The Year in Film 2009: Top 10 (5-1)

5. Up
Director: Pete Docter

A big part of Pixar’s success over the last decade has been their willingness to deliver something fresh and inventive every time out, from the mature explorations of middle-age in The Incredibles to Wall-E‘s near-silent first half-hour. With Up though, the studio gave us yet another entertaining slice of detailed eye-candy, but also perhaps their most emotionally resonant film. The first ten minutes, detailing protagonist Carl Fredricksen’s relationship with his wife sneak up and floor you. It’s quite a risk, placing the film’s biggest punch in the opening, but it works beautifully in the way it explains Carl’s actions afterwards as the film starts placing one ingenious set piece on top of another for the remainder of its running time. Even after 10 films, it’s great to see that Pixar still refuses to rest on their laurels and continues to turn out original and daring work.

 

 

 

 

4. Drag Me To Hell
Director: Sam Raimi

I don’t need to tell you that the 2000s were a terrible decade for horror films. With the Saw and it’s torture-porn brethren running amok for most of the decade, horror films became more like endurance contests, constantly defying your resolve to watch the next gruesome shot. Thank God, then, for Sam Raimi, who with Drag Me To Hell brought us back to that old notion that some of us watch horror movies because we want to have some fucking fun. And Drag Me is fun. After the exhaustion that seeped from Spider-Man 3, Raimi here feels delighted to be back to his old tricks as a hyper-kinetic silly/scary madness. As I keep saying, this summer sucked, but I walked out of Drag Me with a healthy grin on my face. It isn’t just the best horror movie of the year (take that Stepfather!), it’s the best of the decade.

 

 

 

 

3. Up In The Air
Director: Jason Reitman

With Thank You For Smoking and Juno, Jason Reitman established himself as an able hand with clever, quick-witted romps. In Up In The Air though, he expands his template, and in so doing gives us his best film yet. He still easily directs his characters through fast and effortless dialogue, but now takes more time to savor both his cast’s tiny, intimate moments, as well as the hurt lurking in their psyches. It helps having George Clooney though, who is perfectly cast as Ryan Bingham, a corporate-hatchet man who jet-sets around the country firing employees so their boss doesn’t have to. Clooney is as self-assured and magnetic as usual, but, like his director, also more naked and vulnerable than he’s ever been. Up In The Air is both timely (in its sympathies for the thousands of laid-off workers of the last year) and timeless as an analysis of how we relate to and depend on one another.

 

 

 

 

2. The Hurt Locker
Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Just as the war in Iraq has highlighted how conventional warfare, no matter how hi-tech and organized, can still falter under unconventional conditions, the film industry has similarly failed to find a way to make conventional narratives work at portraying said war. Enter The Hurt Locker, the first film to do justice to the paranoia, senselessness and lethal monotony facing soldiers in Baghdad. It’s also a masterfully directed and acted piece of work, drawing enormous tension out of its bomb-defusing sequences, while also subtly suggesting the tiny and not-so-tiny ways that such work wreaks havoc on the minds of those involved. It’s also a stunning achievement for Kathryn Bigelow, considering her previous work is largely so-so action flicks like Point Break and K-19: The Widowmaker. With The Hurt Locker she pushes herself and her cast to the limit, and their reward is the first great film about the Iraq War.

 

 

 

 

And my number one film for 2009 is….

 

 

is…..

 

issssssss:

 

 

 

 

 

1. Where The Wild Things Are
Director: Spike Jonze

The first minute of Where The Wild Things Are serve, rather slyly, as an effective overture for the film itsel

f. Starting with production company logos drawn over and signed by the film’s main character, Max that are set to dreamy music that quickly shifts to Max chasing his dog around the house in an unexpected outburst of manic energy/joy and even a touch of sadness before freeze-framing with the title. What follows is one of the most unique, visionary and sensitive portrayals of childhood ever committed to celluloid. Quite a feat, when considering the subject material that contains a mere ten sentences. However, Director Spike Jonze gamely accepts the challenge, taking license to create a thrilling, inventive universe drawn thoughtfully around his young protagonist. As in Maurice Sendak’s kid-lit classic, we follow young Max as he leaves his scary and confusing home life to walk amongst the Wild Things that symbolize all of his childhood insecurities that he can either lead or be consumed by if he isn’t careful. It’s a startling recreation of young angst, but also young joy and young thoughtfulness with a keen eye for the details. There are those that have suggested that it’s not an appropriate film for kids, and sure, they may not be able to appreciate its clever, layered approach. It doesn’t grasp at easy resolutions or answers to the doubts and uncertainty that lurk in its shadows, but its humanity and its quiet strength comes through loud and clear, and any kid (and any adult) who sees a little (or a lot) of themselves in Max will appreciate Jonze’s understanding all the same.

 

 

And that’s it for my Top 10! Coming up, all the other movies I saw. Stay tuned.

 

 

Also, I’m sorry about Drag Me‘s inferior trailer. It was the only one I could embed. Here‘s a better one.