films of the year 2009
1. Let The Right One In
2. Moon
3. Where The Wild Things Are
4. Synechdoche New York
5. Up
6. Encounters at the End of the World
7. In The Loop
8. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. Coraline
Also worth a mention: Sleep Furiously, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Star Trek, District 9
[EDIT: I completely forgot about The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, which suffered from some clunky dialogue at times but more than made up for that with Gilliams uniqueness of vision and imagination. Squeeze that one in at number 6 and bump everything else down one.]
I’ve seen very few of this year’s films as yet but I agree that Moon and Let The Right One In were excellent.
Still trying to decide if I liked Synedoche New York. I am usually a massive Charlie Kaufman fan but I found it a bit of an ordeal..
I came out of the cinema not sure if I liked it or not. Then it wouldn’t leave my head for a few weeks afterwards, by which point I had decided it was up there with the best of his work. I’d like to re-see it though, now it’s out on DVD just to make sure.
Yes I might watch it again myself but not for a year or two.. it certainly had its moments but it was sooo bleak..
I suppose it was, but after a while, it was so knowingly depressing, that in itself became funny. It probably helped that, when I saw it in the GFT, it was more or less a full house and everyone else seemed to find it much funnier than I did.
Kaufman seems to specialise in scenes where you’re not sure if the proper reaction is to laugh or cry. No denying the film was flawed. But I think I’d rather see a flawed Kaufman film than anything by most other film makers on a good day.