Owen and Matt Talk Movies

A formerly cross-continental & cross-apartmental, now cross-town discussion on film featuring Owen and Matt

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Owen's Best of 2009


Let me preface this with a few comments. First, I based this list simply off of films that were considered "2009 releases" (specifically, the "2009 films" category on Wikipedia), even though some were released merely in New York and LA, or even just shown at a festival, and weren't shown in DC until 2010. I know that in the past I've railed against considering a film to have been released in a particular year just because it was released somewhere that year, even when that somewhere was nowhere near where I was at the time. I mean, if I lived in Cambodia, or Bodunk County, Alabama, or somewhere else where it may take a while for a film to get distributed, I probably wouldn't have taken that stand; but I live in the United States, and since I've been compiling "Best Of" lists I've lived in Portland and DC, both sizeable metropoles that get immediate mainstream-film distribution and OK (in DC's case) to quite good (in Portland's case) smaller- and independent-film distribution. It didn't—and, to a great degree, doesn't—make sense for me to consider a film to be released in a particular year when it wasn't released in either of those considerable cinematic markets in that year. My cinematic world doesn't and shouldn't revolve around New York and LA.

However, I've also found it tedious to keep track of when a particular film was released in a particular city, compared to simply going through the Wikipedia list (based on earliest release, regardless of how limited) and checking off the films from that year that I'd seen. So I guess my laziness has finally outweighed my curmudgeonliness. Also, since so many of the "good movies" are released in the late fall and winter, treating January 1 as a hard and fast dividing line means that films released as part of the same "awards season" end up in two different years—thus, Flags of Our Fathers (released in Portland on October 20, 2006) is on my 2006 list, while Letters from Iwo Jima (released in Portland on January 19, 2007) is on my 2007 list—despite being regarded by everyone else as released in the same year and ranked alongside one another on the same "best of" lists. The difficulty of that position manifested itself most clearly when, but for my making an exception, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood wouldn't have been on the same list. So—until I change my mind yet again—my lists will be based on a film's earliest American release, not its release where I am.

This probably seems silly to everyone but me, but there it is. And after all, isn't that the entire purpose of blogs, letting their authors air their silly, inane personal quirks, concerns, and hang-ups?

Second, the inconsistency in length of my lists. My first list (2006) was the only one to follow my "Jan. 1 - Dec. 31 release where I am" position strictly; my second (2007) made an exception for There Will Be Blood (released in DC in Jan. 2008), so I added an eleventh spot to keep from bumping my tenth-ranked 2007 film (Zodiac) into the "honorable mentions"; my third list (2008) had films released in DC over thirteen months (Jan. 1, 2008 - Jan. 31, 2009), so an extra spot seemed appropriate for an extra-long period. Each time, though, I was annoyed at having to leave films I considered worthy of ranking out of the ranked positions and relegating them to the honorable mentions; ten (and even eleven) just wasn't enough. So, in the spirit of nomination inflation—I'm looking at you, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!—I've lengthened the 2009 list to fifteen films. Of course, I still find myself getting annoyed at not having enough room in the ranking for some films—this time, Away We Go (to which I gave the number 15 spot before remembering The Hurt Locker, which Wikipedia didn't list under 2009 films because of its showing at the 2008 Venice Film Festival), Broken Embraces, District 9, Gomorra, Observe and Report, and Up, to name a few—so it's very possible that my next list will be Owen's Top 20 of 2010.

Finally, this year I've included a "dishonorable mention." I didn't go with a full list of all the terrible 2009 films I saw (to mirror my honorable mentions), just the worst one. I don't want to dwell too much on cinematic negativity, or let it dampen a post that should be about celebrating all that's best in film, but I also think that it's not entirely out of place, for two reasons: in order to give a warning to anyone who runs across it in the future, and as evidence that, yes, I do occasionally see bad movies—not just "entertaining bad" or "so-bad-it's-good bad," but "terrible-and-painful-with-no-redeeming-qualities bad," which certainly qualifies in that film's case.

Well, enough of my dreaded verbosity, and on with my 15 Best Films of 2009.

Top 15 of 2009

6) Moon


Dishonorable Mention: Gentlemen Broncos
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Origin of Batmanuel



Fooled you! Sorry if you were genuinely looking for a post about the origin of the character that Nestor Carbonell played on the short-lived live-action TV adaptation of The Tick. However, I'll do the next best thing and talk about the much-anticipated origin of Richard Alpert in "Ab Aeterno," as well as "Recon" and "The Package." So enough fooling around, and on to Lost.

"Recon," our first Sawyer-centric episode of the season, gives us a glimpse, in its flash-sideways, of perhaps the greatest cop-show-that-will-never-be of all time, Ford and Straume. It also shows us some interesting aspects of Sawyer's character and nature. As far as we know, everything about the lives/life of the original timeline's Sawyer and alterna-Sawyer was the same up to and including their/his parents' deaths. In the original timeline, this drives him into a life of, essentially, following in the footsteps of the man who destroyed his childhood as a con man; in the new timeline, it compels him to join the LAPD in order to take down con men (and women) and eventually to get to Anthony Cooper. Instead of being a born criminal, Sawyer—both of them—is teetering on the line between the law and crime, with some small event early on—apparently his writing the letter to "Mr. Sawyer," using Jacob's pen—nudging him toward channeling his feelings of hate and revenge one way or the other. During his date with the smoking-hot alterna-Charlotte, he even says that he realized this early on—"I got to a point in my life where I was either going to become a criminal or a cop."—and chose the law. No doubt that's why he can play a con man in his sting operations so well. (That opening scene was a terrific little play on our expectations. Also, did you notice that the woman alterna-Sawyer was stinging called him "dimples"? I guess Sawyer isn't the only one quick with the nicknames.) It also reflects original Sawyer's fifth-season role as "LaFleur," head of DHARMA security (ironically, conning his way into a position of authority and trust). In both timelines, Sawyer walks a fine line between the right and wrong sides of the law, jumping back and forth as the situation requires, giving yet another example on Lost of moral ambiguity, of a blurring of the line between detective work and conning, law and crime, good and evil.

As for the original-timeline scenes of "Recon," we get our first real look at the returned Charles Widmore and his armed Geek Squad (I wish I could claim credit for having thought of that) of Liz Lemon, that nerdy data guy on Jason Statham's crew in Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race, and what I can only assume will prove to be a bunch of red shirts. Widmore seems to be anti-Loophole, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean he's pro-Jacob. (For one thing, there's an obvious contrast between science-oriented Widmore and the low-tech Others, e.g., keeping Loophole out through sonar pylons vs. lines of ash. Speaking of the pylons, does this mean that Widmore's joined forces with the Hanso Foundation, the folks in Ann Arbor behind the DHARMA Initiative?) I wouldn't put the murder of the Ajira survivors on Hydra Island past either Widmore or Loophole; both can be pretty ruthless when it comes to getting what the want, or even to merely tying up loose ends. Meanwhile, Sawyer seems to have reverted back to his looking-out-for-number-one con man mode from the first season, telling both Widmore and Loophole what they want to hear in order to get what he wants, i.e., off the Island. The plot thickens . . .

In the next episode, "Ab Aeterno," we take a break for the most part from both the Island goings-on and the flash-sideways timeline to delve into one of the great mysteries of the series, Richard Alpert, a.k.a. Ricardus, a.k.a. Ricardo. This episode both gives us a heaping pile of answers to long-standing questions, and a lot of great character and background material showing us what makes the Island's three most mysterious inhabitants tick. Richard doesn't age thanks to Jacob, because he was refused absolution from a crooked priest and was afraid of dying and going to Hell. He arrived on the Black Rock, which was cast inland in a huge storm, crashing into and breaking the Taweret statue. The Island (via its "unique energy," perhaps) keeps Loophole trapped there, preventing him from wrecking havoc upon the rest of the world. Jacob brings people (the Black Rock, the Others, Oceanic 815, maybe DHARMA and Desmond) to the Island to prove to Loophole mankind's essential worth (perhaps in order to "defuse" his evil should he ever escape the Island). But far from being a mere info-dump, "Ab Aeterno" gave us a real sense of the rivalry between Jacob and Loophole—they've been trying that knife trick for centuries!—and showed us that Richard's story is really a tragic one: a simple man lost in a strange new world, willing to kill to get back the woman he loves, a pawn in a game beyond his comprehension, cursed with eternal life and what seems like a doomed mission, spending lifetimes in service to a being only to find his master murdered and his life and effort rendered apparently meaningless. But Hurley's ghost-whispering at the end infuses the distraught Richard with new purpose, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it.

In "The Package," we pick up both the original timeline and the new timeline after our hour with the immortal Canarian: Widmore and Loophole are parrying and thrusting back and forth, and we find out what led alterna-Jin to be in that freezer and what happened after Sayid found him in "Sundown." As was speculated earlier, Jin and Sun aren't married in the new timeline; and far from her leaving him, the trip to LA is their opportunity to run away together, beyond (so they think) her father and his boss's malevolent reach. Unfortunately, three of the characters we love to hate from the original timeline—Keamy, Omar, and Mikhail—are waiting at the other end to complete the set-up that Mr. Paik has arranged by sending Jin with payment for his own hit, which Sun couldn't replace (having closed her account). Sayid's Gun Kata ends up resolving most of this, but the episode ends with two elements which may be more examples of the original timeline influencing the new: alterna-Mikhail loses an eye, and Sun is pregnant. In the original timeline, she and Jin were only able to conceive on the Island (perhaps related to its healing properties), so that may explain why they don't have off-Island fertility problems in the new timeline, i.e., Jin and Sun's on-Island fertility "bled over" into the new timeline, where off-Island Jin and Sun should be infertile. Alas, their story ended on a hell of a cliffhanger, so we'll have to wait and see if they finally get the happiness in the new timeline that has evaded them in the original.

In the original timeline, Widmore's people nab Jin (keeping him in good old Room 23), apparently to get information about the Island's various energy pockets that Jin studied during his stint with DHARMA in the '70s (again, pointing to the energy being tied to keeping Loophole prisoner on the Island). Widmore gives us more vague references to what would happen if Loophole escaped—"Everyone we know and love would simply cease to be."—but it remains frustratingly unclear (assuming he's telling the truth in the first place). Loophole takes a trip back to Hydra Island for a parlay with Widmore. (When they were getting the outrigger ready, I was hoping this would be our explanation for the event last season, when Locke, Sawyer, and the other time-skippers were followed and fired upon while rowing from the old beach camp to the Orchid station ("The Little Prince"). Guess not. On second thought, it couldn't have been, since when the time-skippers found their outrigger at the beach camp the camp was abandoned, whereas at the moment Jack, Ben, Ilana, et alii are there.) Speaking of the beach camp dwellers, there was some nice character interactions in those scenes, and I like that they have a new sense of purpose thanks to Richard's return, but the whole thing with Sun's hitting her head while running from Loophole and losing the ability to speak (but not write) English seemed straight out of Gilligan's Island; they might as well have had a coconut fall on her head. Granted, it led to a nice scene of her and Jack talking on the beach, and perhaps there's a genuine medical explanation for it, but the whole scenario struck me as a real narm moment.

Meanwhile, on the submarine dock on Hydra Island, we get the dramatic return of Desmond David Hume (and with him, Mr. Motorboat himself, Henry Ian Cusick). This was great because it not only creates a nice parallel between the new timeline, where Jin's supposed delivery to Keamy is the "package," and the original, where Desmond himself is the "package" Widmore's brought to the Island (foreshadowed during Sawyer's visit to the sub in "Recon"), but also is long overdue, both for the character himself and for the great importance that he's supposed to have for how the rest of the series plays out.

P.S. — Just in case you needed a little more awesome in your life, this guy delivers the goods with a series of classy, minimalist posters for each episode of the first three seasons. I especially liked the ones for "Two for the Road" and "Flashes before Your Eyes."
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)