2008 Top Ten Film Lists

As 2008 comes to an end, the film critics top ten lists begin to proliferate. One of the best websites for tracking the top ten lists is www.moviecitynews.com and this is the webpage that displays the scoreboard.

http://moviecitynews.com/awards/2009/top_ten/00scoreboard.htm

It's early so keep coming back to it through to early January to see how the list develops. Notice that you can see the scoreboard or view individual film critics' lists.

Unfortunately few of the top twenty will actually play in our region so you may have to travel a bit to see them.

Because most of the films just came out in December, few of them were available to us at this time.

Our first four films for our 2009 season are:

Monday January 12: One Week
Monday February 2: I've Loved You So Long
Monday March 2: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Monday April 6: The Class (Entre Les Murs)

More to come on these films later.

Julian D.

Oscars Are Around The Corner

Unfortunately, too many distributors wait until December to release their best films. For some reason they believe that only films distributed in the latter part of the year can possibly be worthy of Oscar nominations. This year, some of the films that were released in the first 2/3 of the year and definitely have Oscar potential include: The Visitor, In Bruges, Frozen River, Wall-E, The Dark Knight, Iron Man and Hellboy II. Interestingly, the last four were mainstream blockbuster hits and the last three were all based on comic material but neverless are excellent and have raised the bar for animation and Superhero genre films way up.

One of my favourite Oscar news tracking websites is www.awardsdaily.com. Extremely well written and always on top of all of the important Oscar developments that focus on the the main candidates for the various Oscar categories rather than irrelevant issues such as celebrity, gossip and fashion.

Another good site that actually tracks top ten film lists from legitimate film critics is www.moviecitynews.com. Check the side link that says 2008 top ten list. To see how it will develop take a look at last year's final 2007 top ten list. You may find many great films that you missed last year.

Entertainment weekly at www.ew.com has an interesting set of articles where horror master Stephen King picks his top ten flims, books and cds for 2008. His lists will definitely bring out his biases but nevertheless are worth a look. You'll definitely find items worth watching/reading or hearing.

Here's his link for his favourite films.

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20245818,00.html

Julian D.