Monday, January 18, 2010

2009 and the movies

I saw loads of movies this year. Maybe more than at any other time in my life. These are my ten favourites from last year in no particular order.

Inglourious Basterds



Tarantino's best yet I think. This movie shows the director in top form. While before the set pieces in his movies were either over the top action sequences or clever dialogue loaded with pop culture, here it's pacing, tension, a strong story and some absolutely terrific performances, chief among them being Col. Hanz Landa a cheerfully sadistic German officer.

Bronson



Nicolas Winding Refn first came to my attention with his uber grim Pusher trilogy and Bronson is his new movie based on the life of one Michael Peterson who is Britains most violent prisoner played by Tom Hardy in breathtaking style. The movie's alright on its own but with hardy's absolutely stunning performance it becomes a bit special. On par with The Wrestler in terms of one absolutely crushing central performance making the movie a lot better than what it is.


Fantastic Mr. Fox



Wes Anderson's take on a Roald Dahl story about a chicken thief fox who's given up on the thievery only to go back to it for one last hurrah. His targets are the three most dangerous farmers in the world and his exit from a life of thievery is a grand triple header. Excellent cast and the whole stop motion thing works really well. Willem Dafoe as Rat is a show stealer and the movie on the whole is actually quite fantastic.

The Limits of Control



Jim Jarmusch's new one with the ice cream seller from Ghost Dog, and a whole bunch of cameos. I'm still not sure if this movie is specifically about anything. It's basically about a man who may or not be involved in diamond smuggling, the people he meets and his last job which is to kill a man. It's vague and never really explains anything but man, it's a trip from start to finish. The soundtrack by Boris helps too.

Thirst



Park Chan Wook's take on the vampire tale about a Catholic priest who turns into a vampire. His lust for human blood increases as does his desire for sex and everything goes horribly wrong soon enough. Not as steeped in melodrama as Lady Vengeance I guess but a fine tuned movie with some great performances and terrific atmosphere.

The White Ribbon



Michael Haneke's new movie about a little German village and the goings on there just prior to World War I. Bad things start happening in the village as narrated to us by the school teacher who himself is an old man now. Children are dying, people are getting hurt and no one's quite sure what to make of it. Haneke gives us no explanation or rationalisation for any of the happenings and everything is left unresolved with the breaking out of World War I. This movie just held me spellbound.

The Hurt Locker



I don't like war movies. never have and probably never will. The Hurt Locker is an exception to the rule probably because it's about people fighting a horrible pointless war and what makes them tick. Another solid central performance from Jeremy Renner as the reckless bomb disposal sergeant and some really tense scenes made this a really impressive movie.


Julia



Another fantastic performance, this time from Tilda Swinton as Julia, an alcoholic middle aged no hoper who decides to take up her neighbour's offer to kidnap her son away from an evil grandfather. The movie's pretty good but Swinton is spectacular.

Bad Lieutenant



I think Cage and Herzog should make a few more movies together. I thought this was going to be a remake of the grim and nasty original Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Kietel but its not. This is Herzog's own take on the film about a corrupt cocaine snorting cop in post Katrina New Orleans. Cage is fantastic as the corrupt cop investigating the murder of an entire family. Eva Mendes is his hooker girlfriend and has never looked as hot. She can also act surprisingly enough but really this is a Herzog/Cage show and it rules.

Martyrs



IMDB lists this as 2008 but fuck it, this has to be the most intense and downright disturbing horror movie in a long long time. Enough said.

2 comments:

Trollkien said...

Need to catch the ones on your list that I haven't seen yet. The point at which Martyrs diverged from torture porn to something else entirely was one of my cinematic moments of 2009.

reeferjournal said...

Martyrs really was something else. I think you'll also really like Bad Lieutenant. Check it out if you haven't already.