PHIL LORD: Top Ten Filmed Things - 2009 Edition

My Favorite Ten Filmed Things of 2009 Not That Anyone Cares 

I know no one asked, but in case someone did, I figured I should be prepared.

10. Coraline directed by Henry Selick

Yes, it’s a technical masterpiece.  Yes, it’s nice to see a children’s film with edge.  But the real reason to love this film is the minutely observed performance of the title character: a neglected young girl brimming with intelligence, brilliantly described by movement. 

9. Fantastic Mr. Fox directed by Wes ANDERSON

I’ve been riding the Wes ANDERSON nerd crush since college.  I loved Bottle Rocket, only to love Rushmore even more, only to love The Royal Tennenbaums slightly less, only to get really excited and then kinda let down by while still remaining secretly obsessed with The Life Aquatic, only to be marvel at slash be dismayed by the decadence of The Darjeeling Limited.  And so I rode the Wes ANDERSON backlash, too.  He’s so mannered with his suits and his fussy design sense and his disappearing-up-his-own-asshole American Express commercials, I’d say. Enough artifice!  Give me Half Nelson! Give me mumblecore!   I was so over you, Wes ANDERSON.   But this movie was smart, and gorgeous, and ironic and honest and very very funny and I just can’t stop loving you dog please take me back. 

 

8. Neil Patrick Harris

NPH is one of my favorite filmed things, period, but this year in addition to How I Met Your Mother, he gave a supremely game Saturday Night Live performance, including a digital short for the ages; hosted two awards shows, which would be no big d except that they were the Tonys and the Emmys; and he proved that there are a thousand inflections of the word “hungry” as the voice of a retarded monkey in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.   Bravo, sir.

 

7. Roger Federer Crying After Losing the Australian Open

Roger Federer, the moody, volatile tennis phenom who several years ago dispensed with all emotion and thus became a being of pure, methodical Swiss accomplishment, got something in his eye after losing unexpectedly in the final and falling short of Sampras’ grand slam record.  It was like watching Darth Vader’s helmet come off and seeing Anakin Skywalker still in there, just another human being with a dream that didn’t come true.   It was also a grown man crying on TV, which is obviously hilarious. 

 

6. The British Political Comedy I Can Never Remember The Name Of  directed by that dude.

You know the one?  The political one that’s all shot verité-style with the bad words and Tony Soprano and the now-grown-up chick from My Girl?  The one that’s super funny and really smart that turns out to be a pretty amazing work of art?  Anyway, it was awesome.

 

5. The Third Dimension

A bunch of pretty good movies were made downright spectacular by the full flowering of 3D projection technology, and gave us all a reason to experience something with a big group of strangers again.  But the best experience I had watching a movie with strangers had to be a special 3D screening this summer of the 2007 film Beowulf with about 100 comedy nerds.  In that context, it’s the funniest film of the year.

 

4.Adventure/Zombieland  directed by Mottola&Fleischer

Greg Mottola and Ruben Fleischer’s past meets future diptych starts out with an heartbreaking backstory about a theme park in the 80s, then in an unexpected twist becomes possibly the sweetest post-apocalyptic zombie movie ever, with a bring-it-all-back-to-the-beginning finale back at the ol’ theme park.  Combined, this massive epic is a smart, funny, humane portrait of youth masquerading as two dumb teen movies.  It’s also over three hours long and cost over 50 million dollars, so good idea by studios to split them up and double the profits. 

 

3.The Inauguration of A Parallel Universe in Which The United States Has a Liberal Black President

I can’t believe it!   I never thought that in my lifetime I would experience an alternate world, just like in the comic books and the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors.  Nerds everywhere rejoiced, until we started to think about what was happening in the actual non-Obama space-time continuum without us. 

 

2. On A Boat by The Lonely Island feat. T-Pain

This was the most I laughed all year.  Like all their best stuff, it’s funny and loveable and crass and high and low and weird and human all at once.

 

1. A Serious Man by the Coen Brohams

A comedy about faith, written without mercy and directed with grace and sympathy.  Plus: stoned Bar Mitzvah!