Up for sure.

I hope Inglorious Basterds gets at least something, it was definitely my movie of the year.

Best Picture will probably go to a very rigidly defined drama film. I'm thinking that The Hurt Locker will probably get it. I heard it was really well reviewed by the critics, and if critics are anything like the academy, I'm sure its a strong contender. Which reminds me, I really need to get around to seeing it.

What other strong drama films came out this year?

again, I didn't see Up, so I can't comment on it


I do think that the whole fact that the films that always get awarded are these uber dramatic films, which really isn't my territory in cinema, so the oscars, while its fun to check out the ceremony, isn't really my place to check out (My film tastes are more grounded in...ahem...genre-oriented flicks)

This year isn't as fun for me Oscar-wise than the previous years have been. Honestly, 2009 has been a year full of films reminiscent of the 70's disaster film craze. Everything was so blown out of proportion, or just sorely lacked in general, but mainly in character development. Out of the whole year, I can only think of a couple films I really care about:

Up was beautifully written, and Pete Doctor's second directorial achievement. (1st one was Monsters Inc.) He took a very far fetched idea, and turned it into a very heart warming adventure about an elderly man dealing with the death of his wife.

Coraline's first pull was the visual design. Who knew the film itself would actually deliver. I wasn't a huge fan of Nightmare Before Christmas, mainly due to the main plot having almost nothing most viewers could actually relate to. But Coraline took the wishes of a little girl and showed the nightmarish dark side in a way I thought was really powerful. Too bad the end felt like a video game (collect all 3 stones, 7 chaos emeralds, x number of coins... ect.), but that's only a minor blemish to the story.

Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 You Can (Not) Advance was snubbed. Thought the pacing was too fast in the middle, but the extended release in March might fix that up a bit. And the minor changes makes one wonder how the deviations will escalate in future films. (With that other angel body on the moon, Shinji seeing what we think is Adam, and a new chick and Eva in the film 2 preview.)

District 9 is a strong, solid film that has a noticeable commentary on racism. And what with all of the weapons created for the film that were supposed to be in Halo (before Microsoft said "No"), and Peter Jackson putting his money in a young, unheard of director that had amazing talent with an equally unheard of cast, what's not to like?

Terminator Salvation sounded interesting. Still haven't seen it. I probably wouldn't have been interested as soon as I was if Christian Bale didn't rant.

Public Enemies is next on my watch list.

...and I can think of a couple from that list other than Eva that won't be Oscar nominated for too much, anyway. Most everything else this year was Michael Bay in steroids. If there's no explosions, it at least needs sex as a crutch.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Up was beautifully written, and Pete Doctor's second directorial achievement. (1st one was Monsters Inc.) He took a very far fetched idea, and turned it into a very heart warming adventure about an elderly man dealing with the death of his wife.

I have to say I was always disappointed with Monsters. It was too noisy and generic in execution to be worthy Pixar title IMO. Up however was masterpiece.

I'll have fun when I'm soon finally going to see Ponyo and THE animation films of the year (add 2.0 there too) will battle for victory! This is first time when Pixar may actually have upper hand against Miyazaki in my books. Old master must pull some crazy stunts to defeat the first 20 mins of Up alone, not to mention whole film...

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 You Can (Not) Advance was snubbed. Thought the pacing was too fast in the middle, but the extended release in March might fix that up a bit. And the minor changes makes one wonder how the deviations will escalate in future films. (With that other angel body on the moon, Shinji seeing what we think is Adam, and a new chick and Eva in the film 2 preview.)

Pacing was too fast in the middle? That's interesting because it's pacing of the beginning that people generally have problems with in 1.0... Personally I thought Khara handled eps 3-4 beautifully: they got all essential across without ep 4 "at all"!

District 9
I loved the filmmaking in District 9, but I was very disappointed in the narrative. I think they had a chance to do something really special with the typical "going native" archetype. Wikus' motivations are fairly one dimensional and can be summed up as "I'll do whatever it takes to be cured and be normal again". He doesn't ever really empathize with the aliens or grow as a person from the role reversal. I did like how the ending of his story was unconventional, but narratively, I thought it was kinda weak-sauce.

Terminator Salvation
I didn't think Salvation was as abysmal as some people described it, and I like that it kind of broke from the older films, but ultimately, it replicated the same stakes from the other films, only this time, it's to protect Kyle Reese, so that he can become John Connor's father. It had some interesting elements in it, but its plot-twist is incredibly preposterous and nonsensical. For me, the high-point of the film was seeing the facial-scan match-moving they did to put Arnold's face on the T-800. I think this is the weakest entry in the series. Terminator 3 was pretty lousy as well, but it made up for it with some pretty spectacular action sequences.

Out of curiousity, did anyone see Adam or Moon? I think they're two of the my favorite films from 2009, but they both were pretty obscure.

Xard wrote:I have to say I was always disappointed with Monsters. It was too noisy and generic in execution to be worthy Pixar title IMO. Up however was masterpiece.

I agree. It was fun to watch, but it really wasn't anything more than just an interesting idea turned funny (basically, a comedy). It wasn't bad, I just think it was... OK.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 You Can (Not) Advance was snubbed. Thought the pacing was too fast in the middle, but the extended release in March might fix that up a bit. And the minor changes makes one wonder how the deviations will escalate in future films. (With that other angel body on the moon, Shinji seeing what we think is Adam, and a new chick and Eva in the film 2 preview.)

Pacing was too fast in the middle? That's interesting because it's pacing of the beginning that people generally have problems with in 1.0... Personally I thought Khara handled eps 3-4 beautifully: they got all essential across without ep 4 "at all"![/quote]
I was mainly disappointed by how little of Toji and Kensuke were introduced. They just showed up long enough to hit the main points of the plot and then exit as soon as possible. You never got any real connection with the characters that you got from the original TV series. If they had just fleshed out those characters more, I wouldn't have a problem with the middle part.

Oz wrote:By the way, what do you think about the hosts (Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin)?

I like Alec in real life because he's a genuine cinephile himself. Steve Martin used to be hilarious but hasn't done much in years. I have no idea how good of hosts the two will be together.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:District 9 - what's not to like?

It's preachy didacticism, cliched, overuse of shaky cam, and superficiality?

The Eva Monkey wrote:Wikus' motivations are fairly one dimensional and can be summed up as "I'll do whatever it takes to be cured and be normal again". He doesn't ever really empathize with the aliens or grow as a person from the role reversal.

Ironically I thought Wikus (and Sharlto's performance) is one of the highlights of the film. He's such a dick and I like that he pretty much remains that way.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:I was mainly disappointed by how little of Toji and Kensuke were introduced. They just showed up long enough to hit the main points of the plot and then exit as soon as possible. You never got any real connection with the characters that you got from the original TV series. If they had just fleshed out those characters more, I wouldn't have a problem with the middle part.

Understandably minor characters role is lessened in RoE: there simply isn't the running time. But as you said all crucial plot points were covered and in my opinion the development from hate to friendship was done flawlessly (I absolutely love way Anno constructed the "punch me, Shinji!" scene this time around. Delicious editing & oddball KKesque framings). And don't forget Shinji gets those messages from them later in film! Nothing like that ever happened in original!

Oh, and have you seen 2.0? They get more screentime there IMO

I really like T4, it was much better of a movie then T3 and it was nice to give us something new with the Terminator movies. The acting should have been better, but I thought it was a solid action flick. It had some great CGI too, and it was the best PG-13 sequel to a R rated movie since Die Hard 4 in my opinon.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:District 9 - what's not to like?

It's preachy didacticism, cliched, overuse of shaky cam, and superficiality?

It depends on what instance you're referring to the shaky-cam. The film wades in and out of documentary footage and scenes that are more theatrically traditional. During all of the moments where it was supposed to be documentary footage, the hand held material worked beautifully. What I would have liked to see is a cleaner, more fluid use of the camera during the scenes where it wasn't supposed to be a documentary.

As for the other elements you've mentioned, I really didn't see it as all that preachy. I mean, yeah, unlike most of the other films that came out last year, District 9 avoided becoming simply mindless entertainment by actually having a message. But I hardly see that as being "preachy", or being too "didactic". The films I have problems with didacticism are films like V for Vendetta, where you literally have several minutes at a time dedicated to verbal lectures and rants.

Xard wrote: Understandably minor characters role is lessened in RoE: there simply isn't the running time. But as you said all crucial plot points were covered and in my opinion the development from hate to friendship was done flawlessly (I absolutely love way Anno constructed the "punch me, Shinji!" scene this time around. Delicious editing & oddball KKesque framings). And don't forget Shinji gets those messages from them later in film! Nothing like that ever happened in original!

Oh, and have you seen 2.0? They get more screentime there IMO

Haven't seen 2.0 yet. As for the running time of 1.01, it was only 98 minutes. Whereas I don't think every needs to reach the 2-hour average duration, I think an extra 20 minutes or so would have helped 1.01. But like I said, it's nothing that the extended 1.11 edition probably won't throw in there anyway.

But you're right about the phone messages at the end. That was a nice touch.

Xard wrote:I'll have fun when I'm soon finally going to see Ponyo and THE animation films of the year (add 2.0 there too) will battle for victory! This is first time when Pixar may actually have upper hand against Miyazaki in my books. Old master must pull some crazy stunts to defeat the first 20 mins of Up alone, not to mention whole film...

That was my one problem with Up, it's a great movie no doubt, but it felt extremely uneven, if you get what I mean.

And I loved Ponyo, best animated film of the year imo, I need to still see Coraline however.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:The film wades in and out of documentary footage and scenes that are more theatrically traditional.

I just don't have a taste for the pseduo-documentary style in films. There are so few directors and films that utilize it to great effect and I think it has a real built in limitation in that after a while you just become numb to it and I really miss the artistic potential created by a still, framing camera or even an elegant moving one.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:But I hardly see that as being "preachy", or being too "didactic". The films I have problems with didacticism are films like V for Vendetta, where you literally have several minutes at a time dedicated to verbal lectures and rants.

I think Kutta pretty much nailed my thoughts on the film HERE.

VfV was very much ABOUT its political and social themes though. It never hides this. And I think its use of exaggeration, caricatures, and satirical parodiable representation of its themes makes it more palatable. D9 makes its themes crystal clear and creates a very obvious connection between its fiction and the situations related to their reality analogs but never does anything with them besides make very obvious points. V, in being more exaggerated and extreme in its message is infinitely more provocative; especially in the conversation of where does one draw the line between freedom fighter, anarchist, and terrorist and how bad to governments have to get before people take action.

V was also an adaptation of a comic that was perhaps even more extreme in its points. I think the only failure of the film is its inability to capture the richness of the comic (but that's typical in such adaptations) and the Wachowski's over stylization. FWIW I also think V's characters are much more interesting than those in D9.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I think Kutta pretty much nailed my thoughts on the film HERE.

I'd add though that my irritated mood back then stemming from watching the film in cinema with a couple of people who all thought it was a good film and couldn't be convinced otherwise caused me to write with some exaggeration.

Money talks in Hollywood. It's a business. AVATAR will get Best Picture.

And haven't we learned after 81 years that the Annual Academy Awards is tantamount to a Hollywood circle jerk? It's fun for those involved but mean's little else. Do people really look back at 2008 and say "WOW! Slumdog Millionaire really was the Best Picture of the year! And I know cause the Oscar's told me so!"
Nah. People get so hung up on what DESERVES which award and two weeks after the ceremony they can't remember who came away with what.

Does AVATAR deserve Best Picture? Who are any of us to say. It's all subjective.

If money was all that mattered in the Academy Awards, there's no way that No Country for Old Men would've won best picture.

It's going to be The Hurt Locker. I can say this with 95% confidence.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:The film wades in and out of documentary footage and scenes that are more theatrically traditional.

I just don't have a taste for the pseduo-documentary style in films. There are so few directors and films that utilize it to great effect and I think it has a real built in limitation in that after a while you just become numb to it and I really miss the artistic potential created by a still, framing camera or even an elegant moving one.

Well, like I pointed out before, I actually would have liked to have seen cleaner, stiller, more elegant framing in the scenes not supposed to be documentary footage, rather then just continue the shakiness of the pseudo documentary footage. It may all come down to opinion, but I see that as only a small blemish on the film.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:But I hardly see that as being "preachy", or being too "didactic". The films I have problems with didacticism are films like V for Vendetta, where you literally have several minutes at a time dedicated to verbal lectures and rants.

I think Kutta pretty much nailed my thoughts on the film HERE.[/quote]
Most of this year was drowning in sub-par filmmaking. I see District 9 as one of the few solid films that came out this year. Something that had a little more to offer to the viewers than G.I. Joe, Transformers 2, or any of other mindless flicks suffocating in pointless action and worthless fan-service that seemed to relentlessly pour out of Hollywood in 2009.

I'm not saying District 9 was fantastic, amazing, or the greatest movie ever. I'm saying it was a refreshing break from the utter stupidity that seemed to run rapid in 2009.

Kutta wrote:I'd add though that my irritated mood back then stemming from watching the film in cinema with a couple of people who all thought it was a good film and couldn't be convinced otherwise caused me to write with some exaggeration.

I tend to do that too, at times.

As far as Hollywood cinema is concerned (still so much of the rest of the worlds cinema to see) I felt 2009 was a rather good year for films. Much better than 2008 was which genre fanboys seem to equate with greatness only for Iron Man & The Dark Knight.

Now I'm not saying these are all great films but these were all Hollywood/American made movies that entertained me greatly during the year of 2009-
Coraline, Watchmen, Observe & Report, Two Lovers, I Love You Man, Adventureland, Star Trek 2009, The Brothers Bloom, Terminator Salvation (not great but enjoyable), UP, Drag Me To Hell, The Hangover, Away We Go, Tetro, Moon, Whatever Works, The Hurt Locker (not really 2009 but it got it's wide release finally), Public Enemies, Bruno, Harry Potter 6, 500 Days of Summer, Funny People, The Cove, Big Fan, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Grace, It Might Get Loud, World's Greatest Dad, Taking Woodstock, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, The Informant!, The Girlfriend Experience, Paranormal Activity (once again not 2009 originated but still) Zombieland, A Serious Man, Antichrist, An Education, Where the Wild Things Are, Black Dynamite, Precious, The Box, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Bad Lieutenant:Port of Call New Orleans (pure magic), Me and Orson Welles, Princess and the Frog, The Road, & AVATAR.

And those are just the one's I have been able to catch in theaters, on DVD/BluRay or otherwise during 2009. I still have yet to see Up in the Air, Lovely Bones, Sherlock Holmes, Crazy Heart or films I'm greatly anticipating like The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

I felt 2009 was a far better year for American cinema than 2008 was. I'm not going to greatly remember many of these films listed (I had to check my OCD records) but I do think it was overall a good year for movies. Though not as good as 2007 was.

I thought 2009 was a better year for movies also then 08, at least we did not get three spoof movies in one year this time.