My choice for best picture for 2008 was The Dark Knight, which if you recall was the hands down winner. I've changed my mind. I still love Batman, and The Dark Knight is right up there with the original Michael Keaton version, but after spending the past couple weeks rewatching 2008, and after loving Benjamin Button (didn't see Valkyrie), and despite what I may have said in earlier posts, I'm now going with Wall-E.

I didn't want to like this film, and Pixar gets to me at times with its hit-you-over-the-head messages, but Wall-E is what film is supposed to be. Live action films could learn many a lesson from the CG folks at Pixar. Think about what we get here, film students: we get beautiful sets and scenery (CG, yet beautiful nonetheless), sweeping vistas, epic themes (saving the planet, the evils of affluence, LOVE), wonderful use of allusion (the video tape references to the film Hello Dolly that Wall-E is enamoured by), humor (the singing fish)... It all adds up. Despite my love for great dialogue in films like When Harry Met Sally or Woody Allen's Manhattan, sometimes I wish that everyone in film would just shut up. And in Wall-E, they do. There is virtually no dialogue in the first half of the film, and that is one of its great feats. I'm going to stick with all my other picks (although I listen to The Glass Passenger more than Narrow Stairs), but I stand corrected about the best film of the year.