Review of 2009 – Part 2 – Film

Move over Jonathan Ross, Mark Kermode, Roger Ebert, Total Film and Empire, there’s a new critic in town. And he’s about to review the world of film in 2009.

So where to start? How about with my awards to the best actors and actresses to have lit up the silver screen this year? However, before I start, I would just like to mention that throughout this blog I will be handing out my “best of” awards to films that I have seen. So for example, I did not see The Hurt Locker or Gran Torino, so cannot name them among my best, even if they are brilliant films. If you disagree with my choices, let me know why, and if it’s from a film I havent mentioned (and therefore likely havent seen) then let me know why i should!

Best Actor – Sharlto Copley – ‘Wikus van der Merwe’ – District 9

Sharlto Copley as Wikus van der Merwe

A tough choice. Sean Penn won the Oscar in 2009 but having not seen Milk I cant give it to him. Not that I agree with the Academy’s choices usually anyway. Michael Sheen is usually brilliant but he pulled out all the stops in portraying an erratic yet driven ‘David Frost’. Mickey Rourke conveyed the pain and hope of a washed up wrestler perfectly. Dev Patel stood out as an everyman in a country full of everymen in Slumdog Millionaire. Frank Langella simply was ‘Nixon‘. But the winner for me is Sharlto Copley as ‘Wikus van der Merwe’ in District 9. The man came from a producing background to star and steal the show in his first feature film. A ridiculously good performance considering. Beginning as a prejudiced government official, the change in character as his situation unfolds is staggering and oh so believable. A worthy winner.

Best Actress – Melanie Laurent – ‘Shosanna Dreyfus’ – Inglorious Basterds

Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus

Another difficult one. Zoe Saldana was brilliant in another body in Avatar. Marion Cotillard was the best thing about Public Enemies. Meryl Streep was awesome as usual in Doubt. But another relative newcomer to Hollywood wins again. Melanie Laurent became vengeance personified as ‘Shosanna Dreyfus’ in Inglourious Basterds. A little bit unhinged (but who wouldn’t be when your family was murdered by nazi’s?), she remained wonderfully human, none more evident than in the strudel scene with her families killer. But we will get to him later. Laurent was brilliant and is surely destined for wider exposure now.

Best Supporting Actor- Christoph Waltz – ‘Col Hans Landa’ – Inglourious Basterds

Christoph Waltz won the Best Actor award at Cannes 09 for Hans Landa

No need for any discussion here. If you havent seen Waltz as ‘Colonel Hans Landa’ in Inglorious Basterds yet, do so. The man is a genius. The best performance of the year beyond any doubt. Just watch him doing the most everyday things like drinking milk or eating desert. He is the perfect balance between charming and sinister, and he is able to do it in four different languages. No contest.

Best Supporting Actress – Zooey Deschanel – ‘Summer Finn’ – (500) Days of Summer

Zooey Deschanel captured many hearts this Summer

Although Diane Kruger pushes her hard for her role as double agent ‘Bridget von Hammersmark’ in Basterds, Zooey Deschanel stands out as the title role in (500) Days of Summer. Her interplay with Joseph Gordon-Levitt was brilliant, and she owned the screen whenever she was on it. The fact that i fell in love with her as much as Levitt is testament to her performance as one of ‘those girls’.

Best Director – Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon

Ron 'The Ginger Spielberg' Howard

The most difficult nod yet. Neill Blomkamp burst onto the scene with the wonderful District 9. Danny Boyle found the feel good factor in Slumdog Millionaire. Darren Aronofsky perfected the sad ending in The Wrestler. Quentin Tarantino rediscovered himself with Inglourious Basterds. But it was Howard who had the most difficult job I feel in converting a great play into a great film, a difficult task. That he had two fantastic lead actors made the job easier, but he was also able to generate great performances from the supporting cast. Howard wins this award for Frost/Nixon,  a genuinely thought provoking and morally conscious film.

Films of the Year

And now to the main event – the film(s) of the year. It was nearly impossible to do this, but I have compiled a list of my top 5. It’s a great watch, I can tell you. Commiserations to The Wrestler, Avatar, (500) Days of Summer and The Hangover who were very close to making this list.

No.5 – Star Trek

Quinto and Pine redefined characters for the next generation

A brilliant reboot of a flagging series. J.J. Abrams brought his magic touch to the Star Trek franchise, utilising time travel to fantastic effect to change the whole make up of the original story. Fantastic performances from Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as Kirk and Spock respectively, with an equally good villanous Eric Bana, allowed old fans and new to enjoy what can only be described as a brilliant sci-fi picture.

No. 4 – District 9

Aliens were confined to District 9 in 2009

Continuing the sci-fi theme, District 9 was just slightly better than Trek. It featured a cast of unknowns dealing with an alien apartheid in South Africa. The first half of the film is dedicated to story and character development, as Sharlto Copley’s government official ‘Wikus’ undergoes a great change. The second half of the film is then full of fast paced action, explosions and everything else a good sci-fi should have, with a touching ending. A truly brilliant debut from director Neil Blomkamp and the best thing to come from South Africa since Herschelle Gibbs!

No. 3 – Slumdog Millionaire

Sadly Chris Tarrant was unavailable

Filled to the brim with violence, extortion and abuse, it still manages to be impossibly uplifting. Despite the cliché of the everyman overcoming the odds and getting the girl, you really don’t think its corny, probably because of the horrors it shows you along the way. Would have been higher but for the annoying dance number at the end.

No. 2 – Frost/Nixon

Proof there is hope for journalists

A great director. Two extremely talented lead actors. A support cast with a wealth of experience. What more can I say. A brilliant film that only fails to reach no.1 because that film was slightly more brilliant. Although based on not the most exciting source material, the film manages to make you care about it more than you should. And it even partially redeems Nixon, while partially crucifying him. What more could you want?

No.1 – Inglourious Basterds

What a glorious bastard

This. Tarantino roared back into the spotlight with a script to match the likes of ‘Dogs’ and ‘Fiction’. An even better ensemble cast than Frost/Nixon, an amazing score that suits every scene, frankly awesome cameo’s and good old fashioned Tarantino magic make this the film of the year. I defy you to watch the opening interaction between Christophe Waltz and Denis Menochet and not be blown away. Tarantino adds to his collection of memorable scenes for the first time since ‘Fiction’ with the opening scene and then the basement bar room. And the ending is baffling and farcical, but somehow very appropriate. Without question, the film of the year.

But you may not agree, in which case, why not? Please let me know if and why I am wrong, and what you think should be on this list, and I will do my best to convince you otherwise, if you havent convinced me already.

Avatar – The Review

One of the things i love about being at home is that i go and watch films far more often than when I am at uni. Aside from sport, films are my main passion in life. I adore them. I have an extensive collection and will often be found perusing the likes of Empire and Total Film, searching IMDB for news and watching every trailer possible. I have even formed a tentative film production company with my best friend,called “Free Man productions”, inspired by our hero.

Like his most famous creation, we knew Cameron would be back

And so Mark and I went along to the Odeon in Southampton, in part to inspire ourselves, but also to check out James Cameron’s latest effort, and the most hyped film of the year, Avatar. Cameron is famous for his big hits, including Titanic, The Terminator and T2 and Aliens. Oh and True Lies (genius).

12 Years in the making

Avatar is Cameron’s first film since Titanic was released in ’97. He has been working on Avatar for the bulk of that time, drafting and redrafting, chopping and changing and constantly pushing back the release date. The man even came up with his own virtual reality camera system to film it with. But for a film originally meant to be released in 1999, a ten-year wait brings a lot of expectation.

The story is as such. Earth is becoming uninhabitable, and so man has moved light years through space to a moon called Pandora, where they have found a rich supply of a mineral named -wait for it- Unobtanium (I am not sure whether that is ridiculous or brilliant). Unfortunately the biggest mining site is right underneath the home of a tribe of Pandora’s natives, the Na’vi.

Saldana and Worthington as Neytiri and Sully (in Avatar form)

What to do? The site administrator (played by Giovanni Ribisi) wants them out of the way, but preferably painlessly. So he has two options. On the one side the military, led by a cold-blooded, hard-boiled, sonofabitch(and any other military clichés out there), Colonel Quaritch ( Stephen Lang). And then there is Signourney Weaver’s Dr Augustine, a biologist who has created a way of fusing Na’vi and human dna to create “Avatar’s”  (Na’vi bodies controlled through humans in pods) with which to approach and befriend the indigenous population.  Easy right?

Wrong. Our hero Sam Worthington is one of the Avatar controllers, Jake Sully. A crippled and jaded former marine, theAvatar allows him to walk again, but he agrees to be a doubleagent for Col Quaritch in return for leg repairing surgery for his real body. But then he meets and falls for Na’vi native Neytiri, daughter of the Na’vi chieftain (voiced by the very lovely Zoe Saldana). You can tell conflict is around the corner, and it doesn’t take long for all hell to break loose, with

Zoe Saldana at a screening of her other 2009 blockbuster

Sully forced to choose between his people of birth, or the people he has come to be a part of.

Colours of the Wind?

SO lets start with the criticisms. A new world being exploited by capitalists, with a native people with an affinity for nature…the story is Pocahontas on another planet. Right down to talking trees. And it is very predictable. Although a very enjoyable action film, you can tell what is going to happen in the end from the middle, as there are so many blunt hints as to what the characters are going to do. I kept hoping to be surprised with a twist or two, but to no avail. It all unfolded exactly as I thought it would. Never really a good feature in a film.

The acting from Worthington was also a little wooden at times, and I’m not convinced Michelle Rodriguez’s sympathetic marine was any different from any character she has ever played. That or she just can’t act? Weaver was very good however, and to be fair to Worthington, having seen him in the morally ambiguous hero role in Terminator Salvation, perhaps it is no surprise that I was a little tired of the same sort of stuff in Avatar.

Worthington’s Sully with his Avatar

So the story wasn’t that original, and it was a little too long, but it was engaging, and Idid not notice “numb bum” (thedeath knell of any film) much at all. On the whole, I was actually very impressed, and in this case, the story didn’t need to carry the film.

Make Another World

This is because the effects were the most stunning I have ever seen. EVER. Cameron has not just created a virtual camera system, he has created Pandora. An entire planet. Watching in 3D may as well be watching as if in real life. And the landscapes and creatures he came up with are mind-blowing. The sky scenes are exhilarating as well as magnificently captured, and frequent slow motion shots only add to the effectiveness of the 3D. I really have run out of superlatives. The battle scenes were fantastic. And towards the end, the film contains a scene that rivals the splitting of the Titanic for sheer epicness. I really feel like I just spent the last couple of hours on Pandora, observing its weird and wonderful inhabitants do battle with equally eye-opening human technology.

The visuals add so much depth to the film that it easily bumps it up from a story based 6/10, to a well-rounded 8.5/10. Those who know me will know that i do not believe in total perfection, and so i don’t believe that a 10/10 exists anywhere. Well I was wrong. The visuals are 10/10 every time.

A Must See

I highly recommend this film to anyone. Even if you aren’t a fan of sci-fi, it is an experience that you should be a part of. Let James Cameron take you to another world. After all, he has spent 12 years building it, so you don’t want that to go to waste now do you?