ShareThisEver since seeing "Slumdog Millionaire," I've been toggling between the top two movies on this list. Should an orphan in Mumbai trump an orphaned caped crusader in Gotham City?
Without benefit of lifelines, I picked "Slumdog," thanks to its energy, structure, modern-India setting and the open, innocent faces of its young actors, with not a Hollywood brat in the bunch.
1 "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE"
Director Danny Boyle delivers the world at its worst and best in a tidy two hours in this crowd-pleaser about the rags-to-rupees journey of a teen contestant on India's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." Characters streak through this movie, always running through marketplaces, car-choked streets or alongside trains and from death, fear and oppression and toward hope and their heart's desire.
2 "THE DARK KNIGHT"
If movies inspired by comic books or graphic novels are our future, let this be the template. No one may match the maniacal genius of the late Heath Ledger as The Joker but he's just part of an ensemble that includes Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was particularly spectacular in IMAX, but its themes resonate on any size screen.
3"WALL-E"
WALL-E, put on your Sunday clothes, you're about to meet Oscar. Just when it seemed that Pixar couldn't top "Ratatouille," along comes the last robot left on Earth after messy mankind jumped ship. Or jumped to a spaceship.
4 "FROST/NIXON"
Instead of erasing 18.5 minutes of crucial tape, writer Peter Morgan invents a scene between TV personality David Frost and disgraced former President Richard Nixon. As with "The Queen," some license and liberties have been taken but the bones are sturdy and the transformations, especially by Frank Langella as Nixon opposite Michael Sheen's Frost, remarkable.
5"THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON"
Brad Pitt doesn't look like Brad Pitt for a chunk of this movie, so it's not just the actor who makes this irresistible. Like a courtly Southern host, it invites you into a world where a man ages in reverse and wraps you in its wondrous story.
6 "FROZEN RIVER"
As a Massena, N.Y., mother of two boys, Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) isn't aiming to shatter any glass ceilings or strike a blow for illegal immigrants. She wants - no, needs - to supplement her meager income from a dollar store, to stock her kitchen with something other than Tang and popcorn, and to replace the down payment for a double-wide trailer that disappeared with her gambler husband. Leo is determination and desperation personified.
7 "THE WRESTLER"
An aging, ailing wrestler two decades past his days of action figures and newspaper headlines, Randy "The Ram" Robinson turns to the crowd and says, "The only ones who are gonna tell me I'm through are you people here." The same is true for Mickey Rourke as a wrestler whose body, spirit and dreams of second chances have taken a pounding. Scheduled to open in Pittsburgh Jan. 23.
8 "MAN ON WIRE"
In October, when Nik Wallenda did his daredevil bike stunt, the "Today" show had plenty of notice and cameras at the ready. In 1974, when Philippe Petit walked, danced and knelt on a steel cable strung between the Twin Towers, he emerged from the clouds out of nowhere. This marvelous movie tells how and why he did it.
9 "DOUBT"
Don't go expecting a tidy answer about a priest and an altar boy, but do expect Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis to be in fighting trim in John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his play.
10 "THE VISITOR"
Richard Jenkins is one of those actors whose face is more familiar than his name. This movie is finally giving him the recognition he deserves as a lonely widower who awakens to the rhythms of life after befriending an immigrant couple.
E-mail Barbara Vancheri at bvancheri(at)post-gazette.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WALL-E for Best Picture
WALL-E is not getting all the hype it deserves
I hope WALL-E ends up on the Best Picture Nod. If it doesn't, I will not watch the oscars. Unlike Ratatouille and the Incredibles, WALL-E had a wonderful allegorial story. If those movies did have allegory, then, because I didn't find it, then the allegories are not as conspicious as in WALL-E.
If you complained that WALL-E was preachy, that shows how ignorant you are. Good movies are also here to give lessons out, not just to entertain. We can't expect entertainment all the time. WALL-E shows reality. To not accept the movie's message, is not accepting reality. To not accept reality means that you cannot survive in this world.
WALL-E costed 180,000,000 to make, just as much as the Dark Knight. So many people worked so hard on it. Ben Burtt did amazing voice design, Stanton wrote his most daring script, the computer graphics were realistic (with the exception of the human characters), Newman did a beautiful themed score (WHY DID HE NOT GET A NOD FOR BEST MUSIC AT THE ANNIES?!), etc.,etc.
WALL-E is not one of the bloated romance films like the great, but overrated Titanic. Titanic did nothing but circled around Jack and Rose romance. There were many things going on beside WALL-E's and EVE's romance- There was a lethargic society, a polluted Earth, and machines discovering life. And WALL-E romance with EVE affected humanity. It not one of those romances that circles entirely around the couple, it a romance where they circled around the world.
WALL-E is certainly better than Kung Fu Panda. Kung Fu Panda only took 130 million to make. Kung Fu Panda is certainly funnier, but comedy is not enough to define a good movie. Kung Fu Panda had a excellent storyline, but it is what it is, it was only meant to make children laugh and enjoy it. Kung Fu Panda is not of the universal. Young children will love the cuteness of WALL-E, and teens and adults will love the allegorical story.
Dreamworks may be funnier, but Pixar succeeds in mixed comedy with out-of-this world storylines. Storylines matter more than comedy.
If you think comedy defines how good a movie is, you are one of those inconsiderate people who give no damn toward the hard effort.
What use is an Annie Award to WALL-E? WALL-E is no animated movie, it's a romance made by animation. Saying that WALL-E is an animated movie is discriminating.
If WALL-E doesn't show up on the Best Picture category, I will never watch the Oscars again. Mark my words.
I will also boycott the Oscars if the Dark Knight doesn't show up in the Best Picture nomination. Like WALL-E it has an allegorial story.
So please, consider my words.