A round-up of what I saw and really liked in 2008, and what I still hope to see at some point because I think I will like it.

Some of these are technically 2007 films (or even earlier), but didn't screen in T.O. until this year. Thus, for my purposes, they are 2008 films.

Here's my absolute favourites:

Let The Right One In

This Swedish vampire movie starring a pair of 12-year-olds sank its teeth into my throat and wouldn't let go (so to speak). An eerie, haunting, understated, beautifully shot film that is also engaging and thought-provoking.

Tell No One

I loved this French thriller about a pediatrician whose wife is murdered -- and who can never shake the stigma of being a suspect in her death. Strong performances throughout, and twists and turns galore, keep you engaged from start to finish.

Soul Power

A documentary that screened at TIFF about Zaire '74, the music festival held in conjunction with the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Watching this film is like taking a joy-and-energy shower. I'm greatly looking forward to director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte's DVD package for this magical event.

Chocolate

Oh hell, I'll just reproduce what I wrote in the aftermath of TIFF:

From Thailand's Prachya Pinkaew, the director of Ong Bak, comes a new muy-thai-tacular. This one stars Jija Yanin as Zen, an autistic girl and martial arts savant whose former gangster-moll mother is ill with cancer. Zen goes around creatively kicking bad guy ass as she collects debts owed her mom.

This film features some dazzling, ferocious martial arts work and stunts. Panna Rittikrai choreographed the relentless, high-energy mayhem, and he did an outstanding job!

The Midnight Madness crowd loved Chocolate, oohing, ahhing and applauding throughout. If you like chop-sockey flicks (or pad-thai-sockey, if you will), you will too. If you don't, you might not.

Man On Wire

An absorbing documentary about French wirewalker Philippe Petit's mad dream to walk the sky between the two towers of the World Trade Center back in 1974. (won Oscar for best doc)

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle set out to push emotional hot-buttons in his melodrama set in modern India, but he does it so well that you don't feel dirty afterwards. This story of two Muslim brothers who go through unimaginable tragedy -- one eventually becoming a gangster, the other a quiz show savant -- won the People's Choice award at TIFF. (won Oscar for best film)

Detroit Metal City

A TIFF movie. This film is about a fey Japanese country boy who improbably becomes Japan's biggest death metal bad boy, yet discovers he has still achieved his life's goal of helping people live their dreams through music. Goofy and comic-booky yes, but charming and good-natured too. Great appearance by Gene Simmons!

Paranoid Park

This Gus Van Sant effort about an adolescent skateboarder in Portland does a great job of capturing the daydream nation inhabited by many teenage minds, even following something as horrific as an unintentional homicide. I loved the slightly hallucinatory quality and emotional blankness of this flick. This generation's The River's Edge.

Taxi to the Dark Side

This won the 2008 Academy Award for best documentary, and deservedly so. Alex Gibney's film is an unflinching look at how torture became an interrogation tool for the U.S. in its so-called war on terror. From a Feb. 22 posting:

... Gibney makes the argument that the Bush administration made the decision to take the gloves off, and its minions in the military and elsewhere in the administration created a climate where they made the rules ambiguous but put pressure on underlings for intelligence results from interrogations.

As a result, you get a phenomenon euphemistically known as "force drift," which can lead to things like scared young Afghan men getting their legs pulpified while screaming for their mother.

A must-see film to understand how supposedly civilized countries can lose the bearings on their moral compasses.

Standard Operating Procedure

Acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris takes a closer look at the moral catastrophe at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He explains how the guards descended into dehumanization and how the images of abuses at Abu Ghraib that bubbled into the public doman don't necessarily tell the whole story.

The Toronto Star's Peter Howell had these criticisms:

Where Morris falls down somewhat is failing to go far enough. It's understandable he would be denied access to the two highest-ranking officers in the photos, Graner and Ivan Frederick, who are both still in jail. He does talk to Janis Karpinski, the former brigadier general in charge of Abu Ghraib, who is obviously still very upset by what she perceives as her being made a patsy for the crimes of others.

Who those shadowy "others" are however, is never quite made clear, although inferences can be drawn. And it's almost inexcusable that Morris didn't include statements from the Iraqis seen in the photos.

Up The Yangtze

Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang examines a changing China, focusing on the disappearance of the old behind the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River. An elegy to a dying way of life and and a clear-eyed look at China's great leap to modernization. Note: Still Life covered the same ground from a different perspective.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life

A 12-year slice of life about one of my musical icons. Many critics have said it's less a documentary than a home movie, but so what?

Vicki Cristina Barcelona

I'm not normally a big fan of Woody Allen movies, but this one worked for me.

The Bank Job

A solid little British caper flick starring the ubiquitous Jason Statham.

Films I liked yet found had some flaws:

Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. no doubt found it a stretch to play a hard-drinking, quippy, womanizing guy who happens to be a billionaire arms developer. That being said, I quite enjoyed watching him deliver lines such as these: "This is the Funvee. The Humdrumvee is back there."

As a mindless, big-budget summer entertainment flick goes, it's not bad, but I couldn't call it a favourite. Even as I sit here typing this, my gut tells me, "there's things you don't like about this film, Bill."

I would say those things include a certain hollowness and predictability to the story arc, which are endemic to Hollywood movies.

And how did he go from giving a weapons demo outside Bagram Air Force Base to getting ambushed in Kunar province? (Note: Look on a map - BD). And why would a high-value target such as Stark be riding in a four-Humvee caravan in deepest backwoods Afghanistan anyways?

Such stupidities drive me nuts and chip away at the long-term pleasure of the film.

Dark Knight

I really hope Heath Ledger wins multiple awards for his portrayal of the Joker. His performance in this film was one for the ages.

The film itself went on too long and veered into melodrama.

I would concede that millions of people had no problem with that whatsoever. Dark Knight is one of the biggest box-office hits in history.

That shows why I would not become a wealthy man in Hollywood: People like predictable story arcs. Perhaps the more melodramatic, the better. I guess I should learn to like such things. :)

There will be Blood

Fantastic performances by Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Dano in this Paul Thomas Anderson film (a 2007 film, but opened in early Jan. in T.O.), along with some amazing cinematography. However, I found the film lost steam towards the end. A fine move, but it missed greatness.

Redbelt

A decent martial arts pic for the most part, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is always terrific. But it got goofy towards the end -- all part of the commercial imperative to make people pump their fists in the air during the money-shot scene.

Starting Out in the Evening

An elderly, semi-forgotten New York novelist (Frank Langella) has a pushy young female grad student (Lauren Ambrose) come into his life. A literary and literate small drama with New York as both character and setting. This could have been an absolute favourite, but a last minute gut-check says I can't quite grant it that rare distinction. Oh yeah: The side plots drag it down.

Frost/Nixon

Not bad, but could have been much better (that will be written on Ron Howard's tombstone). Langella gives a sympathetic portrayal of disgraced U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. However, one thing that bothered me is his handling of the scene where Nixon does the 'V' thing before taking one last Marine helicopter ride away from the White House. I remember that day, and I don't think Langella captured just how close Nixon was to cracking up.

Films I hope to see:

You can't see 'em all. Here's some that I skipped for reasons of either time, economy or because they didn't pique my interest at the time. However, they are now on a list for future viewing (in no particular order):

WALL*E

Synedoche, New York (finally saw it. Blecch)

The Visitor

Son of Rambow

The Wrestler

A Christmas Tale (finally saw it. It was okay)

I Have Loved You for so Long (fine movie. Kristin Scott Thomas is terrific!)

The Killer

Happy-Go-Lucky (great film!)

Rachel Getting Married (Hated it. The subtitle should be: 'It sucks to be rich and beautiful')

Milk (Great movie. Sean Pean earned his best-actor Oscar)

Waltz with Bashir (Another fantastic film. Should've won best-foreign-film Oscar)

Ghost Town

Trouble the Water (Oscar finalist for best doc. Didn't win, but you should still see it)

Wendy and Lucy

If you think of anything you think I should see, based on reviewing my list to date, please drop me a comment or email.