top 10 films of 2009

For film lovers, this will likely be remembered as the year of Avatar. James Cameron's sci-fi action romance is already a towering global phenomenon. But that film does not make my Top 10. There was a lot of unusual works that relied less on CGI and more on authenticity, good writing and good acting. Those were the films that moved me the most.

Here's my top 10. What are some of your favorites?

10. Seraphine

Martin Provost's sublime, loving film shows the relationship between an artist who literally lives on and through her work and the man, Wilhelm Udhe, who by happenstance discovers and nurtures her talent. It's an illuminating picture and never condescending.

9. Bright Star

Jane Campion's dramatization of the romance between Fanny Brawne and John Keats is a lush, sweet and ultimately tragic affair.

8. Broken Embraces

Not Almodovar's best by any means but still a masterly depiction of lost, unfinished art, a doomed affair and a film within a film within a film.

7. A Serious Man

Funny use of the Book of Job in the life of Jewish professor in Minnesota suburb. One of the more personal Coen Brothers films with wonderful cinematography by Roger Deakins.

6. Crazy Heart

Familiar but surprisingly lithe country singer redemption tale with a career best performance from Jeff Bridges and a rousing T Bone Burnett score.

5. Inglourious Basterds

Tarantino's cinematic revenge on the Nazis recalls screwballs like To Be or Not to Be and spaghetti westerns.

4. Up in the Air

Pertinent to our era, George Clooney is perfectly cast as slick corporate assassin who begins to realize his alienation.

3. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Powerful, unsentimental drama of abused teen who is awakened through reading and writing. Mo'Nique gives an unforgettable performance as abusive mother.

2. The White Ribbon

Unsettling look at the roots of evil as mysterious events unfold in a German village on the eve of WWI.

1. The Hurt Locker

The skill Kathryn Bigelow displays as a director in the film's bomb dismantling sequences are at times breathtaking. But this is also a careful and unusual character study that refreshingly offers no answers or simplistic depictions.

There were a lot of perfectly good films in '09 that didn't make this list. All of them are unique visions and worthy of some kind of praise.

They include

Goodbye Solo, The September Issue, An Education, The Cove, Everlasting Moments, The House of the Devil, Invictus, Me & Orson Welles, 35 Shots of Rum, In the Loop, The Headless Woman, (500) Days of Summer, The Last Station, District 9, Summer Hours, Away We Go, Drag Me to Hell, The Girlfriend Experience, A Single Man

inglourious is glorious

Perhaps what's refreshing about Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Inglourious Basterds, is that it arrives in a year full of dumbed-down, bombastic CGI-laden fairytales for pubescent boys. A.O. Scott compared this season's hits to an "alarming man-baby, with the braying voice and the 5 o’clock shadow affixed to a pale, flabby, diaper-wrapped trunk." The trailers before Basterds indicated these types of baby food films will continue throughout 2009 with the nonsensical sequel to Rob Zombie's Halloween, a film that has already had ten incarnations, and Robert Zemeckis's Disney remake of A Christmas Carol.

Unlike the marketing campaign for this film, which focused heavily on Brad Pitt's starpower, Tarantino's film is less about the "basterds" and more about the dramatic tensions of two characters: the Nazi Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz) and the girl who escaped from him, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent). Waltz's performance is the highlight of the picture. It's unpredictable and mesmerizing. He steals every scene from the get-go. Laurent is reminiscent of Thurman in Kill Bill, another one of Tarantino's noir-ish heroines. A tense reunion scene between Landa and Shosanna in a cafe over strudels, is one of the film's best.

One of the odd criticisms of Tarantino is that he loves the movies "too much." Yet, his constant referencing, through all the elements (soundtrack, scenery, staging, and script) is what gives his work a feverish, kinetic energy. It is true that this film sometimes goes slack--the underwhelming introduction of the "basterds" and a meandering subplot featuring Diane Kruger. Yet, even these moments are peppered with enough allusions and style to keep them lively. A slyly amusing Mike Meyers and The Time Machine's Rod Taylor (unrecognizable as Winston Churchill!) make an oddly paced scene work. And Tarantino thankfully under-uses his friend Eli Roth who isn't good as "The Bear Jew" and Pitt who has some funny lines but isn't a talented enough actor to make his cartoonish character complex.

















The visual detail Tarantino achieves with his crew is one of the joys of his works: Robert Richardson's artful camera is again stunning and the sets (with all that red) lovingly embrace the myths of westerns and 40s cinema.

A film that reminded me of this was 1942's To Be or Not to Be with Jack Benny and Carole Lombard. In that film, with its dazzling screenplay, a Polish acting troupe fooled the Nazis. Like other films of its time, including Mrs. Miniver, Hollywood inspired the U.S. war effort. Here, in a thrillingly climatic sequence, Tarantino offers up a violent fantasia where movies literally have the power to end war. With his unique vision, Tarantino again comes close to saving Hollywood itself.

-Jeffery Berg