Jeffrey Overstreet is a novelist and an award-winning film reviewer. Read more about Jeffrey here »
What a great song they chose for this…
Here’s the big money line:
… in order to interject hope into Jamel’s miserable existence the basic concepts of Hinduism had to be jettisoned in favor of a more Westernized, Judeo-Christian paradigm.
I’m working on a post that will offer an explanation as to why I don’t like Slumdog. (I’m apparently one of the few critics doesn’t.) I’ll share it with you later this week, assuming I can find the time to sum up my thoughts.
This was how the new year began for me during my week-long stay at Camp Casey on Whidbey Island.
And 2009 is looking good so far.
I’m enjoying my new website.
I’m enjoying the hard, all-consuming work of writing Cal-raven’s Ladder.
I’m looking forward to catching up on so many celebrated films of 2008, and seeing what 2009 has to offer.
I’m looking forward to new music by U2, Buddy and Julie Miller, The Decemberists, and many more of my favorites. (Over the Rhine told their fans that they’ve got a bunch of new material already, so… here’s hoping!)
What are you looking forward to in 2009?
I can’t let Saturday, January 3rd, come to a close without shouting,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, J.R.R. TOLKIEN!!
He’s 116 today.
I think I’ll read some more of The Children of Hurin tonight. Which (pulling foot from mouth) is actually pretty good.
What, in your opinion, is the moment in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings that deserves more attention or appreciation than it gets? Put a spotlight on it for us.
Me? I love this, from Chapter 3 of The Fellowship of the Ring:
Just over the top of the hill they came on the patch of fir-wood. Leaving the road they went into the deep resin-scented darkness of the trees…. Soon they had a merry crackle of flame at the foot of a large fir-tree and they sat round it for a while, until they began to nod. Then, each in an angle of the great tree’s roots, they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon fast asleep. They set no watch; even Frodo feared no danger yet, for they were still in the heart of the Shire. A few creatures came and looked at them when the fire had died away. A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed.
‘Hobbits!’ he thought. ‘Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There’s something mighty queer behind this.’
Little touches like that give us a sense of a grander, richer world in which even the animals have lives and thoughts of their own. That’s why this is one of my favorite passages in the series.
Welcome to the archive of LookingCloser.org’s annual movie lists!
These are the films I found most rewarding, most worth revisiting.
But please note: I cannot say that I recommend all of them, as they may not be appropriate or rewarding to all audiences. So please do your research: Don’t just grab one of these titles and sit down to watch it on a date, or with the kids.
are films I’d call “Essential.” They’re sitting on the shelf of my Dream Library. These are the films that I watch over and over again, enjoying more about them with every visit. Some years, we get several. Some years I’m lucky to find one.
were released outside of America, and/or played in a festival or a very brief limited U.S. engagement, earlier than the year where I’ve rated them here.
Films are categorized by year, with a “Looking Closer Movie of the Year,” a “Favorite Fantasy Film of the Year,” a “Top Ten,” and then a list of other films worth seeing more than once.
These lists will be revised and expanded from time to time.
I’m working backward through my life, reassessing and revising old lists, so check back as this record expands back into the 1990s and 1980s.
Please don’t hesitate to email me and recommend films that I’ve missed, or tell me if I’ve mis-categorized something.
To the best of my ability, I’ve organized films by the year of their first American release, whether that first release by theatrical or availability on DVD. (Brief Oscar-qualifying runs in L.A. and New York are not enough to qualify a film for that year’s release, in my opinion.)
2009 FEATURES UNDER CONSIDERATION SO FAR:
Read Jeffrey’s commentary on the best films of 2008 here.
FAVORITE FANTASY FILM OF THE YEAR: WALL•E
FAVORITE “SPECIAL EDITION” RELEASES: The New World - Extended Cut, Blade Runner - Final Cut
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES FROM 2006 (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY FILM OF THE YEAR: Ratatouille
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES FROM 2007 (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY FILM OF THE YEAR: Pan’s Labyrinth
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES FROM 2006 (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY FILM OF THE YEAR: Mirrormask
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES FROM 2005(in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR: The Incredibles
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES (in no particular order):
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
FAVORITE FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
OTHER REMARKABLE, MEMORABLE, AND IMPORTANT FAVORITES (in no particular order):
The Curator has posted my Top Ten (Give or Take Fifteen) Recordings of 2008. And yeah… my #1 pick is probably pretty predictable, if you know my taste in music.
First, a couple of notes:
Okay, to borrow one of 2008’s most memorable big screen moments: “Here… we… go!”
•
I became a list-o-phile at 13.
Every Saturday morning I recorded Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40, fascinated with the way that songs moved up and down the pop charts. When a favorite made it to the top-Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry,” The Thompson Twins’ “Lay Your Hands on Me”-I cranked up the volume and celebrated. Other chart-conquering hits made me feel disappointed in America.
While my interests have changed dramatically since then, I keep on ranking my favorites. I’ve have notebooks full of lists-albums of 2001, films of 2002, concerts of 2008. Browsing through them, I’m reading a diary of my teens, 20s, and 30s. Each title is connected to memories and growth.
But in spite of the popularity of American Idol, I no longer care what “America has chosen.” By the time I was 17, I’d discovered Siskel and Ebert. Their enthusiastic debates convinced me that Americans were missing the most interesting movies. I learned that audiences prefer the flash and dazzle of disposable entertainment while shying away from resilient, resonant art. I’d be rich if I had a nickel for every time someone’s told me, “When I go to the movies, I just want to turn off my brain.” I’m often tempted to reply, “Isn’t that like going to a restaurant and turning off your stomach?”
Moreover, those two quarreling critics showed me that encounters with art are personal. Our responses reveal as much about us as they do about the art. I began to see the folly of declaring “The Best Movies.” What can such a declaration really mean? Who can really say, and how would they decide?
And yet I still love lists. I read them obsessively every December. I chuckle over some that say more about the critic’s politics than they do about the quality of the films. I take notes from others, thrilled to read about titles I’ve never noticed before. Some critics make popular choices, while others rate titles from international festivals, features that won’t hit Seattle for years. Some celebrate audacity, others tradition. Is the screenplay the thing? Or is it the imagery?
Me? I want a nourishing, enthralling experience of truth, beauty, and excellence-one that will draw me back again and again for greater revelations, whether they trouble or delight me.
Disclaimer: I’m not a full-time critic. Busyness has kept me from catching some of 2008’s most celebrated films, including Rachel Getting Married, The Wrestler, Still Life, Wendy and Lucy, Gran Torino, Paranoid Park, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I have no doubt that I’ll revise my list soon. So check back.
But based on my 2008 moviegoing, these are twenty selections I recommend most highly. I’m not saying they’re “the best.” But they made the strongest impression on me. I’ll revisit them to dig deeper. I’ll share them with my close friends. If I can find a bargain, I’ll add them to my library.
You’ll have to imagine a drum roll…
* * *
Antoine has run away from his family’s rural life in Provence, turning his back on the family business. But when his father falls ill, Antoine reluctantly returns and agrees to drive the family’s mobile grocery store from hamlet to hamlet, bringing necessities to the old-fashioned farmers. He finds that the work isn’t so bad-especially when he’s accompanied by Claire, a meddling beauty who has won his affections.
This delightful story of a prodigal son in a sensual world is likely to give rural France a new flood of tourists.
Werner Herzog’s films-some fiction, some non-fiction, and some a blurring of the two-are almost always about living on the edge. Consider Aguirre’s mad quest for El Dorado in Aguirre, Wrath of God; Timothy Treadwell’s obsession in Grizzly Man; the ordeals of Rescue Dawn’s Dieter Dengler.
In Encounters, a documentary, Herzog takes us to McMurdo, a camp in Antarctica, where we meet some of the planet’s most eccentric residents, fraternize with crazy penguins, and swim beneath the ice to see creatures straight out of science fiction. It’s a wonder that our adventurous narrator hasn’t taken up permanent residence there.
While Herzog’s excursions always end up exposing his dire view of a God-less existence, what we see along the way may seem a compelling contradiction, inspiring awe, wonder, even worship.
Martin McDonagh’s film about two hit men hiding out in Belgium’s scenic city of Bruges is dark, violent, and drops more F-bombs per minute than most people can stand. But it has a big, beating heart under its coarse, crass exterior.
This is a tale about hard shells cracking, exposing conscience, sadness, and a yearning for grace. Colin Farrell is hilarious; Brendan Gleeson gives a warm and winning performance, his best since The General; and the film’s biggest surprise is a cracked, frightening turn by Ralph Fiennes.
Few filmmakers can juggle comedy, suspense, drama, bloody shootouts, attractive scenery, tender moments between tough guys, the profane, and the profound as deftly as McDonagh does here.
Ballast takes place on today’s Mississippi Delta, where the crashing U.S. economy can hardly make things any worse. Lawrence is a 12-year-old boy trapped in a nightmare: His father has committed suicide. His mother is a recovering junkie who can’t protect her son because she had to go to work. His uncle is distraught to the point of paralysis over the suicide. The family business is closed. And Lawrence is more interested in messing around with drug dealers than school.
It’s a bleak but believable story, well-acted, and uncompromising. And it concludes with a tantalizing ray of hope.
You’ll probably see the influence of Bresson on Hammer’s style. And it’s easy to see why this movie is inspiring comparisons to the work of the Dardennes Brothers as well.
Okay, they’ve convinced me: 3-D can be a good thing. U2 3D immerses you in a Latin American crowd of 80,000 U2 fans. Even during my dream-come-true concert experience (front row at U2’s Elevation tour), I didn’t have the freedom to get up and walk around on the stage, study the drum kit, chase Bono around, or look over Adam Clayton’s shoulder into the surging waves of fans. Crowd noise never interferes with the music, and the band is in top form. Of course, you can’t really appreciate this groundbreaking achievement unless you see it on an IMAX screen six stories tall. But I suspect they’ll be bringing it back from time to time, so watch for your opportunity. It’s a powerfully persuasive testament to the inspiring, unifying power of live music. And in U2’s music, the streets are crowded with signposts pointing to the source of their inspiration.
If you aren’t a fan of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, you will be. The Band’s Visit is a tender-hearted comedy, written and directed by Eran Kolirin, about an Egyptian band that becomes lost in the Israeli desert while heading to their gig at the Arab Cultural Center in Israel. Forced to depend upon the kindness of strangers, they encounter an independent woman named Dina who offers service with a smirk. While she catches the eye of the tall, dark, and handsome Haled, it’s Twefiq, the sad-eyed conductor, that she takes under her wing, and their histories of heartbreak are unveiled with grace and gentleness. And while their stories are particularly personal, they resonate with the age-old heartache of divided cultures and immeasurable loss. In spite of all of this, the film is very, very funny. A roller rink becomes the scene of one of this year’s finest bits of silent comedy, as a band member begrudgingly facilitates a match made in heaven. (I expect that an announcement about an American remake about a New Orleans jazz band, probably starring Tom Hanks, is imminent.)
John Patrick Shanley’s play is written to be an even match between a priest who befriends a troubled boy, and imperious nun who ruthlessly investigates his suspicious behavior.
In my opinion, the lead actors are a bit mismatched. I found Meryl Streep’s performance to be a little too “arch,” with one foot firmly planted in comedy, making Sister Aloysius a presence as fearsome as a wicked witch. Philip Seymour Hoffman, on the other hand, gives one of his most nuanced performances as a man with painful memories and passionate conviction. Amy Adams plays the young nun caught between them, struggling with the thought of calling a man “guilty until proven innocent.” And Viola Davis… mercy! What actor this year made a stronger impression with just one scene?
In spite of its flaws, it’s a riveting film that will inspire meaningful discussions.
Charlie Kaufman’s latest mind-bender is so full of questions and conundrums that it’s hard to know where to start. When a playwright wins a “genius grant,” he embarks on the production of a lifetime—an extravagantly complicated stage play about his life, his broken marriage, his affairs, and his existential crisis. The more he experiences, the more he revises the play. The more he writes, the more his characters influence his life. Soon, he’s falling for the actresses he’s cast to play his lovers, and he’s showing his actors in how to imitate his errors.
Kafka would have loved it.
But while Kaufman’s internal excavation is often horrifying, and he seeks hope only in human kindness, he inadvertently makes that case that without the grace of a Greater Author, we’re doomed, stuck in our own fractured understanding.
Read about my conversations with Charlie Kaufman here.
This two-year-old Russian import, now available on DVD through Film Movement, takes us to a monastery on the edge of the White Sea. There, the monks are troubled by the antics of one of their own—a prankster who speaks in riddles and tends to a fiery furnace. Anatoly was once a Russian naval officer whose behavior during a Nazi attack left him scarred for life. Now, penitent to a fault, he’s become either a madman or a puckish agent of revelation.
Pavel Lounguine finds striking imagery in the stark landscape, and his lead actor, former Russian rock star Pyotr Mamonov, has an extraordinary face.
The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2007. Nora Fitzgerald notes in The Washington Post, “After it opened in Moscow, priests and bishops began to bless the film, often standing in prayer outside theaters.”
Read my full review at Christianity Today Movies.
It’s remarkable how Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s screenplay transcends all comic book conventions to frame timely questions about the problem of evil and the ethics of fighting it.
In the character of Harvey Dent, they show us that we need a hero who can remain good, uncompromising, and idealistic in the midst of harrowing evil, and yet they also acknowledge that we need agents like Batman who will get their hands dirty, compromise, and willingly shoulder the burden of condemnation.
The Joker, meanwhile, is as diabolical as any villain I’ve ever seen—orchestrating horrors in hopes of proving that fear will turn us all into monsters.
The film is wearying in its relentless violence, but it is remarkably efficient in its storytelling. Heath Ledger’s turn is every bit as good as you’ve heard, but where is the praise for Aaron Eckhart?
And there’s a high-speed chase scene that’s among the greatest action sequences ever devised.
We’ve lamented the destruction of New Orleans, and our government’s failure to intervene appropriately. But what if the government had caused the destruction? In some parts of the world, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Available on DVD from Zeitgeist Films, Yung Chang’s documentary Up the Yangtze chronicles the devastation of the Yangtze river valleys, and its age-old fishing communities, brought on by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. He follows a family of subsistence farmers, the ruination of their land, the cruelty of the government’s forced evacuations, and the struggles of a 16-year-old girl as she seeks to become part of this new China by working for Victoria Cruises on a ship bearing arrogant, ignorant Western tourists.
Here’s my full review, an online exclusive to Response magazine.
Richard Jenkins plays Walter Vale, an economics professor who returns to New York after a long absence only to find two illegal immigrants living in his apartment. Their relationships bloom into something beautiful as Vale—a stiff and lonely man—opens up to the joys and the pain of meaningful engagement.
The immigrants seem too clean, too virtuous to be believed, and Tom McCarthy’s film is weakened by too many obvious announcements of its own political relevance. Thus the film gets a bit heavy-handed and manipulative, where McCarthy’s previous film, The Station Agent, remains something of a miracle… a perfect example of graceful and poetic storytelling.
But the actors here are the real highlight. They make this intimate drama something memorable and special. And in a year when many of the great films were also dispiriting in their depictions of darkness, this is a film full of warmth and joy.
Arnaud Desplechin’s elaborate drama about a family reunion fraught with grudges, hatred, and bad behavior, should be intolerably depressing. But Desplechin treats his characters with such patience that you’re likely to end up caring about them. Catherine Deneuve is the hard-hearted matriarch who is seeking bone marrow from one of her children in order to fight liver cancer. Matthieu Alamaric plays Henry, the son who has been cast out for troublemaking, and lo… he’s a match. But so is Paul, the young nephew who has severe emotional struggles of his own. Is there any hope for a family in such dire straits? Perhaps, if anybody’s paying attending to the children and their longing for Jesus’ return.
Is it a drama? A series of dream sequences? Finally available in the U.S., this experimental film about time, science, superstition, and medicine is strangely hypnotic. I’m not sure how to summarize it. We spend a lot of time in a small, country hospital and a bright modern hospital. Old-world practices are clashing with the new. Some conversations are repeated in different contexts, accentuating differences in worldview. It feels like a long poem about fragile threads between eras, and about the tenuous connections between people of different traditions, beliefs, and genders. It’s fascinating and often confounding. And it contains three or four of the most breathtaking scenes I’ve ever experienced—including a celestial event as beautiful as it is unexpected.
“All creation groans” in the unforgettable, long shots that open and close Reygadas’ remarkable film. It’s hard to believe this movie was released in 2008—it has a quality that will make it a major event for film students for many decades to come. It’s set in a Mexican community of Mennonites, where an unfaithful husband tries to rationalize his infidelity to devastating consequences. The movie’s a marriage of the religious exploration of Carl Dreyer’s Ordet and the metaphors of the natural world in Terrence Malick’s The New World. Personally, I find the film somewhat overbearing in its stiff formality, but I’m left breathless by the radiant cinematography and the film’s climactic affirmation of fidelity and faith.
Read my previous Good Letters meditation on Man on Wire.
2008’s most memorable nightmare came from Romania. Christian Mungiu tells a terrifying tale of two young woman, Otilia and Gabriela, whose mistakes lead to excruciating consequences. Gabriela seeks an illegal abortion, and Otilia’s attempts to help her leave them at the mercy of a vicious criminal. Caught in his grip, Otilia makes a shocking decision to help her friend—shocking to me, anyway, living in a culture where such cruelty seems uncommon. But what kind of friendship is this, anyway? Is Otilia’s faithfulness really so honorable? Haunted and distraught about the film’s depiction of such a bleak existence, I shared my feelings with a Romanian exchange student. He answered with furious affirmation: “This film is the truth about Romania under Communism. Ask my mother. Ask my father. This film is the world where they lived. It’s a psychology that very familiar to them.” In the end, the film seems to question whether Communism or Capitalism can do much to restrain our sinful impulses.
Critic Michael Sicinski is right to say “…childhood is almost always narrativized in a linear fashion, either as the movement from innocence to experience, or as an epiphanic recapturing of the magic of youth. Needless to say, no one really lives like this, least of all kids.”
Hou Hsiao-Hsien has captured the way children do experience the world, and in doing so he has offered us a gift. And he’s done it in Paris, with French-speaking actors, far from home. Few films capture the tension between childhood and adulthood as poetically as Hou’s whimsical tribute to Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon.
Juliette Binoche (gone blonde!) plays an actress lending her voice to a production of Japanese puppet theater. While a painful separation from her husband and daughter has left her stressed to the breaking point, she finds joy in her beautiful son, whose relationship with a wandering red balloon becomes an enchanting illustration of innocence lost. There is a beautiful spontaneity to Hou’s style.
The movie is a joy.
My full review is published at Christianity Today Movies.
And speaking of childhood… Pixar has once again produced a treasure for moviegoers of all ages.
(Read my conversation with Andrew Stanton here.)
How many movies can you name that are as provocative for adults as they are entertaining for children? Perhaps a few—but are they also standard-setting achievements in animation? How many begin with twenty minutes of dialogue-free creativity, like the near-silent comedy at the beginning of this film? Andrew Stanton’s story is an imaginative fusion of Noah’s Ark and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It affirms that human beings are at their best when reaching for something contrary to their programming—love. And it gives us a sharp Swiftian satire of contemporary life, in which humanity has become enslaved to “mechanical” instincts, while an inspired robot inadvertently reminds us that we are designed to transcend those impulses, and reach for the sublime. How ironic, then, that this superb work of imagination, comedy, and heart was produced on computers!
Read my commentary at Image here.
Jeff Nichols’ meditation on an Arkansas family feud has the timeless quality of an Old Testament tale, captured in beautiful, naturalistic imagery, and understated performances by an impressive cast of unknowns.
And this is his directorial debut? It’s powerfully accomplished. I want to see more, Mr. Nichols.
In a year when news headlines were dominated by reminders of the things that divide us—culture, religion, politics—Shotgun Stories stands out as an uncompromising look at the human capacity for civil war, and a desperate appeal for us to shoulder the burden of reconciliation and peacemaking.
It could have been stifling in its seriousness, but it has an endearing sense of humor, a great performance by Michael Shannon, and a poetic sensibility that never feels forced. I’ve thought about this film every day since I saw it. It’s caused me to think about the Shia and the Sunnis, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics.
And it has provoked some of my most memorable discussions with other moviegoers.
I think it’s a film we need, right now.
When you look back at 2008, what are four or five things you’ll always remember?
They can be personal or headline news. They can be events in your family, or events in your work, or things you read or heard…
Give me a list: What were your unforgettable experiences in 2008?
Me, let’s see, for starters (and in no particular order):
A few moments from the movies:
Image has posted my whole list of favorite films from 2008. I’ll soon post an expanded commentary here.
And by the way, the 20th anniversary issue of Image journal is now available! Inside: My in-depth conversation with Sam Phillips about the writers who have influenced her life and her songwriting.
Come join the fun, the inspiration, the awe…
Anne and I will be visiting the Glen Workshop for the fifth summer in a row. It’s our favorite week of the year. We call it a “sneak preview of heaven.”
And just look at the list of intriguing special guests who will be teaching workshops…
And let us not forget: A meeting of The Thomas Parker Society.