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Before summer gets thoroughly underway with Star Trek (because, let's be honest, the lackluster X-Men Origins: Wolverine doesn't really count for anything), we thought we'd take a minute to look back at the first four months of 2009. Were there any films or performances that critics or awards groups will remember in eight month's time? Was there a Richard Jenkins in The Visitor? Even a Silence of the Lambs (a rare February release that went onto big things over a year later at the Oscars)? Was there anything out there that will make top ten lists around the turn of the calendar? And what about the inverse? What caused true pain for this critic?
For disclosure, I've seen about a hundred films with 2009 release dates – not as many as some full-time critics but way more than an average moviegoer. Bluntly, 2009 has been very good so far, way better than 2008 at this point and with some indication that this year could be one of the best in a very long time. With several new dramatic voices on the scene, I finally feel some hope that the relatively dormant independent film scene is showing signs of life that it hasn't done in years. The multiplex has been kind of so-so, but the arthouse has been vibrantly alive with over a dozen interesting, "small" films that hint at big things to come for their filmmakers. Ramin Bahrani, Cary Fukunaga, Ryan Boden and Anna Fleck, Derick Martini, Sacha Gervasi, Kelly Reichardt, Steve McQueen, and many more have made the spring of 2009 far more promising and invigorating than most comparative seasons from years past.
What might actually play into Oscar consideration? Sadly, very little. Coraline and Monsters vs. Aliens could find themselves on the animated short list, although I think the second film will be surpassed by something better. Coraline is not only the best animated film of the year to date but one of the most ambitious and memorable movies period, animated or live-action. It's a lone stand-out among widely-released films
Two documentaries have the potential to hear their name on Oscar night, but that’s a category that is notoriously messed up. Really, does anyone have faith or even hope that a voting body who almost never nominates the actual best documentaries of the year will remember a legendary rock band (Anvil! The Story of Anvil) or one of the best fighters that ever lived (Tyson)?
Have there been any performances worth awards season recognition? The first that comes to mind is Amy Adams’ striking work in Sunshine Cleaning. I think she's actually better in that film than she was in Doubt, but it will take some effort on the part of Fox Searchlight to have that performance remembered at the end of the year. It's not dramatically flashy enough and the movie that surrounds it isn’t as good.
As for the rest, Joaquin Phoenix, despite proving that he’s either crazy or on the lamest performance art bit in history, did the best work of his very-good career in Two Lovers, a slice of '70s drama made in the '00s that should have made a bigger splash. I think Two Lovers is one of the few early 2009 films that could appear on more than a few top ten lists in December and Phoenix's performance deserves to be remembered.
At the arthouse, Alec Baldwin gave his best film performance in years in Lymelife, Jess Weixler made mumblecore interesting in Alexander the Last, and John Malkovich continued to kick ass in The Great Buck Howard.
Even widely released performances that stood out from the crowd were more plentiful than they usually are in the first third of a year. Seth Rogen did the best work of his career bringing shades of dark to a complex lead in Observe and Report, Liam Neeson simply rocked as an action lead in Taken, Garret Dillahunt gave the best horror performance in a long time in Last House on the Left, Clive Owen finally showed his charming side again in Duplicity, and Jackie Earle Haley was easily the best part of Watchmen. As many problems as I had with Zack Snyder’s bloated film, I loved every choice that Haley made.
As for films that never found their way to Peoria, get thee to a Netflix queue or try and catch up in whatever way you can to Sin Nombre, Sugar, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Two Lovers, Goodbye Solo, and Tyson. And I adored Wendy & Lucy, Che, and Hunger, although those three films are widely considered 2008 flicks. If you categorize them as when they were released in most cities than 2009 is even better.
Finally, the foreign film market really exploded in early 2009 with great films from Italy (Gomorrah), Japan (Tokyo Sonata), Denmark (Worlds Apart), Sweden (Everlasting Moments), and Ireland (Kisses).
Clearly, there was a lot to like about early 2009. More than enough to get us through what is often a quality bankrupt season until the big fall movies hit. But there were some definite misfires.
Honestly, as far as films that I really hated in early 2009, there aren't that many to mention. Of course, I missed a lot of the more widely loathed films and should note that my editor was kind enough to let me avoid New in Town, Fired Up, Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, Street Fighter, Miss March, 12 Rounds, The Haunting in Connecticut, Obsessed, Dragonball: Evolution, and both the Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers movies. (I love my job.)
However, I did suffer through the truly horrible Un-double feature of the bad The Unborn and the horrible The Uninvited. One of the most depressing things about these lackluster horror films was the talent they sucked in. Elizabeth Banks and David Strathairn made it out of The Uninvited relatively unscathed, but Gary Oldman's performance in The Unborn ranks as one of the worst of the year to date.
Who else sucked up screen time? Jon Foster was a bigger black hole at the center of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh than anything in Star Trek. I swear you can see Vin Diesel fall asleep during his dull performance in Fast & Furious. And everyone involved in the two worst movies of the year to date - The Mutant Chronicles and Crossing Over - should give their paychecks to charity to make amends.
But the worst - excluding Will.i.am's head-scratching casting in X-Men Origins: Wolverine because it came out a week too late to qualify - has to be Malin Akerman in Watchmen. Once again, as she did in 27 Dresses and The Heartbreak Kid, Akerman proves she has absolutely no range. I compared her to a Saturday morning cartoon character in my initial review and I now realize that's wrong. She's not that vibrant.
The truth is that for every Akerman, there were performances like Rogen's and Weixler's to balance it out. For every The Mutant Chronicles or Watchmen, there was a Coraline or Sugar to give movie goers hope again. Two of the best documentaries of the last several years (Anvil!, Tyson), the best performances from some talented actor's careers (Phoenix, Rogen, Haley, Weixler), great work from some classic personalities (Malkovich, Baldwin, Owen), and a series of fantastic little films (Sin Nombre, Sugar, Goodbye Solo) made up for any of the negatives in early 2009.
During my lifetime, there's been an odd pattern of quality in the last year of a decade. 1989 was a revolutionary year for this movie lover with films like Do the Right Thing, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, Batman, Born on the Fourth of July, The Abyss, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Drugstore Cowboy, and even The Little Mermaid rocking my world. It was a brilliant combination of mainstream fare and stunning new voices on the arthouse scene. Not only did Disney return to the forefront and stars like Robin Williams and Kevin Costner make two of their best films, but new names like Gus Van Sant, Spike Lee, and Steven Soderbergh became crucial parts of the landscape.
The pattern repeated in 1999 - American Beauty, Being John Malkovich, The Matrix, Magnolia, Fight Club, Election, Eyes Wide Shut, The Insider, The Iron Giant, The Sixth Sense, Three Kings, Toy Story 2. It was an amazing year and, once again, a beautiful mix of quality multiplex movies and the debutante ball for relatively new voices like Sam Mendes, Spike Jonze, P.T. Anderson, David Fincher, Alexander Payne, and David O. Russell.
It feels like it's happening again. The next eight months will tell the story for sure but the fact is that 2009 has been very strong to date with daring, risky mainstream films perfectly blended with new voices that I think we'll be hearing for a long time. Let's just hope the next two acts of this cinematic year can match the set-up.
- Brian Tallerico
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