A Review of Movies in 2008

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

EW did this in a double issue, and I'm a few days late reporting. They did best and worst lists in several areas, I decided to combine some of both and create my own 10 Most Memorable (for one reason or another).

1. Wall-E : It actually is one of the few movies of the year to get an overall A- in EW. Hooray for a good silent picture. Well, not entirely silent, but there are long pauses between speech where many different activities take place. This is one of the few movies of the year that I'm going to want on DVD, and am going to want to pass on to future generations.
2. Milk : Nope, I haven't seen it yet, mostly because by the time it came to Melbourne, I was wrapped up in the joys of Christmas. But since I am quite familiar with the story (thank you, Mary Karen and Docudrama), I am still looking forward to seeing it, and believe it's worth a mention of being a possible "Movie of the Year."
3. The Dark Knight : Heath Ledger aside, it was a good movie. However, it was also a long movie. Too long for the plot.
4. Iron Man : "Yeah, I can fly." Gotta love Robert Downey, Jr. More importantly, how about the cars in that film! niiiice.
5. Speed Racer : I saw this movie on the fly. As in, we rushed out to see it from a bbq. And it was a bad call. There were five of us, and three of us regularly reference it as the worst movie we saw last summer. Unfortunately, my husband loved it (although he has been a Speed Racer fan since childhood), and we've seen pieces of it several times since.
6. Burn After Reading : I'm not sure why anyone liked this movie. It really is horrible. Nobody I went with enjoyed it. It's even a poor job of Brad Pitt, who can usually save a movie. The only funny parts are when the CIA assistant reports to his superior about what is going on and what the gym woman's demands are. What a waste of an hour and some.
7. Bolt : This is the very first film that I have ever seen completely in 3D. That makes it memorable in itself. But furthermore, it's the best movie that Disney has put out in recent years (even though it doesn't come close to the masterpieces of the 1990s).
8. 27 Dresses : I usually don't see very many romantic comedies (I think the only other one I saw this year was Nights in Rodanthe). The premise of this one intrigued me simply because I find it crazy how some people choose their bridesmaid dresses. On television, you always see people in insane, civil war-era ballgowns and the like. When I chose mine (which, technically, I didn't, I wasn't able to be at the final shopping day so the girls just sent me a pic on the phone), I was so in love with it that I wanted one just like it, LoL. The movie was so-so. Fortunately, I am a Katherine Heigl fan so it worked out in the end.
9. Mamma Mia! : This one will be memorable because of the crowd with whom I saw it. Just a friend and I went, but we happened to go to a Monday matinee, so there were a ton of blue-hairs in the audience who found the men strappingly stunning and the need to sing along, in whatever key they could.
10. The Women : Again, not the best movie, but worth thinking about again because of the extremity of the efforts set forth to make sure no men were in the film, even in crowd scenes.