
As you'll have noticed, if you keep track of the sidebar, I've been racing to catch up with 2008 releases that I missed in theaters but are now available on DVD, and just like every year, they reinforce what a falsehood it is that the fall is the best season for seeing movies. The best season for Oscarbait, maybe. And sure, there is fabulous stuff knocking around the multiplexes and the arthouses these days:
The Wrestler,
Milk,
The Class,
A Christmas Tale,
Rachel Getting Married...

Still, in the last week or two, and adding to the early '08 marvels that I already absorbed in the theaters, I've seen a rash of really great springtime releases: the exciting and partially animated documentary
Chicago 10, the plush and perverse costumer
The Duchess of Langeais, the vividly filmed and acted criss-crossy drama
The Edge of Heaven, and the serenely observant and occasionally cheeky
Still Life. (Boy has the Venice Film Festival been on a terrific
run these last few years!) Assuming that my
six A-range movies from the year are all safe for my Top Ten List (and I'm basically only awaiting
In Bruges and
Benjamin Button before I sally forth with that thing...), this means that the competition in my mind for those last four slots is suddenly quite tight among the
seventeen movies I've tagged with a B+ in the last year of commercial releases.

So, while I'm only fitfully on the web for the next few week, and while I'm cogitating about my list and second-guessing my allegiances, can you do me a favor? Make a short, punchy FYC statement about why any one of these movies does or doesn't deserve to qualify for the Top Ten ahead of one or more of the others. Does
A Christmas Tale or
Rachel Getting Married do better by its lively family dysfunction? Does
Milk or
The Class strike a more interesting balance between its documentary and imaginative impulses? Has
Yella's elliptical sense of dread lingered better in your mind than
WALLE's measured sense of wonder? How about the afterlife of
Burn After Reading's acrid comedy, or the muted, observational styles of
Ballast and
Flight of the Red Balloon? The dusty dreamworld of
Alexandra, the nightmare chamber of
Taxi to the Dark Side, the florid pop-up book of
The Fall, or the rambunctious historical embellishments of
Man on Wire or
Chicago 10?

If you haven't seen one of these titles, rent it or buy a ticket, and file your impressions. I'm all ears, and nothing is a sure thing! I thought
The Dark Knight was, but a second viewing bumped it down a notch. Alternatively, I've been known to decide that a "B" movie from earlier in the year has made a more potent impression on me than a whole flock of "B+"s, which is how
Iraq in Fragments leapfrogged its way up at the last minute in
2006. Sosway me!
Labels: Movies 2008