Best films of 2008

[mollyringle]

Huzzah! Verily, I did find ten movies I could recommend. It's easier to recommend movies than books, anyway, since they're so much less of a time commitment. (For the viewer, I mean. Actually making a movie looks a hundred times harder and more complicated than writing a book; otherwise I'd be in the film industry.)

[Edit: Yes, these are films I

Comments

[mollyringle]

Correct. I've added an edit to clarify that.

[mollyringle]

I need to track them all down eventually. It's kind of nice to take my time about it, and have some to look forward to...

[mollyringle]

It was fun to see "Sally Sparrow" in a different role. :)

[naill_renfro]

Wow -- this makes me feel out of touch. I've only seen one of these films (My Neighbor Totoro). But I've seen it at least 300 times... My movie watching is entirely child-directed these days. Well, except that I did watch almost all of Buffy -- not a movie, but DVD, anyway. And some other Joss Whedon stuff on Hulu.

My wife and I don't go to the movies without the kids any more, though, b/c it's so often a disappointment. (Years ago, when we still took that kind of chance, we were among the twelve or so people on Earth who paid money to see The Avengers. *And* The Island of Dr. Moreau. Yet somehow our relationship survived.)

Anyway, Miyazaki is worshipped in this household -- my personal favorite is Castle in the Sky, but they're all wonderful.

[mollyringle]

I remember Castle in the Sky being great as well, though I'm starting to conflate it in my mind with Howl's Moving Castle. Must buy the whole Miyazaki set and sort it out.

I did end up watching a lot of TV on DVD this past year too--that would be another list entirely. (Just finished Twin Peaks...recommended highly, until the middle of the second season, when it all goes off the rails.)

And we almost never get to theatres either, and similarly have to choose stuff we can watch with a toddler playing on the floor. Luckily some stuff can be grown-up fare but harmless for him, since it mostly goes over his head. (Tonight we watched some of Secretary...it's actually pretty subtle if you're, you know, three.)

[naill_renfro]

Alas, that wouldn't work for us... Though there's a two-year-old, there are also a nine-year-old and an eleven-year-old. We had to switch to watching Buffy late at night. (Not b/c of the violence, although I copied this rather comical excerpt from a list on someone's website. It covers the way characters get killed in just a couple of episodes; just glancing at the summaries might give the mistaken impression that this is a rather violent show:

Set on fire by Spike
Head ripped off by Razor
Drawn and quartered by the Hellions
Shot with crossbow by Willow
Axe to the head from Xander
Knifed by Buffy
Neck broken by Buffy
Impaled on a pipe by Buffy
Axe in the back from Tara
Decapitated by Buffy
Beaten to death with a pipe by Buffy
Shovel in the chest from Buffy
Neck broken by Buffy
Head crushed by Buffy
Killed by the vampire Justin
Impaled on a tree branch by Giles
Shot with crossbow by Spike
Decapitated with a car door by Buffy

[mollyringle]

Too funny! Well, it is a violent show, but it's nearly cartoon violence most of the time. They sure did get creative with ways to kill creatures/people. I remember thinking that several times.

Did you guys get into the same habit we did, where every time you were out somewhere and saw a sharp piece of wood sticking up from something, you'd remark to the other person, "If this were a Buffy episode, someone would totally get thrown on top of that"? Yeah, we ended up saying that a lot for a while there.

[polygonia]

I love Miyazaki. Along with Dir en grey he makes life wonderful and spiffy.

[mollyringle]

He does create the warm fuzzy feeling. I'll have to look up Dir en grey too!

[polygonia]

Well, Dir en grey isn't always warm and fuzzy. Though, Ware Yami Tote comes close.
Most of the time they are pretty headbangingly making the walls bleed and scream AWESOME in their spectacular musicality.