All Time Top 5 (Best and Worst Movies of the Year)

It's the end of the year (well it was a few days ago). Blogs everywhere are releasing best/worst lists at a torrid pace. In fact, bip-bip. has already released our list of the ten best albums of the year. And, as you'd expect, we're bringing you our favorite movies of the year as well. You'll have to forgive the fact that we're not posting it until 2010, but I wanted to wait until I saw Up In The Air because I had a feeling it might make the list (and sure enough it did). We're also bringing you our most hated movies of the year. Now, to be fair to the movies on that list, there were probably worse movies made, but these were the movies that actually had a chance to be good (as opposed to films that were doomed from the start -- think Old Dogs).

Here's the All Time Top 5 (Best Movies of the Year)

5

Zombieland/Adventureland (tie) -- I decided to put both of these at number 5 for two reasons. First, they are both great movies that deserve to be on this list (even though most readers probably never saw either of these). Second, they both star Jesse Eisenberg, an actor who had an absolute breakout 2009.

4

Avatar -- At this point, I feel like there's not much left to say about Avatar. The movie was an absolute smash hit (it's tally is now up to over $1B worldwide) and belongs on a pedestal along with some of James Cameron's other hits.

3

The Hangover -- The highest-grossing R-rated comedy in American history was this year's best comedy by far. I couldn't be more excited for the sequel (scheduled to come out around October 2010). I'd join Alan's wolfpack any day.

2

Up In The Air -- As I said earlier, I specifically waited to make this list because I thought Up In The Air would have a shot to make it. That being said, I still didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Even though this was Clooney's best film ever, the real story to me was a new star being born in Anna Kendrick.

1

Inglourious Basterds -- Perhaps the most polarizing movie on my list, Tarantino's WWII gorefest was an absolutely brilliant piece of filmmaking in this blogger's opinion. Christoph Waltz is almost a guarantee to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. And I really hope Tarantino wins Best Director.

All Time Top 5 (Worst Movies of the Year)

5

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen -- Sure, the special effects were what we expected. Sure, I'll go see the next one. But the storyline was one of the dumbest things ever. Don't believe me? Read this FAQ on the film (warning: some foul language).

4

Observe and Report -- Seth Rogen had been in a series of really funny movies, but this mall cop comedy was just plain stupid. I expected bad things from Paul Blart: Mall Cop (I never saw it, but apparently a lot of you did) but had higher hopes for this one.

3

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell -- As a fellow Duke Law alum, I was hoping for a movie that would at least do some justice to Tucker Max's hilarious stories. Unfortunately, the movie was just plain garbage.

2

The Informant -- How the combination of Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh resulted in this terribly boring (yet surprisingly well received by most critics) film is beyond me.

1

My Sister's Keeper -- Honestly the worst book adaptation I've ever seen. It's essentially a collection of scenes with sad songs playing that are intended to make women cry but never really develops any characters or a plot that would give them a reason to.

What's In Your Backpack?

The much-hyped Up In The Air lives up to its billing and is worthy of its spot in its two-horse race against Avatar as the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar (although I'd probably give it to Inglourious Basterds). Jason Reitman's movie is really the total package -- a great story, great writing, and some great performances. It's really quite funny -- the script has a good bit of one-liners and humorous events that had this blogger chuckling pretty often and smiling for much of the movie. But it's also very emotionally charged and not afraid to tackle difficult questions on life and the relationships that define it. Although not a particularly sad movie, there were a few scenes where people cried, and you'll find that you actually care about the fate of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) and his friends and family by the end of it.

The movie tells the story of Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizer that spends his life on the road. He has no real friends, no woman in his life, and his family barely knows him. When he's not firing people from random companies, he spends his days traveling around giving "inspirational" talks that are titled, "What's In Your Backpack?" The message is that we should try to keep the relationships of our lives (the things that would fill our metaphorical backpack) to a minimum so we don't have anything weighing us down and can stay on the move (to Ryan, moving is living).

He meets fellow traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga), and the two start a casual relationship that essentially consists of the two meeting whenever they are in the same city. But shortly thereafter, his company then decides to follow the advice of rising star Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) and start operating via webcams instead of in person (effectively grounding Bingham). But first, Bingham must take Keener along to show her the ropes. During their travels, Keener begins to question Bingham's lifestyle and ultimately gets to Bingham to reevaluate his life, culminating in him asking Alex to join him at his sister's wedding. I know this plot might sound like a corny love story between Bingham and Alex, but I assure you it's far from it. In fact, the movie is just as much about Bingham's relationship with Keener and to a lesser extent, his family.

As I previously mentioned, many of the parts were written specifically for the actors in the film. And it really shows. This movie is wonderfully cast. Clooney is terrific, Farmiga is perfect for her part, and smaller parts played by Danny McBride, Zach Galifianakis, and Jason Bateman are also very good. But, to me, the real star of this film was Anna Kendrick (if you've never heard of her, don't feel bad -- her big screen resume is pretty much Twilight and nothing else). She was absolutely fantastic. Despite being beautiful and humorously charming, Kendrick really shows her range by playing a fiery young businesswoman determined to prove she belongs but who is also a bit of a softie, dreaming about the perfect man and crying over failed relationships. She was far and away my favorite character of the movie and, in this blogger's opinion, should take home this year's Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (yes, even over Mo'nique's performance in Precious).

Bottom line: Believe the hype. This one is worthy of its praise. Go check it out. (A-)

Living Life One Flight at a Time

I recently posted about the Christmas day opening of the much anticipated Sherlock Holmes. For those who have no interest in Holmes but are still looking for something to see, you probably won't be too disappointed with Paramount's Up In The Air. To be honest, I'm not sure which to recommend, but if you went by the recently released Golden Globe nominations, Up In The Air would be your winner -- it received the most nominations of any movie this year. And it's already won best picture from a couple of lesser known awards associations.

Written and directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking), the movie is an adaptation of a 2001 Walter Kim novel of the same name. It's the coming-of-age story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) who is a corporate downsizer (a consultant who basically goes from struggling company to struggling company and fires people) that spends the majority of his life on the road. He doesn't really have any friends or a personal life to speak of. But things change once his company decides to have him located at their headquarters in Omaha for good.

Reitman had a vision of exactly what he wanted the movie to be as he wrote it. He wrote the part of Ryan Bingham specifically for Clooney. But more than that, he wrote parts specifically for much of the rest of the cast (and this movie boasts a damn good cast) as well -- Vera Farmiga (The Departed, Nothing but the Truth), Anna Kendrick (Twilight), Jason Bateman, Danny McBride (Kenny Powers from HBO's East Bound & Down), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover), Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men), Amy Morton, and the legendary Sam Elliot (if you think you don't know who he is, click here). I suppose that in reality most writers have specific actors or actresses in mind when they write certain parts, but I can't recall another time where so many of them ended up actually being in the movie. It's hard not to be excited for this one.

Here's the trailer: