News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #6

6. Two Lovers

Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix unhappy in love in Two Lovers

Reputedly this was to be Joaquin Phoenix’s final film before embarking on a rapping career, complete with compulsive beard growing and weird talk-show appearances. Whether or not his career switch is genuine or a stunt for a Casey Affleck mockmentary may soon be revealed, with recent rumours that he is return to acting, playing gothic writer Edgar Allen Poe in an adaptation of Daniel Stashower’s book, The Beautiful Cigar Girl.

Either way, his "final" performance in James Gray’s romantic drama, Two Lovers, is extraordinary. His Leonard is borderline suicidal, but also a romantic with a crush on the blond beauty hauled up in the apartment across the courtyard (a brilliant Gwyneth Paltrow). Though it appears otherwise at first, she's as damaged as he is. They're contrasted by the normal girl played by Vinessa Shaw, who is attractive but is missing the allure of her more volatile competition. Leonard's caring mother outwardly disapproves of his little crush, and is played with grace and subtlety by Isabella Rossellini.

It’s rare to find a "romantic" movie that dares to treat its characters like real people, flawed and complex, instead of succumbing to the romantic comedy clichés that have all but killed the genre. Beautifully shot in a cold, icy Brooklyn, Gray's film is a beautiful, moving and heartbreakingly realistic gem. It certainly deserved more than a limited cinematic release.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #7

7. Watchmen

The Comedian and Ozymandias, dsyfunctional superheroes of Watchmen

The audacity of Zack Snyder. It was the most celebrated graphic novel ever written, and also deemed “unfilmable,” by Terry Gilliam, who was at one point attached to the project when it was stuck in developmental hell. And yet the director of 300, with a tremendous respect for the source material, has fashioned an exhilarating comic book film like no other.

It is remarkable that this movie even exists. With no name stars, a meandering non-linear narrative, brutal violence, sex, and, god forbid, such a thing as character complexity, Warner Brothers and Paramount firstly deserve credit for green-lighting a $130 million dollar comic-book movie with uncertain box office potential.

As a movie, it has its problems. The plot doesn’t have a totally satisfying structure, there is one retched performance (a stone dry Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre) and Snyder is slavish, to a fault, to the source text. Yet to do otherwise would result in a movie that does a disserve to the immense achievement of the original novel. This movie is the unadulterated Watchmen, rough edged, complex and provocative. It retains the shades of the book while delivering an exhilarating visceral ride of image and sound. Be sure to check out the more robust director’s cut, which contains 24 minutes of extra footage that brings the running time to a more satisfying three hours.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #8

8. In the Loop

Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), keeper of the curse words

One feels a review of this scathing British political satire is not complete without a requisite dose of expletives. Whether it’s lubricated horse-cocks or a fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers, manic PR spin doctor Malcolm Tucker has a curse word for all occasions. And they flow freely as he attempts to manipulate UK and US power figures into a war in the Middle East.

While a satire of politics and the random decisions that can sometimes lead to war, In the Loop is genuinely hilarious. Aside from Tucker (played brilliantly by Peter Capaldi), there’s Tom Hollander as Simon Foster, a bumbling British politician who draws laughter through his ineptitude, and the US Assistant Secretary of State Linton Barwick (David Rasche), who perplexingly mutters random inanities such as “All roads lead to Munich.”

The screenplay (the movie is derived from the BBC series The Thick of It), written by director Armando Iannucci, among others, was nominated for an Oscar, and was a more deserving than the eventual victor, Precious. There’s few witter, funnier and outrageously satirical scripts around, and it’s a perfect antidote to the flag waving, idealistic portrayal of Washington we usually see. Instead In the Loop presents a political world closer to reality, one that is, in the words of its director, “a bit rubbish.” The film itself, though, is quite the opposite.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #9

9. A Serious Man

Larry Gobnick and his reaction to the universe

The Coen brothers have always been adept at creating dark, inquisitive comedies with an intellectual edge, and A Serious Man is no exception. It tells the story of Physics professor Larry Gopnick, an ineffectual man with more questions than answers. The movie is structured around his increasingly futile attempts to understand why the universe seems to have it in for him. All he can come with, as is suggested by friends, rabbis and his insensitive wife (who would rather be with a pretentious nitwit by the name of Sy Ableman) is “accept the mystery.”

A Serious Man works on several levels: as a satire of Jewishness, as a philosophical treatise, and, if one has the stomach for awkward situations, as a comedy. It’s also the Coens’ most personal film, set in their home town of St. Louis Park, Minnesota and based on experiences of their childhood. The cast is superb, with relative unknown Michael Stuhlbarg (robbed of an Oscar nomination) the standout as Larry, the bewildered and passive Serious Man of the title who is of good intentions but no conviction.

I first saw the movie at the Canberra Film Festival and the partisan crowd was already in on the joke. But it’s easy to see how audiences could be perplexed by its blacker than black comedy. Who can blame them when the sum total of Larry’s pleadings to the powers that be is, not a catharsis of answers, but an ominous, gathering storm.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #10

If there’s one thing movie geeks love to do it is to create lists. Everyone’s doing them. Top ten of the year. Top ten of the decade. Top ten blockbusters with the worst CGI. It’s completely perfunctory of course, and ranking them is, especially, absurd. But it satisfies our natural human instinct to ensure everything is categorized and easily referenced. With that spirit in mind, I will be revealing my Top Ten Films of 2009, in order, each weekday, beginning now with J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek.

10. Star Trek

Kirk and Spock on the iBridge

From the outset of 2009, Star Trek as a film series, and as a TV franchise, was dead. The last two films (Insurrection and Nemesis) were awful, and Enterprise was a valiant, but failed attempt to make hip a property widely known for the opposite. Leave it to J.J. Abrams, the skilful TV auteur behind Alias and Lost, Mi:III and, in concept at least, Cloverfield, to achieve just what Enterprise failed to do: make Star Trek cool again.

Hardcore fans may be upset that Abrams has fashioned Trek into an action-driven space-opera more akin to its fanboy rival, Star Wars. I am not, nor have ever been a serious Trek fan, my familiarity with series extending no further than many: First Contact, The Wrath of Khan and the odd episode of TNG or DS9. In other words, precisely the audience at which the 2009 revisioning takes aim.

With a gleeful energy and abundance of lens flares, this new Trek seamlessly blends thrilling action with a well drawn Spock/Kirk origin story. After Abrams, it is a success is largely because of its cast, especially Chris Pine as Kirk, paying homage to Shatner but making it his own, and Zachary Quinto, a surprisingly good Spock given his bland work as Sylar on the troubled Heroes.

The screenplay (by blockbuster go-to team Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) has its contrivances, but it’s also deft at establishing over a half dozen characters, and doing so with clever nods to the original series. Star Trek is not a great film, but it’s an exciting and polished refashioning of a beloved property, and that’s why it’s my tenth best film of the year.