It’s that time of year again where we sit and think long and hard, before rolling up our sleeves and punching each other’s lights out. Limiting this list to 20 and excluding festival-only releases means that there are plenty left off. But after wiping the tears from our eyes and nursing our battle wounds, Flicks’s writers can confirm that these are the films you should have seen in 2009…
1. Let the Right One In
How to best describe Let The Right One In? It is so many things – a horror film that turns your blood cold like an Arctic breeze, an empathetic examination of adolescent agony and a heart-warming love story. It will no doubt be lazily categorized as a vampire movie, but that definition hopelessly fails to capture the sense of imagination that allows this film to transcend the limitations of the horror genre and reach the dizzying heights of borderline masterpiece.
“Thank you again for another evening steeped in merriment and friendship” – Lacke (Peter Carlberg)
2. Avatar
Unfairly dubbed ‘Dances with wolves, in space’, Avatar pushed 3D graphics to new highs. So the story rarely strays from classic formula, but it’s world created by James Cameron and his army of computers that makes it. Audiences have never seen anything like it. At the dawn of a new decade, James Cameron’s state-of-the-art spectacular is heralding a new wave of blockbuster entertainment.
“You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora.” – Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang)
3. Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino’s cheeky rewriting of WWII history saw a bunch of vengeful American Jewish soldiers tasking themselves with scalping as many Nazis as possible. One of the years most entertaining films, Basterds featured cracking dialogue and scenes of near-unbearable tension, slathered with liberal doses of spectacularly sensationalized violence and joyously amoral humour.
“‘Jew Hunter’? It’s just a name that stuck.” – Col. Hans Landa (Cristoph Waltz)
4. District 9
Peter Jackson produced this low-budget sci-fi flick from South Africa that helped redefine the possiblities of genre cinema. Fresh and original, District 9 was a smart mash-up of corporate video, talking heads, security tapes and archival footage. Set in the slums of Johannesberg, it showed us alien habitation in a new, darkly funny light.
“Get your fokkin’ tentacle out of my face!” – Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley)
5. A Serious Man
Oozing class, the Coen’s A Serious Man is set in 1967 and follows Larry Gopnik, a physics professor who slowly but surely watch his life unravel as life’s complications envelope him. Bizarre but excruciatingly normal, absurd but serious, confounding but massively insightful… just watch it. And how can something so, so bleak, be so funny?
“When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies…” – Rabbi Marshak, by way of Jefferson Airplanes
6. Where the Wild Things Are
Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) converted a ten-sentence picture book from 1963 into a 100-minute movie about the anxieties and loneliness of childhood. “Genius!” say some, “Boring!” says others. Whatever the case, this was a completely unique vision, deeply moving and told from the heart.
“I didn’t want to wake you up, but I really wanted to show you something.” – Carol (James Gandolfini)
7. The Wrestler
The great Mickey Rourke (who won the BAFTA and Golden Globe for this role, but cruelly missed the Oscar) returns as a broken down wrestler making a comeback bid. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain), this was a brutal but tender character study in which Rourke’s role was nearly inseparable from his own experience.
“I don’t hear as good as I used to, and I ain’t as pretty as I used to be. But I’m still here – I’m the Ram.” – Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Mickey Rourke)
8. Up
This tall tale about an elderly man attempting to fulfil his late wife’s dreams is easily Pixar’s most affecting film. Refreshingly free of gimmickry, the modest film contained some ambitiously mature ideas. It was a ready-made classic; an imaginative, invigorating story that transported us to a time in our childhood, like lead character Carl’s, when dreams were just a handful of crayons away.
“Squirrel!” – Dug (Bob Peterson)
9. The Class
Winner of the Palme D’Or at Cannes last year, and the first French film to do so for 21 years. The Class was an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by Francois Bégaudeau which dealt with his experiences teaching literature at a rough school in a down-at-heel area of Paris. Bégaudeau himself took the lead role. This docudrama was intense and unsentimental.
“The Enlightenment will be tough for them.” – François (François Bégaudeau)
10. Synecdoche, New York
This was writer Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) directing his own screenplay. Hardly an easy watch but incredibly ambitious, this unsettling opus laid bare its author’s insecurities about both creating art and dying. Philip Seymour Hoffman was his usual sweaty, mumbling self.
“I don’t menstruate, so I don’t know how I could smell like I’m menstruating.” – Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
11. Ponyo
An animated adventure centered on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human. Made by Japanese animation auteur Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo was a sweet, charming fantasy that should have been seen by far more people.
“I’d let a fish lick me if it’d get me out of this wheelchair.” – Noriko (Betty White)
12. (500) Days of Summer
This fun, refreshingly honest look at modern relationships for 20-somethings was an instantly accessible film, un-schmaltzy, with all the hooks and sunny choruses of a pop song. “This is not a love story,” warned the voiceover guy at the beginning of the movie. Nonetheless, it was an attractive, original romantic comedy that hit close to home for a lot of romantics.
“People don’t realize this, but loneliness is underrated.” – Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
13. Man on Wire
The 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary took a look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City’s World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974. The dizzying imagery, pathos of the twin towers and the vivid way in which history is reanimated formed a potent cinematic cocktail that stayed with you for days afterwards.
“If I die, what a beautiful death!” – Philipe Petit
14. Star Trek
Boom. Star Trek is back. Action-packed, exciting, and visually spectacular – who would have thought that the dying sci-fi series could be resurrected into something this fun? JJ Abram’s action-adventure deftly balanced amazing big scale spectacle with character-based moments, adding plenty of humour, tension and even a hint of romance into the mix.
“I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain!” – Scotty (Simon Pegg)
15. Trouble is My Business
The only kiwi film on this year’s list is this observational documentary following Mr Peach, a Pakeha teacher, and his students at the predominantly Polynesian Aorere College in South Auckland. Debut director Juliette Veber nailed an un-obtrusive tone to create a moving film about real people.
“Are you Samoan? Harden up.” – Mr Gary Peach
16. Caroline
Based on the book by Neil Gaiman, and directed by animation freak Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), this animated fairytale told of a young girl who finds a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. It was visually dazzling, fun and weaved an atmosphere somewhere between magical and creepy. Our favourite scene was the theatre full of Scottish terriers.
“You may come out… when you’ve learned to be a loving daughter!” – Other Mother (Teri Hatcher)
17. Slumdog Millionaire
Within moments of Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire beginning, we found ourselves racing through the crowded slums of Mumbai, bombarded with colour and sound, grabbing our armrests as this cinematic super-pill hit our bloodstream. Rarely has a film felt so alive. Boyle’s crowd-pleaser took a skeleton camera crew deep into the slums to create a vibrant, pungent, scrappy little underdog tale.
“So are you ready for the final question for 20 million rupees?” – Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor)
18. Drag Me to Hell
Splatter maestro Sam Raimi (of Evil Dead notoriety) returned to his old stomping ground with this hugely entertaining horror flick, revelling with giddy pleasure in making his audience laugh and cower simultaneously. He shot the material with goofy angles, powered up an armada of wind machines, and slapped a suitably operatic score on top. Best use of a goat in 2009.
“I don’t want your cat, you dirty pork queen!” – Milos (Kevin Foster)
19. The Hangover
Set in Vegas, baby, this way-better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be comedy saw a bunch of boozy groomsmen somehow misplacing their soon-to-be-married stag. To add to their confusion, in the course of their inebriated revelry they’ve acquired a tiger, a chicken, a six-month-old baby and Mike Tyson. More than anything, it brought us Zack Galifianakis.
“F#ck, I keep forgetting about the goddamn tiger!” – Phil (Bradley Cooper)
20. Revolutionary Road
Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) re-united his missus Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio for the first time since Titanic. They played an increasingly unhappy married couple, struggling for fulfilment in the 1950s. And it was beautifully shot, turning a morning commute into something of a rat-race ballet and using garden sprinklers, dappled light and pastel tones to elegantly decorate the period settings.
“You’re just some guy who made me laugh at a party once.” – April Wheeler (Kate Winslet)
