5) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
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The buzz on this film had been so bad that I walked into the theater just hoping the sixth in the Harry Potter series was decent, that David Yates hadn’t completely crippled what had been otherwise a very charming film series based on a very excellent book series. But it turned out that not only had Yates not crippled the series, he had completely elevated it to a new level.
Half-Blood Prince is probably the best film in the Harry Potter series, and it may be the one that deviates the most from the source material. Is there a correlation? I don’t know, but I do know that I didn’t miss anything; unlike Chris Columbus’ by the numbers adaptations, and like Alfonso Cuaron’s magical third film, Half-Blood Prince takes on a life of its own. You forget you’re watching something based on a book and just fall into the world of these characters.
Having pulled off this feat I can’t wait to see what Yates does with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It can’t get here soon enough.
4) World’s Greatest Dad
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How can a movie so dark and so cynical about human nature also be so life-affirming and make you feel so good? Bobcat Goldthwait has directed two other very dark films, but World’s Greatest Dad is leaps and bounds ahead of his previous work – funny and twisted but also sweet and, in the end, joyous.
Bobcat earns major kudos just for that, but he should be getting some kind of Nobel prize for dragging back the good Robin Williams. The one who, fifteen or twenty years ago, you were proud to like. The guy who could be funny without dropping into one of his usual half dozen ‘characters’ or who could be serious without being utterly sappy. The pre-90s Robin. The actor sheds all of his usual tics to bring a really complex character to life; he’s a guy who loves his truly horrible son but doesn’t much like him, and he’s a guy who does all the wrong things in a tragic situation, but never for really sleazy reasons. The whole film is a tightrope between unbearable sentiment and cavernous bile, and Williams and Bobcat navigate it effortlessly.
3) District 9
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The little movie that could. Nobody expected a first feature from a South African director – set in South Africa, no less – to be the breakout action film of the year. Sure, Transformers made more money, but no other genre film in 2009 has created this much excitement.
And for once it’s a movie that deserves the buzz. Neill Blomkamp’s apartheid allegory may not be subtle but it’s damn well made. He starts you off disgusted by Earth’s new inhabitants, the insectoid Prawns, but by the end you’re on their side, rooting for the ETs to phone home… and maybe unleash a little whoop ass on the humans.
There are two elements key in making this happen: the astonishing, often photoreal effects (not done by WETA, mind you. And there are no shots of prosthetic or animatronic aliens in the entire film. Every Prawn shot, even the close-ups, are CGI), and the completely effective acting of the unknown Sharlto Copley as the bumbling, racist bureaucrat Wikus. There’s something powerful about having an unknown in the lead – you have no preconceptions, and there seems to be no rules as to what this guy might do or what might happen to him. After all, Sharlto Copley doesn’t have an image to keep up – he can die or be utterly evil or utterly cowardly.
But more than that, an unknown can really surprise us with a performance, and Copley does that. The reality he brings to Wikus, a tremendously flawed character, is vital in making the film work as well as it does. And the film works so well that people on the CHUD message boards have been arguing about whether the movie needs a sequel – it seems like everyone would be happy to revisit this world, but some folks feel like the story has been told perfectly and to return would just screw it up. That’s a rare sentiment in these franchise-happy times, when even the hardest core film fans look forward to prequels, sequels, reboots and remakes.
Oh, and beyond all that stuff, District 9 is splattery good fun. An almost perfect movie.
2) Up
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Honestly, if only the top two films on my list had come out this summer I would have counted 2009 as one of the best seasons on record. It’s so rare that you find movies as good as these in a year, let alone two in a summer. Movies that are so good that you don’t just feel comfortable calling them masterpieces, you feel compelled to do so.
Up is undoubtedly the best Pixar film to date. There may be others that you mark as your favorite, or that speak more personally to your individual hang ups, neuroses, or personality problems, but Up beats them all in terms of sheer artistry. A movie that approaches utter perfection in pacing, sentiment and character, it backs all that up with beauty dripping from every frame. Just the image of the colorful balloon shadows projected in a young girl’s bedroom is more breathtaking than almost anything else I saw projected on a big screen this year.
1) Inglourious Basterds
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Another movie I’ve seen multiple times in theaters this most unusual summer, Quentin Tarantino’s latest is brilliant. Completely brilliant. The first viewing, so far, has been the best – the tension Tarantino keeps boiling in every scene is close to unbearable. He clearly shows you the potential – no, the inevitability – of violence and then makes you wait for it. In Basterds his dialog isn’t just overly cool patois but a weapon against the audience, designed to prolong the agony of waiting for the tension to burst.
But it’s a beautiful agony, one that makes this talky two and a half hour long movie the most exciting of the year. That thick, pulsating tension is gone on the second viewing, but the film remains as forceful. You’re just as sucked in to every minute of the film, but this time you get to really appreciate the work that Tarantino has put in, the craftsmanship on display in every single frame.
The Weinstein Company totally sold this film as something it isn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t get the film I was sold. Instead of a big, bloody, goofy, dumb movie I got a really smart, sleek and occasionally goofy movie. Other than Jackie Brown every previous Tarantino film felt like it kept itself distanced from being too serious, but Basterds is totally serious. Tarantino isn’t making fun of WWII or being hiply ironic about it – right from the opening chapter he makes you feel the turmoil and terror of the period, and he makes you understand the evil of the Nazis.
But even while demonstrating that evil he never loses sight of the humanity of the Germans. And that’s what makes them all the better villains – they’re not faceless stormtroopers that might as well be robots; a Nazi commander who gets beat to death by the Basterds is more civilized than the Americans, and he’s just as brave, honorable and loyal as any of our movie war heroes.
That’s part of Tarantino’s point. I think he may have made the greatest meditation on our relationship to screen violence ever, simply because he so clearly understands both sides of the issue. You could spend a semester in your film studies class just talking about the parallels at play in the final scene in the movie theater, the way the Nazis react to violence on film and the way the audience in which you sit reacts to the violence in Basterds. It’s sublime, and it’s something easy to miss the first time, when you’re simply caught up in Tarantino’s storytelling.
If all of that wasn’t enough, Tarantino introduces two of the most indelible characters in his canon. Hans Landa isn’t just the best villain of 2009, he’s one of the best characters of the decade. People are going to look back at the 00s and do imitations of Landa and Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood the same way they look back at the 70s and do imitations of Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest and DeNiro in Taxi Driver. If people won Oscars based on actual worth, Christoph Waltz would be working on his acceptance speech right now.
The other character is Shoshana Dreyfus, a female character who manages to be utterly kick ass without becoming impossibly masculine. I never got the whole James Cameron view of tough women – Sarah Connor and Ripley are men with tits. One of Shoshana’s most badass moments comes when she’s putting on make-up. She engages in a gunfight looking immaculately gorgeous. And what I really love is that while the film is mostly about her quest for revenge against the Nazi regime that killed her family, she doesn’t seek it out. It’s a masculine thing to go hunt down those who wronged you; Shoshana gets along with her life, but when circumstances put her in the right situation, she acts unflinchingly and without hesitation. Shoshana isn’t just a male character rewritten to lose the dick, she’s a fully realized woman.
Inglourious Basterds is one of those movies that makes me want to write a book about it. There’s not a moment in the film that feels extraneous, useless or boring. I’m no Tarantino fanboy – I respect him, and I love a couple of his films while disliking a couple of others – but this is the kind of movie that must leave any real cinephile in quavering awe. This is one of the best films not just of this year, but of this entire decade.
And summer’s over. Not technically, of course, but the kids are going back to school and the studios are getting ready to dump real crap on us this weekend. If you live in a part of the country where this sort of thing happens, the leaves are about to change colors and start falling off trees. Summer 2009 is a wrap.
I think that this summer is going to be remembered for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, one of the worst major theatrical releases I have ever seen. It is, without a doubt, the worst film to ever earn the kind of money it has earned. And I think it’s unfair to judge this summer on that piece of crap. Summer 2009 has had some really good films, a couple of which I guarantee you end up on my Best of 2009 list. Hell, I feel like my number one on this list is a strong, strong contender for number one of the year.
What I really loved about summer 2009 is that wasn’t just big blockbusters. There were a number of smaller movies that not only shone artistically but did okay at the box office. This summer feels, to me, like a repudiation of all the people who like to go to the movies to turn off their minds and be morons. Sure, Transformers proves there’s more of them than there are of us, but it’s all about quality, not quantity. And we got some quality this year.
10) Funny People
Judd Apatow surprised a lot of folks with Funny People… and disappointed even more. I wasn’t one of those disappointed. While there’s no denying that this film continues Apatow’s penchant for indulgent lengths, and while the second half of the movie does in fact feel like a different film at times, I don’t think either of these complaints are marks against the film. I like the running times of Apatow’s films; very much hang out movies these films are about building characters, not serving a plot. And Funny People is very much not a movie that adheres to a standard three act structure; it’s interested in wandering about and exploring its issues and themes.
Those issues and themes are the most mature of Apatow’s career, and the darkest. An incorrigible optimist, Apatow can’t help but put a hopeful button his movie, but the other two and a half hours are spent unblinkingly looking at some of the most selfish, cynical and hurtful ways adults can behave.
This isn’t Apatow’s best film. It’s also not a perfect film – it’s got problems. But it’s a heartfelt movie from a filmmaker who is pushing himself to do new things and expand his repertoire. And the fact that it’s just as blazingly funny as Apatow’s last two films certainly doesn’t hurt either.
9) Star Trek
Read my original review
I’ve had a lot to say about Star Trek. I was skeptical at first. I was nitpicky afterwards. But the truth is that Star Trek, against all odds, really works. And it works for everybody, not just for handsomely aging men of refined science fiction taste like myself.
What makes Star Trek work, despite everything else it has going against it (like, say, not having a villain worth a damn) is the tone and the chemistry of the cast. It’s what makes the film work on multiple viewings. Thanks to transAtlantic flights, I’ve seen the film four times now, and each viewing acts like a repeat of the original show – it brings you in closer to the characters and the life on the bridge. When the cast was originally announced I snarked that it looked like the cast of a new pilot for Star Trek, not an expensive feature film. Now I use that as a compliment – this is a cast I would like to visit with every single week.
This film could have ranked higher if the script were tighter and Nero was credible on any level; let’s hope that Star Trek 2, which should be free of a strike deadline, is better on those levels and makes it into my Summer 2011 Top 5.
8) Moon
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This isn’t really a summer movie for me; I saw Moon at Sundance in January, and the snowy mountains of Park City are the perfect place to experience the chilly scifi of Duncan Jones. But whatever the atmosphere outside the theater, Moon plays to the same atmosphere in theater after theater across the country: people love this movie. And with good cause, as it’s a smart, fascinating science fiction film that manages to be compelling without ever falling into action movie mode.
The saddest thing about this little film is that it has one of the year’s best performances – Sam Rockwell as Sam, a guy finishing out his solitary three year contract at a lunar base – which will not be recognized at the end of the year by the Academy. Maybe if Moon had busted past all expectations and become a box office smash (it’s done fairly well in the US, making back its production budget in theaters. This movie will have a great life on home video), but as an indie scifi movie, it will get past the mottled old noses of the Oscar voters. Truly a tragedy.
7) Drag Me To Hell
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Where were you when Sam Raimi needed you the most? Where were you when horror needed you the most? Where were you when you needed you the most?
If you were among the majority of folks who didn’t go see Drag Me To Hell in theaters, you did yourself a major disservice. A loud, fun, scary, crazy return to form for splatstick guru Raimi, this film plays so well in theaters – people laugh, scream and jump. You’ll love it at home, but it just won’t be the same experience.
This summer was a strange one for me in that I saw a number of movies multiple times, something I never do. Drag Me To Hell was the first film this year to which I returned, and I wold have gone a third time if it hadn’t left theaters so fast. Raucous and hilarious and pointed and filled with great visual gags, this film is Raimi at his finest. He told me that he doesn’t really see himself as an artist but as a tailor, a guy who makes the movie to fit the audience’s specifications. Besides the fact that I think he’s just wrong, Drag Me To Hell proves that making a perfect audience movie is a work of art in and of itself.
6) Away We Go
Sam Mendes doesn’t do much for me. His films have not been my favorites, and I expected Away We Go to be a hipster American Beauty; it’s why I didn’t go out of my way to catch any of the press screenings. But I eventually dutifully paid my 14 bucks to catch the film at the Arclight and I was forcibly reminded of two things:
1) Never fully prejudge a movie. You’re often wrong
and
2) Never underestimate Dave Eggers.
While I think Eggers can in fact do some wrong, he and his wife Vendela Vida don’t do any in their screenplay here. And while I think John Krasinski can be smarmy, he isn’t here. The occasionally grating Maya Rudolph doesn’t grate. And Sam Mendes barely directs like Sam Mendes, instead going for a wonderfully understated, semi-naturalistic tone and look.
The movie itself is touching and sweet and thoughtful; I’ve heard some people refer to it as condescending, but I honestly don’t get that. It’s a movie about people looking for their place in the world, figuring out what kind of adults they want to be, and it’s refreshing to watch a film about people who want that instead of running away from it. And it’s refreshing to see smart, funny people who are just trying to build a good life for themselves and their impending child.
Away We Go is one of those movies that reminds you why you love movies – not just because you can see things or go places you would never otherwise see or go, but because you can see reality and honesty reflected back to you with art and beauty.
