Man—life really got in the way… It’s already February and I still haven’t finished my Top Disappointments & Surprises or Top 10 Films of 2009… Better bang this post out tonight (without pics) so that I can focus on that Top 10 list….
Five Disappointments
Public Enemies
Michael Mann directing Depp, Bale, Cotillard, Crudup, Ribisi, et al should have been a tour de force of movie making, but instead we get a bloated, high definition, great looking piece of crap. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not a fan of the digital revolution. High definition takes away the real look of film. The cigarette burns, scratches, dirt and dust that show up on film make the experience much more tangible than digital projection. Here, the film looked too perfect, and what could have been a compelling story about America’s Public Enemy #1 was turned into an over-long piece of drivel that featured Bale doing his Batman voice way too often. 
Couples Retreat
I was really looking forward to this (but knew it would probably disappoint). Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman are two very funny actors, plus the film featured a scene with Kristin Davis, Malin Akerman & Kristen Bell stripping down to their skivvies. Unfortunately, the film was edited down from its original R-rating, and it really suffered for it (Davis and Jon Favreau were shown cheating on each other in the trailer, but these scenes are completely cut out of the film and they only imply infidelity for the first half of the film). Plus, the writing (Favreau, Vaughn and What Happens In Vegas scribe Dana Fox) and direction (Peter Billingsley of A Christmas Story fame) were pretty weak (serious marital problems are “solved” in minutes). And is there anyone who would believe that Favreau would even be able to cheat on Davis with these hot young women? 
Extract
I had mixed feelings about Mike Judge’s sophomore effort, Idiocracy—it had a decent premise that seemed to just miss its mark. Office Space is near perfect, however the first time I saw it was in college with a lot of friends during its hype. I wasn’t sure where Extract would land, but I was hoping that the combination of Judge, Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, JK Simmons, a seemingly funny Affleck, Clifton Collins Jr. (who needs more features!) & David Koechner would equal hilarity. I want to revisit this on DVD to see if it could improve on a second viewing, but my first and only viewing was definitely a huge disappoint
Clooney, McGregor, Bridges, Spacey—this should have been great. Instead it put me to sleep—literally—twice. My first viewing was a late night showing, so I watched it again a week later after a good night’s rest, and I still dozed off in the middle. It was trying really hard to be quirky and funny, but this is one instance where real life is just too unbelievable to be compelling.
The only bigger disappointment was…..
Brüno
Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles had previously worked together on Borat: CLoAfMBGNoK which was a pretty funny movie. However, stories about Pamela Anderson’s knowledge of what was happening in Borat made me more skeptical of Brüno. Most of the “comedy” presented here, however, was too narrow to be really clever. Cohen simply goes into Redneck America to find some homophobes to make fun of… Am I supposed to be impressed or shocked? 
Five Surprises
The Blind Side
After watching All About Steve, I wasn’t expecting much from Sandra Bullock’s “Based on a true story” schlock, but it really delivered. Do I think it deserves the #10 spot in the Best Picture race? Not really. The film has too many faults—young SJ is super irritating, the back-story given to Michael is pointless (to me), the film relies too much on manipulation—to be a real contender, but the manipulation it uses is pretty effective, as the theater did get a little dusty for me.
The Invention of Lying
Ricky Gervais really has a tendency to surprise me with his films. I expected 2008′s Ghost Town to be a mediocre comedy, but it was really funny and sweet. In Lying, I expected all the laughs to be in the trailers, but there’s an entire plot that was a complete surprise to me (I won’t ruin it here). The film could have gotten old really quickly (“I know I’m fat and have no chance with you, but we have to have sex otherwise the world will end!”), but instead it takes this secret(?) plot point and actually turns it into an interesting talking point. It made me think as well as laugh, which is more than I expected from this little comedy. 
Paranormal Activity
One of about a dozen films I saw more than once in theaters last year. The film does suffer some of the Blair Witch problems—when presented as real footage, you get a lot of long, boring scenes because life is boring. However, these drawn out bits of “reality” counter the middle of the night scares really well. It’s not the kind of film that will make you lose sleep for days, but it does have a lot of great scares in the theater (especially night #13).
Bandslam
This movie stars Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as a character named Sa5m, where the “5″ is silent. And that’s about all I knew as I went into this film, but the story about a bunch of misfits entering a Battle of the Bands is actually quite charming. The film featured some pretty decent music but the story is what really surprised me. The trailer made me think this was just going to be an HSM-knock-off, but it really was much more than that and featured a pretty unexpected ending. The acting wasn’t great, but I forgave it simply because the rest surprised me so much.
And the biggest surprise of 2009 (although why I doubted it, I’ll never know) was….
Drag Me To Hell
I’m not a huge fan of horror films, but I was curious what Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead trilogy) would do after his Spider-Man success. He does not disappoint. There is a great mix of humor (both intentional, and un-), scares (helped by an amazing score—at times dark and menacing and at others light and lilting) and blood (one of the worst nosebleeds EVER). The ending is a bit telegraphed, and I’m sure the film couldn’t have been worse had it gone for the R-rating, but Raimi proves he still has what it takes to do horror well.
So, did any 2009 films catch you off guard? Whether it was something you were really looking forward that turned out to be crap or something you were dragged to by friends that actually turned out to be good or great? Let me know what I forgot as I spend the next month writing my Top 10 of 2009 list!
