TOP FILMS OF 2009--updated 3/1/10

1. PRECIOUS--Nothing this year cut so deep, had so much raw tension and intensity, and yet became, in a strange way, a feel good movie. Six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress and Screenplay.*Please see my earlier PRECIOUS blog for more comments.*

2. A SERIOUS MAN--Takes Jewish angst to new and hilariously "everyman" heights. Now nominated for Best Picture and Screenplay Oscars. *See earlier A SERIOUS MAN blog for more comments.*

3. CHERRY BLOSSOMS--A smash hit during the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) session where it won best picture, this German/Japanese film by director Doris Dorrie played a short run earlier this year in Seattle. An aging couple with preoccupied adult children scattered around the world decide to visit them all with the final destination being Tokyo where their furthest flung son now lives. Of course, things don't go according to an ideal plan, but this moving film shows us how even in disappointment and tragedy and loneliness, life has many pleasures to offer us. A beautiful celebration of life.

4. SUMMER HOURS, a French film about the emotional and intellectual impact of executing the estate of a loved one.

5. DEPARTURES, a Japanese film about a young man who becomes a preparer of dead bodies, much to his shame and ultimate satisfaction in helping the living appreciate life--the preceding three films very happy and sad at the same time--watch these with a box of Kleenex handy. Please see March 1 blog for more info on SUMMER HOURS and DEPARTURES.

6. THE COVE--One of the best documentaries shown at the SIFF this year, this film plays like a very intense, very serious MISSION IMPOSSIBLE episode, but with a very powerful political agenda. A diverse group of skin-divers, camera men, advocates and politicos attempt to expose the wasteful and cruel slaughter of innocent dolphins in THE COVE in Japan--a world wide scandal being suppressed by the Japanese government with the cooperation of other nations. A very empowering film, and hopefully now that it has a well deserved Oscar nomination for best Documentary Film, this issue will receive greater world wide attention.

7. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS--Filled with many fine intense scenes that keep building to something--you don't know what is going to happen, or how it is going to happen, but the dread and suspense keep coming, and keep you riveted, and satisfy you, finally, with horrible violence or a shocking moment or a big laugh. Director/writer Quentin Tarintino's best film yet. This totally creative "anti-Nazi fantasy film" has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay.

8. UP--Creative, delightful and emotionally textured 3-D (although non-3-D is just as good) animated film from Disney and Pixar, this lovely, wacky gem has been nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Animated Picture, Screenplay, and for the likable musical score.

9. THE HANGOVER--Crude, lewd, and very funny, this adult comedy has the best laughs of the year, along with a wacky plot that unfolds like a murder mystery: What exactly, did happened last night?--with each revelation weirder than the last. What!!!!--no Oscar Nominations??!!???

10. A SINGLE MAN--Now nominated for Best Actor (Colin Firth), a moving and thoughtful "day in the life of" film with a lot of style and intrigue. *Please see my recent earlier blog of A SINGLE MAN for more info.*

11. BRIGHT STAR--A sensitive, subtle story of the unrealised and tragic love affair between poet John Keats and a neighbor woman, beautifully acted and filmed.

12. INVICTUS--Nominated for Best Actor (Morgan Freeman) and Best Supporting Actor (Matt Damon), this is an engrossing "based on true events" story by director Clint Eastwood. *See earlier blog of INVICTUS for more info.*

13. AVATAR--An unofficial remake of DANCES WITH WOLVES, except now set on another planet and featuring blue creatures instead of the Red man. The film impresses with thoughtful and wondrous special effects, and excellent technical achievements. Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and 7 technical nominations. *See earlier AVATAR blog for more comments.*

14. BRONSON--Played at SIFF this year, but yet to open in Seattle, this is a stylish, actor driven, fascinating film based on a real life habitual criminal in Great Britain who has spent most of his adult life behind bars for various violent crimes including murder. Lead actor Tom Hardy is stunning. Watch for this film to play (probably briefly) this year.

15. UP IN THE AIR--Nominated for 6 Oscars included Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress X2 and Best Screenplay. *See previous UP IN THE AIR blog for more comments.*

16. EVERY LITTLE STEP--A suspenseful and entertaining documentary about the recent casting experience for a new Broadway version of A CHORUS LINE. It plays like an adult version of AMERICAN IDOL with drama, tears, twists, music and dancing.

17. DISTRICT 9--A sensational and lurid science-fiction film with many blood splattered moments, laughs, thrills and haunting themes including racism, prejudice, discrimination and political abuse. Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture(!?!), Adapted Screenplay and Best Visual Effects.

18. AN EDUCATION--Now nominated for 3 Oscars, including Best Picture, Screenplay and Actress (Carey Mullingan). *See previous AN EDUCATION blog for more comments.*

19. 500 DAYS OF SUMMER--A wacky, funny, quirky romantic comedy, it's a lot of fun to watch.

20. THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX--Now nominated for 2 Oscars--Best Animated Feature Film, and best Original Score. *See previous THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX blog for more comments.*

21. CORALINE--Based on a twisted Neil Gaimen "children's novel," this also makes for clever and witty adult entertainment. Nominated for 1 Oscar--Best Animated Feature Film.

22. MOON--A low budget wonder, this deceptively simple science-fiction film has one set (a moon digging operation) and one actor (a very good Sam Rockwell) but manages to cast a haunting and disturbing spell when a second character appears

23. HURT LOCKER--There's excruciating tension created by strong direction and acting, but where's the plot and the point? Nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture, Actor and Director.

24. --32.--ADVENTURELAND, AWAY WE GO, YOUNG VICTORIA, NICK AND NORA'S INFINITE PLAY LIST, I LOVE YOU MAN, TAKING WOODSTOCK, IN THE LOOP, STAR TREK, LITTLE ASHES.

Also loved Oscar nominated Jeff Bridges in CRAZY HEART, the Oscar Nominated set direction and costumes in SHERLOCK HOLMES and NINE, Oscar nominee for Animated Feature The PRINCESS and the FROG, the docu Oscar nominated FOOD INC and possibly more TBA.
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worst films.......Lovely Bones, Observe and Report, Bride Wars, Cold Souls and G-Force.

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Ironically titled PRECIOUS tops 3 best film contenders.

Over a year ago, I came home from an early screening of a new, little known (at the time) film, and announced to my wife Toni that I think I had just seen the movie to beat for Best Picture. I had some reservations about this new title, which was to open in several weeks. That film went on to open to good reviews and a growing audience. It was called SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, and it did indeed go on to win the best picture Oscar in February of this year. The plot seemed a little too coincidental, too precious and too fantastical for me. But as I thought about it, it grew on me--it's exotica, music, energy, and humanity. I began to think of it like a Charles Dicken's novel where the hero starts his life a poor unfortunate orphan, living with evil or indifferent adults, and who by luck or good fortune or skill dug their way into an adulthood that was happy, adjusted and well deserved. Think Oliver Twist, Great Expectations or David Cooperfield.
Well, several weeks ago I came home from an advance screening and told Toni that I had just seen the film to beat at next February's Oscars. That film is PRECIOUS and everything you're going to hear about this film from others will probably be true. It is a stunning film. The audience I saw it with was absolutely transfixed, and when it reaches its excruciating climax, you don't want to see or hear anymore, but you know you've got to see this to the end, because this character has no where to go but up in life, and your heart aches for her to succeed.
This young Harlem teen in the early 80's has nothing to live for. Her mother abuses and beats her, her mostly absent father rapes her, and she is now pregnant with his second child. She lives in poverty and filth and neglect. The story is how she amazingly manages to survive and tries to break out of this terrible cycle, and it's based on a true story. Another Charles Dickens-type story, but without the feelgood ending or the train station dancing. The actors are remarkable. I was shocked to realise after the screening that the cast includes a comedian (not funny here) and two pop-singers (no music here) and an unknown, first-time actress who plays PRECIOUS with such honesty and directness that it made me cringe. As much as I enjoyed A SERIOUS MAN's deadpan, intelligent humor, the film PRECIOUS stands out for the unique and uncharted world that it explores.

Saturday night I saw another fine new British film, written by Nick Hornsby (High Fidelity) and featuring an assured cast including Alfred Molina, Peter Sarsgaard and Emma Thompson. A young 17 year old girl receives AN EDUCATION at the hands of a man nearly 20 years her senior as he introduces her to art, music, film and love. Unusual for me, I failed to predict the obvious twist towards the end that really had me rethinking my feelings for these characters. Very, very well done and thought provoking.

Slipping briefly into town this last weekend is a minor but enjoyably quirky, edgy comedy called "UNTITLED." It skewers the art gallery world and finds some big laughs in dresses that make noises, bucket kicking and chain rattling music, and "elevator" art (think musack). It is a low budget wonder.

No Jews were harmed during the filming of A Serious Man

On a bike trip to Oregon last September I bought a copy of the Elizabeth Taylor bio by Kitty Kelly, and it happened that same day that in a thrift shop I bought a $2 dvd of The Taming of the Shrew (1967) which she made in her hey-day with then husband Richard Burton. I remember seeing TTOTS in '67 with a friend at the beautiful Chinese-styled downtown theatre the Fifth Ave before it became the spectacular live theatre house that it is today, and the film was fascinating, bawdy, colorful, funny, and the film broke four times during it's 2hour running time, with the lights coming on each time for several minutes. That was maddening, but I still forgave the technical gaffs because the film was so engaging. Franco Zeffirelli was the director, still best known for his version of Romeo and Juliet a year later. The film holds up extremely well (this is Shakespeare, after all) and the cast is superb. At first Taylor made me wince--she seemed rather obvious and over the top with her shouting and eye rolling, but when finally Burton is introduced, his blowzy drunkenness seemed more over the top than her, and the film really takes off. I've read all sorts of interesting political takes on the story (mostly about the sexism of the play) since then, but the way it is played out makes me wonder if anyone saw this version, which is a delight to watch.
Also this week watched Never So Few, a WWII film featuring Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen (in his first major role), Richard Johnson and Paul Henreid. It's a serious story about a few Kachin allies who along with a small troop of Americans hold off 40 thousand Japanese in Burma. Unfortunately there's a lot of talk and some rather simplistic action scenes that mute the film's effect.
On TMC last night watched Here Comes the Groom, a modest Frank Capra film with Jane Wyman and Bing Crosby, who sings three songs too many in that bland forgettable sort of manner that people like to call laid back. The corn is spread thickly and even though I liked the pace and some of the shtick, it was rather annoying at times, too. Not one of Capra's best, considering It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, Meet John Doe, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Arsenic and Old Lace, etc....

But fortunately, I've saved the best for last. Today I caught up with the Coen brothers newest film, A Serious Man, and it jumps to the top of my Top Films of the Year list. It is very dry, and very funny, and goes deep into the Jewish psyche of the 1960's. Some criticism has said that it is anti-Semitic, that it makes fun of Judaism, but I loved the characters so much that it's hard to make that stick. The leading man is having a very bad year--his wife is leaving him for one of his best friends, a student is trying to black mail him for a better grade, his son is ready for bar mitzvah but barely avoids getting beaten up by a classmate everyday, his brother is sleeping on the couch and hogging the bathroom to drain a neck abscess for hours every day, and he is lusting after a sexy neighbor. This is all handled with an eye for the absurd and humorous, and for once I wasn't the only one laughing at the screening--at least four or five other members of the audience (of 14) were guffawing loudly (this was an 1130am Thursday matinee, after all.) I suspect A Serious Man to be solidly in the top 5 of the year, since tomorrow Precious opens and will move Man to number 2.