by MALCOLM FRASER, MATTHEW HAYS,
MARK SLUTSKY and CHRISTOPHER SYKES
Mark Slutsky’s
Top 10
Before I get to the “official” Top 10, I should say that Argentine director Mariano Llinás’s Historias Extraordinarias—a mindblowing, entirely narrated four and a half-hour low-budget epic—was by far my movie of the year. But it didn’t show in theatrical release here, so it doesn’t make it onto the list. Still, if you have the chance—don’t miss it.
1. Inglourious Basterds If this film’s subjects—avenging Jews, heroic film critics, Parisian cinemas, Nazis getting their what-fer—weren’t enough to win my heart, Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant storytelling would have. Audacious, wonderfully suspenseful and infused with a true love of movies.
2. A Serious Man This is really the year of the explicitly Jewish auteur film. The Coen brothers’ latest is a dark, dark comedy, as bleak and funny as any of their best work—and an unsettlingly on-the-money evocation of the flavour of 20th century middle-class North American Jewish life.
3. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans A fever dream of a mid-’90s straight-to-video cop thriller from Werner Herzog with a truly epic performance from Nicolas Cage.
4. Bright Star Biopics are usually really not my thing, so I was surprised by how much I loved Jane Campion’s telling of the romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. A pretty perfect movie.
5. The Hurt Locker An at-times unbearably tense thriller and bravura return to form for Kathryn Bigelow, one of the smartest action directors around.
6. Public Enemies You could also say that about Michael Mann, whose most recent was an out-of-character period piece about famed bank robber John Dillinger that managed to still be brilliantly consistent with his ’00s digital video aesthetic.
7. Up The first 10 minutes of Pixar’s latest tells more of a story and packs more of an emotional punch than most of this year’s whole, entire films. The fact that the rest is a highly entertaining adventure involving balloons and talking dogs feels like a bonus.
8. Antichrist Much like Up, a movie that it otherwise has nothing to do with whatsoever, the first 10 minutes of Lars von Trier’s cruel, bizarre, genitally mutilating possible art-prank of a movie have stayed burned in my head more than anything else I’ve seen this year. Utterly deranged filmmaking from a master.
9. Two Lovers An old-fashioned romantic family drama from James Gray (We Own the Night). Gray is amazing at creating texture and atmosphere, and his lived-in Brooklyn is unlike any other filmmaker’s.
10. District 9 This year’s best movie about corporations mistreating aliens and the unlikely humans who go native and join them isn’t Avatar—it’s this (comparably) low-budget, idea-packed thriller set in South Africa.
Honourable mentions
Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell was a hilarious return to Evil Dead form for the horrormeister. Il Divo and Gomorrah approached Italian politics and corruptions from two very different, but equally compelling perspectives. In the Loop had the year’s best use of profanity, hands down. Star Trek was a slick and magnificently entertaining reboot. Parking was an unexpected and underseen gem of an “up-all-night” movie from Taiwain. Coraline was stop-motion at its most sophisticated, but a great, creepy story too. Soul Power was the music movie of the year. Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy was a sophisticated drama about a lost dog. Summer Hours was the year’s great French family saga. Me and Orson Welles and Adventureland were both great, smart coming-of-age stories. Finally, Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity was a funny, intricate thriller for grown-ups that, sadly, no one saw.
LOVED AND HATED: Brüno
Bottom five
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen This is simply the dumbest piece of shit I have ever seen.
Knowing Nic Cage appeared in one of this year’s best movies (Bad Lieutenant) and one of its worst, this modern-day Ed Wood movie that even feels like it’s financed by a church group.
Angels and Demons Tom Hanks runs from church to church solving cryptic mysteries—over and over again—in this seriously goofy but over-serious thriller.
Brüno Simply doesn’t work. In Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen played a racist and got unsuspecting yahoos to play along; actually playing a cartoony stereotype, that of a flamboyantly gay Austrian TV host, is a far less interesting, or funny, proposition.
Inkheart I am probably the only human being alive to remember this flailing, shabby family fantasy starring Brendan Fraser. I wish I didn’t.
HOT FOR TEACHER: The Class
Matthew Hays’
Top 10
1. Pontypool Bruce McDonald’s no-budget quickie turned down the volume on the obligatory gore, showing us nothing. The result? A ludicrously scary existential zombie movie. Truly smart, featuring a kickass performance by Stephen McHattie as an upstart radio hack holed up in a small-town Ontario station, waiting for the zombies to arrive.
2. Brüno Those mortified by Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest—is it homophobic or isn’t it?—just didn’t get it. This is an all-out hilarious assault on the world’s Great Big Gay Hang-Up. Be sure to check out the DVD extras—they include interviews with LaToya Jackson and Pete Rose and Bruno’s tour of the house of one of America’s most prominent white supremacists.
3. Inglourious Basterds Much as I hate bandwagons, I have to jump on Tarantino’s war movie. As insane as it is ingenious, this re-imagining of WWII and the fate of Hitler is like kosher porn. One of the stars of the film, Eli Roth, told me that “the directors I like most are the ones I can’t trust.” Amen.
4. J’ai tué ma mere Xavier Dolan writes, directs, produces and stars in (!) his feature directorial debut, a heartfelt autobiographical examination of one young man’s tortured relationship with his mother. At 20, Dolan became the youngest filmmaker to snag three awards at Cannes. Anne Dorval is simply brilliant as Mom.
5. Capitalism: A Love Story With every new feature, I take in the advance reviews of Michael Moore’s films, with people constantly counting him out. But again, his targets are freakishly prescient. Moore began dissecting Wall Street months before the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, when the Bush administration began bailing out the very banks that had pushed the world to the brink of financial apocalypse. For all of his problems—I know, I know, he has them—Moore is raising crucial issues that desperately need to be explored and discussed.
6. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire This film has suffered from some hype overload, but it won me over in particular because of the lead performance of newcomer Gabourey Sidibe.
7. Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands Experimental documentary filmmaker Peter Mettler makes some profound aesthetic choices with his latest film: rather than drown us with environmental stats, he lets us see the Alberta Tar Sands project through a series of aerial shots, driving home just how epic this massive industrial mess is—the largest in the world. Epically disturbing, especially in light of our government’s shameful performance in Copenhagen.
8. A Single Man Fashion designer (and now photographer) Tom Ford goes far beyond surface with his feature directorial debut, an elegiac adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood book. Colin Firth is top notch as a gay man struggling to cope with the death of his boyfriend. Julianne Moore again proves she’s the ultimate cinematic fag hag.
9. The Queen and I Iranian émigré Nahid Persson explores her own troubled relationship with her homeland through a series of interviews with the Shah of Iran’s widow. The film becomes an examination of both the nation’s harrowing political history and the intricate relationship between documentary filmmaker and subject.
10. Cairo Time Montreal-born director Ruba Nadda takes an ostensibly simple premise—woman waits for hubby in foreign city and ends up falling for her tour guide—and gives it a stunning emotional complexity. Patricia Clarkson is, as always, perfect as the rather bored magazine editor who finds herself captivated by her Egyptian friend (Alexander Siddig). (It must be noted that Clarkson also saves Woody Allen’s 2009 entry, Whatever Works.)
YOUTH IN REVOLT: J’ai tué ma mère
Bottom Five
Taken Revenge movies never scraped the bottom of the barrel quite like this Liam Neeson vehicle.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past Scrooge meets sex-addiction therapy. Was Dr. Phil a script doctor on this one?
Pirate Radio A mammoth missed opportunity, the film plays like a bad video at feature length, letting us know nothing about the merry band of DJs who valiantly fought British repression in the ’60s.
Whip It I loved Drew Barrymore in the HBO version of Grey Gardens as Little Edie, but this directorial debut proves (yet) again that there are some actors who should stick to their day jobs.
Time Traveler’s Wife The Love Boat version of Slaughterhouse-Five.
LUDICROUSLY SCARY: Pontypool
Malcolm Fraser’s
Top 10
1. Anvil! The Story of Anvil This portrait of a Canadian metal band’s late-career struggle is brutally honest, hilarious, deeply sad and unexpectedly inspiring.
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans An unhinged Nicolas Cage redeems the last decade or so of his career, and Werner Herzog shows how a little inspired lunacy can turn generic pulp into poetry, adding up to some of the most fun I’ve had at a movie in ages.
3. A Serious Man The Coens throw down some unfuckwithable cinematic mastery with this unusually subtle, deep and thought-provoking drama.
4. I Love You, Man A standout in the post-Apatow comedy landscape, this good-natured bromance is enjoyably raunchy without the nasty undertone that sours much of the Apatovian oeuvre.
5. Adventureland Greg Mottola’s underrated drama perfectly evokes the agonies and ecstasies of post-adolescent angst.
6. Drag Me To Hell Sam Raimi gets his groove back with this horror thriller that manages the neat trick of delivering satisfying old-school scares while scrupulously avoiding clichés.
7. Last Train Home The latest from shit-hot local production company EyeSteelFilm, Lixin Fan’s documentary is a poignant and poetic portrait of a family of Chinese migrant workers.
8. (500) Days of Summer No rom-com to date has so ably captured the lightness and heartbreak of young hipster love.
9. J’ai tué ma mère Local wunderkind Xavier Dolan’s drama was a fearless display of family dysfunction and hormonal rage.
10. Antichrist I seriously hesitate to recommend, per se, Lars von Trier’s agonizing mind-rape of a movie, but there’s no denying its raw, primal ferocity and devastating visceral power. Then there’s the film’s sexual politics, which are so overtly misogynist that they arguably curve all the way around to a man-hating critique. If my colleague Matthew Hays hadn’t pulled the same trick last year with Funny Games, I might have declared this the best and worst film of the year. Von Trier basically lays bare the deepest emotional and psychological anxieties of the human condition, and then spends an hour-and-a-half rubbing his finger in the wound before escalating to a shockingly violent and disturbing climax. Not for the faint of heart by a long shot, but definitely a film unlike any other.
Honourable mentions
Documentaries like Gary Hustwit’s Objectified and Jennifer Baichwal’s Act of God will make you smarter. Claire Denis’s 35 Shots of Rum and the Dardenne brothers’ Lorna’s Silence hold down the fort for old-school Euro-slowcore. Also from EyeSteel, Omar Majeed’s Taqwacore explodes stereotypes and digs into deep issues with its portrayal of Muslim punks. Props for comic brilliance have to go to In the Loop’s Peter Capaldi and The Hangover’s Zach Galifianakis.
And maybe it’s just me, but I would have considered Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds among the top films of the year if, like the disgruntled Star Wars fan who cut Jar Jar Binks out of The Phantom Menace, I could have excised Brad Pitt’s corny, cartoony role. The rest of the film is a masterful display of cinematic craftsmanship, uncommonly classy and restrained for ol’ QT, who sadly just can’t shake his fanboy tendencies.
ROBOTS IN DISGRACE: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Bottom five
Miss March Speaking of misogyny, if any radical feminists out there are looking for an illustration of the male gender’s abject depravity, may I propose this ill-conceived, Playboy-sponsored comedy, which goes so far as to play brutal conjugal violence for laughs. That aside, it’s just consistently unfunny, except for Craig Robinson as a rapper named Horsedick.mpeg. I laughed several times, but only at that name being repeated.
Fanboys A dismal comedy about and for Star Wars geeks. If I were king, this film would function as a citizenship test—anyone who liked it would lose the right to vote or operate heavy machinery.
Imagine That This repellent Eddie Murphy family movie has something for viewers of all ages to hate.
Law Abiding Citizen Come for the nihilistic celebration of Cheney-esque crypto-fascism, stay for the new heights of absurd plot implausibility!
All About Steve Sandra Bullock, I supported you through all the generic thrillers and misguided attempts at “serious” acting. I even put my critical, not to mention masculine, credibility at risk by defending your work in The Proposal. Why have you forsaken me?
Paper Heart Down with twee!
METAL GURUS: Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Christopher Sykes’
Top 10
1. The Class Laurent Cantet’s provocative pseudo-documentary about an inner city classroom in a poor Parisian suburb is unforgettable. The multi-talented François Bégaudeau not only adapted the screenplay from his own autobiographical novel, he also plays the lead role of the teacher to perfection. Ethnic disparity and disrespect threaten to cripple the classroom, as it threatens to do throughout France. Simply the best film of the year.
2. 35 Shots of Rum Film students in Montreal got robbed when Claire Denis cancelled a master class at the last minute a couple of years back. I’m sure she would’ve talked about this new film she was working on: a sombre, ambiguous drama about a father struggling to let go of his now-adult daughter. Rife with understated yet insightful symbolism, it’s a devastating piece of visual poetry.
3. Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak’s children’s book is an indisputable classic. So you can imagine the pressure when he handpicked Spike Jonze to direct this adaptation. Dave Eggers hops aboard to expand the script. Budgets are blown, studio interference is rampant and the whole thing almost doesn’t get made. Then it does, and it’s the most amazing depiction of a child’s inner workings captured on celluloid. Simply genius.
4. Tulpan There wasn’t a more striking film aesthetically this year. Shot in the barren Hunger Steppes of Kazakhstan, it follows a young nomad as he struggles to take a wife. Which is tough as a Kazakh nomad. An ethnographer’s dream.
5. Up Pixar continues their ridiculous run of top flight family fare with this remarkable film about fidelity, about staying true to your dreams and the complexities of risk and reward. About… tens of thousands of colourful helium-filled balloons. Probably the most touching film of the year—the opening sequence is a literal tearjerker.
6. The Hurt Locker Sustained tension on the big screen is probably the most difficult emotion to nail. Kathryn Bigelow left me sweating with her depiction of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team that disarms IEDs in Iraq. What makes the film even more impressive is that it came out when “Iraq fatigue” was at an all-time high: I didn’t see it for months because I’d had enough. Big mistake—it’s such a rush.
7. Sin Nombre The flow of illegals over the U.S. border is always a hot topic. This film studies the human toll these individuals suffer on their way north. Beautifully acted by its young cast, it combines all the best aspects of a road movie with Shakespearean tragedy. It’s 21st century neo-realism at its finest.
8. District 9 Xenophobia. Torture. Rage. Greed. Brilliantly executed plot twists. Grip-your-armrest action. This is as good a sci-fi flick as I’ve seen this past decade. And the best thing is it just looks so mint. First time director Neill Blomkamp made a $30-million budget look five times as large. One hell of a debut.
9. Antichrist There’s only a handful of movies that truly haunt me. Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is one. Lars von Trier joins the list with this astoundingly macabre story of a couple dealing with the loss of their son. The misogyny and violence are gut-wrenching but it’s an incredible work of art.
10. The Hangover Without a doubt the most fun I had in the cinema all year. Who in their right mind dares to mimic a month-old baby boy “jackin’ his little weenus”? Essential Sunday morning viewage after a big night out.
Honourable mentions
Chris Rock’s fascinating documentary Good Hair deserves to be in my top 10 but I can’t find room. So many great animated films this year: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was the most fun I had in 3-D, while Coraline and Mary and Max were both stop-motion masterpieces.
I’ve never been a fan of the Star Trek franchise, but the reboot was awesome summer fun.
Bottom five
Old Dogs John Travolta and Robin Williams have no chemistry. Whatsoever.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Multiple explosions does not a summer blockbuster make.
My Life in Ruins Could’ve been a pleasant trip through Greece. Instead, a wretched heap of clichés and stereotypes.
Fighting Worst line of the year: “We’re in a $100,000 Mercedes. That’s where we’re going.”
G-Force There were a lot of awful animated flicks this year too. FBI-trained guinea pigs top the list.
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