Tropic Thunder is, indeed, a great movie. My favorite film of 2008.

In Bruges is also pretty good! Maybe if I’d seen it more than once, I would rank it just as highly as Tropic Thunder.

The Dark Knight has its moments but it’s generally pretty silly. It takes itself way too seriously to get away with some of the dumb stuff. But it’s a heckuva lot better than The Dark Knight Rises.

Oh yeah, that Speed Racer movie very much exceeded expectations! If I remember correctly, I decided to go just because the cast was so great. And I very much enjoyed it. I’ve even watched it a couple of times since then.

I worked in a newspaper at the time, and we had an arts and entertainment editor who wrote most of the movie reviews, and every year she would pick one or two movies to make fun of the rest of the year, like a recurring joke. But a lot of the time, she would pick movies that she hadn’t seen and then make fun of them because of low box office or because of her rather pretentious expectations. And boy, did it fall flat for anybody who actually saw the movies. That year, she picked on Speed Racer, and it was just so lazy. There were several of us at the copy desk who would roll our eyes at so much of her copy.

There was a good Italian movie that year, Il Divo, though I'm sure I'd appreciate it more if I were better informed about Italian politics. Ip Man was a solid HK action movie. I liked Slumdog and the Wrestler, ... my favourite of the year would probably be a toss-up between In Bruges and Burn After Reading.

Onward to 2009.  And...yeah...it's been a while.  

Inglourious Basterds - I really like this film a lot.  Yeah, it's silly and escapist.  But Christoph Waltz is brilliant as Hans Landa and Brad Pitt is a joy.  If you're watching a Tarantino film for subtlety, you're filming wrong.  



Up - I like, but don't love this Pixar film.  The opening is touching without being completely schmaltzy.  Ed Asner is great voicing Carl.  And the themes are great...Life can be its own adventure and Family is where you find it.  I just think the reliance on the dogs and the weird bird is a bit too much.  But still part of an amazing run by Pixar.  



Zombieland - I mostly don't like zombies.  They just don't make any sense (I'm marginally better with magic zombies).  But I do find this to be pretty darn funny (not Shaun of the Dead funny...but still).  Just a fun movie.  



Fantastic Mr. Fox - Super fun stop-motion animated film by Wes Anderson.  Super witty and with just enough edge to keep make it memorable for kids instead of being the same old saccharine animated junk.  



Coraline - 2009 was a super good year for animation.  I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan and this film does justice to his book.  Scary and fun the stop-motion is outstanding and it's a visual treat.  The Other Mother is just nightmare fuel for kids.  



Sherlock Holmes - I'll be the iconoclast.  Holmes generally doesn't do much for me.  So I'm fine with other takes on him.  I like, but don't love this movie.  I find Downey to just be generally charming, Jude Law is a perfectly cromulent Watson and Rachel McAdams is adorable, if underused.  



Black Dynamite - I love this movie so much.  But I'm also a fan of blaxploitation films in general.  This movie does absolutely everything right.  From the over-the top action and dialogue, to the "mistakes" in editing, boom mic placement, etc. to the necessary presence of gratuitous nudity.  This is a perfect tribute to the genre while still being a wicked smart spoof.  




As usual there are many films I've either not seen or not seen in far too long. Including; most foreign films; Moon (I've seen this once and I know I liked it, but I don't remember a thing about it); District 9 (ditto); A Serious Man; 


So what's my favorite film of 2009? Kind of a close call between Black Dynamite and Inglorious Basterds.  On the right day it could be either one.  But most days it's going to be Black Dynamite.   


And 2009 in film for those as need a look.

Not a particularly memorable year for me. I had Up in my top 10 for the decade, so it must have left a big impression on me. I'd have to watch it again to figure out why. Honestly, I think my favorite film may be The Hangover. 

EDIT: That Black Dynamite trailer looks fun. I might have to check that out. 

Going through the list for 2009, I think the ones that stood out the most for me were:

Gomorrah: Italian movie about the Neapolitan crime organisation known as the Comorra, based on a book by investigative journalist Roberto Saviano, who had to go into hiding because they didn't like the attention his very successful book brought them.

Anvil!: documentary about a Canadian Metal band that had some brief success in the 1980s and then more or less disappeared ... until this amazing doc brought gave them I think a well-deserved second chance. Anyone inetrested in popular music should see this, it doesn't matter if you're a metal fan or not (I'm not, particularly, of this specific variety, though I can listen to it when I'm in the mood).


L'Heure d'été: Olivier Assayas movie about a family reuniting to dispose of the house and belongings of their parents who have just died. I haven't seen all of Assayas's films but everything I have seen has been good to great. This is one of his more low-key efforts but as effective in its own way as those with more exotic or spectacular scenarios, like Irma Vep or carlos.

Moon: I actually thought this was a bit over-rated at the time, because critics were talking about it as if it were the greatest thing since 2001. But if you put that aside and consider it on its own terms, I think it was quite a nice, thoughtful SF movie. I'll be curious to see how I find it when or if I watch it again, many years removed from the possibly unfairly distracting hype that surrounded it at the time.

Inglourious Basterds: all of Tarantino's movies have made a big impact on me and this one was no exception. At the same time, it's one of my least favourites - not because of any flaws in the film-making itself but because in this one I thought Tarantino's American-ness got in the way of the story, even more than in Kill Bill. In most other ways I'd say it's one of his best, so perhaps this feeling has more to do with my personal outlook than with the film itself - or at least, I must acknowledge, so it will probably appear to most people here. It's impossible to go into this issue more deeply without getting political so I'll leave it at that. Apologies to anyone who feels offended by any of the above. I tried to keep it the minimum I could say without being dishonest.

Antichrist: This is a very strange movie, though perhaps not by Lars von Trier's standards. Also very intense. Also, I fear, potentially very misogynistic: strictly in the sense that I think it would be very easy for the casula viewer to take away from this film the message that "women are evil" and the more abstract "beware the feminine principle". Given that his most famous film, Breaking the Waves, was totally in sympathy with the lead female character, I'd say that would be a mistake. But there's no avoiding the question of whether he's portraying ideas, concepts in order to induce some thought on these subjects in the viewer or betraying his own personal feelings.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: I'd rank this just behind Brazil as the Terry Gilliam movie that made the bigget impression on me. Time Bandits is up there too, perhaps in part due to a rare-for-me feeling of 80s nostalgia. Visually brilliant and in a way that supports and enhances the story and characters, not just as a separate thing on its own. The publicity at the time was all about lead actor Heath Ledger's death in the middle of filming: I think the results show that Gilliam made the right decision in carrying on and bringing in other actors (not just one) to portray the same character in different guises. After seeing this, I remember thinking Gilliam should do a movie version of E.T.A. Hoffmann's novella The Golden Pot.

Enter the Void: not my favourite Gaspar Noé movie but he's another of those must-see directors for me whose every film is a memorable experience, almost beyond the question of whether I like it or not. For me, the big flaw with this one was that although Noé speaks and understands English, he wasn't used to working with English-speaking actors and I didn't think he had a good ear for judging their delivery of their lines. But then, as always, I have to wonder whether this is just a problem with me as a viewer - for example, from a generation before Noé's, so that possibly I just have different expectations of how