2009 Movies: The Deviant Knowledge “Notable” Film Awards: Best, Worst, and Weirdest of the Year in Cinema
Another year if film has come and gone and we are no right on top of the Oscar announcements. I don’t make definitive statements about the “best movies” of the year or anything. Don’t get me wrong. I see a lot of movies, and as the expression goes, opinions are like rectums, everyone has one. I, personally only have one rectum but have many opinions. But my opinions are no or less valid than yours, so we will again refrain from making definitive judgments this year and again offer The Deviant Knowledge Notable Film Awards for 2009. This will be my short list of films that in my meager view deserve some sort of recognition good or bad.
Interestingly enough, 2009 turned out to be a pretty good year for Science Fiction films. As a long term geek of the genre I can honestly say it’s a rare treat to see quality hardcore sci-fi. However, it wasn’t all good and we must first visit that genre to see the seedy underbelly of 2009 cinema:
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Sherlock Holmes: Did We Really Need Another? One Word Answer: Downey, Jr! Or is That 2 Words?
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: from 1984 to 1994 the definitive versions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes literature was adapted by Grenada Television. The greatness of these adaptations was partly due to the faithfulness of the screenplays to the source material, but mostly due to the spellbinding performance of Jeremy Brett as Holmes [clip at review's end along with the trailer for the current film]. Ever since I spent my formative years balancing my Sherlock Holmes appreciation in the midst of dirty magazines, Star Trek and Friday Night Videos I have immediately turned my nose up at any attempt at a new adaptation of the work that would surface. It really took throwing one of our generation’s greatest living actors into the role to even nudge me over the line of considering it, even if it was opposite the astoundingly dull Jude Law in the role of Watson.
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Avatar: Cameron’s 3-D Masterpiece with 2-D Characters is Still a Worthwhile Ride.
James Cameron long ago reached that pinnacle of Hollywood Celebrity reserved for that oh-so-elite few who automatically inspire sprays of internet venom the second their name becomes attached to a project. The last straw for Cameron was the wild success of Titanic which ensured that if he chose to do so, he would never have to lift another finger or even change out of his pajamas again for the rest of his life to ensure an expensive roof over his head and warm meals on the table.
Unearned hate is the common backlash to mainstream success as the masses of unwashed internet talkbackers make feeble attempts to lend credibility to their sense of taste by hating someone or something that enjoys general mainstream succes. This makes Avatar, as one of Cameron’s most ambitious and expensive projects the perfect canvas for that giant bullseye of criticism even before the first frame of the film ever hit the internet.
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2012! Roland Emmerich’s Bold Statement: Better Make it the Small Coke at the Concession Stand.
First, before I even broach the subject of the movie itself, I have to say I have a slight ethical problem with the marketing of the film. It’s a minor nag but I have a serious issue with anything that deliberately feeds on the gullibility of the public at large, and the “2012” baloney that has been floating around pop culture since Erich Von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods in the late 1960s is just kind of silly. First and foremost, if you’re a Von Däniken follower and are looking to 2012 as Hollywood’s last laugh on what we’re in for, look elsewhere. While the movie refers a couple of times to the alleged Mayan prophecy, it’s all just a tent peg to let Roland Emmerich destroy the world. I can dig that. I’m down with death, destruction and general mayhem. But how long does it take the world to end anyway?
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The Men Who Stare at Goats Offers a Lot of Laughs Before a Perplexingly Bad Finale.
A fleeting interest in the U.S. government’s multi-million dollar folly of the 1970s and 80s called the “Stargate” Project sparked my interest early in seeing The Men Who Stare at Goats. Those that may try to convince themselves that even the government wouldn’t be daft enough to drop that much money into something as foolish as a long term paranormal spy program would be woefully wrong. I can’t really blame the government for putting some initial research money into it. It’s the general lack of oversight and continued year after year tossing of money into this pit that boggles the mind.
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Another Take on Paranormal Activity: What Evil Stoops to Pushing Your Keys on to the Floor?
Since I’ve spent the last two weeks contemplating various avenues of suicide from the depressing children’s book adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, I found myself deciding to hit Paranormal Activity as it went wide release this weekend. After a rather well thought out review from Zabaduba HERE, I hadn’t planned on seeing it, but the choices have been pretty slim and since our occasional co-writer here is really the one that introduced me to modern horror film appreciation 20 years or so ago, I figured I better pay attention at even a moderately good review from him.
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Where the Wild Things Are is a Unique Visit to a Children’s Classic That Defies Classification.
Over the last couple of years, the soap opera that lead to the final release of Where the Wild Things Are has caused a lot of people like me, who love film, to instinctually take the side of Spike Jonze and bemoan the evil Warner Bros. studio for keeping his vision down. Maybe I’m not quite as anti-studio as some, but I did have to ask in the middle of the sordid, probably over-inflated stories that what the heck Warner thought they were going to get when they hired Jonze? If they didn’t want his vision of the material, why hire him? Well, assuming there was some truth to the alleged “war” between Warner and Jonze, I don’t think I could take either side very well after seeing it.
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Paranormal Activity: Honey, Put the Camera Down
Paranormal Activity is something of a rarity in the horror world these days. When most films just offer up deformed inbred mutants torturing Midwestern teenagers to death and calls it good, Paranormal Activity actually tries to scare you. It plays on those fears we all have, of waking up to a strange noise in the middle of the night, and lying there, heart hammering, wondering, What the hell is in my house? It bypasses the “torture porn” approach of most modern horror films and actually sets out to create a mood and an atmosphere of fear.
And it does a pretty good job of it.
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Zombieland: I Thought the Apocalypse Would Be More Fun Than This
Let me get the nitpick out of the way up front: Zombies do not run. There. I said it. They don’t run. They shamble. They stagger. They lurch. But they do not run. They’re reanimated corpses without the brain power or muscle tone to do anything more athletic than slowly come at you with the single-minded purpose of turning you into a casserole. To be fair, the zombies in Zombieland are not reanimated dead (or at least not all of them; some of them might be; kind of fuzzy on that) but are instead infected with some form of Mad Cow Disease. So I guess it’s okay that they run. But they’re not zombies.
Okay, nitpick over. On to the movie.
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Zombieland: Too Much Fun to be a Horror Film
I admit it. I was sucked in completely by the trailers for Zombieland just like virtually every other male who’s even remotely in my demographic group. Heading at warp speed toward middle-age, though, I immediately temper any expectations I have when I see a trailer that looks that funny and hip. Ultimately, the last conscious thought I had as I walked into the theater with my kid was “no matter how good or funny this might end up being, it’s not going to touch ‘Shaun of the Dead.’” Now I know whether I was right or not.
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