Top 10 Movie Lists

Time and time again, we hear that actresses have it much harder when it comes to finding good parts in Hollywood. It’s true, as year after year I usually have to scrounge to find truly stand-out actresses. This year, for whatever reason, it was not difficult at all. Funny enough, some big names like Penelope Cruz, Marisa Tomei and Angelina Jolie are not included on this list… because I didn’t think they were worthy.

Here is a list of the best leading and supporting actresses in 2008, ranked in order:

1. Meryl Streep, Doubt
   Streep is all but expected to turn in Oscar-worthy performances, though we can forgive her for Mamma Mia and only hope she struck up a revenue sharing deal for that film. Playing an ultra conservative, fiercely authoritative nun in Doubt, she is wonderfully wicked in this play adaptation. Her scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman is downright mesmerizing, and as great of an actor as Hoffman is, you know who will win the battle.
2. Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
   Hathaway turns in a career-defining performance as an alcholic who, fresh out of rehab, has arrived to create chaos at her sister’s wedding. The movie is depressing and Hathaway’s character is the main contributor, as she time and time again makes every scene as painful as possible. She, in many ways, is like the serious, realistic and more damaged version of Michael Scott from “The Office,” and should be commended for it.
3. Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
   Winslet is required to show up on lists such as this one, and she does not disappoint in 2008. Her performance as a depressed housewife and mother in the 1950′s is tragic. While she isn’t my #1 pick, I would be quite content if she took home the Oscar this year – and in fact would be quite surprised if she didn’t.
4. Amy Adams, Doubt
   Adams is hot, but she’s also an excellent actress. People may not have noticed, but she’s starting to rack up a respectable career in just the few years since she sneaked into the spotlight, and her performance as an innocent, naive nun proves just how strong of an actress she really is. Even though Streep chews scenery in every scene she’s in, Adams holds her own and establishes herself as the perfect counterbalance to the stronger-willed character.
5. Melissa Leo, Frozen River
   Frozen River is a good movie, but it’d be a forgettable B-grade drama-thriller without the performance of Melissa Leo. Leo plays desperate and tough at the same time, and never for a second do we question her motives for engaging in illegal, risky behavior. Everything about her is perfect in this movie – too bad she has such stiff competition.
6. Viola Davis, Doubt
   Viola Davis only has one scene in the entire movie, but boy is it a doozey. While neither Adams’ or Hoffman’s characters can stand up to Streep’s, Davis’ puts the head nun in her place with a tear-jerking and downright disturbing speech that essentially condones pedophilia when it comes to her own son. That’s messed up, but brilliant.
7. Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading
   McDormand is one of the best actresses working today; she can do drama, comedy and anything in between – or often at the same time. As a gym employee who is desperately trying to save up for cosmetic surgery, McDormand delivers a stellar performance, even when matched against the likes of Brad Pitt and George Clooney, both of whom tend to steal the spotlight.
8. Gwenyth Paltrow, Iron Man
   Everyone has been praising director Jon Favreau and actor Robert Downey Jr. for making Iron Man the massive blockbuster that it is, but Gwenyth Paltrow who, in what could have been a thankless and forgettable role, made her character anything but. She has great chemistry with Downey Jr. and looks as hot as ever.
9. Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
   Anne Hathaway is the one everyone’s talking about in regards to Rachel Getting Married, but her on-screen sister – the title character, no less – is nearly as good. Though not nearly as frustrating or depressing as Hathaway’s character – and thus not nearly as noticeable – DeWitt manages to portray the more reasonable sister with just as many flaws and issues as her alcoholic sibling.
10. Kate Winslet, The Reader
    I didn’t really like Winslet’s performance when I first saw The Reader – and I am not a huge fan of the movie itself – but she has grown on me. After all, when you think about how unlikable, flawed and ugly she is in this movie, you realize that with just a touch of makeup this actress transformed herself into an enigma of a character, one whom the main character cherishes and loves, yet who others despise for the atrocities she committed.
11. Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Dark Knight
    The praise has been all about Heath Ledger, and if people play it safe they mention Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine. Still, Gyllenhaal turns in a great supporting performance here. I’m one of the few who didn’t mind Katie Holmes in the original, but when you watch one film right after the other – like I did the other night – you realize what an upgrade director Christopher Nolan pulled off when replacing one with the other. Gyllenhaal’s final scene is as emotional as it is due to the actress’s ability to reveal to the audience her sudden, momentary shock that everything is not going to end happily.
12. Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
    Interestingly, when people think of this movie, their minds immediately go to Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz making out. Mine does, too, but it also goes to the third actress who, in fact, plays the main character. Rebecca Hall, the least-known name in the entire movie, was hardly marketed at all, but not only is she prettier than Johansson and Cruz (a very, very hard feat), she also delivers a compelling performance.
13. Evan Rachel Wood, The Wrestler
    Marisa Tomei has been getting all the attention when it comes to supporting performances, but maybe I was too focused on her incessant nudity throughout the film. No, my praise lands on Evan Rachel Wood, who once again delivers a strong, emotional performance as the estranged daughter of Mickey Rourke. She only has a few scenes, but those scenes are the most powerful of the movie.
14. The ladies of Sex and the City: The Movie
    OK, so I wouldn’t give any of these ladies Oscars, but they should be commended for bringing their TV counterparts to the big screen in a funny, sentimental and believable way. Thanks to the chemistry these women have with one another, Sex and the City catapulted female-oriented movies into arenas normally reserved for adrenaline -filled action flicks.
15. Nicole Kidman, Australia
    Kidman isn’t amazing in Australia, but she fits the part perfectly. Her performance in the first third of the movie is particularly memorable, as she plays a surprisingly funny, Scarlett O’Hara-esque Brit who doesn’t know the first thing about life down under. There’s a reason why she’s at the bottom of this list, but she still is worthy of recognition.

Every year, plenty of movies come and go with audiences ignoring them and/or critics bashing them. Many of these films deserve the fate bequeathed upon them, but there are others that leave the filmmakers scratching their heads or drinking away their sorrows in some lonely tavern only to wake up the next morning to find their clothes and money missing and a lingering memory of a sexy woman who wasn’t as sexy as she first appeared – or as womanly.

Below are 23 overlooked movies released in 2008. Some of these are box office duds and others are ones that the critics sunk their teeth into for no good reason. And there are even some blockbusters on this list that some people have refused to watch out of some sad, misguided preconception of the picture, franchise or actor involved.

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I love a good movie as much as the next person. In fact, my favorite hobby hinges on the fact that there are good movies out there. But, as a self-proclaimed critic, the best movies for writing reviews are the bad ones. What can one say about Schindler’s List without going into a fluffy tirade of prose about how good it is, when the reader, for the most part, just wants to hear, “This movie rocks?” No, it’s the bad movies where the real meat is, where the reviewer can unlock his deepest, pent-up aggressions toward sloppy filmmaking and unleash, narrowing in on the direct causes that contributed to a picture’s downfall.

And in 2008, just like any year, there were a fair amount of movies that allowed me to play mean. At the same time, 2008 marks a continuing improvement on my part to avoid the movies I know are bad. One summer, way back when I was in high school, I went and saw just about every movie that came out – in theaters, no less – even if I knew they were going to be horrible. I was obsessed. I even backtracked to 1995 to see just about anything that had been released, just so that my database could be complete. When I could have been watching the classics of the century, I was instead watching some crappy movie from ’97 that I knew was going to be bad.

One should not pay too close attention to reviews, because everyone has their own tastes and the more movies a critic watches, the more cynical he or she becomes. Nevertheless, there are movies that you don’t need a critic to tell you that they’re going to suck. And those are the movies I’m starting to weed out of my obsession, so I can focus on other important things, like my day job, friends, family and perhaps finding a girlfriend one of these days.

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The Oscar nominations are out, but with the amount of fine performances this year, it didn’t seem right to condense things down to a top ten list. A combination of both the best leading and supporting actors, here are the best male performances of 2008:

1. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
   Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn are so neck-and-neck for the top spot I continue to waver between the two. However, a perfect example of why Oscar-potential films come out near the end of December in limited release, I lean toward Rourke for two reasons: 1) I saw his performance a couple weeks ago versus two months ago for Penn’s, so the memory is stronger in my mind at this moment, and 2) Rourke’s comeback out of practically nowhere has to count for something considering that Penn has so many opportunities at Oscar gold.
2. Sean Penn, Milk
   Penn epitomizes Harvey Milk and completely disappears into the role. He is one of the most consistent actors in Hollywood, but I’ve almost grown complacent to this fact. Almost.

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Action movies. Below are the best action movies of 2008, based on a combination of overall quality, intensity of the action and overall entertainment value. Action-comedies such as Tropic Thunder didn’t quite make the list, though Pineapple Express almost made it. Without further ado, here are the best action movies of 2008:

1. The Dark Knight
   This is a gimme. Even though it isn’t a straightforward action film, The Dark Knight is intense from beginning to end. It rarely lets up, and there are some amazingly memorable action sequences, most notably the car/truck chase scene that results in Batman flipping a semi on its top. I don’t think I need to explain myself further.
2. Iron Man
   Before there was The Dark Knight, there was Iron Man. The film reigned the box office and critical arena for two months before DC finally upended Marvel, but that shouldn’t diminish the surprisingly high quality of the Jon Favreau film. Despite great previews and a lot of buzz, I was skeptical as to whether a director who had never handled a large budget could make a movie about a tin man work, but my skepticism vanished quickly. Strangely, the movie doesn’t have as much as action as one would expect (I so wish that Afghanistan attack would have gone on for longer), but it still has the perfect bland of thrills, laughs and visual effects. Of course, it took Robert Downey Jr. to take the character to the next level.

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Here are my top ten movies of 2008. This is one of the strangest lists I’ve assembled in years, as it includes a unique blend of comic book action, animated robots, a drinking beverage and a vampire – and no where to be found are the Nazis. Without further ado…

1. The Dark Knight
   I am not one of those people who usually put action movies in their top ten lists. I like dramas. I especially like depressing dramas. I love action films, too, but when it comes to the best films of the year, they rarely rank well. 2008 was an exception for two reasons: 1) the year, in general, was weak. There were some hilarious comedies and some great action movies, but few absolutely stunning dramas. In other words, there were no There Will Be Blood‘s this year. This opens the door for… 2) one of the most amazing action films ever made. No, The Dark Knight is not the best action film out there – in terms of your typical action movie. However, few films manage to transcend the genre and deliver drama, suspense, crime and action in such a seamless, brilliant format. Christopher Nolan really outdid himself, and it is unlikely we’ll see another comic book movie top this one anytime soon, if ever. Oh yeah, and Heath Ledger is halfway decent in the movie, too.
2. The Wrestler
   If not for The Dark Knight, this one would be #1. Well, duh. The Wrestler is an incredible piece of work, a movie that is entertaining, dramatic, powerful and sad all at once. Darren Aronofsky, who was once rumored to direct the next Batman film, comes back down to earth after the strange The Fountain to direct his most normal film yet, but the director elevates an otherwise simply story to another level. The film looks great, but it’s Mickey Rourke’s performance that makes the picture worth it. With incredible acting, superb direction and stellar screenplay, it’s a real shame that The Wrestler isn’t getting honored with more Oscars – but leave it to the Academy to ignore great films.

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Every year, there are movies that we just really want to see, that promise to be explosive or intriguing or captivating. Or just plain fun. And every year, there are movies that you expected great things from that just fail to deliver. They may not be terrible, but they weren’t as good as you were hoping or knew that they could be; they may be movies that you didn’t expect to be great but should have been decent – but were just plain bad. These are those movies: the most disappointing movies of 2008.

Note that “disappointing” is different from “bad” or “worst.” Some of the movies on this list are just plain bad (The Happening), and most of them aren’t that great, but there are a few on here that I would watch again – they just simply didn’t live up to expectations. The higher up the list they are, though, the more they disappointed.

Without further ado…

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“Worst movies of XXXX” are always hard to do because, naturally, one tends to avoid the really crappy movies. But for someone like me, who does tend to watch more movies than anyone should in their right mind, a few bad movies slip through… sometimes by surprise (Son of Rambow), and sometimes out of utter curiosity (The Love Guru). So, as best as I can gather from personal experience, here are the worst comedies of 2008:

1. The Love Guru
   There’s no real question as to which movie would top this list. Mike Myer’s attempt at humor was just as unfunny as the previews suggested. The movie is offensive on many levels and the screenplay is as bad as it gets. Mike Myers himself is downright terrible, using silly accents to no effect other than to show that he should never fake an accent ever again. Don’t make my mistake and watch this out of curiosity – it really is that bad.
2. College Road Trip
   I’ve never liked Martin Lawrence, but put him in a G-rated Disney film called College Road Trip and you’re asking for trouble. This road trip film features equally bad performances by Lawrence and co-star Raven-Symoné, but the screenplay and story is embarassing.

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2008 was a good year for comedies, and this coming from a guy who rates comedies as the least desirable genre. I actually do really enjoy comedies, but I like action flicks and depressing dramas much, much more. But in the absence of really great dramas, this genre rose up to truly deliver….

1. In Bruges
   Most people haven’t seen this movie, but it is certainly worth it. Unlike the four or five movies that follow on this list, In Bruges may not be the non-stop laughfest, but it comes pretty close. More importantly, it is a unique and surprisingly excellent drama-comedy that features Colin Farrell bashing the poor town of Bruges for two hours, getting overly excited about cracked-out midgets and telling fat Americans that they can’t climb up some steep stairs. OK, so that explanation does the comedy absolutely no justice, but this is a movie that blew me away in more ways than one.
2. Role Models
   Based on the previews, who could have seen this one coming? Role Models flew in under the radar, looking like a decent but generic comedy starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott. But from the first minute, Role Models is a consistently funny and vulgar picture that has a surprising amount of heart and more laughs than you’ll know what to do with.

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2009 is almost upon us, and with it comes another year of hopeful movies looking to stretch the box office, entertain audiences and, in most cases, also appeal to critics. Some will exceed expectations, and some will fail miserably. It’s impossible to tell at such an early stage, but here are 25 movies that one must see in 2009. Of course, most of these movies have already released trailers of some form or another – there are plenty more that may be better but have yet to reveal their goodness to us fans.

[UPDATE: If you liked this, see the 25 must-see movies of 2010]

1. Star Trek
   A few years ago, the Star Trek franchise was nearly obliterated when they decided to release the film right around the time that a small indie flick called The Lord of the Rings was playing. Now, J.J. Abrams, the man behind Alias, Lost and Cloverfield, looks to resurrect the franchise by appealing both to Trekkies and non-fans alike. This movie is risky, as it looks to recreate the universe from the ground up without completely offending fans, but even skeptics are anticipating this action-packed sci-fi epic.
2. Watchmen
   Another sci-fi epic comes to theaters in March (assuming the Fox lawsuit gets settled), marking the first adaptation of what is widely considered the best graphic novel of all time. From the man who brought us the excellent Dawn of the Dead remake and 300, Watchmen involves superheroes, amazing special effects and a dark, apocalyptic story. The trailers have been absolutely phenomenal, and fans are rabid to see this picture. Whether it will appeal to wider audiences is still to be determined, but this one looks like an early blockbuster.

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In the last few years, people have grown accustomed to superhero movies with amazing special effects, great actors and serious storylines, resulting in films that range from great (X-Men 2) to downright superb (The Dark Knight).

But, for every good comic book movie, there are several bad ones, and Yahoo! has compiled a list of the 20 worst comic book movies ever made. I usually don’t always agree with their lists, but they’re pretty spot on with this one, as it ranges from Supergirl (I liked it when I was younger, but having watched it clearly, I was just a horny young boy who could completely overlook a terrible movie for a red miniskirt) to Steel (Shaq, remember this one?) and Elektra (oh, Jennifer Garner, how can someone so hot make something so bad?).

Go here to check out Yahoo!’s list.

Some other notably bad ones that make the list are:

• The Crow: City of Angels. I loved the first one, but absolutely hated this one. How badly? I gave it an “F.”
• Catwoman. This one was a bad idea from the start, but when you completely change the formula and put Halle Berry in an absolutely ridiculous outfit, you’re asking for bad reviews.What’d I give this one? An “F.”
• Ghost Rider. I also gave this Nicolas Cage-starring picture an “F.” Having a character with a flaming skull as a head was never a good idea to make into a movie, and this proved it.

Of course, there are a few movies that I completely disagree with:

• It may not be great, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II is one of my favorite films from childhood.
• Judge Dredd. I haven’t watched this one in a long time, so maybe I’ll agree now, but I rather liked this Sylvestor Stallone action flick. Not great, again, but entertaining.

Personally, I would have put Spider-Man 3 on the list. I guess it’s not as bad as the ones listed above, but in terms of expectations, it was a real disappointment.

It’s already December. Can you believe it? I can’t. Since you don’t have anything better to do, you might as well go out to theaters and check out some of the exciting new movies that are being released (or have already been released). Below is my list of must-see movies for December 2008:

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
   It could end up being dull and boring, but this David Fincher film has the potential to be spectacular. The marketing has been tremendous, and there are few, if any, films that I want to see more this holiday season. The movie is about a man who is born old (he’s a baby, but otherwise looks like an old man) who ages backwards. Partway through his life, he reunites with a woman (Cate Blanchett) he knew as a child. It’s a risky film for many reasons, but if the previews are any indication, this one has gold spraypainted all over it.
2. Slumdog Millionaire
   This one was released in November, but most people won’t have had a chance to see this film just yet. Directed by Danny Boyle, this visually stimulating film is currently the frontrunner for Best Picture. Having just watched it, it is certainly one of the best movies of the year, though it will be interesting to see how it compares come January. The movie is about a young man who is suspected of cheating as he nears the final, 50-million rupee question on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” because he grew up in the slums without education. The movie recaps his life and his dedication to find his long lost “girlfriend.”
3. Milk
   Sean Penn is perhaps a lock for Best Actor with his performance as openly gay politician Harvey Milk, if critics have anything to say about it. The Gus Van Sant movie is selling out theaters across the nation (as of right now it’s only playing in 40+ theaters nationwide), and looks to be a not-so-sleeper hit. I will be seeing this one as soon as I can.
4. Doubt
   Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in the same movie? Awesome. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is brought to the big screen in the form of a subdued boiler of a drama, about a hardcore nun who suspects that a younger, more liberal priest is sexually abusing boys at the Catholic school where they reside. This one has Oscar potential written all over it.
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still
   Say what you will about Keanu Reeves, but doesn’t he seem like the perfect choice to play an emotionless, monotone alien who is inhabitating a human body to warn of impending doom? Purists may not like the angles the remake have taken, but in a December all but devoid of blockbusters, this one looks like good popcorn fare. The presence of ever-hot Jennifer Connelly doesn’t hurt, nor multiple scenes of the world being destroyed. And no, the movie is not directed by Roland Emmerich.
6. The Wrestler
   Frankly, the previews haven’t been anything to scream about, but The Wrestler, and star Mickey Rourke in particular, is receiving some rave reviews. Call it a comeback or whatever, but Rourke is currently a frontrunner for Best Actor, and that’s never something that should be ignored.
7. The Reader
   I just caught the preview for this last week, and was pretty impressed by what I saw. The movie is about a boy who has an affair with an older woman (Kate Winslet, who seems to like to have sex in movies) only to find out that this Hanna is an accused Nazi criminal. Sex, drama and a Nazi trial always make for qualtiy entertainment. Ralph Fiennes also stars.
8. Australia
   This Baz Luhrman film was released in November, but judging by the small opening weekend, few people went to see it. An epic romance set in the land down under, the movie stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman as an unlikely couple who have to protect an aboriginal child from being taken from the government, fight off a monopolistic cattle herder and survive an attack by the Japanese. Australia doesn’t fire on all cylinders, but it is still one of the better movies of 2008.
9. Revolutionary Road
   Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty, returns with Titanic alumns Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in this romantic drama. I’m assuming more happens than what is shown in the rather disappointing trailer, and I still have high hopes simply given the talent involved in the picture. This could end up being Oscar bait, even though it looks pretty routine.
10. Valkyrie
    It could be bad, it could be good, no one knows. In fact, there are probably Vegas bets going on about this Tom Cruise thriller as I write. Amidst controversy and a release that was potentially moved back in 2008 just to avoid the bad PR it received when the studio pushed it into 2009 (essentially saying that the movie wasn’t good enough to contend for awards), Valkyrie looks pretty entertaining. Furthermore, the lack of German accents hurts this Nazi assassination film. Nevertheless, one should never underestimate Brian Singer (X-Men 2, The Usual Suspects), nor Tom Cruise. Despite what you think of the man, he rarely does bad movies.
11. Frost/Nixon
    David Frost takes on Richard Nixon in the new Ron Howard film, and while Howard has faltered in recent years, he should never be underestimated come award time. Frank Langella plays Nixon, and Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in The Queen, stars as Frost. I can’t say I’m particularly excited about this one, but I’ve seen some good reviews so this one is definitely on my radar.
12. Gran Torino
    I don’t think anyone had even heard of Gran Torino up until a month or two ago, but so it goes with Clint Eastwood. The movie doesn’t look incredible and certainly doesn’t have the Oscar appeal that Changeling had (up until the mixed reviews started flowing in), but I’m just excited to see Eastwood holding a gun again. Yes, Dirty Harry is back! Only not really.
13. Marley & Me
    When I saw the teaser for the film, which showed Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson running after a cute little puppy, I scoffed, but having seen the full trailer, I must admit that this film looks pretty funny. Unless my mom drags me along to see it, I probably will wait until video, but in a month surprisingly devoid of children’s movies, Marley & Me looks to be the first entertaining dog movie in years.
14. The Spirit
    Fans who have been desperately waiting for Sin City 2 – or who can’t wait until March for Watchmen – will have to settle for The Spirit, a movie that looks like a not-so-good version of, you guessed it, Sin City. Using the same painted special effects, The Spirit is based on a graphic novel and stars a slew of big actors, from Samuel L. to Scarlett Johansson. However, this movie marks the solo directorial debut of Frank Miller, and as good as he is at inventing stories, I am not so sure he can guide a camera without the assistance of Robert Rodriguez. The trailers also aren’t as interesting. Then again, I’m curious.
15. Bedtime Stories
    I doubt that this movie will be all that good, but this kiddie film, with a bit of Adam Sandler humor, could be this year’s Night at the Museum. The movie runs along a similar vein, and looks like mindless entertainment. At the same time, I can’t imagine too many parents are going to be crazy about taking their kids to see an Adam Sandler film, even if it is only rated PG. And Sandler fans don’t want to see a watered down Sandler. Hmm.

Movies that are being released in December that you probably won’t see

Unless you live in Los Angeles or New York, you may not get to see any of these films until January or later, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth mentioning:

• Defiance
  James Bond… er, Daniel Craig stars alongside Jamie Bell and Liev Schreiber in Defiance, a WWII action-thriller from the director of The Last Samurai. The movie is about a band of brothers (no, not that band of brothers) who take hundreds of Jewish refugees into the woods to protect them from the Nazis. Death and more war ensue. The movie looks like a great blend of action and drama, and if it’s not up to Oscar standards, it sure looks like it will be a blast to watch. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come out until December 31st, and only then in limited release. Look for a wide release in early January.
• Che Part 1: The Argentine/Che Part 2: Guerrilla
  I only put these on the list because the Steven Soderbergh two-parter has a lot of Oscar potential (at the very least, for star Benicio Del Toro), but both are only receiving a one-week limited run for award contention. Most people will not be able to see these until January, if not later.
• Dark Streets
  This limited-release movie may not make it everywhere, but the catchy trailer has my attention. The film looks like a seedy Moulin Rouge, full with music, murder and more. Beyond that, I’m not quite sure what it’s about, but I’m intrigued.

Movies that didn’t make this list

A few notable movies failed to make this list for a variety of reasons. Yes Man, the new Jim Carrey film, looks absolutely dreadful in my opinion (it’s like an unfunny Liar Liar), and while one should never underestimated Will Smith, Seven Pounds just doesn’t look that interesting to me. Punisher: War Zone is not included in part due to its 18% rotten rating on RottenTomatoes.

It’s September, which means that the summer movie season is officially over and the crap of Hollywood can make it to the big screen. September is historically a bad month for movies, as kids return to school, vacations end and people scramble for the remnants of good weather. This is also the perfect time for studios to dump the waste onto audiences.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there will be nothing to watch this September. Below is a list of movies I’m looking forward to in September:

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People love twist endings. Anyone who says otherwise is full of crap. But there are good twist endings and there are bad twist endings, and sometimes it’s a fine line between the two. Having looked at other “Best Twist Ending” lists and pulling from my own memory, I have compiled this list of the best twist endings in movie history – and the worst. Of course, there are some movies I haven’t seen and others I just plain forgot about, but these are the ones you have to see – or avoid.

NOTE: Major spoiler alerts.

The Best Twist Endings

1. The Sixth Sense
   These top several twists are hard to rank in any clean order, but I still remember the day I sat in theaters watching M. Night Shyalaman’s masterpiece. The movie was pretty decent but didn’t have much of a plot, and I was wondering where the movie was going to go. And then – bam! Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time. Not only is it an amazingly good twist ending, but it also saves the movie from being just a decent ghost story – and, on a second viewing, Shyalaman throws the truth in your face repeatedly.
2. Primal Fear
   Ed Norton jumped into his career in a big way with this courtroom thriller, where Richard Gere comes to the defense of a seemingly innocent and kind altar boy accused of brutally murdering a priest. Not only is the movie extremely good and offers a first glimpse at the exceptional acting talent stored within Norton, but as it turns out, Norton’s character was faking split personality the entire time.
3. The Usual Suspects
   Considered the best twist ending by many people, it was hard to put this so far down at #3. I’ve seen a couple people put this crime thriller starring Kevin Spacey on “Worst Twist Endings” lists, but those people are just idiots wanting to sound smarter and more sophisticated than everyone else.
4. Oldboy
   Probably the best f-ed up twist ending on the list, this film starts out with a guy waking up in a suitcase on a rooftop after years of mysterious captivity. As he seeks out the truth, he teams up and falls in love with a younger woman. He has sex with her. Then, as we learn, he’s been hypnotized to fall in love with his own daughter – and thus he has unwillingly had sex with her. A second twist comes when the guy decides to erase his memories so he can continue to love and have sex with his daughter.
5. Seven
   This exciting and intriguing thriller has a great cast and a creepy villain, who remains elusive through most of the movie until he conveniently decides to show up for one of the most disturbing twist endings ever. Spacey, the killer, leads the detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) out into the middle of nowhere to find the final victim, only to reveal that he is the one who will be killed by Pitt. Why? Because Spacey killed Pitt’s wife, played by Gwenyth Paltrow, to drive him over the deep end. Nice!
6. Angel Heart
   OK, Oldboy is pretty screwed up, but this one isn’t exactly innocent, either. In this movie, a much younger Mickey Rourke starts investigating murders in New Orleans, only to discover that he himself made a deal with the Devil himself and is responsible for much of what has happened. Wow. [this entry has been edited since the original post]
7. The Prestige
   The inspiration for writing this post, the Christopher Nolan drama about magicians has several small twist endings that aren’t fully appreciated until repeated viewings. For one, Christian Bale’s character tricks Hugh Jackman into thinking that he got a hold of his journal full of secrets – until Jackman reads that it was all planned. Jackman pulls a similar trick on Bale, revealing to his adversary that he intended to frame him. Then, it is revealed that Jackman’s character is still alive, a result of cloning himself and murdering himself every night. If that’s not f-ed up enough, Bale actually has a twin brother and the two having been living a single life, sharing both a wife and a mistress.
8. Les Diaboliques [this film was added after the original post]
   In this 1955 French thriller, a wife conspires with her husband’s mistress to murder the husband. They devise an intelligent plan to make the murder look like an accident, but then the body disappears. The wife begins to freak out as more and more clues seem to suggest that either the husband is alive or that someone else knows and is toying with them, to the point where she starts having panic attacks. Ultimately, she ends up dying of a heart attack when the truth is revealed… but since the director actually asks us before the credits to not reveal the ending, I won’t say what the cause is.
9. The Others
   An elegantly simple and creepy ghost story turns out to be a lot more when it is revealed that Nicole Kidman and her two children, who are allergic to sunlight, have in fact been dead the entire movie, and the ghosts they’ve been seeing are living people attempting to drive them out of the house.
10. Unbreakable
    This is a love-it-or-hate-it film, but M. Night Shyalaman’s follow-up to The Sixth Sense, which also stars Bruce Willis, is one of my favorite movies. There’s not a lot of plot to the film, but once again Shyalaman throws a zinger at us by revealing that Samuel L. Jackson, who has befriended Willis and helped him realize his potential, is in fact a psychopathic killer who has been committing mass murder just to find someone who is “unbreakable.”
11. Arlington Road
    This fast-paced suburban thriller has Jeffrey Bridges suspecting that his neighbor (Tim Robbins) is a domestic terrorist. As it turns out, he’s right, but he unfortunately drives the bomb into the federal building himself, and is ultimately blamed for the deaths of hundreds of people.
12. The Devil’s Advocate
    The title isn’t as metaphorical as one would suspect: Al Pacino really is the Devil, and he wants Keanu Reeves to have sex with what turns out to be his sister to have a Devil grandbaby. When Reeves refuses, the Devil just starts trying all over again.
13. The Game
    This movie is full of coincidences and conveniences, but there are so many little twists in the film that it’s hard not to be entertained. Is everything a game, or is it reality? Sure, it’s pretty unbelievable that Michael Douglas would choose to commit suicide through the exact window (and avoid all of the rafters) where a big balloon is waiting to catch him for his birthday party, but you didn’t see it coming, did you?
14. Scream
    A lot of slasher films have “twists” in regards to who the villains are, but few have pulled it off as well as Wes Craven’s classic. I remember sitting in the theater (sadly, with my mom) when Skeet Ulrich – who had been sliced up quite heavily a few minutes before, hence proving his innocence – licks his fingers and declares that his blood is in fact corn syrup. And there’s not one killer, but two.
15. Psycho (1960)
    I knew the ending before I ever saw the film, so the impact of the big twist was rather lessened, but you still have to respect the fact that Norman Bates dresses up like his mother to kill unsuspecting innocents. That’s just disturbing. Oh, and the “star” of the movie, Janet Leigh, gets killed off early on in the infamous shower scene. [this entry has been edited since the original post]
16. Planet of the Apes (1968)
    Another movie where I had seen shots of the ending before I actually saw the movie, the realization that Charlton Heston was never going to make it back home because… he’s already on Earth!
17. American Psycho
    I still don’t fully understand the ending, but I believe Christian Bale’s psychopathic tendencies are all, actually, in his mind. The great thing about this movie is that even if the entire film may “be a lie,” the actual events are up for debate. Did he or didn’t he? Everyone has their own opinion. [this entry has been edited since the original post]
18. Donnie Darko
    With more of a strange ending than a twist one, it turns out that Donnie’s sleepwalking – which saved him from being crushed by a jet engine at the beginning of the film – has put his mother and sister in peril, as a month later, they are on the plane that will eventually crash into their home a month earlier. Donnie decides to sacrifice himself and die so that his family wouldn’t a month later. Or something like that.
19. Stephen’s King The Mist
    I just watched this movie the other night, and wow, what an ending. This movie shouldn’t have been that good, with mediocre special effects and overblown acting (not to mention it’s a film about random monsters from another dimension), but it is. And the capper: an utterly depressing ending. Thomas Jane’s truck runs out of gas, leaving the five survivors, including his son, stranded in the middle of the mist, which has apparently taken over the entire world. With no chance of survivor, he turns to his gun, which only has four bullets left. He kills the other four people, including his own son, and then steps outside. A minute later, the army shows up and the mist begins to clear. Had he waited a minute longer, he wouldn’t have had to murder his only child! Ouch!
20. Soylent Green
    They’re people! They’re people! The movie is a bit dated now, but if I hadn’t known the ending ahead of time, this would have been a pretty damn good twist ending.
21. Chinatown
    Pretty common nowadays (just watch an episode of Law and Order: SVU), this Jack Nicholson film featured a twist that revealed that 1) Faye Dunaway was not who she first appeared to be and 2) that she had an incestuous relationship with her own father.
22. Night of the Living Dead
    It’s a bit of a stretch to call this a twist ending, but it’s still a shocking one. Zombies are everywhere, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Militias have moved in to clean out the walking dead, and it looks like our hero (an African American) is safe. But, then, one shooter takes him to be one of the bad guys and shoots him in the head. Not a cheerful ending, but a memorable one.
23. The Ring
    The Naomi Watts horror-thriller that took cinema by storm has a couple twist endings, even if you don’t recognize them as such. In most horror movies, once the protagonist discovers the dead body of the mean ghost, the spirit is usually set free and the movie ends. In The Ring, after Watts saves herself and her son by pulling Tamara’s body from the well, she things all are good. Wrong! Tamara is evil, and she’s just released her spirit to kill at will. And, to ultimately save themselves, Watts decides that she and her son will pass the video onto someone else (I believe a relative).
24. Memento
    Guy Pearce, suffering from severe short term memory, goes through life searching for his wife’s killer and not trusting people. Since the film works in backwards order, we slowly discover that his wife killed herself by tricking Pearce into giving her multiple insulin shots; furthermore, Pearce tricks himself by writing notes about people that aren’t true, so that in the future he won’t listen to their “lies,” which are actually truths.
25. The Descent
    If you’ve seen the original, European version, you’ll know what I mean; if you’ve only seen the American version, where the main character escapes from the monster-filled caves, you won’t. While we get to see the woman escape from the cave, drive away and so on and so forth, that escape is actually in her head – she’s still miles underground, surrounded by the creatures that are going to kill her.
26. Minority Report
    Not really a twist ending, but another one that makes you think. After Tom Cruise is accused of murder, he sets out to clear his name. Since the whole criminal system is based on a predictive, psychic machine that is never wrong, his only way to do that is to prove that the system, which he has believed in for years, is wrong. How does he do it? He sets out to kill the creator of the program, thus triggering the system to alert the authorities. But, since he knows the truth about the creator, the creator wants to kill him, too. If Cruise succeeds, the system fails. If the creator succeeds, the system fails. Bam!
27. Mulholland Drive
    No one really knows what David Lynch’s movie is about, but that doesn’t stop me from being intrigued by the completely weird ending to Mulholland Dr., the movie that put Naomi Watts on the map. There’s something about Pandora’s box, about two leading women being the same person, Watts masturbating and making out with herself, etc.
28. 12 Monkeys
    I didn’t love this Bruce Willis/Brad Pitt movie, but it does have a disturbing ending. After Bruce Willis is sent back in time to stop a virus from wiping out most of mankind, you expect him to find the solution and save humanity. Instead, he fails, and his child-self gets to watch him get killed by security guards in an airport. Cheerful.

So-So or Overrated Twist Endings

The following list contains several movies with endings that I have liked, but haven’t loved. #1 on the list should evoke some emotion, but I stand by it. The twist endings in this list neither made the movies better or worse.

1. Fight Club
   This is the one movie that will cause people to complain about this list. Many would rank this ending as one of the best endings in cinema history, as it is revealed that Ed Norton and Brad Pitt are, in fact, the same person. While I’m sure it worked in the book, I think this is a bit of a cop-out. Fight Club is still a pretty good and imaginative movie, but the fact that everything we saw was a lie – and that it really never makes complete sense – doesn’t have me drooling over the ending like it causes some people to do.
2. Swimming Pool
   This great thriller starring Charlotte Rampling has an aging author staying at a French villa only to discover that a sexy younger woman has shown up to share space. Intrigued by her sexuality, a subtle erotic thriller and ultimately murder mystery ensue… but then we discover that everything is all in her head and that we simply saw her imagination at work as she developed her story. Normally I don’t like endings where it turns out everything is a dream, but Swimming Pool pulled it off. Still, some would see it as a cop-out.
3. Vanilla Sky/Open Your Eyes [this film was added after the original post]
   In these movies (remake and the original, both of which star Penelope Cruz – in different roles), the leading man (we’ll call him Tom Cruise) starts to go out of his mind as an ex-flame comes back from the dead, his ravaged face turns out to be not-so-ravaged and other weird things happen. As it turns out, most of the movie is a corporate-controlled dream due to the fact that he has been cryogenically frozen. The movie is weird and not for everyone, but the ending works.
4. Signs
   I have mixed emotions about the “twist” ending here. When I first saw Signs, I liked it a lot. It was creepy, suspenseful, and had an ending that at least wrapped things up. Still, it seems like M. Night Shylaman threw a twist ending into the film for the sake of not letting his fans down, and a lot of people didn’t buy into the “Swing away” line. I don’t hate the ending, but it’s rather unnecessary.
5. No Way Out
   In this spy thriller, it turns out that Kevin Costner, who has been searching for a Russian mole, is, in fact, the Russian mole. It’s sort of a silly ending that seems thrown in there at the last moment, but I certainly didn’t see it coming.
6. Citizen Kane
   Does this movie have a twist ending? No, not really. But it has shown up on other “twist” listings so I just included it here to say so. [this entry has been edited since the original post]
7. Eastern Promises
   In this decent thriller from David Cronenber, it is revealed that the ruthless Russian mobster played by Viggo Mortensen, who took it upon himself to protect Naomi Watts from his own people, is actually an undercover detective. The surprise really doesn’t make the movie any better, and in many ways it takes the emotional impact of the movie out of the story. After all, Mortensen never really had to make a choice between his people and Watts; he was against them from the start.
8. The Village
   Another M. Night Shyalaman film, The Village is a pretty decent drama. I wasn’t crazy about the film because it was marketed as a horror movie, even though it isn’t, and maybe that distracted me from a pretty good twist ending. It’s not the direction I wanted the film to take, but the ramifications are huge: as it turns out, there are no monsters in the woods. The monsters were devised by the elders of the village to keep the younger people from venturing away, which would lead them to the wall: on the other side, a paved road and modern civilization.
9. Identity
   John Cusack and others find themselves being picked off one by one by an unknown killer. What starts out as a reasonable thriller develops into a supernatural one, and from that somethinge entirely different: all of the characters, including Cusack, are all in the mind of a psychotic killer who is sitting in prison. No one saw this ending coming, though I can’t say it’s an amazing one: once the ending is revealed, the thriller loses any suspense it had going for it.
10. Fallen
    In this supernatural thriller, Denzel Washington hunts a killer that moves from body to body, possessing people to carry out its evil will. Denzel figures out a way to trap and kill the demon – by luring it into the woods away from bodies to transfer to. As he becomes possessed, he inhales poison to kill the demon; but doesn’t take into account that the demon can also possess animals such as cats. So, at the end of the movie, evil wins and Denzel is possessed by a demon. Not a horrible ending – and many people love it – but it just didn’t click for me. [this entry has been edited since the original post]
11. High Tension
    An ending that is so good it’s bad, High Tension, which could have been one of the most memorable and disturbing slasher films in recent memory, ends with a whimper when it is revealed that the sexually charged killer, played by a man, is actually the female protagonist, who, driven by jealousy, has gone insane. The twist, while shocking, really never makes sense, especially considering the fact that in the first scene the killer is shown jerking himself off with a decapitated head. I go back and forth on this one…
12. Lucky Number Slevin
    Josh Hartnett gets confused for someone else and winds up getting involved in a deadly plot between an assassin named The Cat and a couple mobster-type guys. He plays it innocent until it is revealed that he and The Cat are partners and that Hartnett is himself a master assassin. There’s more to it than that, but I don’t have enough space to explain everything. The twist is a shocker, and yet it takes away something from the film. Handled a bit differently, it could have really worked, but I found it a bit underwhelming.

The Worst Twist Endings

Below is a list of the worst twist endings known to man:

1. The Forgotten
   What could have been a really good movie turns out to be a film about aliens experimenting on people. Aliens? Come on. This movie has the worst twist ending ever, and due to some scenes shown in the previews, you actually could see it coming.
2. The Number 23
   This thriller was supposed to put Jim Carrey on the map as a truly serious actor, but it failed miserably. Not only was his acting terrible, but the movie features one of the most disappointing endings ever. Having been seduced and driven to obsessed madness by a book that seems to parallel his life, giving us hints at Satan and other disturbing ramifications, it is revealed that Carrey himself wrote the book while he was in a psychiatric hospital that he no longer remembers. So the twist is: he actually is crazy and he wrote the book himself. Wow. Stupid.
3. Secret Window
   This Johnny Depp film had potential, but it has a strangely predictable ending, and one that was not particularly good. After it is revealed that he himself is off his rocker and has killed every victim, Depp never gets punished but does decide to get braces. Huh?
4. Hide and Seek
   Hide and Seek features another predictable ending. In fact, it is so bad that when I realized it in the first 30 minutes of the movie, I prayed for the next hour that I was wrong. As it turns out, Dakota Fanning doesn’t have an imaginary friend who kills people, but instead it’s her father – the main character, played by Robert DeNiro – who has a split personality. The split personality twist ending is almost always a deal killer, and Hide and Seek proves it.
5. Saw
   I only put this on the list because I’ve seen Saw mentioned on other Best Twist Ending lists. It’s not much of a twist ending, but after the protagonists do themselves in, it is revealed that the corpse in the middle of the room is in fact the killer – and that he’s just been lying still for the last two hours. It just doesn’t make much sense, nor is it very exciting.
6. Perfect Stranger
   This Halle Berry thriller is about as bad as it looks. I lost interest halfway through and thus was only paying attention at half staff when the twist ending is revealed, but the fact that the main character – Berry – is in fact the unknown killer she’s been hunting is just downright stupid.
7. Never Talk to Strangers
   Like Hide and Seek and Perfect Stranger, here’s another movie that ends with the revelation and the main protagonist is actually the bad guy.
8. The Life of David Gale
   Kevin Spacey is on death row for a crime he didn’t commit… or did he? As it turns out, he faked murder to get convicted and sentenced to death, so he could prove that the death sentence is inhumane. Uh… OK.
9. Planet of the Apes (2001)
   In this pointless remake directed by Tim Burton, Mark Wahlberg finally escapes from Ape World to land back on Earth… only to find that the Lincoln Memorial has the face of an ape. Unlike in the original, where there’s a lot less tacky and much more iconic view of the Statue of Liberty – implying that Heston is on Earth and is simply far in the future – this ending implies that there’s an alternate dimension or something like that. It’s just cheesy, and a stupid way to lead the audience into the ending credits.
10. No Country for Old Men
    The Oscar-winning drama-thriller really doesn’t have a twist ending, unless you allow the fact that the Coen brothers kill the protagonist off screen, never explain how he died and that the movie has switched gears to a pointless and rambling speech by Tommy Lee Jones. It’s one of the most disappointing endings to an otherwise excellent film. Should the ending be different? No. That’s how the film ends in the book by Cormac McCarthy (and no one should mess with McCarthy’s works), but the film is so suspenseful and exciting for the first 80% that it’s just a major letdown when the movie takes a pure dramatic turn. [this entry has been edited since the original post]

With not a lot of movies out in theaters right now (there are some good ones, but with only one to two big release coming out a weekend, it’s pretty easy to keep on top of the films), it’s a good time to get caught up on some recently released DVDs. But what to see? Here are some suggestions, based on DVD releases since the beginning of May:

1. I’m Not There
   Cate Blanchett should have earned an Oscar for her performance in this absolutely strange but brilliantly conceived drama about Bob Dylan.
2. Rambo
   My roommate doesn’t think so, but the new Rambo movie kicks ass. Gritty, bloody and thankfully not very cheesy, this is a must-see for action fans.
3. Funny Games
   I haven’t seen this one, and I can imagine that the 1998 original (a foreign film, French, I think) is better, but this one just looks f**ked up. The movie stars Naomi Watts and Tim Roth as parents who find themselves victims to a pair of crazed psychopaths. No, it’s not a horror movie.
4. The Red Violin
   This movie was originally released in 1999, but Lionsgate just released a new version of the DVD. There’s nothing special about that, but if you haven’t seen this film, it is one of the better movies of the last decade. It’s about the life a violin over the course of several centuries.
5. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
   I wasn’t expecting much from this sequel, but if you go in with an open mind, you’ll find a pretty entertaining and exciting adventure story. Nicolas Cage goes searching for the Lost City of Gold to prove his ancestor’s innocence in the President Lincoln assassination, and ends up kidnapping the President in the process. No one said the plot made much sense.
6. Teeth
   This movie is about a girl who realizes that her vagina has teeth that bite of men’s junk when she gets angry. No joke. The concept alone makes this one worth seeing, but it’s actually a pretty well conceived picture.
7. The Great Debaters
   Denzel Washington’s follow-up directorial piece is a surprisingly good and uplifting film about the first black debate team to take on a white team in the 1930′s. The movie covers racism and a range of other topics.
8. The Bucket List
   This comedy, which stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, may not win any awards, but the pairing of the two is brilliant. The movie, about two dying old men who decide to do everything they ever wanted to do before they die, is funny and entertaining.
9. Youth Without Youth
   This one isn’t for everyone, but it is the first movie by Francis Ford Coppola (director of The Godfather trilogy) in a long time. The movie is philosophical and Kafka-esque, as it’s about an old man, who, after being struck by lightning, becomes much younger.
10. Be Kind Rewind
    This picture received mixed reviews, but still looked pretty good. The movie stars Jack Black as a video store guy who accidentally erases all of his store’s tapes, forcing him and his colleague to make their own versions of popular movies.
11. Jumper
    This Hayden Christensen sci-fi action film isn’t particularly great, but if you want mindless action and cool special effects, Jumper has more than enough to keep you satisfied. If only the film had a smarter plot, it really could have been something.
12. Control
    This black-and-white film examines the rise and fall of the lead singer of the 1970′s band Joy Division in a very non biopic kind of way, which is rather refreshing considering all of these biographies about musicians tend to end up looking about the same.

View more recent DVD releases.