So we had another year in film pass us by. For me and it was mostly a great one with some outstanding examples peppered throughout. The year kicked off with the marketing campaign of the decade with
Cloverfield, the best one since Blair Witch. Interest in the film was taken to near panic level for fans simply desperate to see a glimpse of the monster and i amongst many were not dissapointed. Even the shaky cam view couldn't take away from the awesome sight of a 300ft titan stomping all over new york city.
The trend in remakes and adaptations continued but seemed to really find their feet, almost as if the terrible 90's versions of adaptations was lesson enough for the movie world. We had a brilliant and underrated
John Rambo with one of the most violent endings in any film, another
Indiana Jones movie after about a million years since the last one. I loved it. It wasn't the Indy film we wanted but it had to move on and maybe Indy had too many characters draggin along his heels but its was still a great popcorn movie. Filmhead adored
Quantum of Solace and went Bond mad for a few weeks around it's release.
Hulk was good but not great. It suffered from desprately wanting a PG13 release so it's limits were on its sleeve from the start.
Hancock was great, a brilliant backstory and outstanding performace from Will Smith.
Iron Man was amazing. Both from John Favreau's brilliant direction (slowly becoming a the next Spielberg) and Robert Downey Juniors brilliant pimped out Tony Stark. More comic wonders blessed us with the brilliant (way better than the original)
Hellboy 2. Guilermo Del Toro is truly a magnificent director and continues to outshine much bigger names from film to film.
Alot of big popcorn films made good on their promises,
Wall-E (Filmhead nearly cried at it),
The Day the Earth Stood Still was excellent in places but could have been much much better if it was more like the trailer, afterwards i felt robbed of more action the trailer promised us.
Eagle Eye was way better than i thought it would be, top action sequences that i seriously didn't expect to see and the continued rise of Shia Lebouf in movie land, oh and it was pretty scary what they could do in it to boot. And a Jason Statham fest of
Transporter 3 and
Death Race. Both of which were just what the doctor ordered, big noisy action movies. I still can't get with people that deny Statham as an action movie star. I mean what does this guy have to do to win people over?
Along with the good stuff we still had some serious turkeys like
Jumper (why),
Doomsday (i have no idea why people left alone in movieland tend to dress like mad max characters),
Deception (Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams) with a cast like that you'd think they could spot a terrible script a mile off but no, the TERRIBLE
Disaster Movie,
The Mummy 3 let us down and especially
Speed Racer. What the hell was that movie all about? I needed eye bleach after watching it. One bad film of 2008 was definitely
Saw 5. Now i am a huge (and i mean huge) fan of the saw movies but this one was a terrible addition to the saw world and one best forgotten.
Other good horrors came in the form of
The Strangers with Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler
. A geniunely creepy film with some shocking moments, more so because it is based ona true story.
The Mist was finally released in the UK after a huge delay and was not to dissapoint either, garnering some serious respect from me but losing it slightly at that very debatable ending. Still very shocking but probably not needed. I prefer the book ending. And while Hollywood gave us
Quarantine, you would be best served to track down the original film called
[REC], which rates as one of the scariest films you'll ever see.
Liv Tyler in one of the creepiest scenes of The Strangers And in the form of horror turkeys we had
The Happening. A true piece of garbage from a once very promising filmmaker. After a brilliant start, a barely noticable second act gave way to a flailing, floppy, ending spattered with tension-devolving humour ruining a potential great film.
We had some great under the radar film too.
In Bruges was one of the top films of the year with the brilliant Colin Farrel and Brendan Gleeson as a pair of hitmen in the most boring city on earth. And
Snow Angels was also a real gem. Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale led an all indie cast in one of the most emotionally disturbing tales of the i have seen.
Not so under the radar unfortuantely was the chick flick big hitters. As always we had all the usual romcoms pass us by but
Mama Mia and
Sex in the City took big bank at the box office. And Mama Mia broke DVD and Blu Ray record sales for a short while and Twilight got young girls and boys all aquiver worldwide in December.
Other movies that floated my boat were
Tropic Thunder featuring Robert Downey Jnr's very welcome return back to the middle/top of his career and a fucking stunningly hilarious cameo by Mr Tom Cruise (who gets a bad name for his beliefs, but who cares when his movies are this good) and
Pineapple Express which was ace too.
But clearly for most of us there was only one film phenomenon of 2008 and that was
The Dark Knight. Promoted perfectly its hype grew and tensions built until they could barely be held back and then a tragedy struck, Heath Ledger, a young and brilliant talent coming into his prime died an accidental death and we lost a great performer. This was to be the catalyst that would send The Dark Knight from summer blockbuster into the stratosphere of legend.
The lateHeath Ledger in the role that he will always be remembered for.When announced Heath's role was considered to be a miscast one, he was too big, too powerful looking to play the Joker, Batmans arch enemy, but as we now know he was perfect, in every way. A brilliant young actor cast as a young Joker, psychologically disturbed beyond any point of reason and clad with his own set of ideals which shaped the view of the world around him. This combined with the mythos the Nolan brothers had set up in the first movie made for one of the finest movies ever created. The cast, exceptional, the execution, phenomenal and the delivery? Imaculate. The Dark Knight has taken nearly a billion dollars so far and has broken nearly every filmmaking record in doing so. And now with its impending re-release it can only go further. I say give us another. And bravo to all who gave us the film.
Aside from Heath Ledger we also saw the passing of Stan Winston, the movie effect genius who basically made all of the monster effects you've seen since the seventies. He was a great man and his genius will be missed.
The box office of 2008 was a big one and over six billion dollars of takings were taken in the top ten alone.
Here are the latest figures for the worldwide takings for the 10 most successful movies released in 2008
1. The Dark Knight
$996.8million2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
$786.6million3. Kung Fu Panda
$631.9million4. Hancock
$624.4million5. Iron Man
$581.9million6. Mamma Mia!
$572.1million7. Quantum of Solace
$535.7million8. Wall-E
$507.3million9. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
$419.6million10. Sex and the City
$415.1millionAll in all its been a great year for me and Filmhead (who seems to be sleeping as i post this as he won't answer his MSN) and a good one for the blog. We've made close to 750 updates in a year and have had so many hits it makes us cry like babies.
Also the winner of the five month poll to film the coolest movie character which ended in a Tyler Durden/Joker (Dark Knight) final and saw the Joker win out.
From both me and Filmhead we would like to thank all you guys from the bottom of our geeky hearts who pass by here for your regular movie news BULLETIN STYLE !!!!! We hope to keep searching out the good stuff and informing you guys for a long time to come.
Oh yeah, and mega thanks to our brother
TCF for our ace new logo.
Roll on 2009.