Top 25 of 2009: Part 1 25-11

25. Where The Wild Things Are
Directed by Spike Jonze
Written by Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers
Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfino, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker and Chris Cooper

Here's a film I was looking forward to purely because of Jonze's name, but the trailers and clips all looked naff, dull and like a sweet arts and crafts visual footage with no plot. The plot is, however, limited, but everything else I thought was wrong when I finally saw my first Jonze film in a cinema. Same amazing visuals as presented in his previous films and shorts & music vids, except Praise You which was very much the Jackass side of him.

A very dark, depressing film about a child's development problems and repression, bi-polar disorder and aggression, as he lives with massive creatures, all parts of his psyche, he finally understand what he puts his mother through as he becomes their king, and tells them what they should do, keeps them busy and holds the family together.

It's by no means a light kids film, but it's not a horrible film, it's daring to give children the chance to see something that's realistic in a fantasy environment, and much more subtle than some films this year. It's funny, interesting and the lead kid is actually a good actor.

24. Role Models
Directed by David Wain
Written by Paul Rudd & David Wain and Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling
Starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh and Ken Jeong.

Paul Rudd, now synonymous somehow with bromance films, honestly, I Love You, Man, that's all, and that's his worst film for ages. That and Monsters Vs Aliens, but it wasn't his fault there, he didn't have to hold the film together with Rush gags and pretending to be shit at improv. At the top of the year he was in my locket close to my heart, and you couldn't say a bad thing about the man. Add to that Chris Mintz-Plasse, who whilst always McLovin to everyone is a funny and intelligent guy, playing a geek, Stifler playing Stifler, Scott is epic at that, and Bobb'e J. as a foul mouthed kid constantly playing the race card, what could go wrong? Nothing.

A consistently funny, silly and entertaining film full of great lines, moments and an amazing 15 minute action sequence using plastic swords, a small wooded area in LA and lots of slow-mo. Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh, The lovely Liz Banks and Ken Jeong are just icing on the cake to showcase to idiots that these people are also hysterical, and it worked, see Community and Glee and The Hangover, recognisable now right.

23. Observe And Report
Written & Directed by Jody Hill
Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Ray Liotta and Aziz Ansari

He did it! Finally that twinkle of brilliance in a sadly disappointing on the re-watch Foot Fist Way, and an appallingly unfunny series of Eastbound & Down wherein the joke is the main character is uninteresting and annoying, and we suffer that for 3 hours, has sparked. Jody Hill, it seems, is the funny guy next to Danny McBride, who is a funny actor but not writing material, and Ben Best, again the same here.

Jody, in a year where America was overcome with Paul Blart in January, gave the gift of a more adult Mall Cop for us all, though Kevin James' charm won over more, there's no mistaking this very dark black comedy about a bi-polar testosterone build idiot who feels castrated when real cops enter into the equation of a flasher getting the girl of his dreams. With this Seth Rogen delivers a tour-de-force, both funny and frightening, he's serious and silly at different times, but it's always right for the character, and at points he manages to get Curb style cringe moments.

With some exceptional work from the likes of Michael Pena as a drug abusing mall cop and second in command, Anna Faris as a complete bitch (It's a good year for bitch acting) and Ray Liotta as a cop who hates Rogen's guts purely because he knows that he is better than Rogen, Observe and Report is not for everyone's tastes, but it's hella fun to watch, short and bitter and a must see for comedy of the year.

22. 9
Directed by Shane Acker
Written by Pamela Pettler
Starring Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly and Martin Landau.

It's not the most original tale, end of the world, key to existance, life and death, humanity destroyed by machines, but as it's told in a visually stunning, ever compelling, wonderfully acted, voice and animation-wise, 9 presents a dark tale of the future in a more adult animation than is normally in the mainstream consciousness, and for that it deserves props, unashamed of going for a more PG-13 area, it's interesting, entertaining and enjoyable, if not unpredictable it leaves you on the edge of your seat for a vast majority of the film's runtime. Well worth a viewing, despite negative reviews.

21. Gamer
Written & Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Starring Gerard Butler, Logan Lerman, Alison Lohman, Michael C. Hall, Chris Bridges, John Leguizamo, Kyra Sedgwick & Terry Crews

Again an unoriginal idea, my friend thought of this concept about 10 years ago and tried to write a novel on it, I remember it distinctly because I thought it sounded like a good idea, we were not conscious of the outside world at this point, clearly.
Butler is Kable, a prisoner who is controlled once a week by a kid playing a game, an FPS, Kable, whilst knowing he's being controlled, has no contact with the kid. As it unravels, Chris bridges' cyber terrorist tries to help free Kable and get to see his family once more, And during this plot there's like 70 action scenes, all amazing in comparison to the year's blockbusters, unsurprising given the directors, more on that later, and a wonderful music sequence with Michael C. Hall being all evil and what not.
Massively entertaining and a must-see soon, if you miss this, well, you're sad. Butler, gun, prisoners, boom headshot, nuff said.

20. The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Written & Directed by Terry Gilliam
Starring Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Verne Troyer, Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell.

When I was at Movie-Con, Mr. Gilliam came on stage, entertaining, funny and insightful. I had seen the trailer to Imaginarium and had no interest in seeing it. To me it looked like a poorly made, random kind of film full of weird images and no semblance of a plot. The subsequent clips, Empire claimed 'a massive amount of the movie' which was about 2 minutes in total, were poor, out of context and lacking content.

Cut to October and it's release, I'm bored, Up is out but saw it in May and June for free, what to do. I see Imaginarium. What a film it turns out to be, it's funny as hell, interesting, and although the last 20 minutes get a little too complex for it's own good, imaginative and visually arresting, compelling and well made. Imaginarium turns out to be a hidden gem, a Gilliam film which actually isn't as annoying as earlier works of this decade. Whilst Ledger's death looms over the film a bit, the changing face of the character through many actors is neither jarring or out of place, in fact it works better as it is than if, alas, it was Ledger all the way through, I'd guess the character's change would be more subtle, however...

19. Life During Wartime
Written & Directed by Todd Solondz
Starring Alison Janney, Paul Reubans, Ciaran Hinds, Chris Marquette, Shirley Henderson and Michael K. Williams.

Ok, so it's not been released yet, so probably next year people MAY put it on their lists of the year, however seeing it at the LFF this year the semi-sequel, more epilogue, to Happiness, the 1998 masterpiece from Todd Solondz that went through some dark areas of life, is a far lighter, easier piece, shorter too, surprisingly lean.

In place of a man's realisation of his sick fetishes and his relationship to his eldest son during the time, we see a few years later, the family still together, sans father pervert, and it's the youngest son's Bar Mitzvah coming up, as he learns to become a man he finds out what happened to his father. Recasting all the roles isn't as jarring as expected, though Philip Seymour Hoffman becoming Michael K. Williams is odd, I didn't understand they were the same person until I looked on imdb later that day. A hard film to really discuss, Wartime has elements from Happiness, the titular song is sung by the same character, who sees her past dead boyfriends all the time, having a mental breakdown, sisterly relationships, love, sex and that opening is very much made to welcome you in to a familiar world. It's a must see for a great wrap up to an 11 year old film, and it's very funny in itself.

18. Red Cliff
Directed by John Woo
Written by John Woo & Khan Chan & Cheng Kuo & Heyu Sheng
Starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang and Chen Chang

I was following the production of this film for at least 3 years and one day in June the UK cinemas were offered the film, not quite the 4 hour 45 minute epic two parter that was done in China but a condensed version. As of writing I have just viewed part one of the two part version on bluray, and the additional hour cut from our release adds the character development that was sorely needed in the condensed, intense but empty version we saw this year.
It says a lot for a film if, without any sign of interesting character development it was still able to climb this top 25 list, the action is epic, well done and different each time, making it far more enjoyable than, say, star Trek, and the style presented, Woo meets modern Chinese filmmaking, it's pure heaven. Whizzing around, slow-mo, long shots, CGI, well choreographed fighting, and more amazing visuals.

17. Up
Directed by Pete Docter (Bob Peterson co-directing)
Written by Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Starring Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer (Yes, again!), Delroy Lindo, Jordan Nagai and of course John Ratzenberger

It was too much to ask for Pixar to be able to one up last year's masterpiece WALL-E, a top 20 film of all time easily, and whilst you must lower expectations, it's no masterpiece, and unfortunately it's very much an action adventure with weak plotting and a change from wonderful to meh about half way through, it's still superior to many other films of the year. How many other films would have the balls to have a geriatric man lead the, hang on, Gran Torino, Harry Brown, erm.... Well, ok, but for a kids film, no vigilante-ism to focus on a man losing his wife, happy family film of course, and then fulfilling their dream with a kid who accidentally tags along, well, to be sure it's a heartbreaking, tearjerking beautiful 45 minutes that's hysterical beyond belief, it's just a shame that when they add a villain to the piece the film collapses, the greatest enemies in the opening half are gravity, time and annoying children.

16. Public Enemies
Directed by Michael Mann
Written by Michael Mann & Ronan Bennett
Starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, Christian Bale, Giovani Ribisi, Stephen Lang, Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum and Stephen Graham

Admittedly when I first saw this film I was devastated at how bland, empty and uninteresting it all was. However I credit this to the poor sound on the film, the fact that the earlier screening's surround was broken and we weren't warned though the cinema already knew and the factor of rushing back an hour after rushing home to catch a screening. And subtitles. Subtitles are wonderful creatures, you can understand the film even if you quiet it down because the dialogue is low but the gunshots are too fucking loud even fro Mann's standards, see Heat for a near well balanced sound system.

As muffled as it all is, the film is intense, interesting and, though slow, it lets you enter the period setting as we watch Dillinger in his last year, and Christian Bale as a panto villain FBI agent. It's not the masterpiece that Mann has offered time and time again, but it's certainly a well done little film.

15. Trick 'r Treat
Written & Directed by Michael Dougherty
Starring Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox

Another of them long to get here films, one I heard about way back when, like 2005-2006 and was excited then. Then the trailer appeared on the 300 US DVD, and some kind person put it on youtube. I was squealish in anticipation. October, october, come on Warner Brothers. Then they let it slide that year, build a marketing campaign and release it next February was the idea, which was then changed to October '08. The WB proved time and time again how to mishandle a film which had only garnered positive reviews in it's precious few screenings. Time flew by and the film had still not appeared, then, October 09, fuck it, they just threw it on DVD, Blu Ray in the US, and didn't give a fuck. WELL WE DID!
I imported that mofo like it was my own film, I was so excited, and yet I waited 3 weeks before I put it in and watched it, I had to, needed a Halloween spirit. And you know what? It was funny as hell, clever, full of great twists in each scene and great actors, the best obviously being the one and only Dylan Baker, but it was scary without being too much, violent without being gory and entertaining without needing to spoof, relying more on pastiche and ambience, it's a brilliant film abused by a terrible studio.

14. Anvil: The Story Of Anvil
Directed by Sacha Gervasi

How wonderful when you can say a documentary was good, so good in fact you'd WANT to watch it again, and not just that, it's an easy watch and it surpasses a majority of the films released this year. With all their budgets and CGI and big name actors. Yes, ok, the similarities to Spinal Tap aren't exactly unmanufactured, but it's allowable to fudge the facts for the sake of telling a great comedic tale of two men in a heavy metal band respected by their peers, ignored by the public majority. It's an underdog story told like a documentary, just with details changed, but fuck it, it's just such a great film, and I don't like Heavy Metal music, so it's well worth checking out.

13. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
Directed by Gareth Carrivick
Written by Jamie Mathieson
Starring Chris O'Dowd, Anna Faris, Marc Wooton & Dean Lennox Kelly

How wonderful when you can go to the cinema and see a small British piece of cinema that is insanely funny but best of all, a pure geek film. 3 Imagineers, or geeks like us, find the men's room of the pub makes them travel through time by accident, and in true form, they understand the rules of such travel from films, and know about the kinds of dangers and scrapes from films too. And it's just lots of clever, silly and funny sequences which works even better on DVD than the cinema counter-part, more an epic feature length comedy for the BBC than a big budget sci-fi film that demands the screen, but it demands you go find a copy and tell your friends.

12. The Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Written by Robert D. Siegel
Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood

Not the most shocking choice, a film that last year was garnering billions of pieces of praise for the film and Rourke's performance alike. Calling it his comeback was mean, however, his work with Robert Rodriguez, most famously in Sin City, was surely a performance he'll be remembered for years ahead, but it's no secret Rourke was amazing in The Wrestler, a simple and well told drama about washed out star rebuilding his career, fighting old age, finding love and losing family.

It's tragic, funny, superbly paced and tremendously acted, Evan Rachel Wood and Marissa Tomei are equally astonishing in their secondary roles, and yet Rourke is never a smug lead, he's charismatic, interesting, and best of all, true. Similar to seeing Jean Claude crying in JCVD, the warmth and reality of the film stems from Rourke's actual experiences, and that's what makes this film so damn good.

11. Punisher: War Zone
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Written by Nick Santora and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Starring Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Wayne Knight, Dash Mihok, Colin Salmon and Doug Hutchinson

An odd choice, yes, but just outside the top 10 and I present a film I laughed at, was constantly interested in and purely entertained in the most visceral of ways when watching it, and not just in the cinema, multiple home release re-watches and if anything it gets better. It's not a great film in the sense of writing, character development, strong morality, but it's fun, violent and got some hysterical little moments. the Punisher without the commercial mainstream issues that made Tom Jane's one a little too polite, quiet and shiny, this is down and dirty, full of mad limb tearing moments, and never afraid to utter the term "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers"
Awesome.

And so there we are.
2009 is officially over, and I'll be revealing my top 10 later today, hope you had a good year, and a better 2010, especially in cinema.