Top 10 of 2009

Note: This article first appeared at www.boomelifemagazine.com

For a substantial part of the population, 2009 turned out to be the temporal equivalent of a root canal. And when, as in years past, they headed to the movies to escape from their troubles, the movies turned out to be…uninspiring. Or at least uninspired.

This was, after all, a year that gave us “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” — which went on to steal $150 million from unsuspecting ticket-buyers at the box office. It is a year that made the fourth iteration of “The Fast and the Furious” a worldwide smash (rejected advertising tagline: “At least it’s better than the third iteration”). And it is a year in which the film expected to be the biggest smash by far, “Watchmen,” fizzled and sputtered.

So what did the year’s biggest smash turn out to be? “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Yeesh.

And yet, even among such great steaming piles of mediocrity, certain films revealed themselves to be everything we want in a movie. They made us laugh, they made us cry, they made us feel that our nine bucks weren’t wasted.



Considering how shatteringly unexceptional most of the year was, a surprising number of these movies of quality hit the screens. There were more than a few, but fewer than a bunch. Certainly enough to fill out a Top 10 list. Ours follows, in ascending order:


10. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — This charming fable is about an optimistic character whose animal nature gets him into trouble, which he can only escape through his shrewdness. The stop-motion animation captured the attention of children, while adults were attracted to the clever humor and the vocal characterizations of the entire cast, especially George Clooney — who had a very good year.

9. “Everybody’s Fine” — Yes, this fine drama is one of those movies that flopped. Robert De Niro gives one of his finest, most delicately shaded performances in years as a slightly clueless father who travels around the country visiting his reluctant adult children. Based on an Italian film of the same name, and do you know what? That one was excellent, too.

8. “Julie & Julia” — You forget you’re watching Meryl Streep and you actually believe you are watching Julia Child on the screen — and then you wonder why she sort of looks like Meryl Streep. The two prongs of this story (Julia Child learning to cook and Julie Powell trying to cook like Julia Child) play off of each other to a wonderful effect. The happy marriage between Child and her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, is the romance of the year.

7. “Nine” — OK, I’m the only person in the world who loved this movie. But hey, it’s my list. This musical version of the Federico Fellini masterpiece “8½” explores the strain and the angst felt by a movie director as he attempts to create his next movie while trying to navigate his way through the women in his life, past and present. Basically, it’s about how hard it was for Fellini to be Fellini, only with songs.

6. “District 9” — Even if this South African film weren’t this spectacularly well made, it would still be notable just for the premise: aliens from outer space come to Johannesburg, where they are treated in much the same way that blacks were under Apartheid. It’s a science-fiction metaphor, and a good one, working well on both levels. (And for sci-fi creature fans, it offers a high ick factor). Newcomer Sharlto Copley is a revelation as the main character who comes to see both sides of the conflict.

5. “Zombieland” — Hilarious. An overworked horror premise (zombies have taken over, only a few humans left, blah, blah, blah) is played for laughs. You’d think the writers could not maintain the level of humor for the entire film, but their witty script never falters. My favorite moment: In a brief down time amidst the chaos, young Abigail Breslin tries to explain the difference between Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana.

4. “Food, Inc.” — After watching this horrifying and persuasive documentary, you may never want to eat again. It argues with conviction that the subsidies to farmers to grow corn, which were written to benefit the giant agribusiness corporations, have led to an unhealthy reliance on corn in practically everything we eat.

3. “The Messenger” — The best movie to come out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this explores a side of the conflict previously unexplored — the lives of people whose job it is to tell relatives that their loved ones have been killed. Ben Foster is terrific as the literally and figuratively damaged soldier who slowly finds a way to heal through his dealings with Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton. Both of them are also great.

2. “Lorna’s Silence” — In a year when the best acting was truly exceptional, Arta Dobroshi stands out above the crowd. In this Belgian import, she stars as a mercenary Albanian woman who married a Belgian junkie solely to gain Belgian citizenship. When the citizenship comes through, she plans to divorce him and marry a Russian for money, but the Albanian mob has other ideas. Amongst all the cynicism blooms a faint flower of hope.

1. “Up in the Air” — Funny and dramatic, flippant and serious, this well-crafted story fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. George Clooney (did we mention he had a very good year?) stars as a man whose carefully constructed emotional isolation is reflected in the time he spends traveling. Anna Kendrick is equally superb as his protégé. Clooney’s soullessness is necessary for his heartless but timely job; he travels around the country firing people.

-- Dan Neman, former movie critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, reviews movies every week here at www.BoomerLifeMagazine.com. He also writes the “Silver Screen with Dan Neman” column in each issue of Boomer Life magazine.