Top 10 from 2008 - a year of Film in Review

This post is a few months late, but I had to see a few more from 2008 before I felt good about having a complete list. My roommate Caleb likes to give me grief about my Netflix account being made up of way more independant and foreign films than box office killers, but thats the only way to see some of the best movies when you live in Nashville unless you go to the Belcourt twice a week...



So, in the words of Lauryn Hill, "ready or not, here I come."


Honorable Mention

Happy Go Lucky - I really liked this one. Poppy Montgomery was so jovial that it became annoying. No one is that happy in life. Great performance, good story, but everyone else sucked pretty badly.

Waltz with Bashir - This was a Belcourt movie for me, and I really liked it. Animated story of the Israeli war with Lebanon in 1982 and the toll it took on those involved. It was a little strange, but the actual video at the end was a good reminder that these events really happened. It was a sobering look at war in general, but in a different way than I had ever seen.

The Wrestler - Mickey Rourke and his triumphant comeback and Evan Rachel Wood in what I think was her best role I have seen were not enough to make it into the Top Ten in a really great year for film. I was totally weirded out by Marisa Tomei's character. However, Darren Aronofsky did a great job. It would have been Top Ten last year for sure.

Ironman - I know Robert Downey Jr. is literally the hottest actor in Hollywood right now. Everyone I know loved this movie. In all honesty, I fell asleep 3 times trying to watch this movie. Gwyneth bored me. Downey was great, but I just got tired of it. I liked what I saw, but it wasn't Top Ten for me. And I tried to watch it 3 times...

I've Loved You So Long - Kristin Scott Thomas plays a woman just out of prison for a heinous crime. Her younger sister takes her in while she readjusts (somewhat) to life in a world very different than when she left it. Highly recommend.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - Not for everyone. A Romanian film about a young woman seeking an abortion at the end of a semester of university in a country where it is illegal. Worth a look if you can handle the subject matter.

Curious Case of Benjamin Button - I know everyone said it was Forrest Gump in reverse, but I still loved it. Cate Blanchett might be my favorite female lead actress from 2008. Brad Pitt was great. Taraji P. Henson, also great. It just felt weird, and I think F. Scott Fitzgerald might be a little disappointed with the story changes, but overall, I liked it.

Slumdog Millionaire - Ok. I liked this one. Everyone else raved about it. It is a great story. It was well directed and the actors were good. Freida Pinto was great. I just don't think it was the best of the best from 2008. Please don't crucify me for it...

The Visitor - Richard Jenkins was awesome in this. The movie deserved more press and a better marketing effort, but I haven't talked to anyone who hated it. Great story. Very relevant subject matter.

Milk - Sean Penn is great again. As much is I hate his ability to influence politics as a celebrity, he gets it done on screen. Emile Hirsch is also really good in his role, and Josh Brolin continues his ascent into excellent film.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - Another WWII Nazi v. Jew movies, but I don't tire of these. Great story about a child living outside of a concentration camp befriending one inside of a camp.

Gran Torino - Eastwood. I thought this should have been up for Best Picture over The Reader.

Tropic Thunder - No better comedy this past year strictly because of Jack Black. Again, Downey Jr. is great. Tom Cruise's cameo was good, but not SAG/Oscar worthy.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall - Some nudity, but not the type you would expect. Judd Apatow keeps his troops in line with this one. It wasn't Superbad or 40-year Old Virgin, but it was good.

The Reader - Kate Winslet's best performance in years. I don't love her accent if it isn't British.

Frost/Nixon - Great presentation of a very odd interview.

Defiance - Hard to see Daniel Craig as Jewish. Blue eyes and blond hair... eh. It was good. Again, I don't get tired of WWII related film, so this was a keeper for me.


Dishonorable Mention

Wanted - Trash. Morgan Freeman, I thought more of you.
Jumper - Hayden Christiansen should just quit. Again, Samuel L. Jackson, I thought more of you.
Revolutionary Road - Leo and Kate, back together. Way too much hype, and it felt really Mad Men inspired. It was going to be in my HM section, then I remembered how bored I was.

Wes' Top Ten.... (drumroll.....)

10. The Class - Up for best foreign film at the Oscars in 2008, and I think it should have won. It felt like a documentary. It felt so real. The emotion, the stress, the students, the faculty. Everything. If you get a chance to see it, do it. Watch with subtitles too... I think movies with subtitles have way more to offer than any overdubbed ones.

9. Man on Wire - Crazy documentary about a French acrobat/tightrope walker; he planned and executed a high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of NYC in 1974. It's presented almost like a crime movie, laying out the details and plans and worries and exuberance of a "heist" pulled off. Phillipe Petit is crazy.

8. Rachel Getting Married - I hated Anne Hathaway in this. She was that good. Her character (Kym) is truly unlikable as a self-centered, drug abusing, life-altering family member. All that said, the movie was really great. Not unlike 2006's Danish film "After The Wedding", it centers around a wedding in the family and the return of Kym to the home.

7. Synechdoche, New York - Phillip Seymour Hoffman. His only black mark over the past 4 years is Mission Impossible III, and I don't hate him for doing a blockbuster film. Great in this Charlie Kauffman gem, but it's not for everyone. It is every bit Kauffman.

6. The Dark Knight - I really, really like where this franchise is going. Losing Ledger is hard, but I think it is in good hands with Bale, Freeman, Caine,and director Nolan. What a movie. I had never left a theatre and not been able to sleep after a midnight showing. It took me a good hour to finally calm down enough to go to sleep. See it. It's totally worth the 2.5 hours.

5. In Bruges - Colin Farrell is great. Brendan Gleeson is great. Ralph Fiennes is good. The story is crazy, the violence gruesome, the comedy really funny. Who knew Colin was funny? I didn't.

4. Vicky Cristina Barcelona - Woody Allen. I love his movies, even the really bad ones. It's obvious now that he literally loves Scarlett Johannsen. Good for him, bad for everyone else. She's not phenomenal, but Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardiem are excellent in this movie. Just amazing. Great story.

3. Let The Right One In - This excellent Swedish film is already being remade in english to be released in 2009 (I hope they don't ruin it). It was awesome. A really well drawn story of a young vampire girl befriending a young boy living nearby. Although there were a couple of strange moments, it was really really good. Enjoy the crazy scene in the pool toward the end.

2. Wall-E - Pixar did it again. I loved this movie. It's heard enough to make a movie, especially an animated film in this age. Now do it with nearly no words. Yet this movie had all of the emotion and passion of Vicky Cristina, without the sex and violence. Dreamworks wishes they could make a movie like this just one time. Pixar does it nearly every time.

1. Doubt - Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Meryl Streep. Amy Adams. Viola Davis. I am religious and I loved this movie. I loved it for the subject matter, the focus on fact versus belief, the acting, the script, everything. Best movie of 2008 for me, no question.

So, there is my review of 2008. You may agree or disagree with my choices. I list these as I liked them versus what others may have liked (i.e. The Academy, The Guild, etc.). So, take it or leave it.

I just love movies.

End of an Era

This could be it. The end of a lifetime of attending institutions of learning. May 9th of this year I completed the required courses to graduate with an M.B.A. from Lipscomb University.

It is a little surreal. After finishing undergrad in 2005, and attempting three times in vain to attend a decent law program, I may be finally done with my formal education. Every single bit of that education took place in Tennessee.

I think it is time for a new era.

2009 - A new year

2009 should be a pretty huge year...

We have a new President taking office in a matter of days. The country is bogged down in an economic crisis that I personally believe will put us on our knees before we can rebound. We are mired in two separate wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia, Iran, China and North Korea are constantly flexing their muscle (proverbial or actual). The world is changing at a pace so quick that is it difficult to keep up.

I will be graduating from an MBA program here in Nashville and considering some more education beyond the graduate level. My family is going through some serious changes as my nephews continue to grow up too fast and my siblings continue to develop into the adults our parents have been preparing us to become.

Here is to a wonderful year filled with all of the joy and happiness that I am sure I do not deserve.

"You embarrass me, you embarrass yourself"

Ever since I first saw the film "Crash" the above line has been one of my favorite movie quotes. I say it occasionally to friends when they do or say something that would be considered insulting to any number of people.

Right now, I am pretty embarrassed. I could probably be more embarrassed, but I am so angry that the anger is helps hide the disappointment and shame I feel.

In Washington D.C. over the past seven years, we have been lying, deceiving and manipulating our economy to a point that things are looking very bleak on Wall Street. We have praised investors when our markets seemed to be doing well and we praised the Real Estate brokers for working out loans for folks on hard times to allow them a chance at the American Dream.

We exalted our corporations for their hard work, and rewarded failure time and time again with exorbitant severance packages while investors were left holding seriously devalued stocks. We spent and spent and spent money; all the while the US Dollar has been taking a beating in the global markets. I joke with friends today after a long weekend that "I feel like a million British Pounds" or "I feel like a million Euro's" because a million bucks just isn't worth what it was five years ago.

So to the greedy, to the inane, to the truly worthless leaders of the past seven years I say these words again. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourselves.

I am hardly holding the President solely accountable. The Senate & Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Fed Reserve Chairmen (Bernanke and Greenspan), the countless Boards of Directors across the US, Credit Card companies the world over; this rests on you.

Your awful foresight, your terrible choices, your lack of vision and worse the lies and deceit you passed on as truths and confidence have brought us to this place. You are responsible. I am holding you responsible. When I talk about what is going on America with our economy, I am going to blame each of you.
I blame the millions of Americans who dumped their money into the market without a second thought to where it was going. I blame people who went out and got upside down in a bad mortgage they couldn't pay when the rates went up and then cried like children to the government about how unfair life was that they would be losing their home; all the while the bank held the deed and their wallets.
I blame a weak government that was afraid to tell these people and these companies NO; fend for yourselves. Now, we have set a precedent that defies logic. Go out, make tons of money, and give away the profits to the senior leadership. When the ship starts going down and there are no savings just call Uncle Sam...he'll help you work things out.

Republicans and Democrats, you are not fit to lead this nation. You have proven so consistently over the past seven years. You embarrass me, you embarrass yourselves.

Music is the heartbeat of life...

Every now and then an artist comes along that literally brings me to a halt. 

I adore music with every fiber in me. I personally believe that God created music for people like me. Music is the heartbeat of my life. I cannot remember a day in the past 10 years or more of my life where music did not make an appearance. On trips to the Rockies, Appalachians, The Canyonlands in Utah, Italy, Austria, Germany, and many more there have been two constants; a bible and music. 

I have vivid memories that involve music as an association to an event.  I can literally recall a moment in time when I hear the song "Sparks" by Coldplay reminding me of a drive down into Florence, Italy and wondering if it was meant to be that this beautiful song had been destined to play driving into a city of beauty unsurpassed elsewhere in the world. The song "Different Names for the Same Place" by Death Cab for Cutie reminds me of the book 'The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand, a book I read while listening to the album. To say I am passionate about music is a gross understatement. 

Over the past few weeks, Iron & Wine has absolutely dominated my music playlist over the past month. When I listen to 'Our Endless Numbered Days' it literally brings me to a standstill.  I couldn't begin to explain what it is, but something about the music and the lyrics and the emotion, the whispering lyrics and soothing acoustic guitar just takes me to a place of peace. 

Music is the heartbeat of my life. It sounds ridiculous that something so simple could have such a huge impact... maybe that is why I like it so much. Simplicity and beauty. 

Grace is Gone

During my teenage years, I listened to the Dave Matthews Band nearly all of the time (my family can back that up) and I started playing guitar so I could learn the songs. One of my favorite songs of his was a song that he wrote and recorded for an album that was never publicly released.

"Grace is Gone" is a song he wrote about a man who sits, lonely in a bar, asking for one more drink because his girl, Grace, has left him. She has broken his heart and he wants to forget her... it's a bummer of a song for sure. Well, fast forward a few years and a movie with the same title came out. "Grace is Gone", an independent movie with John Cusack, one of my favorite male actors, as the lead role.

He plays a husband whose wife has been deployed to Iraq, away from him and their two girls. As you may have guessed, he receives the news that she has been killed in action. To avoid telling his daughters, he spontaneously decided to take them on a road trip to a theme park in order to find a way to tell them....

When I first heard about this movie, I figured it would be super anti-American and anti-war. It wasn't either of those things, but not because it was pro-war or pro-America. It was simply pro-humanity. It showed the struggle of a father trying to find the time and words to explain to his children how their mother won't be coming back. It helped me to see through the mess in Iraq (or anywhere else we have troops) and remember that there are people going through this same battle everyday; dealing with a loss that makes little sense, regardless of whether the occupation is right or wrong.

It's people, struggling to make sense of senselessness. Just something to think about ....

Election 2008: Change, Same, or Insanity

It's election year yet again in America. Awesome.

Since the mid-term elections in 2006, there has been a near-constant discussion about the candidates running for the Presidency of my country. At first, I was excited at the prospect of a new leadership philosophy and moving America to a place where other nations strive to be similar to us in all aspects; not by force, but by choice.

Now, we appear to be down to only 3 candidates for this position. Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Obama is the candidate of Change, McCain is the candidate of Same, and Clinton is the candidate of Insanity.

What a crapstorm.

Are these the 3 best candidates for the role of President of the United States of America?

I am proud to be able to say that our Founding Fathers were among the great thinkers of their time (Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, etc). They drafted a document that has gone largely unmodified in 230 years. They set in place the system by which we still operate the majority of our government. These men were statesmen, working together for the good of the country, not personal fame or glory.

I seriously doubt our current politicians could come close to developing such a system. Too much self-interest has perverted the system. Now, we are stuck with two lawyers with very little actual experience and a veteran who incredibly unlikable as our options for President. I am not excited about the prospect of being able to vote for any of the 3 remaining candidates... in fact, I wasn't much thrilled with those who are already out of the running.

In 6 months, we will be electing a new 'Leader of the Free World' from the 3 candidates named above. I wish I were more excited about it. But all three of them are so weak, I would rather just start the whole mess over and see if we could recruit some legitimate candidates with experience, leadership ability, unifying skill and about 50 other characteristics to lead this nation. But as it stands right now, I am thinking maybe we should just stick with the status quo.