TRACTOR FACTS MOVIE ROUND-UP FOR 2008

THE BEST MOVIES OF 2008

10. Baby Mama

Michael McCullers and Tina Fey built a sincere social-comedy around a popularized slang term and ended up diffusing the ghettoization of it. Baby Mama says more about class and status than critics gave it credit for, and Amy Poehler's batty-to-gentle performance was one of the year's best.

9. Fighter

In aiming for climactic Karate Kid-type magic, Fighter misfires. But as a teen coming-of-age/female-empowerment film, it is richer than any made-for-eighteen-and-under film of 2008. Aicha, the daughter of Turkish-Muslim immigrants, pushes back on cross-cultural confusion (a recurring dream sequence of Aicha fighting a ninja later reveals itself as her fighting a figure in a burqa) while wooing the interracial love of her life on the mats. Fighter is the ideal pop-friendly picture for young women living in our porous border world.

8. You Don't Mess With The Zohan

The slapstick satire of John Tuturo and Adam Sandler playing paddle ball with a grenade won't bring peace upon Gaza anytime soon, but art this good helps chip away at the stubborn preconceptions held by each culture. Zohan corrects what the 2001 documentary Promises exploited.

7. My Brother is an Only Child

Between the walls of a home, two brothers beef about far-left and far-right politics in Blackshirt-era Italy. The hormones of young manhood run up against ideologies of commies and fascists, producing pimples, puberty, and propaganda. My Brother... makes a nice companion piece to Marco Bellochio's Good Morning, Night, while Italian filmmakers continue to wrestle with politics better than most.


6. Before I Forget

Writer, actor, director, and eloquent idea-man Jacques Nolot continues to explore the life of the over-50 gay cruiser and the consequences that come when men choose sexual promiscuity over commitment and monogamy. Revisiting this movie post-Milk makes Gus Van Zant's film seem even more irrelevant than it already was.



5. Burn After Reading

As our political machines appear to be more incompetent now more than ever, the Coen Bros. cranked out a quick, smartie-pants farce about how close each one of us actually is to having an impact on the national security of our country. Burn After Reading blows through your head so fast that repeated viewings are required. And John Malkovich gives the best supporting performance of the year.


4. My Blueberry Nights

Like Bertolucci, Wong Kar-Wai could probably film a sewage plant and make a more visually evocative drama than most. But that's selling this modern master short. Kar-wai understands the colors of human emotion as much as the moonlight that reflects off city streets. The looping of Cat Power's "The Greatest" (as well as her brief and classically-beautiful appearance) adds a level of unexpected devastation.

3. Tropic Thunder

Hollywood usually condescends to thinking they know so much about the world we live in, that when Ben Stiller, Etan Cohen, and Justin Theroux decide to eat their own in this multi-layered comedy it feels like one of the most refreshing and enlightened films to come out of this industry in years.

2. Be Kind Rewind

In a film about movie love and community goals, Michel Gondry outwits every other visual stylist with his recreations of genre hits and iconic classics, thus giving re-birth to the fascination and fashion that once dominated this medium we love so much.

1. Happy-Go-Lucky

I walked out of Happy-Go-Lucky knowing that nothing else would top it. I worked it into as many movie conversations this year that I could; it hasn't washed off of my memory yet, and I doubt it ever will. Mike Leigh continued along the lines of his pitch perfect class-conscious dramedies, but what he gave us in Poppy (Sally Hawkins), was one of the most debated creations of 2008, and a character that is sure to go down as legendary in cinema.

THE WORST MOVIES OF 2008

1. Inside/Fronteir(s)/Martyrs (tie)

2. Religulous

3. Doomsday

4. The Visitor

5. The Strangers

6. Mamma Mia!

7. Paranoid Park

8. Seed

9. Hamlet 2

10. Snow Angels

Onto 2009! Bride Wars and The Unborn, here I come...