Best of 2008

I'm not doing a music list this year for two reasons: 1. I didn't digest enough & 2. I didn't find enough compelling. In other words if I did a Top 20 like usual, it wouldn't be the "top" but rather the only 20 records of which I actually really listened. Sorry.

Here's some other people's lists though:
1. NPR Listeners Pick The Year's Best Music
2. PASTE Magazine: Signs of Life 2008: Best Music

Movies on the other hand didn't disappoint, or maybe I was just a visual learner this year. It was a good year for film with the best movies telling stories of complex and unique characters not wholly good or bad, new worlds and mood strong landscapes (even an animated film unafraid of silence). Though there was a desert season mid-year, with Oscar season near Christmas was full of a gluttony of gifts. This was the year of the director auteur. "And. here. we. go..."

Best Overall Films of 2008:
1. The Dark Knight - dir. Nolan
2. The Reader - Daldry
3. Revolutionary Road - Mendes
4. Doubt - Shanley
5. Milk - Van Sant
6. Wall-E - Stanton
7. In Bruges - McDonagh
8. Synecdoche, New York - Kaufman
9. Slumdog Millionaire - Boyle
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Fincher

Honorable Mentions:
Frost/Nixon - Howard
Gran Torino - Eastwood
Paranoid Park - Van Sant
Burn After Reading - Coen Bros.
Australia - Luhrmann

Best Documentaries:
Man on Wire - Marsh
Encounters at the End of the World - Herzog
American Teen - Burstein
Flow - Salina
Standard Operating Procedure - Morris

Best Foreign Films:
Waltz with Bashir - Folman (Israel)
TimeCrimes - Vigalondo (Spain)
Let the Right One In - Alfredson (Sweden)
Son of Rambow - Jennings (UK)
A Christmas Tale (France)

Best Action Movies:
The Dark Knight - Nolan
Iron Man - Favreau
Quantum of Solace - Forster
Hellboy II: The Golden Army - del Toro

Best Comedies:
Be Kind Rewind - Gondry
Burn After Reading - Cohen Bros.
Son of Rambow - Jennings
Hamlet 2 - Fleming
Pineapple Express - Apatow

Most Disappointing that should/could have been good:
W - Stone
Changeling - Eastwood
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Spielberg

Movies I wanted to see but didn't (yet):
Rachel Getting Married - Demme
Firaaq - Das (India)
Ballast - Hammer
The Wrestler - Aronofsky