Hey we're back with the Part two of the best film of 2009. Most of these will be coming out on DVD/ Bluray shortly if they aren't out already so give them a go.
Before I continue with the remainder of the Top 10 films of 2009 I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the worst film of last year.
Worst Film – Blood: The Last Vampire
I tried to defend this when I watched it because it has one decent fight scene and it does. There is a wicked fight in a forest that could have been a lost scene from Crouching Tiger or Hero. One scene unfortunately does not make a movie. The acting is appalling, the story is beyond woeful and the special effects…OH MY LORD are utter gash. The vampire demon things are the worst kind of a clay-mation. They look like they have been made and animated by the blind sculptress from Lionel Richie’s “Hello” video. Whilst she was drunk. On Buckfast. Randomly the best actor in this film is played by Larry Lamb who played Archie Mitchell off of Eastenders and Gavin’s dad off of Gavin and Stacey (or Gitface and Slapped-arse as I like to call it). He dies quite early in the film, at which point all hope of half decent acting is lost. This also wins the award for the worst closing line in cinematic history. I sometimes have nightmares about it!
5-UP
Pixar does it again! UP follows the story Mr Fredricksen who decides one day to up and leave his current dreary life in search of the dreams and adventures that had he had always planned with his wife. Fredricksen, who sells helium balloons to kids, inflates a shed load of them and in doing so lifts his house and life off the ground and sets off in search of Paradise Falls in South America. Shortly after lift-off Fredricksen discovers that he has an unwitting stowaway in the form of chubby Wilderness Explorer (boy scout) Russell. Both old man and young boy find themselves in South America crossing the jungle and the plains with a talking dog (Dug) and a massive blue ostrich type bird (Kevin).
The visuals are spectacular as always with Pixar with some great scenes, including one with an incredibly agile Fredricksen on the outside of a flying plane. I should warn you all though. UP! has one of the darkest starts of any film I have ever seen, worse than the killing of Bambi’s mother, reducing people in the cinema to tears!
4- District 9
This dark sci-fi follows the events following a massive UFO that becomes stranded and hovers above Johannesburg, South Africa. Humans enter the ship to find a large population of sick aliens and are given asylum in the country. Unfortunately, some of the aliens (referred to as “prawns” in a derogatory way) take a penchant to rampage which results in the whole lot of them being confined to government camp, District 9. This is an obvious allegory to apartheid era South Africa. Conditions in District 9 become cramped and deteriorated over the decades and as such the government, lead by an amiable, unwitting bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe decide to relocate the aliens to District 10. Wikus is forced to walk round District 9 and inform the aliens that they will be evicted. In the process Wikus (played by Sharlto Copley who will appear as Howling Mad Murdock in the A-Team Movie) sprays himself with alien gunk and slowly starts to transform into a prawn. Under threat of a death ordered by his own father in law he becomes a fugitive, is forced to leave his wife and befriends highly intelligent alien, Johnson, who claims that he can cure Wikus. This is perhaps the most thought provoking sci-fi flick I have seen, with some heart wrenching scenes, torture and cool fights. The special effects are superb but subtle and that is often the best kind. My friend Dan insists that this is a comedy, mainly because he finds the South African accent comical. I think that he is dead on the inside!
3 – Mesrine: Part 1 and 2
The Mesrine films “Killer Instinct” and “Public Enemy No 1” chart the true story of infamous French gangster Jacques Mesrine (Pronounced May-reen). You really couldn’t make this up! Jacques comes back from the Algerian war and gets bored with the hum-drum life and starts robbing houses and banks but gets caught. After prison he comes back and goes straight, until he is sacked and quickly returns to robbery but this time turns things up a few notches. His international crime career includes bank heists, kidnapping, assault, murder and multiple prison escapes. He spends the most of his life on the run before being apprehended and killed by the French coppers. Mesrine is played by Vincent Cassel, who is ace as always and piled on a few pounds for the role as the womanising master of disguise.
2 – Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino re-imagines World War II, turns it into a film and does it amazingly. This follows two coinciding storylines that plot to end the war by killing Hiter, in a cinema. The main story follows The Basterds, a group of American Jews hell bent on striking fear into the heart of and killing Nazi’s and taking their scalps, literally – yuck! The second story follows Jewish lady Shosanna in her life years after the murder of her family at the hand of SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) a.k.a The Jew Hunter. This was billed as Brad Pitt’s movie, and he’s great in it as leader of the Basterds Lt Aldo Raine. This film, however, belongs to Waltz, who speaks four languages in the movie and steals the show as the sinister Jew Hunter. If he doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll eat my own Aftershock induced vomit.
1- Zombieland
Ha ha haaaaaa! A brilliantly, awesomely, funny flick following neurotic Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) trying to get home after a zombie apocalypse. Simples! On the way he befriends Tallahassee played by Woody Harrelson only to get his car stolen by two sisters. Then they all make up and travel togther killing and escaping lots of zombies on the way. There really isn’t much to the film but just it's massive and hilarious and I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in the cinema for a long time. I have picked Zombieland as it I know I’ll buy when it comes out on Blu-ray and watch it lots and lots, at any time, in any mood, which is rare for a film. It also has one of the best cameo appearances, genius!
K*
Dude. Black Dynamite. Watch it, Love it. Thank me later.