Public Enemies

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Billy Crudup,  Marion Cotillard,  Jason Clarke, Stephen Dorff, Stephen Graham

Review [4.Feb.2010]

Review [1.Jul.2009]

30

One could make a case for Michael Mann as the most consistent American film director of the past 15 years. Heat(1995) and Collateral(2004) enlivened the visual and narrative possibilities of cat-and-mouse plotting, and 1999’s The Insider set a ridiculously high bar for future corporate intrigue thrillers and biographical pictures. But Mann solidified his ability to revise well worn genres into high art with Miami Vice, the noirish 2006 adaptation of his own television series. In many ways, Public Enemies continues the chief concerns of the Miami Vice feature film. John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), like Colin Farrell’s Sonny Crockett, is a man increasingly boxed-in by the criminal life. Yet in both films are women who motivate the men towards redemption, even if their love is certainly doomed. This romantic take on a historical gangster is somewhat controversial, but Mann executes his vision with uncompromising verve and balances the romance with bursts of action and violence (such as a completely arresting night exterior shootout) that foreground the real stakes of the revisionist treatment. Thomas Britt

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Director: David Yates

Cast: Danielle Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Rupert Grint, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent

Review [14.Jul.2009]

29

It turns out the resident director for the final acts of the Harry Potter film saga just needed one movie to get his feet under him. After his clumsy-but-occasionally-inspired Order of the Phoenix, David Yates goes full-on inspired with Half-Blood Prince, crafting Steve Kloves’ spare but potent script into a moody, murky stunner. Like the best films in the series, the sixth instalment shaves off all the knobby bits of J.K. Rowling’s overstuffed novel. It leaves us instead with astounding art production (witness the sinuous lines of Slughorn’s hourglass or the wrought-iron intricacy of Malfoy’s Vanishing Cabinet), crisp cinematography from Bruno Delbonnel, performances of broad commitment (especially from Michael Gambon and Jim Broadbent), and delicate visual metaphors. The Half-Blood Prince is sly and charming, replete with mythic scope, human dimension, and aesthetic resonance. It is, in a word, magical. Ross Langager

Paranormal Activity

Director: Oren Peli

Cast: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Michael Bayouth

Review [1.Feb.2010]

Review [9.Oct.2009]

28

It seems such a rare thing these days to find a horror movie that actually works and Paranormal Activity is probably worth being talked about solely because of that. Yet, it is also a resounding success on its own merits, with some genuinely scary moments. This lo-fi production –- made for just $15,000 -– knew better how to frighten audiences than all the big-budget horror this year, making the most out of the unblinking eye of an amateur camera, and the constant, unsettling hiss it emits when recording. It’s an astounding concept, forcing its audience to look on as terrifying things happen to a couple who move into a new house. First-time director Oren Peli is expert at maintaining an eerie disquiet, building a sense of tension and inexorable dread as each day elapses into night, and things go from bad to worse. Andrew Blackie

Zombieland

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Amber Heard, Bill Murray

Review [18.Feb.2010]

Review [2.Oct.2009]

27

I’ll be honest, Zombieland is on my list of favorite films of the year for two very obvious, very simple reasons: I love zombies and I love Woody Harrelson. That Zombieland is a road-trip comedy and a coming of age tale is just gravy. Although, I don’t think I’d like it half as much if it were a standard fright-fest-style zombie flick and I can’t imagine Tallahassee as a serious sort of slayer. I like my Woody Harrelson characters cracking wise and coming unhinged, thank you very much. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) as the center of the story is brilliant. He gives the others license to go all out, whether that’s with well-timed one-liners or well-aimed shotgun blasts. Some people might say Zombieland belongs on a year-end list of Guilty Pleasures, but I disagree. I don’t feel guilty at all. Zombieland is pure pleasure, pure, giggly, glorious, gory pleasure. Christel Loar

The Informant!

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Rusty Schwimmer, Melanie Lynskey

Review [4.Mar.2010]

Review [18.Sep.2009]

26

Unfairly overlooked as too many of his non-Oceans projects tend to be, Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! is a cleverly pitched satire on corporate greed and individual hubris that runs circles around most other films of its kind. Matt Damon puts on a brushy mustache and a gee-whiz demeanor to play a clueless executive whistle-blower who turns out to have a few skeletons of his own to hide. Soderbergh plays this stranger-than-fiction true story swiftly, with a cock-eyed grin -– an intertitle at the start notes that some incidents in the story have been changed for dramatic purposes, “So there.” He wryly undercuts this seemingly mundane drama about corn price-fixing with a jazzy Marvin Hamlisch score, a corps of comedic vets in supporting roles, and Damon’s hilariously meandering, beside-the-point narration. This is a cutting comedy, with some teeth behind the smile. Chris Barsanti

25 - 21

The White Ribbon

Director: Michael Haneke

Cast: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur, Ursina Lardi, Fion Mutert, Michael Kranz

25

Michael Haneke’s marvellously measured thriller was the deserved recipient of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Set in a German village just before the outbreak of World War I, it centres on a series of malicious, unattributed crimes which eerily anticipate the wider horrors to come. It is as taut and sinister as its opening mystery: a length of trip-wire malevolently positioned to take down the village doctor’s horse. With The White Ribbon Haneke once again demonstrates his mastery of the medium as the narrative is fastidiously, methodically unfurled before us. The picture is bolstered by nuanced performances from an often startlingly young cast, who give us everything from heart-wrenchingly curious and sensitive to remote and unreadable. This is both the most thrilling of mysteries and the most strange and beautiful of dramas. It is an absolutely remarkable achievement and this reviewer’s undoubted film of the year. Emma Simmonds

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Director: Werner Herzog

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Vondie Curtis Hall, Shawn Hatosy, Xzibit, Brad Dourif

24

Werner Herzog’s acuity for the exotic could probably unearth some sort of revelation in any environment. After all, his La Soufrière succeeded despite its “inevitable catastrophe” failing to materialize. Yet the mere suggestion of Herzog cutting loose in a Ferrara title-aping police procedural starring Nicholas Cage in post-Katrina New Orleans already maximizes the unhinged possibilities. Could the sum of those parts live up to the imagined potential? Yes, and exceedingly so. Cage plays junkie lieutenant Terence McDonaugh with an energy and bravado that probably no other contemporary American actor would dare to invest. The plot is ostensibly about McDonaugh’s search for the killer of a Senegalese family, but Herzog uses Cage, a dynamite supporting cast, and various reptiles to send the story in rousing directions that might be totally dissonant in another director’s hands. Herzog’s sensibility is well suited for the madness of the environment, and with thumbs firmly thrust in the eyes of genre, he takes us on a trip of desperation, addiction, and exhilaration that radically redefines the cop drama. Thomas Britt

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Director: Lee Daniels

Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz

23

In Precious, director Lee Daniels chose to go for power rather than perfection and ends up achieving greatness with a film which leaps across the gulf normally separating audiences from the events they view on the screen. There’s nothing ennobling about poverty in the life of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe): the pain is raw, the violence shocking and hell is not just other people, it’s your own family. Mo’Nique delivers a truly horrifying performance as a woman determined to make her daughter’s life more miserable than her own while Daniels allows us glimpses of hope as Precious awakes to her own personhood with the assistance of several members of New York City’s much-maligned bureaucracy including an unconventional schoolteacher (Paula Patton) and social worker (Mariah Carey). Sarah Boslaugh

A Single Man

Director: Tom Ford

Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Ginnifer Goodwin, Nicholas Hoult

22

There are far worse sins than being gay at the start of the 1960s, but for depressed, grieving college professor George (Colin Firth), his hidden homosexuality is becoming almost too much to bear. Having recently lost his lover, and lost in a world that relegates his lifestyle to the most scandalous of social evils, he’s at his wits—and decidedly, his own life’s—end. What designer turned director Tom Ford finds in this highly stylized and yet completely straightforward illustration of one man’s path to personal self-destruction is a kind of beautiful grotesquerie. Every time we think George will find a means of solace—in the arms of a drunken gal pal (a juiced Julianne Moore) or those of an obviously interested young student, we pray for some peace. And then the strident prejudice of the era reemerges, and we sense how hopeless such a plea really is. Bill Gibron

Bright Star

Director: Jane Campion

Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox

21

If any movie from 2009 is guaranteed to make you “swoon to death”, to borrow a phrase from the poet John Keats, it’s Jane Campion’s Bright Star, the tender and ravishing telling of Keats’s love affair with fashion plate Fanny Brawne. Campion delivers on the artistic promise she demonstrated so memorably in The Piano conveying the rapturous highs and agonizing lows of romantic love. Though Keats and Brawne’s relationship remained chaste, Campion creates moments between the two characters that are so heart-stoppingly intimate, you may feel compelled to turn away to let these wonderful creatures breathe each other in, in the privacy they so deserve. And then there is the exquisite interplay between Keats’s lyrical poetry and Campion’s gorgeous compositions of the English countryside, with its shimmering lakes, vividly colored blossoms, and snow-dappled trees. Though the romance takes center stage, Campion also illustrates the pleasure that comes from solitary contemplation of nature in all its glory. And upon multiple viewings, Bright Star‘s loveliness only increases. Marisa Carroll

20 - 16

The Lovely Bones

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Saoirse Ronan, Michael Imperioli

20

Peter Jackson should be prepared for some major frustration. Less than six years after he took the industry by storm with his amazing Lord of the Rings films, he’s set to deliver this “disappointing” adaption of Alice Sebold’s unusual novel. So far, the critics have not been kind. Unfortunately, they’ve forgotten how to “see” what a visionary like Jackson is striving for. Instead of going for something literal, or a realistic look at ‘70s American, the Oscar winner has tried to build his own Brothers Grimm fairytale out of crime and supernatural punishment. From the breathtaking look at the space between Heaven and Earth to the amazing performances from his cast, this is one title destined to be ridiculed today, and revered sometime in the near future. Bill Gibron

Antichrist

Director: Lars von Trier

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe

19

Absolutely stunning in its visual flourishes, horrifying in its aggressive violence, and knowing in its psycho-sexual philosophical bent, Von Trier’s Antichrist is simply astonishing. It’s a structured walk through one woman’s terrifying mental breakdown, a deconstructed cry for relief and understanding. So obsessed with birth and biology that the symbols practically stand up and shout their intent, this is New Age therapeutics as Grand Guignol geek show. Like Dante’s Inferno, what we wind up with is a literal trip through Hell, a beautiful, beguiling place that holds many horrific truths barely simmering under its lush surface. Sure, limbs are hacked and body parts are beaten. But the most painful elements play out in that most private of places—the human mind. Bill Gibron

(500) Days of Summer

Director: Marc Webb

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Matthew Gray Gubler, Chloe Moretz

18

Several friends had an aversion to this film based purely on its presumed hipster credo. Pity that they chose to rob themselves of one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences of the summer, much less the whole year. With an acid-tongued screenplay that had me in hysterics more often than expected and numerous memorable scenes, to an exceptional performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt (further proving why he’s among the best young actors of this era), this “Annie-Hall of the Twittering generation” has yet to be flounced from my top five—and with good reason. Perhaps we’ll even see it among the Academy’s Top 10 as well. James De Roxtra

Up in the Air

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman

17

Jason Reitman’s third film is a critical darling and with good reason—the theme of lay-offs is unfortunately a universal experience, now more than any other time in recent memory. Themes only get you so far though, so it’s George Clooney who brings the story to life. He’s back in his cocky mode, originally perfected in his late ‘90s break-through films (Out of Sight, Three Kings), but he also shows an all-too-human side to his character. It also helps that Reitman wrote the part with Clooney in mind and cast people who’d been recently fired from jobs, recreating their experiences. Even with the avalanche of pink slips, Clooney/Reitman provide solace to the unfortunates in the film and maybe even some hope for the audience. Not quite as iconic as Juno or smart and subversive as Thank You For Not Smoking, it might be Reitman’s finest work to date nevertheless. Jason Gross

The Hangover

Director: Todd Phillips

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Heather Graham, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Jeffrey Tambor, Mike Tyson

16

The Hangover‘s success (scoff if you must, but upping Harry Potter in DVD sales is no small feat) was no fluke. Simply, Todd Phillips (Road Trip, Old School) aimed for the Perfect Hollywood Movie, and he scored. Think about it: there’s a screenplay as deeply and sincerely funny as Judd Apatow at his finest, but there’s also all the momentum of a fast-moving mystery (What really happened last night? And where’d the baby come from?). There are the “Did-they-really-just-show-that?” sight-gags, and then there’s Vegas in all its perpetual, towering glory. And finally, there’s Zach Galifianakis himself in one of the year’s most memorable breakout performances as the screw-loose would-be brother-in-law. It’s no surprise that people were quoting the “wolf pack” monologue all summer long. What’s remarkable is that it never really got old. Zach Schonfeld

15 - 11

Watchmen

Director: Zack Snyder

Cast: Cast: Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Stephen McHattie, Matt Frewer, Carla Gugino

15

The story that was once considered “unfilmable” finally made its way to theaters in 2009, meeting expectations that few believed it could. Directed by the always fervent Zack Snyder, Alan Moore’s landmark apocalyptic superhero tale Watchmen made a successful jump to film in this 162-minute stylized adaptation. It turns out the best way to adapt Watchmen is faithfully, and the combined writing efforts of David Hayter and Alex Tse composite all the crucial moments of the layered text. The result is a film that captures the distinct Cold War paranoia of the graphic novel, while updating the action and imagery for contemporary eyes. And although Watchmen‘s spirited darkness might not be for everyone’s taste, its massive scope and sublime casting make it one of 2009’s most exciting and impassioned blockbusters. Cyrus Fard

Coraline

Director: Henry Selick

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Ian McShane, Keith David, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French

14

If there’s one thing that 2009’s films have taught us, it’s that childhood is not always the romantic stretch of serenity that some kids’ fare will have you believe. While childhood does have its moments of magic, for the most part it’s a messy, frustrating, angular affair. In Coraline, Henry Selick’s stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novella, there is no sentimentalizing. Childhood is full of disappointment, danger, and boredom. That’s not to say that Selick’s universe is also underwhelming and flat—quite the opposite, he performs stop-motion miracles full of bioluminescent gardens, angelic Scotties, and awe-inducing jumping-mouse circuses. But, like Coraline herself, we can’t be wooed entirely by these images, so Selick always makes sure there’s something uncomfortable lurking underneath—a spidery arm, a rat dissolving into sand, or a person with black button eyes—to keep us from thinking that the world of our dreams is the place where we want to live forever. Marisa LaScala

In the Loop

Director: Armando Iannucci

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky, Gina McKee

13

In the Loop is Armando Iannucci’s much-admired satirical sitcom The Thick of It writ large, with Anglo-American relations and the Iraq war its colossal targets. It finds Tom Hollander’s gaff-prone MP Simon Foster adrift in Washington DC with the American political elite intent on manipulating him like “a little meat puppet”. The film follows the floundering efforts of Foster‘s team as they find themselves across the pond and way out of their depth, as well as those who are struggling to stay ‘in the loop’ back home. In the Loop gives us the most hilarious and spectacularly profane dialogue of the year, culminating in a delicious face-off between James Gandolfini’s General Miller and Peter Capaldi’s almighty scumbag Malcolm Tucker. The film is both recognizably a close companion to the excellent series and filmic enough in scope and staging to justify the elevation to the big screen. Emma Simmonds

An Education

Director: Lone Scherfig

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Emma Thompson

12

We’ve seen about a million “my first time” movies about boys but hardly any which take the girl’s point of view. Credit Lone Scherfig’s An Education, based on British journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir, for getting it right. The film’s 16-year-old heroine Jenny (Carey Mulligan) isn’t all that interested in sex, but yearns for access to the adult world of sophistication and glamour offered by an affair with the charming David (Peter Sarsgaard). Flattered to be accepted by his smart friends (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike) and dazzled by art auctions and trips to Paris, Jenny overlooks the obvious and receives an education her stuffy private school could never have provided, including some hard lessons about the limitations of her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) and the school’s headmistress (Emma Thompson) in the process. Sarah Boslaugh

Moon

Director: Duncan Jones

Cast: Sam Rockwell, Kaya Scodelario, Dominique McElligott, Kevin Spacey

11

Moon is an absolute gem of a film, a stunning first work from Duncan Jones, the son of David Bowie. On a shoestring budget, Jones brilliantly creates the atmosphere of the moon –- its sheer isolation, its eternal night, its ambiance -– pairing it with a striking portrait of a man slowly going insane. Its themes are lifted from the classic strain of the science-fiction genre, yet it raises complex ideas that feel fresh and involving. There is something very post-millennium, for example, about a man struggling to survive, all on his own, in a distant environment, cut off from all outside contact. A chilly work, but also quite beautiful and intense, and strengthened by a superb performance from Sam Rockwell and a lovely, contemplative score by Clint Mansell. It’s an aching character study of a man pushed beyond the brink of loneliness in a place he doesn’t belong; one of the best ‘indie films’ of the year. Andrew Blackie

10 - 6

Adventureland

Director: Greg Mottola

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Martin Starr

10

One could use Adventureland, Greg Mottola’s brilliant comedy about an overeducated college grad killing time working at a summer amusement park in 1980s’ Pittsburgh, as an illustration for what happens when a nostalgic reverie hits a note so acutely that it induces a feeling more painful than pleasant. Still, that stabbing sense of post-adolescent longing and nearly crushed romanticism that Mottola utilizes here is employed in the service of something more lasting than the dredging up of buried memories and the packaging of a killer period soundtrack (The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Alex Chilton, Jesus & Mary Chain, Poison). This is a film about the moments when expectations run headlong into reality, as well as the grace notes there to be grasped around the clouds of disappointment. A quiet kind of genius.  Chris Barsanti

Where the Wild Things Are

Director: Spike Jonze

Cast: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano, Catherine Keener

9

Spike Jonze hit all the right notes with his adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak book. In expanding the simple story, Jonze and writer Dave Eggers added context and emotion to the tale. No longer is Max simply a boy sent to bed with no supper, he’s now a sullen, dissatisfied kid with no real friends, a distracted mom (an excellent Catherine Keener), and no father figure in his life. His trip to the island of the Wild Things allows him to cut loose and indulge in all the fantasies of a typical young boy. He gets to play around with monsters, build a massive fort, and engage in wanton destruction. But Jonze and Eggers give the Wild Things personalities too, and eventually the fun and games are interrupted by real-world emotions. Max Records plays Max unapologetically, with his raw feelings right on the surface. This makes for a character that isn’t always likable, but that feels very, very real even in the film’s fantastic setting. Chris Conaton

District 9

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Eugene Khumbanyiwa, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike

8

Reviews of Neil Blomkamp’s rightly-raved-about debut feature District 9 focused on its surface allusions to Apartheid era South Africa, but the film’s scope does not end in Blomkamp’s country of origin. Its sci-fi dissection of issues of immigration and class and how both are “handled” by media and government in late capitalism have implications that are global, if not galactic. The film is lead by Sharlto Copley’s Oscar-worthy performance as Wikus van de Merwe, a deplorable managerialist whose nepotistic appointment lands him in front of a publically subsidized project to evict extraterrestrial “prawns” from District 9, essentially a shanty town for the acephalic aliens, and compile them in a massively populated ghetto dubbed District 10. Wikus’s services are enlisted by MNU, a Blackwater like private mercenary defense contractor disguised as a military bureaucracy. MNU, through contract, performs the dirty work the state can’t rub its hands in, namely uncovering the secret to prawn weapons technology by any means necessary. District 9 is brutal and heartbreaking, a view of mankind at a tipping point of unhumanity and dehumanization. Even Wikus’s utility is short-lived and he eventually becomes alien-ated as well, though his failure to surrender his prejudices continues to serve the interests of those who threw him away. This is a staggering film that will be watched and studied for years to come. Timh Gabriele

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wallace Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker

7

There are so many reasons to love The Fantastic Mr. Fox, I can’t possibly detail every one. But that in itself is one of the reasons to love it. The film has all of the quirkiness and attention to detail expected of a Wes Anderson project, while retaining all the charm inherent in the beloved original story by Roald Dahl. Mr. Fox is a feast for the eyes in an entirely different way than a computer-generated, visual effects-laden blockbuster. It has a small, delicate, home-made, hand-crafted beauty that is stunning. The vocal talents, along with several Anderson hallmarks, only serve to increase the warmth and authenticity of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is filled with the sort of unspoiled enchantment too many other movies are missing these days. Christel Loar

Star Trek

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, John Cho, Winona Ryder, Ben Cross, Simon Pegg

6

J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek reboot could have been a disaster. It seemed downright heretical to take the granddaddy of all sci-fi ‘60s television series with its notoriously rabid fanbase, plunk new actors in iconic roles, and attempt to boldly go again where Gene Roddenberry had gone some 40 years before. The end result was a solid re-imagining with very few tweaks to established cannon, allowing the venerable franchise to continue to spark the imagination of current and future Trekkies (and still afford them a glimpse at Old School Spock, Leonard Nimoy). The casting of younger actors in the roles of Kirk, Spock, Bones and company were all spot on, capturing them at their rough-around-the-edges early years at Starfleet Academy. The essential core of the characters remained the same although the circumstances changed. And like the original series, moments of comedy and genuine pathos cropped up amid the action and technical wizardry. It probably won’t win an Oscar, but Star Trek was significantly more cerebral, thought-provoking, and better acted than the bulk of the summer popcorn movies. Lana Cooper

5 - 1

Avatar

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso

5

As it continues to make money, hand over fist, the inevitable backlash against James Cameron’s latest claim to filmmaking’s epic throne has already begun. Granted, the director set himself up when he referred to the narrative as “every storyline from every sci-fi book he ever read, all thrown together”. While a serious consideration of this amazing movie begs such a sweeping overgeneralization, it remains a point beleaguered by those desperate to dismiss his complicated computer generated vision. No matter the squabbles, this stands as one of 2009’s most important films, and not just for its overall special effectiveness. Indeed, Cameron reminds us of the two simplest pleasure of motion pictures—successful storytelling and inherent medium magic. He definitely delivers both here. Bill Gibron

Up

Cast: Edward Asner, Christopher Plumber, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo

4

Two children, Ellie and Carl, who long to be adventurers, meet while playing with a blue balloon in an abandoned house. What follows is a miracle of filmmaking, a montage that starts with their wedding and ends with a funeral. We smile when they kiss, move into the abandoned house and paint the mailbox. Our hearts break when we discover they can’t have children, when Ellie becomes ill and Carl walks home alone from her funeral with a blue balloon. It is a beautiful entertainment of empathy. We live their entire lives with them in three gloriously heartbreaking minutes. The fact that Up sustains its power after such a sequence, riding its animated balloons to adventurous emotional heights, is a breathtaking pleasure. Up is yet another soaring achievement from Pixar as well as one of the year’s best films. Gregg Lipkin

A Serious Man

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Adam Arkin, Sari Lennick, Fyvush Finkel, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus

3

The Book of Job isn’t the most likely source material for a dark comedy, but in Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, Job’s story clearly informs the malaise of physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg). Gopnik exists in the Coens’ autobiographical 1967 Jewish middle class milieu, but beyond that he’s stuck in a larger, more ominous universe that pelts him with multitudinous misfortunes. His search for signs and wonders, often through rabbinic cycles of speeches, produces nothing but more torment and confusion. Theater veteran Stuhlbarg expertly embodies Gopnik’s existential paralysis—afraid of the consequences of action and powerless to steer his imploding family, finances and career. Although the film tries in several purposeful ways to keep some distance from the character, Stuhlbarg’s pitch-perfect panic connects us to his hardship. Gopnik ultimately has neither the piety nor the endurance of Job, but his search for answers in the traditionally right places draws the spectator’s attention to the “conviction of things not seen” before a doozy of a climax confounds us with what might be God’s cataclysmic response. The film’s concluding quandary makes Gopniks of us all. Thomas Britt

The Hurt Locker

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Guy Pearce, Brian Geraghty

2

From Brothers at War and Gunner Palace to In the Valley of Elah and Redacted, many films and filmmakers have tried to channel the Iraq War into a meaningful cinematic experience. With The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow—always adept at action movies concerning men in confined conflict—explores the war with her mind-body-spirit approach and creates one of the most complex perspectives of war since the Spielberg/Malick one-two punch of 1998. Set in Baghdad in the summer of 2004, The Hurt Locker is the story of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad attempting to disarm IEDs. Actors Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty skillfully portray the three technicians committed to the seemingly impracticable task of creating a safer war zone. Mark Boal’s script uses the final days of Bravo Company’s tour to heighten both the stakes of the mission and a range of effects on the soldiers, including adrenaline addiction (Renner), frustration (Mackie), and panic (Geraghty). The film neither condemns nor endorses the war, but instead challenges the audience to consider the consequences of decisions great and small, as well as the value of the many lives involved. Thomas Britt

Inglourious Basterds

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent, Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Til Scheweiger, Christoph Waltz

1

Inglourious Basterds is nothing short of a tour-de-force, a film made with such assurance and audacity that it sweeps us up and makes us forget that Tarantino ever left us. What he creates has the feel of a classic war movie (right down to the period details), yet with its own distinct, auteurist touches that take us somewhere entirely new. It demonstrates Tarantino’s continually evolving style and versatility, with a multi-lingual and multi-versed storyline. And it’s easy to forget, through all the WWII carnage, that several of the scenes are stunningly beautiful and well-filmed. Tarantino has an extraordinary sense for the small details that make up a scene, and the way he twists dialogue around his finger is miles ahead of Hollywood’s rancid one-liners. There’s so much to absorb in Inglourious Basterds, so much savoir-faire to drink in, so many fine performances to admire. A testament to the power of cinema to rewrite history, his film coalesces into something dazzling and explosive. He leaves everyone else outgunned. Andrew Blackie