The Best Films of 2008

The Academy Awards announce their choices on Sunday. These are mine.

TAKE

Directed by Charles Oliver • When I saw it at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, I thought Minnie Driver would be nominated for Best Actress and that writer-director Charles Oliver would be greeted as an exciting new voice in cinema. However, in July 2008 Take was released to no fanfare and poor reviews — it deserves better. It’s an elegantly constructed drama about two lives that intersect in a moment of tragedy and intersect again in a kind of forgiveness. Its ending has been criticized as an anticlimax, but it’s not a film about an explosive catharsis. It’s about carrying the weight of the world, and in a moment deciding whether to hold on to it or let it go.

Academy Awards 2009: Predicting the Nominees

The Academy Award nominations are announced on January 22, two days from now, so it’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is. Here are my predictions for who will hear their names called on Thursday morning.