Top Five Favorite Films of 2009

If you were to gauge the quality of a year's movies by their financial success, I would say that 2009 did pretty good. During the summer there were blockbusters like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "The Hangover" (those two movies together grossed nearly $1.3 billion). And the winter yielded "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" which has earned well over half of a billion dollars since its release less than a month ago. However, I'm not the type of guy to judge the year's movies that way. I take overall quality as the most important factor. I'm kind of weird that way.


Like most years, I did not get to see every movie I wanted to. I missed Sam Rockwell's "Moon" as well as "The Men Who Stare at Goats" to name a couple. And, of course, there are still movies coming out later this year such as "Sherlock Holmes" that I am eagerly awaiting. But one movie isn't worth postponing my list. So, here is the list of my top five favorite movies of 2009 (of the ones I got to see, anyway):

5. "The Hurt Locker" I typically don't like war movies. The genre seems stale to me, and most of the time it's just a way for Americans to relieve their glory days from WWII. However, "Hurt Locker" is not an ordinary war movie. This film follows the deployment of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq with the focus being on Jeremy Renner's character, William James. Not only does the movie concentrate on a team that is often overlooked in times of war, but James is a different type of war hero. He doesn't rush into danger to save the day, and he doesn't give eloquent speeches. What he does is disarm bombs, and he does it because it's the only thing he knows he loves (or is it the adrenaline fix that he loves?). Now, I don't agree with all of the ideologies present in the film, but I can't deny good acting when I see it, and Renner's performance was better than most actors' who take home Oscars.


4. "Coraline" I'm tired of children's movies handling their audience with kid gloves. Kids can take a lot more than we usually give them credit for, and filling their brains with nauseating princess stories just works to dumb them down. With that said, "Coraline" is the type of children's movie that children actually deserve. It deals with dark subject matter (I'll remain vague to not spoil anything) but manages to keep a child-like feeling over the entire film. It's like a true, present-day Grimm's Fairy Tale. So, match the emotional maturity with the unique stop-motion and 3D design, and you have what I would consider a fantastic film for both kids and adults alike. 


3. "Inglourious Basterds" Tarantino, the sponge that he is, has the ability to absorb film techniques and style throughout film history and squeeze them out into a style his own. I fell in love with "Reservoir Dogs" for that reason, and he hasn't given me any great disappointments yet. "Inglourious Basterds," though, may just be his best film to date. Aside from New Wave elements throughout the movie and the great performances from Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz, what's most important about "Inglourious Basterds" is that it gave us the ending to WWII that we all wanted (or perhaps it's the ending we all imagine considering how much we celebrate the damned war).


2. "Funny People" I can't put anything about this movie better than Roger Ebert did, so I'll use his words. "The thing about 'Funny People' is that it's a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances -- and it's about something. It could have easily been a formula film, and the trailer shamelessly tries to misrepresent it as one, but George Simmons learns and changes during his ordeal, and we empathize." Oh wait, one more thing, this movie has one of the best cameos I have ever seen in a film. Perhaps even better than "Zombieland's."
 

1. "Crank: High Voltage" This was the most fun I've had in a theatre ever. "Iron Man" was full of nostalgic joy that made me feel like a kid on Christmas morning, but "Crank: High Voltage" was something else. It was visual speed. It was like a video game, a movie, a music video and a junkie all rolled up into one. And, honestly, I don't think I understand it yet. The cinematic style is too out of the norm for me to figure out. The only other movies to give me this kind of puzzle is Godard's work. And, frankly, I like the brain food.