Stephen King’s Top Ten

Who else but Stephen King would put The Ruins and Lakeview Terrace alongside Slumdog and Wall-E on a top ten list? King has earned the right to be unpretentious and his list is always a welcome break from the usual. He also likes Redbelt, a throwaway David Mamet film from earlier in the year – too bad that one didn’t go anywhere. Here is what King says about Wall-E:

One of the longest animated features of the last 25 years or so, and certainly the best; the first half an hour is an almost wordless tone poem that combines humor with ‚Ä®an elegiac sadness for our throwaway culture. I don’t think it deserves a Best Picture Academy Award, but it certainly deserves to be nominated.

Number 2 is Slumdog Millionaire:

Combine Bollywood, Huckleberry Finn, and Oliver Twist, and you come out with this brilliant, sentimental, hilarious, and ultimately uplifting epic of survival in an urban world of cataclysmic poverty. The cinematography is beautiful, and the performances shimmer. It’s been years since the movies have produced such an affecting story about the power of friendship.

And making his number one? The Dark Knight:

The best superhero movie ever. It’s crowned by Heath Ledger‘s performance as the Joker, but Christian Bale makes a great Batman, delivering a performance where dignity and despair are in perfect sync. The supporting cast (especially Michael Caine as Alfred) is wonderful. This is to cape-and-tights movies what Godfather II was to the gangster movie: a genre-defining event.