Andy’s top 10 movies of 2008

By ANDY CARROLL

UNLEASHED STAFF

It was a year marked by economic crisis and promises of change. But as times began to look gloomy, Hollywood once again stepped in with movies that provided entertaining escapism and blistering power.
Of course, for all of us in Yakima, the cinematic riches of 2008 will continue to give in 2009, as numerous widely acclaimed pictures have yet to reach the area. Among these are “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Wrestler,” “Gran Torino,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk” and “Revolutionary Road.”
But even without those films, I have seen some excellent and highly memorable movies in the past year. All but one are either already available on DVD or currently playing locally at Yakima Cinema. And all are worth checking out, as they are among the cream of this year’s cinematic crop.

10. “TROPIC THUNDER” — Part action comedy and part showbiz satire, Ben Stiller’s latest comedy is as smart and scathing as it is funny. But as funny as Stiller is as the action star, he is upstaged by Robert Downey, Jr. as “five-time Oscar winner” Kirk Lazarus, a man who takes his craft too seriously — and caused a pre-release uproar as a white man playing a black man.

9. “AUSTRALIA” — One of the year’s most underrated pictures, “Australia” is a beautiful, old-fashioned epic that combines the romance of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman with the coming-of-age story of an Aboriginal boy amidst World War II and the stolen generations. Do yourself a favor: Catch it while it’s still playing on the big screen.

8. “IRON MAN” — It was a great comeback year for Robert Downey, Jr., and it was this high-flying superhero flick that kicked it all off. Downey is perfectly cast as weapons manufacturer-turned-superhero Tony Stark in one of this year’s most entertaining performances. With plenty of action and comedy to go around, this is a crowd-pleaser that delivers.
7. “IN BRUGES” — One of 2008’s best-kept secrets, this buddy action-comedy provides dark comedy, bloody shootouts, and a reflection on the value of life all in one big package. Colin Farrell is at his best as the conflicted hitman Ray, who must wait with his partner (the hilarious Brendan Gleeson) in the medieval town of Bruges, Belgium, which he comes to despise with every fiber of his being.

6. “CHANGELING” — The most frightening movie of the year wasn’t a horror movie; it was “Changeling,” the drama that featured Angelina Jolie as a woman whose sanity is questioned when she claims that the missing boy returned to her is not actually her son. It also deals with the gruesome Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, in which children were brutally murdered. The fact that the movie is based on actual events (and real people) makes it all the more terrifying.

5. “FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL” — Can a raunchy comedy really be this high on the list? In this case, the answer is a resounding yes. This is an uproarious and strangely sweet comedy about a man (the hilarious writer and star Jason Segel) recovering from a break-up and finding love again. It has everything from the standard R-rated gags to a “Dracula” musical. No movie in 2008 made me laugh harder.

4. “DOUBT” — This is a spellbinding adaptation of the award-winning play. Meryl Streep is excellent as the nun who accuses a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of misconduct with an altar boy in the 1960s. Fellow stars Amy Adams and Viola Davis are also excellent as a nun stuck in the middle and the mother of the boy. It asks tough questions and will have you thinking and talking about it long after it ends.

3. “THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON” — The latest from director David Fincher (“Fight Club,” “Zodiac”) is a stunningly beautiful movie about a man who ages backward. Brad Pitt is in fine form as the title character, and Cate Blanchett is great as the woman he loves. Visually stunning, entertaining, heartbreaking, and moving all at once, it is an excellent movie not to be missed.

2. “WALL-E” — Pixar has always been ambitious, but its latest is their boldest and best work to date. Though it tackles numerous contemporary messages, it never loses sight of the odd but effective romantic pairing of robots WALL-E and EVE. It works with strange concepts, but when the year’s most effective movie relationship is between two robots whose dialogue is limited to beeping noises, “brilliant” and “unforgettable” are just two of the superlatives that apply.
1. “THE DARK KNIGHT” — No 2008 movie stands taller than this Bat-sequel. It goes beyond just being a superhero movie with its powerful ensemble acting and story that dares to ask questions about choice and whether Batman is truly a hero or just a vigilante with blood on his hands. Entertaining, powerful, and thoughtful all at once, “The Dark Knight” is not just a superb blockbuster, but a masterful film. It is the crowning achievement of 2008, and its final twist has me waiting in breathless anticipation for the next installment.

— Andy Carroll is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. He attends La Salle High School.

Clint Eastwood works masterfully behind the camera, and Angelina Jolie delivers a career-best performance in “Changeling”

By ANDY CARROLL
UNLEASHED STAFF

By definition, a changeling is a child who is secretly exchanged for another. But a secret exchanging of children is just one of the many real horrors addressed in “Changeling,” Clint Eastwood’s latest film.
Released at the end of October — and the start of a particularly slow awards season in Hollywood — “Changeling” is a mature and unsettling film that takes its viewers down paths not adequately hinted at in the trailers.
“Changeling” is based on the true story of the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, which actually occurred in California in the late 1920s, and involved many of the names featured in the movie. The fact that the events depicted in the movie are inspired by actual events only makes it more unsettling.
The time is 1928. The place is Los Angeles. And the focus is a single working mother, Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie).
Christine works for a telephone company during the day and cares for her young son, Walter (Gattlin Griffith), at night. She returns one night to discover he is nowhere to be found. Thus begins a months-long search to find the boy.
By what at first seems to be a miraculous turn of events, police inform Christine they have found her son in Illinois. But upon seeing the boy, Christine knows he is not Walter. But the police, wanting to avoid further negative attention from the press, insist the boy is indeed Walter Collins, even though Christine has physical evidence, the testimonies of others, and her own motherly instinct saying otherwise.
After pestering police, the officer in charge of the investigation (Jeffrey Donovan) has Christine sent off to a mental institution, where she gains even more knowledge of the corruption evident within the city’s police force.
Meanwhile, police detective Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) is looking into a case involving a minor named Sanford (Eddie Alderson), who immigrated illegally from Canada and claims to have been involved in a series of brutal murders in Wineville, Calif. He tells Ybarra his guardian Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) forced him to participate in abducting and killing young children in the chicken coops on his farm. Could the missing Walter Collins be connected to the case?
In the dramatic thriller, Eastwood works masterfully behind the camera. The tension can be felt from the very beginning, welcomed by an eerie score (also the work of Eastwood) and grayed cinematography. Eastwood ups the ante as the story advances, eventually showing particularly disturbing scenes within the psychiatric ward and the coop in Wineville.
Though the film contains few instances of onscreen violence, it earns its R-rating by instead presenting some of the most unnerving scenes of any movie this year. Without resorting to a hardcore display of gore and eviscerations, “Changeling” manages to deliver very creepy and frightening moments, something not many period pieces can claim. Though the film does let up as it comes to a close, it remains a film capable of having its viewers biting their nails as their hearts pound.
Jolie delivers a career-best performance, playing against her type-casting and discarding her standard sex appeal for a highly mature and affecting performance. Proof of her incredible range can be seen in the extreme contrast between Christine’s self-presentation of a sane woman in an alien world with her Oscar-winning role in 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted,” in which Jolie plays an out-of-control sociopath.
But Harner and Alderson are also great in the film’s most disturbing roles. Though both are Hollywood unknowns, they execute their roles with just the right amount of creepiness and disturbed loss of innocence, respectively.
Most filmmakers lose steam as they get older, but 78-year-old Eastwood has only gotten better in his old age. “Changeling” is Eastwood’s fifth film in six years (with “Gran Torino” on the way in December), and it is a worthy addition to a recent résumé that includes films like “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby.”
“Changeling” is a haunting and powerful drama, and one of Hollywood’s best offerings in the past few months.

— Andy Carroll is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. He attends La Salle High School.