You can read our critics' alphabetical list of the 12 best films of 2008
here. Me, I'm a traditionalist, a 10 best man who prefers numbers and rankings. Happily, several of our top-line writers have complied (after the jump). First, however, is the Village Voice Media critics' poll (with my votes and 10 best list contained
herein), with an
introduction by the esteemed J. Hoberman. But I'll give you the list that matters first:
1. Wall-E
(Andrew Stanton, U.S.) Determined little whatsit saves Earth and rocks the vote. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
2. The Flight of the Red Balloon
(Hou Hsiao-hsien, France) Great Chinese filmmaker remakes a 50-year-old French kiddie classic. Paris has never seemed more gloriously strange--nor has puppeteer Juliette Binoche.
3. Happy-Go-Lucky
(Mike Leigh, UK) Insanely cheerful little earful teaches kindergarten kids (and the rest of us) how to work and play with others in normally dour British filmmaker's greatest crowd-pleaser.
4. Still Life
(Jia Zhangke, China) Part archaeological dig, part science fiction, this is a documentary with actors--and Jia's latest report on China burying its past and entering the future.
5. A Christmas Tale
(Arnaud Desplechin, France) Dysfunctional French family clusters around matriarch Catherine Deneuve. She's gravely ill and in need of a compatible transplant-- the real infusion is the film's superabundance of cinematic brio.
6. Waltz With Bashir
(Ari Folman, Israel) War is treated (and "treated") twice removed in Folman's animated documentary of the nightmares, memories, and fantasies suffered by Israeli soldiers a quarter century after invading Lebanon.
7. Milk
(Gus Van Sant, U.S.) Van Sant goes straight . . . for the heartstrings, that is, in this wildly affirmative biopic of the San Francisco activist Harvey Milk, played with a controlled enthusiasm by Sean Penn.
8. Wendy and Lucy
(Kelly Reichardt, U.S.) Boxcars, hobos, no money for gas--the Great Depression happening today: Stranded somewhere in Oregon, Michelle Williams is so lonesome she cannot cry.
9. Let the Right One In
(Tomas Alfredson, Sweden) Bullied 12-year-old boy falls in puppy love with the androgynous 200-year-old child vampire next door, in this gritty, wintry, bloody adaptation of Sweden's equivalent of the Twilight novels.
10. Synecdoche, New York
(Charlie Kaufman, U.S.) First-time director wrestles with the convoluted script he wrote for himself--it's self-reflexive to the max and beyond, with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Kaufman's alter ego.
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