2009: Movies I've Seen
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 09:27
Tags:
A
- The Secret in Their Eyes
A-
- Adventureland
- Inglourious Basterds
- Moon
- Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" By Sapphire
- Up in the Air
B+
- Black Dynamite
- Crazy Heart
- The Damned United
- District 9
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Funny People
- Mary and Max
- The Messenger
- The Princess and the Frog
- A Serious Man
- Star Trek
B
- 500 Days of Summer
- Bruno
- Coraline
- An Education
- The Hangover
- I Am Love
- I Love You, Man
- The Last Station
- Sunshine Cleaning
- Zombieland
B-
- Away We Go
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
- The Cove
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- I Love You, Phillip Morris
- The Lovely Bones
- The Secret of Kells
- A Single Man
- Up
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Youth in Revolt
C+
- Broken Embraces
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- In the Loop
- The Jazz Baroness
- The Men Who Stare at Goats
- Metropia
- Pirate Radio
- Sherlock Holmes
- The White Ribbon
C
- Capitalism: A Love Story
- Get Low
- Invictus
- Nine
- Taking Woodstock
C-
- Graphic Sexual Horror
- Julie and Julia
- Make the Yuletide Gay
- Make Yourself at Home
- The Slammin' Salmon
D+
- Avatar
- The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
D
- Awaydays
- The Job
- 9
D-
- The Canyon
- Toe to Toe
F
Should See
- State of Play
Author Comments:
C+ or higher = all movies I liked to some degree and would probably recommend
C = average
C- or lower = all movies I disliked to some degree and would probably not recommend
Cloned From:
Except for liking Coraline a little more, I think we by and large agree on these!
I still need to see Sunshine Cleaning though...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Nice! Yeah, I saw that you too found Up good but a bit disappointing. But wasn't Adventureland great? It consistently defied my expectations by having the film develop in smarter ways than I anticipated.
At this point, the Oscar race looks like it's going to be between Up in the Air and Precious, similar to many of the past few races that came down to just two films, and I think it's kind of interesting that this is the first year that I don't really have a strong preference between them. Up in the Air probably has fewer flaws, but Precious is bolder and more affecting, and I think I liked them about the same amount. This is in stark contrast to some of the past few two-contender races where I had strong preferences: 2007 (I wanted There Will Be Blood to beat No Country For Old Men), 2005 (I wanted Brokeback Mountain to beat Crash), 2004 (I wanted Million Dollar Baby to beat The Aviator), etc.
Of course, maybe Avatar will throw everything for a loop. We'll see...
Pfft. Shows what I know.
I don't quite share your admiration for Adventureland, though it was great for what it was (I just didn't really dig the story). One thing I liked seeing is your placing of Away We Go, which I found a little dull in a naval gazing sort of way. It felt like Hipsters trying to be sensitive. It was quite annoying despite being beautifully photographed. There were some funny sequences though, like the one with Maggie Gylanhal as a hippie. That one was friggin brilliant. I also like where you put Capitalism: A Love Story, not one of Moore's strongest. I applaud him for engaging us on social issues and historical wrongs, but I wish he would be more funny. When he is funny, he is a genius. When he talks to me in that soft, sensitive, pre-school voice I want to lynch him. Still not a bad film. The main thing I disagree on is Avatar. The visuals are so captivating on that one. I was hardly thinking about how hackneyed the plot was because everything was so frickin cool! And I notice you haven't seen Watchmen. I'd say it's the greatest technical achievement of 2009 and one of the most criminally underrated films to have come out (it has a mere 50% on Rotten Tomatoes).
I may have overrated Adventureland based on how painfully realistic it felt for me - having been a dorky, awkward, hopeless romantic, sexually frustrated teenager fairly recently - but I was just so surprised by how rich and mature the character drama was. Nothing else was as refreshing for me last year.
I completely agree that Michael Moore is hilarious and I hate when he talks to us in that kindergarten voice set to melancholy violin music. I felt like Moore dug pretty deep into the values of international cultures with Sicko, but with Capitalism, he was almost anti-informational. I wish he had engaged me more on social issues. The epitome of this was that when he went to talk about derivatives, he didn't explain them in layman's terms; he just threw up his hands and said, "Golly, derivatives are too hard for my little Flint, Michigan brain!" C'mon Mike. You're smarter than that.
People talk about Avatar's hackneyed script, but its worst sin was being dull. A formulaic plot is fine if there's wit elsewhere in the script, perhaps in the dialogue or the individual scene concepts or something, but nope, nothing smart about it. The visuals were gorgeous and all, but 3D still has a lot of technical kinks to work out, and the atmosphere was too unrealistic to make me feel involved. It looked like a really great screen saver or video game. I'm honestly kind of amazed by how many people were one over by a movie whose best attribute is its color palette. You can get the same thing by watching a Windows Media Player visualizer. And those are more coherent than Avatar.
I'll have to check out Watchmen, although I think I want to try to read the graphic novel first.
haha, oh shit. you're really ripping into Avatar. I think you're being a bit cruel. I quite liked how they went into the bodies as dreamers, that was somewhat intriguing. I will concede that the latter part was quite dull. Still, I found myself drawn into the world. A WMP visualizer!? That's just hyperbole. But I mean, you must really not have liked it! I can't say I have any desire to go back and watch it immediately, but it was quite the visual treat! Adventureland was painfully realistic. I think that's part of the reason I didn't love it. A little too close for comfort.
Sure, I'm just joking around, but I just felt like everyone was praising it basically for having bright, garishly colored, fast-moving entities. No one seemed to care that these entities were bland archetypes with nary a whit of character development whatsoever. So why not watch a WMP visualizer instead? Those swirling shapes have as much personality as Jake Sully. And you can stop watching when you're bored instead of sitting for an endless two hours and forty minutes.
Don't get me wrong, I love plenty of entertaining action movies, but it usually takes a smart idea or two to draw me into a film's world. Just watch the Star Trek movie from last year and you'll find moments of humor. You'll find some quotable dialogue. You'll find moments where the characters show that they have actual personality traits and we see the way those traits play against each other. You'll find moments where the characters attempt to form clever strategies to accomplish their goals. You'll find reasonably intelligent themes that are introduced early on and then play out in interesting ways later on in the movie. You'll find special effects that, while not revolutionary, effectively and seamlessly blend the real elements with the fantasy elements. In my opinion, Avatar didn't have any of that. It sure was colorful, though.
I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm being cruel. It's just that you are a person who I think has great taste in film and whose opinions I really respect. Yet you and so many other have gotten caught up in these bright colors and I don't understand how everyone can get so invested in a film whose content is so incredibly flimsy. Doesn't it take some half-decent level of skill in originality, storytelling, acting, dialogue, and/or character development for a film to engage you?
Geez AJ, you're such a snob! So what if some of us like the way a film looks, that doesn't make us stupid or anything *flicks hair*. I agree with you that Star Trek was great. I still like Avatar though. You're such a grouch. Remind me not to take you out on a movie date! Unless I'm feeling really philosophical or something, like if I've been reading Chuck Palahniuk or something! But seriously, no. The visuals were pretty much enough to engage me on Avatar. It might not make for repeated viewings, but the pretty colors did the job. I put up quite the front in order to appear erudite and cultured, but behind the veneer of good taste I am really quite shallow! Perhaps Avatar is a film that separates the men from the boys.
Hahahaha! Sorry if I came across as pretentious. I've just become so cynical about Avatar as a result of all the hype. I like movies that are pretty but dumb too! Hell, the Lovely Bones was cheesy as hell but its pretty colors made me enjoy it.
Ha! I'm the crank. I deeply loathed both Avatar and The Lovely Bones!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Ah, but you liked Dr. Parnassus, another film with frenetic, colorful visuals but very weak storytelling (at least IMHO).
Actually, all three of my lowest-ranked films of last year had reasonably inventive visuals but bad scripts. I guess anyone can tell what I think of Hollywood's habit of focusing on effects over narrative.
Yay, but Parnassus was an awfully fun mess. Bones just hurt to watch.
Your mileage may (and obviously does) vary... :)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs