SEFCA Awards for 2008 films
STAFF REPORTS
The Southeastern Film Critics Association named “Milk” as the Best Picture of 2008 in the 17th annual voting. Directed by Gus Van Sant, “Milk” stars Sean Penn as slain activist Harvey Milk who fought for gay rights and was the first openly gay man who served in public office.
SEFCA is made up of reporters from nine Southeastern states. This year 38 members participated in voting.
SEFCA’s top 10 films of 2008 include
1. “Milk” is the story of of California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White.
2. “Slumdog Millionaire” is the story of the life of an impoverished Indian teen Jamal Malik, who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to be A Millionaire?” But when he wins he is then suspected of cheating and forced to tell his life story to tell how he knew the answers to the questions on the show.
3. “Wall-E” tells the story of how in the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.
4. “The Dark Knight” tells how Batman, James Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as it drives each of them to their limits.
5. “The Wrestler” centers on retired professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson as he makes his way through the independent circuit.
6. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences.
7. “The Reader” is set in post-World War II Germany and takes place nearly a decade after Michael Burk has an affair with an older woman which came to a mysterious end. Later becoming a law student Michael Burk re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.
8. “The Visitor” tells the story of a college professor who travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment.
9. “Frost/Nixon” is a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon.
10. “Revolutionary Road” tells the story of a young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s who struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.
THE SEFCA AWARDS ALSO INCLUDED:
BEST ACTOR: Sean Penn in “Milk”
BEST ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz in “Vicky Christina Barcelona”
BEST DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle for “Slumdog Millionaire”
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Dustin Lance Black for “Milk”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Simon Beaufoy for “Slumdog Millionaire”
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: “Let the Right One In” (Sweden), which tells the story of Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy, who finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire.
BEST DOCUMENTARY: “Man On Wire,” which tells the story tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City’s World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974, what some consider, “the artistic crime of the century.”
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: “Wall-E”
