movies i loved, movies i want to see: 2009

while vainly compiling my best of music lists has been a tradition for at least one year, throwing together a bunch of movie titles is a new one for me. so cut me some slack.

it's telling that my list of movies to-see is way longer than those i did watch in 2009. i probably should just go ahead and delete this post altogether. luckily for you, i've got some time to kill.

movies i loved, '09:

district 9--i can't get over how awesome this movie is. no, it wasn't the first to pair a plot with visually stunning science fiction and exploding pigs, but it might be the best.

up--yes, we all cried in the opening scene. damn you, pixar. this is a children's movie! it maybe one of pixar's best. which is saying quite a bit.

where the wild things are--beautiful and sad. jonze captures childhood in all it's adventure, loneliness, confusion, and imagination. watching it can be wrenching and joyful often in the same minute.

avatar--yes, you've read/seen this story arch about billion times, and it was probably delivered better than cameron in avatar. but you can't get past how much fun this movie is to watch. seriously, it's worth seeing. and in 3d.

julie and julia--whoa, left field. my wife made me watch and it was fantastic. both the ladies are excellent. the food looks pretty good, too.

coraline--a dark children's movie? was tim burton involved? as far as i know, no. but coraline is fantastic. visually stunning, scary, and with a compelling story. who knew a kids movie could deal with mother/daughter relationships so well? nothing is more visually arresting than the mother-spider threatening to consume her child. excellent, weird stuff.

movies i want to see, '09:

up in the air--the book left something to be desired, but i think the story will translate well into a movie. as an added plus, apparently every critic is in love with it.

the informant--this american life did an actual episode on this guy a few years ago. they replayed it around the release of the movie and i was sold. sounds like an awesome character study and bit of corporate history.

fabulous mr. fox--wes anderson and stop motion? i feel like he should have been doing this long ago. it's a shame i haven't seen this yet.

sherlock holmes--guilty pleasure. i'm banking on the fact that it's been several years since i got obsessed with conan doyle, so hopefully i won't mind as much that downey jr. is butchering the character as well as the bad guys.

invictus--i love clint eastwood. gran torino was easily the best movie of '08. though i'm intsted to see how he'll do "feel good," i recently heard a friend complain that it was "too historical." that made me really excited.

moon--again, a shame that i haven't seen this yet. it has all the earmarks of great science fiction.

the road--the book rocked my world. i'm preparing for a let-down, but hoping for something that gets in the ball park of what made the story so amazing--love and despair amidst chaos and death.

a serious man--this is mainly on the principle that the cohen brothers make good movies. even if burn after reading was disappointing, i've heard some good stuff about this one.

the hurt locker--a good war movie about iraq? judging from about every other non-documentary film that referenced the war, i didn't think it possible.

zombieland--the only surprise here is that i haven't seen it yet.

"we have met the enemy..."

go see district 9. i know, it's the big sensation. the movie makers spent next to nothing, campaigned obliquely and it shredded the box office opening weekend. the plot is not complex. aliens landed on earth and for some reason can't leave. they've been quarantined in a place called 'district 9.' in johannesburg of all places--not very subtle. but don't write it off yet. i loved this movie. the premise is pure science fiction genius. aliens have come to earth in a disc-shaped spaceship, but rather than being bent on human destruction, they are refugees.

the nerd in me became excited as soon as i saw the preview. is that a giant alien spaceship? is it hovering over johannesburg? are those humans clad in white supposed to be bad or good? is this filmed like a documentary? so many of the right questions.

from the perspective of the science fiction nerd that i am, the movie did not disappoint. the aliens and their technology (read: cool weapons) was creatively imagined. the actor portraying the main character does an excellent job. i instantly empathized with him as a very real but flawed character. he's no hero. he seems somewhat pathetic and then only interested in saving himself. one of my favorite things about this movie is that it does a wonderful job of letting all its character play to their self-interests in really authentic ways.

there are several antagonists, but all fall under the umbrella of mnu, a giant defense company, not unlike blackwater (now xe servcies). this adds another layer to an already rich story. one that increasingly reflects our own, boring, non-sci-fi lives.

i think the most difficult part of the film is the audience's ability to identify with aliens that resemble large bugs (their referred to as "prawns" in the movie). the filmmakers fight to make the audience empathize with the aliens by giving them eyes similar to our own. the dialogue style between the two species is also authentic. the humans and aliens can understand each other vaguely, but each speaks in their own language and they often misinterpret one another. again, though the subject is pretty fantastic, the way the characters operate is very believable.

throughout the film, the parallels to our own society are purposefully explicit. it is this lack of subtlety that i think makes many true science fiction movies great. this movie does an excellent job of trying to let its characters and situations play themselves out in the world they inhabit. at the same time, this is sci-fi and it's supposed to be absurd. we're talking about an alien spaceship floating over johannesburg for 25 years. things should get a little crazy. naturally, there are a lot of ridiculous explosions--buildings explode, aliens explodes, people explode, pigs explode. it is over the top. does this make the movie contradictory? yes, but as any good sci-fi film would be.

like i said earlier, it's pretty explicit from the outset that we're getting into some heavy stuff when the human-alien relationships reflect apartheid-era south africa. the documentary-style filmaking helps parallel the fantastic events of the film to our own society. the sight of burning and armored cars rumbling through the hulks of destroyed cars are too familiar to make this escapist.

the fundamental theme of the film is the "us versus them" mentality. without giving too much away, we watch the main character, who has been profiting off the status quo come to realize that he is a 'them' and not an 'us.' it's great stuff--engaging and fun to watch.

at the same time, this has me thinking alot about metaphors, particularly in science fiction. i worry that the very nature of the genre will mean that much of the weight of the story is lost on the audience. again, i love science fiction and i think that more often than not it reflects more about the society of the creator than the fantastic scenes it portrays. i fear though that in a film like this, the metaphor can become too theoretical. the film uniquely portrays a very old story: that we will always seek division over unity. that it will inevitably be easier to justify persecuting and demonizing the other side than to struggle to live together. but i guess it has me wondering that the power of that simple theme will be lost or overwhelmed by extravagant nature of the broader story. i know that it is part of the limitation of the genre. maybe that is what differentiates a simply interesting story with one that is ultimately true. the lessor story will be lost in the spectacle while the truest narrative will penetrate even the most fantastic situations. i prefer to think distrcit 9 is the latter.