Thursday, December 31, 2009

Favorite films of 2009

Don't know that they're the best, but they were my favorites...

  • Up in the Air
  • Star Trek
  • Up
  • Inglourious Basterds
  • District 9
  • The Hangover
  • Ponyo
  • Where the Wild Things Are
  • Avatar
Still looking forward to seeing possible contenders for inclusion: The Messenger, Precious, The Hurt Locker, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moon, Broken Embraces, 500 Days of Summer

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Favorite films of the decade

This is a personal favorites list, neither a ranked "top ten" and surely not a "best" list -- there are too many great films I've yet to see. But there are movies I've liked a lot...

  • In the Mood for Love - Wong Kar-Wai's romantic meditation on love, loyalty, and finding small safe havens. Strongly influential on the better-known Lost in Translation
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - intelligent, challenging science fictional look at memory, love and loss. Jim Carrey's apogee, surrealistic, funny and heartbreaking.
  • The Lord of the Rings - Peter Jackson's trilogy redefined epic and shattered the limits of what could be put onto the screen. Hugely entertaining and successful realization of its source.
  • Inglourious Basterds - WW II fantasy combines suspense and violence with occasional splashes of outrageous humor. Ultimately a movie about movies, Quentin Tarantino firing on all cylinders
  • Gosford Park - mystery set against Robert Altman's complex tapestry of lives upstairs and downstairs in an English country home
  • Spirited Away - alienated girl trapped in a magical world learns responsibility and values
  • No Country for Old Men -clinically cold, powerful story of a remorseless killer -- good, evil, consequences, chance and implacable fate; the Coens in their nasty mode
  • Pan's Labyrinth - magic and myth are empowering and terrifying; Franco's fascists are just terrifying in Guillermo Del Toro's fantasy
  • Children of Men - bleak, inspiring science fiction, adapted from P.D. James' novel by Alfonso Cuaron
  • Talk to Her - story of love and loneliness, perhaps Almodovar's best
  • Y Tu Mama Tambien - powerful coming of age Mexican road trip story