The best and worst films of 2009

The best and worst films of 2009: "

Over the past week, 'Avatar' and 'Sherlock Holmes' sealed another
record-breaking box-office year for Hollywood, with a little help from
a trio of singing chipmunks.

The economy may not be back on its feet yet, but at least the movie business is recession-proof, right?

Not so fast. Blockbusters are attracting huge audiences, but size
doesn't come cheap, and this year -- like last year -- the studios
continued to cut back on the middle ground: the low- to mid-budget
films that are rarely enormously profitable but that have nevertheless
formed the bedrock of America's love affair with movies for the best part of the last century.

In
a society proud to place a high value on independence, movie culture
seems increasingly stratified and programmatic. Moviegoing is no longer
habitual for most adults; the gamers who flock to 'Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen' -- the biggest grosser of the year in more ways
than one -- are impatient with character and nuance, and are simply
looking for maximum bang.

So long as Hollywood keeps upping the
ante, audiences will repay the compliment. But sooner or later,
something's got to give. If film production costs keep escalating, it
will be the audience who pays, not only in higher ticket prices, but in
reduced choice.

'Avatar' deserves to be a hit, but I have a
strong suspicion that in setting out to save cinema, James Cameron has
only made things worse. If the housing market bubble can burst, so can
the blockbuster business.

'Avatar' didn't make my top 10, though
I liked it well enough and much better than most in what was, by and
large, a dismal year for Hollywood movies.

There were a few
bright spots: J.J. Abrams reinvigorated the 'Star Trek' franchise ...
Pixar ('Up') and Disney ('The Princess and the Frog') contributed to a
banner year for animated films ... there were adventurous commercial
films from Steven Soderbergh ('The Informant!'), Spike Jonze ('Where
the Wild Things Are') and Michael Mann ('Public Enemies') ... and
Francis Coppola returned with his unapologetically esoteric and
personal 'Tetro.'

The year will also be remembered as a
watershed year for female filmmakers: Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion,
Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, Rebecca Miller, Christine Jeffs, Anne
Fletcher, Mira Nair, Karyn Kusama, Lone Scherfig, Lynn Shelton and Drew
Barrymore, for starters. (And that's ignoring the French: Agnes Varda,
Claire Denis and Anne Fontaine all had films on the arthouse circuit in
recent months.) Of course, not all these films were hits, but the
success of female-driven movies such as "The Twilight Saga: New Moon,"
"Julie & Julia" and anything at all to do with Sandra Bullock
should put an end to that old Hollywood canard that those movies don't
open.

And now, the top 10:

1. 'A Serious Man'

It's bizarre that the Coens'
best movie in a decade isn't getting the respect (or the audiences) it
deserves. On the surface, 'A Serious Man' seems to be a modest venture
-- it doesn't feature any stars, and it appears to be a relatively
banal story about a physics professor, Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg),
barely coping with the news that his wife is leaving him just as a work
promotion hangs in the balance. Yet from these domestic tribulations,
the Coens have fashioned a movie that is, on the one hand, a probing
examination of mortality, faith and guilt; and on the other, a bitingly
acidic black comedy about middle-American Jewish mores in the late
1960s.

2. 'Ponyo'

There may never have been a
better vintage for animated feature films. Three made my top 10, and
two more came close. The best came from Japan: Hayao Miyazaki
('Spirited Away') has long been held in high esteem in America, though
he's never had a box office hit here. 'Ponyo' is a strange and
beguiling fantasy film about a sea spirit. It's an odd eco-fable, but
illustrated with such beauty and imagination, it transports entirely
into another world.

3. 'Inglourious Basterds'

Quentin Tarantino's
outrageous and brilliant war movie is the ultimate in revisionism. For
2½ hours in the dark, the cinema is everywhere and everything.

4. 'Two Lovers'

Eclipsed
in the zeitgeist by lead actor Joaquin Phoenix's mysterious behavior on
Letterman, this is probably the most underrated movie of the year, not
least for the actor's consummate portrait of a man desperately in love
with the wrong girl (Gwyneth Paltrow).

5. 'Coraline'

This
was supposed to be the year of 3D, and with the arrival of 'Avatar,' I
suppose it was. But nobody used the third dimension more creatively
than Henry Selick in this dark and disturbing animated feature about a
young girl momentarily tempted by a glimpse of an idyllic other life.

6. 'The Headless Woman'

Lucrecia
Martel's Argentine enigma spoke volumes while spelling out nothing.
Martel demands attention; she may be the finest filmmaker on the
continent.

7. 'The Hurt Locker'

The best-reviewed
American movie of the year is an intense, unflinching suspense film
about a bomb disposal expert in Iraq (a career-making performance from
Jeremy Renner). Why did it bottom out at $13 million at the box office?
The distressing scene in which Renner cut into the corpse of a
booby-trapped dead child may have had something to do with it. That
kind of courage is rare in movies, but there's a smaller market for
honesty.

8. 'Bright Star'

Another box office
under-achiever, Jane Campion's most assured film in a long time
deserves to find a wider audience on DVD. The story of John Keats and
love of his life Fanny Brawne, this is a sensual, immersive, deeply
passionate movie.

9. 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'

I enjoyed 'Up in the Air,' too, but if I had to pick one George Clooney
movie this year, it would have to be this. Taking Roald Dahl's story as
a starting point, Wes Anderson reconceived the reckless red fox as
another of his irresistible, incorrigible and tragically immature alpha
males. Mr. Fox's bravado has potentially terrible ramifications for his
family and friends, as he ruefully comes to admit, yet this is his
nature, and he cannot be otherwise. The same is true of Anderson, yet
the switch to stop-motion has inspired his most visually lovely film
and freed up his comic imagination.

10. 'La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet'

Veteran
documentarian Fred Wiseman trains his camera on the rehearsals and
inner workings of the venerable Parisian ballet company for 2½ hours --
roughly the time it took for Michael Bay to destroy one of the seven
wonders of the world. Movie audiences thrill to destruction, but the
art of creation can also be enthralling.

And the worst films of the year, with No. 1 taking the dishonor as worst film of 2009:

10. 'Year One'

9. 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'

8. 'The Ugly Truth'

7. 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'

6. 'The Time Traveler's Wife'

5. 'Ghosts of Girlfriends Past'

4. 'Couples Retreat'

3. 'New in Town'

2. 'Nine'

1. 'Miss March'

Source: CNN

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