Michael The Moviegoer’s list of the Ten Best Films of 2009:
Over the past couple of years, some of my favorite film critics have been shying away from compiling year-end 10-Best lists. They would simply list, alphabetically, their favorite movies of the year. Perhaps this is because there were too few, or too many good films in a given year, they simply didn’t want to put in the extra effort of ranking them. But this year it has become more appropriate than ever to compile a list of ten favorites, because the Motion Picture Academy has announced it will do the same for this year’s Best Picture Oscar race. That’s right, for the first time since 1942 there will be 10 Best Picture nominees.
My annual list, however, is not meant to predict the Oscar nominations. It is a personal list of my favorite films of the past year. (Of course, it would be nice if a few of my selections receive Oscar nominations.)
Here is my list, starting with 5 runner-ups…
15) A SINGLE MAN – Colin Firth is bound to get nominated for his performance of a gay man in the early 1960s who has just lost his lover in a car accident and is meticulously planning his suicide. Tom Ford’s directorial debut could be this year’s “Brokeback Mountain”.
14) THE BROTHERS BLOOM – Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo are con men and Rachel Weisz is their mark. Together they blow up a section of the Prague Castle in this quirky comedy that could be this year’s “In Bruges”.
13) AVATAR – James Cameron’s epic visionary sci-fi extravaganza is a masterwork of expert storytelling. At a cost of nearly 300 million, it’s the most expensive film of the year!
12) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY – Proving that it’s still possible to frighten audiences without using CGI and millions of dollars, this ultra low-budget hit is a throwback to the days when less was more.
11) BROTHERS – Tobey Maguire gives an outstanding performance in Jim Sheridan’s drama of the effects of war on two siblings.
And my top 10 favorite films of 2009 are:
10. THE INTERNATIONAL – Tom Tykwer’s most mainstream movie yet is a high-tech, globe-trotting, mystery thriller with banks and bankers as the bad guys. In “The International” Clive Owen plays an interpol agent working with Naomi Watts to uncover a vast conspiracy about a bank that’s involved in financing terrorists around the world. This movie is wall-to-wall suspense including a shoot-out set in New York’s Guggenheim Art Museum that is one of the most exciting and cinematic action sequences I have ever seen. Ever.
9. UP IN THE AIR – George Clooney is a first-class act in this thoughtful drama of a man who is hired by companies to fire their employees. He is the perfect man for the job because, on the surface, he is cold and unfeeling. Strongly resitant to commitment, he is unable to connect to other people, yet never misses a flight connection. Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick arrive to shake things up in Clooney’s life. Farmiga represents the potential for stability in Clooney’s life. Kendrick provides the catalyst for that in her revolutionary idea to ground Clooney and have him perform his job-firing duties via the internet. Following “Juno” and “Thank You For Smoking”, “Up In The Air” is Jason Reitman’s most accomplished work yet.
8. THE HANGOVER – Easily the year’s funniest and most successful comedy. Todd Phillips’ movie “The Hangover” is about a group of guys having a wild night in Las Vegas just before one of them is to be married. After establishing all the characters, the story jumps ahead to the morning after. One of the guys is missing and the others wake up in their trashed hotel room with an unknown baby and a tiger in the bathroom. With no memory of the night before, they spend the rest of the film trying to piece together what happened. The laughs are non-stop.
7. HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU – You wouldn’t think that a film version of a self-help style dating manual would be so good, but “He’s Just Not That Into You” is. An all-star cast including Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson and “The Hangover’s” Bradley Cooper make this one of the most enjoyable and well-made mainstream romantic comedies to come around in a long time. The characters and their stories all inter-connect ala “Crash”. Each story seems anchored to Ginnifer Goodwin and her desperate, yet hopeful quest to find love.
6. MY ONE AND ONLY – One of the most delightful surprises of the year is “My One And Only”, a sort-of biopic about the young life of famous B-movie actor George Hamilton. Renee Zellweger stars as George’s mom in one of her juciest roles ever. When she catches husband Kevin Bacon cheating on her, she grabs her two sons and begins a cross-country trek searching for love and following every knee-jerk possibility for romance with disasterous results. Eventually they end up in Hollywood where Hamilton does a screen test and the rest is history. They say the difference between truth and fiction is that fiction needs to make sense. This oddly true story will keep you smiling and give you new appreciation for George Hamilton. The movie is bursting with fresh air. Breathe it in.
5. EASY VIRTUE – Stephan Elliott (“The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert”) returns in fine form with a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 adaptation of Noel Coward’s play “Easy Virtue”. It’s a deliciously breezy and bouncey Britsh family farce. Jessica Biel plays an American race car driver who, after winning the Grand Prix, marries a younger rich Brit and travels to England to meet his parents played by Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth. Thomas is disapproving of her new daughter-in-law while Firth seems smitten by her. “Easy Virture” is an immensely enjoyable film which reminds us of why we once loved going to the movies.
4. THE MESSENGER – If you think George Clooney’s job in “Up In The Air” is depressing, check out the duties of soldiers Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in “The Messenger”. They are in the “casualty notification” business. They travel through the small town streets of middle-America, knock on doors, and casually announce to complete strangers that their loved one has been killed. Things get really tricky when Foster begins to fall in love with one of the widows they’ve notified, played with stunning restraint by Samantha Morton. Oren Moverman’s deeply moving film is a psychological character study of these two permanently wounded souls. His filmmaking style is reminiscent of the great 1970s anti-war films of Hal Ashby. This film is still haunting me more than a month after first seeing it. Very impressive.
3. SUNSHINE CLEANING – “I Clean Dead People” could be the slogan for this surprisingly excellent piece of indie filmmaking. Badly marketed as a silly comedy, this film opens with a man walking into a gun shop and asking to look at a shotgun. He then puts the gun under his chin and blows his head off. That sets just the right tone for the rest of the movie. But the wrong audience is seated, having been recruited by the cheerily misleading title and previews. Amy Adams and Emily Blunt play sisters who operate a suicide and crime-scene clean-up service. “Sunshine Cleaning” is a dark, quirky drama about life and death, love and loss, and living dysfunctional lives. Did I also mention it deals quite a bit with suicide? I’m not trying to turn you off. But to truly appreciate the brilliance of this film, you must be in the proper mood to view it. Too many people have gone to this movie expecting something else. What you can expect to see are two exceptional award-worthy performances from Adams and Blunt.
2. NINE – Rob Marshall is the king of the unfilmable musical. He successfully put “Chicago” on screen. Now he’s topped that achievment with this film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical “Nine” which is itself an adaptation of Federico Fellini’s classic “8 1/2”. The all-star singing and dancing cast includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren. The plot involves a creatively blocked filmmaker about to start a film for which he has no script yet. The connection to Fellini suggests that “Nine” should work better as a film than it does on stage. And, though Broadway purists might disagree, that is exactly what has happened. Rob Marshall has created a loving tribute to classic-style filmmaking that is one of the most exciting cinematic experiences of the year. Prepare to be astonished.
… and the best movie of 2009 is…
1. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – At the end of “Inglourious Basterds” when Brad Pitt says “this just might be my masterpiece” he’s no doubt echoing the sentiment of writer/director Quentin Tarantino. And if that’s the case, though conceited as it may sound, he’s dead-on right. Tarantino’s delirious re-imagining of World War II is the ultimate Jewish revenge fantasy. A hypothetical “what if” story involving the assassination of Hitler by burning down a movie theatre where he’ll be attending the premiere of a new German propoganda film. Pitt is the leader of a group of Nazi-killing Jews known as The Basterds. Diane Kruger gives her best performance to date as a German movie star/double-agent. But it’s the performance of newcomer Christoph Waltz that will be singled out on Oscar night as the year’s best. He plays the Nazi colonel Hans Landa, a detective for the SS known as “the Jew hunter” with a cold-as-ice interrogation technique. This is also my favorite-ever performance from Brad Pitt. He creates a character so real and yet so outlandish that you actually forget it’s Brad Pitt you’re watching. Call him G.I. Jew! Tarantino pays loving tribute to Sergio Leone with the style of this film. “Inglourious Basterds” is not only the best movie of 2009, it’s the best film of the decade.
