Friday, January 9, 2009

this just in: Man on Wire is a good movie.



I know I already published my top 10 films of 2008, but there were several critically acclaimed films that got left off my list not because they weren't any good, but because I just haven't seen them. Films like Frost-Nixon, Revolutionary Road and Gran Torino for example. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was also left off for this reason, but I did end up seeing it and here's my short review: it looks fantastic, the acting is great and David Fincher is one of the best directors working today. But it was fucking boring. So it doesn't make the top 10 list anyways.

Man on Wire was another one of the films that I didn't include, but I just saw this today and I am still stunned. It is a wildly entertaining documentary. I have a pretty severe fear of heights so I was having heart palpitations just looking at photos taken from the top of the World Trade Center, so it goes without saying that I still can barely fathom what Phillip Petit did on that day (if you haven't heard of this movie, it is about Petit and a group of accomplices who illegally string a cable across the two towers of the WTC. And then Petit walks back and forth between them. 8 times.) Needless to say, this effeminate little Frenchman is much more manly than I could ever hope to be. I will also say that it was very refreshing to see this film, about a group of men who spent months carefully planning an intricate illegal plot involving the World Trade Center - and have the final result be so beautiful and awe-inspiring, rather than...actually lets not go there.

Anyways I'm not going to change my lists or any bullshit like that, but if you have the chance to see Man on Wire, please do it, because it is really good.

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