seen in any film this year, documentary or fiction.
7. Slumdog Millionaire Another unexpected turn from the always surprising Danny Boyle, with this Dickensian story set in the slums of Mumbai and on the set of the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, of all things. A feel-good movie you can actually feel good about feeling good about.
8. The Dark Knight Seen on IMAX, this was above and beyond the cinematic spectacle of the year, thanks to Christopher Nolan’s light-on-the-CGI approach and Heath Ledger’s deeply creepy, childlike performance as The Joker.
9. Forgetting Sarah Marshall Judd Apatow mainstay Jason Segel finally got a star turn in this very funny break-up story, which he also wrote. Any film that ends with a Dracula puppet musical is to be cherished.
10.. The Wrestler The ruined face of Mickey Rourke and director Darren Aronofsky’s loving attention to detail elevates a pretty standard redemption story into something very special.

Honourable mentions: Cloverfield reinvented the monster movie from the ground up. Waltz With Bashir is a beautiful, painful piece of animated introspection. Step Brothers was surprisingly hilarious, especially after Will Ferrell’s other recent work. Doc American Teen took flack for its staginess, but was a great portrait of high school life. David Gordon Green’s low-key Snow Angels was unfairly slept-on. Swedish genius Roy Andersson finally returned with more bleak, hilarious brilliance in You, The Living. Mongol was an old-school epic, totally entertaining and sweeping. Son of Rambow revisited the ’80s, and childhood, with great creativity and humour. JCVD showed another side of the Muscles from Brussels. Iron Man brought wit (and unfortunately, tedious racial stereotyping) to the superhero game.

REMARKABLE ROBOTS: Wall•E

Bottom 5
The Happening M. Night Shyamalan’s bizarre, laughable scary-plants thriller yielded some of the year’s most unintentionally funny dialogue (“There appears to be an event occurring!”, “Something has been happening across various states!”) but was otherwise self-important garbage.
Jumper A fun idea for an action movie (dude can teleport) is instead a joyless and mean-spirited chore, with Hayden Christensen making the year’s least-likeable hero.
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? Morgan Spurlock’s half-assed attempt to find the al-Qaeda leader is a total, self-glorifying cop-out.
Semi-Pro Another sports comedy from Will Ferrell, only this time, without any jokes.
Postal Uwe Boll might be a hilarious, quotable German maniac but his movies are really quite terrible, especially this misguided satire.

LEAP OF LAME: Jumper

Matthew Hays’s
Top 10

1. Milk Names like Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Stone, Robin Williams and Bryan Singer were all involved with numerous efforts to bring the story of slain gay civil rights crusader Harvey Milk to the big screen. Gus Van Sant has done it, and scored. The screenplay is pretty much a by-the-books biopic, but the story is so compelling and Sean Penn’s lead performance so strong, Milk works beautifully. Obvious Oscar bait. See also the ’84 Oscar-winning doc that first told Milk’s story, The Times of Harvey Milk.
2. Happy-Go-Lucky Iconic British filmmaker Mike Leigh continues to surprise us with this uplifting tail of an optimistic woman living in contemporary London. Full of sharp performances and telling observations, Leigh manages to be light without being trite. Nicely done.
3. I.O.U.S.A. This is a sobering primer on how we ended up in the financial mess we’re in, focusing in particular on the American government’s alarmingly burgeoning debt. Depressing, but essential viewing.
4. The Memories of Angels A stunning ode to the classic period of the NFB, this film artfully re-imagines Montreal through a newly rendered montage of landmark NFB documentaries. A love letter to our city and to the Board on the eve of its 70th birthday.
5. Vicky Cristina Barcelona Another veteran director on this year’s list is Woody Allen. Here, he shows us just how good romantic comedies can be. Stellar performances and sharp dialogue accompany two young women as they head off to Spain for a vacation. Allen’s depictions of human interaction are so astute, if you watch this film, you just might recognize yourself in it.
6. Funny Games Michael Haneke remade his 1997 film, this time the way he’d originally envisioned it—in English, set in America. It’s all about the ways in which we consume onscreen violence, and it’s a devastating mindfuck of a movie.
7. Heaven on Earth Deepa Mehta takes us into the life of an arranged marriage, as one young woman arrives in Canada to find her husband full of abusive rage. Mehta’s most accomplished film then delves into the realm of magical realism, taking us into pleasingly uncharted waters.
8. Blindness The critics at Cannes just didn’t quite see the worth in this film, a beautifully shot look into a not-so-pleasant possible future. An international cast (Julianne Moore, Danny Glover, Don McKellar and Mark Ruffalo among them) feels its way through an epidemic that causes the infected to lose their sight. Alternately chilling, brutal and funny.
9. The Edge of Heaven Just when you thought the network narrative was dead, Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin breathes new life into it. A harrowing journey, that begins when an old man takes a Turkish prostitute in to live with him, is the launch point for this astonishing, epic emotional journey.
10. Be Like Others A truly disturbing documentary about how the government of Iran solves its issues with homosexuality. The state opts to pay for sex changes, effectively making any homosexual into a transsexual, and thus interested in members of the opposite sex. Pretty shocking stuff, told in a matter-of-fact verité style.

ROLLING ON THE RIVER: Up the Yangtze

Bottom 5

Penelope Christina Ricci has done so much for indie cinema we’ll have to forgive her for this misguided re-gendered take on Cyrano de Bergerac.
Deception A ludicrous story of a man who gets involved in a sleazy underground sex club. Truly tedious.
Funny Games You read right: this is on both my top-10 and bottom-five list. I cannot in good conscience recommend this deeply disturbing film to everyone. Any parents of small children should just avoid it. Haneke knows what the taboos are, lines them up, and then breaks every one of them.
Quantum of Solace When did Bond get so banal? Yes, he’s dark (we get it) but what happened to the fun that used to be such a vital part of the franchise? Alas, it may well be that the brand is simply broken. The enigmatic title may be the most intriguing thing about this entry—which just proves Bond is having an identity crisis, caught somewhere between Bourne and Batman.
Cloverfield Lots of jerky camera movements does not a scary movie make.

Malcolm Fraser’s
Top 10

1. Up the Yangtze Montreal’s own Yung Chang showed the world the human cost of China’s ascendancy in this poignant, original and gripping story, and inspired documentarians everywhere with his tireless DIY work ethic in getting the film out to the public.
2. Synecdoche, New York Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut is one of the most profound and intelligent films to come out in ages, and further evidence that he’s one of the most creative and original artists working in film today.
3. Standard Operating Procedure There have been a lot of films about the Iraq misadventure, but only one with the crafstmanship and artistry of Errol Morris. His documentary on the Abu Ghraib scandal is a chilling meditation on the infinite human capacity for delusion and self-justification. But it’s also pulled off with the suspense of a taut thriller, aided by amazing editing and narrative structure. Shake your “Iraq fatigue” and check it out, along with…
4. Heavy Metal in Baghdad Vice’s Suroosh Alvi evens out his karmic balance with this tragically slept-on documentary about the travails of an Iraqi heavy metal band, casting an unexpectedly humanist eye on a peculiar slice of Iraqi life and demolishing preconceived notions along the way.
5. Let the Right One In A Swedish teen vampire flick sounds like little more than a bizarre Fantasia novelty item, but director Tomas Alfredson’s austere aesthetic and gentle, thoughtful approach combine to create a visually stunning spectacle and a deeply emotionally engaging story.
6. The Dark Knight Haters be damned—Christopher Nolan’s Batman sequel is a near-perfect Hollywood action film with memorable set pieces, intense atmosphere and an amazing cast.
7. Sleepwalking This overlooked drama showed that Charlize Theron’s acting chops remain unparalleled, that subtle and understated films can still be made in the USA, and that Dennis Hopper can still terrify the hell out of an audience.
8. Rachel Getting Married Jonathan Demme’s drama is a powerful portrait of the ecstatic highs and dysfunctional lows of family life, with stellar performances from Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt.
9. Junior This Canadian documentary on junior hockey mixes a painter’s eye with a Mamet-like grasp of the epic absurdity of macho culture, and pulls off the bold move of taking place entirely off the ice.
10. My Winnipeg Guy Maddin’s poetic pseudo-documentary shows once again why he’s one of the few bright lights in English-Canadian cinema.

IRAQ ROCK: Heavy Metal in Baghdad

Honourable mentions: Quebec film had a strong year, with such original visions as Yves Christian Fournier’s Tout est parfait, Lynne Charlebois’s Borderline, Kim Nguyen’s Truffe and Denis Côté’s Elle veut le chaos. On the Hollywood side, the post-Apatow landscape yielded some underrated comic gems like the Bueller-esque Charlie Bartlett, Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (superior to the year’s “other” stoner comedy, Pineapple Express, and critics agree, enjoyable even when not high) and Role Models, which featured a brilliant performance by underappreciated comic dynamo Jane Lynch. And Jean-Claude Van Damme’s monologue in JCVD was an unforgettable moment, making the film well worth checking out for fans and non-fans alike.

Bottom 5

SOLID STATE: Synecdoche, New York

Christopher Sykes’s
Top 10

1. I Served the King of England Deliciously debauched and completely morally vacuous, this Czech masterpiece reminds me of a big plate of Fellini with Buñuel and Chaplin on the side. And that’s always a good thing.
2. My Winnipeg I grew up not too far from the ’peg, and let me tell you, Guy Maddin deserves fanfare just for making his Winnipeg look as sexy as it does. For those who appreciate a bit of surrealism with your celluloid, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Maddin is making a serious push to oust Cronenberg for the crown of Best Canadian Director.
3. Who Is KK Downey? The year’s funniest film came out of Mile-End and it pisses me off that almost nobody saw it. What does it take to get the ball rolling on this thing? Industry bible Variety gave it a big thumbs up—usually a pat on the back from the Yanks is all we need to realize the greatness of our own domestic talent. Not this time. Shame.
4. Standard Operating Procedure Documentarian Errol Morris never fails. This painful look into the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib should haunt Bush, Rumsfeld and co in their sleep, but, alas, they sleep on the best mattresses money can buy.
5. It’s Hard to Be Loved by Jerks Freedom of speech reigns in this doc about French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Taken to court by an Islamic organization for inciting hatred after printing a caricature of Muhammad, it’s a surprisingly funny look into the right to blasphemy in a secular society.
6. Hamlet 2 I’ll go to bat for Steve Coogan any day. He’s hilarious as try-hard drama teacher Dana Marschz. Unapologetically over the top, this film boasts the cinematic song of the year, “Rock Me Sexy Jesus,” and is a bazillion times better than High School Musical 3 (which, on second thought, should be amongst the worst of the year).
7. The Dark Knight Only two words are needed here: IMAX and Heath.
8. A Christmas Tale Incredibly dense tale many will shrug off as being “too French.” Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric shine.
9. Milk A great tribute to a great man. I was skeptical because of how strong the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk is, but again, Sean Penn proves his brilliance.
10. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired The legend of arguably the best living auteur only grows after this gripping doc that focuses attention on the shady judge presiding over the case. Still, he did drug and bang a 13-year-old.

Honorable mentions: Ex-Drummer would be near the top had it opened wider than just Fantasia. Ass-kicking comeback of the year is shared between the Muscles From Brussels in JCVD and Mickey “One for the Road” Rourke in The Wrestler. Let The Right One In is more than just a vampire flick. Man on Wire will literally take your breath away. Happiest performance goes to Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh’s wonderful Happy-Go-Lucky.

JOKER’S WILD: The Dark Knight

Bottom 5

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas It pains me to think this impossibly naïve and trite Disneyfication of the Holocaust could be used by any adult in a position of authority (teachers especially) as a learning tool for future generations. The overhead fade-out at the end is the cherry on the poop sundae.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars As if the prequel-ogy wasn’t bad enough. Do you ever wonder if an enraged group of Star Purists are going to rise up in collective rebellion against the very father of the franchise, Darth Lucas? After sitting through this cash grab, I think it’s not an if they do, but a when.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Third installment in the franchise is so bad, they brought in domesticated yeti just to try and spice things up. Noteworthy for the worst casting of the year with Maria Bello taking over the role of Evelyn from Rachel Weisz.
The Happening M. Night Shyamalan sinks to a new low. After Lady in the Water, The Village and Signs, that’s saying a whole lot. Mark Wahlberg is just wretched as the lead.
The Love Guru No “Bottom 5” is complete without it. Escapist comedies are my guilty pleasure, but Mikey Myers forgot the funny in this self-righteous mistake.

SELF-IMPORTANT SILLINESS: The Happening