Thoughts on cinema of 2009

Whilst the year is certainly not over, we still have hopeful masterpieces from The Coen Brothers, Richard Kelly, Guy Ritchie and Roland Emmerich, I can, however, comment on the year so far, from January 1st's screening of The Spirit, where I was so bloody tempted to walk out but I wanted a clean record, to Last Thursday's Zombieland screening, where me and two other people sat laughing and clapping as the rest of the audience were in silence, probably wondering why the Jewish kid was talking so much, and why none of the characters were unlikeable and thus killed off in increasingly tired ways.

January did start shitly, I mean, Frank Miller fucked up didn't he. But it had high points, David Wain's Role Models is a dry, witty comedy that shows why Paul Rudd should be a leading man, soon cancelled out by the low-brow I Love You, Man, which should have worked given Jason Segal is pure man. January slipped in some Oscar bait, in the much loved Mamma Mia od the Oscar season, Slumdog Millionaire, and Kate Winslet's double bill, The Reader and Revolutionary Road. All three were depressing, mostly because they were so well received despite being complete bollocks,more so than the usual Oscar fare, which I have found is not too bad sometimes. Last King Of Scotland wasn't as good on DVD but had an impact in the cinema, yet these films got such a critical glistening it's hard to believe critics anymore, which leads on to one of the most shameful films of the year, and the first complete let down of 2009.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. I love David Fincher, Zodiac is a complete masterpiece and unfairly overlooked by the Academy, Button had a 5 star review from Empire, Doubt only got 3 for goodness sake, and what was Button? A 2 hour 40 minute film about an un-extraordinary life lived by a man who grows young instead of old, besides the one quirk it's as mundane as could be comprehended, why is this deemed a masterpiece? I will never know, but it stands to reason that the writer also did the abysmal Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks mugs it for an Oscar like he's Jamie Foxx.

February did, however, offer up a film that I thought would probably be shit, but turned out to be THE best comic book adaptation of the year, in Ray Stevenson's Punisher: War Zone. Colin Salmon calls cops "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers" nuff said. On top of that two unfortunate films that slipped under the radar or weren't appreciated like they could have been, Cadillac Records and Push, came out, Push was solid fun, and whilst rather plot heavy, was good fun, and Cadillac Records was a solid, by-the-numbers musical bio that at least gave the feeling of the era.

March was geek heaven though, Watchmen finally came to cinemas, and yes, it was good, great in fact, but it's pacing issues and the last hour being slightly too plot heavy after the hour and a half flashbacks, squishing too many chapters together in the end and changing the ending affected the film, the Director's Cut didn't do a bad job of just calming the film down and adding more. Hollis Mason's death scene in particular was always missed in the cinema, twice on opening day I got up from my seat and felt it needed that added emotion for Dan.
March offered up a new English film in Bronson, a dark experimental comedy drama horror bio of a violent prisoner, played by Tom Hardy, who in his groundbreaking role got fat, naked and called everyone a cunt before punching them, that's all the film was, 100 minutes of a vulgar, violent twat with nothing interesting to say.
Richard Curtis brought out a new film too, with The Boat That Rocked, which is now coming out in America under the title Pirate Radio. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Chris O'Dowd save what could have been a painfully shit music loving film with some good comedy and drama, and even at 2 hours 15 minutes it still had lots of good moments, though the stiff upper lip English sequences involving a character called 'Twatt' were just awful stuff.
Fortunately Paul Blart was on it's way out, and whilst it was by no means perfect, it did well and secured the brilliant Kevin James a lead role from now on. And it was rather funny, Die Hard in a Mall was simple enough, and Blart was a well crafted character a sweet man who is overweight but knows it as a problem, I can understand.

April appeared with the second big CGI film, after the disaster that was Bolt, with Dreamworks' Monsters Vs Aliens, a film so painfully unfunny, padded with weak pop culture jokes that kill humour and with characters so devastatingly dull there's no point in seeing if they complete the film's 'plot', a true waste after last year's Kung Fu Panda showed that Dreamworks COULD make smart, funny films without resorting to pop culture riffs.

Again it was England's chance to save the day, Jason Statham appeared in hilarity inducing insanity sequel Crank 2, which one upped every single scene in the original, sometimes it was too much and became annoying, but it has the homemade charm that adds to the style.
Even with Jody Hill proving that it was Danny McBride and Ben Best that did the worst stuff in Foot Fist Way and Eastbound and Down, Observe and Report unfortunately flopped, it's a cult film to be sure, dark, vulgar but hilarious.

But the best comedy was almost completely home-grown, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is a hysterical 80 minute film about 3 geeks who know too much about sci-fi rules that when they accidentally find themselves going between 30 minutes ago and 5000 years in the future, they know exactly how to go about business without destroying the universe, once again it's all about Chris O'Dowd and his comic genius.

In The Loop, though, really shot out. The Thick Of It spin-off and feature debut for comedic master Armando Iannucci, In The Loop had everything we loved from the show, sweary Malcolm Tucker and his bloodhound Jamie, nerdy but sharply funny Chris Addison, but it added the dynamics of the US government in the lead up to the Iraq war, and all the lies and bullshit from both sides. Genius.

May arrived with the first group of summer blockbusters. The leaked-a-month-before-release Wolverine wasn't anywhere near as fun with the, ahem, 'completed' CGI, though the claws, Wolverine's one main weapon, were hilariously bad, the whole film was too serious, too dull and painfully slow. Star Trek got a lorra lorra love, but it really was bad, Star Wars with Kirk and Spock, not a reinvention as much as stealing from better films and clunking them together in an appalling way. The villain was dull, the characters were one dimensional, the humour was painful and the film was one of the worst experiences of the year.

Angels and Demons, however, diverted shit summer to good stuff, with a larger, faster paced, well done thriller, instead of a drama, where Tom Hanks almost died, and Ewan McGregor was a priest who jumps out of exploding helicopters. Good shit, and the Blu Ray certainly adds with it's extended cut, more violence is always welcome.
Drag Me To Hell proved Raimi still has the horror gene, Up was a let down after WALL-E but the best CGI film of the year and Synecdoche, New York, well, it was not as good as at the LFF.

June opened with the completely humourless The Hangover, from the pens of the writers of Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and Four Christmases. McG's Terminator 4 bored it's way through the summer, a dull, loud film that added nothing to the universe, the film's or our universe, your choice.
John Woo's Red Cliff finally came out, condensed into 2 hours 33, but still a cracker, visually beautiful, tense and full of great action, it lost a lot of character development, I'm guessing the additional 1 hour 45 minutes adds that stuff. Transformers was the same runtime and had EVEN LESS Character development, the film was painfully stupid beyond the realms of most Michael Bay films, no more Baytardation, it was full retard.
And Year One gave Harold Ramis' career the cyanide pill it needed for a long time now.

Ice Age 3 was a rather silly but entertaining hour and a half, some awful stuff mixed with good gems, but following that, Michael Mann's latest, Public Enemies, was a loud empty shell of a film, everything was there except any character depth or heart.
Moon brought Duncan Jones to the forefront with an amazingly and deceptively simple film that was hilarious, dark, tragic and constantly interesting, Sam Rockwell has always been and will continue to be an actor who deserves recognition.
In the opposite spectrum, Sacha Baron Cohen used his last remaining character for mock doc Bruno, which spent 40 minutes of the 80 minute runtime to set up a plot for no reason that it was all staged and uninteresting.
Even Will Ferrel's latest, Land Of The Lost, was a loud, stupid and painful hour and a half, comedy failed this summer.
Thankfully Tony Scott's Pelham 123 remake was a solid job, nicely stylised and entertaining, he is back to Man On fire quality.

August opening with GI Joe, a massive piece of cunt that had no humour, plot, CGI or idea of what quality is. District 9 also came out early on, a well received film that sadly is far too cliched and feels off by the time the mockumentary style is abandoned.
Judd Apatow's Funny People finally made it's way to cinemas, a 2 hour 25 minute comedy drama that had no interesting or funny characters at all, a waste of time. Unlike Tarantino's latest, a self-indulgent but rather entertaining version of what might have happened to the Nazis if Quentin was in charge of it all.

The Hurt Locker snuck out with critical love and limited PR, and showed that even at 57 Katherine Bigelow is an amazing director, very tense stuff for a 2 odd hour film.
David R. Ellis returned to finish The Final Destination series in 3-D with lots of shitty CGI but undeniable fun in it's stupidity. On the other hand, (500) Days Of Summer was a witty, quirky and brilliant comedy about romance, and how shit it all is. Amazing soundtrack too.
In the opposite corner from that is Away We Go, a film about the best couple in the world, purely sweet and calm, with an exceptional soundtrack, Away We Go was the best Mendes film of the year, take that Revolutionary Road, or indeed ever.

Dorian Gray was a massive failure of a film from Ealing Studios, a slow horror with no tension or a sex drama with no eroticism or character depth. Fish Tank, however, had lots of character depth and development, and whilst losing itself in the last 45 minutes was still a well made drama.
Julie & Julia proved that Meryl Streep is awesome, as is Jane Lynch, and whilst her Doubt co-star Amy Adams had a good year, with Night At The Museum 2 as well earlier, she couldn't make a mundane plot interesting.

The Crank team were back with Gamer, a silly, dark violent action film tarring Scottish man Gerard Butler, and whilst it didn't light up the box office it was entertaining enough. Sony Animation's next release post-masterpiece Surf's Up, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, was harmless fun, and had funny moments, but wasn't perfect, still, it made lots of money, sequel set for next August.

Surrogates showed that Jonathon Mostow and the Terminator 3/4 and Catwoman writers must be shot, and Bruce Willis likes paychecks, the same is said for Invention of Lying, a painfully dull, unfunny film that needed 5 re-writes and no Jennifer Garner.

But the highlight of October has been Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg forgives the awful Adventreland with this, and if you still haven't seen it, why are you reading this, CATCH IT!

To be honest, the rest of the year looks shit, so we'll see how it goes, but so far it's been a large mess.