The Usual Choices
Avatar (James Cameron)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Precious (Lee Daniels)
Up in the Air (Ivan Reitman)
But how about...
Watchmen (Zack Snyder)
Disowned by its grumblebum originator Alan Moore and given a meh reception by a few sniffy critics, this film adaptation (as opposed to a faithful filming of the entire book) grows in stature with every viewing. Impressively staged, with terrific fight choreography and use of slow-mo, sharp choice of foreground songs and noirish elements, this is more than just another men-in-masks movie...it's a kiss-goodbye to the naive-but-beautiful hope of the Sixties mixed with temper-of-the-times Cold War terror. Yes, the graphic novel from whence it came is denser and more profound (and a classic of its type), and yes, the film sags in the middle, and yes, the violence is borderline revolting, but it's a superhero movie that says much more than POW! And it's got Jackie Earle Haley giving the second-greatest performance in a superhero movie.
...and what about...
Van Diemen's Land (Jonathan Auf Der Heide)
This is an Australian History story which is not suitable for those of us with gentle stomachs. It is 1822 and a workgang of 8 convicts escape their guards and flee into the South West wilderness of Tasmania...hunger soon looms large and the men resort to cannibalism, slaughtering their own until only one is left...yeah, there are no laughs here. I bushwalked this region in my 20's and the forest is prehistoric and overwhelming, and it is rightly depicted as this story's monster...even as I admired its grandeur, I knew that this brutal landscape did not want me there. The killings in the film are appropriately horrific, but the horror that haunts comes from just how quickly these men change into repugnant beasts. As you'd expect, the cinematography is gorgeous, but it's all greys and gloom (I felt cold watching it), which suits a film that is beautiful and hideous at the same time.
...not to mention...
Moon (Duncan Jones)
This was an exceptional debut film for director Duncan, and it's a shame that his subsequent career wasn't able to take full advantage of it. Such a clever premise: sometime in the near future, The Moon is being used to create and supply the Earth's energy needs...the whole lunar enterprise is manned by a single engineer and a HAL-like computer (uh oh). It doesn't take long for the set-up to turn strange then sinister - even way up there, multi-corporations are vile bastards. The film's limited budget is nowhere in sight: the sets look impressive and put some modern CGI-background films to shame. There's a pristine, metallic 2001: a Space Odyssey sheen throughout that makes you reach for a blanket. Sam Rockwell is pretty much the entire show and he is terrific as an ordinary guy in a very extraordinary situation. This makes you realise that The Moon is un-mined real estate, just waiting to be exploited and ruined.
...and one personal unmentionable...
The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson)
This is a film I really wanted to like more than I actually did, but the problem is...it's bloody awful. The main issue I have is with the collection of clashes: Fantasia-style visual splendors which apparently represent the afterlife (has there ever been an acceptable version of Heaven on film?) jar with the brutal story of a young girl who is sexually assaulted then murdered; the grieving parents and their primal agony butt up against sweet teenage love stories straight from a Disney TV kids show; a disgusting psycho-pervert-serial killer and a funky-fun granny inhabit the same story-space. Now add groovy psychedelic trappings, catchy rockin' songs ("Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress"!?!; "I Hear You Knockin'"!?!), the paranormal and a touch of slapstick, and you've got severe cinematic indigestion. Remember folks: this is supposedly the story of a child who is abducted and held captive, terrified, raped, killed, dismembered and thrown away. I just can't feel right tapping my toes to The Hollies when all that is going on...can you?
My Top 10 Films of 2009
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| Another amusing anecdote from Hairdressers College |
#02 A Moon (Jones)
#03 A- Watchmen (Snyder)
#04 A- Bright Star (Campion)
#05 A- In the Loop (Iannucci)
#06 A- Van Diemen's Land (Auf Der Heide)
#07 A- District 9 (Blomkamp)
#08 B+ Duplicity (Gilroy)
#09 B+ An Education (Scherfig)
#10 B+ Whip It (Barrymore)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ A Single Man (Ford)
#12 B+ Beautiful Kate (Ward)
#13 B+ Star Trek (Abrams)
#14 B+ Crazy Heart (Cooper)
#15 B+ Up in the Air (Reitman)
#16 B+ 500 Days of Summer (Webb)
#17 B+ The Messenger (Moverman)
#18 B+ The Boys are Back (Hicks)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B The Road [poignantly acted, but I'm just not a cannibal apocalypse kinda guy]
> B Cold Souls [a clever film that isn't quite sure what The Human Soul is, but fiddles with it anyway]
> B Brothers [a consequences-of-war drama that somehow doesn't hit as hard as it should]
> B A Serious Man [I wonder if this would've been funnier if it had been made by Woody Allen]
> B Precious [why do I feel guilty for saying that I think it's histrionic and soapy?]
> B The Last Station [a Last-Days-of-Tolstoy biopic which is affecting...but only at times]
> B Get Low [well-acted & entertainingly-told, but the story is a contrivance that seems to lose interest in itself]
> B The Boat That Rocked / Pirate Radio [this year's typical feelgood British comedy]
> B Where the Wild Things Are [read the book...better yet, have it read to you in bed when you were 5]
> B Julie & Julia [determined to get its souffle to rise by not making any unexpected movements]
> B The Young Victoria [well-acted and beautifully produced but a little too buttoned-up and proper]
> B- The Hangover [likely the best of the American OTT sure-ain't-subtle gross-out comedies...but I still prefer wit]
> B- Orphan [another "evil kid" movie that starts out as promising, gets uncomfortable and ends hysterically]
> B- The Blind Side [nice & warmhearted & sweet...very very sweet]
> B- Amelia [a story about Amelia Earhart which is confoundingly boring]
> B- Daybreakers [a vampire movie that's got zombie in its heart and more sheen than substance]
> B- Creation [Charles Darwin as grieving father rather than world-changing genius is sad but not interesting]
> B- Invictus [skip this; play The Specials' "Free Nelson Mandela" instead]
> B- Bran Nue Dae [turns out Aussie musicals put me off as much as American ones do]
> C Sherlock Holmes [this is not Holmes & Watson...more like the Men in Black]
> C Life During Wartime [some call it courageous & uncompromising; I call it dreary & unpleasant]
> C The Lovely Bones [A Personal Unmentionable]
> C Avatar [I have never been able to stay awake all the way through...I'm told it's good if you like blue]
> D Nine [uh-uh...One]
> D The Men Who Stare at Goats [yet another awesomely-unfunny American military comedy]
> D X-Men Origins: Wolverine [the stitching up of Deadpool's mouth symbolizes how wrong this movie is]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 2009 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Adventureland (Mottola); After Life (Wojtowicz-Vosloo); Agora (Amenabar); Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans (Herzog); Big Fan (Siegel); Black Dynamite (Sanders); Blessed (Kokkinos); Chloe (Egoyan); Down Terrace (Wheatley); Drag Me to Hell (Raimi); The Exploding Girl (Gray); Five Minutes of Heaven (Hirschbiegel); The Girlfriend Experience (Soderbergh); The House of the Devil (West); Humpday (Shelton); In the Electric Mist (Tavernier); The Informant! (Soderbergh); Jennifer’s Body (Kusama); Knowing (Proyas); Public Enemies (Mann); Solitary Man (Koppelman, Levien); The Soloist (Wright); Splice (Natali); State of Play (Macdonald); Taken (Morel); Tetro (Coppola); The Uninvited (Guard); [Untitled] (Parker); Within the Whirlwind (Gorris); World’s Greatest Dad (Goldthwait); Youth in Revolt (Arteta); Zombieland (Fleischer)
Best Performances of 2009
Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
George Clooney in Up in the Air
Mo'Nique in Precious
Helen Mirren in The Last Station
Carey Mulligan in An Education
Christopher Plummer in The Last Station
Gabourey Sidibe in Precious
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
But how about...
The ensemble cast of In the Loop
This group performance is for people who are cynical of politicians (and isn't that everybody) and are fans of insult, attack, vulgar humour (which I'm normally not, but in this movie, it's as funny as a fit...if the poor inflicted soul is having a fit in a crowded shopping centre with eyes rolled back and have wet themselves). Peter Capaldi as the Director of Communications (HA!) uses verbal filth as the language of battle (example [and I warn you]: "Within your 'purview'? Where do you think you are, some fucking regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some Jane fucking Austen fucking novel. Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock.") All players have to deliver similar assaults or react to them...and, in the dreadfully two-faced / faked-up world of politics, its gross blunt wit is hilarious. Serious expressions all round, the cast convinces us that this barroom brawl behaviour is, perhaps, not an exaggeration of what goes on behind those closed hallowed doors.
...and what about...
Abbie Cornish in Bright Star
A richly textured film, and so expertly shot, this is a story of passion: passion for poetry, passion for another person, a passion to make life have meaning. This is about the last three of John Keats' twenty-five years of life, focusing on his love for 18YO Fanny Brawne, so beautifully played by Abbie. The man adores her and she responds by adoring him back, wanting to understand what he feels and how he sees the world...so she reads the man's poems, and her emotions unfold. The actress moves her character from naive curiosity & flirtation, to acceptance that this man's creative, sensitive soul is meant to attach to hers. Abbie makes the young woman more than a costumed-drama Jane Austen replica; though weighted with the flowery, formal language of the time, each line is spoken as natural dialogue (even the romantic verse), so the character becomes familiar...we get to know her. As she is moved, so are we. When's the last time you saw an 18th Century person on the screen who you believed really was like that?
...not to mention...
Robert Duvall in Get Low
I've always preferred Robert Duvall in subtle, underplaying mode (Tomorrow; The Godfather) rather than larger-than-life, overblown mode (The Apostle; The Great Santini). Best of all though, is when he is able / called-upon to combine the two...like in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and this role. Playing an embittered old hermit who has lived with a guilty secret for 40 years, Robert doesn't need to yell & thrash about to show us that he's eccentric; long-held gazes, short sharp talking and an incredulity of how others behave all does that for him. While the story isn't believable for a minute, and heads down the well-worn track of sentimentality, Robert's portrayal of a man who has ruined his life is both large (he's easily the most interesting man in the hicksy town) and very commonly human (I just need to be forgiven for what I have done).
...and one personal unmentionable...
Morgan Freeman in Invictus
Some actors can do accents (Meryl Streep doing Polish in Sophie's Choice; Renee Zellweger doing British in Bridget Jones's Diary; Peter Sellers doing Indian in The Party...hee hee) and some actors can't (Dick Van Dyke doing Cockney in Mary Poppins; Humphrey Bogart doing Irish in Dark Victory; Michael Caine doing American in The Cider House Rules).
Morgan Freeman doing South African is a can't.
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| Immigration Minister Peter Dutton explains his refugee policy. |
My 10 Favourite Performances of 2009
#01 Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
#02 Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen
#03 Sam Rockwell in Moon
#04 The ensemble cast of In the Loop
#05 Abbie Cornish in Bright Star
#06 Viggo Mortensen & Kodi Smith-McPhee in The Road
#07 Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
#08 Carey Mulligan in An Education
#09 James McAvoy & Helen Mirren & Christopher Plummer in The Last Station
#10 Rachel Griffiths in Beautiful Kate
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Robert Duvall in Get Low
#12 Ellen Page in Whip It
#13 Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air
#14 Melanie Laurent in Inglourious Basterds
#15 Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria
#16 Tobey Maguire in Brothers
#17 Colin Firth in A Single Man
#18 Woody Harrelson in The Messenger
#19 Isabelle Fuhrmann in Orphan
#20 Julia Roberts & Clive Owen in Duplicity
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side [a talented actress who is still looking for the right movie to star in]
> Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia [is it just me, or does she overdo it?...and isn't Amy better?]
> George Clooney in Up in the Air [he's such a nice guy...and so handsome...bastard]
> Mo'Nique in Precious [what a huffing 'n' puffing ball of anger...and not much more]
> Gabourey Sidibe in Precious [what an introverted sadsack...and not much more]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 2009 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
SILVER: Moon (Duncan Jones)
BRONZE: Watchmen (Zack Snyder)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Sam Rockwell (Moon)
SILVER: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
BRONZE: Robert Duvall (Get Low)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Abbie Cornish (Bright Star)
SILVER: Carey Mulligan (An Education)
BRONZE: Ellen Page (Whip It)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
SILVER: Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen)
BRONZE: Bill Murray (Get Low)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Rachel Griffiths (Beautiful Kate)
SILVER: Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)
BRONZE: Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Peter Capaldi & Tom Hollander & Chris Addison & Gina McKee & Mimi Kennedy & Anna Chlumsky & James Gandolfini & David Rasche & Enzo Cilenti & Zach Woods & Paul Higgins & James Smith & Olivia Poulet & Steve Coogan & Alex Macqueen (In the Loop)
SILVER: Viggo Mortensen & Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road)
BRONZE: James McAvoy & Helen Mirren & Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Isabelle Fuhrmann (Orphan)
SILVER: George MacKay (The Boys are Back)
BRONZE: Max Records (Where the Wild Things Are)
The Alternate Razzies for 2009 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
The Men Who Stare at Goats (Grant Heslov)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Juliette Lewis (Whip It)
