Out of Focus

OOF Year-in-Review 2008: Top 10 Films of the Year

Nothing like a non-self-imposed deadline to get those Top 10 lists agoing. Somehow, I never even wound-up publishing my list for 2007, and I figure, it’s a little late now, even for me. And while 2008 is not yet complete and there are a slew of films I still plan to see over the holidays (I’m currently trying to program my annual Christmas day and weekend movie marathon, but the online sites don’t yet have all the theater schedules updated), I’m fairly confident that the 10 films I’ll mention below (and more over the next several days) will remain my choices as the best of 2008.

The process of these lists and their importance is regularly discussed, debated and derided, year-in and year-out. Everyone who considers oneself a critic, reviewer, blogger, cinephile or all-of-the-above spends plenty of time dismissing the process before tossing his/her own choices into the morass of opinions. We all know that such lists are purely subjective, and we all wholeheartedly believe that our subjective ideas are objectively truer than anyone else’s. And we’re all happy that everyone else is simply wrong.

I couldn’t have been happier to be participate in this year’s indieWIRE Critics’ Poll. On the list are several opinions I wholeheartedly respect even as I may disagree with them. To me, like every year, 2008 was anything but a poor one for film. That’s not to say that there were more or less great films this year than previous ones; just that when I truly think about the year in cinema, it is still not difficult for me to identify plenty of titles that not only have stuck with me, but were also tremendous movie-watching experiences. Culling the number of exceptional titles down to a list of 10 was as difficult as ever, and there are plenty of films that didn’t make my list, yet the experiences of seeing each of them are ones I still treasure.

While I did add a comment to my indieWIRE poll ballot, every choice I made comes with a specific reason behind its inclusion, and it is in this space now that I would like to further explain. I'll write about the near misses and other categories on the ballot some other time, but for now, you can find detail on the top 10 after the jump; click below to go directly to any individual title:

Top 10 Films of 2008

1. Synecdoche, New York
   
2. A Christmas Tale
   
3. Wendy and Lucy
   
4. Hunger
   
5. WALL*E
   
6. My Father, My Lord
   
7. In the City of Sylvia
   
8. The Secret of the Grain
   
9. Waltz With Bashir
   
10. Happy-Go-Lucky

The Polls Have Closed

I had the opportunity to participate in indieWIRE's annual critics' poll this year, and just submitted my ballot about 20 minutes ago. I assume my choices will be posted over at indieWIRE some time today, and after they are, I'll post more detailed explanations for my list here. Nobody will be surprised by my ultimate worshipful love for Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, but there's certainly more to say about everything else, and so ...

MORE TK!

How does Jeff Zucker keep failing upwards? NBC and the pending Leno debacle

That's right, kids. All it takes is a major multi-million dollar corporate executive to make one of the biggest bonehead moves in television history to at least momentarily get me out of this writing funk. Here's a question for you: let's say you somehow managed to executive produce the most profitable morning news show in television history, and that lands you a cushy little promotion to be the big cheese, in charge of all of one of the big three's entertainment programming. Funny thing though ... you have a surprise hit here and there, but for the most part, your ascendancy to that top entertainment chair (from the news division, mind you) helps your network begin and continue its slide from the #1 network overall right down to the bottom. So what happens next? Dammit ... you get promoted. And promoted again. And again. And I'm pretty sure one more time. At least four times, I believe. Welcome to the charmed life of Jeff Zucker, the President & CEO of NBC Universal.

Now comes the coup de grace: as everyone has heard by now, NBC has recently decided that since they promised Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show starting in mid-2009, and they didn't want to risk losing current late-night ratings leader Jay Leno to another network, they would make the next (il)logical choice - hand over the 10 PM (9 Central, dontcha forget) time slot every weeknight to Leno so that he may continue essentially his version of The Tonight Show under a different moniker.

You may not be reading it here first, but I'd be willing to place every single dollar I have (or these days, don't have) that this is potentially the worst move in television history. Yes, worse than CBS giving up the NFL to Fox with nary a fight. (Don't laugh ... that single move helped contribute to years of CBS in the desert and to Fox rising up high enough to make people say the "Big Four" rather than "Big Three.") Yes, significantly worse than Katie Couric to the CBS Evening News or Deborah Norville replacing Jane Pauley on Today. Far, far, FAR worse than giving the Geico cavemen a sitcom or even the disastrous (and costly) "Chevy Chase Show" on Fox.

There isn't just one reason why this is a terrible strategic move for NBC. And before anyone simply calls me a "Leno hater," the quality of Leno's show is probably the least important factor as to why by this time next year (if there's any justice) this colossal flop will lead to Zucker's demise. For the recent successes at NBC -- and there have been a few, most notably the revival of the Thursday night comedy line-up and the decision to give over Sunday night to football -- have truly been in spite of some downright stupid strategic decisions by Zucker, both in terms of his hiring of subordinate management and specific programming.