Geekscape Picks the Best and Worst Films of 2009!

Critics love year-end “Best of” lists because it gives us an opportunity to spread the word about great works of art that our readers may have missed the first time around. We also love “Worst of” lists because it gives us one last opportunity to strike back at those works that made us bleed out of our eyes and genitalia. In this, the first in our series of articles looking back at 2009, Geekscape writers from around the globe contribute their lists for the Best and Worst Movies (and performances) of the Year!

——- JONATHAN LONDON ——-

BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:

1. Red Cliff

Like thousands of kids now struggling with DV cameras nationwide, two men made me want to go to film school: Sam Raimi and John Woo. You can switch one or the other out with a Kevin Smith or a Peter Jackson, sure, but for me, those two guys told me that it was okay (and profitable!) to tell stories in the way I saw them in my head. Sadly, one of my heroes couldn’t quite make a totally satisfying movie for Hollywood studios. I worried if John Woo would ever reclaim his magic as a storyteller. Red Cliff turned all of that around. Not only is the US combination of Red Cliffs 1 & 2 a really well done war movie, it’s also a great love story, revenge story, friendship story, period piece and (if you listen to Big Yanks’ insistence that this is basically Dynasty Warriors on screen) video game movie. For those of you in the forums doubting my ability to enjoy movies or hating on films solely because they’re over two hours long, let Red Cliff be your call to shut your mouth. The movie is almost three hours long and every minute of it is completely awesome and inspiring.

2. World’s Greatest Dad
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Star Trek
5. More Than a Game
6. District 9
7. Moon
8. Watchmen

Now your friends can say “I didn’t get it” to a movie instead of to the comic book you loaned them. Either way, it’s a very competent translation that we are lucky to have received (because there WAS going to be a Watchmen movie one way or another… now Hollywood can move on) and all it cost us was giving Zack Snyder a Superman Returns style career setback. Zack will be back and your old books are still there on the shelf. At least now we have a better ending. And yes, Snyder’s rewritten Watchmen ending is better than Moore’s original.

9. Fantastic Mr. Fox
10. The Hurt Locker

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Black Dynamite, 500 Days of Summer, Taken, Gentlemen Broncos (if only because my brother Paul and I spent 99% of the movie laughing our asses off and trying to talk like Peter York – one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a theater).

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR 

1. X-Men Origins: The Adventures of Jimmy Logan (AKA A Man Named Wolverine)

He’s “the best there is at what he does” even if all we’ve seen up to the 15 minute mark in which he says this is Jimmy Logan catching a bunch of bullets, standing there while the rest of Weapon X (or more like Alpha Flight) do all the work and yell “Victor! No!” And you know what? The movie doesn’t do much more than that (although it DOES have a plot twist that succeeds in making our main character DUMBER… “fake blood? huh? really? Did he just LEAVE HER IN THE WOODS!?!”). This was a Wolverine story only for the reasons that he popped his claws and hung out with a few people named from characters in the books. I think that our episode review pretty much covers everything that needs to be said about this misstep (and there’s a lot). Sorry, Hugh. You’re still the best at being our Jimmy Logan… just bring a better script with you next time. 

2. Gamer
3. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li
4. Terminator: Retardation

McG thinks that people hated on this movie because they don’t like him or his name. Come on, McG. You’re no Bret Ratner. We don’t hate you at all. We just think that this movie is a complete mess… It’s actually ranked higher on my list of Worst Movies than GI Joe because I had HOPE that it would be a good film and that McG would pull it off (where as I knew from seeing Snake Eyes’ rubber lips that THAT movie was doomed)! I was rooting for you, McG! And somewhere deep down, I still do… just maybe the whole Terminator thing isn’t your bag. Sincerely, your friend, JLo (I hear people hate that name too but I can’t imagine why).

5. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
6. Friday the 13th
7. 9 (the CG animated one)
8. 2012
9. Land of the Lost
10. Avatar (amazingly impressive sprinkles on an impressively lame piece of $#!@)

BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR (MALE/FEMALE):

Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

You know what? It’s already been said a million times. He made an already incredible movie even better. From the second he first asks for a glass of milk, you knew that you were watching the US arrival of an incredible talent.

——- WILLIAM BIBBIANI ——-

BEST FILMS OF 2009

1. Taken

In a year of special effects extravaganzas, brilliant animation, and spine-tingling instant horror classics, the film that had, and still has, the greatest impact on me was this beautiful tale of a man’s love for his daughter, expressed in bullets, brutality and bloodshed. Liam Neeson gives one of his finest performances as a man who abandons a violent career to care for his daughter, who after years of coming in second to national security now wants nothing to do with him. When she’s kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, it’s up to him to use all of the talents that originally destroyed their family in order to save her life. Expertly directed, elegantly written and surprisingly plausible, this is that rare action movie that’s as dramatic as it is thrilling, and in my book it’s the best film of the year.

2. World’s Greatest Dad
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Up
5. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
6. House of the Devil
7. District 9 (Original ideas, sharp writing and balls to the wall action, all for $30 million? Take that, Avatar!)
8. Up in the Air
9. Coraline
10. Drag Me to Hell

HONORABLE MENTIONS: The Brothers Bloom, G.I. Joe: Resolute, The International, Moon, Star Trek, State of Play, Trick ‘r Treat, We Live in Public

WORST FILMS OF 2009

1. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

It’s easy to give brainless big-budget blockbusters a pass these days, but is it really too much to ask for good brainless big-budget blockbusters? Stephen Sommers, who can direct a decent movie every once in a while (The Mummy, and I’ll even give the idiotic Van Helsing a few stars on a good day), made one of the most inept films of the decade in this tired mish-mash that has as little to do with G.I. Joe as it does with coherent storytelling. Super soldiers engineered to feel neither pain nor fear that scream in pain in fear throughout the entire film, a master of disguise whose biggest talent is his uncanny ability to steal hats, Snake Eyes dying in one scene and then back – without comment – in the next, a weapons manufacturer who can’t activate his own invention, and a training montage clearly spanning days that’s supposed to take place in a few hours? There is nothing about G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra that doesn’t make me want torture the filmmakers in the worst way imaginable: by making them watch their own damned film.

2. Avatar

The more I think about this film, the more its glaring flaws piss me off. From a protagonist who could have prevented countless deaths by having a quick conversation at some point over the course of three months instead of fucking around in the woods riding horsies and making doe-eyes at a girl who is engaged to someone else, to constant portrayals of bestiality (often with those same horsies), to the ending that doesn’t make any sense if you have the slightest understanding of human nature (you do know that they’re coming back with nukes, right?), to a message of white supremacy only thinly veiled by its already problematic message of liberal guilt, this is an awful movie with excellent special effects, and it’s only #2 on my list because G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra didn’t even have excellent special effects.

3. Year One
4. Adventureland (While not actually the worst film of the year, it does get my vote for the dullest.)
5. The Unborn
6. Crank 2: High Voltage
7. Obsessed
8. Duplicity
9. The Girlfriend Experience
10. Fast and Furious

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, The Burning Plain, Ninja Assassin, Public Enemies, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, The Taking of Pelham 123, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2012, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

BEST PERFORMANCES OF 2009

1. Robin Williams, World’s Greatest Dad

Sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. Robin Williams, who still spends most of his time catering to the lowest common denominator, gave the performance of his career as the loving father of the most unlovable child imaginable, who makes a series of horrifying choices over the course of Bobcat Goldthwait’s brilliant dark comedy. It is a testament to Williams’ formidable (and often unexercised) acting abilities that some of the most incredible and unthinkable acts that occurred on camera in 2009 aren’t just believable, but downright lovable. Though destined to be underappreciated, World’s Greatest Dad and Williams’ stellar lead performance are not to be missed.

2. Sam Rockwell, Moon
3. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
4. Tom Hardy, Bronson
5. Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
6. Jocelin Donahue, House of the Devil
7. Kim Basinger, The Burning Plain (Recipient of this year’s “Bad Movie, Great Performance” Award.)
8. Tom Felton, Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince
9. Sharlto Copley, District 9
10. Liam Neeson, Taken

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Eric Chase Anderson – The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Emily Blunt – Sunshine Cleaning, Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air, Chris Klein – Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, Betsy Rue – My Bloody Valentine 3D, Zachary Quinto – Star Trek, Patrick Wilson – The Watchmen

——- NAR WILLIAMS ——–

FAVORITE MOVIE OF 2009:

1. Moon

You can keep your D-9, for all the talk of its social themes it was no more than an adventure flick with a refugee camp as a backdrop. For smart sci-fi in the Kubrick tradition, I turn to Duncan Jones’ brilliant Moon, a film that deftly covers the most interesting and pressing questions about our world – unpleasant corporate practices, natural resource consumption, relationships with Artificial Intelligence – all while lunar miner Sam Bell is faced with a serious existential crisis. Everything about this film was excellent: from Jones’ handling of what must’ve been very complicated staging, to Clint Mansell’s original score and Nathan Parker’s screenplay, to Sam Rockwell’s virtuoso performance. BRAVO.

2. Inglourious Basterds (Fuck you, Hitler!)
3. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (The most fun I’ve had at the movies all year.)
4. Food, Inc. (Required viewing. And people wonder why I’m vegetarian…)
5. The Road (A faithful adaptation that is almost as powerful as the source material.)

LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE OF 2009:

1. The Watchmen

Watchmen is not the worst movie of the year – but it was my least favorite experience, given my high expectations and respect for Alan Moore’s masterwork. Perhaps Zack Snyder’s 2.5 hour slow-mo music video will make future graphic novel adaptors take heed: you can’t just copy comic book panels frame for frame and expect to make a faithful and satisfying adaptation. The film also suffered from being way too pretty — the movie’s design gave the book’s dark and gritty world the gloss polishing of an Entertainment Weekly cover shoot.

2. Twilight Saga: New Moon (Glitter and emo: the kids love it.)
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
4. Year One
5. Old Dogs (Travolta + Mork = Stop making movies.)

BEST MOVIE PERFORMANCE OF 2009

1. SAM ROCKWELL, “SAM BELL”, MOON

I honestly don’t know where to start – if you haven’t seen the film, it’d be unfair for me to go too in depth here. Let’s just say it’s a career performance in an already impressive career. Remember how boring and uninspired I Am Legend was? That’s because Will Smith just isn’t interesting enough to watch in every frame of a 2 hour movie, all alone up on screen. Few actors are. But Sam Rockwell has the nuance, charm, and acting chops to do it here – drawing you in to every angle we see Sam Bell’s multi-faceted personality from. Rockwell’s performance will be studied by students of acting for decades to come, believe me. Awesome.

2. Nicolas Cage, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (I’m a Nic Cage fan, and you need look no further than this gem to see why.)
3. Christopher Waltz, Inglourious Basterds (He’s creepy evil in four different languages.)
4. Sharlto Copely, District 9 (From goofy and light-hearted to tortured and desperate, he’s great.)
5. Viggo Mortensen, The Road (Absolutely inhabits the role.)

——- HONG S. CHE ——-

BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR

1. Star Trek

When people ask me what my favorite thing in the entire planet I respond with, “blow jobs”. The favorite thing I love after oral sex is Star Trek.  (Yes I even love it more than Star Wars, if you have a problem with that you should shove it right in the hole where Lucas raped your childhood in.) How ever after Deep Space Nine (Best Star Trek series ever. Why? Because it had a black Jesus) the franchise from every possible angle was being totally and utterly screwed. From shows like Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise to the Next Generation Movies the stories went from suck to shit. Star Trek was dead. Then in 2009 J.J. Abrams decided to add something that was missing in Trek for years; he added fun. I actually shed a tear at the opening sequence not because it was emotional but because my favorite franchise was treated with care and respect.

2. District 9
3. Up
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Moon
6. Fantastic Mr. Fox
7. Black Dynamite
8. Zombie Land
9. Drag Me To Hell
10. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR

1. Tranformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

I just sat here staring blankly at the computer screen like a Vietnam Vet having a flashback and frankly it hurt. I didn’t want to relive the horrible, illogical plotline, the terrible racist characters and the nearly 3 hour running time that made the movie less like entertainment more like an endurance test withstanding torture.

2. Disney’s A Christmas Carol
3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
4. Terminator: Salvation
5. Friday the 13th
6. Underworld 3: Rise of The Lycans
7. 9 (the CG animated one)
8. Monsters Vs Aliens
9. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
10. Twilight Saga: New Moon (Okay I admit I haven’t seen this one but I’m just taking a wild guess that it sucks.)

BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

1. Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa – Inglourious Basterds

Waltz manages to some how at the same time to be chilling, funny, deliciously evil and cunning. He manages to do this while speaking in German, French and English. Waltz manages to do all of this in the first twenty minutes of the movie! Words flow from his lips with such ease and joy of craft of acting that he is destined from an Academy Award.

2. Gabourey Sidibe as Precious – Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
3. Paula Patton as Mr. Rain – Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
4. Mo’Nique as Mary – Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
5. Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell – Moon
6. Sharlto Copley as Wikus Van De Merwe – District 9
7. Michael Jai White as Black Dynamite – Black Dynamite
8. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach – Watchmen
9. George Clooney as Mr. Fox – Fantastic Mr. Fox
10. Chris Pine as James Tiberius Kirk – Star Trek

——- ERIC A. DIAZ ——-

BEST MOVIE OF 2009

1. Star Trek

2. Up
3. Inglorious Basterds
4. Zombieland
5. Watchmen (Zack Snyder proved you can take the “unfilmable” and make it pretty damn filmable. Maybe not a masterpiece as a film, but a masterpiece in ambition and sheer gall.)
6. District 9
7. Coraline
8. Drag Me To Hell
9. Paranormal Activity
10. Black Dynamite

WORST MOVIE OF 2009

1. Transformers 2: The Revenge of Michael Bay on the Public

First off, I actually liked the first one. In wasn’t great cinema, but like 80’s movies like Gremlins, it was silly and fun and knew what it was. Transformers 2 is atrocious, insulting, racist, and never, ever seems to end. And it is also so far up it’s own ass with its whole mythology, one that doesn’t even make sense. And again, It is also atrociously racist. The things wrong with this movie are too numerous to list.

2. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
3. Terminator: Salvation
4. Obsessed (Terrible in kind of an awesome way though.)
5. A Haunting in Conneticut
6-10. Would probably be filled with the likes of Twilight, GI Joe, Paul Blart, and other surely terrible movies, but I didn’t actually see them so I can’t justify adding them to any list.

BEST MOVIE PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

1. Chris Pine as James T. Kirk

I always figured when they inevitably rebooted Trek that whoever would play Kirk would do nothing but a bad Shatner impersonation. So happy I was wrong. Chris Pine captures all the charm of 60’s Kirk, with a dash of Han Solo and a tinge of Bond, and creates his own charming persona that still echoes Shat without being an imitation. He also gets the #1 slot in my book because he is smokin’ hot and spends a good two minutes of screen time in his undies.  Thank you God.

2. The rest of the cast of Star Trek
3. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach
4. Sharlto Copley – District 9
5. Christian Bale as himself on the set of Terminator Salvation. Not so much in the movie itself.

——- IVAN KANDER ——-

BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR

1. Up

Damn those folks at Pixar…can they screw up just once to prove that they’re actually human? Up is the next film to join the ranks of what has quickly become one of the greatest cinematic pedigrees ever. Once again, Pixar delivers an exceptional narrative filled with deceptively simple storytelling, beautiful animation, and layers of honest emotion. Now, there’s something worth getting your hopes Up for.

2. The Hurt Locker (Should win best picture. It won’t.)
3. (500) Days of Summer
4. The Brothers Bloom
5. I Love You, Man
6  The Princess and the Frog
7. Inglourious Basterds
8. District 9
9. World’s Greatest Dad
10. State of Play (Most underrated movie of the year. Seriously, check it out folks).

*Note: I still haven’t had a chance to see many Oscar-buzzed films (Precious, Up in the Air, Avatar, A Serious Man, Crazy Heart, Nine, Invictus, Avatar, etc.)

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR

1. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

What’s big, loud, dumb and has big boobs? The answer (besides your sister) is Michael Bay’s Transformers 2.  Here’s a movie that represents all that is wrong with the world today—it’s vapid, far too long, annoying, poorly written, and has about as much subtly as one of Elton John’s jumpsuits. This, ladies and gentleman, is why the terrorists hate us.

2. The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (More shooting and praying for douches)
3. Dragon Ball Z: Evolution
4. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
5. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
6. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
7. Obsessed
8. I Love You, Beth Cooper
9. Twilight: New Moon
10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

1. Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

What more can be said about Christoph Walts’s electrifying turn as Nazi Col. Hans “Jew Hunter” Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds? This is one of the best performances I’ve seen in years…and it’s filled with such range! He’s scary. He’s charming. He’s funny. He speaks three languages. If someone told me that he could walk on water, I think I just might believe it.  Waltz is easily the best thing about Tarntino’s film, and thus he tops my performance list for this year.

2. Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
3. Robin Williams – World’s Greatest Dad
4. Zach Galifianakis – The Hangover
5. Chris Pine – Star Trek
6. Adam Sandler – Funny People
7. Michael Jai White – Black Dynamite
8. Meryl Streep – Julie and Julia
9. Paul Rudd/Jason Segal – I Love You, Man
10. Sasha Grey – The Girlfriend Experience

——- JIM PELLIGRINELLI ——-

BEST MOVIES OF 2009

1. Up

THIS. IS. PIXAR. Unless you have no soul, Up is guaranteed to make you cry during the first fifteen minutes. If you did not cry, check the nearest mirror to see if you have a reflection, and consult a priest. Bittersweet, funny, and poignant, this is a better film than the multiplex deserves. If Pixar were a God, I’d be tossing virgins into a volcano in its name.

2. District 9
3. Zombieland
4. Adventureland
5. Coraline

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR

Jennifer’s Body

Nearly naked Megan Fox. Follow-up screenplay by Oscar winner Diablo Cody. Gory horror movie. Lipstick lesbianism. Sounds like a recipe for success, doesn’t it? But on every conceivable level Jennifer’s Body misfires more profoundly than a wet forty-five with a rock lodged in the barrel. Self-congratulatory when it thinks its clever, ludicrous where it means to be scary, and flat where it needs to pop, the film fails to deliver one tenth of its promised goods. If you still need to look at its star, do yourself a favor and download some pics off TMZ or WWTDD for free.

BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

Woody Harrelson, Zombieland

Sometimes only a Twinkie will do. And when you need a countrified, gun-toting, banjo swinging, zombie killing machine, only Woody Harrelson will do. Treating the end of the world as an opportunity to cut loose, Woody’s Tallahassee made a zombie apocalypse look like fun. Sure he’s a little sad and soulful on the inside, but that doesn’t stop him from treating the newly empty world as one big playground. Zombies may be out to eat him, but the only thing really dragging him down is missing his favorite snack cake.

——- MARTIN SCHERER ——-

BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Zombieland

I’m not one who views many movies in the theatres– I tend to wait for the rental disc get to me in the mail, and that can take a long time. Point is, that I have to go out of my way to see a movie in the theatre, and I’m glad I did for Zombieland.

Zombieland was the one movie I heard nothing about until I saw its trailer before D9, and it became the one movie this summer I wanted to hear more about.  Sure, Star Trek may have restarted the sci-fi genre, D9 showed us what you can do with a small budget and Inglorious Basterds reminded us that Tarantino is still a master— but Zombieland, what could have easily been a genre flick, reminded me that you can still have pure fun at the movies.

From the moment in the opening credits when a zombie stripper is chasing down a victim, to the search for a particular hostess snack at the end, I found myself with a non-stop smile on my face. There were parts that made me squirm, there were parts that made me laugh, and parts that made me feel for the main characters. More movies need to be made with the energy and creativity that this movie showed.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Inglourious Basterds, Star Trek, Up, District 9

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:  (500) Days of Summer

Dear (500) Days of Summer,

You didn’t suck hard, after all you had Joseph Gordon-Levitt and referenced Joy Division and the Pixies. But you were just the bottom of a list that was about 12 movies long. It’s nothing personal, it’s business.

Actually, on second thought, it is personal. The reason I put you so low on this list is because of about 15 seconds of film– specifically the last 15 seconds.  Your director, editor, producer, or someone in your life should have reminded you that cute on paper doesn’t always translate well to the screen.

With much respect,

Martin

BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR:  Paul Rudd

I’ll admit it, I have a man crush on Rudd. While he didn’t put on the best performance this year (that goes to our favourite Nazi, Christoph Waltz ,from Inglorious Basterds) he continues to impress me with what he does in the roles that he is casted in. To me Rudd is the amazing mirror of my life. In Knocked Up, I sympathized with his need to do things away from the family, and in I Love You, Man! I sympathized with his plight to find a wedding party, and to make friendships be more then just a series of acquaintances. Paul Rudd to me is a lot like Jimmy Stewart, when he wants to, he can make you (or at least me) feel what his character is going through and want to cheer him on.

Of course you can argue that my whole judgement is not based on his abilities, but with the work of Hollywood casting agents. To you I say: ‘Sir, you are a jackass’.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds, Sharlto Copley – District 9