Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

(and my ten favorite films of 2008)

Just because there can never be enough pictures floating around on the internet of Grace Kelly.

God, I was non-existent this year. Three reviews in twelve months basically equals a dead website, and I’m hopelessly embarrassed about my lack of input for 2008, which was a jolly good year for movies. Which is why I’m sorry to have missed it.

There are several justified explanations, no good excuses. I’ve had a lot of personal experiences knock my socks off, so that I did more lecturing this year and decidedly less writing. The main development, I’m sorry to say, is that I have accepted a position in Nashville, Tennessee and will be moving there at the first of the year. The future of Film as Art is therefore uncertain, but I’m confident that it will have a future. The University of Alaska Southeast’s Humanities Department is determined to keep it live, though it might be switching urls. In the meantime, I’m saving everything and will transfer it over to a new address so I can continue to write. I’m also working with the ever-encouraging Humanities folks to get my best essays published in book form. Whatever happens, my faithful readers will be updated on the progress of all things related to this website, which I have worked on and added to now for five years.

I am grateful for the opportunity to provide this service, and I am delighted that it lasted so long and picked up so many engaging, intelligent readers, who endlessly send me emails to further debate my ideas and opinions. Some of them have gotten pretty lively—you know who you are. Thanks also to the Humanities Department for providing the gig, to my co-workers and fellow academics who utilized the site for their students, and to the fellow film critics whose opinions I constantly read to get an idea of how I was supposed to write a film review.

When I started this project, I knew I could write academic essays, but I didn’t know if I could write an academic film review. I found books in the university’s library by Roger Ebert, Louis Giannetti, Leonard Maltin, Pauline Kael, and Stanley Kauffmann and consumed them in preparation. I sheepishly admit to aping their styles and formats at first; looking back at my earlier writing, I see them as the work of the young cocky punk I was, pretending to know more on the subject of film than I actually did. Consequently, the first one hundred or so reviews on this site were perfectly competent as write-ups but a little weak in my claims that this would be a website devoted to a literary study of cinema. I knew it, and my department knew it; but they kept seeing potential in me that hadn’t yet been realized, and they told me to keep going, to keep writing, to keep watching.

So I did. And as I wrote, watched, explored the world of cinema, a funny thing started to happen: I began to learn the language of film, started to understand certain filmmakers’ personal styles and obsessions, began broadening my canvas. And I began to develop a writing voice of my own. Filmmakers, impressed with my work, began sending me screeners and feedback. Readers, equally delighted and outraged by my opinions, began responding. My essays improved, and so did my knowledge. Always encouraged by the Humanities Department to push forward, I am now quite proud of my body of work—especially since I’ve received so many emails from people who are grateful for my input. I am equally grateful for theirs.

I will conclude as I always do at the end of the year—with my ten favorite films of 2008. Instead of lengthy summaries of why, perhaps I’ll just encourage you to watch them and see for yourself. I’ve written enough already, and you’ve read too many “best-of” lists as it is. But I’ve still got a job to do, so here’s the list:

1.   The Dark Knight
2.   Milk
3.   Ballast
4.   Slumdog Millionaire
5.   Wall·E
6.   Standard Operational Procedure
7.   Rachel Getting Married
8.   Synecdoche, New York
9.   The Wrestler
10. Diary of the Dead

On the bench, in alphabetical order: Appaloosa, Changeling, Doubt, Encounters at the End of the World, Frost/Nixon, In Bruges, Indiana Jones 4, Let the Right One In, Man on Wire, Mister Lonely, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Trouble the Water, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. (Man, I hate lists of just ten. Kudos to Roger Ebert for having some balls this year and doing it differently. But that's why he's Ebert, and I'm just Danél Griffin. In any case, watch all these movies.)

And here’s my goodbye: Thank you, readers, for reading. And thank you, filmmakers, for filming. I believe those to statements sum up my overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity to write these essays for as long as I have. And I will continue to write, continue to post—no question about that. It’s only a matter of time before you hear from me again.

Oh, one last thing: I’ve been lying for five years. I liked Fight Club. I really liked Fight Club. But recognizing it’s themes that life is an absurd, violent escapade, I thought I’d be doing it a disservice if I’d awarded it anything less than zero stars. This is a ruse I’ve kept up for years, both on and off my site, inspired by the great Werner Herzog’s notion that fabrications reveal a great truth beyond the mere tooting of the factual horn (the logic holds up for me anyway, but I can’t imagine Herzog enjoying Fight Club all that much). So for all those haters emailing me about what a fool I am for hating that film, you’re right. And all those people who emailed me praising my write-up, you’re right too. The first set is right because it’s a good film, the second set is right because it’s a good review. Ah ha.

A good example of why we need more pictures of Grace Kelly.