2008 Top & Bottom Films
Welcome ladies and gents to the (Cool) Shite on the Tube best and worst of 2008. While all over the web folks are presenting you with their top and bottom films of the last year and we all are slowly simmering away in the lead up to the Oscars (Which I’m sure we all give a damn about), we figured what the hell, lets jump on that band wagon! The annual top and bottom fives are becoming quite the tradition and this year we decided to open the voting to all of you too. So without further ado, we are pleased to present the lists.
Top Films of 2008
2008 saw the release of some very high profile sequels along with some new franchises that took the world by storm. Animation also took a great leap forward and we were presented with a much greater array of not just pretty, but intelligent animated films. 2008 really was the year of The Bat however and having raked in more money than god, The Dark Knight proved to many that finally comic books films had come of age.
THE LIST
Number 5: TIE – In Bruges / Son of Rambow
These two films are a testament to original storytelling and independent film-making. Both shot for relatively small budgets, they both explore the themes of friendship, loyalty and doing utterly stupid stuff. Son of Rambow is a simple yet elegant tale of two young boys who want to make a movie, while In Bruges follows two hitmen spending time in a glorious historical village while waiting for a job. Two fantastically original and beautiful films.
Number 4: TIE - Wall-E / The Fall
Again two films tie for the top 5, and here the visual spectacle is truly evident, though both films display a great amount of heart. Wall-E continues Pixar’s trend of creating moving, emotional stories with only pixels on a screen. The Fall creates an equally amazing world, entirely without the use of CGI. Both films feature amazing visuals but equally amazing performances.
Number 3: Hellboy 2
Guillermo Del Toro’s return to the world of the big red demon benefits heavily from his new-found confidence and the freedoms afforded to him by his success with Pans Labyrinth. The mythological world of Hellboy 2 is stunningly realised and the story, while a bit thin on the ground, is engaging throughout. Hellboy and Abe’s drunken singalong remains easily the best scene in the film.
Number 2: Iron Man
Who saw this coming? Seriously? Iron Man was a film about a second-string marvel hero with an untried director (on action films anyway) and an extremely unorthodox lead casting. Yet the film found a much broader audience than almost any Superhero movie thus far and proved to be a complete winner with adults, kids, boys and girls alike. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man. And Iron Man rocks.
Number 1: The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan’s return to the wonderful world of the big black bat was looking pretty cool from the outset, nobody expected the magnificent film that we finally were treated to. While not being a perfect film (batsy’s voice being a subject of plenty of ridicule) it came pretty damn close. Not just a great superhero film but simply a great film. It earned a metric sh*t tonne of cash and was worth every cent.
Bottom Films of 2008
2008 also saw the release of some absolute stinkers; films which remind us exactly why we are allowed to walk out of the cinema any time we damn well choose. The trend we saw the most of this year was a very pleasing one; for the most part people couldn’t actually vote for the really bad films because they had AVOIDED THEM. As such the ones that made the list may not have been the absolute worst, but simply the ones that successfully snuck up on us and assaulted us from behind.
THE LIST
Number 5: MASSIVE TIE – Meet the Spartans / Wanted / Sex and the City/ Scorpion King 2/ The Love Guru.
While some would cause debate, ie. Sex and the City and Wanted, the others seem to fit right in here on the bottom of the pile. The Love Guru showed us what happens when a star needs a paycheck and Meet the Spartans showed us what happens when the well totally runs dry. The Scorpion King 2 however took the cake by giving up just before the final battle and having it’s hero fight a giant invisible scorpion. A plethora of suck.
Number 4: 3 WAY TIE – Doomsday/ 10,000 BC/ Cloverfield
Doomsday was such a horrible shock to those of us who had enjoyed Neil Marshall’s previous efforts, it looked so cool but was unforgivably retarded, while 10,000BC was no shock to any of us. Roland Emerich proved conclusively that he has no taste left and his next film 2012 looks just as inane. Cloverfield managed to polarize audiences, with some loving the cinema verite style and others needing to throw up a little in their mouths.
Number 3: The Happening
Poor M. Night Shyamlanadingdong… you started so well! And fell so far and so fast many of us only caught the briefest whistle of fabric as you flew past us. After his previous failures many thought The Happening would be a welcome return to creepy form for the Indian director. We were wrong. Plants are not scary unless they are Triffids…. Repeat it with me….. plants are not scary……
Number 2: Jumper
For a film that looked so cool, its slightly disturbing how utterly vacuous it ended up being. With missing plot threads, bad hair and the most wooden lead character since Star Wars: Episodes 2 and 3, this film was always going to be struggling. When the end finally did roll around we found a unsatisfying conclusion that was setting up for a sequel we hope will never come.
Number 1: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Oh Indy….Indy Indy Indy. George and Steve broke the cardinal rule of film-making here; they returned to a beloved and well regarded series and wheeled it back out for a less than mediocre adventure. Some viewers enjoyed the spectacle and ride-like nature of the film, while most were left confused by Cate Blanchette’s Russian psychic and the purpose of Shia laBeouf’s character as a whole. Unnecessary and unwelcome.
SPECIAL MENTIONS
Special mentions must go to Wanted and Meet the Spartans for garnering votes for both categories.
Oh and another special mention goes to Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay for introducing us to the utterly genius concept that it is the bottom-less party and Neil Patrick Harris on a unicorn. Thanks guys, you do indeed rock.
Now we all look forward to 2009 and hope that the highs remain high and the lows are not so low. We look forward to hearing your responses, as we’re sure many will disagree on these films and remember; this is your shite.
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About The Author
Q-Dog
David Quinn is a writer, artist, film-maker, performer and general all-round-nice-guy who lives and works out of Launceston, Tasmania. He's lived in Tasmania all of his life but is lucky enough to have been to the UK, France, and South Africa in his younger days.
He has written short films, co-authored video games, advised on feature scripts and television shows as well as advertising campaigns. He is also a regular performer on both stage and screen. One day he will make his fortune out of all this malarkey. ONE DAY......
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I cannot believe that Jumper didn’t make it to the number 1 spot. It was such an astounding film. I mean the kid under the ice over river (emotion plus). Sam Jackson as a Knight Templar. It was everything and more.
Interesting list. I wouldn’t have wanted in Top or bottom 5. It wasn’t terrible but wasn’t great but then hard to imagine that given the trailer and the ridiculous 360 degree bullet at the end.
I haven’t actually seen any films that made the worst list so that must say a good thing about my movie taste
Of the best list I have seen the top 2 films which again must show how awesome I am. I think I may have pushed Iron Man over Dark Knight but it’s pretty much a deadheat to be honest. Both look good on blu ray.
I really can’t think of the films I saw at the cinema this year. How to lose friends….I didn’t find anywhere near as bad as you guys did in your review and thought it was mildly amusing. Not a great movie but somewhere in the middle. QoS was ok I guess. had some good moments and some pretty ordinary ones as well and prob not the best Bond film ever made. They need to rework that editing though. That fast cut method most of the time really is annoying. maybe the kids want to see movies that way but the majority don’t. It works for Bourne but not Bond.
Burn After Reding was a very good film and would be in my top 5 films (if I had rememberd to vote). Funny characters, Brad Pitt hammed it up all the way and was great. Just really liked this film a lot.
That’s all I can remember for now…
Burn After Reading didn’t set my world alight, but the ending is quite funny. I sorta got bored of the whole thing as I realized it was a 80+ minute setup for the gag at the end. Enjoyable, but nothing outstanding in my opinion.
I clearly don’t watch many movies. lol There’s quite a few that I didn’t catch.
I haven’t seen either In Bruges or Son of Rambow, but I might have to track them down if they are that good. I loved Wall-E (so cute!), but haven’t seen The Fall, as it didn’t really appeal to me at the time.
I loved Iron Man. For me it was the movie of the year. I didn’t enjoy Hellboy 2 and The Dark Knight as much as I wanted to. There were parts that I enjoyed, but they are not the sort of movies that I want to watch over again. Hellboy for me suffers from my not caring about the characters very much, even though I want to. The only character I can say I really like is Abe, and I already liked him in the first movie. I hate to say it but I thought Batman was just too long. Parts were good, but the movie was also very frustrating. Perhaps my expectations were affected by the fact that I enjoyed Iron Man a lot more. I probably would have enjoyed it more had I not seen Iron Man first. We’ll never really know!
I didn’t see:
Meet the Spartans / Wanted / Sex and the City/ Scorpion King 2/ The Love Guru.
or
Doomsday/ 10,000 BC/ Cloverfield
or even
The Happening
I was never planning to either. lol
I did see Jumper and thought it was okay at the time. I forget most of it now though so that’s not a good sign.
I rather enjoyed Indy though. It was never ever going to be anywhere near as good as Raiders but despite Indy looking a little worse for wear, I found it entertaining, fun and I always wanted to see Indy and Marion get together, so the romantic in me loves that part, cheesy as it is
This has to be the end of the story. There is nothing more to tell. I hope that this is the final chapter. It should be left there and never brought back.
I couldn’t submit a top and bottom 5, as I couldn’t think of 5 movies I didn’t enjoy. Just some fun ones and others that were kinda entertaining and fun but not earth-shatteringly awesome….
………except for Iron Man
Bruce,
I can see where you are coming from with Burn After Reading and the last gag is a pretty good one. I did still enjoy it though but as we can see everyone has there own standards or what they like in films.
SFP I agree about The Dark Knight’s length. I was watching the blu ay weekend before last and was well into it when I realised there was still over an hour to go, guess that’s when it hit me how long it was. I think iron man was probably more enjoyable but that maybe as we saw that first and were blown away dark Knight had a lot to make up. As I said they could be reversed and I would be happy either way.
It is also interesting the Top 2 films are super-hero movies. You won’t see that too many places, well except maybe geek sites which I think we all fall into.
I never saw Indy and thought about it but after the review of it I decided not too. I may obtain a copy of it and check it out.
i think you’d be shocked, Iron man made a LOT of folks top 5 films. and dark knight made everyone’s so 2 superhero films in one year! even incredible hulk made the top 20 earners.
as yet i haven’t seen In Bruges, 10,000 BC, The Love Guru, Meet the Spartans and The Happening. I will se In Bruges asap. Starfire, the fall is an essential for you! the costuming alone is worth a look. add tot hat the fact that its just a stunningly beautiful film.
like i say, the best thinhg this year seemed to be that lots of people AVOIDED the shit films. hence no-one could vote on Beverly Hills Chihuahua, or Anything with the word ‘Movie” at the end of the title.
well done to one and all!
I’m proud to say that I’ve seen every movie on the top and bottom list and I’m quite surprised that The Happening finished behind Indy 4 and Jumper. As much as those movies sucked, nothing that came out this year compares to cinematic insult that is The Happening.
This movie had everything, bad directing, bad acting, bad story, cheesy lines and the worst movie villan in history (even worse than in Schumacher’s Batman & Robin).
I totally agree about the Happening, but it really comes down to what people saw. Indy had much more people see it than the Happening.
Not to mention that Indy 4 was very highly anticipated.
It was definitely the most dissapointing of 2008.
FUCK THE GOLDEN GLOBES, FUCK THE BAFTAS AND FUCK THE OSCARS!! CoolShite will allways be my official annual film awards.
And thanks so much for giving In Bruges the recognition it deserves.
You Guys all Rock
I only saw In Bruges after the voting was completed. Now waiting for Qdog to watch it so we can review this great little film.
hurry the fuck up Quinny, In Bruges is bloddy squillz
ok, i’ve watched it. now what? lol, awesome. must admit i’d have voted it top 5 from me.
will be reviewing soon.
It looks like I have 3 movies I should watch from the top 5 – In Bulges I am thinking about watching anyway since the New Doctor Who is in it.
Ronald-san (using the new site as a chance to change my name.)