BITCHFEST '09: A (KINDA SORTA) GOOD YEAR

HAPPY BOXING DAY!

Okay, I have no idea what that means, other than wishing you an ace day. Because, not many people seem to really know for sure what "Boxing Day" is all about. I've read the Wikipedia entry several times, and I'm still none the wiser. But it does serve as a wonderfully convenient cut-off point for my yearly film roundups, as everybody seems to like to hear about such things before New Years, after which it seems to be all about the year ahead. (Although previous Bitchfests have gone live in January, I've not incorporated films released post-Day-of-Boxes.)

For those of you new to this, my annual Bitchfest blog entry is made up of an op-ed (read: rant) about the past year in film, followed by my top 10/bottom 10/5 most overrated/underrated. However, dear reader, you'll be gratified to know it's going to be a lot shorter this year. I've made an early New Year's Resolution to keep my blogs fast, punchy and easily digestible. (Well, whether the quality of my writing is in any way "digestible" is another question, and not one I'm qualified to answer.)

I saw 91 new films released since Boxing Day 2008 -- as usual, more than half (50) were seen at what we all know is the REAL Christmas season, the Melbourne International Film Festival -- which represents a recent high, by a long way. The 41 new non-MIFF releases were WAY up on the 26-30 I've seen each of the last four years. And, you know what?

Of the 91 films... most of them weren't that bad.

Again, I feel the need to reiterate: I'm NOT a film critic. I don't get paid to see films or get sent free passes from distributors. (I have to enter competitions like everyone else.) I don't make a "Worst" list for the simple reason that one can tend to see the truly worst films of the year coming, and give them the wide berth they deserve. So, don't think for a second that my unusually slightly optimistic turn is glossing over the (as Commandant Lassard would say) many, many, many turdular sequels/remakes/rom-coms/music-video horrors/mawkish dramas that Hollywood and, occasionally, some other countries has foisted upon us in 2009. (TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN remains the year's biggest movie, lest we forget.) So I do bristle somewhat when various internet critics/film journos talk this year up as a "great" year for film. Let me tell you something: 1975 was a "great" year for film. 1979. 1967. 1939. 1980. 1999. 2009 ain't in that ballpark, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport. 2009 wasn't even the best cinematic year of this decade.

However... it was a relatively GOOD year for film; probably the best since 2005. We discovered some thrilling filmmaking talent (Steven Kastrissios, James Watkins, Na Hong-Jin), but it seemed to be a year for some old pros to get their groove back in a serious way (The brothers Coen, Lars von Trier, John Woo, Quentin Tarantino) while others, like Sam Mendes, just continued to produce gold in a near superhuman fashion.

While world cinema is in reasonably good shape (despite the traditional methods and philosophy of financing, distribution and exhibition being fundamentally challenged, of course, but film will find a way. It always does), the Hollywood studios are chasing the almighty dollar like never before. Endless quantities of sequels and remakes are being developed, and all new franchises must be engineered and dumbed down to death to appeal to all "four quadrants" (old & young, women & men) before being unleashed. There used to be an art to engineering a popular blockbuster, best exemplified in the 1980s by the person who is, ironically, one of the 2000s worst perpetrators: Jerry Bruckheimer. TOP GUN is such a well-crafted example of something which sets out to hit as many demographics as possible; It has both its jingoistic cake and eats its military piss-take too (to murder a proverb). But whereas films like TOP GUN and BEVERLY HILLS COP had some fun & heart to them, things like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and NATIONAL TREASURE just seem lumbering, bloated and soulless to me. Maybe it's my age, or perhaps I actually do have a case... Go look at the stats (budget, length, marketing, script, etc) and get back to me. Money's on me.

But enough ranting, because, as I said, I promised to keep these things to an economical clip. Plus, I feel like being a little more positive this year. Which naturally means it's time to kick off this list:

MY 10 LEAST FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2009

(As mentioned earlier, I've not seen many of this year's truly awful clusterfucks because I value my hard-earned too much to waste these days. GFC and all that. So, I didn't catch TRANSFORMERS 2, ALL ABOUT STEVE, THE UGLY TRUTH, NEW MOON (although I did have an okay time with TWILIGHT), ANGELS AND DEMONS, FAME, BRIDE WARS, GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, etc. But I do feel I should see DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION because it looks so hilariously awful. Enough digressing! On with the counting!)

10. MAO'S LAST DANCER

The incredible true life story of Li Cunxin, a Chinese ballet dancer who defects to Australia, is painted by director Bruce Beresford and screenwriter Jan Sardi with the broadest strokes possible, reducing it to a thoroughly mediocre, pedestrian big-screen equivalent of a midday telemovie. Other than Joan Chen and the surprisingly good Chi Cao in the lead (who, ironically, seemed to be one of the few whose work on the film was derided), the rest of the cast are generally big and one-note -- leading to some unintentionally funny scenes -- and the film is shot without any real style or energy, right down to the cliched music cues (pan flutes over establishing shots of China, anyone?). Only the scenes involving Chen and Li's family back in China hold any emotional power, and that's because they seem to be playing at a more naturalistic, emotionally true level that the rest of the film fails to match. What's more, Beresford keeps the vanilla stylistics up for so long, that when he throws in bizarre directorial flourishes they seem so ridiculously out of place, it pulls one out of the film even more. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more middle-of-the-road film this year.

9. CHANGELING

Feeling more like the heavy-handed touch of the film's producer, Ron Howard, than Eastwood's elegant style, the chilling tale of Christine Collins -- a single mother whose son is kidnapped and whose run-ins with a negligent LAPD find her consigned to a barbaric psychiatric institution -- is filled with every cinematic period/courtroom/asylum drama/serial killer thriller cliche imaginable and rendered completely toothless. Angelina Jolie seems miscast; so distinctive looking and indivisible from her star persona that you don't believe her for a second, no matter how hard she tries (and she tries hard, screaming the words "my son" some 783-odd times). It doesn't help that those famous lips of hers are painted bright scarlet red at all times, drawing total focus in scene upon scene. (I'm not being petty or personal here; Jolie CAN disappear into a role; her terrific performance in Michael Winterbottom's A MIGHTY HEART is proof of that. Eastwood's the one who gets it all wrong.) But even worse is Jeffrey Donovan, the actor playing the villainous LA police captain; everything from his facial expressions to his accent are utterly bizarre, and not in an enjoyably eccentric, Nicolas Cage kind of way, but in a "bad acting" kind of way. CHANGELING takes a can't-miss true story and bashes it into a leaden parade of movie cliches, variable performances and knuckleheaded scripting.

8. MY YEAR WITHOUT SEX

I don't want to beat up on Australian films, but this resoundingly dull kitchen sink drama from Sarah Watt (LOOK BOTH WAYS) has it coming. There's a stunning lack of drama as we follow an average lower-middle-class suburban family from domestic crisis and back again; you have to work really hard to suck so much drama out of life for the screen, but Watt succeeds admirably. The pile-up of domestic crises and screw-ups and illnesses and sexual foibles just deadens the viewer, to the point you're tempted to throw on "Mad World" and shove a shotgun in your gob. Yes, it's the latest in a recent trend of Australian film I like to call "socially conscious Sad Bastard" movies. The actors try, but they've got so little that's interesting to do that they end up fading into the background, making no impression at all. There's a random cameo from Watt's husband, William McInnes, that provides both the film's biggest laugh and a sad reminder of the kind of inspiration the rest of the film lacks. If this film were a house, it'd be grey weatherboard on the outside and wood-panelling on the inside: drab and uninspired.

7. YEAR ONE

I really like Harold Ramis as a director. I also adore Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, and once had a big thing for Jack Black, although his shtick has begun to grate through endless repetition. It even uses a script written by two of the main writers of The Office (USA), a sitcom I'm in love with. So much talent... so why is the bulk of YEAR ONE so lamely unfunny? For one, Black is doing his randy, thick, loudmouthed, pot-bellied lech thing here. Again. Cera is doing his standard awkward, sexually uncomfortable routine; thankfully, he owns it, so he manages to scare up some laughs at least. And whatever moments Azaria and Platt have, it's because they're Azaria and Platt, not the script or direction. But the main problem with YEAR ONE is it doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like a sketch show -- and a lame one at that -- with sketches bolted together end-to-end for 90-some minutes. Too many screen comedies try to get away with this these days, but unless you're the Marx Brothers, it doesn't work. The key to movies is story, structure, a thematic through-line... consistently funny jokes also help if you're a comedy. That YEAR ONE fails in all of these fundamental objectives shows just how wrong-headed a movie comedy it is.

6. 2012

Roland Emmerich is as Roland Emmerich does. And that's pretty much it. If you've seen INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA or THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, you know what to expect here: terrific actors grabbing a fat paycheck and reciting ridiculously ham-fisted expository dialogue while the world is destroyed in a storm of costly CGI around them. Right or wrong, Emmerich has become our generation's Irwin Allen, a man whose career followed a similar trajectory of dunderheaded all-star disaster schlockbusters, and 2012 just seals the deal. Where this one is worse than the others (okay, maybe it's not worse than GODZILLA. On a par, at least), is that our "heroes" are so stunningly moronic, they end up nearly doing more harm than good, out of pure selfishness. It's been a long time since I barracked for a bad guy as hard as I did in 2012, but it's that kind of film. Sure, the CGI work is some of the best money can buy, but it's a little depressing to see buildings and homes containing hundreds of thousands of innocent people being destroyed while we're supposed to cheer our barely-developed protagonists on. Yep... Roland Emmerich is as Roland Emmerich does.

5. MARTYRS

An attempted torture-porn examination which feels all too much like other recent French horror films, and has all too little of substance to hang its rather laboriously brutal structure upon. Downright illogical at times and winds up feeling utterly pointless. (Full review HERE.)

4. DOUBLE TAKE

A shambling clusterfuck of a pseudo-documentary involving Alfred Hitchcock, the Cold War, Doppelgangers, Nixon & Kruschev, ads for Coffee and a modern Hitchcock impersonator who thought it was ace to meet Tippi Hedren. It makes even less sense than it sounds. If not for archive footage of Hitch's brilliant ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS introductions & a Nixon/Kruschev press conference, it'd be the most boring, pointless, sloppy film of the year. Perhaps it still is anyway. (Full review HERE.)

3. DEAD SNOW

Nazi Zombies. Those two words are where this moronic horror-comedy's inventiveness starts and ends. And it does absolutely nothing with them. Cribs so shamelessly & mercilessly from so many better films, is so shoddily crafted and sports such detestable characters that you may feel compelled to enact a zombified Final Solution against the filmmakers when it's done. (Full review HERE.)

2. NYMPH

Stillborn, glacially paced Thai modern ghost story that seems to think blank looks into the distance, or at trees supposedly inhabited by spirits, for minutes on end is a good substitute for a story. There's only so much footage of people staring at trees I can take before either sleep descends, or I start shouting at the screen. Neither is a desirable effect. (Full review HERE.)

1. HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO

It was disappointing to hear that this was one of Edgar Wright's film highlights of the year, as I found it one of the worst, driest, least interesting film making-of documentaries ever made. What's more, INFERNO, the abandoned film in question, didn't look too great, either. Whiny anecdotes, uninspired documentary filmmaking, and camera tests from a film that would've dated five years after release are the gems this interminable doc contains. (Full review HERE.)

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS: A FILM WITH ME IN IT, ZIFT, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, LOS BASTARDOS.

TOP 5 MOST OVERRATED FILMS OF 2009

This is a short countdown of those films which have been lavished with Awards/Critical/Audience praise that I just wasn't as jazzed by. Doesn't necessarily mean they're bad films; one or two of them are actually pretty good, but, in my opinion, just aren't as great as so many seem to tell us. Without further ado:

5. SAMSON AND DELILAH

I love that writer/director Warwick Thornton put so much of himself into what is clearly a personal story, and that he's being rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. For me, however, the film didn't completely work. The first and final acts of the film are indeed stunning, showing us an intimate side of the Australian indigenous experience we've rarely seen on film before. It's the middle third, when the kids run away from home, that troubled me. With its procession of petrol sniffing, homelessness and disenfranchisement, it seemed like every documentary or news item I'd ever seen about urban Indigenous life. Perhaps this is just my issue -- and perhaps Thornton has actually made the definitive film about modern Aboriginal life, from community to city -- but it just seemed like it was heaping cliche upon cliche. But what annoyed me even more, was the extent to which Thornton goes to keep Samson & Delilah from speaking. Often, their silence felt organic and character-driven, but as things get more intense, it just seemed forced. (When Delilah tries to run away from Samson on the way to the city, and Samson has to stop her... these kids wouldn't speak AT ALL at this point? Really? Him telling her to stop and get back in the car, and her resisting, comes off as mute acting of Humphrey B Bear proportions, and seemed highly unlikely to me.) Overall, SAMSON AND DELILAH is definitely a very good film... but feels to me to be a little too self-conscious and trading in cliches to be great.

4. MILK

Brilliantly acted, grittily shot, but otherwise stock-standard biopic is a perfectly fine film, but lacks the ambition or focus to be a great one. Harvey Milk is an inspiring figure who met a horribly tragic ending, but the film just seems to go through the motions, ticking the events off until we get to the last stop. Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black clearly have affection for their subject, but the film is executed in the safest way possible.

3. CORALINE

A weird case where all the parts seem to be intact -- stunning & darkly kaleidoscopic visuals, terrific voice cast, quirky design, intelligent use of 3D, Neil Gaiman-penned source material -- but the sum seriously lacks energy and intensity. With everything on display in the film, I should have been thrilled, terrified, gripped... but instead, I could only gaze admiringly at the physical craft, completely distanced from a strangely uninvolving story. The main issue with the script is that, while Coraline is often in danger, it's constantly solved in seconds or through sudden fortuitous intervention, rather than drawing out a genuine sense of suspense. There becomes an expectation that Coraline will win out almost immediately before leaping to the next crisis, and this is death to engendering audience involvement. Memo to animation studio Laika: you wanna be Pixar, watch TOY STORY 2 or THE INCREDIBLES, and see how you fear for those characters. It's all about being "surprising yet inevitable", as the great William Goldman once said.

2. GRAN TORINO

In what some were bafflingly calling a banner year for Clint Eastwood, this film (possibly his last acting role) sees him as an angry, racist old war veteran literally grunting and snarling at his Hmong next door neighbours like an '80s Anime character. The film has some nice moments and brushes up against poignancy at times, but between Clint overdoing the "grumpy old man" bit, the highly variable acting from the (unprofessional) Hmong community cast and the ending's sledgehammer symbolism, it really isn't the great film many critics proclaimed it to be.

1. AN EDUCATION

Lynn Barber's memoir of being seduced by a 30-something cad at sixteen tries to add all sorts of emotional weight to the threadbare issues within, but seems more like an emotionally remote poor-me tale than anything else. There's some snappy dialogue on display thanks to screenwriter Nick Hornby, but Carey Mulligan's lead character seems to start the film as a callow snob and ends it a self-important snob. Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard are good in isolation, but together, their great love is hardly convincing; she seems to care more about the lifestyle than him. None of the characters' actions in this film seem to have any sort of real consequences; objects are stolen and relationships are broken, but nobody seems to experience any serious apprehension or seismic change. The result is a pleasant enough, utterly vanilla, middle-of-the-road diversion which, perhaps in a better year, would be relegated to the status of average, inoffensive Brit comedy-drama fare like CALENDAR GIRLS or MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS, not buzzed about for Oscar nominations.

ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS OVERRATED: MARY AND MAX, THE HURT LOCKER, STAR TREK.

TOP 5 MOST UNDERRATED

Conversely, here are the films of the year which were either critically slammed, ignored at the box office, snubbed at awards ceremonies or barely released that I believe were hard done by or deserved more respect... or, in the case of #5, I just believe deserves a second look from another perspective...

5. THE SPIRIT

If I haven't alienated people yet, I'm sure I just have now. But I'm beyond caring: I enjoyed the HELL out of the THE SPIRIT. It's not a lame SIN CITY 2 attempt, as many critics have said; while it takes a similar visual approach, the mood is completely different: it's not gritty, it's wacky, sexual and, yes, silly as all get out. What critics don't seem to get is, Will Eisner's character was a piss-take of superheroes (yes, there's a reason the female lead is named after a font) and one of the two things this film is, is a satire of the superhero genre. But the principal function of THE SPIRIT is the complete cinematic exploration of writer/director Frank Miller's obsessions and fetishes. It's his first (and, likely, only) film as sole auteur, and anyone familiar with his comics work will see he's all over it. S&M style costuming, female derrieres, square-jawed heroes acting all hard-bitten yet completely thick-headed, a "dames & dicks" approach to gender... THE SPIRIT is nothing less than a portal into Miller's head. I have a real soft spot for films where you see the filmmaker's heart and soul infused into every frame, for better or worse. But it is spectacularly wrong at times; every scene involving Samuel L Jackson's villainous campmeister general The Octopus is a jaw-dropping testament to the very core of "What. The. Fuck??!" weirdness. THE SPIRIT is so pretty yet so inappropriate, so wrongheaded and so skewed, you can't help but have fun with it. Trust me on this: in a decade, it'll be to the Noughts what HUDSON HAWK was to the Nineties: the goofily bizarre bomb people guiltily love as a cult classic. It may as well be called BEING FRANK MILLER, and for this, I kind of adore it.

4. JCVD

Jean-Claude Van Damme makes the comeback of the decade with a performance that reveals something we've never known: the man can act. Speaking his own language and playing a variation of himself, what he really brings to this movie -- which could potentially change his career -- is a serious dose of painful, naked honesty. Honesty about who he is, how he's presented himself, where his career has been and where it's at now, what the future may hold... it's all here, and it's kind of heartbreaking and inspiring, all at once. As a result, he is more likeable than he's ever been, and comes off as a real human being. No doubt, this particular goal of the movie is a little self-serving, but it's also overdue, and I say good on him. But this kind of honesty from one so previously guarded clearly comes from a place of trust, and director/co-writer Mabrouk El Mechri serves him well, never embarrassing his star and serving up a pretty fun and punchy action-comedy in the bargain. But it's the centrepiece of the film, a six-minute direct-to-camera monologue from Van Damme, that will really leave its mark on you.

3. THE CHASER

A serial-killer action thriller from South Korea which hits all the cliches head on and breaks them in half, with frightening confidence from debut feature writer/director Na Hong-Jin. Dark, thrilling, visceral, clever and funny as hell. (Full review HERE.)

2. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

A work of staggering, intimidating detail and narrative layering, it demands to be seen two or three times. It's a thing of pure genius, and therefore, thoroughly misunderstood by most who come into contact with it; although I loved it, I'm sure I did too. It's only that lack of multiple viewings to deeper decode its mysteries -- and my possible lack of comprehension -- that's keeping it out of my Top Ten this year. What rankles is how such an ambitious, amazingly executed work was completely ignored by the Academy and even most critical groups at awards time. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is a puzzle from a mastermind, one which is frequently funny, bizarre, inspired and that rarity in today's cinema: a thoroughly original, intelligent, entertaining, one-of-a-kind work.

1. THE HORSEMAN

Wow. THE HORSEMAN represents not only the kind of Australian film I'd like to see, but the kind I'd love to make. It's a harsh, thrilling, violent, heartfelt action thriller, the likes of which we haven't seen in Australia since -- I'm gonna say it -- MAD MAX, thirty years ago. Writer/Director/Editor Steven Kastrissios is disgustingly young to be making a film this powerfully bruising and assured, and he should be a model for every DIY young genre filmmaker in the country. It's no cheap-and-nasty throwaway; it looks great, is cut with both restraint and abandon and is written with a strong sense of character and observation. Even the horrifically boofheaded villain characters are well-drawn and almost likeable. It's closest ancestor is Shane Meadows' masterful DEAD MAN'S SHOES and, while it's not quite as great as that film, I am proud to say it's the best equivalent I've seen since.

ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS UNDERRATED: RED CLIFF, WHATEVER WORKS, THE DAMNED UNITED, TROUBLED WATER, HOME MOVIE.

Now, if I haven't polarised everyone enough, here are my...

TOP 10 FILMS OF 2009

10. THE WRESTLER

While JCVD may have represented the comeback of the decade, Mickey Rourke here runs a close second. We all knew that Rourke had some serious talent back in the day, and Darren Aronofsky's beautiful tribute to broken people trying to make a connection reminds us how great the actor can still be. Robert Siegel's screenplay is honest without varnish, emotional without mawkishness, and Aronofsky's sensitive, unobtrusive direction only enhances it. Marisa Tomei is also in career best form as a stripper who Rourke's character attempts to start a relationship with, and the doomed efforts of two people -- who are together only because they're all that's left -- to forge a love will slay you. But it's Rourke's battered face and his character's equally battered optimism, whether trying to make the most of a shitty supermarket day job, or pleading with his daughter, or giving his all in the staged yet violent intensity of a cage match, that will break your heart. With all due respect to Sean Penn's excellent performance, the Oscar should've been Rourke's.

9. BALIBO

Robert Connolly more than lives up to the ideals laid out in his "White Paper" by making the kind of tough, bracing political thriller we used to make decades ago. Visually and tonally reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh's work, brilliantly acted and utterly absorbing, it is a fitting epitaph to those who risk their lives in the pursuit of truth, and a small country which has fought tooth and nail for the independence it has today. The scene where the "Balibo Five" meet their fate will go down as one of the all-time classic scenes in Australian cinema history; it will crush you. (Full review HERE.)

8. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

This may have taken forever to get here -- from issues with the FX to Spike Jonze's battles with Warners -- but some things prove to be worth the wait. Director/co-writer Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers have mined the classic (and very slight) children's book for all possible meaning and emotion, fashioning a more poignant rumination on childhood and emotional anxiety than anything that's come before. Jonze and cinematographer Lance Acord fill every frame with both nostalgia and sadness, and the FX to create the Wild Things is utterly faultless; the way they move, jump, emote... they don't look like CGI or people in suits: they're living, breathing, feeling Wild Things. Max Records is perfect as Max; his impromptu rages, his unbridled joy, his mood swings, his tears, his selfishness, his petulance: in every way, Max is a real kid, not a movie kid. The more I think about this film, the more I love it. It may even be a masterwork. I'd be tempted to call it the glummest kid's film ever made, if I actually believed it was intended for kids. But this is for adults, about the child in all of us; the one person whom we all never really leave behind, the one we never really reconcile with.

7. THE READER

This film was slammed repeatedly for allegedly beating THE DARK KNIGHT out of a Best Picture slot, which I can't understand, because I thought it was the only justifiable nominee there. Why not slam the overwhelmingly average SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE or the half-good BENJAMIN BUTTON? Or why not actually see THE READER and experience what a beautiful, dark, complex film it really is. Kate Winslet has never been better, and young David Kross is terrific as the boy who falls under her spell. Winslet's character -- who craves love but finds it with an underage boy, who always does what she thinks is right even when this includes serving as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp -- is one of the most brilliant, sensitive studies in what we like to simplify as "evil" I've ever seen. The film deals with the German nation's post-Holocaust guilt and the nature of love better than most films I've seen as well. The first hour of the film, which deals with Winslet and Kross's love affair is a portrait of tentative, guarded passion worthy of Ingmar Bergman. The film changes tones for the second hour, but is just as effective, tragic and absolutely refuses to make easy judgments. I really love this film.

6. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Quentin Tarantino's symphonic World War II epic is full of great ideas, style, bravura filmmaking and a megaton of moxie, as he turns history on its head and introduces some of the most amazing cinematic characters of the year; none moreso than Christoph Waltz's brilliant Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, a master detective worthy of Sherlock Holmes who, unfortunately, just happened to find his calling with the Gestapo. Much, much more than the "men on a mission" flick we were teased, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is not only a fun mishmash of WWII cinema history but, most crucially, a true cinephile's tribute to the serious and potentially terrifying power of cinema. (Full review HERE.)

5. EDEN LAKE

Simply put, the best horror film of the '70s made in the Noughts. A breathless, dark, scary, nasty thriller with pressing social concerns on its mind -- the divide between the haves and have-nots, between young and old, about communities who protect each other from "outsiders" at all costs -- James Watkins makes a frighteningly powerful debut as a horror filmmaker to watch. (Full review HERE.)

4. THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX

The film which should've won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last year, this epic look at 1960s West German militant socialist terrorist group The Red Army Faction is a brilliant, visceral examination of what kind of measures people feel they need to take to truly challenge an oppressive government, while trying not to lose your soul in the process, or forget the positive intentions you began with, and how the best intentions can be corrupted by misplaced passion and arrogant hubris. It's a compelling historical political drama directed like an action thriller and, as the real-life RAF were actually comprised of young and physically attractive university students and reporters, the cast are almost uniformly knockouts. Thankfully, they're also believable and terrific (although Andreas Baader is played by Moritz Bleibtreu as something of a juvenile hothead). THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX is about as compelling, thrilling, thoughtful and entertaining a film about political dissidents you'll ever see.

3. THE COVE

A truly astonishing documentary which goes to heroic -- and, let's be honest, highly entertaining --lengths to record the heartbreaking slaughter of dolphins off the Japanese coastal fishing town of Taiji. An important film about an important issue that must -- and can -- be stopped. (Full review HERE.)

2. AWAY WE GO

After building a career directing prestige dramas, Sam Mendes tackles a heartfelt low-budget indie and proves equally adept. His strengths have always been composing beautiful, achingly precise imagery and creating affectingly three-dimensional characters, and neither quality deserts him here. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are flat-out wonderful as a couple who drive around North America searching for the right place to bring up their unborn baby. It sounds like a sucky Sundance wannabe, but it really isn't; it's not quirky, snarky, cutesy (no "manic pixie dream girls" to be found) or sickly sweet, and our couple are in no way smug or condescending. The screenplay, by spousal novelists Dave Eggers (big year for him) and Vendela Vida, is an honest, hilarious and emotional look at the way people's different approaches to parenting can also be seen as their way of facing the world, which may be to mock it, to judge it, or simply to embrace it. (At the very least, their screenplay should be nominated for an Academy Award, but it seems to be ignored in favour of lesser aspirants.) It's a genuinely gorgeous film, filled with absolute love from start to finish -- actually a living, feeling antidote to the glut of preciously cliched "indie" films out there. (Full review HERE.)

...and now, the one all three of you have been waiting for...

My favourite (and, for my money, best) film of 2009 is...

1. A SERIOUS MAN

After hating BURN AFTER READING and liking but not loving NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I bet this is the last film you'd expect to see topping this chart. But it does, by a WIDE margin. And I'm not even completely sure why. Ostensibly a Job-like tale of a good man having all of life's indignities thrown at him and trying to make sense of what is essentially senseless, it feels like nothing less than the human experience rolled up into a film. Some scenes don't make conscious sense, some may on subsequent viewings, some may never. But that's like life, isn't it? We can go our whole lives and never comprehend many events. But what I love about the Coens' approach is, they make every scene so entertaining, that while this puzzle of a film may perplex and baffle us at times, it's always compulsively watchable. This film really spoke to something within me, something both instinctual and intellectual. Between random acts of nature and the response of the "three rabbis", it sums up my feeling about God, religion, atheism, science: they're all ways in which we humans fumble about in an attempt to understand things we cannot ever possibly hope to truly understand. There are things and concepts in life which we're simply not wired to comprehend, but through classic human arrogance, we're sure we can. No-one can prove the existence of God, but no-one can conclusively prove against it, either. But the most terrifying concept for many humans to grasp is, sometimes, things just happen. There may be a cause-and-effect, but it's likely something closer to the Butterfly Effect, where the cause occurred so long ago and so far away, and be so tenuously related, that it may actually be nigh-untraceable to the effect. And this seems to scare the living crap out of most people. But, ultimately, it's how the nature of the world and galaxy around us works, and we're all just monkeys fumbling for solutions. A SERIOUS MAN will get you thinking about some serious issues, but it's also one of the funniest and brilliantly crafted (Roger Deakins' cinematography is, as always, sublime) films you will see, this year or any other. For mine, it stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of the Coens' works, MILLERS CROSSING and FARGO, and is a stunning indication of the boundless possibilities that await them, that their ambition only grows with age. The Coen Brothers are BACK, in a big bad way.

JUST MISSED OUT, or THE BEST OF THE REST: THE HORSEMAN; SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK; THE CHASER; REVOLUTIONARY ROAD; ANTICHRIST.

Thanks for reading, hope you've enjoyed it, and here's to a fabulous 2010!

All the very best,

TSIK