It's that time of year when critics make the often futile attempt to sum up hundreds of movies and twelve months of viewing into a nice, neat package. How do you define 2008 in movies? Personally, I found myself turning away from films that were too focused on the depressing. The movies that I loved not only transcended criticism but also were more often than not "positive." Maybe Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky wore off on me but bleak films like Revolutionary Road , Changeling , Ballast , Wendy and Lucy , and I've Loved You So Long didn't make my top twenty and I’m completely burned out on everything Nazi ( The Reader, Valkyrie, The Boy with the Striped Pajamas ). Not that they're all bad, I just found myself looking for those moments of emotional transcendence instead of reminders about the bleakness of humanity. Walter's drum-playing in The Visitor , the beautiful wedding at the center of Rachel Getting Married , the Dickensian triumph that has made Slumdog ...
Surfing the world =)