Rachel’s wedding - the movie lovers’ social event of the year

It was a year where Rachel tied the knot and half brothers fought. Four months, three weeks and two days marked a trying time and living on Revolutionary Road was not sublime. We crossed a frozen river and toasted Milk and had no doubt that we were thrilled by the Joker and his ilk. In the end we fell in love with a trash compactor, his lover in the air and an Indian slumdog millionaire.

This was a very, very difficult year to choose the order of films. I guess I had a soft spot for films that didn’t reach a wider audience this year. Underdogs seem right for the tough 2008. So take all films on the list as equally worth seeing. And as I said for last year’s list, things are subject to change over time and upon seeing films I missed. Last year’s list didn’t change too much, but a few films from 2007 that I saw in 2008 popped onto the top 25 and there were a few more honorable mentions, all films I highly recommend. You can check out the amended list at the bottom of the original ranking if you’d like.

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Based on Richard Yates’ celebrated novel, Sam Mendes’ screen adaptation is a battle between the easy course and the road less traveled. Set in the 1950s, the original book was an indictment of the conformity of the Eisenhower era, however, the film carries into today a difficult examination of nothing less than the meaning of life. This challenging material is at times hopeful and at other times desperate. In AMERICAN BEAUTY, Mendes showed that he understood suburban malaise. Now he returns to the same world without the comforting veil of real world fantasy, lying bare hard truths that we pretend do not exist.

Frank and April Wheeler, played by TITANIC’s famed couple Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, are what appears to be the ideal couple. They live in a nice home in the suburbs with their two kids. Frank has a good job at the Knox Company and April is a stay-at-home mom. However, this is not the life they had planned for themselves when they first met. Having served there in the war, Frank has always wanted to return to Paris, and April had trained as an actress. Frank doesn’t even know what he’s selling at his “good job” and local theater just isn’t enough to fulfill the emptiness inside April. She has a plan, which everyone thinks is childish, but it’s exciting for both her and Frank. Sadly life seems to always get in the way of our grand plans.

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Oh how lonely it is sometimes to be a child. Oskar fantasizes about stabbing the bullies that pick on him mercilessly. So when he meets the odd new girl who moves into his apartment complex, they find a bond in their loneliness. The only difference between them is that the girl has been lonely for centuries. This Swedish gem becomes one of the best vampire movies ever made because it deals with all the standards of vampirism in a surprisingly sweet coming of age story. The pieces are familiar, but fit together so poignantly that I was surprised it hadn’t been done before.

Oskar’s parents are split and he has no friends before Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door. Schoolmate Conny (Patrik Rydmark) not only likes to constantly torture Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), but likes to recruit other less willing boys to torture him too. He’s not just a bully, but a bully incubator. Eli warns Oskar that she can’t be his friend, but her distance doesn’t stop Oskar from trying. We know something is not right with this pale 12-year-old girl. She seems not at all bothered by the cold when outdoors at night without shoes on. The older man, Hakan (Per Ragnar), whom she lives with, is less friendly than her, and his full relationship to her isn’t made clear until we’re well into the story. When people start turning up murdered, Oskar is captivated, one of his hobbies is collecting news clippings about death. So a match with a bloodsucker seems perfect, right?

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