Top 20 Movies of 2009

20. Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call: New Orleans
Nic Cage descent into addiction and his struggle to keep his mind straight is surprisingly engrossing with a top notch supporting cast. Director Werner Herzog puts a lot of style in behind the camera trying to craze the audience at the same time as Cage.


19. Where the Wild Things Are
Turning a six page children's book into a feature film is no easy task. Spike Jonz makes it look easy with this revealing look at a temper tantrum through a child's very vivid imagination.


18. World's Greatest Dad
Robin Williams' best role since Good Will Hunting. He plays a the father of a meddlesome, completely unlikable child. Directed by Bobcat Goldthwaite, this film is easily the biggest surprise of 2009.

17. Bronson
The movie that will shoot Tom Hardy to stardom. It is a crazy and manic movie and title character, but it is not without its gravitas and creativity. Truly an original work resembling the great gritty, mentally unstable anti-heroes of the 70s.


16. Brothers Bloom
The follow up to the very stylish highschool set neo-noir Brick, this adventure story follows 2 con man brothers as they trick an eccentric heiress out of her millions, but as usual life gets in the way. It is a fast-talking and witty style, but it is not without its heart.


15. Antichrist
Lars Von Tier's trippy, surreal journey through grief follows a couple on their therapuetic trip to a cabin after the loss of their child, but it all goes horribly wrong. Woman's manipulative husband and study material is unable to distract her from oncoming madness.


14. Sherlock Holmes
A new take on the fictional detective goes back to its gritty literature roots in Guy Ritchie's first installment to what is hopefully a long franchise. Downey Jr. cements his comeback status with this beautifully scored and set action/mystery.


13. Adventureland
Based on director Greg Mottola's real life summer job experience, a teen witty beyond his years finds himself in a love triangle with an equally witty young woman and his poser mentor, played ultimately charming by Ryan Reynolds.


12. Pontypool
A horror movie flying safely under the rader looks to rewrite the infected/zombie subgenre with this plague passed on through words taking place exclusively in a radio broadcasting booth. Verteran character actor Stephen McHattie is really memorable in his shock jock role.


11. Watchmen
The adaptation of Alan Moore's deconstruction on the comic medium takes few liberties yet keeps all the heart and meaning of the source material. Brilliantly casted and stylishly shot, it is great sister material to Moore's novel.


10. Star Trek
The revived science fiction franchise gets itself a new inspired cast and a sunglared direction by J.J. Abrams. It promises a long future.


9. (500) Days of Summer
Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordan Levitt perform excellently and carry this inntriguing not-love story to the finish. The final moment is a little weak, but it is ultimately heart-warming even in its most depressing moments.


8. Zombieland
Following the succees of Shaun of the Dead, this new zombie comedy pits an unlikely group of survivors against the legion of undead that is currently owning the planet. A very charismatic cast with some decent action and gore do not amount to the greatness of Shaun.. but they come damn close.


7. The Boat that Rocked
aka Pirate Radio. A comedy about the romance between man and his music enlightens and inspires a deep passion for the art of songwriting with the best ensemble cast of the year.


6. District 9
A science fiction metaphor for apartheid throws an average joe office drone, a breakout role for Sharlto Copley, in the middle of a corporate conspiracy and Kafka-esque transformation. It pulls the curtain back on race relations and discrimation.


5. The Hangover
One of the best comedies in years, The Hangover follows 3 groomsmen on their search for the groom in Las Vegas after their wild night leaves them with no memory of the events. Breakout roles for Zach Galifinakis and Bradley Cooper, who both now have projects lined up around the block.


4. Up in the Air
A talkative movie about the interconnectedness of people rests safely on the shoulders of George Clooney and his ability to deliver dialog. Jason Reitman is proving to be one of the best young directors out there.


3. Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino's ode to spaghetti westerns and WWII movies creates this oddball epic about a group of Jewish-American soldiers who reak havoc on the Nazi soldiers plaguing the land.


2. The Hurt Locker
One of the most tense movies this year, and possibly the decade. Like its subject matter, it is a slow burning fuse that could blow at any minute keeping the audience consistently at the edge of their seats. It does so not just through action and omenous music, but through real emotion from the soldiers. A truly unbiased Iraq War movie that focuses on the effects of war on the human condition.


1. Moon
Soon to be considered a science fiction classic, this film hits all the right beats. Sam Rockwell gives his greatest performance yet, and is easily the greatest performance of 2009.

Review: Shutter Island

Set during the 1950s, US Marshall Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck, travel to the remote Shutter Island somewhere in Boston Harbor to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients from a hospital for the criminally insane. From the very instance Teddy sets foot on the island, the doctors running the institution seem out to get him. Little do they know that Teddy is more concerned with a rumored conspiracy and taking vengeance on an inmate who's crime caused a traumatic event in Teddy's past.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio seem to have found their niche, depicting a relatable and empathetic leading man who spirals into instability. It started with The Aviator, fine tuned in The Departed, and has come to fruition in Shutter Island. This is easily one of DiCaprio's finer roles. The level of distraught and stress he carries with him throughout the series of events adds so much more tension than any other element of the story.

Like a lot of movies now a days, there seems to be a growing use of great actors in small supporting roles who leave you wanting more: Patricia Clarkson, Ted Levine, Max Von Sydow, and Elias Koteas participate admirably. It is amazing to me the Jackie Earle Haley was not getting consistent work before Little Children, or that he has been tapped only to play wackos and perverts. He does more with his one scene than any of the other actors in the movie do.

The score is underwhelming. It resembles classic thriller music, hard hitting notes and lots of bass tones. Unfortunately, it seems shoe-horned into the film. It always seems out of place and ultimately distracting. It never synced up to the plot or provide any hits or beats. The theme in Jaws was a warning and built tension as it neared its completion accentuating the scare even though you knew it was coming. This does the opposite. There is no happy ending when the score ends. I also found that the score ends unexpectingly sometimes. I noticed the same thing in The Departed where the rock track list just seemed to end.

The plot ending has roots in the cliche and many suspected it from the very beginning. Yet somehow it still feels somewhat fresh. When it comes to these types of movies and these types of endings, it is usually in the details and how they fit together looking back over the film that makes or breaks how plot is received. I suspect that this film will be much better over a second viewing.

6/10 This may be one of DiCaprio's best, but it is not Scorsese's.

Review: A Serious Man

Larry Gopnik, a lowly Jewish physics professor, is fighting to keep his life together. His children are picking up deviant behavior, including illegal drugs and stealing money from his wallet. They seem more interested on their material things than their family or religion. His wife is leaving him for a socially superior peer. One student is trying to bribe him for good grades while another sends hostile letters trying to sabotage his chances at tenure. All the while his socially-inept brother becomes a bigger and bigger burden as time goes on. Larry's attempts at counsel with three seperate rabbis has been unfruitful and his son's Bar Mitzvah is approaching.

The Coen Brothers are probably one of my favorite filmmakers. Their obsession with human suffering and mortality and the humor that lies within have been endlessly entertaining in their past work. It has never been more clear than in this film. It is obviously very personal evoking much of their own religious faith and tradition, but unfortunately esoteric. As universal as some of the themes are, a lack of knowledge in Jewish tradition certainly hinders some of the effect and makes it much less accessible thana general existential plot.

Of course, as a movie described as a comedy, it fails on a fundamental level: it isn't very funny. In fact, most times it drags and settles on an incredibly slow pace. Many of its attempts at humor come from repetetive actions. The running jokes are certainly overkill. The obnoxiously grim narrative causes a major disconnect from the cast and leaves very littel empathy. The acting si impressive enought to turn a few heads, but the unbalanced tone gives the characters nothing to hope for or laugh at thus making them all incredibly intolerable.

Yet ultimately, the ending is incredibly satisfying. The rarely seen but often spoke of rabbi makes an appearance. He spouts off words of wisdom ripped from a Jefferson Airplane song. Larry is left talking on the phone mid-conversation. Danny is left staring at an on-coming tornado. There is something profound here somewhere. More effectively than any element of the story, the audience is left with questions to ponder about the bigger picture than just way to specific problems of a single individual.

It is ahrd to imagine that any of this bodes well for the Coen's preconceptions when they depict so much ugliness during this rather bleak search for the meaning of life. For isntance, religion seems practically useless in the face of all these problems. One rabbi is too young to relate to Larry. The other spouts off an anecdote that he is well known for recycling in the face of any problem. The last, and most respected, rabbi makes no time for Larry, yet all he can give Danny is a lyric.

4/10. The Coen Brothers' regular themes and filmmaking techniques are abound, but their storytelling methods are inferior to their past attempts. They fail to keep interest going over the course of the film, but it seems obvious that this was more of a film for them than us.

Review: Legion

God has lost faith in humanity. He has ordered his army of angels to exterminate us, but one of his most faithful, the Archangel, Michael, disagrees. He flees heaven, loses his wings and halo, and precedes to arm himself in order to protect a pregnant woman who's child could save humanity. Michael holds up in a rickety diner and garage run by cliche rednecks and visited by cliche out-of-towners, where said pregnant woman happens to work.

The movie has A-list effects working through a B-movie creative process. A lot of time and effort seems directed at the action and design. There's explosions, gunfire, and some pretty excellent gore. A small amount of survivors fight off an ever-growing horde of angel-possessed people zombie apocalypse -style. There is an intense one on one between Archangels Gabriel and Michael, Gabriel armed with some medieval mace/chainsaw thing that was kind of cool looking. The spectacle of the movie was very entertaining even if just in a cheeseball way, but it falls just short of being watchable B-movie fare.

The dialog during the downtime between action scenes is horrendous. The screenwriters show no real knack for natural speech. Everything sounds forced and wordy and worst of all, scripted. The likes of Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton, who have proven themselves capable of compelling work, even Kate Walsh's time on television has proven she has some acting chops, fail miserably with the dialog. With zero expectations from Lucas Black and Adrianne Palicki who have never been impressive, there is very little to save the dramatic elements.

Of course there is Paul Bettany and Kevin Durand. Bettany brings in a very memorable role. On the action side, he proved to be an effective hero, something I was always skeptical about on his part. On the dramatic side, he was able to show a special type of earnestness derived from a being not capable of free will yet still disobeying a direct order from his master anyway. Durand on the other hand does a lot with what little screentime he has. His loyalty to God and eagerness to obey even when pitted against his brother evokes genuine emotion. His snarls and attacks read of anger and determination, but his eyes read of sadness and remorse.

Plot holes are abound. The true nature of the child is never revealed. Christ-Reborn? Anti-Christ? Something else altogether? It is an agonizing lack of information. For all its Christian theology, the concepts of God being omnipotent and omniscient seem completely lost. A group of untrained strangers fought off his army for an impressive amount of time when God could have snapped his fingers and sent them to nonexistence, and Michael's attempt to prove to God that not all humanity is selfish and evil and that they are still worth fighting for seems useless in the face of a being with all the answers. Then again if these plotholes were addressed than the movie would be much shorter.

There are strong attempts to make a guilty pleasure cult classic here, but no amount of gun-toting fallen angels could save the completely flat storyline. My own interest in Christian mythology kept me mildly interested to see it finish, but if you want to see a good movie about angels, see The Prophecy instead.

3/10

Review: Edge of Darkness

Tom Kraven is a Boston Police detective and widower. Since his daughter graduated from college and found a decent job, he has not heard much from her. On the day she finally comes to visit, she seems to be ill, but before they can get to the hospital she is gunned down on his father's footsteps. As the investigation begins, all signs point to a disgruntled collar of Tom's, but he soon realizes that his daughter had become entwined in a conspiracy involving the company she has been interning for.

A remake of director Martin Campbell's British television mini-series of the same name, Campbell has imported the story across the pond to Massachusetts and has enlisted down-on-his-luck screen legend, Mel Gibson. Quite an obvious choice when one thinks about it. When it comes to righteous anger, no one does it better than old Mel. There is a ticking time bomb behind Mel's eyes that is truly frightening, yet he stays relatively calm throughout the whole investigation, a determination motivated by finding peace for his daughter, the only family he seemingly has left. Practically anyone can relate, the loss of a loved one, let alone a child, is instantly empathetic.

This quiet and waiting to explode variation of Mel Gibson is directly tied to another problem to the film. What was marketed as a fast paced action picture full of vengeance and payback was a whole lot slower, but effective, allowing a mystery to unfold to a conservative finale for an action flick. Mel Gibson was certainly not channelling Martin Riggs wholly, but digging deep to the silent depravity of Mad Max and well-directed melodrama of Tom Mullen (of Ransom) as well. With a script with a 50/50 shot at sounding cheesy, Mel delivers on some truly excellent lines.

Ray Winstone brings out a lot of the best in this movie. He is the exception to a lackluster supporting cast (one that even included Danny Huston). His character is a cliche, a spy used as a blunt instrument turned repentant when he faces his own mortality, yet Winstone's performance raises the bar and keeps it fresh. Like a predator, he seems poised to attack at any second keeping the audience at the edge of their seats. His mentoring ways and pearls of wisdom put Mel on this path, and Winstone's natural charm color him more of a sage than a puppet-master.

In the end, Edge of Darkness is not Mel Gibson's triumphant return, but it reminds us how great he has always been, personal issues aside. Campbell reiterates an effective thriller and mystery, but the comparisons to the original, namely being inferior to it, are inescapable.

7/10

Review: Smokin Aces 2: Assassins' Ball

A prequel to the Joe Carnahan's original picture, Walter Weed is a senior analyst desk jockey at the FBI who becomes the target of a considerably large bounty. He is taken under protective custody headed by Agent Baker who is protecting him against a motley crew of lethal assassins, including a master of disguise, a femme fatale, and an extended Tremor family.

For a direct DVD sequel of a decent theatrical release, Smokin' Aces 2 is a surprisingly effective shoot'em up thriller. It is very reminiscent of its predecessor: A young FBI agent is assigned to protect the target of a high profile bounty that is targeted by the best and most violent assassins. Maybe to a fault. It could have struck out on its own a little more. Although the intention of the first one to be an analog of the Iraq War becomes much more clear in this installment. A series of mis- and disinformation results in a bloody and violent outcome. The clarity is helped by the Walter Weed character being an old-fashioned Conservative red-blooded American who's loyalty starts and stops with what is the best for his country no matter how misguided he might be.

Clayne Crawford does not have the same charisma and presence as Ryan Reynolds, but he is a solid leading man. Calm and clear-headed under pressure. Tommy Flanagan and Maury Sterling return to their respective roles. As a master of disguise more actors played Flanagan's role than he did, but Sterling is given considerably more to do. Adding the likes of Michael Parks and Autumn Reeser to the Tremor family, the latter of which gives an entertainingly manic performance, allows them to keep up with Pine's humor and Durand's intensity that made the family so memorable in the first flick. Vinnie Jones is added to the mix, and for an athelte turned actor, he easily charms the pants off any audience no matter how incredibly evil his character may be. Rounding out the cast is Tom Berenger, a seasoned veteran, as the marked man who gives a great performance as a paranoid man never at ease but with a big secret sitting in his back pocket.

The action looks funny at times. Circus midget cannonballs never look not cheesy, but for what I assumed would be a low budget DVD level flick, the spectacle looks better than one would expect. I question whether the expectations made it look better or if it actually was good. There is no lack of blood letting and bullet flying, so any action junkie should be at least content with the viewing experience.

If you liked the first Smokin' Aces, there is a good chance you would enjoy this one as well. Of course if you hated the first one do not even bother with the sequel. Ultimately, Aces 2 is entertaining enough for a night in.

6/10

Review: Youth in Revolt

Nick Twisp is a teenager clever beyond his years and a hopeless romantic trying to live a normal teenage sex life implied by pop culture. When his mother's new boyfriend has to lay low, they take a trip to a lake where he meets and falls in love with an equally clever teenage girl. When his nice guy ways turn her off, he creates a Tyler Durden-esque alter ego in order to impress her.

It gets some credit for not wallowing in too many teen sex romp cliches. Its humor is powered mostly by quirk and wit than shock value and vulgarity. Yet, it only delivers a few genuine laughs. The embarassing moments get too embarassing resulting in pure awkwardness. The attempts at romance in the midst of sexual encounters seems forced and ingenuine. The plot is too episodic like watching a series of shorts in a row. A series of animated segues do the pacing no favors. With the back up of a great cast and successful original material, it is hard to imagine a movie would fail so badly.

Michael Cera needs a new role quick. Something that is not a quick-witted but soft spoken geeky nice guy. It is getting kind of tired. Not even his cliched bad guy alter ego could save him. He was completely unconvincing and ultimately annoying. Both Cera and co-stars seem too long-winded, speaking more important than they actually are. The pretentiousness is hard to stomach, and hinders many of the characters from being relatable. Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Zach Galifinakis, and Fred Willard make memorable turns, but all are extraordinaryly underused in favor of less funny leads. By the end of the feature, I felt very little for any of the characters. I had completely checked out of the film.

This is easily one of the least memorable films of all time.

1/10

Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Doctor Parnassus is the leader of a traveling theater troupe. He is in a constant struggle with the Devil, known as Mr. Nick. They are collecting souls, Nick tempting them with false desires while Parnassus uses the wonder of their own imagination. If Parnassus does not get more followers than Nick he loses his daughter to him when she turns 16. In desperation, the troupe turn to an amnesic man they saved from a noose who gets them into all sorts of trouble.

Terry Gilliam is probably one of my favorite directors, but his self-indulgent directing style drags this movie down considerably. Mr. Nick is overtly an analog for the Devil. This starts a constant search for religious analog throughout the film. You can definitely find some, that is the genius of Gilliam's multi-layered work, but it becomes a chore. It is distracting trying to figure who is the analog for God or Christ or whoever.

The character of Tony is very interesting, but the acting changes I think hurts whatever kind of evolution the character could have naturally. Heath Ledger's performance was decent, but it was never ground-breaking. It saddens me that this is his last performance. Johnny Depp excels easily channeling Ledger the most. Jude Law was kind of bland, certainly not memorable. Colin Farrell falls flat on his face flipping the character without an ounce of subtlety and ignoring all the charisma that made Ledger's enigmatic riffraff likeable in the first place.

Like all Gilliam's films, Imaginarium's strongest element is its visual flare. This time there is an obvious throwback to his animation days with Monty Python with it's exaggerated showmanship and surreal landscapes. His eccentric fashion and character depictions out-do his past attempts. Another really strong element is the way his story mirrors that of his own journey through the film industry. Gilliam is Parnassus, a wide-eyed film-maker with a great appreciation with imagination and expects the same from his audience, but he is constantly tempted by the studio system (Mr. Nick) which seduces the audience with more of the same safe elements they already know they love rather then venturing into new territory. This leads to Parnassus/Gilliam's fall and rebirth working outside the studio system. Prepare to see more from Gilliam in the future as he becomes comfortable in his position within the industry.

A visual testament to Gilliam's filmography and his truly imaginative mind, but Gilliam's over-indulgence gets the best of him.

5/10