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| 'The White Ribbon' (Michael Haneke) |
Forget the national board of review, golden globes or the LA film critis assoiation and all that other nonsense. This is the only movie list that matters. And besides, have you seen some of these lists? All of the "best of 2009" movie lists ive read so far this year make me feel like i got out to the movies more than most film critics. I'll be honest, this year was "so-so" overall. 2009 was made up of only a handful of really great movies (the white ribbon, tyson, fantastic mr fox), mixed with a few pleasant surprises (bad lieutenant, star trek, drag me to hell), mixed with movies that were just; "eh, ok" (big fan and the road), or movies that were really dissapointing (inglorious basterds, limits of control, bruno). Theres also a unique group of movies from 2009 that were dissapointing, but still pretty good. What i mean when i say this is that they could have been much better, but were still enjoyable. These are movies like; Watchmen, Big Fan (which kinda ripped off "The King of Comedy" the more i thought about it) and "Where the Wild Things Are". In 2009, we saw 2 of the best current actors in the game; John Turturro and Angela Basset waste their time and talent on stupid movies (Transformers 2 and Notorious). We saw two of greatest directors ever; Francis Ford Coppolla and Werner Herzog, make not only 2 of the worst movies of the year, but 2 of their worst movies EVER as well. And once again Tarantino coasted by on his name and previous work with Inlgorious Basterds (sorry, but that movie wasnt good). However, there were some hilights from 2009. James Toback made a great "comeback" movie with Tyson. The White Ribbon lived up to all its hype. Wes Anderson redeemed himself with Fantastic Mr Fox. Hunger, Revanche and Silent Light FINALLY made it to U.S. theaters. There were some standout performances from Christoph Waltz (inglorious basterds) and Christian McKay (Me & Orson Welles), as well as a few great underrated performances from Kevin Corrigan (Big Fan) and ??? (In The Loop).
Quite frankly, it was kind of a struggle to come up with 10 truly great movies for 2009 (this is evident in the fact that 3 of movies on my top 10 list were technically released in 2008, but didnt get to american theaters until this year). Nevertheless, im still confident that this top 10 list represents the best of the best in 2009.
Oh yeah, here are the movies i didnt see this year (*note* "Up" and "Loot" are the only movies on this list that i actually wanted to see but never got around to. All the other movies listed i didnt really care about): Up, Loot, invictus, up in the air, the informant, men who stare at goats, dr parnassus, sherlock holmes, nine, 2012
and so the list goes...
Top 10 Movies Of 2009:
Me & Orson Welles
Revanche
Tyson
Black Dynamite
The White Ribbon
35 shots of rum
Fantastic Mr. Fox
All Tomorrows Parties
Hunger
In The Loop
Honorable Mention:
A Serious Man
Antichrist
Star Trek
Drag Me To Hell
Hurt Locker
Bad Lt.
Trash Humpers
Mystery Team
Silent Light (made in 2007, but didnt get to the U.S. until the begning of 2009).
10 Worst Movies of 2009:
Tetro
Precious (yes i saw it)
Notorious
Limits of Control
Inglorious Basterds
Transformers 2
My My Son
Bruno
GI Joe
Life During Wartime
