The Best and Worst Movies of 2008

It was murder this year for filmmakers to get all mavericky. The economy squeezed Rosetta Stone Outlet our wallets and made us junkies for escapism. That yapping noise at the multiplex was more likely a Beverly Hills Chihuahua than audiences grappling with issues. But a few movies some flying on a fat budget (The Dark Knight), some by the seat of their pants (Slumdog Millionaire) raised hell and our dulled consciousness. Look, I loved Iron Man too, but my top-10 list takes it cue from our president-elect and honors audacity, not just of hope but of original thought and untamed ambition.1. Milk Directed by Gus Van Sant: Heres just the firestarter we need to kick off the Obama years. Milk is that rarest of free birds: a true political film. It finds its bristling purpose in humanity, not ideology. Sean Penn tops even himself for transformative acting as Harvey Milk, the gay social activist who fought for civil rights in San Rosetta Stone V3 Francisco until he was assassinated in 1978. The recent victory in California for Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, shows that Harveys fight is far from over. Is there a more artful, impassioned, shockingly pertinent movie around this year? I dont think so. Thrillingly directed by the invaluable, underrated Gus Van Sant from an original, Oscar-worthy script by Dustin Lance Black, Milk raises the bar on what a film biography can do. You can feel Harveys spirit alive in it.2. Slumdog Millionaire Directed by Danny Boyle: Movie love fills every frame of this rowdy beauty from director Danny Boyle. An illiterate slum kid (Dev Patel) from India goes on the local TV version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire not to win rupees but to find his lost sweetheart. This love story laced with poverty, violence and sexual abuse somehow Rosetta Stone Spanish manages to offer nonstop cinematic excitement. Boyle makes Mumbai (the scene of recent terrorist attacks) a symbol of teeming life against the invading darkness. Slumdog defies glib comparisons theres simply nothing anywhere like it.3. The Dark Knight Directed by Christopher Nolan: Dont kid yourself that staggering visuals and the brilliance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker are this comic-book films only claims to resonance. Director Christopher Nolan turns his follow-up to Batman Begins (with Christian Bale back as the Caped Crusader) into a haunting world of darkness all too recognizable as our own. Read it as a parable of the Bush-Cheney vigilantism post-9/11, and you get a Batman movie (second only to Titanic in all-time box-office grosses) that offers enough moral relativism to give you Cheap Rosetta Stone V3 knightmares.4. Frost/Nixon Directed by Ron Howard: "When the president does it, that means its not illegal."

Posted in: Cheap Rosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone Outlet,Rosetta Stone V3