Daniel’s Top 10 of 2009

Posted by Daniel Metz

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
One of three films by Soderbergh to be released in 2009, this modest gem surprised me. The story, about a high-class prostitute having boyfriend troubles in 2008 New York, is weak but got some buzz because lead actress Sasha Grey is actually a star of pornographic films. The real treasures of this film, however, are the cinematic elements that make it a surreal adventure of time and space. There is so much subtly in expression and in narrative economy that the film exists in a vacuum of time, passing through and around and past all moments of understanding. At about the halfway point, I realized that I had no idea how long I had been watching, and I didn’t really care either; this is true cinema, a movie that puts its fingers into your brain and never lets go.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC
A joyful and imaginative animated film from Belgium that captured my heart at an 11 AM screening at Fantastic Fest. The film is creative and wacky and demonstrates the wit and the life that all films aspire to have. It is clear that this is a true labor of love, and that is all that matters.

OBSERVE AND REPORT
An awkward and brutal feature by the most important comedy director working today, Jody Hill. Its hilarious sequences of terror and discomfort are matched by horrifying images of violent fighting so beautifully choreographed that you sometimes mistake it for a 1950s musical.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Finally, a children’s film that isn’t condescending, dull and full of cheap jokes. Coming in the midst of an cycle of auteur-made children’s films, this is sure to be the most imaginative, visually striking and, frankly, adult.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
A collaboration of two of the greatest cinema artists of our time, Werner Herzog and David Lynch, that tempers madness with weirdness into a beautiful story of a man whose mind is lost. A brilliant use of digital photography that proved to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that this shift to HD video cameras won’t be all bad.

A Single Man
First-time filmmaker Tom Ford has crafted a unique love story with the precision and aesthetic eye that made him one of the most famous fashion designers of the past century. Every suit, accessory, piece of furniture and body in this film is breathtaking to view. All of this glamour creates a strange, nearly surreal feeling for the film; it is steeped in surface pleasures, but underneath these delights is a horrifying sadness.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Nicolas Cage.

WHATEVER WORKS
Woody Allen’s most mature work to date deals with the same themes he has been working through since the middle 1970s. Here, in a loose remake of his ANNIE HALL, Allen’s surrogate, played by Larry David, is shown for the repulsive and vile misantrhope that Allen has been sugar coating with charming anxiety for his entire career. He must be making great progress in analysis lately.

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL
Jim Jarmusch has decided to drop all pretenses of plot and to focus entirely on the calm and careful capturing of beautiful images and beautiful meetings. It works well here, and it proves that purely visual filmmaking is still alive. While I wish he would return to his earlier filmmaking style, I am willing to support his further experiments in cinematography.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
Another ANNIE HALL remake rocked the summer indie world with a little help from the ever-charming Zooey Deschanel. While her beautiful punim (look it up, gentiles) pleased every skinny kid in town, it was the film’s generally light treatment of the rules of the cinema that made this film great. A series of cinematic experiments (the musical number, expectation vs. reality split screen, tangential ordering of scenes, etc.) made this truly a contemporary revisioning of Allen’s greatest film. It also featured the greatest Han Solo joke thus far in the 21st century. One comment, though: stop wearing tennis shoes with suits and ties. It looks stupid.