The best of 2009 movies Oct 03 '10 (Updated Sep 16 '11)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Movies Love and Basketball From $6 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy From $8 The Bottom Line Some good movies, no great one(s), lots of anguish and bad news to deliver in most of the movies I picked. The time has come for me to make my ten-best list for 2009. I’m never going to see all the movies that might be considered for such a list. There are still some potential candidates on my  2000 posting that I haven’t seen, so it remains provisional. Maybe one or two or three of the following might eventually make it onto my 2009 list, but none compelling enough for me to delay longer. Unseen by me Antichrist Baarìa Bright Star Coco Before Chanel Disgraced The Fantastic Mr. Fox I Killed My Mother It's Complicated Nine The Road Io sono l'amore (I Am Love) Two Lovers Where the Wild Things Are You, the Living The Young Victoria Working on a list made me realize that despite some very good acting and cinematography, 2009 was lacking in great movies. I have reservations about one aspect or another of even my top picks. Given my frequent vocal criticism of the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it is disconcerting to find myself endorsing their picks not only of the best movie, but of the best foreign-language movie (for the second year in a row, a dark horse that hardly anyone — except voters who must see all five nominees to vote — had seen. Though the choices for acting awards seem at least somewhat questionable to me, none seems idiotic (as some past ones do). “Bite the bullet” might be a good title for my list. My choices seem to range from devastating to grim with a lot of collateral damage in a more general sense than the military euphemism. Three of my top ten might be classified as “sports movies,” though to me none of them is really “about” sports (and one of them does not show the underdog triumphing, as most “sports movies” do). (1) I’ve already telegraphed that “The Hurt Locker,” written by Mark Boal and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, occupies my #1 spot. I thought it was gripping both in its action and in its characterizations. Compelling as Jeremy Renner’s performance was in it, and that was very compelling, I wished that the movie had given more screen time to Anthony Mackie as the saner second-in-command of the bomb squad. (2) The most intense performance by an actress in a 2009 movie was Kim Hye-Ja in the title role of the Korean movie "Mother" (Madeo), directed by Bong Joon-Ho with very impressive atmospheric cinematography by Hong Kyung-Pyo (who also shot "“Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War”). Though I was irritated by the length of the first and last scenes in the movie, what was in between was startling. Kim turns detective after her retarded son signs a confession(that he probably cannot read) to murdering a young girl. (3) I also thought that George Clooney was flawless as another kind of defuser and adrenaline junkie in “Up in the Air,” written and directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno). The mordant comedy worked for me, and Vera Farmiga held her own with Clooney’s layoff hitman. (4) Morgan Freeman asked Clint Eastwood to direct “Invictus.” Eastwood had already directed Freeman to an Oscar for “Million Dollar Baby” and directed him to an Oscar nomination as best actor as Nelson Mandela trying to unite long-term enemies around (of all things!) rugby with Matt Damon (of all people!) as an Afrikaner team captain. The improbable but true sports story was worthy. What made the movie for me was the presidential security staff getting together. As usual with Eastwood movies, I thought this one could have been trimmed some. (5)  I was very impressed by Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, and Samantha Morton in “The Messenger” (a sort of amalgam of bringing bad news and the anguish of counterinsurgency from my top two choices; written and directed by Oren Moverman). I feared that it was going to go off track with a redemptive romance, and the “I’m no hero” monologue has been done before a number of times (which is not Ben Foster’s fault!). The “casualty notifications” of NOK (next-of-kin: the military preceded the Internet in using acronyms for everything!) are harrowing and each one is gut-wrenching for the viewer (and the CN team) in different ways. As with “Hurt Locker” (and “In the Valley of Elah”) the movie took no stand on the Iraq military action, focusing on the soldiers and their families. (6) “Julie and Julia” is the second decidedly upbeat movie on my list. Meryl Streep and Stanely Tucci are delightful in the post-WWII romance. The contemporary couple played by Amy Adams and Eric Powell have less showy parts. Many viewers expressed regret that the contemporary story was included. Having enjoyed Julie Powell’s book (based on her blog of cooking through the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking), my response was that the story of Julia and Paul Child had been around for years (told by Julia in My Life in France). It was Julie’s best-selling book that led to the movie (and to Mastering the Art of French Cooking finally reaching the top of the best-seller list decades after its publication and My Life in France rising high on the paperback best-seller lists.). Yes, Julie (onscreen and the original) is neurotic and self-dramatizing, lacking the exuberance of Julia Child. And Streep it the premier screen actress, but I’d welcome the contemporary part just to have so supportive a male as Eric (Messina) on view. Norah Ephron wrote the screenplay and directed impeccably. (7) The Argentine Oscar-winner "The Secret in their Eyes" (El secreto de sus ojos, written and directed by Juan José Campanella), like the other best foreign-language films to receive Golden Globe and/or Oscar nominations, seemed to me longer than it needed to be and quite complicated. The original whodunit mystery is solved halfway through, but justice is sacrificed to expediency and the retired magistrate’s assistant played by Ricardo Darín continues to investigate the ramifications of the brutal rape and murder from the beginning into his retirement. (8) “Los Abrazos Rotos” (Broken Embraces), written and directed by Pedro Almódovar seemed too long and complicated, too, though its complexity could also be justified by learning what happened fourteen years earlier. Penélope Cruz is Almódovar’s current muse and manages what I thought would be impossible, coming across for the movie within the movie as an “Audrey 1Hepburn type.” (Shall we say the Cruz is considerably bustier than Hepburn?) I liked Tamar Novas as the amanuensis of the blind writer (former director) played by Lluís Homar and spotting the allusions and homages to classic movies. (9) Like "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" and "The White Countess" (which also starred Sanada Hirouki), I think that James Ivory's film of Peter Cameron's modern-day "Aspern Papers," The City of Your Final Destination was underappreciated by critics and audiences. Shot mostly in Argentina and including the great Norma Aleandro (Official Story) along with Laura Linney, Anthony Hopkins, Charlotte Gainsborough, Sanada, and Alexandra Maria Lara (brilliant in a very unsympathetic part) it shows an Iranian-American graduate student (Omar Metwally, who was so extraordinary in "Rendition") trying to get permission of the trustees (brother, wife, mistress) of a dead writer to do a biography. The sets by Fernando Brun add a lot. Along with an unusual household on land Jews fleeing Hitler bought, there are two romances. (10) Malike (Tahar Rahim), the title character in the “Un prophète,” (A Prophet, written and directed by Jacques Audiard) succeeds in an even tougher environment (a Corsican gang in a French prison) than Oher did. The graphic violence is early, and the education is provided with less willingness and good cheer than Kathy Bates brought to the role of Oher’s tutor in “Blind Side.” Niels Arestrup turned in a great performance as the brooding, brutal leader of the Corsican gang that de facto runs the prison. Though not having as many plotlines going as 2008’s “Gommorah,” “Un prophète” has plenty (and runs more than two hours, too). (11) For the final slot (before I saw "Mother") , I could not decide between two small-budget independent movies about Latinos trying to make it to/in the US: the pitcher from the Dominican Republic played by Algenis Perez Sotoin “Sugar” (written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the team who were responsible for “Half Nelson” in 2006) or the Honduran youth Sayra (Paulina Gaitán) trying to survive  Mara Salvatrucha Brotherhood (MS13) hitmen as he flees northward across Mexico in “Sin Nombre” (Nameless, written and directed by Cary Fukunaga).  As “Sugar,” Algenis Perez Soto is very engaging. His failure to make it owes much to his inability to curb emotional explosions. Getting to MLB training camp in the US is not easy for him, but is a cakewalk in contrast to Sayra’s! Both have a documentary look, which is to say great verisimilitude. As enjoyable as “Rudo y Cursi” with, respectively, Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal, both major international stars, was Carlos Cuarón’s movie is less intense. Some other 2009 movies I liked and/or admired: 5 Minutes of Heaven Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans Blind Side The Last Station Looking for Eric Formosa Betrayed There were aspects (usually performances) that I thought were quite good in the next set, though I thought the movies overrated by critics: Goodbye Solo Ajami Crazy Heart Sherlock Holmes (turning Holmes and Watson into action heroes was fine with me, but the look and plot were too Harry Potter for me) Headless Woman The Maid In the Loop (500) Days of Summer State of Play (Untitled) Up The Milk of Sorrow Then there are the movies that I thought were meretricious in significant ways (again with some excellent acting in some of them). These are movies that annoyed or outraged me in various ways: A Single Man Humpday Precious An Education The Lovely Bones Inglorious Basterds Avatar District 9 The White Ribbon A Serious Man (which I found deadly as well as meretricious and was the worst 2009 movie I've seen) ©2010, Stephen O. Murray I have also posted lists of the best movies of the 1940s, the 1970s,  the 1980s, 1939, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,  2008, 2010, and of all time (plus a list of my favorites).

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