2008
This marks the year that I began returning to the theater in earnest. It's a curious year in that I have a Top 5 that's arguably the strongest of the decade, but I could make you a Bottom 5 list that would curl your toes. The strengths make up for the weaknesses, though, and some of these movies are going to stick with me for a long time.
Top 5 Films
- The Wrestler - Welcome back, Mickey Rourke. A laughingstock around Hollywood when he left his acting career to return to his boxing roots, The Wrestler put Rourke back on the map. His performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a small-time wrestler who can't quit the biz despite his declining health and dreams of reconnecting with his estranged daughter, is as moving as any you'll see.
- In Bruges - If you enjoy your comedies dark, dreamy and wordy, In Bruges is your movie. You can really tell that it was scripted by a playwright. Dialogue - extremely clever dialogue - sets this movie apart from your typical American slapstick. You'll have to get past the accents, but trust me, it's worth it.
- Frost/Nixon - I'm not usually into biopics, but this face-off between the notoriously media-shy Richard Nixon and the interviewer David Frost, a relative unknown in the States, is a subject worth looking back on. Great performances all around, particularly by Frank Langella as Nixon, help make this a memorable film.
- Tropic Thunder - This send-up of the war movie genre is side-splittingly funny. It's a totally different comedy style than In Bruges, showing that there's multiple ways to illicit a laugh. Who knew we could still laugh with Tom Cruise instead of just at him? The fake trailers at the beginning of the movie were a riot, particularly the one for Satan's Alley.
- Slumdog Millionaire - Who doesn't love a good rags to riches tale? As good as this movie was, the poverty and squalor of the Mumbai slums it depicts really stuck with me. India is in the process of growing up, and it's going through some nasty growing pains. There is brilliance coming out of that country. There is also unspeakable poverty and class/sex bigotry. The story of the child actors who starred in the movie mirror the difficult road of the country.
Worst of the Year -
The Happening. Despite the incredible strength of this year's Top 5, it was no easy task picking a single worst film. I almost went with
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but really, what could I have said? That movie was never going to be good anyway. Instead I'll go with incredibly overrated M. Night Shyamalan's beat-you-over-the-head eco-"thriller". Yes, M., we get the point: We need to take better care of our planet if we hope for it to take care of us. Can you be any more obvious? Why don't you hire people to whack us with 2x4s on the way out of the theater while we're at it, just in case someone missed the point. What's frustrating is that there's actually a decent idea for a story buried in this train wreck of a film. It would have taken a better director to dig it out.
Marketing matters -
Cloverfield. Like most of us, I like to believe that I'm immune to advertising. Maybe I am more resistant than the average bear, and maybe I'm not. Examples like
Cloverfield point to the unhappy fact that I'm hardly immune to the wiles of clever advertising.
Cloverfield featured one of the most brilliant
viral ad campaigns in movie history. Along with a
wicked trailer, it generated an unbelievable amount of hype and expectation. When the final product was merely "meh", it felt like a massive letdown. Yet I bought the hype hook, line and sinker, and by the time I had figured out that this J.J. Abrams's-produced film wasn't anything special, I had already plunked down my $9. Fool me once, shame on you;
fool me twice, shame on me.
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2009
2009 can be called "The Year of Science Fiction". Three of my Top 5 films hail from the sci-fi genre. This is outstanding news. The word coming out of Hollywood has been that, with times being what they are, people aren't interested in science fiction any more. This sentiment is reflected in a lessened number of movies featuring space, aliens or other typical sci-fi trappings. Hopefully 2009 showed Hollywood execs that this sentiment is wrong and that tough times are exactly when science fiction is at its most valuable.
Top 5 Films
- District 9 - Remind me to go shopping with Neill Blomkamp, 'cause this man knows how to get the most out of his dollar. What he did with a $30M budget - paltry by industry standards - is simply amazing. District 9 looks like it cost 5x that amount to make. More importantly, it has the brains and the deeper meaning to live up to the looks. The movie reminds us that it's easy to look down on a group of individuals that are different from you until you have to walk a mile in their shoes, but it delivers this simple message in an understated way that puts a hack like M. Night Shyamalan to shame. If you want the message, it's there for you. If you just want to enjoy explosions and power suit battles, you got that, too. Nothing is forced on you, which is just the way it should be.
- Avatar - Like District 9, Avatar explores the difficulty we sometimes have relating to groups of individuals different from us. It's very much a tale of Imperialism of the past brought into a future fictional world. Unlike District 9, Avatar makes its themes much more explicit, clearly defining its worldview. That has made the movie a target amongst some who feel that it's anti-something they hold dear. To those offended by the movie, I would suggest that we don't always need to agree with a film's worldview to recognize it as a good piece of movie-making. There are several movies on my own Top 5 lists that expound viewpoints not in line with my own. That doesn't make them bad movies. If I had to agree with everything to make it enjoyable, life would be very dull and very unenjoyable.
- Inglourious Basterds - Another movie that, like Avatar, has stirred controversy. Detractors may be taking the movie a wee bit too seriously. Any movie featuring an alternate history where Hitler gets gunned down by avenging Jewish Americans should be taken with a shaker-full of salt. Better to sit back and enjoy the wonderfully quippy Tarantino dialogue, as well as Christoph Waltz's soon-to-be Oscar-winning performance as Col. Hans Landa, a heartless Nazi hunter of Jews who ends up bringing down the Third Reich.
- Zombieland - There's always room for a movie that's just plain fun. Zombiland is that kind of movie. From the moment the movie kicks off with Rule #1 for surviving the Zombie Apocolypse ("Cardio - because the fatties are always the first to go,"), you know you're in for a good time. The super-secret cameo in the middle of the film is worth the price of admission alone.
- Moon - The best movie and the best performance by a lead actor that nobody saw in 2009. Moon is a modern-day 2001. It's a quiet, contemplative film about a man living and working on the moon in complete isolation, until he discovers that he's just one of many clones. If there were any justice in the world, Sam Rockwell (essentially the movie's lone live actor) would walk away with the Best Actor nod.
Worst of the Year -
The Hangover. It's not that I don't get why lots of people found this to be hilarious. It's just that this is not my kind of comedy. It's just too petty and mean-spirited for me to enjoy myself. I'm not going to say there weren't moments (the cameo by
The Daily Show alum Rob Riggle was cute), but I spent more of my time feeling uncomfortable than laughing.
Better than Avatar? -
The Hurt Locker. If I had extended my list to the Top 6 films of the year,
The Hurt Locker would have made the cut. You'd think that the movie with the best chance to knock off
Avatar as Best Picture of the Year would be higher up on my list, and to be sure, this is a really good film. If first impressions were everything, the taunt opening scene would have vaulted this movie to the top of my list. A lot of times, however, our opinions are colored by the finale, and
The Hurt Locker stumbled a bit at the part where the bomb defusal team goes off base to find a bomber. That turn was a bit tough to swallow, and I had difficulty getting back into the movie afterwards. Still, I feel bad for ranking this movie as low as I did. It really is a fine bit of cinema and it absolutely deserves Oscar recognition. If you haven't seent it, do so.