These are some movies I watched last year that I had seen before, and either didn't remember at all, so it felt like I was seeing them for the first time, or I did remember them, but hadn't fully appreciated how fucking incredible they are.
The Top 10 Movies I Rediscovered in 2008
1. RoboCop
2. City of the Living Dead
3. The Beyond
4. Batman Returns
5. The Cheerleaders
6. Back to the Future
7. The Hudsucker Proxy
8. Rosemary's Baby
9. Double Indemnity
10. Basic Instinct
Honorable Mentions: Speed and Jawbreaker.
I'm not gonna write any descriptions because most of these movies are famous, but if there's any you haven't heard of, just watch them. Or if there's any you have doubts about, like "Really? RoboCop?" then rewatch them. RoboCop, especially, is better than you remember, I promise. It might be my favorite sci-fi film.
The Top 10 Best Short Films I Watched in 2008 (with links to watch them!)
1. Trailer for Massacre Mafia Style
2. Passage à l’acte
3. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy
4. Pièce Touchée
5. Chainsaw Maid
6. Betty Boop and Little Jimmy
7. A Song a Day
8. The Candid Candidate
9. Starstruck
10. Christmas Comes But Once a Year
The trailer for Massacre Mafia Style is not only a great example of how amazing trailers can be, and how much they can function as actual movies in and of themselves, but it's pretty much my ultimate fantasy of what a short film is capable of being. I kind of wish it wasn't a real movie, because it's so fucking perfect as it stands.
Passage à l’acte, Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy, and Pièce Touchée are impressive experiments with editing, that are overwhelming and sometimes hilarious.
Chainsaw Maid is a gory claymation film about killing zombies. Betty Boop and Little Jimmy is about Betty Boop trying to lose weight, and it's mostly mediocre, but the ending is bizarre and incredible. A Song a Day and The Candid Candidate are also Betty Boop cartoons, and they're about Grampy making amazing inventions.
Starstruck is a tv movie about Trini Alvarado wanting to be a folk singer. Christmas Comes But Once a Year also features Grampy, and he makes presents for poor kids.
Honorable Mentions: Le Cochon Danseur (weird pig costume thing from 1907), Judge for a Day (Betty Boop), The Hardly Boys in Hardly Gold (William Wegman), and Visual Training (Frans Zwartjes).
The Top 4 Musicals I Watched in 2008
1. Meet Me in St. Louis
2. Viva Las Vegas
3. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
4. Swing Time
Meet Me in St. Louis is about Judy Garland and her family living in St. Louis, but they might have to move to New York, but none of them want to, and the death-obsessed little sister in the movie is amazing. Viva Las Vegas is about Ann-Margret being an amazing dancer, and also Elvis is in it. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is about a misfit reindeer and misfit elf who wants to be a dentist, and I had never seen it before, and it was great. Swing Time is about Fred Astaire falling in love with Ginger Rogers even though he's engaged, but it all works out in the end.
The Top 3 Westerns I Watched in 2008
1. Django
2. The Big Gundown
3. The Great Silence
Django is a Sergio Corbucci movie about Franco Nero dragging around a coffin with a machine gun inside, and pissing off both the KKK and some Mexicans, and it's really brutal and amazing, and I liked it a lot more than any Leone movie (though I usually like his movies, too), and also, if you watch Django, make sure to turn on the Italian audio, because the English dubbing makes Django sound really silly, and like, the opposite of tough. The Big Gundown is about Lee Van Cleef trying to track down Tomas Milian, because he raped and killed a little girl. The Great Silence is another Corbucci movie, and it's about a bounty hunter (Klaus Kinski) and a mute gunslinger (Jean-Louis Trintignant) trying to kill each other.
The Top 3 Documentaries I Watched in 2008
1. Hands on a Hard Body
2. The Story of Pulp's Common People
3. The Thin Blue Line
Hands on a Hard Body is about people in Texas trying to win a truck by keeping their hand on it for days at a time. The Story of Pulp's Common People is about Pulp, and how they came to write a hit song. The Thin Blue Line is about a police officer who was murdered, and whether or not the person who was convicted was actually guilty.
The Top 5 80's Movies I Watched in 2008
1. Vampire's Kiss
2. Times Square
3. The Beastmaster
4. Ladyhawke
5. American Anthem
Vampire's Kiss is about Nicolas Cage proving himself to be one of the greatest actors who ever lived. Times Square is about two girls becoming best friends and rejecting society and starting a band. The Beastmaster is about a man who can talk to animals avenging his family. Ladyhawke is about Michelle Pfeifer and Rutger Hauer being in love, but never being able to see each other because he turns into a wolf at night and she turns into a hawk during the day, so Matthew Broderick has to fix it for them. American Anthem is about a male gymnast who has to overcome some shit.
The Top 2 Sci-Fi Movies I Watched in 2008
1. Phase IV
2. Brainscan
Phase IV is about some ants and a couple scientists going to war against each other, and the photography is incredible. Brainscan is about a virtual reality game that is all too real.
The Top 10 Crime/Noir Movies or Thrillers I Watched in 2008
1. The Collector
2. Sunset Boulevard
3. Kiss of Death
4. D.O.A.
5. Body of Evidence
6. Fight for Your Life
7. Pickup On South Street
8. The Story of Molly X
9. The Machinist
10. Mikey & Nicky
The Collector is about Terence Stamp kidnapping Samantha Eggar and trying to get her to fall in love with him.
Sunset Boulevard is about an aspiring screenwriter trying to write a script for the aging film star he's living with, who is falling in love with him. Kiss of Death is about a rat trying to get information on Richard Widmark, and things go wrong, so Widmark sets out to kill him. D.O.A. is about Edmund O'Brien drinking some poison that gives him only a day to live, and to find out who killed him. Body of Evidence is about Madonna allegedly fucking someone to death, and Willem Dafoe trying to figure out if she did it or not by fucking her himself, and it's roughly the same movie as Basic Instinct, but even sleazier.
Fight for Your Life is about a racist thug invading the home of a black family, and torturing them for awhile, and it's totally an exploitation movie, but I put it here instead because I wanted to have a Top 5 and Top 10 instead of a Top 6 and Top 9. Pickup On South Street is about Richard Widmark pickpocketing some important Communist materials, and the trouble that ensues. The Story of Molly X is about a woman who robs and kills people without remorse, who gets sent to a cushy reform prison. The Machinist is about Christian Bale not being able to sleep. Mikey & Nicky is about the mob wanting to kill John Cassavetes, so he calls Peter Falk to help him out, but Falk may not be trustworthy.
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