Words of Wisdom

Best of 2009 – Movie Edition, The Top Ten March 3, 2010

With the Oscars right around the corner, I have been compiling a list of my favorite films of the past year. The first entry in this series dealt with movies that I have not yet seen, but that are either award nominees or just look like something I would enjoy. Yesterday I posted the first five movies in my list of 15 as sort of an honorable mention list. Today we will take a look at the top 10. Let me know what you think.

10. (500) Days of Summer – I normally can’t stomach romantic-comedies, but first-time film director Mark Waters has created a quirky, nonlinear work of wonder. The movie follows the 500 day relationship between the protagonists, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, covering the ups and downs from its early stages to the end. The story itself jumps around the 500 days, offering pieces of the relationship puzzle that the viewer then puts together on their own. It’s a refreshing and unique take on the genre that you should take the time to see.

9. Drag Me To Hell – Before he helmed the $1 Billion Spider Man franchise, Sam Raimi had quite a following from his classic horror-comedy Evil Dead series. This film sees Raimi taking a step back from the big budget mega-blockbusters to the genre that originally made him a favorite. The main character in the story, played by Alison Lohman, is cursed by a gypsy after refusing her an extension on her mortgage. The film then follows her and her boyfriend, played by Justin Long (the Mac guy), as they deal with the demonic curse. It’s alternately funny and scary in a way that few other directors can accomplish and it is definitely a must-see.

8. The Hangover – Director Todd Phillips (Old School) hit gold again with this hilarious look at a Las Vegas bachelor party gone wrong, and perhaps the best thing about the film is that almost none of the actual party is shown. The movie begins on the morning after, when three men awaken in a trashed Vegas hotel room and the groom, of all people, is nowhere to be found. The remainder of the movie involves the men trying to piece together what happened the night before, in a story that involves missing teeth, Asian gangsters, a naked man in the car trunk, and Mike Tyson’s tiger. Though it could have easily devolved into juvenile humor, the film is actually very intelligently written and the casting is superb – Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms (The Office, The Daily Show), and the hilarious Zach Galifianakis. This is probably the funniest movie of the year.

7. Avatar – What can be said about James Cameron’s groundbreaking 3-D science fiction epic that hasn’t already been said? It is now the highest grossing movie of all time, both domestically and globally, it is a Best Picture nominee, and probably the most talked about film of the year. The film takes place on Pandora, a far-off moon where a corporation from Earth is mining the precious mineral unobtanium. Sam Worthington stars as a good-hearted former marine working for the company who disguises himself as one of the planet’s locals (the Na’vi) in order to get the valuable mineral. Along the way he falls in love and becomes the leader of the Na’vi and this movie is way too long for me to tell here. If you really want to know what happens, watch Dances with Wolves and pretend the Indians conquer the invading white men. It’s a fine movie with incredible visuals and I’m glad that I saw it, even though I probably never will sit through the entire 3 hours again.

6. The Hurt Locker – I’m not generally a fan of war movies. I usually find them to be clichéd, incredibly one-sided, and emotionally manipulative – all traits that I hold in disdain. The Hurt Locker defies most of these clichés, though, and delivers what, to date, is the definitive movie of the recent conflict in Iraq. I imagine that this look at the work of an EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) team is pretty true-to-life and, thus, quite poignant in today’s atmosphere. It is a very intense film, going from one nail-biting scene to another with little let-up for things like, say, character development, but nevertheless, it is a very good movie and one that I would definitely recommend.

5. Star Trek – Now this is how a summer blockbuster should be – smart, funny, action-packed and just an all-around good time without making you feel as though you just lost a few IQ points at its conclusion. This reboot by director JJ Abrams (Lost) goes back to the crew’s younger days, during their time at Starfleet. Chris Pine (Smokin’ Aces) effectively takes on the role of James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto (Heroes) is an excellent Spock in this great piece of summer fun. It did not matter that I had never watched nor cared much for Star Trek in the past, I still loved this film and never felt like I was being left out for my lack of foreknowledge.

4. Up – Once again, Pixar (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, WALL-E, etc.) proves that they are the cream of the crop when it comes to animated films – nobody else is even close. The first 15 minutes of this film are the most heartbreaking ones you will see in any movie this year and the rest of it is among the most uplifting. The story revolves around an elderly man (voiced by Ed Asner) who decides to fulfill the longtime wishes of he and his wife and sets of on a journey to South America in his house powered by thousands of balloons. Along for the ride is a young stowaway (voiced by Jordan Nagai) and together they brave the elements and other obstacles on a heartwarming quest. It’s really a great, great movie.

3. Moon – Sam Rockwell (Choke) gives one of the finest performances of the year in this excellent homage to science fiction films of yore like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rockwell’s character (also named Sam) is finishing up his 3 year stint at a moon base working for an energy company that mines helium-3 from the lunar soil to provide power to the Earth. His time has spent alone, with only the robot GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) and intermittent messages from his wife on earth to keep him company. Events occur and Sam realizes that all is not what it seems as he tries to piece together both his prior life on earth and his current life on the moon. Rockwell spends much of the movie alone and does an incredible job of commanding the screen, so it is beyond disappointing that the Academy did not recognize his performance with a Best Actor nomination. Make sure you add this one to your list of must-sees, it is fantastic.

2. A Serious Man – Time and again, the Cohen brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men), have proven themselves to be the premier filmmakers in today’s cinematic world. Their quirky flair for black comedy is unsurpassed and once again they have outdone themselves. A Serious Man is a loose adaptation of the Biblical story of Job, as enacted by a Jewish family in 1960’s Minnesota. The cast is largely unknown, with Michael Stuhlbarg taking on his first lead role as the main protagonist, a trait that is probably for the better, for it keeps the viewer from predefining the roles of actors they have seen many times in the past. If you are a Cohen brothers fan like I am and love their brand of dark comedy, this is a definite must-see. If you don’t see what all the fuss is about their strange, off-center films, then you might as well skip this one too. In my view, though, this is one of the best films of the year and it stands tall with anything else in the Cohen brothers canon.

1. Inglourious Basterds – Who is often seen as the ultimate evil, perhaps the worst of the worst people that humankind has ever seen? When trying to describe one’s enemy in the most vile terms imaginable, who do you resort too? Well, those are easy questions for us in today’s modern world – the appeal for utter evil goes straight to the Nazis and, of course, Adolph Hitler. So, when constructing the ultimate revenge fantasy, who better to go after than this scourge from Germany? Quentin Tarantino, one of the greatest and most acclaimed directors of the past 20 years, has done just that with his latest film, constructing an alternate reality in which a band of Jews, led by Tennessee-born Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), violently fight back against their oppressors, collecting Nazi scalps at every turn. It is yet another blood-soaked masterpiece from Tarantino, the wonderful combination of humor with scenes of incredible violence. This is, without a doubt, the movie of the year, and though I am quite certain that the Academy will again bypass QT for something safer in the Best Picture race, 2010 will always be the year of Inglourious Basterds for me.

So, what do you think? What did I get wrong? What did I get right? What should I have included?