Danny Boyle’s underdog movie about a slum kid in India who defies all odds was the most unabashedly, tragically, rapturously romantic film of 2008.
Tag: 2008
The giant monster invasion begins on ‘Cloverfield’ on HBO Max
This high-concept reworking of an old-fashioned creature feature is a 21st century Godzilla movie with a DIY aesthetic. Matt Reeves directs and J.J. Abrams produces.
James Franco and Seth Rogen ride the ‘Pineapple Express’ on Netflix
David Gordon Green leaped from from indie dramas of small town tragedy to make this hilarious stoner buddy comedy. Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, produced by Judd Apatow, and Danny McBride and Gary Cole.
‘Frozen River’ on Amazon Prime
Courtney Hunt delivers the best kind of American independent drama with Frozen River (2008), a film that is respectful of its characters, responsive to its location, and honest in its storytelling. This kind of uncompromising filmmaking is often a hard sell. Hunt not only got her film a theatrical release, she earned Academy Award nominations […]
Francis McDormand in ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ on Amazon Prime
The bouncy little screwball romance Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) is a fizzy cocktail of a movie set in depression-era London, where the beautiful people dance away in fabulous fashions and decadent distraction. Frances McDormand is the dowdy Guinevere Pettigrew, a buttoned-down yet free-thinking governess whose unorthodox ways have landed her on the […]
‘Twilight’ – Young vampires in love on Netflix
Stephenie Meyer’s vampires are not your parents’ vampires. They walk around in daylight. They sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight. And they love baseball. Meyer’s young love vampire series of novels became a veritable pop phenomenon among teen girls (and their mothers) and the very faithful screen adaptation was an unqualified hit with the fans. […]
Last chance: ‘The Good, the Bad, the Weird’- Kim Jee-won’s “Oriental Western” on Hulu
Kim Jee-won’s The Good, the Bad, the Weird (South Korea, 2008) is a self-proclaimed “Oriental Western.” That about pegs this treasure hunt right out of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by way of Peking Opera Blues and Dragon Gate Inn, set in thirties Manchuria and filled with Korean expatriates, Chinese bandits, Japanese occupiers, […]
Oscar winner ‘The Hurt Locker’ on Peacock
“Tell me something. What’s the best way to disarm one of these things?”“The way you don’t die, sir.” Set in the Iraq war after the proclamation of “Mission Accomplished” and the transformation of a battlefield army into an occupation force, The Hurt Locker (2008) follows the finals days in the rotation of a bomb disposal unit […]
‘The Dark Knight’ vs. The Joker on Hulu
Superhero films became increasingly sophisticated and decidedly darker as they become (for better or worse) a full-fledged genre in the 2000s. With Batman Begins, writer/director Christopher Nolan (drawing inspiration from the revisionist Batman comic books by Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb) rebooted the Batman mythos for the big screen, bringing the often lighthearted hero back […]
‘Burn After Reading’ – unclassified CIA laughs on Amazon Prime
Burn After Reading (2008) – After the darkness of No Country for Old Men, the Coen Bros. eased up with a deadpan espionage farce played out by small fish convinced that they are in deep waters, a film much lighter and significantly slighter but put together with such perfection that you can’t help but be […]