2008 began with a shaky-cam monster movie (you forgot about Cloverfield didn’t you?) and is ending with the usual crop of Oscar-baiting prestige films (and Valkyrie).  And in between…there was The Dark Knight (and, even bigger, the Dark Knight hype).  So how good a year was 2008 at the cinema?  Not nearly as good as 2007.  But there were still some pretty memorable pieces of work…from a scathing assault on religious silliness to a tale of a washed-up rassler with a thing for strippers and cheesy ’80s rock to, well, The Dark Knight.

And now one last review of the stuff that thrilled, tickled and terrified us (or, at least, me) in 2008*:

1. Religulous (Larry Charles)

Snarkmaster Bill Maher uses humor and pointed questioning (the same one-two punch he brings to his terrific show Real Time) to expose the illogic of religion.  Well, okay, exposing the illogic of religion…that’s sort of like exposing the fatness of John Goodman or the lameness of John Mayer.  Not a tasker.  But Maher’s point sinks in nonetheless:  The faithful often have no idea what they’re really investing their faith in, and that’s kinda scary (especially when they have bombs and the book is telling them to kill).  Maher barely has to break a sweat in tearing down most of his opponents, who range from an incoherent Muslim rapper to a blinged-out preacher to a maker of looney contraptions for those observant Jews who still want to use the phone on the Sabbath.  Godless heathens snicker and nod at each other.  Maher’s secret weapon is director Larry Charles who has a little genius for assembling the material in a way that amplifies the meaning (maybe he should’ve gotten more kudos for Borat).  The year’s most hilarious, troubling, inappropriately entertaining movie.

2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days… (Cristian Mungiu)

Watching this is like mainlining depression, but its brilliance is undeniable.  Mungiu considers a young, naïve college student who seeks an illegal abortion, and the friend who risks her own freedom to help her (now that’s a friend).  The camera gazes upon this bleak reality with an unflinchingness that is both heroic and deeply unnerving.  Mungiu almost makes us long for the sentimental contrivances of Hollywood – anything to protect us from the grim truths he is laying bare.  Ickiest abortion scene since Alfie (not the Jude Law one).  And just incidentally…does the sun ever shine in Eastern Europe?

3. The Visitor (Thomas McCarthy)

An emotionally paralyzed college professor becomes involved in the lives of a pair of imperiled immigrants in post-9/11 New York.  The film seems glum, almost affectedly so, at first, but by the end it feels soulful and genuine as can be.  Considerations of the collective experience are normally much more contrived and irritating (think Crash); this is a quiet, subtly devastating film and not a showy, star-studded hype-machine (again, think Crash).  Richard Jenkins gives one of the year’s great performances as a man proceeding methodically from indifference to compassion to outrage to calm awareness, and finding solace in his new-found affection for beating on a drum in the park.  We are all in this together – just not in a Crash sort of way.

4. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)

Mickey Rourke?  In one of the great performances of recent times?  The only thing more shocking – and yes, Rourke really is that good – is Darren Aronofsky shedding his expressionist pretensions (I’ll never forgive the ghostly doughnuts he rained on Ellen Burstyn) and getting down to real filmmaking.  But back to Rourke…man, what did that guy do to his face?  Deformed, inexpressive features are normally a detriment to an actor, but they serve Rourke perfectly in his portrayal of a washed-up pro wrestler who can’t choreograph his life quite as well as his matches (or really smile anymore, not that he has much to smile about).  Rourke is ravaged yet vain, bull-like yet diffident, and never lovable (or pretty).  The film’s arc is predictable as hell but Aronofsky hangs so many ripely garish, beautifully detailed moments on it that it almost seems original.

5. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)

I personally was not waiting for someone to marry Scandanavian angst to vampire angst, but now that I’ve seen it done, I’m grateful to Tomas Alfredson for conceiving of the idea.  His movie is much more than just a snowy, brooding, at times savage horror film though:  It’s a touching examination of adolescent alienation and the ties that bind the lonely (including Rubix cubes and a mutual disdain for asshole middle schoolers).  The themes have all been dealt with via vampire myth before – insatiable blood-lust as metaphor and forbidden love and the despair of the outcast – but never with so much psychological specificity and naturalistic kick.  Underworld was always lame but now it seems woefully outdated too.

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Eric Mangini is no longer the head coach of the New York Jets, having been jettisoned on Monday after leading the team to a 9-7 record one year after they slumped to 4-12.  9-7 might seem pretty good after 4-12, until you realize that at one point this season they were 8-3 and looked poised to make a Super Bowl run.  Then lots of bad stuff started happening, mostly the fault of Brett Favre whose arm has apparently petered out after 18 seasons and countless thousands of throws.  The team limped to a 1-4 finish and missed the playoffs…and what made it really bad - like, cosmically, poetically bad - was that they lost the last game to the Miami Dolphins who are led by Chad Pennington, the QB the Jets got rid of because they preferred Favre.  I don’t know if that’s irony or not, but it is definitely damn funny.

It’s not certain who is more to blame for the Jets’ travails - Mangini, the artist formerly known as Mangenius, or GM Mike Tennenbaum, the guy who had such a hard-on for Favre that he overlooked Favre’s age and general prickiness and traded for him.  All I know for sure is that Tennenbaum is still working for the Jets and Mangini isn’t.  And Favre…well, Favre is doing his traditional off-season retirement speculation dance with the media.  I’m guessing, at this point, there wouldn’t be too many Jets fans crying if Favre decided to finally hang it up for good - and Tennenbaum probably wouldn’t be too sad either.  Actually, Tennenbaum looks like he’s already moved on from this season’s debacle - he’s found his scapegoat in Mangini and can now focus on bringing in a new coach to save the team (the way Mangini apparently saved them a couple years ago when he went 10-6 and lost in the playoffs to his old mentor Bill Belichick).  The apparent #1 candidate is Bill Cowher, the jut-chinned coach who led the gritty Pittsburgh Steelers to Super Bowl glory a couple years ago.  Unfortunately, Cowher is evidently not a huge fan of Mr. Tennenbaum’s work and is disinclined to accept the job as long as Tennenbaum is there.  And who knows what he thinks of Favre.  I’m guessing after about the 10th bad interception Cowher would start wishing he was back in the studio with Shannon Sharpe and Dan Marino and the ten other guys they have on that show every week.

The point is that, right now, it looks like the Jets will have a new quarterback as well as a new coach next year, and may very well have a new GM.  This is not what Jets fans had in mind when they took Favre off the Packers‘ hands last off-season.  Favre was supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle, the dynamic, gunslinging signal-caller who finally took their offense out of the vanilla range where Chad Pennington operated, and the team down the path to playoff glory.  Instead, Favre seemed not to fit with the offense, which is really a running offense with Thomas Jones as the main man, and appeared not to get along with coach Mangini who insists on treating all the players equally, even if they’re certain Hall of Famers who think rose petals are supposed to be spread everywhere they walk.  Basically, Mangini refused to kowtow to Favre.  I’d like to believe this didn’t have any effect on Favre’s play, but I don’t know that it didn’t.  Sure he’s Mr. Iron Man - but he’s also an over-sensitive crybaby who tends to pout when people don’t pay him what he thinks is the proper respect.  That’s why he ended up out of Green Bay in the first place.  And now his woe-is-me act has apparently contributed to Eric Mangini being pink-slipped after he led the team to a winning record despite having to work in a new quarterback and a bunch of new offensive linemen.

And what of Mangini, the boy wonder who became the toast of New York, even earning a cameo on The Sopranos?  It’s unlikely that he’ll land another head coaching job right away - former coordinators who become coaches usually have to serve a short exile as a coordinator again before someone else will give them a shot.  Mangini, a defensive guru under Bill Belichick in New England, might wind up someplace like Detroit, where God knows they could use some help learning how to stop people.  Or maybe he’ll go to Cleveland and help them with their defense.  Or perhaps Houston where the offense is in place, but the defensive coaches have all been fired.  All I know is that, wherever Mangini goes, people will be inclined to hate his guts.  He’s just one of those guys…sort of like Bill Belichick.  Apparently, Mangini learned everything from Bill, including his people-skills.  And how did he repay this kindness?  By ratting out the Patriots to the NFL, touching off Spygate.  Clearly, Mangini is a douchebag…which makes me wonder if college wouldn’t be a good place for him.  Rich Rodriguez, Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino have all been good in college and they’re as giant as assholes can be.  Mangini could land on-campus somewhere, and mix in with the other smug, patronizing twats who don’t know as much as they think they do (they’re called professors I believe).  Maybe Notre Dame.  They love former Belichick assistants.  Or, they used to, until they found out what a fat, overrated pile of crap Charlie Weis is.

The Packers have had a disastrous season by any standard, but at least they’ve been able to reassure themselves that they’ve found a quarterback to carry them into the future while that other guy fades slowly off into the swampy sunset.  The new kid on the block, Aaron Rodgers, has been everything the Packer faithful could’ve asked for and more.  It’s not his fault the rest of the team is an unholy mess that can’t even squeak out a win at home against the Houston Texans.  With any luck, the Packers will be able to re-tool in other areas, and give Mr. Rodgers the supporting cast necessary to make the playoffs his neighborhood.

Rodgers’ performance has been the silver lining on the dark cloud for the Packers this year…but silver linings, as we know, can sometimes be tarnished.  Yes Rodgers has had a solid campaign…but he had to do it in spite of a bum shoulder suffered while scrambling Week 4 against Tampa Bay.  And now - brace yourselves for it Cheesebrains - it’s been revealed that the quarterback will likely have to get surgery on the shoulder in the off-season.  Packer fans know the rub against Rodgers since the start:  He’s brittle.  Obviously, he was tough enough to endure the pain of the bad shoulder all year - but what if the joint becomes a nagging issue?  What if, in the end, he isn’t tough enough to carry the torch the way old #4 did, through thick and thin, no matter the odds, and in spite of being dinged up in every possible part of his body?

I’m not saying Rodgers is doomed to break down - I’m just saying that shoulder surgery, no matter how relatively minor, is never less than a big deal when it’s being performed on a quarterback.  That arm is Aaron’s bread-and-butter - and it’s the Packers’ too, especially if they insist on being mediocre in the running game and on defense.  How can Green Bay expect their QB to take them on his back and fly them to the promised land if he’s got a busted wing?  If I were a Packer fan - and thank God I’m not - I would be very worried about this.  Rodgers is just about all they have anymore - #4 ain’t coming back, no matter how many chickens the diehards sacrifice in voodoo ceremonies, and as for the other quarterbacks they drafted this off-season…um, what were their names again?  Mickey Finn?  Brian Boitano?

Of course there’s this consolation for the Pack - they’re going to have a pretty good draft pick once they lose to the Lions and finish 5-11.  I might say it would behoove them to pick a QB, just to be on the safe side, but they have so many needs at other positions.  I’m glad I’m not Ted Thompson, Mike McCarthy and the Green Bay braintrust.  They’re going to have some tough decisions to make.  Either about helping the team or, if they get fired, what alternate careers they might want to consider.  It’s such a tough economy too.   And there’s noodle-arm Favre with a chance to still make the playoffs after they told him to get lost.  These guys can’t catch a break can they?

Tennessee is back on top after throttling the Steelers.  The Giants are surging back too after stumbling.  And there sit the Colts, just chugging away.

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Everyone outside of Dallas knows Texas Stadium is a dump that deserved to be blown up years ago.  The folks in the Metro area, however, have continued carrying a torch for the venue in spite of its ever-increasing dilapidation - for the same irrational, sentimental reasons a man may remain attached to a woman even if she’s an 80-pound meth-head with no teeth and a tendency to mumble random Bible quotes and bleed from the eye sockets.  Even such crazed love affairs must end though, as Cowboys fans all realized when they turned out last night to bid farewell to their crumbling, maw-roofed junkpile.  It was meant to be a celebration - unfortunately for Dallas, the fond send-off degenerated into something more closely resembling a wake, all thanks to the performance of the hometown team, which got its ass handed to it by the Baltimore Ravens and, as a result, saw its playoff hopes sink lower than Jock Ewing after his plane crashed into that lake in South America.

This whole crumbling under pressure thing is not new for the Cowboys - in fact, it’s become their modus operandi ever since Tony Romo took over the helm as starting quarterback.  It started a couple years ago when Romo developed a sudden case of fumble-fingers while attempting to hold for a field goal that would’ve catapulted the Cowboys ahead in the playoffs.  And it continued last season when, despite being NFC favorites in a lot of people’s eyes, Romo and his Cowboys were bounced in the second round by the eventual champion Giants.  Of course it wouldn’t be fair to hang all of this on Tony Romo - you win as a team and you lose as a team, as T.O. knows.  Still, it can’t be only a coincidence that the Cowboys became such chokers at the same time Romo was anointed the starting quarterback.

Romo was right in the thick of it again last night against the Ravens, throwing two interceptions on his way to a feeble 66.2 QB rating, the worst he’s had since a couple weeks ago against Pittsburgh when he literally threw the game away while attempting to - once again - force the ball into his favorite target and apparent gay lover Jason Witten.  Romo might not have doomed himself and his team to such a fate had he heeded the advice of Terrell Owens and thrown the ball exclusively to Terrell Owens, regardless of game situation, coverage or what-have-you.  Owens, the greatest athlete God ever created, caught only 5 balls last night for 63 yards and 1 touchdown.  Again, Owens was prevented from attaining his true Olympian stature by his quarterback’s stubborn insistence on trying to find open receivers.

It’s too soon to say what sort of fall-out will result from Romo and the Cowboys’ latest exercise in peeing down their leg with the heat on.  It’s possible that Jerry Jones will fire Wade Phillips this very afternoon (to Wade’s probable relief).  It’s also possible that Terrell Owens will call a press conference to announce that Tony Romo is gayer than Jeff Garcia and more of a gagging-dog than Donovan McNabb, and that Jason Witten is a member of Al-Qaeda, and that he, T.O., really wants to play for the Dolphins next year because he always loved Bill Parcells, in spite of how it looked, and because he might get to play some quarterback himself in the Wildcat and show all these limp-dicked fools how it’s done.  Whatever else happens, Texas Stadium has likely hosted its last Dallas Cowboys game.  The site can now officially be declared the toxic waste dump it has been for so many years.

All I wanted for Christmas was at least another month without any Brett Favre retirement speculation.  Unfortunately, I am not going to get my wish.  And you know whose fault it is?  Brett Favre’s.  He had the choice to let a sleeping dog lie until at least after the playoffs, but instead, he decided to open his trap about it during one of his confessional/press conferences and now…well, the cat’s out of the bag, to mix animal-related metaphors.  In case you missed it, here’s the video of Brett officially opening the ‘08-’09 Will Brett Favre Retire Speculation Season:

He’s so subtle about it too, isn’t he?  He acts like he’s just talking about the team, the playoffs, and then…he drops it in.  “These could be my last three games.”  Not making any promises though, are you Brett?  I honestly cannot believe what a shameless attention-whore this guy is.  Nobody - I mean nobody - was talking about his retirement prospects.  And he knew it too, didn’t he?  He could feel the silence around him…like a kind of coldness.  And how does Brett chase that chill from his aging, evidently unappreciated bones?  “These could be my last three games.”  Now the talking-heads will drone on and on about it, all off-season too - and Brett will sit there in front of his TV in his log cabin out in the swamp and soak in all the love and adoration.  And sometimes he will go outside and shoot himself a critter to fry up for supper.  In his Wranglers.

It wouldn’t have been so bad had Brett just waited until after Christmas - but no, he had to go and ruin the holidays. And don’t for a second think it wasn’t deliberate.  Like a hillbilly Grinch, Favre plotted and planned and schemed, and made his way at last down to Whoville to steal everyone’s presents.  But, unlike the Grinch, Favre will not have a last-second conversion and wind up eating roast beast with Cindy Lou Who and the gang.  The Grinch’s heart was a little shriveled-up raisin at first but it only took a little love to make it beat again - Favre’s heart, on the other hand, requires much more fawning and attention than any mere village of Christmas-loving freaks could ever provide.  All the love of all the football-viewing public, not to mention his acolytes in the media, would still not be sufficient to fill the gaping void smack in the center of Brett’s soul.  And who has to suffer for this?  We do.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Favre.