Best/Favourite movies of the year

[Grieve]

Okay, since a couple of other threads delved into movies, and since I love movies 10000X more than games, what was the best movie you saw this year? (doesn't have to have been released this year).

I'll kick it off (disclaimer, thanks to kids and new babies, haven't seen much of anything this year not kid-related).

Best Movie - Avatar
Sure, the story is a rip off of Dances with Wolves, A Man Called Horse, and even The Mission. Doesn't matter. It was friggin' awesome. I want to see it again already.

Best Art-House/Foreign Flick - Let The Right One In
Forget Twilight (truly horrible) and True Blood (which I actually quite like). This is the definitive Vampire story.

Best Reboot - Star Trek
JJ Abrams deserves a medal for rescuing a franchise that hasn't been good since Khan was around. My favourite flick of the year before Avatar.

Best Guilty Pleasure - Shoot 'Em Up
Since it's fresh in my mind (watched it with the wife couple of days ago)...possibly the funniest, most entertaining, over the top, politically incorrect, tongue in cheek action movie ever. So ridiculous (and cheerfully aware of it), you can't not like it.

Best Kids Film Really For Adults - Up
<3 Pixar. Best opening 10 minutes of any kids movie ever.

[Thudz]

My top 5 favorite movies of the year...In no particular order...

Inglourious Basterds
District 9
Defiance
Taken
Star Trek

[Moristans]

Yeah, top 5 in no particular order:

Star Trek
Avatar
Watchmen
Up
Zombieland

I didn't see near as many arthouse or smaller production films as I usually would since we moved out of the West Hollywood area. Having a large Imax 3D cineplex within walking distance of our new place sort of narrowed our movie choices this year.

[Diggles]

Wheres Terminator 4 on this list? Xmen Wolverine?

[Moristans]

on your top 5 it looks like Diggles.

[Grieve]

Wheres Terminator 4 on this list? Xmen Wolverine?

Wolverine would be near the bottom of my list...horrible...even worse than X-Men 3. Thank god Bryan Singer is coming back into the X-Men fold.

Haven't seen T4, but it looked pretty bad.

[Breand]

Im hoping Diggles was being his usual, sarcastic self. I gotta say I felt like this was one of the weakest years on record for movies. I can't think of one that really stuck out in my mind. I enjoyed Watchmen and Star Trek but didn't find either groundbreaking or superb.

Thought UP was great. I loved it and my 4 year old loved it....bonus.

But where was this year's "There Will Be Blood" "Gran Turino" "No Country For Old Men" or "Children of Men?" Couldn't name one. I havent seen Inglorious Basterds. District 9 gets props for originality. I laughed hysterically at Bruno. I really wanted to see "The Road" but didnt make it to a showing before it dissapeared.

It's funny because they just expanded Best Picture nominations to 10 films, and I can't think of 5 that deserve a nomination.

The Cove might be the best film I saw this year, and it's a documentary. It's a must see.

Oh, and I haven't seen it but for you gun/military lovers, I heard The Hurt Locker was phenomenal.

[Trotts]

I'm surprised Diggles didn't pick "Twilight" for his movie of the year....

Sad to think that I can't even remember what movies I saw this year.. I think I'm getting damn old...

Grand Turino was good though, for having an actual story.
The HangOver was funny, as a knock off of Very Bad Things...
(still have to see zombieland which I heard was good)
Star Trek surprised me, and I enjoyed it
District 9, having lived in South Africa, was good, but for the risk of being politically incorrect, replace aliens with local population and a documentary...

Avatar.. saw it .. outside of the special effects 3D and all.. wasn't overly impressed.. movie should have been 90 minutes long.. not 160 minutes.

That being said.. was there any good horror flicks last year... ??

Haunting in Conneticut.. saw that, was pretty good ?? any others ?

[Grieve]

Breand, remember that most of the "Oscar bait" movies are saved up until the end of the year, so they are fresh in the academy's mind. Things like Up In The Air, Invictus, Precious, Nine, A Single Man, The Lovely Bones, The Road, A Serious Man, Crazy Heart, etc all only came out recently or are on limited release.

I also really want to see a bunch of movies from earlier in the year, including The Hurt Locker (strong Oscar contender), District 9, Where the Wild Things Are, (500) Days of Summer, Fantastic Mr Fox, and Inglorious Basterds. I also hear great things about Sherlock Holmes.

I think it's been a great year for intelligent "popcorn" movies, with Avatar, Star Trek, Up, District 9, Sherlock Holmes, etc. Haven't seen enough of the "serious" movies to judge how good it has been overall.

[Grieve]

Talking of intelligent action movies, Robin Hood looks like being a lot of fun next year. Brings back the Gladiator team (Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe).

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/robinhood/

[Breand]

I guess if one thing can be said for 2009, it's that Avatar and District 9 prove that original content can still make tons of money. (Maybe even throw Watchmen in there since the vast majority of people have not read the graphic novel.)

[Moristans]

I liked District 9 in general but the end left me hanging a bit too much to be in my top 5.

Avatar was pure spectacle but I had to sit there for 240 minutes pushing all the Biology I know to the back of my mind. My Army buddy who did Kosovo and 2 tours in Iraq had to push all his military training to the back of his mind. At the end, we both can out pretty impressed with the scale and technical innovation of the movie. Anybody who has ever spent any time creating and rendering a 3D world from scratch has to be. As corny as the movie was, you had to be impressed that it was mostly 3D animated characters making you really experience the corniness. I mean, the writing was horrible, but not because the 3D animated characters were unbelieveable. They really did come off as "actors" just following bad direction.

[Grieve]

As corny as the movie was, you had to be impressed that it was mostly 3D animated characters making you really experience the corniness. I mean, the writing was horrible, but not because the 3D animated characters were unbelieveable. They really did come off as "actors" just following bad direction.

There were definitely corny moments and a few clunky lines, and the military dude was way too one-dimentional. But overall I thought the script and direction were very good. They made you care about the characters, and feel their pain when the military jackboot came down on them, and that's quite an achievement for a bunch of blue pixels. Like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, it made you believe in a world that is completely alien from anything we know. Extra brownie points, as Breand pointed out, for being a completely original story (despite Dances with Wolves "inspiration") rather than a remake or adaptation.

[Thudz]

As corny as the movie was, you had to be impressed that it was mostly 3D animated characters making you really experience the corniness. I mean, the writing was horrible, but not because the 3D animated characters were unbelieveable. They really did come off as "actors" just following bad direction.

There were definitely corny moments and a few clunky lines, and the military dude was way too one-dimentional. But overall I thought the script and direction were very good. They made you care about the characters, and feel their pain when the military jackboot came down on them, and that's quite an achievement for a bunch of blue pixels. Like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, it made you believe in a world that is completely alien from anything we know. Extra brownie points, as Breand pointed out, for being a completely original story (despite Dances with Wolves "inspiration") rather than a remake or adaptation.

The whole movie stinks of liberal propaganda.

[Grieve]

The whole movie stinks of liberal propaganda.

Yes, one of the bonuses for me while watching it was imagining how you, Slamz, Vllad and Dustie would react... :wink:

However...how is this any different from what was done to American Indians, the Mayans, the Inca people, Austrialian Aborigines, and so on, just projected into the future? That's not liberal propaganda, it's historical fact. It's happened before, and I'm sure it will happen again.

[Thudz]

The whole movie stinks of liberal propaganda.

Yes, one of the bonuses for me while watching it was imagining how you, Slamz, Vllad and Dustie would react... :wink:

However...how is this any different from what was done to American Indians, the Mayans, the Inca people, Austrialian Aborigines, and so on, just projected into the future? That's not liberal propaganda, it's historical fact. It's happened before, and I'm sure it will happen again.

The difference is that I side with the early Americans who conquered this land. The fittest conquer the lessor and that is how our societies are built. I celebrate this fact and won't participate in this pity party.

[Hoofhurr]

wow.

And...I didn't like any movie this year really although Paranormal was decent for what it accomplished.

[Diggles]

Im hoping Diggles was being his usual, sarcastic self. I gotta say I felt like this was one of the weakest years on record for movies.

I couldnt even name 1 movie from last year worth seeing, they were so inmemorable, however I can name like 20 this year that were worth seeing.

[Moristans]

The fittest conquer the lessor and that is how our societies are built. I celebrate this fact and won't participate in this pity party.

Fittest & lessor? Unfortunate choice of terms. That terminolgy belongs back in the the turn of the century with the Eugenics movement.

Ahh well. Now, we're learning the real meaning of fittest anyway.

Might as well move this to the political discussion.

[Thudz]

The fittest conquer the lessor and that is how our societies are built. I celebrate this fact and won't participate in this pity party.

Fittest & lessor? Unfortunate choice of terms. That terminolgy belongs back in the the turn of the century with the Eugenics movement.

Ahh well. Now, we're learning the real meaning of fittest anyway.

Might as well move this to the political discussion.

No need, just stating my opinion on a movie. We can however start a thread in the other forum discussing how the Global Warming movement is resurrecting the Eugenics movement.

[Grieve]

I couldnt even name 1 movie from last year worth seeing, they were so inmemorable, however I can name like 20 this year that were worth seeing.

Seriously? Dark Knight? Iron Man? Wall-E? The Wrestler? Slumdog?

[Breand]

I couldnt even name 1 movie from last year worth seeing, they were so inmemorable, however I can name like 20 this year that were worth seeing.

Seriously? Dark Knight? Iron Man? Wall-E? The Wrestler? Slumdog?

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

Gran Torino, In Bruges, The Counterfeiters, The Visitor, Frost/Nixon.

[Jakensama]

The difference is that I side with the early Americans who conquered this land. The fittest conquer the lessor and that is how our societies are built. I celebrate this fact and won't participate in this pity party.

THANK YOU. I hate this glorification of Indian socities because they are somehow more deserving of the land because they are "Native" (hate to break it to you but anyone who slid out their moms vajayjay on this continent is a Native American). Every land on the Earth is built on people who conquered someone else, deal with it.

That being said, Top 5:

Shit... Every new movie I've seen up here has been old and I havent seen much new..

Googling top movies 2009 doesnt turn up much good.. So I'll list what i've seen that I liked:

1) District 9
2) Star Trek
3) Hangover
4) Zombieland
5) Watchmen

But that isn't really an impressive list because its really the only movies I've seen made this year that I've enjoyed. Gran Torino was last year, right?

[Dustie]

Star Trek

(That was the only movie I saw this year that I liked -- I didn't see many movies his year)

[Kakarat]

I never got to see Avatar, or District 9 you guys are praising or even Star Trek.

No particular order.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Inglorious Basterds (Another brilliant film by Quentin)
State of Play (Russell Crowe)
Big Wet Asses 12 (had to add it in for humor, its a good flick)
Public Enemies ( Johnny Depp )

A few honorable mentions.
The stories sucked but the action was good: GI Joe,Transformers 2, Terminator 4.
Yes its a tearjerker and I am not afraid to admit it: Love Actually(2003, rent it with your woman of choice)!!!