Steve Reinhardt’s 2009 Movie Web Page

My Favorite Critic Andrew Sarris Top Ten Lists

My #1 Film from Top Ten Lists: 1979 to 2008

Friends,

It’s Oscar ® time! Another year in movies and it is time for the ten bests and the predictions. This year when the red carpet is rolled out on the 81^st Academy Awards (ABC Feb 22^nd at 5 PT), I will be faithfully viewing the proceedings as I have for so many years. Everyone has an opinion about the awards—too long, not populist enough, way too much hype and “kissy-kissy” interviews. Well, get over it! It’s the Academy Awards and it’s supposed to be all that and more.

The year 2008 in film has played out much like many of the last few years. A long drought in “quality” films with blockbuster popcorn movies and commercial movies dominating the early part of the year. Come fall, a few promising films are released and then the award contenders almost all coming in the last month of the year. Does the movie-going public have such short memories they can’t remember a film released in the spring? This schedule finds us all trying to catch all the best films during the time of the year when you typically have the least amount of free time—over the holidays. (That’s why I wait for February to give a best list—at least I have time to see most of the late releases.) Six films on my best list were released in December and they rescued the year from being a big loss.

A few words on my best film pick, Slumdog Millionaire. I walked into this film not knowing anything about it and was blown away by the sheer logistics of filming on location in India. I found it a fairly depressing movie in the violence and poverty that are portrayed. It seems odd to me that this is rated as a “comedy” and even the upbeat “triumph over adversity” ending doesn’t change what has for me an eye-opening experience of the poverty that exists in our world of which we are usually unaware. So for about $15 million, (probably less that Brad Pitt’s salary on Curious Case of Benjamin Button,) an amazing document of the life of the slums was created. My hat is off to Danny Boyle as director as well as the talented filmmakers that captured this epic. I hope you find it exceptional as well.

Please seek out the other 10 on my top 11 list below. Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino was violent to be sure, but brought focus to a reality that I am sure exists in America today. On the lighter side, Woody Allen is in top form with Vicky Christina Barcelona. And don’t forget about the television series, Mad Men. I watched Season One of the AMC series on DVD this year. It is so well done and provided many stellar performances and sequences worthy of feature films. The art and set direction is outstanding as well.

And again this year I am proud to include the lists of Jack Kleinman and Andrew Sarris to round out my own. Jack, the manager of the Regal Cinemas Santa Cruz 9, and my good friend of thirty plus years has offered insights to films that I never seem to see.

Enjoy the lists, enjoy the show and enjoy the movies!

Steve Reinhardt’s “Top Ten” for 2008

1. Slumdog Millionaire

2. Gran Torino

3. Vicki Christina Barcelona

4. Elegy

5. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

6. The Visitor

7. The Promotion

8. Frost/Nixon

9. The Wrestler

10. The Reader

11. Doubt

Special Mention: Best Television Series “Mad Men”

Click on the picture to find out more about my favorite movies of the past year.

Jack Kleinman’s Top Ten for 2008

Here's Jack’s “Top 10” of 2008. He’s always good for picking selections I may have missed!

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

2. The Edge of Heaven

3. Happy Go Lucky

4. A Secret

5. Gran Torino

6. Slumdog Millionaire

7. The Promotion

8. Frost/Nixon

9. Vicki Christina Barcelona

10. Brideshead Revisited

11. In Search of a Midnight Kiss

12. Frozen River

Jack Kleinman 2/8/09

Steve Reinhardt’s Picks for the Academy Awards

Here are my picks to win the Academy Awards on February 22, 2009. These picks were made on February 15, 2009 so I can’t change them at the last minute! Historically, my guesses are only about 46% correct, so don’t bet the rent money.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Sean Penn in "Milk" (Focus Features)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Kate Winslet in "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (The Weinstein Company)

Best animated feature film of the year

"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Andrew Stanton

Achievement in art direction

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)

Achievement in cinematography

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Anthony Dod Mantle

Achievement in costume design

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Jacqueline West

Achievement in directing

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Danny Boyle

Best documentary feature

"Man on Wire" (Magnolia Pictures)

Best documentary short subject

"The Final Inch"

Achievement in film editing

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Chris Dickens

Best foreign language film of the year

"Waltz with Bashir" (Sony Pictures Classics) A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production - Israel

Achievement in makeup

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Greg Cannom

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) A.R. Rahman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

"Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Gulzar

Best motion picture of the year

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight)

Best animated short film

"Presto" (Walt Disney)

Best live action short film

"New Boy" (Network Ireland Television)

Achievement in sound editing

"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Richard King

Achievement in sound mixing

"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick

Achievement in visual effects

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron

Adapted screenplay

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay

"Milk" (Focus Features) Written by Dustin Lance Black

Andrew Sarris Top Picks of 2008

Got Milk? I’ll Take Vicky and Cristina in Barcelona! My Faves From ’08

by Andrew Sarris | January 6 2009

Movie Critic for the New York Observer

It suddenly occurred to me just before I started grinding out my year-end summaries and 10-best lists that I have been engaged in this activity for a very long time. If my increasingly faulty memory is correct, this marks the 50th anniversary of my published 10-best lists, dating back to Jonas Mekas’ Movie Journal in The Village Voice sometime in 1958 or 1959 for the New York releases of 1958. Mr. Mekas kindly offered the hospitality of his column to a few of his colleagues, of whom I was one, even though I had no column of my own at that time. I have long since repudiated that list of mine, inasmuch as it reflected my pre-Bazinian, pre-Cahiers, pre-auteurist tastes of that period, in which I was becalmed in a sea of “social significance.”

As I recall, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo failed then to make my 1958 10-best list. Today, it ranks on my all-time 10-best list! But since I’m unlikely to live another 50 years, though I’ll never stop trying, the following 2008 lists will probably have to do for posterity.

So without further ado, here is my 2008 10-best list for English-language films.

1. Happy-Go-Lucky

2. Gran Torino

3. Frost/Nixon

4. Milk

5. Slumdog Millionaire

6. Vicky Cristina Barcelona

7. W

8. My Blueberry Nights

9. The Bank Job

10. The Visitor

The 10 best foreign-language films:

1. Ashes of Time Redux

2. A Secret

3. A Christmas Tale

4. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

5. I’ve Loved You So Long

6. The Class

7. Tell No One

8. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation

9. A Girl Cut in Two

10. The Secrets

Ten movies other people really liked and I didn’t so much:

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2. Doubt

3. Revolutionary Road

4. Changeling

5. Rachel Getting Married

6. The Reader

7. Synecdoche, New York

8. Burn After Reading

9. Miracle at St. Anna

10. Funny Games—The Second Most Hateful Film of All Time, a remake of the First with the same title in 1997, written and directed in both instances by Michael Haneke

Best nonfiction films:

1. Shine a Light

2. Moving Midway

3. Man on Wire

4. Taxi to the Dark Side

5. My Winnipeg

6. Theater of War

7. Trumbo

8. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

10. The Chicago 10

11. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Best animated films:

1. Waltz With Bashir

2. Wall-E

3. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who

4. Delgo

5. Kung Fu Panda

6. Bolt

7. The Tale of Despereaux

You may reach Andrew Sarris via email at: asarris@observer.com.

My #1 Film From Top Ten Lists: 1979 to 2008

This year marks my 30th year of recording my top ten films. Just for fun, I am listing my #1 pick from each of those years. See if any of them are your favorites as well!

1979

Manhattan

1980

Carney

1981

Atlantic City

1982

One From The Heart

1983

Breathless

1984

Brother From Another Planet

1985

Once Upon A Time in America (Full Version)

1986

Hannah and Her Sisters

1987

Swimming to Cambodia

1988

Five Corners

1989

Do The Right Thing

1990

Goodfellas

1991

Beauty and the Beast

1992

The Unforgiven

1993

Time Indefinite

1994

Quiz Show

1995

Crumb

1996

Fargo

1997

LA Confidential

1998

Wag The Dog

1999

The End of the Affair

2000

You Can Count On Me

2001

The Man Who Wasn't There

2002

The Pianist

2003

American Splendor

2004

Before Sunset

2005

The Best Of Youth (2003)

2006

Stranger Than Fiction

2007

Atonement

2008

Slumdog Millionaire