Editorial: The 15 Best Films of 2009

The nominations for the 2010 Academy Awards were announced this morning, setting the final nail in the coffin for 2009's movie year. Here now, is my long gestating list of my favorite films of this past year, culled to 15 out of the 80 or so new releases I saw. Click on the film title for my review (if available).

15.    The Girlfriend Experience

Under seen, Overshadowed,  and brilliantly edited, this tiny film from visionary director Steven Soderbergh had a wit about it. The film's tagline, "See it with someone you ****" perfectly captured the ambiguous line between love and sex that Chelsea (Sasha Grey) faces balancing life both as a girlfriend and a for-hire simulator of The Girlfriend Experience.

14.    Trouble the Water

After a limited release and Academy Award nomination in 2008, this film finally made it to DVD this year giving me a chance to catch it. Heartbreaking, moving, and inspiring, Trouble the Water is a documentary that follows the Roberts family in New Orleans' 9th Ward as they survive Hurricane Katrina. The most remarkable thing is that Kimberly Roberts had been filming the whole experience with her own video camera, giving a firsthand view of the entire ordeal, before the professional filmmakers joined them and chronicled the rest of their story.

13.    Where the Wild Things Are

An emotional rollercoaster that plunges the audience right into the mind of a frustrated young boy like no other. Maurice Sendak's famous book is expanded and riffed upon to create a story that captures the emotions, from nervousness to anger to fright that one can feel when abandoned by the word they know. A technical achievement that felt much more real and weighty than the other CG meets actor meets performer film from this year, Avatar.

12.   The Boat that Rocked (Pirate Radio)

"It's fun, fun, fun 'til your daddy takes the T-bird away." So went the Beach Boys song, which sums up this electric, often silly film that tells the story of a pirate rock n' roll radio station off the coast of England in the mid-1960's. Propelled by the music of the era, it overcomes the faults in story that it may have by sheer will alone. The performances by a great cast full of comedians and a few serious actors (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kenneth Branagh) who are just looking to rock out. Unfortunately, I've heard that the U.S. version, renamed "Pirate Radio", had cut 14 minutes out of the film, which I imagine could only hurt it. Seek out the British cut if you can find it.

11.    Black Dynamite
I haven't laughed this hard in years. Black Dynamite is going to get the little orphan children off smack, solve a murder, and have time to have sex with many women at once. He will do it with his karate moves, a gun and some pimpness. For anyone who grew up watching shlocky kung fu or blaxsploitation movies, this is the one we've been waiting for. If you love the absurd humor of Anchorman or The Kentucky Fried Movie, don't miss Black Dynamite, who responded to my review with "I can dig it".

10.    Up in the Air

Of all the films I've reviewed this year, few feel like they capture living life in 2009 like Up in the Air. A perfectly played trio of stars under the direction of getting-better-every-movie Jason Reitman. The third in his trilogy of "America Now" films, which balance an emotional and comedic story simultaneously. George Clooney recently was quoted as saying he is only as good as the film that surrounds him, and that is true here of his capturing the character Ryan Bingham's life Up in the Air.

9.    Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. is looking to change the way you think of food. Some have claimed it is preaching to the choir, but that's downplaying how effective the statements made in the film truly are. My favorite documentary of 2009, what grabbed my attention is not only the message it sends about how we can improve the state of our food, but also how even handed it is. The film speaks specifically to its potentially harshest critics, who might claim the film as liberal left wing propaganda. The actuality couldn't be further from the truth, and on top of it all it is a slick, technically well made film.

8.    Adam Resurrected

One could have claimed prior to this year that the Holocaust film was dead, that after 60-plus years nothing more could be said to bring across the true horror that was inflicted under the Nazi regime. But Adam Resurrected brought such pain and such heart to the tale of a German Jewish comedian and performer who is treated as a dog in the labor camps and ends up being the hero of his mental rehabilitation center in Israel years later. It is a unique story that balances the comedy and tragedy that make up all great stories. Jeff Goldblum gives a career best performance under the direction of Paul Schrader, who is (believe it or not) lightening up for this film. I know it sounds like a very heavy subject matter, but I implore you to see this great film which has been unreasonably ignored.

7.    Moon

Sam Rockwell gives an amazing (and woefully ignored come awards season) performance as Sam Bell, the lone worker on a moon base that collects energy for use on Earth. His only companion is Gerty, coolly voiced by Kevin Spacey, a robot who helps manage the station. One day, just a few weeks from finishing his stint on the base and returning to his family on Earth, an accident happens. What transpires from this point is some of the most suspenseful and artfully accomplished moments in cinema this year. Part 2001: A Space Odyssey, part Primer, a great entry into the sci-fi genre under the direction of  first time filmmaker Duncan Jones, who said of my review "thank you sir, very enjoyable read".

6.    In The Loop

A worthy heir to Dr. Strangelove, In The Loop follows what happens when government employees are just as incompetent as the news media that blow their words out of proportion. A cast made up mostly of British unknowns to an American audience, save James Gandolfini as a military liaison, it is full of humor that anyone who appreciates a good satire can enjoy. Best of all is the screenplay, which is brought to life with a fitting documentary style, and a standout performance from Peter Capaldi, who has the most creative expletives you've ever heard streaming out of his mouth at every turn.

 5.    The Messenger

I suppose one could say I feel about The Messenger what the consensus seems to be about The Hurt Locker this year. It is powerful, brilliantly acted, and surprises you when you least expect it. It knows how to use the camera for each and every moment and feels true, not artificial, when showing you the life of the modern soldier. First time director Oren Moverman draws on his own experiences as a former military man to truly capture the feeling of life after war, and the effect that losing a loved one can have on people. Stars Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson were never better, and it's sad that they have been overshadowed by some other (in the case of Harrelson, he has been consistently the runner up to Christoph Waltz) strong performances this year.

4.    Inglourious Basterds

Speaking of Christoph Waltz, here he is in Inglourious Basterds, stealing every scene he is in by playing a character so well written in a screenplay full of gems. Quentin Tarantino's film is his best to date in a career that has pushed cinema forward while pulling from behind. Not the Jewish revenge film it was advertised as, it is instead a series of many slow building suspenseful vignettes, now a Tarantino staple, which all form one cohesive story out of building to violence after long, intricately written conversations. The message it sends in the end may be muddled, but the cinematic genius on display here is unmatched.

3.    L'Heure D'ete (Summer Hours)

Olivier Assayas' excellent film is about life, art, and family. I wasn't completely sold on this film going in, but it grabbed my attention and never let go, even as the final scene, which hammers home the beauty and the metaphor at play here. The film, and the portrayal of three grown children with families of their own now, shows how difficult it can be to finally transition from being a child to being an adult when your parents are finally gone.The art, and the summer home that houses it, shows us the worth that we ascribe to any number of objects that hold sentimental value to us, and how that too evolves as the generations do. Few films can capture so much about life as a whole and what it is like to be part of a family in the way that Summer Hours does.

2.    Up

It is a common and stereotypical slogan to say "I laughed, I cried" but Up did precisely that for this film reviewer. The first 20 minutes of this film is so good, that I have watched it over and over and over more than any film clip in recent memory trying to learn exactly how it works as well as it does. The rest of the film is an excellent adventure piece, which Pete Doctor does so well. The balance between genuine heartfelt moments and exciting movie stuff is struck, here even better than Doctor's previous film, Monsters Inc. and anyone who thought that a grumpy old man flying away in a house lifted by thousands of balloons was a bad idea for a film was proven wrong immediately. Every time I hear the Michael Giacchino's theme music for Ellie, which is but a part of the best score of 2009, I am lovingly transported back to the film in my mind.

1.    A Serious Man

I could write a thesis on this film, but I'll wait til you see it first. What can be said about this film that I haven't blathered on about to any person who would listen since it came out? Drama and comedy coexist in a perfect way taking on the entire Jewish concept of G-d and His works in such a brilliant, if backhanded way that I'm still in shock. No other film has encouraged such deep discussion amongst myself and my peers, while making us all laugh simultaneously.The ambiguity we are left with at every turn here is the mystery that those of us who search out meaning in our own lives deal with on a daily basis. The film is scarcely explains itself, but gives us each and every clue necessary to understand it all and that is why it is my favorite film of 2009.



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Avatar - "The Battles Yellow Spaceship Takes Them To Pepperland's Blue Meanies"

Written and Directed by James Cameron

Have you ever been so engrossed in a world created in fiction that you live it, breathe it, and even dream about it? This reviewer certainly has. But Avatar, the new film from James (Titanic, The Terminator) Cameron, is not that film. Notoriously many years in the making, Avatar tells the archetypical story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a marine who has lost the use of his legs that now finds himself on a far off moon called Pandora. His twin brother, who was a scientist, was meant to “pilot” an Avatar, or mock body of the extremely tall, lanky and blue native aliens called The Na’vi. Unfortunately, this brother dies and the Avatars are expensive to develop, so they recruit Jake to be the new Avatar.

Quite predictably, the film is filled with the stereotypes of this type of picture. The military leader who Jake turns on to fulfill his destiny as “the one” and reveals himself as the ultimate villain, the small band of outsiders who assist Jake, the foreign woman he falls for and whose native people he saves, the man she was supposed to marry that first is opposed to this outsider but bows his allegiance to him after being bested, etc. Naturally everything wraps up in a nice little package. The plot is hardly a notch above what one may find late at night on the SyFy channel.

The dialogue is even worse. This reviewer would like you to take a moment to look up any quotes from the film. Any at all. Now simply read them. Here are some of my favorites:

Neytiri: You are Omaticaya now. You may make your bow from the wood of Hometree. And you may choose a woman. We have many fine women. Ninat is the best singer.
Jake Sully: I don't want Ninat.
Neytiri: Peyral is a good hunter.
Jake Sully: Yes, she is a good hunter. But I've already chosen. But this woman must also choose me.
Neytiri: [smiles] She already has.
[They kiss]

Also, Col. Quaritch: This low gravity makes you soft. You get soft and Pandora will shit you out dead with zero warning.

What’s worse than the line written on a page is how they are delivered. Sam Worthington has an Australian accent for 90% of the movie but is supposed to be American. The Na’vi call the humans “sky people” but are otherwise able to speak English quite well. Each subsequent Na’vi who spoke English further drove home the idiocy of having such nonsense phrases. The entire concept of Na’vi speaking English in the first place is nonsensical until we learn that Segourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine (who I believe is also the name of amnesia surviving murderess on some daytime soap opera) at one point had a school for them. Though apparently only the lead female, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and her mother attended it.

Giovanni Ribisi, an actor whose work I usually enjoy, has absolutely nothing to do the entire film. The resolution of his character is literally a sad look. Ribisi’s character, Parker Selfridge (I think he was the prom king on Beverly Hills 90210) wants to tear up the Na’vi’s hometree for a rare mineral called Unobtaneum. This is Science Fiction and any ridiculous name is pretty much game. But calling an unobtainable mineral Unobtaneum is stupefyingly obvious, something that Cameron seems to not care about holding back from at all during the film. After all, we are told about it by a selfish character named Selfridge. And some of the first words we hear in the film are “You are not in Kansas anymore… you are on Pandora”, which means that apparently in the future that a phrase that has permeated the consciousness to mean “you are no longer at home” has to be explained with a follow up to tell you where in fact you are.

Navi is a Hebrew word that means prophet. This may be the most subtle thing about the religion and spirituality that Cameron has laid before us. It is an anti-jingoistic combination of every colonized native nation from recent history, somehow excepting Islam. This is bizarre, since the parable is obviously a reflection of the current occupation by western countries of oil-rich Middle-Eastern countries. Perhaps parable is too strong a word, since it is sitting on the surface the entire time, to the point of the term “shock and awe” being used by the military here. But this still seems like a backhanded love letter to “native religions”. Of course they are “wise” but they don’t wear clothes (perhaps the technology just doesn’t exist yet to put some pants on?) and they cannot possibly fight back with anything more powerful than spears and arrows. That is, unless you include the deus ex machina that literally comes in the form of the animals we are taught to fear and then appreciate rallying for the forces of the planet. Of all the religious concepts that have been so apparently plucked for use here, modesty is not one of them, and so any Abrahamic religious concepts also go out the door with it as well.

The one thing the film has going for it is the technology behind it. The performance capture system that has been developed for this film is in fact the next step for the technology and James Cameron has to be applauded for taking the time to shepherd it. Give the man a technical Oscar and nothing more. Compare this to Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol from this year (or his other recent films) and you’ll see that while that was intentionally a performance captured cartoon, it doesn’t hold a candle in terms of communicating movement or acting. The tech on display here is now a step beyond the previous standard, Gollum from The Lord of the Ring films. But how much more impressive is it than Peter Jackson’s King Kong himself, who Andy Serkis also portrayed in the performance capture studio in 2005? Perhaps the five years in the making Avatar finally got off the ground because Cameron was convinced the technology existed once Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital developed it. After all, Weta Digital is one of the lead visual effects studios on Avatar. Anyone who tells you that what is on display in this film is unlike anything they’ve ever seen hasn’t been paying attention to creature effects animation since 1993, when Jurassic Park set the (still holding up against many successors) bar. The film also makes a complete misstep by having the characters (and supposedly the audience by extension) have their breath taken away about halfway into the film by some floating mountains. But the joke is, the sometimes impressive world of Pandora has a million and one things that we the audience have already swooned over at this point which crown any kind of anti-gravity rock piles. It is a completely superfluous scene that serves only to set up the silly zone of electrical disturbance.

But hey, it’s in 3-D! Obviously, the thrill of the entire film is the 3-D itself. One of the best films of this past year was Pixar’s Up, which like many other CG animated films released recently, was presented in 3-D theatrically. The beauty of Up in 3-D was that there was an added depth to the visual spectrum, an extra element that could immerse you that much more in the world. It was never obtrusive or in your face. One might forget that they are witnessing 3-D in action, and at the time of seeing it I lauded such use of the tool as the future of the medium. At times Avatar falls into this added depth of field, but just as you settle into it, the balance is upset by psych-out gags that made 3-D tiresome fifty years ago. If there is one reason to see the film, it is to see it in 3-D. Unfortunately almost three hours of this, even with updated technology, still gave this reviewer terrible eye strain.

James Cameron can’t separate himself from the same themes, obsessions and holes he falls into every time including but not limited to: evil corporations, mech-suits, tough as nails females, competing male suitors who are wild cards, and an idealized idea of what a future/space soldier is. One should be clear though that just because there are archetypes at work here doesn’t make the film bad. The Matrix, the “Avatar of its decade” if you will, followed a somewhat similar path. However, what separates the wheat from the chaff is how they are utilized. While the Matrix relied on a strong story that could lend itself to both popcorn adventure and subtle nuanced concepts augmented by groundbreaking visuals, Avatar uses the visual artistry on display to distract the audience from a hollow morality play that not only is familiar, but heavy-handed. It is a blindfold in three dimensions.

** Two stars – Watch it if you Must.

Avatar is now playing in theaters. It won the Golden Globe awards for Best Director and Best Picture – Drama.