TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2009

Now that it's March, I've waited an absurd amount of time to give my top 10 list, as this really should have been done 2 months ago. So while it's kind of irrelevant at this point, I figure as long as I slip them in before the Oscars it still counts, right? Plus, as some of these won't be rewarded tonight, I can still give them something.

1. Up in the Air

At one point this was poised to be the one to beat for best picture, and I'm not really sure why that changed. Up in the Air is a movie that feels simultaneously timeless and timely. It's the kind of impeccably written and acted adult comedy/drama that they just don't make like they used to, and the movie to best use our current economic troubles in a meaningful way. It was a very tough choice between this and my #2 pick, but ultimately this is the one I'll keep re-watching in years to come.

2. The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker's had so much acclaim elsewhere it can settle for #2 on my list. Still, in so many ways this is the movie people have been waiting for. For those craving a classic war like the Vietnam films of the 1970s, here you go. For those wondering if anyone could find a way to turn the Iraq War into art instead of a sermon, here's your answer. And if you want to see the most suspenseful movie of the year with the kind of knockout breakthrough performance that comes along very rarely, well, this is the one.

3. Avatar

There's a reason this is now the highest grossing movie of all time: it offers a cinematic experience unlike anything I've had before. It's easy to laugh off 3-D as a gimmick meant only for kids at an amusement park until you see how James Cameron used it to such stunning effect in creating an entirely original and believable world. Avatar certainly doesn't feature the most original story of the year, but it is the kind of big, epic narrative that demands to be taken seriously. In a year where so many big blockbusters failed to deliver, Cameron proved that the popcorn flick can dazzle instead of just amuse.

4. Up

Pixar has had such an insanely consistent record of excellence that Up isn't even my favorite of theirs and it still makes my top 5. It earned its spot with that early five-minute sequence alone, which created such a strong foundation for the rest of the movie you felt you knew everything about the character. Easily the best sequence of any movie this year. But they went the extra step in making sure the quality lasted for the rest of the film, giving a fun update on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World along with one of animation's best characters ever in Dug the dog. I may be too old for the Happy Meal toy, but I still love shouting "Squirrel!"

5. A Serious Man

The Coen Brothers love to spice things up, playing with different genres and styles in every one of their movies. Yet despite returning to the world of their youth, every frame still feels like a Coen Brothers movie, with the same wry and absurd sense of humor and same attention to visuals. There's a lot of ways this movie divides people, but its intelligent and hilarious script combined with the extraordinary way the Coens captured this time period proves they should keep trying new things, as I'll certainly be watching.

6. Inglourious Basterds

When I first heard this movie announced, I thought "Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, and World War II. None of these things go together." I was wrong. Tarantino took the set-up of all those old classics and gave it his own unmistakable spin. He created so many amazing characters they could probably front their own movies, and his signature dialogue is far better served than in the unfortunate lark that was Death Proof. Here he definitively silenced anyone calling him a director of the '90s, as he once again created a defining movie for this past decade.

7. (500) Days of Summer

Following Little Miss Sunshine and Juno, some felt Summer was just another overly precious indie that wasn't as good as its fans made it out to be. Obviously I'm not of that camp. Summer took the most traditional of movie plots and made it feel fresh. Sure, gimmicks like the time jumping and split screen scene helped, but what really caused all the love was its sincerity. In a time when so many similar movies are filled with quirkiness and snark, real characters and feelings make this one stand out.

8. District 9

The other big alien movie of 2009 was pretty much unlike Avatar in every other way, with its relatively tiny budget, no name cast, and grittier style. It was also the far more successful allegory, teaching me more about apartheid in South Africa than Invictus ever did. Everything about District 9 was untraditional, from its unlikable protagonist to its documentary style opening. Which is why District 9 kept me guessing more than anything else from the year.

9. An Education

Like (500) Days of Summer, An Education is a movie that seems simple at first but actually has more going on. The traditional coming-of-age movie has been done to death, but rarely with all the elements in such fine form. Between Nick Hornby's humorous and touching first screenplay and Carey Mulligan's breakthrough role, there was plenty to freshen up this tale. And by really going into the time period, it played almost like a British, female Mad Men. With such a strong supporting cast, this gem still feels overlooked despite the Oscar nods.

10. Star Trek

To this day I've still never seen a single episode of any Star Trek TV show nor any of the other movies. So the fact that I was able to enjoy this just as well as hardcore Trekkies (or, sorry, Trekkers) shows J.J. Abrams can do a reboot like no other. With its very appealing cast and great action, it was both a perfect summer movie and the kind of strong franchise-starter that leaves me eager to see what comes next.

Honorable Mentions: The Hangover, Food Inc, The Princess and the Frog, The Informant, Fantastic Mr. Fox

Best Picture: Up in the Air

Runner-Up: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Runner-Up: James Cameron, Avatar

Best Actor: Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Runner-Up: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education

Runner-Up: Maya Rudolph, Away We Go

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Runner-Up: Peter Sarsgaard, An Education

Best Supporting Actress: Mo'nique, Precious

Runners-Up: Anna Kendrick & Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

Best Original Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds

Runner-Up: Up

Best Adapted Screenplay: Up in the Air

Runner-Up: An Education

Best Animated Film: Up

Runner-Up: The Princess and the Frog

Best Documentary: Food, Inc.

Best Song: "The Weary Kind," Crazy Heart

Runner-Up: "All Is Love," Where the Wild Things Are

A Serious Jew Movie

Grade: A

Yesterday, A Serious Man came to DVD. Two weeks ago, I paid to see it in theaters. That may seem silly, knowing if I just held off a little longer I could have just Netflixed it, but I stand by my choice. Not only did it allow me to be 9 for 10 on best picture nominees last week, but I was able to see how people reacted in the theater. Instead of the theater laughing all at once, I would find myself laughing alone at some parts, and others laughing alone later. And others probably weren't laughing at all. Which is why this has been one of the more debated movies of 2009. Some people responded to it, and some people didn't.

Jewish physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) seems to be living a good life, but all of a sudden things begin to rapidly unravel for him. His wife (Sari Lennick) announces out of nowhere that she's leaving him for smooth-voiced widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), the titular serious man whose insistence on handling things "like adults" just make him all the more obnoxious. Larry's brother (Richard Kind) shows no signs of looking for an apartment as he spends all his time in Larry's bathroom draining a cyst. A Korean student is bribing him to change a grade. The Columbia record club is hounding him for payments on records he never ordered. Oh, and people keep dying right in front of him.

If all of this doesn't sound quite as bad as what happened to Job, Larry's biblical precedent, it's not. In fact, a lot of what happens to Larry happens less to him and more around him, a maelstrom of ridiculousness to which Larry is forced to observe. But as in the story of Job, the central question is why? The script is structured by Larry's meetings with three rabbis - young, older, and oldest - through whom he tries to seek some guidance. The best visit is the second, in which the rabbi tells an elaborate story that, while amusing, doesn't seem to actually have a lesson, much to Larry's frustration. In fact the story does have a moral, one shared by the movie: sometimes there are no answers. Which may make this one of the most Jewish movies ever made.

It's not just all the rabbis and Hebrew that makes people call this Joel and Ethan Coens' most personal movie yet. Set in a close-knit Jewish community in the 1960s, the characters here live much as the Coens must have growing up in Minnesota. And they truly do nail that world. Looking at the washed-over colors and drab architecture, it's amazing how similar it looks to pictures of the era my parents grew up in.

They also really understand what it was like growing up in that world, often to hilarious effect. Many of the funniest moments surround Larry's son, who listens to Jefferson Airplane on a walkman in Hebrew School while his teacher drones on about Hebrew verb conjugation and goes to his own Bar Mitzvah while stoned. There's the way everyone's answer to Larry's questions is "go ask the rabbi." And the way nobody actually knows the word for a Jewish divorce.

If this is the Book of Job though, it's not God bringing all of this down on Larry so much as the Coen brothers, and I think the movie can best be enjoyed if you view it from their perspective. Some people find the whole thing just depressing, and I imagine if you're really empathizing with the characters then you might think so. But there's so much absurdity that I couldn't imagine taking the movie at face value. I think a better criticism would be that the whole movie is some dark joke amongst the Coens, watching their characters squirm for their amusement. But hey, at least it's a funny one.

Especially if you're a Coen Brothers fan, A Serious Man impresses by being so entirely different from anything else they've made. It's hard to imagine it came from the same minds as No Country for Old Men. If I had to pick a movie it's most similar to, I'd probably land on Barton Fink, another odd one about internal crisis with an unusual ending (A Serious Man's ending won't confuse you like that of No Country for Old Men, but its bleak punchline may leave you just as unsatisfied). I might also go with The Big Lebowski, a completely dissimilar movie that oddly shares a somewhat similar tone.

There's a lot that's potentially off-putting about A Serious Man. It's very Jewish not just in the amount of Hebrew they throw at you early on, but in the entire style of humor they employ, and if you haven't chanted haftarah, you might feel out of the loop. The comedy is so pitch-black that you may not even realize the Coens are joking. But if you enjoy intelligent movies that pose serious questions, making you think hard about the fact that there's no intention of answering them, you'd be missing out not to see it. And while Sy Ableman may be a serious man, the movie itself is more seriously funny.

10 Fall Must-See Movies

It's that time again. With Labor Day just a week away and my Fall Movie Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly having arrived weeks ago, it's time to figure out which movies coming out in the next four months are worth our excitement. As always, things change. Some movies get pushed back, some disappoint. But here's what I'm looking forward to now:

Jennifer's Body (September 18th)

First off, yes, this made it on because Shutter Island was shipped off to February. I feel like this one could go either way - it could be a fun and campy and Heathersish like the online trailer suggests, or it could just be lame as...well, the theatrical trailer suggests. We'll find out which soon enough.

A Serious Man (October 2nd)

I have no idea what this is actually about, but I do know two very important things: 1. It's a new Coen Brothers movie, so I'll be seeing it no matter what, and 2. It has the best trailer I've seen in a long time. Seriously, take a look:

An Education (October 9th)

People at festivals earlier this year went CRAZY over this. But more importantly, this marks the first screenplay by Nick Hornby, one of my favorite authors. Even more interesting - it looks completely different from all of his books.

The Road (October 16th)

This has already been pushed back once, and could very likely be pushed off again. But having read the book, I'm curious how the movie will play out, given it's extremely bleak and most of the story only features two characters. Good thing Viggo Mortenson is one of them.

Broken Embraces (November 20th)

There's few directors I can say that I've seen every movie they've made, and Pedro Almodovar is one of them, so yes, I will certainly be seeing this. It's been too long a wait since Volver.

Nine (November 25th)

While it may be hard to top the fantastic Antonio Banderas-led revival some years back, this impressive assembly of international talent stands as good a chance as any. Two years after Sweeney Todd, it's good to see Hollywood again dipping into a less conventional theatrical source. Maybe that Into the Woods movie can happen someday after all...

The Princess and the Frog (November 25th)

This may seem like an unusual pick for my list, but come on, the first traditionally animated Disney musical since Mulan? Who doesn't want to see that?! You know I love Pixar, but I'd also like to see the successor to that Disney golden age of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Lion King.

The Lovely Bones (December 11th)

If you haven't read the book yet, get to it. It's super addictive. But Peter Jackson seemed like kind of a strange fit. Then I saw the trailer, and realized the afterlife scenes will look amazing while the earthly stuff is extra tense. Regardless of whether it shoots for entertainment or Oscar, it will be worth seeing.

Avatar (December 18th)

If you read my post last week, you know that 15-minute glimpse on screens left me hungry for more. Will it be the second coming of Titanic, selling out every theater for months to come? Unlikely. But will it be the most talked about movie of the Christmas season, to the point where you have to see it just to keep up? Almost certainly.

Sherlock Holmes (December 25th)

All my friends who are hardcore Sherlock Holmes fans (yes, they still exist, and yes, I know multiple people that fit that category) are super pissed about all the modern stylings and very un-19th century feel of this, but everyone else recognizes it looks pretty awesome. Could be Guy Ritchie's first good movie since Snatch. And welcome back Rachel McAdams. We missed you.

And for when any of those prove to be less than must-see, let's have 5 back-ups:

The Informant - The ads are making it look like a Burn After Reading style farce, which is fine by me. But Soderbergh can be hit-or-miss, so we may want to wait and see. (9/18)

Capitalism: A Love Story - Somewhere around Fahrenheit 911 it stopped being cool to like Michael Moore, but that doesn't mean you aren't curious to see what outrageous stunts the financial crisis will inspire him to pursue. (9/23)

Where the Wild Things Are - Children's book loved by all, Spike Jonze's first movie since Adaptation, and a trailer featuring the Arcade Fire. I'm in. (10/16)

New York, I Love You - Well, I loved Paris, Je T'aime, and this time it's actually set in a city I know. (10/16)

Up in the Air - Another one people who have seen it are really, really excited about, and I guess I was listening. (Dec TBA)

So which ones are you most excited about? What did I leave off? Let me know in the comments.