I would first like to send my sincerest and deepest apologies to Avatar, The Cove, An Education, A Single Man, and Up in the Air. I did not see these five films, which have all been lauded. I am relatively certain that if I had seen one or all of them, it would have affected this list.
However, I make due with what I have. Away we go!
10.) The House of the Devil: A tense, low budget, horror film that evokes the nostalgia of quality the 1980s. Ti West’s film works because it is minimal in all approaches and never tries to be anything more than it really is. Also, how can you not love its tagline: Talk on the phone. Finish your homework. Watch T. V. DIE!
9.) In the Loop: The satirical take on the United States’ invasion of Iraq is hilarious. Utterly foul mouthed, this movie is blisteringly funny with a top notch cast. Most notably, Peter Capaldi delivers one of the most underrated (and probably under-seen) performances of the year as an offensive British Intelligence leader.
8.) District 9: I did not see this film until last weekend. Neil Blomkamp’s first true outing did not disappoint. What makes this movie action science fiction movie special is that it has a heart and its thought provoking. I also like to imagine that Peter Jackson prank calls Universal Studios periodically and reminds them that they could have had Blomkamp direct Halo.
7.) Sin Nombre: It’s poetic, touching, and beautifully shot. It’s also in a different language, which makes it even more artsy.
6.) Up: The much hyped opening 10 minutes of the film do not disappoint. It sets the tone for a movie that will make you smile and cry, sometimes at the same time. While Up is not the best entry in the Pixar canon, it ranks near the top.
5.) The Hurt Locker: Kathryn Bigelow’s mediation on the tensions that surround war is outstanding. Jeremy Renner breaks out in the most suspenseful film since The Bourne Ultimatum (I feel like Rex Reed when I say something like that). The tension created by Bigelow is mesmerizing and Mark Boal’s script hits all the right notes.
4.) A Serious Man: I enjoy every Coen Brothers’ film (even The Ladykillers). However, what made A Serious Man special was how personal it was. The Coen Brothers tend to focus on subversive people, while this film was about a college professor and his life’s troubles. I may be trivializing the film’s plot with that summation because it also deals with faith, family, adultery, and Jefferson Airplane.
3.) Drag Me to Hell: 2009 will be remembered – at least for me – as a fun year. 2007 had many films that could be called masterpieces, but this year was about being fun. Drag Me to Hell was easily the most fun I had at the movies this year. Raimi’s return to his roots was vintage form and Alison Lohman served admirably as the new Bruce Campbell.
2.) The Reader: I saw it in theatres five times in 2009, but it qualified for last year’s list.
2.) Fantastic Mr. Fox: On any given day, Drag Me to Hell and Wes Andersen’s first animated effort could swap places. However, this was the film I was most excited for this year and it delivered even more than I imagined. The meticulous attention to detail by Andersen proved to be rewarding because it was nice to have a film that was completely done by hand, as opposed to computer wizardry.
1.) Inglourious Basterds: This film has Quentin Tarantino’s pulp fetish fingerprints all over it. From the opening frame, to the screaming conclusion, the film is a masterpiece. The terrific performances supplied by all players, especially Christoph Waltz, rival the enthusiasm with which Tarantino directs. The film, while heavy on the dialogue, may disappoint the purest action fan, but it compares well to another World War II picture – The Dirty Dozen. This is a film that I can easily re-watch over and over again and still find it entertaining every time.
As a lover of films and a writer with the aspiration to be involved in the making of them someday, there’s nothing quite so appealing as a movie about a movie being made. I watched all of Singin’ In The Rain the other day on PBS, and not just for tap dancing.
Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder is a future cult classic rich in caricatures of all of today’s mass-marketed stars and franchises, and a kickass action film to boot. It takes on multiple targets, and doesn’t worry about offending anyone, refreshingly. Plus, I could watch an entire comedy composed of nothing but fake trailers.
9. The Wrestler
I am officially a Darren Anofsky fan, and not only because I also enjoy playfully flipping my friends the bird on national television. As much as I liked Pi and Requiem For A Dream, I had sort of written him off as a limited visionary with a thing for rapid edits and depressing the hell out of people.
But with the imaginatively original The Fountain and the much more personal The Wrestler, he’s proved as flexible as any modern auteur.
8. Let The Right One In A brilliant, casually frank blending of a coming of age tale and vampire creeper movie. A future Halloween staple for me.
I figured, if anyone could do away with the standard rise and fall tropes of the biopicture, it’s Gus Van Sant, and he mostly did. The more I think about Milk, the more I like it as the perfect blend of an accessible story and Van Sant’s art nouveau sensibility. The pace is frenetic enough to keep people interested, but there is, on occasion, an entire shot framed on the reflection of a blood-spattered whistle.
6. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
I really want to like this film enough for the top five, I gotta say. You got epic historical events, great effects, a pretty good love story…
But oh.. modern day framing device. Why? Not only is the cloying, overhanded modern day framing device of Benjamin Button unnecessary in most ways to the story, it solidifies the biggest critique of the film: the story itself is set in a completely racism-free New Orleans, and the framing device follows the travails of two affluent white people DURING HURRICANE KATRINA.
So, sorry, solid effort, but not a timeless classic. Plus the use of the Arcade Fire's "My Body Is A Cage" in a tv spot (above) made me expect a much darker, more extreme tale than I got.
5. Rachel Getting Married
Speaking of race relations, Rachel Getting Married got to traffic in a background composed entirely of upper class, multicultural synergy- basking in the glow of Obama-fever essentially. Though the central interracial couple getting hitched is largely a subplot to the travails of Anne Hathaway’s rehab-addled sister and the rest of the family’s dysfunction, there’s still a huge, musical cast all through the edges of Jonathan Demme’s filmscape, making an entire world for the weekend to unfold in.
It’s not that Rachel Getting Married is exceptionally groundbreaking in dramatic terms, but it’s exceptionally well-realized. It’s an experience, and a memorable one.
4. In Bruges
Another film that could give a rat’s ass about fitting in to one particular genre. It’s a buddy comedy, it’s a Ritchie-esque thriller, it’s a stagy drama. The best work I’ve seen from Colin Farrell, and splendid performances from Brendan Gleason and Ralph Fiennes round out a movie that’s hilarious, tragic, and all around outstanding.
Things I already thought were awesome before I saw Wall-E: Robots. Pixar. Showtunes. Space travel. Fred Willard. Love.
Case closed.
2. The Fall
Remember how The Cell looked really cool, but was insufferably self-serious and enjoyed playing Buffalo Bill a bit too much? What if you took all of the director’s visual flair and applied it to a game of competing fairy tales between the guy from Pushing Daisies and an adorable little girl?
It’s essentially a companion piece to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, in many ways, and it definitely helped fill the Gilliam-sized hole in my heart after Tideland offended everybody to the point of revulsion and The Brothers Grimm out and out sucked.
1. The Dark Knight
Where to start? Everything about The Dark Knight took a leap forward from Batman Begins, a film I already have a poster of.
The score is moody, dark, and epic. The Joker is one of the most quotable, memorable villains ever (full disclosure- I dressed as The Joker for Halloween. Yeah. I can do the voice pretty well, thank you.) The action set pieces are remarkable, the use of IMAX cameras was groundbreaking, the magic trick...
I do, I’ll concede, have problems with everything in the third act of the film- it does too good a job convincing us that the world is truly chaos to have us believe in hope. But a lot of people like the bit with the boats and all, so maybe I’m just a cynical, hipster douchebag.
My theory is that if the film ended two thirds of the way through (right after some stuff blows up, and Alfred burns a note, if you’ve seen it), then it would be a truly grim masterpiece that the Academy couldn’t have found a way to ignore. But then there’s no way it breaks $400 million, because people want a little hope at the end.
As it is, neither the picture, Christopher Nolan, or the screenplay are up for statuettes, but I’m okay with it now, you know why? Because The Dark Knight can be the outcast. It can be the movie the country deserves, but not the movie it wants right now. A silent guardian, a watchful protector of shunned masterpieces. A dark knight.
The following lists my friend Dave's top ten films of last year. The cinematic year extends to the Oscars, so it's not too late for our lists at all. Not at all.
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Too often comedy is overlooked on a critic’s top-ten list. I think comedy that is poignant, good, and actually makes you laugh should be rewarded. Jason Siegel’s script makes you laugh out loud, cringe at the awkward moments, and sympathize with the characters. The work is never over-the-top or taking itself too seriously.
Siegel’s everyman character caught up with a woman who is out of his league is something that is very relatable. I hope that he continues to develop scripts and – I know I am not alone on this – I would pay money to see Dracula as a stage musical with puppets.
I felt the most overlooked element of this film though was Arnofsky’s direction. He deftly handles the dramatic scenes with the action scenes, while throwing in a few sequences of awkward, heartbreaking comedy. The other aspect of this film that I felt was ignored by the Academy was Robert Siegel’s compelling script about what people do to hold onto any semblance of glory they once had.
Sean Penn’s embodiment of San Francisco politician/trailblazer Harvey Milk was an acute and stirring performance. The praise for James Franco and Josh Brolin are equally deserved in their supporting roles.
Dustin Lance Black’s script is tender and heartfelt with Gus Van Sant steering the ship do a respectable avenue.
I guess the only thing that surprised me about Milk was how conventional the film was. Duncan described the full-length theatrical trailer (above) as being “grand” in scale and I wholly agree with him. However, that audacious nature of the trailer never materialized in the film, which does not make the film a disappointment by any stretch of the imagination, but I was just expecting something a bit more.
7. Revolutionary Road
One of the grimmest movies of the year, yet I found it stirring in the performances that were delivered from Di Caprio, Winslet, and Shannon.
Yates’ tale of the destruction of the Wheeler family in 1950’s America may lack the subtly and subtext the book possessed, but Mendes is comfortable allowing his actors to take control of the scene and script.
Initially, I thought this was Winslet’s better performance – in comparison with The Reader – however, I realized that her performance is strongly tethered to Di Caprio’s converse one. Though the development of the two primary characters is kind of flat, the magic is based in the realism of the characters. People do not necessarily change and lead minute existences.
Even though I laud the performance delivered by Michael Shannon, it detracts from the overall story because his character, although overtly brash, is a more subtle presence in the novel. I know that sly elements of a book cannot be translated to the big screen sometimes, but I felt that Shannon’s character, though fascinating to watch, was a distraction from the plot at points.
6. Iron Man
The most fun at the movies in 2008. Seriously. It was not heavy entertainment, did not require too much of you, and Downey delivers a charismatic performance that was on par with Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow.
5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I agree with the sentiment that this movie possesses a lot of flaws. I do not like the framing device utilized in the movie. I found that the movie is a bit slow at certain points, but those are my two complaints. Most reviews followed up the flaw statement with the fact the movie was merely “good,” not “great.”
I disagree. I think the movie was great. I think the direction was spot on, the production value is all there on the screen, and the performances from Pitt and Blanchett are excellent.
More over, I think David Fincher deserves a lot of credit for this movie. A movie with a difficult concept, a long script, and an enormous budget that came with enormous expectations was all packaged together by him. Truly a grand effort from Fincher.
I think that when people review the 2009 Academy Awards in ten years and see that Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture, they will be disturbed. I feel that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will age better than Slumdog and ten years from now the debate between these two films will replace Titanic vs. L. A. Confidential.
4. In Bruges
Best original script of the year. Easily quotable, highly funny, outstandingly executed by the actors. Martin McDonagh’s first full-length feature film was a great debut that should be considered one of the best and most original debuts ever.
The acting between the three leads – Farrell, Fiennes, and Gleeson – is probably the second best triumvirate on screen this year. Who knew Farrell and Fiennes could be so funny?
3. Wall-E
When will the Academy realize that animated movies can be the best movies of the year? I think too often that people want to classify animated films as merely cartoons and the audience of these films are strictly children. However, films like Wall-E transcend those elements and achieve a higher level of recognition and appreciation because the audience is broader.
The silent robots have one of the better love stories of the year, even though they may just make sound effects at one another. It is tenderer and touching to see the dancing and love between two animated, non-carbon-based life forms than some of the other love stories movie studios expected audiences to buy into.
I think Pixar is one of the best run movie studios today and a studio – yes, a studio – has achieved a level that I tend to reserve for individuals. Pixar, whatever they produce, beyond a doubt, beyond seeing a trailer, I will sign up for and see in theatres because I know what they are going to deliver.
2. The Reader
Sometimes a movie is made by its little moments. Something that a viewer may not pick up on a first or second viewing, but after multiple viewings or recalling the film from one’s memory. The Reader is that type of film for me. It was the subtle nuances that are expressed throughout the film that make it morally confounding and utterly heartbreaking.
The initial time I saw this film, I was more than reluctant to accept it as anything beyond Oscar baiting drama. However, after the first viewing, I found Winslet’s performance as an ex-SS officer completing hypnotizing. The callousness, the coarseness, and heartbreak she exudes from scene-to-scene was astounding.
Then I became fascinated by Nico Muhly’s compelling score. I have no other parallel to draw to him except for Jonny Greenwood’s work on There Will Be Blood. For a debut score, Muhly delivered magnificently and I find it to be compulsively listenable. I went out and purchased the soundtrack and cannot stop listening to it.
I saw it again, about a week after I initial saw it and began to pick up smaller, tendered moments. The slight nods characters share with one another. The subtly of a character being abandoned. The duality of character’s actions in relation to one another. The interplay of the editing. Deakins admirable job with the camera.
I was more stunned that the movie became better for me after a second time. Usually, after I see a movie for the second time I start to take a part the nuances of a film, critique performances and elements harsher, degrade any plot holes. The Reader was only one of two films this year that I enjoyed more the second time I saw it than the first time.
1. The Dark Knight
This was the other movie that I enjoyed more the second time I saw it.
Recently, I was thinking about the term “comic book” movie and how it applied to The Dark Knight. The phrase most associated with the film is that it is being regarded as the “best comic book movie ever made.” Do we refer to The Godfather as the “best adaptation of a novel ever?” No. Do we refer to Schindler’s List as the “best Holocaust movie ever?” No. Do we refer to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as the “best western ever?” No. Why? Because these movies transcend their respective genres to ascend to the heights reserved for the greatest movies ever.
So, why do we feel the need to continue to refer to The Dark Knight as the “best comic book movie ever?” People should just drop it and refer to it as it should be: One of the best movies ever.
I will single out that line: One of the best movies ever.
I have seen many films over the course of my life, but I have seen only a handful that are executed so well in every aspect of the film that movie leaves you stunned. The Dark Knight was that to me this year.
To put it another way, Duncan and I were discussing how in 2007 there were a lot of fantastic movies. We each easily thought of four or five movies that we could easily give four stars to and have no qualms about it. This year, we could only think of two that would merit four stars from the both of us: Wall-E and The Dark Knight. Entertainment Weekly should consider doing amendments to their “100 Greatest Oscar Snubs” article and place The Dark Knight on the list.
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