Top 9 - Films
My nine favourite films of 2009. LImited, obviously, to the movies I saw, which means they're slanted heavily towards Hollywood, English-language stuff - it was that kind of year for me. No real metric of "objective quality" is in place here, it's just a question of how much I liked it.
Enter your cut contents here.
Inglourious Basterds - Long, historically inaccurate, and overly talkative, this one's for Tarantino purists only, I think, but as I am one of those, I'm not about to complain. Tarantino does what he does best here, with lots of snappy dialogue and ultraviolence, and the result is a film that is an homage to old Hollywood while keeping a sheen of hipster cool over everything (in other words, a Quentin Tarantino film). Also: Christof Waltz's Hans Landa character was an absolute treat to watch every time he was on screen.
Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince - An adaptation of my least favourite Potter novel, that turned into my favourite Potter film so far. War, and rumours of war, are on the horizon, and Harry wants to live up to his "chosen one" promise and help stop Voldemort, but the adults around him are too busy trying to protect him to realize he's not a child anymore. Great performance by Radcliffe, great atmospheric direction and cinematography.
The Hangover - Four guys take a road trip to Vegas for a bachelor party. Most of the movie takes place the morning after, with three of the guys trying to figure out what happened the night before (and what happened to their friend). The Hangover borrows from a lot of similar movies (American Pie; Dude, Where's My Car; I Love You, Man), but manages to do so in a way that never feels derivative. I laughed until I hurt the first time I saw this movie, and it hasn't seemed any less funny on subsequent viewings.
I Love You, Man - Platonic male relationships are tricky to write about. They either seem like standoffish pissing contests, or get interpreted as subconsciously homosexual (see: Holmes and Watson, Frodo and Sam, etc). Not that there's anything wrong with homsexual relationships, of course, but it's not the only type of relationship a man can have with another man. That's the issue that Judd Apatow and crew look at here, and the result is classic Apatow - lots of humour, ranging from the dirty to the absurd, but with a solid emotional nugget that looks at how we get by as people in this modern world of ours (hint: it apparently often involves Rush air-guitar sequences).
Star Trek - The reset button gets hit on Star Trek, allowing them to take it from the top and look at the story of how James Kirk first took command of the Enterprise. While feeling fully like a modern, twenty-first century film, the creators here still managed to capture most of what made the original series work, something that was also seen in the inspired casting choices for the entire crew. The main blemish on this one was Lt. Uhura, who was reduced to nothing more than a love interest for Spock, but I think that says more about how modern Hollywood handles female characters than a comment on the movie itself.
Whip It - In some ways, this was a pretty straightforward sports movie. Rookie joins team of underdogs, fights for respect both on and off the field, and ends up leading the team to glory. What makes this one different, though, is that it's about an Austin roller derby league, which gives it a cool rock and roll sensibility. Ellen Page is great as the rookie, and Kristen Wiig was surprisingly enjoyable as one of her teammates with a strong mothering instinct. Also, the more I see of Austin in film, the more I want to visit that city - I know they're probably only showing the "cool" parts of it, but it seems like quite the special place.
District 9 - An alien ship hovers over Johannesburg, its passengers sick and in need of food and shelter. Twenty years later, they're still here, in special camps that have been set aside for their use. When the government wants to move the aliens from their old home of District 9 to the new District 10, a talentless pencil-pusher named Wikus weasels his way into the job. Everything goes well for him until he has a run-in with a piece of alien technology that turns him into one of them.
District 9 was not, by any definition, a subtle movie, but that doesn't mean it's not an effective one. Wikus is not a 'hero', he's just a protagonist, and watching him become both less human and more humane throughout the movie tells a story that is both tied to a single time and place, and is also a more universal treatise on dominance and oppression.
(500) Days of Summer - This movies managed to be both romantic, and funny, without really being a love story or a full-on comedy and without falling into a lot of the formulae that "romantic comedies" tend to fall in to. Tom loves Summer, a girl who works in his office, even though she says she doesn't believe in love. He convinces her to give it a try, though, and their relationship works for a bit and then falls apart, with her ultimately finding that she does believe in love - just not with Tom. Melancholy, sweet, funny, and bonus marks for a non-sequential narrative style. Further bonus points for Zooey Deschanel's eyes, which are mesmerizing as always.
Pontypool - A wonderful little Canadian horror movie that proves you don't need a big budget or fancy special effects to creep people out. The small town of Pontypool, Ontario, has a snowstorm coming - and a strange phenomenon that's taking over people and turning them into enraged, mindless creatures. What's great about the movie, though, is we don't get to see any of that, not right away at least - instead, we're stuck with the morning crew of Pontypool's radio station, as they get incoming reports about what's going on in town. The best horror movies are ofter the ones that know when not to show something, and Pontypool is no exception.
Enter your cut contents here.
Inglourious Basterds - Long, historically inaccurate, and overly talkative, this one's for Tarantino purists only, I think, but as I am one of those, I'm not about to complain. Tarantino does what he does best here, with lots of snappy dialogue and ultraviolence, and the result is a film that is an homage to old Hollywood while keeping a sheen of hipster cool over everything (in other words, a Quentin Tarantino film). Also: Christof Waltz's Hans Landa character was an absolute treat to watch every time he was on screen.
Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince - An adaptation of my least favourite Potter novel, that turned into my favourite Potter film so far. War, and rumours of war, are on the horizon, and Harry wants to live up to his "chosen one" promise and help stop Voldemort, but the adults around him are too busy trying to protect him to realize he's not a child anymore. Great performance by Radcliffe, great atmospheric direction and cinematography.
The Hangover - Four guys take a road trip to Vegas for a bachelor party. Most of the movie takes place the morning after, with three of the guys trying to figure out what happened the night before (and what happened to their friend). The Hangover borrows from a lot of similar movies (American Pie; Dude, Where's My Car; I Love You, Man), but manages to do so in a way that never feels derivative. I laughed until I hurt the first time I saw this movie, and it hasn't seemed any less funny on subsequent viewings.
I Love You, Man - Platonic male relationships are tricky to write about. They either seem like standoffish pissing contests, or get interpreted as subconsciously homosexual (see: Holmes and Watson, Frodo and Sam, etc). Not that there's anything wrong with homsexual relationships, of course, but it's not the only type of relationship a man can have with another man. That's the issue that Judd Apatow and crew look at here, and the result is classic Apatow - lots of humour, ranging from the dirty to the absurd, but with a solid emotional nugget that looks at how we get by as people in this modern world of ours (hint: it apparently often involves Rush air-guitar sequences).
Star Trek - The reset button gets hit on Star Trek, allowing them to take it from the top and look at the story of how James Kirk first took command of the Enterprise. While feeling fully like a modern, twenty-first century film, the creators here still managed to capture most of what made the original series work, something that was also seen in the inspired casting choices for the entire crew. The main blemish on this one was Lt. Uhura, who was reduced to nothing more than a love interest for Spock, but I think that says more about how modern Hollywood handles female characters than a comment on the movie itself.
Whip It - In some ways, this was a pretty straightforward sports movie. Rookie joins team of underdogs, fights for respect both on and off the field, and ends up leading the team to glory. What makes this one different, though, is that it's about an Austin roller derby league, which gives it a cool rock and roll sensibility. Ellen Page is great as the rookie, and Kristen Wiig was surprisingly enjoyable as one of her teammates with a strong mothering instinct. Also, the more I see of Austin in film, the more I want to visit that city - I know they're probably only showing the "cool" parts of it, but it seems like quite the special place.
District 9 - An alien ship hovers over Johannesburg, its passengers sick and in need of food and shelter. Twenty years later, they're still here, in special camps that have been set aside for their use. When the government wants to move the aliens from their old home of District 9 to the new District 10, a talentless pencil-pusher named Wikus weasels his way into the job. Everything goes well for him until he has a run-in with a piece of alien technology that turns him into one of them.
District 9 was not, by any definition, a subtle movie, but that doesn't mean it's not an effective one. Wikus is not a 'hero', he's just a protagonist, and watching him become both less human and more humane throughout the movie tells a story that is both tied to a single time and place, and is also a more universal treatise on dominance and oppression.
(500) Days of Summer - This movies managed to be both romantic, and funny, without really being a love story or a full-on comedy and without falling into a lot of the formulae that "romantic comedies" tend to fall in to. Tom loves Summer, a girl who works in his office, even though she says she doesn't believe in love. He convinces her to give it a try, though, and their relationship works for a bit and then falls apart, with her ultimately finding that she does believe in love - just not with Tom. Melancholy, sweet, funny, and bonus marks for a non-sequential narrative style. Further bonus points for Zooey Deschanel's eyes, which are mesmerizing as always.
Pontypool - A wonderful little Canadian horror movie that proves you don't need a big budget or fancy special effects to creep people out. The small town of Pontypool, Ontario, has a snowstorm coming - and a strange phenomenon that's taking over people and turning them into enraged, mindless creatures. What's great about the movie, though, is we don't get to see any of that, not right away at least - instead, we're stuck with the morning crew of Pontypool's radio station, as they get incoming reports about what's going on in town. The best horror movies are ofter the ones that know when not to show something, and Pontypool is no exception.