In order to gain eligibility for the Hall, a player has to wait 5 years after he has played his last game in the Major Leagues. The Baseball Hall is famous for its exclusivity. A player has to receive over 75% of the votes from over 500 ballots cast by the Baseball Writers' Association of America(BBWAA) to get in. In the 75-year history of the Hall, the BBWAA has elected only 115 candidates, for an average of 1.53 inductees per year. I am a firm supporter of this stance! The Hall of Fame is meant for the very best, not just for anyone who was very good, but not great.
With that in mind, I have created The Movie Porti Hall of Fame
I believe that a 5-year waiting period would be the best way for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences(AMPAS) to elect its winners each year. Most years, the Academy voters get swept up in the awards season campaigning. This has resulted in a number of unforgivable mistakes made by the Academy throughout the years(I could do a whole month of posts on those). Now, I'm not gonna hand out the Oscars all over again(I would if I could), but what I'm gonna do is select the movies and performances that, 5 years later, are worthy of receiving 75% of my imaginary votes, and therefore, would enter The Movie Porti Hall of Fame.
1st Year Eligibles: 2008 / 5-Year Waiting Period: 2009-2013
Recap
My Top 5 Movies of 2008
1. "The Dark Knight" (dir. Christopher Nolan)
2. "The Wrestler" (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
3. "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (dir. Woody Allen)
4. "Milk" (dir. Gus Van Sant)
5. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (dir. David Fincher)
*Note: My Top 3 movies of the year were not nominated for Best Picture
My Top 5 Performances of 2008
1. Heath Ledger as "The Joker" in "The Dark Knight"
2. Mickey Rourke as "Randy "the Ram" Robinson" in "The Wrestler"
3. Penelope Cruz as "Maria Elena" in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
4. Sean Penn as "Harvey Milk" in "Milk"
5. Kate Winslet as "Hannah Schmitz" in "The Reader"
*Note: In contrast with my movie Top 5, all 4 Oscar winners are in this Top 5, plus Mickey Rourke.
Best Performance by an Ensemble in 2008
The cast of "Doubt": Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis
*Note: All four were nominated for an Academy Award
Acting MVPs of 2008
Male: (tie) Philip Seymour Hoffman("Doubt" and "Synecdoche, New York") and Robert Downey Jr.("Iron Man" and "Tropic Thunder")
Female: Kate Winslet ("The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road")
*Note: Robert Downey Jr. received a rare Academy Award nomination for a comedic performance.
"Gravity" Achievement Award for Visual Effects
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - For marvelously aging Brad Pitt in reverse.
*Note: Of course, "Benjamin Button" won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
How the Academy voted / How I would've voted (I couldn't resist)
Best Picture: Academy - "Slumdog Millionaire" / MP - "The Dark Knight"
Best Director: Academy - Danny Boyle("Slumdog") / MP - Christopher Nolan("The Dark Knight")
Best Actor: Academy - Sean Penn("Milk") / MP - Mickey Rourke("The Wrestler")
Best Actress: Academy - Kate Winslet("The Reader") / MP - same
Best Supporting Actor: Academy - Heath Ledger("The Dark Knight") / MP - same
Best Supporting Actress: Academy - Penelope Cruz("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") / MP - same
Best Original Screenplay: Academy - "Milk" / MP - same
Best Adapted Screenplay: Academy - "Slumdog Millionaire" / MP - "Doubt"
Best Film Editing: Academy - "Slumdog Millionaire" / MP - "The Dark Knight"
Best Animated Feature: Academy - "WALL-E" / MP - "Kung Fu Panda"
Most Overrated Movies of 2008
1. "Slumdog Millionaire" - won 8 Oscars out of a total 10 nominations, including Best Picture, making it the film with the most Oscar wins in the last 10 years. This film isn't even in my Top 10 for 2008, forget about it being the best movie of the past 10 years.
2. "WALL-E" - received 6 Academy Award nominations, tying it with "Beauty and the Beast" for the most ever by an animated movie. I enjoyed this movie and I admired the risk the filmmakers took in making the first half an animated silent film, but the second half of WALL-E is way too heavy handed for my taste. That second half ruined any chance the film had of becoming a classic.
I love animated movies, and I particularly love Pixar animated movies, but, for some erroneous reason, many critics decided to tab WALL-E as Pixar's Masterpiece and even named it as one of their Top 10 movies of the first decade of the new millenium. In my opinion, Pixar's true Masterpiece of "the aughts" came one year earlier, with Brad Bird's "Ratatouille", not to mention their other excellent work on the decade, plus their hands-down Masterpiece: the "Toy Story" trilogy. "WALL-E" wasn't even the best animated film of 2008 for me. I liked "Kung Fu Panda" better.
Just Missed Induction: "The Wrestler"
If you're one of those people that consider pro wrestling a real sport(I'm one of those), then Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" is one of the greatest sports movies in recent memory. Aronofsky presents the heartbreaking story of Randy "the Ram" Robinson(Mickey Rourke in a career reviving performance), a man who simply doesn't have anything else in his life besides wrestling. As his body keeps breaking down, Randy considers retirement while trying to make ends meet and also make amends with his estranged daughter(Evan Rachel Wood), with some help from a stripper friend of his(Marisa Tomei in an Academy Award nominated performance). There's nothing fancy here(aside from the in-ring sequences), but Aronofsky's unique style still shines through the film and he deftly manages to make us care for all these characters, especially Randy. Aronofsky was definitely snubbed by the Academy in 2008. This movie belongs to him. He would receive his first career nomination 3 years later for "Black Swan". Aside from the nominations for Rourke(who also just missed induction for his performance) and Tomei, the Academy completely ignored "The Wrestler", something that looks even worse 5 years later.
Movie Porti Hall of Fame Inductee: "The Dark Knight"
This movie is what Summer Blockbusters are all about! I can still remember the excitement I felt watching it for the first time in theaters on its release date. I still felt that same excitement 2 months later, on my 5th viewing of the film, in an IMAX theater in New York City. "The Dark Knight" was the first feature film ever to utilize IMAX cameras, using them for six of its major action sequences. From the first scene to the last, the pace never lets up. Immediately, you can tell that the Gotham City in this film resembles more of a modern-day city than in previous Batman films. This was also the first Batman film that didn't use the word "Batman" in its title, so we should have expected something unique just from that. The filmmakers, led by director Christopher Nolan, wanted to bring Batman into the modern world, and they succeeded in a way that would change comic book movies forever.
"The Dark Knight" received 8 Oscar nominations, but was somehow snubbed for Best Director and Best Picture, making it the film with the 2nd most nominations ever without a Best Picture nomination(2008 was the last year with just 5 Best Picture nominees). The ensemble cast, including Maggie Gyllenhall, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, and Christian Bale as "Batman/Bruce Wayne", is excellent, but the film truly becomes a timeless classic thanks to Heath Ledger's iconic portrayal of "The Joker", his last complete career performance, for which he would win a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. "The Dark Knight" also received a 2nd Oscar for Best Sound Editing. I just watched it again yesterday, and its themes of modern-day heroism are as relevant today as they were five years ago. I don't think we'll ever see another movie quite like "The Dark Knight", and for that reason I consider it one of the Greatest Movies of All Time, and a slam-dunk(sports reference!) inductee into the Movie Porti Hall of Fame.
Movie Porti Hall of Fame Inductee: Heath Ledger as "The Joker" in "The Dark Knight"
The excitement I had for watching "The Dark Knight" began when Heath Ledger was announced as "The Joker" on July 31st, 2006. Incredibly, many people were initially against this decision, but I was a big fan from the start. After seeing Ledger's performance as "Ennis Del Mar" in "Brokeback Mountain", I knew he could do anything. The excitement continued to build when I went to see Warner Bros' "I am Legend" in theaters during the 2007 holiday season. The best thing about that moviegoing experience was that the first "Dark Knight" teaser trailer was premiered. Once I got a glimpse of Heath Ledger's "Joker", my excitement level went through the roof! The hype surrounding this movie was like nothing I had experienced before.
That hype got magnified, sadly, on January 22nd, 2008, with the tragic news of Heath Ledger's death due to an accidental drug overdose. I was crushed. This guy was on his way to becoming one of my Top 5 Favorite Actors Ever, and he was just 28 when he died. The expectations placed on the film after this were unbelievable, but the film, and Ledger in particular, delivered. "The Dark Knight" would become the 2nd Highest Grossing Film of All Time at the Box Office, later the 3rd highest after "Avatar's" release one year later. This was due in large part to Ledger's transcendent performance as "The Joker". Some people have said that the praise for his performance was due to the fact that he had passed away, but I say that those people are CRAZY! If Ledger would've been alive, he would've gladly walked up on stage to accept the Oscar that was rightfully his. Simply put, Ledger created one of the Greatest Villains in Film History, with one of the Greatest Quotes in Film History("Why so serious?"), and overall, his performance is one of the Greatest Performances of All Time. For all those reasons, Heath Ledger's performance as "The Joker" is an inductee in the Movie Porti Hall of Fame.
P. S.
Starting next week, I will present my Top 100 (10 at a time) for the 4 categories that I mentioned that "The Dark Knight" belongs to: Greatest Movies of All Time, Greatest Performances of All Time, Greatest Heroes & Villains of All Time, and Greatest Quotes of All Time. In some instances, some of the films and performances on these lists would not be in the Movie Porti Hall of Fame, but, obviously, all films and performances in the Hall will appear on these lists. So stay tuned!
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