Best/Worst of 2009....by IMTHATDUDE

Best/Worst of 2009

by IMTHATDUDE

Let’s start with the WORST Movies of 2009, shall we…

5) Street Fighter: THE LEGEND OF CHUN LI

The story:  Hell if I remember.  Something to do with a chosen one or something to defend this realm… blah blah BLLLLLAH! (The last one was me regurgitating my cinnamon raisin bagel and vanilla latte.)  Kristin Kruek is a better actress than her role selection suggests, but this personified the concept of assness.  Watch it at risk to your own sense of sanity.  When I was done watching, I was justifiably violent.

4) Sorority Row

The story:  Slutty sorority girls play a trick on a dude who screwed one of their other sisters (and he happens to be related to yet another of their sisters); the trick, fake the death of a different one of their sisters while this dude is hooking up with her. While in a secluded location, faking the cover up of the accidental death that never took place, the dude ends up thinking the girl’s really dead and stabs her in the heart with a tire iron – actually killing the slutty sister.  This movie would have been ten times better if dude would have taken the tire iron to all of them right then and there; then fell headfirst onto the very same car tool.  (Ten times better than what this movie is, would bring it up to a 2 out of 5.)

3) Bride Wars

The story: Best friends end up getting engaged at the same time and via a crazy mishap happen to have their weddings scheduled for the same day at the same location.  Commence the war of competing nuptials.  The frenemies engage in every devious move imaginable to ruin the other’s wedding.  In a word… BOOOOO!  But in fairness, I knew it would suck and it lived down to my expectations.  Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway.  Ladies, I’m so very disappointed. 

2) Land of the Lost

The story: Will Ferrell plays Dr. Marshall, an offbeat scientist with fantasies of inter-dimensional travel.  It’s the remake of the classic TV show by the same name.  Let me explain how bad this movie is… I laughed in derision and mild scorn all throughout this movie.  Derision because it was bad, scorn because I knew instantly that I would have to see how bad this movie was gonna end up getting.  The big question is not how they could make this movie, but how, after making it, could they justify releasing it to the larger public.  According to Variety.com, certain executives lost their jobs at the studio for green lighting this movie.  I understand why Will did it; he was getting pizzaid.  But this crap was straight garbage.  I mean NOTHING about it was good.  It felt like ten hours of the cast adlibbing based on the most rudimentary of concepts.  I imagine the instructions went something like this “imagine you’re a doctor, you’re a tour guide, and you’re a nondescript hot chick with some scientific knowledge stranded in another dimension.  We’ll throw in some aliens and dinosaurs.  Just go with it.  See what happens for the next two hours.  Annnnnnd… ACTION!”  Let me stop before I waste all my good insults on this crap.

The dubious distinction of crappiest theatrical crapfest of the year…

1) Year One

The story: Jack Black and Michael Cera are cavemen?  There’s about 20 Geico jokes that write themselves.  The script was so cheesy even a cavemen… Or, this movie was a terrible way to spend two hours of any life, but there’s good news… they saved a lot of money on their writing staff…  Nah, maybe the jokes aren’t that good, but they’re better than ANYTHING that happened in that movie.  I am truly thankful that Hollywood cannot make any more movies like this and Number 2 for a long time.  They should have stopped trying after Quest for Fire.  Don’t google it.  Don’t rent it.  In fact forget I mentioned that guttersnipe of a film that was still markedly better than Year One.  Seriously, they had better movies than Year One… in the actual YEAR ONE.  Sad face, Jack Black.  Sad face.

BTW:  If only I had seen Twilight in 2008, it would have made the list for the worst 5 movies of 2008.  Sparkly vampires?  Let me say that again  SPARKLY VAMPIRES.  That’s like being haunted by a gay ghost.  It’s supposed to be scary, but that’d just make me laugh.

AND NOW…

without further ado….

The BEST Movies of 2009

5)   STAR TREK

Directed by JJ Abrams

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoë Saldana

The inaugural voyage of the Enterprise.  Due to some emergency, Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, Spock and all the other cadets (actually, Spock is older and an officer) are brought directly into a battle scenario and given field promotions. I’m not military expert, but I suspect they took some liberties with how these people were promoted.  Anyway, it’s a fun ride; if a bit inconsistent.  Put simply, it was worth lying to my date about not having seen yet when she wanted to go see it (translation I dropped a bunch of bread on this movie – movie dates ain’t exactly cheap).

4)  ZOMBIELAND

Directed by Rueben Fleischer

Screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

Starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin

The world is taken over by Zombies.  Not the slowest, not the fastest, but not to be trifled with.  This is FUNNY.  It just is.  Take my word on this one.  I will definitely be buying this one when it hits DVD/Blu Ray and you should too!  I’m still laughing.

3)   Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Directed by Terry Gilliam

Screenplay by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown

Starring Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, and Heath Ledger (with some help from Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and Jude Law).

Doctor Parnassus is an eccentric gypsy, or genius, or immortal, or crazy old dude with a little friend (Verne Troyer).  Depending upon which you believe, he’s engaged in a millennium old wager with the devil and the time has come for him to pay up.  Unless, of course, he is willing to enter into yet another wager with the ultimate trickster.  Terry Gilliam brings his usual humor and silliness to the big screen in what was probably the most difficult film of his long career, but also his best.  With the death of Heath Ledger during the filming, Depp, Law and Farrell fill in and Gilliam somehow manages to make an impressive film that much more impressive under the circumstances.  It is seamless and one of the most underrated movies in years.  It’s too bad you’ll have to wait for the DVD.

2)  AVATAR

Written and Directed by James Cameron

Starring Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi and Zoe Saldana.

Paraplegic dude uses an avatar body to pretend to be part of a native population on a distant, but important, planet.  Long and short of the story… he saves a planet of blue folks by becoming one of them and bagging the baddest blue chick on the planet.  It’s just like the Smurfs, except they’re about a thousand more smurfettes and all the smurfs are 10 feet tall, athletic, and half-nekkid.  I think I’d give this movie a high 4 out of 5 on That Dude’s prestigious scale.  Did I mention this is the most visually impressive movie I have ever seen in my life?

And the winner is…

1)   UP IN THE AIR

Directed by Jason Reitman

Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, and Jason Bateman

Clooney plays a hatchet man.  He flies around from city to city firing people so big companies don’t have to deal with it directly.  In this economy, he’s been pretty busy.  He’s all about meeting a certain lofty travel goal in seems to be running so as not to have to stay put.  Until he meets a woman who has the same kind of ideas and morals – especially when it comes to attachments (“why have them?”); he begins to realize that he might actually want to be attached.  This is a love it or leave it movie. Definitely the smartest & sharpest movie of the year.  It doesn’t make my Top 20 movies of the decade list for one reason – longevity.  I d not know how many times I will be able to watch this movie over a lengthy period of time.  But it is still exceptional.  There’s nothing about this movie that I didn’t like (double neg for emPHAsis), which means it is a definite front runner for a Shammi Award this year.