My Top 10 Of 2009 (In Alphabetical Order)

There was never a romantic comedy more suitable for or telling about the 00s than (500) Days of Summer. It’s artificial and candy-coated yet knows this. It contains flirtatious sequences in big box department stores in which the central couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel) play house to the sound of pop songs on a floor sample arrangement of kitchen furniture and appliances (all with the price tags still on them). They mime “family dinner” and “happy ending” but never get to dig in. The shuffle of memory is a key theme. The way it was vs. the way they thought it was. The reality vs. the rom-com vision. It may be hard to imagine such a twee film being one of the year’s best but it is a pure entertainment treasure and beneath that, a knowing yet lovestruck satire of romance both at the movies and in the modern world.

Coming of age was never as stylish as in Lone Scherfig’s winning adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir about a young girl in 1960s London who is seduced by an older man with a posh lifestyle and ample mystique. Carey Mulligan is positively radiant as young Jenny, a lover of culture, music, and all things French. She is wise beyond her years and yet positively girlish at the same time. The supporting players are equally adept, including Peter Sarsgaard as Jenny’s suitor, David, Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour as her equally enamored parents, and Dominic Cooper and wild card Rosamund Pike as David’s charming yet shady pals. An Education is a vibrant, sophisticated, fast-moving drama with tremendous appeal and brilliantly effective storytelling. It feels classic and timeless, as if it could very well have been made for the era in which it is set. What's most refreshing is that this is a smart movie about smart people who make real choices, real errors in judgment, and ultimately suffer real consequences. Yet the script by Nick Hornby is full of wit, sharp insight, and a playful sense of adventure. It's not preachy or sullen but rather gently revelatory in the way it navigates true drama with all the humor and joy intact.

Oh, Wes Anderson. Just when we thought we knew you by heart, you go and throw us a curve ball. Sure, the rapid fire comedy is as fast as ever. Yes, the characters are plucky losers with delusions of grandeur and a secret hurt inside. Of course, that Rolling Stones song comes in just where you expect it. Yet for all the ways in which Fantastic Mr. Fox is by the book Anderson goodness, it still stands as a unique and remarkable transformation into an animation auteur. Fox is easily Anderson’s most joyful film. It begins and ends with a smile and a song. It has all the sense of caper that Bottle Rocket had, the family catharsis of Tenenbaums (minus the suicide attempt), and more than enough jaunty weirdness to top Steve Zissou. A kids’ movie for big kids with young hearts, Fantastic Mr. Fox is an animated gem complete with stunning stop-motion work and enough joy and heart to become a classic.

The greatest film produced yet on the subject of the Iraq war is also the year’s greatest exercise in suspense. Director Kathryn Bigelow has crafted a gripping, unfiltered look at war that delivers as both a tense thriller and a complex psychological drama detailing the day by day dealings of an Iraq military bomb unit (Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty). In several expertly shot sequences we get the panicked, adrenaline rush that comes from being so near to deadly weapons on a daily basis. And in additional material we get to explore the minds of the men living this seemingly unbearable daily grind, particularly Renner’s Ssgt. James who is a renegade risk taker built for the work at hand and unable to cope with ordinary life on the outside. There’s no telling what to expect or where the film will go and it’s this sense of impossible, constant terror which makes The Hurt Locker such a unique and unmissable tour de force.

The 21^st century’s answer to Dr. Strangelove, In the Loop is a positively daffy and biting political satire from the UK (based on the TV series “The Thick Of It”). The basic premise involve a low level employee of the British government (Tom Hollander) finding himself as the central catalyst for a major international war. The film is truly dynamite and lightning fast, delivering hilarious, sharply scripted laughs and ultimately settling in on a surprisingly dark finale which does not alter the film's non-stop tone but simply allows for real character growth and despair. It is as smart and funny a comedy as I have seen all year.

If there are limits to the cinema, somebody forgot to tell Quentin Tarantino. His epic WWII murder fantasy Inglourious Basterds is a take no prisoners, do as we please thriller that operates under the assumption that all things are possible in the celluloid universe. Moreover, Basterds contains some of the iconic director’s very best work, namely a series of long, highly suspenseful conversations which alternate power between players to the point of dramatic exhaustion before typically erupting in a burst of climactic action. But for all the war and violence, Basterds’ deeper function seems to be as a love letter to the European cinema of the time. Tarantino has painstakingly detailed the era. He both names names (Leni Riefenstahl, Emil Jannings, etc.) and cites details (flammable film stock) which one would otherwise pick up in a film history lesson. Not only does the movie’s climax take place in a movie house, but the very nature of its ending speculates about the character and capacity of film in such a way as to make this the year’s ultimate meta-movie and one of the most sweeping, excellent, and action-packed pieces that truly invoke the form in all its glory.

Writer/composer/actor Stew crafted one of Broadway’s most innovative and overlooked musicals in Passing Strange, a revolutionary stage show which had a thunderous but all too short run at the Belasco Theatre and earned only one Tony award (Book Of A Musical). Thankfully, director Spike Lee recognized that Stew’s show was more than just another midtown tuner. Not only is the format unique (a narrative rock concert) but the sheer tenacity of the show will blow your mind. It loosely tells the story of Stew’s own life with humor, attitude, and heartbreaking sincerity. But dig deeper and there is another layer of complexity. Stew has made a stage show which ponders art in all its forms. It speculates about the power of performance and the way in which art, artifice, and the genuine article interchange unexpectedly. It doesn’t just break the “fourth wall” but screams through it, allowing characters to interact with the narrator, the narrator to interact with the audience, and the band to simply jam all night. The musical numbers are brazen and addictive. They give the kind of buzz all great rock & roll gives. You’d think a stage show would be stifled by the act of its being filmed but Passing Strange remains a wonder. You may not be able to feel the electric guitars shake the floor under your feet the way they did at the Belasco, but you can still appreciate the amazing score, performances, and story. And the raw emotion of the show’s incredible final performance can be felt miles away from the screening room. Standout number “Keys” is not just the greatest musical sequence put to film this year; it’s a religious experience. Is it alright? Yeah, it’s alright.

“Coen-y” may be a word we use to describe kooky, kitschy, Americana drenched screwball romps (and the occasional bleak oddity) but there is hardly anything Coen-y about the Coen brothers’ latest film, A Serious Man. It is personal, serious, devoid of the Coens’ repertory players, and completely on a level of its own. And unlike other directors who depart from the norm so wildly that they transform into flavorless, point-and-shoot drones, Joel and Ethan Coen have used this departure to blossom into full form. A Serious Man reinterprets their style and typical content in greater shades of gray, and with more soul than we could have possibly imagined. Michael Stuhlbarg stars as the Job-like central figure, a father who loses his wife, his health, and his money in such quick succession as to test the very fabric of his being. It is a story of faith, family, and the way in which all men fall.

If Howard Hawks and Cary Grant could return to make a comedy for the Google generation, they would surely create something a lot like Up In The Air. Director Jason Reitman’s third consecutive comedy knockout proves to be his sharpest and funniest yet. George Clooney stars as self-isolating, elitist, know-it-all Ryan Bingham, a professional firer who travels the country informing people that they have lost their job and giving seminars about relinquishing oneself of the burdens of home and family. He meets two women who will change his life: saucy Alex (Vera Farmiga) whom he seduces via platinum membership cards (she’s equally on the go) and up-and-comer Natalie (Anna Kendrick) whose plot to take the company’s firing practice digital may end Ryan’s always off the ground lifestyle. The banter is never stale, the characters are never false, and most importantly it all goes down so smoothly and with such vintage panache that it single-handedly reinvigorates the waning love in all of us for Hollywood, movie stars, and the still beating heart of mainstream American cinema.

This year’s other decade long labor of love from a visual pioneer involving mystical creatures and imaginative effects. Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are is a masterpiece of whimsy and emotional distress. The film expands upon the book the Maurice Sendak with a script from Jonze and author Dave Eggers which retains the book’s sense of adventure but also develops an emotionally, visually rich world in which monsters and children are broken-hearted, free-footed friends on the lam from the stricter social order, and moms everywhere. It is a stunning film with a deeply felt, loosely plotted sensibility that actually makes it one of the bolder studio features of the decade. Thankfully, it is a rounding success and one of the year’s greatest films.

Crazy Heart

First time director Scott Cooper brings to life the novel by Thomas Cobb with a central performance by Jeff Bridges as washed up country star Bad Blake that is rightfully garnering the veteran actor a great deal of Oscar buzz. Bridges is a hulking, soulful mess in the film, balancing the passion of musical performance with the jaded edge of a star past his prime. Maggie Gyllenhaal also does fine work as Jean Craddock, a local reporter enamored of Bad who quickly falls for the singer's rough charms. Crazy Heart charts the couples growing relationship, Bad's failing career and lifelong addictions, and the road to redemption ahead of him. Colin Farrell and Robery Duvall round out the cast in modest performances as Bad's former guitarist turned country superstar Tommy Sweet and Bad's longtime friend and bar owner respectively.

Crazy Heart is by definition a small film. It's built around conversations and life choices. Characters get in a room together and we observe their interactions. It's brilliantly done and so simple and authentic it would be easy to overlook the power of its skillful writing and winning performances. It's no small feat to compose such fully realized characters and craft a compelling narrative out of their simple interactions. Crazy Heart is a compelling, whiskey-drenched story of love and loss that is as bittersweet as reality and as easy to settle into as ordinary life.

The movie is also backed by a strong set of bluesy country rock songs penned by T Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton. The duo create an extensive and impressive back catalog for Bad Blake's live shows that's wholly believable as the roster for an iconic country superstar. The film also features a moving theme, "The Weary Kind," penned by Burnett and Ryan Bingham. Bridges is incredibly adept at performing on stage both in voice and in presence. He gives the impression of being an old pro so easily that the performance becomes an entrancing act of artificial reality. Farrell too nicely handles the musical side of the film as a believably slick modern country crooner. The music only adds to the atmosphere of the already strongly rendered dramatic portions of the film, making this one of the strongest musical features of the year.

Grade: A-

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Director Terry Gilliam brings us yet another oddball tale of fantasy and morality in a very neat, visually exciting package. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus tells the tale of the weary and immortal Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a disciple of imagination and storytelling in a century's long battle with the devil (Tom Waits) who has come to claim the soul of his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), on her 16th birthday (the price of one of their many wagers). To avoid losing his daughter, Parnassus agrees to yet another wager. He takes his flagging, dilapidated travelling show on the road along with companions Percy (Verne Troyer) and Anton (Andrew Garfield) on a quest to gather up righteous souls through the use of his enchanted magical mirror. The first to five souls wins. Along the way, the crew picks up the mysterious Tony (Heath Ledger in his final role) who upsets the long established traditions of the imaginarium and may have ulterior motives of his own.

Gilliam presents a fast-moving, fun-loving, "put on a show" type energy throughout most of the film which makes up for some of the rickety narrative components. It is, after all, a fantasy and a little botched logic is of no consequence. What's ever present is the weird charm of the imaginarium and its ragtag collection of characters. It's a form of entertainment so dated and desperate that you can't help but feel misplaced nostalgia for the weird sideshow antics they perform. The "behind the mirror" sequences of surreal fantasy are uneven but mostly fun. They're actually more interesting for what they bring out in the characters than for the colorful visuals which are more playful and silly than uniquely captivating. One of the most interesting and oddly seamless devices is the replacement of Ledger (who died mid filming) with a trio of peers when his character Tony slips into the world of imagination. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all pick up where Ledger leaves off with great class, honoring the actor with great performances which compliment his work perfectly. The process also stresses the two-faced quality of the shifty Tony and brings to the forefront his desires to be someone else entirely.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a lively, inventive, fun romp which carries on with great energy up to a fairly predictable but nonetheless satisfying conclusion. It's not Gilliam's best film but it offers a concentrated dose of some of the qualities which have made him such an admirable pioneer in years past.

Grade: B

DVD Pick: Jennifer's Body

In hindsight, Jennifer's Body never really could have been anything more than a cult hit, which hopefully it one day will be. Body is a rare thing: a horror film with a female perspective. Best friends Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) are pinned against one another in the aftermath of Jennifer's abduction by renegade emo rockers and eventual sacrifice to the devil (to the tune of "867-5309/Jenny," no less). The result being a succubus possessed Jen who feeds on the bodies of teenage boys. Consider it Heathers with The Exorcist spiked in for good measure. Writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama have crafted a nifty piece of pop horror with underlying wit and smarts, painting one high school girl's descent into darkness with broad horror overtones that grab at the Twilight generation without losing the core allegory for abuse and subsequent destruction.

Nine

Daniel Day-Lewis, the unstoppable master of all things thespian, somehow manages to transition from transformative character actor to leading man of a movie musical in Nine. Granted, his Guido Contini is a tortured genius film director with fantastical musical memories and not exactly a Fred Astaire-type song and dance man. Still, the two-time Oscar winner shows off yet another layer of depth here as he brushes off a pleasant singing voice and some modest hoofing skills in director Robert Marshall's largely theatrical movie about the cinema. Though Nine is being adapted for the screen, Marshall envisions it as something like a stage show mixed with visual snippets of story and information. Footage of actual narrative blends with basic soundstage dance numbers rather than integrated song and dance. The results are mixed but mostly charming based on the sheer force and energy of each song's delivery.

Guido is also matched by an ensemble of extraordinary Hollywood women doing some of their best, most playful work. Throughout the film, Guido, a womanizing, self-destructive cad, juggles visions of his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his muse (Nicole Kidman), his saucy friend and colleague (Judi Dench), a flirtatious reporter (Kate Hudson), his childhood seductress (Fergie), and his dead mother (Sophia Loren). Each of the 7 women get their chance to shine in a fiery solo and together they present a map of Guido's darkly self-serving mind.

It would be fair to criticize Rob Marshall's Nine as an indulgent, over-the-top collection of disconnected musical moments. The narrative (based on the Broadway musical of the same name which itself is based on 8 1/2) flies free and only casually touches on key plot points. And while the "musical fantasy" format worked perfectly in Marshall's breakthrough Chicago, the performance numbers here (also imagined) mix less neatly with the narrative dialogue scenes. All of this is true and yet the performances by the massive big-name ensemble are so wonderful and Marshall's visual style as a stage director is so strong that the film still works far better than it logically should. By film's end, Marshall's odd visual rhythms start to feel precise and the unhummable, melodramatic score (written by Maury Yeston) starts to fully develop its charms. This is a transporting effort which, if resisted, will be grating but when indulged can be a wholly satisfying visual and musical spectacle.

Grade: B+

The Lovely Bones

Director Peter Jackson's well-intentioned adaptation of The Lovely Bones, the popular novel by Alice Sebold, is a visual treat but an emotional dud. The film depicts the tragic death and afterlife of young Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) who is stalked and killed by an eerie neighbor (Stanley Tucci). While her parents, played by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, try to uncover the truth of what happened to their daughter, Susie explores a magical world in between our earth and her future heaven. She observes and interacts, in small ways, with her grieving family as both parties learn to cope with what has transpired.

The first third or so of the film is a very stunning and well-acted tale of foreboding obsession, leading to a chilling end. It's in the latter part of the film that Jackson desperately loses his way. Splitting the narrative between Susie's dream-like, CGI rendered other world and the very grim real world, the film becomes a disjointed mess. Character motivations become questionable, style takes over from substance, and the eventual resolution is an unsatisfying, inconsequential throwaway complete with creepy possessed teenager makeout sessions and an afterthought punishment of Tucci's sinister villain that offers no closure. The tone skips all over from a teen fantasy, to a goofy Grandma Lynn montage (starring a boozy Susan Sarandon), to a dangerous murder mystery. Thankfully, the cast remains game in spite of all the missteps, namely 15 year-old Ronan who carries the film with aplomb and the versatile Stanley Tucci who gives a chilling performance that grounds the film with vivid and believable terror. Despite the fact that several sequences in this film are utterly breathtaking, the overall picture is a mixed bag that only gets worse as it goes on until none of the characters or the story really matter anymore.

Grade: C+

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans

Eclectic director Werner Herzog makes a confounding detour with a loose remake of the 1992 Abel Ferrara film Bad Lieutenant starring Harvey Keitel. Set in a post-Katrina New Orleans, the new Lieutenant stars Nicolas Cage in a hammy, scenery chewing performance as Terence McDonagh, a coke addicted lieutenant with less than legitimate police procedures who is investigating the drug related murder of a family. The cast also features Val Kilmer as McDonagh's partner, Eva Mendes as his junkie prostitute girlfriend, rapper Xzibit as prime suspect Big Fate, and some small character work by talented actors such as Michael Shannon, Fairuza Balk, and Jennifer Coolidge.

Determining whether this is a good film or a bad film is a near impossibility. In so many respects it is an absolutely awful film. The film is manic, random, and fueled by a dark sense of chaos. Every actor is playing at the top of their crazy register. And there are several completely ridiculous scenes based on the central character's hallucinatory habits, including one with an unbearably long close-up of imaginary iguanas. Yet weirdly it is those same ludicrous qualities which might make Bad Lieutenant enjoyable for some viewers. The film is a pure pulp spectacle and seems to be consciously constructed as such. In other words, the kooky crime antics and nutso performance by Cage all play into a fairly consistent vision by Herzog which may captivate audiences with its weirdness. The spectacle just doesn't carry enough actual drama, humor, or suspense to make this worth seeing all that much. This is definitely a niche work for gunfight lovers and gritty cop gurus.

Grade: C

Up In The Air

Director Jason Reitman continues his mastery of the American comedy with yet another winning, mainstream, character-driven effort that is as timely as it is perfectly classic. George Clooney steps seamlessly into the Cary Grant-type dapper cad role he was born to play as Ryan Bingham, a carefree soul who fires people for a living and does a little part-time lecturing about the unnecessary baggage of a home and family. He strikes up a shallow flirtation with an equally commerce hungry woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) and lives his life with no strings attached. His great ambition is to amass 10 million frequent flier miles and join an elite club of travel snobs to have done so. Plans go awry when whip smart Cornell grad Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick resurrecting essential and beautifully crass elements of her breakthrough character from Rocket Science) proposes a cost effective reformatting of the company that would take workers off the road and have them do their firing duties via web cam. Bingham's objections to the system, which would ground his loose and unburdened lifestyle, leads his boss (Jason Bateman) to stick him on the road with Keener in an attempt to give her the work experience necessary to address Bingham's own complaints.

The film is a savvy blend of comedy and drama, sentiment and snark. It's so elementary and yet it stands out among most modern comedies as one of the few to really invest in characters and story instead of perpetrating low grade stupidity and begging for cheap laughs. Reitman has managed a natural flow that both feels realistic and maintains a certain radiant sheen that makes this as strong an effort to wear it's Hollywood glamour on its sleeve all year. Reitman couldn't not have sensed 1940s Grant in the writing of Ryan Bingham or missed the neatly cynical way his incorporation of depressing "firing testimonials" mirrors Rob Reiner's "real couple testimonials" in the structure of When Harry Met Sally. Many decades worth of romance and comedy get wisely condensed in this fine feature which still undoubtedly adds its own sharp, unique and particularly unmissable spin on all the tropes it recycles. Up In The Air is a moving, funny, and highly enjoyable film that will hopefully become as much of a breakout hit as Reitman's previous comic wonder, Juno. With each of his 3 films, the director has surpassed expectations and proved that fast, feeling, and funny films are far from lost on modern film audiences.

Grade: A

Avatar

Avatar is a much-hype passion project for director James Cameron (Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic) with roots that reportedly extend as far back as 20 years in the director's life and an astronomical budget which has been rumored to be in the hundreds of millions. Despite all that effort and all that money, the product is a straight dud. While Avatar is technically impressive, it fails as cinema.

The film tells the story of paralyzed war vet Jack Sully (Sam Worthington) who gets conveniently swept into a top secret mission to another planet when his genius twin brother is murdered, leaving him as the only person with the biological makeup to operate the required avatar machinery needed for the job. On the planet of Pandora, a species known as the Na'vi have been recently infiltrated by the human race. In an attempt to meld cultures, the humans create Na'vi bodies for themselves to virtually inhabit in order to better interact with the natives, a tribal society of nature loving warriors with an infinite connection to their home planet. The reckless Jack somehow manages to draw the attention of Na'vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and become accepted into the tribe. Eventually the humans' strictly commercial interests conflict with the Na'vi way of life and Jack must choose between his species and the new family he has discovered.

With a script more careful to overexplain made up traditions and languages than to make any sort of rational sense, Avatar plays like a very indulgent space fable designed by people with too much heart and not enough brains. Moreover, it's a very grotesquely simplified feature which pins the ultra pure and innocent native Na'vi against a vision of humanity so outrageously exaggerated and cartoonish that somehow an easy target such as American corporate greed somehow manages to not get a fair shake in this mess. Sigourney Weaver plays Grace, a rare good-hearted human who runs the scientific portion of the avatar program. Meanwhile, actors Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang accept the task of playing an executive and a colonel respectively who are each so disgusting as to commit genocide without a thought. These are not nuanced, complex characters. Neither are the Na'vi in most respects. Certainly, Cameron crafted a very specific history and world for them to inhabit but they are largely interchangeable, dull and lacking motivation. There's no clear moment where Neytiri falls for Jack. She just does. In a montage. Because she's the female character in the movie and that's what the female characters does. Jack too is a bit of a blank slate who makes radical life choices on a near whim and then fights to the death in a battle that comes too late to really matter.

For all the fine craft of Cameron's visual wonderland, this is a clunky overlong narrative burdened by poor writing and a preachy tone so bombarding as to irritate even apolitical ears. Viewers may still find it worth the experience to witness what Cameron has done, but anyone expecting an effective and well-composed feature will be sadly disappointed.

Grade: D