Top 10 Movies of 2009

By Gregor Turley

Frankly, I was surprised I could conjure up a list of the top 10 movies of 2009. In recent years it’s been difficult for me to find even five films worthy to be named my favorites. But this time around, there was a plethora of worthy candidates for the best movies of 2009.

10. A Serious Man – Joel and Ethan Coen returned to their Minnesota Jewish roots, retelling the book of Job as a surreal suburban dramatic comedy, and making one of the best (and weirdest) of the seven films they released in the decade. Michael Stuhlbarg leads a marvelous ensemble cast, and the period details of the sets and costumes are amusingly accurate.

9. Star Trek – As a semi-Trekkie with a long love/hate relationship with various iterations of the Trek universe, I was wary of even seeing this movie in the first place. I never dreamed it would make my top 10 movies of 2009, but this return to the origins of the Trek mythology by the co-creators of Lost rejuvenated a tired franchise and actually made me hopeful for sequels.

8. The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow brings her talent for action and suspense to Iraq, subjecting viewers to an incredibly intense and up close view of life and survival as a member of an army explosives disposal squad. The opening scene of the film is riveting, and Jeremy Renner’s performance as a fearless bomb expert ensures that the intensity doesn’t relent.

7. The Road – This bleak tale has a deep inner core of love and hope, which makes the post-apocalyptic story of a man and his son traveling a road across a barren and dangerous landscape so compelling to watch. That emotional core, the fire within, is symbolically carried by the boy, but cinematically carried by Viggo Mortensen’s outstanding, award-worthy performance.

6. Up In The Air- Among the best movies of 2009, this one is perhaps the most currently relevant. Jason Reitman’s high-flying comedic drama skillfully takes the impossibly handsome and charming George Clooney as a corporate hatchet-man, pairs him with Vera Farmiga at her sexiest, throws in glass-ceiling breaker Anna Kendrick as his foil, and manages to make it all not just believable and relatable, but thoroughly entertaining.

5. Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino is the cinematic equivalent of the weird kid in the neighborhood who likes to collect bits and pieces of other things and assemble them in different ways to see what new contraptions he can build. He’s a loony, but such an entertaining one, as he gives the audience what history never could — a chance to see Hitler riddled with bullets, and by a Jewish American soldier no less — in a war movie that resembles Kill Bill with Nazis. Tarantino outdoes his own trademark with several brilliantly suspenseful dialogue scenes, and Christoph Waltz deserves every award he earns for his supporting performance as the charmingly menacing Colonel Hans Landa.

4. Paranormal Activity – How does a micro-budgeted film become one of the top 10 movies of 2009? By having a very small cast, a simple yet smart idea, a few clever visual effects, and a VERY smart marketing concept that turned this word-of-mouth phenomenon into a box office success. Director Orem Peli and his co-stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat took The Blair Witch Project, moved it indoors, mounted it on a tripod in the bedroom, and proceeded to scare the daylights out of everyone in the theater.

3. Where The Wild Things Are – Director Spike Jonze crafted a breathtaking adaptation of the classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak. Rather audaciously staged as live action rather than animation, mostly within barren landscapes, it features giant Muppet creatures as the Wild Things, and they all reflect humanity in a way mirrors do not. The remarkable, honest performance of Max Records as the boy is matched by the superb voice work of James Gandolfini, Chris Cooper, and the rest of the cast. The film may not be to every kid’s liking, but it speaks to the kid within each of us.

2. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs – My choices for the two best movies of 2009 are both animated, though I don’t always favor the genre over live action. It just so happens that one of my favorite evenings at the movies this year was sitting through this frothy, candy-colored delight. It holds just enough of the sentimental stuff to season the mixture without overwhelming the overall taste. It’s frenetic and wildly silly, and it had me in stitches. The voice cast is superb (I pity the fool who doesn’t laugh at Mr. T as the cop), and the movie proves that Pixar hasn’t cornered the market on well-made computer-animated comedy.

1. Mary And Max – My favorite movie of 2009 is this stunning, beautiful claymation-style Australian animated film from writer/director Adam Elliot, Academy Award winner for his animated short film, Harvie Krumpet. Here he tells the hilarious and heartbreaking story of a long-distance relationship between two misfit pen pals: a little Australian girl who’s a social outcast, and a middle-aged athiestic Brooklyn Jew with Asperger syndrome. The design of the film is humorously stylized, with color schemes that shift to contrast the two different worlds of the protagonists. The score is filled with perfect musical selections, both old and new. And the voice casting features great contributions from Barry Humphries (a.k.a. Dame Edna), Eric Bana, and Toni Collette — capped by a fantastic, nearly unrecognizable vocal performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as Max. I laughed, I cried, and I will never forget this movie.