the best of what was

I've been thinking about film in last year and I feel like the difference between last year and say, 2007, is there were some really good films, but not a great film. It's a hard act to follow coming off a year of gripping, bristling work like "There Will Be Blood", "Zodiac", and "The Assassination of Jesse James" to name a few. Those films chewed the fat of what's going on in the world right now in ways that were purely cinematic and never didactic. They created worlds of imbalance where the people were conflicted, fearful of getting lost in the crowd, and used metaphors about milkshakes. Whatever was in the air in 2007, it worked and produced one of the best years of the 00's. Last year, most of the good was all over the place. There wasn't a thread to link what I thought was the best of last year, so I consider this list to be more of a hodge podge of some very good films. It was a great year for foreign language cinema as well as major studio releases. A trend that's really starting to get its legs is the specialty division films being sold with as much money and bloodlust for an award as much as the studio epics, as if to say people who watch films will watch anything that has Harvey Weinstein or Fox Searchlight's thumbprint on it. Sadly, I saw those films and I can't tell you what schlock like "Slumdog Millionaire" or "The Reader" have to do with anything. They'll be forgotten in a matter of years, but hopefully these films will linger a little longer:

(in no particular order)
BALLAST, directed by Lance Hammer

WALL*E, directed by Andrew Stanton

THE DARK KNIGHT, directed by Christopher Nolan

REPRISE, directed by Joachim Trier

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, directed by Mike Leigh

A CHRISTMAS TALE, directed by Arnaud Desplechin

TROPIC THUNDER, directed by Ben Stiller

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON, directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, directed by Charlie Kaufman

THE WRESTLER, directed by Darren Aronofsky

PARANOID PARK, directed by Gus Van Sant

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, directed by David Fincher

SILENT LIGHT, directed by Carlos Reygadas

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, directed by Woody Allen

CHE, directed by Steven Soderbergh