Here are my Top Ten Movies for 2008 based upon the ones I have seen. Also, they are ones that I enjoyed the most for various reasons which may not always include those of the highest artistic value. They are ranked in order of the best to the 10th best.


MY TOP TEN FOR 2008
1) Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2) The Dark Knight
3) WALL-E
4) Slumdog Millionaire
5) Frost/Nixon
6) Iron Man
7) Tropic Thunder
8) Milk
9) The Visitor
10) Let The Right One In AND Definitely Maybe …a tie for 10th


Here are my Worst Five for 2008…again based upon those I have seen…I’m SURE there are many others that I managed to avoid…again listed in order of worstness. A short excerpt from my reviews appears below the list.

My WORST FIVE FOR 2008
1) Meet Bill
2) Blindness
3) Bangkok Dangerous
4) The Happening
5) Untraceable



Meet Bill …… No,don't "meet" Bill, don't even "mess around" with Bill...it's a bad movie...no, it's worse...it's a torturous viewing experience. What is so baffling is why they made it to begin with...maybe, "just because". It does have, at least per the credits, a capable cast and a moody little plot..yet it completely misses out ...and this is supposed to be a comedy.


Blindness …..I almost walked out of this movie and probably would have except I don't do that...I hang in there no matter what. I did cry "Uncle" a couple of times but to no avail since I was the only one in the theatre....perhaps that should have been a hint of things to come. "Blindness" is one of the most unpleasant viewing experiences of my life. Not only is it quite despairing and depressing, it's also ugly and sickening.

Bangkok Dangerous… For starters this movie was awful. Where to begin reviewing it ? Maybe with Nicholas Cage's bad acting and his ever-present voice over OR the tiresome recycled plot; OR Cage's awful hair-style (it's like he wanted it to be like Tom Hanks in ”The DaVinci Code” but it ends up looking like the three stooge with the bushy hair). Even if you see this movie with a caffeine-high you'll probably still fall asleep…at least snooze a bit.. The action is almost as boring and predictable as Cage's performance.

The Happening….. This is a "wanna-be" monster movie desperately seeking a monster. But, unfortunately, M. Shyamalan's The Happening doesn't have enough happening and doesn't make much sense, much less anything close to a "Sixth Sense".


Untraceable…. This is the sort of psychological thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat, mostly so you can bolt the hell out of the theatre as soon as it ends. It is a serial killer mystery that has a good cast and a reasonably good premise and it could have been an exciting story but for the the plot heading south in the last 1/3 to 1/2 of the movie. Diane Lane stars as an FBI agent whose specialty is Internet crime. She sits at a computer most of day and tracks down crooks .Unfortunately, it ends up being a "Hack job" about hacking, hackers and hackees and will leave many viewers "hacked-off".