Here are the stand-out movies I saw this year:
500 Days of Summer: A playful structure, a melancholic mood, and a conflict between the characters that I really cared about.
District 9 is great fun. An excellent action film that reinvigorated my love of movies.
The Fountain: Beautiful, emotional, and the first Aronofsky film that I can imagine myself rewatching.
It Might Get Loud: I am the target audience for a movie about how Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White became guitarists.
The Room is the Plan 9 from Outer Space of '90s indie movies. I suspect that within 2 to 10 years, The Room will be as well known as Plan 9.
Shortbus: an extremely explicit movie about people trying to overcome sexual problems in their lives. Provocative, funny, moving, and dealing with conflicts that most movies prefer to ignore. I thought this movie was fantastic.
Soul Power covers the 1974 concert in Zaire that took place at the same-ish time as the Ali-Foreman fight. Lots of great performers including James Brown, favourite-bluesman-ever BB King, and new favourite singer Bill Withers. For me it's a movie that really illustrated the joy of playing music, and the satisfaction of playing music yourself rather than receiving it from some 'star'. Great stuff.
Zombieland: a feel-good romantic comedy with an attitude that's perfectly pitched to my tastes. Taught me that interesting things can happen in a zombie movie when you dial the zombie threat down to about a 2 out of 10.
Rather than pick a best film of 2009 (whatever that means), I can see myself rewatching all of these. But the ones that I think I will continue to get something from are (500) Days of Summer and Shortbus.
.gif)
Showing posts with label favourites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label favourites. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
2009: Favourite Single Episode of TV
Here are the contenders.
Mad Men, Season 1: The Marriage of Figaro. The third episode of this show opens up what it's really about - social conformity and people caught in lies about their own lives. It's like Pleasantville without the gimmicks. I'm looking forward to seeing how these characters survive the 60s, but I doubt it will be a pleasant journey for most of them.
Lost, Season 5: Le Fleur. The episode that established that Sawyer is amazing, that gave him a home and people to care about, and then reintroduced Jack to screw it all up. Le Fleur not only gives us our first real behind the scenes look at Dharmaville, it begins the process of making all of the main characters sympathetic again that Season 5 would continue.
True Blood, Season 1: Episode 6. I just felt so sad for Sookie's loss, which was magnificently displayed in sub-text during a scene where she ate her grandmother's pie.
Dollhouse, Season 1: Man on the Street. A episode filled with brutal, series-defining plot points in this show about people who can copy and download their personalities into other bodies. It also contains a gimmicky series of news interviews with people about the urban legend of the Dollhouse. ... 'Gimmicky' that is, until the very last interview - where a scientist says that if this technology is real, then it's the end of humanity. "We are over. As a species," he says, referring to the idea that the people who control this technology will inevitably use it for their own gain. At the very least it will create a class of rich immortals who use our bodies as rides. From there, two or three minutes of consideration, a set of nightmare scenarios emerge that (in later episodes) Dollhouse will spectacularly not shy away from.
Supernatural, Season 4: The Monster at the End of This Book. Probably the most 'meta' episode of television I've ever watched. Magnificent. Inspirational.
And the winner is: Dollhouse, Man on the Street. Dollhouse is the only show I've had arguments about this year. Despite all of its many many flaws, Man on the Street is the point where it demonstrates its incredible potential.
Mad Men, Season 1: The Marriage of Figaro. The third episode of this show opens up what it's really about - social conformity and people caught in lies about their own lives. It's like Pleasantville without the gimmicks. I'm looking forward to seeing how these characters survive the 60s, but I doubt it will be a pleasant journey for most of them.
Lost, Season 5: Le Fleur. The episode that established that Sawyer is amazing, that gave him a home and people to care about, and then reintroduced Jack to screw it all up. Le Fleur not only gives us our first real behind the scenes look at Dharmaville, it begins the process of making all of the main characters sympathetic again that Season 5 would continue.
True Blood, Season 1: Episode 6. I just felt so sad for Sookie's loss, which was magnificently displayed in sub-text during a scene where she ate her grandmother's pie.
Dollhouse, Season 1: Man on the Street. A episode filled with brutal, series-defining plot points in this show about people who can copy and download their personalities into other bodies. It also contains a gimmicky series of news interviews with people about the urban legend of the Dollhouse. ... 'Gimmicky' that is, until the very last interview - where a scientist says that if this technology is real, then it's the end of humanity. "We are over. As a species," he says, referring to the idea that the people who control this technology will inevitably use it for their own gain. At the very least it will create a class of rich immortals who use our bodies as rides. From there, two or three minutes of consideration, a set of nightmare scenarios emerge that (in later episodes) Dollhouse will spectacularly not shy away from.
Supernatural, Season 4: The Monster at the End of This Book. Probably the most 'meta' episode of television I've ever watched. Magnificent. Inspirational.
And the winner is: Dollhouse, Man on the Street. Dollhouse is the only show I've had arguments about this year. Despite all of its many many flaws, Man on the Street is the point where it demonstrates its incredible potential.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)