Owen and Matt Talk Movies: 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

1) Where the Wild Things Are

2) Antichrist

3) Inglourious Basterds

4) In the Loop

5) The White Ribbon

6) Moon

7) The Brothers Bloom

8) A Serious Man

9) The Hurt Locker

10) Un Prophète