Thursday, January 14, 2010

It's way past that "time of the year" but I've got a Top Ten Year End list to deliver for my cherub like Editor-In-Chief John Laird.  I've been staring at lists of movie for the last few days, attempting to find 25 movies I've loved and ten of those that I've loved the most, and I'll be honest - it's been rough finding 25 movies I've seen in the theatre this year.  Let me give a few reasons why:

1.  It's been a big year.  I've fallen in love and moved and found new work and so on and so forth and perusing new films in overpriced theatres hasn't exactly been high on my list.

2.  This was a year of digging deep.  I sort of pulled back from new films this year due to lack of time and expenses and a yearning for learning just where these films came from.  I'm tired of stupid remakes and unoriginal concepts and overhyped nonsense.  I spent a lot of this year reaching back for inspiration and sadly, some of the amazing new movies that hit the big screens fell to the wayside.

Thus, I wouldn't call this the most complete list of 2009's best flicks, but it's the ones I saw, and the ones that left a handsome brand across my oft times mushy grey matter.

Thanks for reading this year folks.  Here's to another one!
 

Top 10 Movies Of 2009

#10.  Watchmen

One of the great superhero flicks of all time.  Haters who wanted more spandex, less talking, and more explosions can dip their head in Dr. Manhattan's nether regions.  This is an idea flick tightly wound in the darkest of super-hero conventions.  I bow down to the once disliked Zach Snyder for refusing the studios and cranking a three hour story about the gritty edges of being  a superhero.

#9.  Star Trek

Hey Trekkies, J.J. Abrams spent a good deal of time this year turning your dork rants on their heads.  Hell, he didn't even turn them on their heads, he just eliminated their validity.  I haven't cared about Star Trek since The Next Generation but as soon as that wormhole of doom birthed the spiky ship at the beginning of this film (the bass rattling my ear drums) I was one hundred percent sold.  I've been waiting for years for someone to remind everyone how lame William Shatner's Kirk was, and Chris Pine, with your flashy good looks and witty one-liners, you've done quite the trick.  Here's to the reign 'o' nerds coming to an end.

#8.  Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino, you obnoxious prick you, you've made one hell of a war movie.  I waited in line for forty minutes on opening night to absorb this dense, flashy picture in the amazing Castro Theatre.  Alex was nauseous afterwards, ideas and opinions were hotly debated, it was everything and more the movie experience could demand.  I found the film long in the tooth at times, but Jesus, that opening scene with The Jew Hunter, anything with Brad Pitt in it, and the sheer audacity of the gore in this film had me going at each and every turn.

#7.  Away We Go

Weirdly enough, the two main characters in this film are almost identical to my girlfriend and I.  We sat through the entire film, literally poking each other at every turn, eyes wide at our doppelgangers on screen.  Away We Go falters at the two-thirds mark, but the relationship that stands at the forefront of the film struck me right in the old blood pumper.

#6.  Where The Wild Things Are

I saw this film after drinking two bottles of wine, in the very front row of an IMAX theatre sometime after midnight.  I honestly thought about puking in to my popcorn bowl on more then one occasion.  Yet, through it all, the sheer originality of this story bit by bit blew my mind.  People claim it's pointless and not a good representation of the book, but I found it's pointlessness endearing.  This is a tone poem, a sincere look in to the world that lives in the mind of a lonely eleven year old.  Maybe not a kid's flick, and maybe not the Maurice Sendak book of our collective youths, but still, exactly the film I wanted from Spike Jonze.

#5.  District 9

The best sci-fi film in years.  I am so glad Neil Blomkamp was never given the reigns to Halo, a film that the studios would've guarded like savage white tigers.  Instead Blomkamp took a terrible, recent period in South African history and turned it in to a genre masterpiece.  One part brilliant concept, one part amazing mockumentary filmmaking, and one part sheer ass-kicking sci-fi action flick.

#4.  Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince

I'm shocked these films keep getting better.  I have no idea what David Yates was doing before he was given the reigns to these films, but holy rollers, this film stands head and shoulders above the rest of the films (not counting my beloved Prisoner of Azkaban).  There's a maturity in the emotions of this film that belies the childhood antics while not ever taking itself too seriously.  Magic is abound in this film, it's just cloaked in the angsty outbursts of children turning in to adults.

#3.  Fantastic Mr. Fox

In any other year, this would have been the best animated film to be released, but this was a great year for animation.  Fantastic Mr. Fox is all at once a decidedly Wes Anderson film, a cheeky bit of Brit-inspired stop-motion mayhem, a look at what it's like to be a little bit different, and just a blast of unadultered fun.  I'm a Wes Anderson fan for life, but man, can we give this man the stop-motion sandbox to dig around in again?  My whistle is duly whet.

#2.  A Serious Man

Possibly the most jarring filmic experience of the year for me.  I'm an anxious person on most occasions, prone to crippling insecurities and fears, and this film seemed to highlight all of them.  Sure, I don't know if I understood all the Jewish aspects of this film, but Jesus Almighty, the Coen Brothers managed to turn the screws tighter and tighter until my jumpy little heart could barely take.  I walked out of the theater dazed, in to a near silent San Francisco, and couldn't shake the film's doomsday message until days later.  Beautifully shot, masterfully edited - the Coen Brothers are the best filmmakers currently working, undoubtedly.

#1.  Up

The best film of the year, hand's down.  A bittersweet tale of adventure found too late.  Every character in this film pops off the screen with a realistic persona nearly never found in the world of computer animation.  Kevin, Doug, Carl - I'd watch five more movies starring you if they were even a fraction as entertaining and heartwarming as this.  

- Noah Sanders - -



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