Best Movies I Saw in 2009.
# Wednesday 30th December, 2009 - 1:25am with 3 comments
Taking a page from Kathleen’s post in the same nature, I’m going to try to post the top ten movies I saw this year– from her list it doesn’t look like they had to come /out/ this year, but just that I saw them this year, so let’s go from 10 to 1, shall we? Also, honorable mentions for movies I have yet to see but have good hopes for: Inglorious Basterds and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
- 10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine – While I found a lot of it kind of convoluted, and it didn’t have a lot of the Deadpool I’d love to see, it was still rather entertaining with enough plot twists and actions to keep me interested. Plus, comic book nerds unite.
- 9. Julie & Julia – I realise the movie wasn’t a major accomplishment or anything for anyone, but it was cute, and I enjoyed watching it, and Meryl Streep as Julia Child was just… amazing.
- 8. Four Christmases – All right, I love me some Reese Witherspoon and I kind of like Vince Vaughn, so it was definitely a movie to drag me in, and it was quite entertaining and funny. Not an amazing achievement but definitely worth a watch.
- 7. Veronika Decides to Die – While not one of the more well-known movies, or even touted this year very much, when I watched it I fell in love with Sarah Michelle Gellar all over again– she’s an amazing actress, and David Thewlis is convincing as the Doctor who hides behind his patients, but ultimately is trying to make them see. I adored it, nice look inside the mental health epidemic.
- 6. Dragon Hunters – A really under-appreciated animated movie that has a design and style unlike you’ve seen elsewhere, the characters are compelling and the story is different enough to pull you in, but familiar enough that you feel at home with it– to be fair it smacks of World of Warcraft at times, but in a good way. Definitely worth seeing.
- 5. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – I seem to watch a lot of animated films, but that’s because they’ve evolved a long way from just stupid humour, as shown best in this film where I don’t think many children would be giggling their heads off, but adults can find subtle humour in little things within. <3
- 4. Up – Pixar usually hits them out of the park but the mix of humour in this film with the almost making me cry was just overwhelming at times. Besides, Dug was enough to make anyone love this film.
- 3. Coraline – The adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s fantasy/”horror” title was actually rather provoking– I was actually disturbed several times in that way I /like/ to be when I’m experiencing Gaiman genius– definitely great.
- 2. Zombieland – Mixing humour with shooting the skulls off of zombies has to be one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever seen– honestly, I wish I had thought of it, but it still stands as one of my favourite movies this year.
- 1. Marley and Me – All right, you might be going ‘wtf?’ or at least thinking I’m a bit cracked out to have this on the top, but if you’ve ever had dogs die on you and had to take them to be put down, you know exactly why this movie affected me the most, I actually had to pause it and bury my face in my boyfriend’s lap to sob at one point. That’s a movie that evokes feelings.
Now let’s go this one better and point down the biggest let-downs of this year that I saw. Should be interesting. In reverse order again.
- 4. I Love You, Beth Cooper – Again with the disappointment on the comedy front, even though I very much like Hayden and what she does– just felt kind of meh about the comedy aspect and the general story, it’s been done.
- 3. Year One – Jack Black usually makes me think of Comedy, and especially when the movie is touted as a comedic endeavour, I expect there to be delivering– I was sadly disappointed when the jokes were ‘funny’, but not enough to make me actually laugh, more like “Oh, that’s kind of funny.” then I move on to the next scene– I think I laughed /once/, then it was over. Mreh.
- 2. Watchmen – I had such hopes for this movie as well, considering the hype it got, but in the end I was underwhelmed and found the only things in it to be worth the time was the fight scene in the prison hallway, and Rorschach as a hole as a compelling character, but still not enough to save the film.
- 1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – the biggest let down of all was the one I was most excited about. I cannot believe what they did to the story and how convoluted the plot got– they left out everything that made the book good and added in stuff that made the movie terrible. Elaborated on more here.
I invite you all to do the same and reflect on the movies– you might agree with me, you might not. <3 Comment with opinions, obviously.