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
