Last year was a slow year for me for movies. Saw only 119 (it's hard to get out to the movies when you're a shiftless layabout) so there will be some gaps here. Netflix will help me catch up soon enough. Anyway, on to it and obviously worded to avoid spoilers, which I hate.
The best movie that came out last year was The Hurt Locker. Your differing opinion is wrong. Change it. It not only has no weak spots, it is strong in every area. Writing, directing (Katherine Bigelow should win every directing award there is this year), acting, editing, everything is top notch. As I said before someone finally made a movie about the war in Iraq that didn't suck. The tension ramps up right from the get go and never subsides. This movie makes you feel tense and anxious the entire time it's running. Jeremy Renner playing the adrenaline junkie bomb squad leader is, not to be a cliche but it's true, a revelation. I've been tracking down other movies he's in that I missed just to watch him work. This is THE movie to see from last year, hands down, bar none.
Next is District 9, a movie that got you in by pretending to be an sf action movie but turned out to be a complex study of bigotry. Not to say there was no action, there was, but even that was better than normal. This movie featured perhaps the best screenplay of the year. Can't wait to see more from both the director and star.
I'll admit to a bias for Sam Rockwell but Moon really is as good as I think it is. Rockwell plays a psychologically stressed astronaut on a mission to the moon. Alone. Maybe. He thinks. He makes a discovery and then, well then it goes from very good to great.
In comedy you have The Hangover which successfully walked the line of crude and smart where most just flop into crude and stupid. This is one of those rare movies that causes genuine full out laughter again and again while you watch it and unlike a lot of movie the humor holds up on repeat viewings.
You don't get a lot of horror that's actually scary but Paranormal Activity got to me. This is exactly my kind of horror. Don't show me a lot, let me fill in the blanks mentally, build tension slowly and make me feel actual dread for the characters and, later at home in the dark, for myself. Take note Hollywood, there's a reason this movie crushed the latest Saw shitfest. Try to learn from it and not fuck it up.
Other (very) worthy releases:
The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus
Zombieland (the cameo alone is worth t he price of admission)
In The Loop
Coraline
An Education
Precious
Adventureland
(500) Days of Summer
Notable misses (refer back to shiftless layabout status) to be caught on DVD that I have high hopes for:
Up In The Air
A serious Man
Where The Wild Things Are
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Up
Extract
The Informant!
OK I saved some space to talk about Avatar and the madness that is swirling around it. To get it out of the way, I saw it and liked it. Visually it's spectacular and like nothing you've ever seen since the tech that was used to make it was invented specifically TO make it.
However...
First it was nominated and then won the Golden Globe for best drama (congrats Globes, you've just lost ALL your credibility) and now is nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Granted the Oscars lost all their cred long ago so this was an expected thing for them, but still. A note to both these orgs and people everywhere, huge box office does NOT equal quality. The story was nothing you haven't seen before (literally if you've seen things like Dances With Wolves, Medicine Man, etc), the writing in not particularly notable, the directing is standard action movie directing and so is the acting. There is utterly no reason this movie should be in conversations about best movie of the year. No reason and no excuse. It's Titanic all over again. Huge box office drives what is basically a mediocre movie to steal awards away from truly deserving films.
7 comments:
I loved Up in the Air. My mother and my girlfriend both thought it was good, but it was really depressing, which tainted the film for them. To me, the depressing part is just part and parcel to the film and a wedge of the pie that is its greatness.
I liked Fantastic Mr. Fox, but it is a difficult film to like. The stop motion models aren't exactly pleasing to the eye, the story is odd, and of course you have the Wes Anderson quirkiness worked into it. It's not a film I can recommend for everyone.
The Informant was...odd. It was good, but the pacing was off, and it had that "I'm a 400 page book compressed into a film" feel. I like Soderbergh, especially when he gets to do his pet projects, which this one of them. But it's the kind of film where you come out of the theater scratching your head going "what...what just happened there?"
I was kind of hoping Up In The Air would be at least somewhat depressing given the premise. I'm pleased that's the case.
That's pretty much exactly what I got from the trailers for Fox.
Also love Soderbergh except The Girlfriend Experience which I just couldn't get into at all. I'm hoping this will make up for that.
I totally agree about Avatar. The effects were jaw dropping, and the movie deserves every technical award it can get.
But acting? Story? Just run of the mill action fare, a lot of it leaning more towards the bad side of the spectrum.
Just noticed your comment on my '09 movies post... Moon was my instant favourite for the year when I saw it, and held the spot until I caught A Serious Man.
In The Loop came and went from my theatres in a dash, I'm hoping to see it soon. And The Hurt Locker isn't out here for another few weeks...
District 9 was definitely a nice surprise for me, but a handful of action and romance clichés (especially in the last third) kept it just out of my Top 10.
While I am glad to see your rant about Avatar, I am mortified by your inclusion of The Hangover. My 1.5 star review:
I can't believe this movie has received so much critical and commercial praise. I guessed where the missing groom was about 10 minutes into the search by the leads, which dragged more and more with each character that they had to explain their predicament to.
"Oh man, you guys are crazy! What a night, huh? Oh wow, you don't remember? Well let me TELL you about all the hilarious shit that happened because it's not like this is a movie and we can show it!"
Bradley Cooper held it together for me, but Ed Helms has made me laugh too often in The Office compared to this, and Zach Galifianakis really wasn't the scene stealer that word-of-mouth made him out to be. The funniest part of the whole movie was the photos from their night that they flipped through during the end credits.
Here's the thing with The Hangover (and all comedies), it made me laugh. That's really all I want from them and it hardly ever happens. Sometimes they amuse a bit and sometimes they make you snicker once or twice but they rarely make me laugh. Hangover, while full of cliches from characters to situations, made me laugh. That made it a win for me.
Definitely check out In The Loop and absolutely watch The Hurt Locker and then change your opinion about which was the best movie of last year. Because it was The Hurt Locker in case that was still unclear.
Well YOU should hurry up and see A Serious Man and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Deal? Deal!
Deal. They're both already on my Netflix list so it's just a matter of time.
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