2009 Film List (Reviews, Discussion & Tracking) (1 Viewer)

[Adam_S]

Brothers Bloom is haphazard and flawed but very entertaining and quite satisfying in its own way. 7 of 10

 

[Michael Reuben]

I would love to supplement Adam's notes on The Brothers Bloom, but the showing I attended was plagued by technical difficulties, such that I obtained a full refund. What I saw I liked. Either I'll try again or wait for DVD (Blu-ray, if I'm lucky).

Valentino, the Last Emperor is a kind of retrospective biography of the fashion icon from the perspective of his 2007 anniversary show in Rome. The documentary team seems to have enjoyed complete access, because the footage is very revealing of Valentino at work and at the center of the private kingdom that has been constructed around him. Even if you have zero interest in fashion (like me), this is a compelling portrait of a remarkable character: fascinating, funny and stranger than anything a screenwriter could invent.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added Terminator Salvation, review here. The movie itself was lackluster but entertaining; it does stand out as one of the best 35mm film presentations I've seen in years. In focus, properly matted, clean print. Things that used to be taken for granted but are now exceedingly rare.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Updated with TERMINATOR SALVATION. Never thought I'd see the day where three horror remakes (Last House, F13, Valentine) featured more imagination than a Terminator movie. A big disappointment but hopefully the next one will be better.

I'm going to try and catch TYSON this weekend as well as DRAG ME TO HELL.

 

[Adam_S]

Night at the Museum 2 is adequate as a sequel, a bit better than the original, aided greatly by Amy Adams' outstanding Amelia Earhart, which is easily the best thing in either movie by a country mile. It's still horribly flawed by a bloody inconsistent magic system whose internal contradictions are lazy and never explained. Yes it's a macguffin, but to have one be successful, you have to provide a reasonable explanation, otherwise the audience will care, and they'll be annoyed--or at least I will be.

Easy Virtue is wonderful, charming and a delight all around Colin Firth is brilliant, Jessica Biel eventually measures up to the brits (a tough role to play where you have to be intimidated by the other cast members in the beginning and then gradually shed that attitude as the film progresses, it makes her look like she's just not in their league in the early scenes, but the role calls for just that perception of her to be communicated). Kristen Scott Thomas is delightfully bitchy and vicious, and there's an extended scene with a small yippy dog whose humor is so perfectly timed and honed it would feel at home in a Chaplin movie. The dialog is refreshingly full of wit, intelligent yet accessible, which means the film is often laugh out loud funny simply by the cleverness of the lines and the superb delivery and context, very nice to discover that's still possible in a modern film. though perhaps only possible if Noel Coward is your source. The soundtrack is also fantastic, I knew most all of the songs already, but my friend commented at how suprisingly modern all the songs were, not bad for 70+ year old tunes.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added Up. Had to wait for the 10:10 showing because the other 3D showings were sold out. Despite occasionally veering into Disney formulaic territory, it one of one the most meaningful pictures that Pixar has yet released. It asks big questions about nature of life, especially near the end of it, but wisely avoids concrete answers. After the opening scenes, the film covers decades in a montage full of life's ups and downs that puts a lot of faith in its young audiences. Wonderful achievement.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added The Hangover, the latest of Todd Philips's incredibly watchable R-rated dumb comedies. Like Dude, Where's My Car?, guys who wake up deeply hungover with no memory of the previous night must retrace their steps to find something (or someone) of great value. This film mines the formula for everything its worth, fitting back together with clockwork precision and continuous surprises. Highly recommended.

 

[Adam_S]

the Hurt Locker is easily the best of the Iraq war movies, a superb tension-thriller that focuses on a fascinating and intense pair of character portraits of bomb squad members James and Sanborn.

Jeremy Renner is excellent as Staff Sargeant James, the leader of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq in 2004 (a time when there were few such units around, although the film makes the anachronistic mistake of referencing youtube, which iirc was invented 2005 and became popular in 2006). Anthony Mackie is completely brilliant and astonishing as Sergeant Sanborn, and in some ways I was more impressed with his performance as a perfect foil to Renner. Renner displays a ton of range and manages to a remarkable performance. There are undercurrent metaphors about leadership, fear, death, recklessness, courage, sacrifice, and more packed into the film and the fact that it is able to mine and utilize those deep elements of male comraderie is remarkable. In my opinion it's the ability to tap into those sorts of metaphors underlying the stress of combat that all the great war movies have in common, and Hurt Locker can join their ranks.

Additionally the film has the best sound design in a film since Dark Knight or Transformers, it begs to be heard in a terrific theatre, incredibly impressive, and sure to garner at least one oscar nomination for mixing, if not two picking up the editing nom as well. (I also think Mackie could very well get himself a supporting nod here, but that Renner's perf will unfortunately be overlooked. it shouldn't be, it's the first legitimate oscar performance of the year (both of them are). simply outstanding.

I have only one caveat about the film, and that is I was about the eighth or ninth row of the theatre and about twenty minutes in I started getting badly nauseaus. This happened once before, when I was unfortunate enough to sit in the fourth row while watching Rachel Getting Married. So I think I just can't handle the shaky cam effect when it encompasses the entirety of my field of vision. As soon as a lull hit, I snuck to the rear corner of the theatre to watch the rest of the film. It's unfortunate, but I was the only one who seemed to have a bad experience with that, guess I'm just sensitive to it, or just watch movies on screens that are too big from too close. :-p

9 of 10

 

[KapilNarain]

yaaaa...ya its work and useful me...tnx

 

[JyBhushan]

the 2009 Film List thread is mainly for discussing

 

[JyBhushan]

ITS very useful post tnx to share it..i love that...

 

[Michael Reuben]

Most recent viewing:

Moon: The first film I've seen in a while that felt like genuine science fiction, anchored by a terrific performance (or should that be "performances"?) from Sam Rockwell. I'm not sure how wide a release this will get; so this may not get a big audience until DVD/Blu-ray.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Solid performances all around, but in the end I was underwhelmed. I think it was Helgeland's script. It felt workmanlike but uninspired.

 

[Michael Reuben]

The Proposal: Harmless silliness; the right Saturday film after a tough week.

Whatever Works: Even though the script was originally written for someone else, it's perfect for Larry David, who brings a genuine mean streak to the film that makes the familiar Woody Allen character a lot more obnoxious -- and also more interesting. Evan Rachel Wood plays dumb so effectively that she's almost unrecognizable (and she sounds like Anna Paquin in True Blood). Patricia Clarkson almost steals the movie until the bar scene between Ed Begley and Christopher Evan Welch (the narrator of Vicki Christina Barcelona), when they steal the movie.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added The Brothers Bloom, our first opportunity to see what Rian Johnson can do with a proper budget. Frankly, I preferred his previous indie picture. The biggest problem is the problem I always have with con men movies; when you're never sure what is real and what is fake, the effect is to detach the audience from the proceedings rather than reel it in. That being said, it is a surprisingly hilarious film with a very sure sense of its own pacing and style -- almost like a live action cartoon. Our introduction to the brothers in the beginning is absolutely terrific. The music choices were not obvious yet fitting. Overall, a movie I enjoyed but admired rather than loved.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added The Uninvited, my first theatrical 2009 release first experienced on DVD. A stellar film more concerned with circumstances, perspectives and suggestion than cheap thrills. Elizabeth Banks channels Louise Fletcher effectively, but the film hinges on Emily Browning's deceptively simple performance since it is through her eyes that we experience everything. A triumph of casting, rounded out by David Strathairn as the earnest but distant father and American Pie: Band Camp's Arielle Kebbel as the film's perpetually drunk horror movie T&A. A very smart horror movie.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Cheri: The reunion of star Michelle Pfeiffer, director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Christopher Hampton didn't produce a classic like Dangerous Liaisons, but it did produce an interesting film if you watch it with the right attitude. (It was alternately amusing and embarrassing listening to the two Bens on At the Movies miss the entire point of the film.) It's the story of an aging but still beautiful French courtesan who falls into a relationship with the much younger son (nicknamed "Cheri") of a "colleague" played by Kathy Bates. Based on a novel by Collette, it's about what happens when two people whose lives have supposedly deprived them of all possibility of falling in love suddenly do so -- and then don't know what to do about it. Sumptuously produced, often grotesque, sometimes funny, ultimately tragic.

The Hurt Locker: It's great to have Kathryn Bigelow back in the director's chair after so many years' absence. This film following the activities of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq deserves all the praise it's getting and then some. It displays all of Bigelow's characteristic strengths: taut action sequences, crisp editing, a frame that seems to vibrate with tension even when the shot is still. "War is a drug", the film proclaims in a text display at the beginning, and then it proceeds to show us 2+ hours of mainlining.

 

[Adam_S]

catching up:

Up is perfection and the year's best film, and in my opinion, Pixar's finest and most sophisticated film to date. 10 of 10

Seraphine is a very solid French film with a tremendous central performance. The film is consistently compelling and interesting but it never really soars, definitely worth watching though, this is a story and artist worth knowing about. 7 of 10

Angels and Demons made me want to visit Rome moreso than I already did. I must admit it was utterly fascinating and far more interesting and compelling than the Da Vinci Code. Then again, I'd had the misfortune of reading the wretched Da Vinci Code so watching the movie was just an extension of the page-turning-tedium of reading the book. Ron Howard does work in this film that I feel is deeply unappreciated, of all the summer action films this one is easily the finest directing. The screenwriting, characters and plot are all cardboardish, but the direction elevates the material into a compelling and very enjoyable film experience. Tom Hanks also contributes a great deal, his presence and performance I feel was a more interesting factor in the film this time, though he's still not so much integral to the plot as he is a writer's homonculus capable of knowing the depth and breadth of minutia necessary to advance the plot. 6 of 10

Food Inc is really a film I shouldn't be reviewing as such a film is basically preaching to the choir with me and I had a disastrous turn a few years back when I took a traverse through health fanatic wacko land. However when I eventually returned to reason I had a few principles I kept. Sugar, flour and Corn products are pretty bad for you, most of the organic stuff is just as industrial as conventional, and you can always find a new degree of 'omg healthy' that is more and more narrow (and expensive) with greater and greater health claims. And the final conclusion I made was that I can't escape corn on my salary anyway because it'll be part of all my meat, poultry, eggs, fish, milk, cheese and any and every prepared food, so perhaps it was all a losing battle anyway. What's remarkable about Food Inc is that it possesses the same sort of conclusions I came to, this is not a hardcore anti industry film, it shows clearly the complexity of the issues, presents alternatives (Salatin's famed farm, for example) as well as the breadth of contemporary food production. More than anything this is a film about how our food is produced, rather it is CAFO beef, mass-chicken, or corn on top of corn and it is very entertaining about showing where our food comes from and what goes into the production of it. Remarkably they got aerials of the CAFOs and undercover footage of processing plants, so much of this film is material that has often been suppressed since due to many states food-libel laws we're not allowed to know about our food's path to us or say anything against us (witness the woman in the film who refuses to say what changes her family has undergone since losing a daughter to industrial food ecoli because she's afraid of lawsuits. and it's a well founded fear that the pants could be sued off her for simply stating specifically how they've changed what they eat. In any event the film is fantastic, very entertaining and I imagine for many people extremely informative, one of the very best documentary's I've seen (crossing my fingers for the oscar). 10 of 10

Whatever Works is another success for Woody Allen, the film is very funny, funnier even than some of his early funny ones. Evan Rachel Wood is a revelation here, delivering her best performance since Thirteen. And she is also gorgeous. Larry David has been called a thinly veiled Woody Allen, and I think that is entirely the wrong tact to take. To me it was clear from the beginning that this character was Groucho Marx, not Woody Allen. The similarities to Woody's own life not-withstanding, I feel that there is a greater sense of anarchy to David's worldview than an Allen characters usually possess. In any event the film is consistently witty, entertaining and charming and the entire audience laughed their asses off. 8 of 10

The Hangover is not at all what I expected. It's more of a comic detective story than it is a frat boys gross out humor. It has more in common with a Coen Bros' comedy than anything else. The script is every bit as tight and well thought out as Big Lebowski or O Brother Where art Thou? and the writers obviously paid immense attention to making every scene matter, both in the initial run through and in planting an element that will payoff later in the film. That's the fundamental genius behind the coen's comedies, that their scripts are so insanely complex yet utterly clear and precise. There have been few other filmmakers who have managed to update the tradition of Wilder or Hawksian screwball comedy into the modern era, but in many ways, The Hangover is the finest Hawks-esque screwball comedy of the modern era, and that was completely unexpected. To be fair, I guessed where the missing groom was from the moment they visited the location (before he goes missing) which if anything enhanced my pleasure in the film. :-p 8 of 10

Transformers 2 is a deeply problematic film that fails on far more levels than it succeeds. I do not think the plot was too complex to follow. I do think that having all the characters be confused during the film doesn't help plot comprehension, especially when the audience is even more confused than the characters. The script also fails to match the humor and charm of the first film, often taking a more serious tone that seems at odds with the action and nature of a film about giant robots clobbering each other. Additionally the robots have no chance to develop their personality because they only ever fight. It really makes you realize how important those scenes of the robots goofing off in Sam's yard was in the first film, as ill advised as it all seemed at the time. Why, for example does Optimus Prime only ever fight? Good guys have a grand tradition of outwitting their opponents as often as they outfight them (except of course in Tarentino crap) I'd have much rather seen some cleverness from the robots to vary their impact in the film. But perhaps the biggest problem with the film is that any rules governing the limitations of the robots powers are completely thrown away whenever it is inconvenient for the writers (because they've written themselves into a corner), as new superpowers are introduced we have less and less stake in each new fight because there's no consistency. I did very much appreciate Fallen's Egyptian royal headdress though which was the film's singular subtle touch. Shia LaBeouf's ability to carry this film is truly remarkable and I really hope that the third film gives him a better script to work with as he's shaping up to be a capable actor accompanied by some very strong charismatic star power, and few actors his age have displayed that quality of late. 4 of 10

 

[Michael Reuben]

Holiday weekend viewing:

The Girl from Monaco: A cleverly dark satire that goes right past some viewers, as Ben Lyons so amply demonstrated on At the Movies. It's about the mess that ensues when utterly incompatible notions of seduction and its uses collide with each other. For the aging celebrity lawyer, Betrand (played to perfection by the great Fabrice Luchini), it's an indulgence and a passtime, pursued in the traditional French manner where the mind is the principal erogenous zone. For the amoral young weather girl, Audrey (Louise Bourgoin in her film debut), it's both good fun and a useful tool for career advancement. For Christophe, the bodyguard hired to protect the lawyer during his current high-profile case in Monaco (a nicely understated Roschdy Zem), it's all about satisfying a natural bodily need before getting back to the job at hand. The film takes you to some unexpected places, and they're not always comfortable. Featuring the legendary Stéphane Audran as Bertrand's stony-faced client.

Public Enemies. Not my favorite Michael Mann movie, but a very good one.

Tetro. Francis Coppola's first wholly original script since The Conversation. It's a gorgeous film with a much more straightforward plot than his previous effort, Youth Without Youth. A young man, Bennie (impressive newcomer Alden Ehrenreich), comes to Buenos Aires, looking for the brother, Angelo (Vincent Gallo), who had abandoned the family years ago in apparent revolt against their father, a brilliant and world-famous conductor (Klaus Maria Brandauer). Angelo is living with Miranda (Maribel Verdú, from Y tu mamá también) and now insists on being called "Tetro". A tortured story of family secrets and rivalry is gradually revealed as Bennie and Tetro alternately confront and run away from each other. Carmen Maura co-stars as an influential critic and, as always, adds a shine to the screen. Shot in luminous black-and-white with occasional color sequences that leap off the screen, and with sophisticated sound editing by Walter Murch. Some viewers will find it trying and arty, and it does risk both of those things. But it's also brilliant.
Edited by Michael Reuben - 7/12/2009 at 11:58 pm GMT

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added Away We Go, a great little film from a director I don't particularly care for: Sam Mendes. While the film is littered with his trademark absurdist touches, the complete product is almost a rebuttal of the model of humanity presented in American Beauty; while there are some truly awful people in the film, starting with the male lead's parents, there are also plenty of decent, warm, loving people that find themselves in awful situations. And there are people like Burt and Verona, who have found in each other the life they want to have. Their cross country trek exposes them to various outrageous and tragic models of what family means, until finally they find home. IMDB tells me the film was written by David K. Eggers, acclaimed novelist of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and his wife of seven years. Neither he nor she is free from the pretensions they so brutally mock. But his back story has more than a fair share of tragedy, and together they have found happiness. Together they seem to argue that is brutal, disappointing, surprising, hilarious, and devastating. Taken together, the final product should be seen as an endorsement.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Added Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. After my disappointment with Order of the Phoenix, I wondered if it was the new director or the new screenwriter that was the biggest problem. Half-Blood Prince definitively answered that question. This screenplay is a masterpiece, one of the best examples of adaptation I've yet experienced. Steve Kloves has improved with each script in this series, and the penultimate installment (if you count the two-part Deathly Hallows as one film) benefits from his experience. Each storyline builds upon itself with a very tangible, if sometimes understated, payoff. His last script, Goblet of Fire, made the decision to dump buckets of plot in favor of character development -- a decision I very much approved of. With this film, Kloves takes advantage of the scarity of big set pieces to have both. This is the first mystery, so to speak, since Chamber of Secrets that felt fully developed. The teen romance hijinks serve to obfuscate the main story thread, which is Harry hunting Draco hunting Dumbledore. Said hijinks also highlight Kloves's aptitude for humorous interludes, stripped down and largely bungled in the fifth go-round. Terrific adaptation, tremendous film.