Part 1 was last week, this week the rest of the films that floated my boat in 2008.

Bang for yer buck…
Most of the year's best action films were superhero outings (see last week), but not all. Cloverfield saw New York stomped by a giant something or other from outer space. With obvious 9-11 resonance this tried to create an American Godzilla by mining similar fears to those harboured in post-atom bomb Japan. Dynamically told through a first-person hand-held camera, it was about as good as monster movies get, boding well for JJ Abrams upcoming 'reboot” of the Star Trek franchise.
Meanwhile, Wanted, provided hope for all spotty teenage boys, as put-upon office drone James McAvoy is suddenly plucked from his humdrum life by a leather-clad Angelina Jolie and initiated as the most skilled of an ancient secret assassins guild. Believable? Nah. Kick-ass fun? Hell yeah! With a hyperactive visual style reminiscent of Fight Club and a strikingly original look, this reclaimed action from the dour 'realistic” school of Bourne.

All sorts of drama…
Most beautiful, poised, intelligent film award must go to Ang Lee for his exquisite Lust Caution, a tale of love and betrayal in wartime Shanghai. With controversial sex scenes that reveal layers of character amongst the eroticism and a taught grasp on the minutiae of social convention this built to a shattering climax.
Better than Mystic River was another Dennis Lehane adaptation, Gone Baby Gone, a film that raises many difficult issues while remaining a taught private eye thriller, as Casey Affleck's wrong-side-of-the-tracks private eye hunts for a missing child. Most impressive about this directorial debut from brother Ben Affleck is that it refuses to provide easy answers while at the same time offering a satisfying resolution.
Lighter and funnier was Lars and the Real Girl, a film wherein the love of a blow-up doll was treated seriously and with the sort of warm humanity more commonly found in European cinema (think early Lasse Hallstrom). Ryan Gosling was wonderful and a ridiculously quirky concept was treated with the lightest and most affectionate of touches.
And, also treated with the lightest touch was the story of paralysed magazine editor Jean-Dominique Barby (latest Bond villain Mathieu Amalric), The Diving Bell And The Butterfly. Many I know avoided this film of a man only able to communicate by blinking one eye as too depressing, but it is anything but. Masterfully directed by Julian Schnabel this was a film that made you feel good to be alive.

The plain weird…
Many were baffled by the oblique multi-layered approach to the life of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. And with good reason. Six actors play Dylan including a young black boy and Cate Blanchett. Closer inspection reveals a dazzling film that is more a psychological portrait on the singer than a regular biography. And a display of virtuoso filmmaking.
Richard Kelly followed cult hit Donnie Darko with the epic Southland Tales, a sprawling political satire that really required multiple viewings to fully understand. But what gems of genius there are in it. Bold, brilliant and only initially baffling.

Reel life…
It was a year of great documentaries. These are riveting viewing, some very funny, some that will profoundly affect you, all demonstrating what a rich and wonderful and sometimes terrible world we live in, and all far exceeding the expectation of what you thought you were about to watch
Best of all: In The Shadows of the Moon, a surprisingly moving look at the Apollo space programme and the surviving men who have stood on the moon.
Honourable mentions: King of Kong (crazy gamers still playing retro arcade game Donkey Kong), Air Guitar Nation (yes, there is a World Air Guitar Championship…), Blindsight (blind Tibetan children climb Everest!), A Very British Gangster (The Sopranos, but set in England, and real), Taxi To The Dark Side (a shattering examination of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and their wider consequences) and Booogie Man (the weird life of US Republican election-fixer Lee Atwater).