The Muriel Awards

The 2008 year-end awards keep trickling out. I'm one of the participants in Paul Clark's brainchild The Muriels. The winners are being rolled out on a daily basis through February 22, so check out what this ragtag bunch has selected as last year's finest contributions to cinema as well as 10th, 25th, and 50th anniversary picks.

These awards are voted on by a collection of cinephiles/critics from around the country. Unlike a lot of other awards, The Muriels aren't about influencing and predicting the Oscars or being the first one on the scene. While I'll be finding out the winners at the same time you are, past history tells me that they should be an interesting and eclectic bunch.

The Best Films of 2008

1. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

Both a sensitive depiction of loneliness and a stinging rebuke of consumerism, WALL-E is an ambitious family film with plenty of humor and a cute-as-a-bug protagonist to amuse the kids and thougthfulness to engage adults. WALL-E is packed with physical comedy and sight gags as old as the silent films that provide inspiration for a hero in the tradition of Chaplin's Little Tramp. The sleek space-age design and graceful moments of quiet, such as a lovely robot dance among the stars, give comfort and peace from the heavy themes. WALL-E'S echo of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY--call it the second dawn of man--serves as a cunning tribute to Kubrick's film and an optimistic note for the future of slumbering mankind. Writer-director Andrew Stanton packages the fun and high-mindedness in dazzling ways to make WALL-E successful as popular entertainment for all ages and art that merits serious discussion.

2. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

THE DARK KNIGHT upends the traditional view of the blockbuster as possessing all brawn and no brain. Director Christopher Nolan administers the visceral stimulation required of an action movie and contemplates the urgent questions regarding the use of power to combat evil and the importance of imagery in the fight. Heath Ledger's riveting turn as The Joker, a sociopath conducting fear experiments on the public for his anarchic amusement, provides a terrifying reminder that the social fabric can be easily torn.

3. WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)

A simple story of a woman on the verge of losing everything, WENDY AND LUCY gains quiet power in how director Kelly Reichardt depicts the immediacy and peril in living day-to-day. As Wendy, a strapped young woman driving across the country in search of work with her dog her lone companion, Michelle Williams gives a heartbreaking performance. While the film deals Wendy the indignities of her economic situation, acts of decency and compassion provide the most stirring moments in a gorgeously photographed film.

4. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (Jonathan Demme, 2008)

The challenge of a drug addicted past and family tensions in the present is beautifully elucidated in RACHEL GETTING MARRIED. The handheld camerawork draws us into an intimate and suffocating look at what it can be like to hurt many people and desire redemption. The stylistic choice allows the camera to get close while having the freedom to wander within a confined setting, which is precisely the situation Anne Hathaway's Kym finds herself in. Director Jonathan Demme unfolds RACHEL GETTING MARRIED like a novel that gives the immersive experience of being in an environment. The wedding and reception scenes are, in a sense, superfluous to the main narrative, yet this multicultural celebration of community and family is precisely what Kym feels outside of even while in its midst.

5. FUNNY GAMES (Michael Haneke, 2007)

Provocateur Michael Haneke didn't need to remake his 1997 Austrian thriller, especially a decade later as an English-language clone, but as multiplex performance art FUNNY GAMES is a wickedly amusing joke on viewers not expecting a film to toy with them so mercilessly. Coming on the heels of the torture porn trend in horror movies and amid countless reality TV programs, the timing couldn't be better for Haneke's stern lecture decrying the audience's bloodlust and the phoniness and debasement passing for realism in pop culture. Uncomfortable yet ultimately exhilirating, FUNNY GAMES uses suggested violence, intense moralizing, and dark humor to jolt modern moviegoers into recognizing what we consume for entertainment and question whether it's edifying.

6. MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, 2008)

It's clear from the beginning of the documentary MAN ON WIRE that French wirewalker Philippe Petit survived the forty-five minutes he spent performing on the cable strung between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers without a net or any safety measures, but knowing this doesn't diminish the tension. Director James Marsh employs a heist film's structure to lay out the specifics of how the high wire artist and his friends schemed to get to the top of the towers, let alone pull off this inconceivable feat. Recreated scenes, home movies, and photographs are expertly edited together to heighten the sense of daring and danger.

7. A CHRISTMAS TALE (UN CONTE DE NOËL) (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)

French auteur Arnaud Desplechin makes gloriously messy films about human interactions, so what better hothouse of domestic clashes is there for him to examine than the dysfunctional family Christmas movie? Featuring a who's who of France's finest actors, including Catherine Deneuve as the clan's matriarch and Desplechin surrogate Mathieu Amalric, A CHRISTMAS TALE unpacks a familial history of grudges, joys, disappointments, and fears that would keep a psychoanalyst busy for decades. For as brutally honest or supposedly truthful as the characters are with each other--with Desplechin it can be hard to discern between the real and the imagined--the airing of grievances is quite playful in tone and the director's inventive cinematic techniques.

8. TRANSSIBERIAN (Brad Anderson, 2008)

Emiliy Mortimer and Woody Harrelson find more adventure than they desired during a week-long trip aboard the Trans-Siberian Express in Brad Anderson's Hitchcockian thriller. TRANSSIBERIAN is a superb suspense film with plenty of intriguing developments to challenge the characters and keep viewers on the edges of their seats. As usual Mortimer is terrific playing a woman struggling to resist indulging her wild old ways as temptations and pressures mount.

9. DOUBT (John Patrick Shanley, 2008)

Writer-director John Patrick Shanley's moral drama actively involves the viewer in assessing the truth of a nun's allegation of a priest. In DOUBT the truth gets tossed about like a kite on a blustery day. It shifts direction abruptly, is difficult to control, and gets battered in the process. However, Shanley's film is not an argument against doubt but a reasoned case for a healthy dose of skepticism to balance out faith, even if such thoughts are unsettling. DOUBT inspires more uncertainty than it resolves, but unquestionably it houses philosophical inquiries and top-notch acting from Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis to mark it as a compelling piece of cinema.

10. AMERICAN TEEN (Nanette Burstein, 2008)

Nanette Burstein's sharply-felt documentary about Warsaw, Indiana high school seniors visits the hallways, bedrooms, and basements where the formative years are spent and finds things are not all that different regardless of when one is a teenager. The primary participants resemble their fictional teen movie analogues--Hannah, the artistically-minded outsider; popular mean girl Megan; Colin, the star basketball player in a hoops-mad community; and lovelorn band geek Jake--but are depicted with greater complexity than their central casting counterparts often receive. Burstein captures teenage angst and hope with such emotional potency that it is unlikely to make viewers wistful for a frequently idealized time in life.

2008 in Film: The Honorable Mentions

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (4 LUNI, 3 SAPTAMÂANI SI 2 ZILE) (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)

Without a doubt this devastating portrait of a woman looking to get an illegal abortion in Romania during the 1980s is difficult to watch. Anamaria Marinca's searing performance anchors writer-director Cristian Mungiu's unblinking film, which confronts those on both sides of the issue with tough questions about personal freedom and legislated morality.

BE KIND REWIND (Michel Gondry, 2008)

Writer-director Michel Gondry sprinkles his affection for childlike imagination and handcrafted art throughout BE KIND REWIND, a fun and funny goof on backyard moviemaking. Gondry's intent is not to mock crude, no-budget creations but rather to pay tribute to the artistic spirit freed from commercial aspirations and demands. It's filmmaking as joyful activity and expression instead of a box office competition.

BLINDNESS (Fernando Meirelles, 2008)

Short of putting nothing but white on the screen, the desaturated visual conceit, which emphasizes white and gives the disorienting sensation of limited sight, is as close as the audience can get to experiencing what the characters in BLINDNESS live. Director Fernando Meirelles presents a grim vision of societal breakdown and a survival situation in which most people are susceptible to their worst impulses, but the dynamic style makes the unpleasant content more palatable.

ELEGY (Isabel Coixet, 2008)

Ben Kingsley's commitment-phobic college professor falls harder than he thought possible for Penelope Cruz as his younger student in this moving study of love and aging. Kingsley brings out the complexity in a man whose intellectual curiosity is matched only by his disinterest in deeply knowing the women he beds, but it's Cruz's performance, which transcends the object of desire role, that brings meaning to ELEGY.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Werner Herzog, 2007)

The title of Werner Herzog's documentary refers to his experiences while visiting Antarctica and ruminations on the planet's demise. In ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD Herzog alternates between astonishment and curiosity at the weird and wonderful people, creatures, and landscapes he sees and resignation about the potential for mankind to ruin it all. On the whole the nature footage is impressive, but the strange, beautiful world revealed in the underwater photography is so stunning that it produces feelings of rapture.

IRON MAN (Jon Favreau, 2008)

Director Jon Favreau populates IRON MAN with actors more accustomed to prestige pictures than summer blockbusters, but the choices pay off with richer performances across the board. Quick with a quip and projecting a reckless air, Robert Downey Jr. is perfect as an intelligent and wealthy ladies' man with self-destructive impulses. His low-key line readings bring a lot of humor to his interactions with his human and robot counterparts. As Stark's loyal assistant Pepper Potts, Gwyneth Paltrow lends quiet grace and value to what might otherwise have been an unremarkable Girl Friday part. Favreau forges a strong film through the combination of character development and comedy with the explosions and impressive special effects expected during the the big movie season.

MILK (Gus Van Sant, 2008)

Biographical films can feel like museum pieces, but Gus Van Sant's blending of archival footage and meticulous period recreation in MILK brings to life a vibrant community ready to boil over from the pressure put upon them. As a case study of political mobilization, MILK provides an intriguing look inside one man's conquering of the system. While the director puts his distinctive stamp on the material, MILK is an actor's picture. Penn's riveting performance captures Milk's complexity. Milk never apologizes for who he is, and it's Penn's looseness in the role that rounds out his acting and allows him to inhabit the character rather than impersonate the man.

THE ORDER OF MYTHS (Margaret Brown, 2008)

For all of the grand statements about what the election of Barack Obama means about current racial attitudes in America, THE ORDER OF MYTHS provides an example of one practice that shows how much work remains. This documentary about Mobile, Alabama's still-segregated Mardi Gras celebrations examines how people hold onto traditions. Director Margaret Brown resists playing gotcha as she challenges those who prefer to cling to mindsets that value the past while destroying the present and future.

PARANOID PARK (Gus Van Sant, 2007)

Merging his experimental impulses with a more accessible story (or at least something with the semblance of a plot), Gus Van Sant and cinematographer Christopher Doyle paint the inner life of a teenage skateboarder in the grays and blues of confusion, guilt, and alienation. Where MILK found the director focusing on a man attempting to be larger than himself, PARANOID PARK stares at a kid who finds himself wishing he could be so small as to be invisible.

PRICELESS (HORS DE PRIX) (Pierre Salvadori, 2006)

Audrey Tautou sparkles as a gold digger teaching Gad Elmaleh the ways of seduction for profit in PRICELESS. Although more risque than classic Hollywood romantic comedies, this French charmer is a throwback to glamour, graceful physical comedy, and sexually-charged battle of wits.

REDBELT (David Mamet, 2008)

Mixed martial arts and David Mamet may not seem made for each other, but both concentrate on hitting hard, whether with hands and feet or words. Physical and verbal combat come into play in the twisty tale of an honorable jiujitsu instructor played by Chiwitel Ejiofor. The venue may seem an unlikely one for Mamet, but it's an apt setting for the corrupting influene of commercialism upon art and principle.

SNOW ANGELS (David Gordon Green, 2007)

Although the interweaving stories of burgeoning and disintegrating love in SNOW ANGELS display trappings of suburban hell films, writer-director David Gordon Green embraces the characters in his rurally located movie rather than keeping them at arm's length with snarkiness and irony. Viewing these often unlikeable people with empathy, and sometimes humor, instead of judgment and condescension makes all the difference in what could have otherwise been a miserabilist tour of a rocky relationship landscape. In retracing the steps that led to tragedy, Green and lead actor Sam Rockwell provide the context rarely found in news reports or fictional films about common misfortunes. SNOW ANGELS can painfully burrow into one's heart, but such is the cost of empathy, or any human connection for that matter.

TELL NO ONE (NE LE DIS À PERSONNE) (Guillame Canet, 2006)

Films in the Hitchcock mold one of my favorite things, and this French suspense movie does not disappoint. Well-acted by François Cluzet as the prototypical "wrong man", a doctor suspected of murdering his wife and possibly others, and smoothly directed by Guillaume Canet, TELL NO ONE artfully delivers pulpy thrills.

THE WRESTLER (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

While director Darren Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert Siegel's tour of the small-time wrestling circuit is enlightening, THE WRESTLER'S greater value comes as a portrait of aging via Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei's powerhouse performances. Rourke wears the physical and emotional scars of a man beaten for a living who continues to revel in what he does. Rourke's portrayal of the titular wrestler peels back the qualities people like about the character beyond his signature move. Tomei's naked performance, in every sense of the word, demonstrates how her fortysomething stripper is in charge of what she does yet ultimately draws her worth from the eyes of strangers. Both characters are sacrifices who give themselves up for the pleasure of others. Randy isn't nicknamed The Ram for nothing. Through the moving and observant performances, THE WRESTLER pins down the human cost of these professions.