Saturday, February 21, 2009

"This is exactly the sort of daringly obvious manipulation the Academy loves to reward!"

Oscar Preview and (abbreviated) Best Movies of 2008 post

Going to try something a little different here, since I have visions of my brother dry heaving at the mere thought of me doing an extensive category by category breakdown (aka "Kyle picks 'em all....even the loser categories") of the Oscars (I liked it, but whatever). At any rate, Shuk is better at it than me, so see here for his picks. Instead, I'm going to provide you with: (1) my Top 30 Movies of the Year list (sans comments); and (2) my scanned (unofficial!) Oscar ballot, complete with annotations (h/t to Sarah for the idea). I think if you click on the individual pages, it should pop up in full screen mode, but, if you're using Firefox at least, I'd recommend using Crtl + or Crtl - to adjust.

Ten Most Disappointing (from least to most disappointing):

T10. Leatherheads
T10. 21
9. Semi-Pro (#9 not because it didn't suck--it so did--but because my expectations were so low)
8. Pineapple Express
7. Frozen River
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Redbelt
4. Jumper
3. Wanted
2. X-Files: I Want to Believe
1. (by a wide margin) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Haven't seen: Hellboy II, Changeling, The Class, Gran Torino, W., Happy-Go-Lucky, Quantum of Solace, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, or Synecdoche, New York.

My Top 30

T30. Funny Games
T30. Young People Fucking
29. Burn After Reading
28.
The Reader
27. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
26. Ghost Town
25. Get Smart
24. Role Models
23. The Strangers
22. Frost/Nixon
21. RocknRolla
20. Milk
19. Tropic Thunder
18. Revolutionary Road
17. Man on Wire
16. Rachel Getting Married
15. The Bank Job
14. Slumdog Millionaire
13. Cloverfield
12. The Incredible Hulk
11. Waltz With Bashir
10. Doubt
9. In Bruges
8. The Visitor
7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
6. Let the Right One In
5. The Wrestler
4. Step-Brothers
3. Wall*E
2. The Dark Knight
1. Iron Man

My Oscar ballot:

highlighted in pink = should win; circled = will win

5 comments:

Question Mark said...

1. Fincher's SIXTH best movie (yes, I'd put Button behind Panic Room)

2. Wow, I didn't know they used some CGI for Eckhart's makeup. Huh...that's a bit of a 'corked bat' moment. Hellboy 2 really should win this hands-down, but it may have been hard to tell exactly what was makeup and what was CGI.

Question Mark said...

3. Wow, did I really miss the boat in not seeing the new Hulk movie? Top twelve? Wow.

Anonymous said...

First off, Benjamin Button was excellent. I've heard people say there was not much to it, but it was a good drama. Did you want him to go to war to make it even more like Forest Gump or something? Not sure what you guys were expecting.

Secondly, your top 30 list has a few surprises:

1) I would have thought you'd like Burn After Reading more.

2) I'm going to call bullshit on your #1 pick, mostly because I think you wanted to shock us by picking Iron Man over The Dark Knight. There's no way you enjoyed it more than The Dark Knight or, say, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Per Dog Per Day said...

This is super childish, and I'm not going to get into an analysis, but how is Pineapple Express worse than Young People Doing It?

Hal Incandenza said...

See today's post for responses to these questions/comments (and thanks for--possibly against your will--participating in my first mailbag).