It's traditional, it's fun, what more reason do you need for a Best of 2008? So this week and next week I'll run down the films that, coming out on DVD in 2008, most popped my cork.

Comic book fun…
It was another year when comic book heroes led the action charge. Two films share top honours here, and both fit very different moods.
The Dark Knight was the bleakest comic book epic ever lensed, taking Batman to the darkest extremes of vigilante justice. Powered by a majestic vision of punk anarchy in Heath Ledger's Joker, the only misstep was Maggie Gyllenhaal's daffy character. But look what happened to her…
Much more fun – on a pure fun level – was Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, in which Guillermo Del Toro unleashed the mighty force of his unbridled imagination and created a world of fantasy creatures unlike any other. Big Red and his mates remained jolly superhero company but the real star was the production design and special effects that looked effortlessly convincing.
Honourable Mention: Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr Rules!
Dishonourable mentions: The Incredible Hulk – incredible? - and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He's not a comic book hero but he might as well be. Stupid story line, too many underutilised characters and, oh, those absolutely rotten digital effects. Sword fighting on cars? Swinging through the jungle? All as convincing as 1950's rear projection.

The wild weird west…
All three of these were released in 2007, but arrived on DVD in 2008. And what a raw and rancid view on the much mythologized west they give us. In historical order:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, wherein Brad Pitt gives his best performance yet as the reclusive world-weary rock star Jesse James. He is stalked by whiney envious acolyte Bob Ford, an equally impressive Casey Affleck. Slow and fascinating this is a telling portrait of fame and its consequences, beautifully crafted and shot.
Crossing over that film by a few years is There Will Be Blood, boasting a towering performance from Daniel Day Lewis as the central oil man, a miserable misanthropic portrait of heartless capitalism, but riveting until his final words ('I'm finished”). Deservedly taking home the best cinematography Oscar, this looks ravishing and in its struggle between the power of oil and the word of God it rises to heights of greatness.
And, equally uncompromising is modern western No Country For Old Men, in which the Coen brothers forsook the use of music and offered us a terrifying yet strangely principled assassin in the form of Javier Bardem's lethal Chugar, and a parable about the evil in the world, all seen through the sad eyes of Tommy Lee Jones haunted compassionate sheriff.

Funny ha ha…
John C Reilly is magnificent as the title character in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which documents his life from the traumatic childhood accident (resulting in the loss of his sense of smell) to touring with Buddy Holly, the slide into drugs, acid in India with the Beatles and the Maharishi, a Brian Wilson-style breakdown, and the final triumphant return. Forget Ray!, forget Walk the Line, this is the real history of music (cameos include Jack White as Elvis and Jack Black as Paul McCartney – fantastic!).
Tropic Thunder takes a gleeful hatchet to Hollywood in general while at the same time delivering a dead accurate parody of Vietnam war movies, as it retells the story of an Apocalypse Now-style epic gone wrong. Ben Stiller and Jack Black are great as the errant 'stars” but Robert Downey Jr raises the bar with his portrayal of Kirk Lazarus, five times Academy Award winning Aussie method actor whose skin pigments have been dyed for him to play the African American sergeant. See the extended Director's Cut if you can.
Honourable Mention: Kung Fu Panda. Yes, another film with Jack Black. The boy's doing alright for himself. This was the pick of the year for animation, and it's pretty funny, even for grown ups.