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Craig's Best Films of 2008
2 January 2009 10:04 PM, PST
GreenCine Editor
While, in retrospect, this was a better year overall than some complainy critics are positing, I have to admit that the sheer number of bad American films also out in 2008 certainly gives one pause, and it wasn't a particularly easy year to pull out ten clear cut favorites. But this kind of moaning and handwringing happens every year. There are bad films. There are great films. Every year. And 2008 was good for International film, and especially French cinema, as well as comic book adaptations, documentaries, and there were even a few good comedies (amidst the morass of drek).
(Click to reveal Craig's, er, list:)
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Best Movies About Women 2008
2 January 2009 2:13 PM, PST
By Erin Donovan
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day - This frothy romantic comedy celebrates the unlikely friendship between a young actress (Amy Adams) with an (ahem!) active social life and a failed governess (Frances McDormand) turned personal secretary so broke she wrestles hobos for soup. Also features a jaw-dropping singing performance from Adams.
Girls Rock! - Following the story of a rock'n'roll summer camp for girls, co-directors Arne Johnson and Shane King gain insight to a disparate group of outsider girls as they return home with renewed self confidence.
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Best Documentaries of 2008
30 December 2008 1:26 PM, PST
Best Documentaries of '08
by Erin Donovan
Flow: For Love of Water - Irena Salina's directorial debut examines the privatization and potential crisis of a worldwide water crisis with a brilliant amount of breadth and depth. Most surprisingly of all, this is one of the most inspiring and hopeful documentaries of the year.
Up the Yangtze - Equal parts heart-wrenching coming of age tale and geopolitical expose, Yung Chang's directorial debut follows two teenagers working on the Farewell Cruiseship lines giving westerners tours of the rural villages that would soon be (and now have been) engulfed by the Three Gorges Dam project. [Jeffrey Anderson's review >>]
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Top B-movies of '08
29 December 2008 3:25 PM, PST
by Erin Donovan
A term originally coined for less publicized films that played at the bottom of a double bill, today I am defining B-movies as films dedicated to entertaining its audience, occasionally at the expense of practicality or good taste. These are in no particular order:
Mamma Mia - Mark Kermode described this film as like being invited to an A-list karaoke party where everyone is way drunker than you. $570M at the box office later the likes of Meryl Streep, Stellan Skaarsgard and Pierce Brosnan staring into the camera singing Abba songs doesn't seem so preposterous. Next stop, Jersey Boys!
Stuck - Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) gives the exploitation treatment to a story straight from the headlines. A nurse hits a homeless man with her car and leaves him, stuck in her windshield, in her garage for several days. Features an especially great performance from Stephen Rea who spends
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Best Gay DVDs of 2008
28 December 2008 10:21 PM, PST
By James Van Maanen
Yeah, yeah: I admit to not having seen 'em all, so consider this the list of the best of what I have seen. I'm including lesbian films this time because there were several terrific movies I can't, in good conscience, leave out, though I am sure there are others I've missed. I've also tried to find films that force the viewer to look at "gay" a little differently and maybe try to figure out how the term fits into our world at large. Other than the first shown below, the films are listed in no particular order.
Not simply the best "gay" film of the year on DVD, André Téchiné's The Witnesses is one of the best films of the year period. The film looks at a group of friends in France-- straight and gay -- around the time that AIDS took hold. Full of life/death,
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