Movies Seen in 2009

[I am not Spock]

Movies I have seen this year:

The Day The Earth Stood Still- 6/10
Ghost Town- 8/10
Defiance- 8/10
The new Star Trek film (twice!)- 11/10
Public Enemies- 7/10
Adam- 8/10
Ponyo- 9/10

[Too Much Fun]

Best new movies I've seen this year

1. Adventureland
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. I Love You, Man
4. Watchmen
5. Star Trek

Worst New Movies I've Seen This Year

1. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (it had some good moments, but was often insultingly dumb)
2. Drag Me To Hell (More disappointing than downright bad)


Best old movies I've seen for the first time this year

1. "Innerspace" (1987)
2. "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975)
3. "48 Hrs." (1982)
4. "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989)
5. "Sullivan's Travels" (1941)
6. "American Splendor" (2003)
7. "The Dirty Dozen" (1967)
8. "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
9. "The Dead Zone" (1983)
10. "Lilies of the Field" (1963)

Worst old movies I've seen for the first time this year

1. "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1956) - I love Ed Wood...the movie and the person, and I feel sorry for him and respect what he's trying to do here, but let's be honest, this movie is painful to watch. It's like a retarded version of the original classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Poor Ed, so passionate about movies, so talentless at making them.

2. "8 1/2" (1963) - Boring and makes no sense. The scene with the whips was fun. That's all.

3. "Thunderball" (1965) - The worst Bond movie I've ever seen after "Die Another Day".

4. "The Life of Brian" (1979) - Terribly unfunny disappointment after the brilliance of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". 'Dickus' scene was the only highlight.

5. "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954) - The first movie starring Humphrey Bogart that I haven't enjoyed. The guy is supercool, but he couldn't save this bore.

6. "Bicycle Thieves" (1944) - Overwrought melodrama. Way overrated. Nice melancholy mood and ending, but mostly a drag.

7. "Commando" (1985) - Had a few awesome one-liners, but not as good as Arnold's other action movies and I got sick of all the shooting at the end.

8. "The Conversation" (1974) - The most boring Coppola movie since "Apocalypse Now". I can't believe he made this crap in between two amazing Godfather movies.

9. "Straw Dogs" (1971) - It's hard to be very impressed with a movie in which the most interesting part (and one of the only interesting parts) is a rape.

10. "Ikiru" (1952) - Another very disappointingly inert so-called classic. Gorgeously shot ending, though.

[Too Much Fun]

Out Of My Vulcan Mind wrote:

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I almost never watch films theatrically anymore. I watch them on Blu-ray and/or Sky Movies HD instead. I keep track of the films I watch as I see them for the first time. So far this year I've seen 97 films that I hadn't seen previously:

The Goonies (1985) - lots of fun; I'm a child of the 80s, but somehow this one slipped through the net and I only got around to seeing it now

The Virgin Suicides (1999) - pretty good, but doesn't amount to much

Blow Out (1981) - an effective chiller with an unsettling ending

Sunset Blvd. (1950) - a great film; it stands up extremely well

The Night of the Hunter (1955) - good, with some very memorable moments, but not quite as good as its reputation


The Thing (1982) - a great film, John Carpenter's best and one of the best of the genre

Brazil (1985) - at first it seems like it might be one of Gilliam's cacophonous, messy endeavors, but it comes together and hits the target, ultimately living up to its good reputation

The Black Hole (1979) - some dated FX and production design (particularly regarding the robots and the visible wires), but good fun nonetheless and generally better than its reputation; the model work for the spaceships holds up well

Interesting line-up there. I agree with much of what you've said. As a kid I missed the boat on "The Goonies" too despite being born in the 80s, but I love it as an adult. Nice to see "Blow Out" mentioned...I was so happy to discover that underrated gem a few years ago.

I'm disappointed by your rather faint praise for "The Night of the Hunter" which I think is one of the most amazingly shot and acted movies of all time. Just saw "Sunset Blvd." and "The Black Hole" recently and liked them a lot too. I disagree about "Brazil" and "The Thing". I found them both overrated and ultimately hollow and underwhelming aside from some great special effects, but I'm obviously in the minority of opinion about those.

[Bob The Skutter]

I saw The Thing at a digital screening a few nights ago, while I enjoyed it I wouldn't say it was a great film. But it did demonstrate how movies have changed in the last 25 years or so.

[Starbreaker]

The Lookout [A]
Shrek the Third [B-]

[Michael Chris]

Here are the movies I've seen on Netflix recently starting with the most recent:

A Beautiful Mind (Always FANTASTIC!)
3:10 to Yuma (eh)
Defiance (Great film, but a bad sense of chronology)
Munich (gut wrenchingly fantastic)
Children of Men (Wow)
The Kingdom (quite good)

[Starbreaker]

Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut [D] - this movie is beautiful but the plot is a mess. I'm not dumb by any means, but I couldn't follow it most of the time.

Renaissance [D] - I couldn't finish it. I thought it would be cool to look at even... but it's really not.

Terminator: Rise of the Machines [C] - nothing special. The audio track is pretty weak in the center speaker which made it hard for me to hear the vocals, so I was mad about that.

[Too Much Fun]

Just saw "Tootsie" (1982). One of the funniest, and just plain best movies I've ever seen. I used to always avoid movies featuring men dressed as women because they always looked so lame on paper, but "Some Like It Hot" killed that bias and I'm so glad I did. That movie and this one are so much more than just men stupidly acting like women with fake 'feminine' voices and gross wigs/make-up. They are incredibly clever, insightful, and even touching. There aren't many scenes in all my lifetime of movie watching so far that have made me laugh as hard as Dustin Hoffman and his agent yelling at each other in "Tootsie".

[Harvey]

I finally saw The Hurt Locker two nights ago. It was a very good film, although I still think Generation Kill is still the most accurate depiction of Iraq I've seen in a fiction film.

[JacksonArcher]

I just saw The Hurt Locker yesterday, actually. It was indeed an excellent film, however I still rank Moon as my favorite film of the year so far and I don't think anything is going to top that, besides maybe The Lovely Bones. I have yet to see Generation Kill. Sounds interesting.

I'm probably going to see Surrogates this weekend and I'm really looking forward to Zombieland.

[Kegg]

Hurt Locker was alright. A tad predictable - I knew in advance who was going to die - and its most interesting idea was, well, war as a career one's proud of and a little addicted to (or 'drug' as the term is used at the beginning of the film). A fine picture but not by my estimation the best of the year.

That was Moon. Which is also the best sci-fi movie of the decade.

Um, other than that I saw Antichrist (which was... well... it was - this is probably the first time I've ever saw a film and then had difficulty sleeping later that night, I will give it that, and plenty more - it manages to be disturbing through uniquely unsettling imagery, grotesquely unnerving ideas and good old fashioned genital mutilation), the two Mesrine films, which I enjoyed quite a bit, Star Trek, which was a blast, District 9, which was also a lot of fun even if I probably would have liked the movie I expected from the trailers better, and Public Enemies was limp and dead on arrival in execution. There are probably other movies I'm forgetting, and as usual I saw too many films on home video to make any reasonable estimation about them.

Oh yes and Inglourious Basterds. I think Aldo Raine's final line sums it up nicely, easily one of the best films of the year and a sheer joy from beginning to end. Am looking forward to A Serious Man because it's a Coen movie and the trailer is extremely riveting.

[NCC-1701-B]

wow i am surprised so many people remember what they have seen!!

hmm, i will try...

Star trek x2
All of the other trek movies,
crank 2
quantum of solace
live and let die
casino royale
watchmen
wolverine
x men 3
the hangover
the jungle book

ok now my mind has gone blank

[Daneel]

JacksonArcher wrote:

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I still rank Moon as my favorite film of the year so far and I don't think anything is going to top that, besides maybe The Lovely Bones.

Is The Lovely Bones still scheduled to come out this year? I thought I'd read that it was pushed back to January, although maybe it's getting a limited release in December.

I just rented the animated sci-fi film Battle for Terra -- not bad. Not on the level of something Pixar would make, of course, and it was a bit predictable in places, but I enjoyed it. At any rate, it's always kind of neat to see a movie with humans as the alien invaders.

I'll probably also see Surrogates sometime soon -- the concept looks interesting enough. I don't know if I'll go this weekend, but I'll get around to it eventually, I'm sure.

[JacksonArcher]

The Lovely Bones is scheduled for a limited release in November while expanding in January. It was suppose to come out in March of this year but it was pushed back because the film's studio thought it would have a better chance during Oscar season. Peter Jackson said the extra time allowed the production more space to refine the film's elaborate special effects.

[Harvey]

JacksonArcher wrote:

---

I just saw The Hurt Locker yesterday, actually. It was indeed an excellent film, however I still rank Moon as my favorite film of the year so far and I don't think anything is going to top that, besides maybe The Lovely Bones. I have yet to see Generation Kill. Sounds interesting.

Since I wasn't specific, it's important to note that Generation Kill was a seven-part miniseries on HBO (from David Simon and Ed Burns, of The Wire) and not a feature film. Nevertheless, I highly reccomend it.

I look forward to The Lovely Bones, too, although it probably won't be released in my area until January.