Screw you, Letterman
I intended to revisit last year's Top Ten lists a couple months ago, but made the mistake of starting with my music list. Dozens of drafts later, I think I have to concede that I just don't know enough about music to be able to finish it. I spent a lot of time last year trying to find a way to define my musical tastes, but in the end, I just like what I like, and I can't explain why.
If you're curious, my top ten musical experiences in 2009 (sans annotation) go like so: The Avett Brothers, Ida Maria, Blues Traveler (no kidding), Lisa Hannigan, Adele, Jenny Lewis, Emily Haines / Metric, Brandi Carlile, Raphael Saadiq, Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit. Go forth and listen, but don't expect me to explain any of it. You can ask, and I'll give it a shot, but, as I famously told the ghost of Richard Nixon during the invasion of Venus, "Nobody listens to Mr. Mustard Pants."
On the other hand, I do feel qualified to bore you all with the reasoning behind my list of the best movies I saw last year. You see, I once took a film class, and now I'm an insufferable know-it-all. Keep in mind that these movies weren't necessarily released last year; I just saw them for the first time last year.
The worst movie I saw was Stuck, which I believe is based on the true (and truly awful) story of a woman who hit a pedestrian with her car, leaving him alive, but trapped in her windshield. Rather than take him to a hospital, she just parked her car in her garage, hoping no one would find out about it. Obviously, what this guy went through was way worse than the experience of watching this movie, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about the comparison.
10. Speed Racer
No really, this is the beginning of the list of good movies I saw last year. I'm pretty sure this was universally panned when it first came out, but I loved it. Admittedly, in terms of the plot, it's fairly conventional, but it's set in a candy-colored world of cars, racetracks, and acting that defy the laws of physics, taste, and common sense. And why not? I'm of the mind that realism is not necessarily a virtue. The Wachowski brothers have tossed aside the traditional rules of cinematic grammar, and while the results might not be for everyone (or anyone, for that matter), I not only approve of the effort, I thoroughly enjoyed the results. Actually, I think I completely agree with Ebert's review, except that he hated the movie, and I did not.
9. The Page Turner
A suspenseful French thriller about a young girl who cuts short a promising musical career after a distraction causes her to botch her audition to an exclusive music school. Years later, she finds herself working for the woman she holds responsible for that distraction. The movie's greatest strength is its subtlety. Rather than throwing the young girl's motives and goals in our face, we're left mostly in the dark about everything, as the movie slowly ratchets up the tension. This is not a big, splashy suspense film, but, if anything, that only increases its impact.
8. Up
Someday, Pixar is going to make a bad movie. Up is not that movie. It is, however, a deeply strange movie, killing off its protagonist at the beginning of the movie and replacing her with an inanimate object. Instead, we're left following the story of a sidekick who literally spends most of the movie tied to the slowly deflating dream of someone else's adventure. It's a story about how the present is more than just the past, and how the future has no relation to either, told with an effortless blend of humor and melancholy.
7. 500 Days of Summer
If you had told me that the kid from Third Rock from the Sun was going to become one of my favorite actors, I would have laughed, but between this, Brick, and The Lookout, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has really surprised me. The film itself is charming as well (if perhaps a little prone to cliche), dragging you back-and-forth through the various stages of love and loss. I found the characters and situations not only easily identifiable, but sometimes a little too close to comfort. Also, as someone else pointed out, it has the best Han Solo cameo in movie history.
6. Up in the Air
When I found myself with a free day after my Christmas flight home was canceled, I went and saw this, which felt very appropriate. It's funny that if Up is about the value of untying oneself from the connections that hold you back, Up in the Air, despite the similar title, is about how easy it is to mistake liberation for true freedom. As Clooney travels the country, telling the newly unemployed that the world has suddenly become their oyster, he finally starts to learn that commitment is not necessarily a cage. The so-called ties that bind can make you stronger, rather than just holding you back.
5. Inglourious Basterds
The movie ends with a character facing the camera and declaring that he's just created a masterpiece. I don't think he's that far off the mark. Tarantino is a strange beast, at times seeming like he is obsessed with revisiting the past, while at other times he is clearly venturing into bold new territory. Basterds, amongst other things, is a movie designed to trick its audience, confounding expectations at every turn. Its easy to dismiss Tarantino as one of those artists for whom easy tricks serve as a substitute for style (like Shyamalan and his twist endings or Palahniuk as a purveyor of little more than shock fiction), but here he uses many of his usual tricks in wholly surprising and unexpected ways. If you've previously dismissed him for his obsession with violence and obscure pop culture, this might be the film to convince you he's capable of much more.
4. Tokyo!
Actually a collection of three short films by different directors, Tokyo! earns its exclamation mark (and how!) by being one of the weirdest ways to spend a couple hours. While the title specifically identifies one particular city, the film is actually a great exploration of what it means to live in any city, and how we reconcile the physical closeness and emotional isolation that city-life breeds. Also, there are people who turn into furniture, leprechaun terrorists, and tattoo-activated pizza-delivery people.
3. The Hurt Locker
Well-deserving of all the acclaim it has earned, The Hurt Locker is a character-based drama, disguised alternately as a war movie, a drug-addiction movie, and an action film. If you don't enjoy movies that keep you on the edge of your seat, you'll want to stay away from this one, which, essentially, is little more than a series of scenes in which we wait for bombs (both literal and metaphorical) to go off. While I'm sure a lot of people would want to ascribe specific morals to the story relative to the current state of our country's foreign policy, Bigelow wisely avoids any obvious political agenda, focusing instead on creating a story that exists almost in a void.
2. The Wrestler
Yes, Mickey Rourke is every bit as good as the over-the-top pronouncements about his performance would make you believe. I haven't yet seen (and probably won't; I'm not a big fan of bio-pics) Sean Penn in Milk, but it's hard not to think that his victory over Rourke will go down as one of Oscar's big mistakes. Maybe that's appropriate for a movie that grapples so eloquently with the idea of regret and its limitations. Who would have thunk so much pathos could be squeezed out of "professional" wrestling?
1. A Serious Man
It was far too disturbing to have a chance at winning many awards, but for my money, this was not only last year's best movie, but a high-point in the Coen brothers' already-illustrious body of work. The comparison of the movie to the Book of Job is fairly obvious, but as they did with O Brother, Where Art Thou, Barton Fink, and Fargo, the Coens have created a distance between the film and their source material, allowing them to take their story in new directions without abandoning the original. Here, they grapple with the nature of God, fate, and the meaning of life itself. The result is the most ambiguous film I've seen in a long time: bleakly hysterical, frustratingly thought-provoking, and bitterly sentimental.
And just so that you know I'm not completely slacking on next year's list, I'm pretty sure that Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party will make the top five, which is saying something for a movie that is nothing more than one man talking for an hour and a half (plus another hour and a half of deleted scenes).
If you're curious, my top ten musical experiences in 2009 (sans annotation) go like so: The Avett Brothers, Ida Maria, Blues Traveler (no kidding), Lisa Hannigan, Adele, Jenny Lewis, Emily Haines / Metric, Brandi Carlile, Raphael Saadiq, Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit. Go forth and listen, but don't expect me to explain any of it. You can ask, and I'll give it a shot, but, as I famously told the ghost of Richard Nixon during the invasion of Venus, "Nobody listens to Mr. Mustard Pants."
On the other hand, I do feel qualified to bore you all with the reasoning behind my list of the best movies I saw last year. You see, I once took a film class, and now I'm an insufferable know-it-all. Keep in mind that these movies weren't necessarily released last year; I just saw them for the first time last year.
The worst movie I saw was Stuck, which I believe is based on the true (and truly awful) story of a woman who hit a pedestrian with her car, leaving him alive, but trapped in her windshield. Rather than take him to a hospital, she just parked her car in her garage, hoping no one would find out about it. Obviously, what this guy went through was way worse than the experience of watching this movie, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about the comparison.
10. Speed Racer
No really, this is the beginning of the list of good movies I saw last year. I'm pretty sure this was universally panned when it first came out, but I loved it. Admittedly, in terms of the plot, it's fairly conventional, but it's set in a candy-colored world of cars, racetracks, and acting that defy the laws of physics, taste, and common sense. And why not? I'm of the mind that realism is not necessarily a virtue. The Wachowski brothers have tossed aside the traditional rules of cinematic grammar, and while the results might not be for everyone (or anyone, for that matter), I not only approve of the effort, I thoroughly enjoyed the results. Actually, I think I completely agree with Ebert's review, except that he hated the movie, and I did not.
9. The Page Turner
A suspenseful French thriller about a young girl who cuts short a promising musical career after a distraction causes her to botch her audition to an exclusive music school. Years later, she finds herself working for the woman she holds responsible for that distraction. The movie's greatest strength is its subtlety. Rather than throwing the young girl's motives and goals in our face, we're left mostly in the dark about everything, as the movie slowly ratchets up the tension. This is not a big, splashy suspense film, but, if anything, that only increases its impact.
8. Up
Someday, Pixar is going to make a bad movie. Up is not that movie. It is, however, a deeply strange movie, killing off its protagonist at the beginning of the movie and replacing her with an inanimate object. Instead, we're left following the story of a sidekick who literally spends most of the movie tied to the slowly deflating dream of someone else's adventure. It's a story about how the present is more than just the past, and how the future has no relation to either, told with an effortless blend of humor and melancholy.
7. 500 Days of Summer
If you had told me that the kid from Third Rock from the Sun was going to become one of my favorite actors, I would have laughed, but between this, Brick, and The Lookout, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has really surprised me. The film itself is charming as well (if perhaps a little prone to cliche), dragging you back-and-forth through the various stages of love and loss. I found the characters and situations not only easily identifiable, but sometimes a little too close to comfort. Also, as someone else pointed out, it has the best Han Solo cameo in movie history.
6. Up in the Air
When I found myself with a free day after my Christmas flight home was canceled, I went and saw this, which felt very appropriate. It's funny that if Up is about the value of untying oneself from the connections that hold you back, Up in the Air, despite the similar title, is about how easy it is to mistake liberation for true freedom. As Clooney travels the country, telling the newly unemployed that the world has suddenly become their oyster, he finally starts to learn that commitment is not necessarily a cage. The so-called ties that bind can make you stronger, rather than just holding you back.
5. Inglourious Basterds
The movie ends with a character facing the camera and declaring that he's just created a masterpiece. I don't think he's that far off the mark. Tarantino is a strange beast, at times seeming like he is obsessed with revisiting the past, while at other times he is clearly venturing into bold new territory. Basterds, amongst other things, is a movie designed to trick its audience, confounding expectations at every turn. Its easy to dismiss Tarantino as one of those artists for whom easy tricks serve as a substitute for style (like Shyamalan and his twist endings or Palahniuk as a purveyor of little more than shock fiction), but here he uses many of his usual tricks in wholly surprising and unexpected ways. If you've previously dismissed him for his obsession with violence and obscure pop culture, this might be the film to convince you he's capable of much more.
4. Tokyo!
Actually a collection of three short films by different directors, Tokyo! earns its exclamation mark (and how!) by being one of the weirdest ways to spend a couple hours. While the title specifically identifies one particular city, the film is actually a great exploration of what it means to live in any city, and how we reconcile the physical closeness and emotional isolation that city-life breeds. Also, there are people who turn into furniture, leprechaun terrorists, and tattoo-activated pizza-delivery people.
3. The Hurt Locker
Well-deserving of all the acclaim it has earned, The Hurt Locker is a character-based drama, disguised alternately as a war movie, a drug-addiction movie, and an action film. If you don't enjoy movies that keep you on the edge of your seat, you'll want to stay away from this one, which, essentially, is little more than a series of scenes in which we wait for bombs (both literal and metaphorical) to go off. While I'm sure a lot of people would want to ascribe specific morals to the story relative to the current state of our country's foreign policy, Bigelow wisely avoids any obvious political agenda, focusing instead on creating a story that exists almost in a void.
2. The Wrestler
Yes, Mickey Rourke is every bit as good as the over-the-top pronouncements about his performance would make you believe. I haven't yet seen (and probably won't; I'm not a big fan of bio-pics) Sean Penn in Milk, but it's hard not to think that his victory over Rourke will go down as one of Oscar's big mistakes. Maybe that's appropriate for a movie that grapples so eloquently with the idea of regret and its limitations. Who would have thunk so much pathos could be squeezed out of "professional" wrestling?
1. A Serious Man
It was far too disturbing to have a chance at winning many awards, but for my money, this was not only last year's best movie, but a high-point in the Coen brothers' already-illustrious body of work. The comparison of the movie to the Book of Job is fairly obvious, but as they did with O Brother, Where Art Thou, Barton Fink, and Fargo, the Coens have created a distance between the film and their source material, allowing them to take their story in new directions without abandoning the original. Here, they grapple with the nature of God, fate, and the meaning of life itself. The result is the most ambiguous film I've seen in a long time: bleakly hysterical, frustratingly thought-provoking, and bitterly sentimental.
And just so that you know I'm not completely slacking on next year's list, I'm pretty sure that Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party will make the top five, which is saying something for a movie that is nothing more than one man talking for an hour and a half (plus another hour and a half of deleted scenes).