![\"brightstar\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/brightstar.jpg\" "\\"brightstar\\"")
<\/a> Usually I scramble to put together a Top Ten, but for the first time in more than a decade there is enough of an overabundance of quality movies to warrant a Top Twenty. There is one qualification for a film to appear on this list. It must have screened in a San Diego theater for at least one night. If next year\u2019s crop of films is half as good as this year\u2019s, I\u2019ll be a happy critic!<\/p>\n1. Jane Campions\u2019 “Bright Star”
\n Based on the last three years of the life of English romantic poet John Keats and set in a galaxy far, far away before humankind was safely ensconced in their abodes pretending that they are actually reaching out and touching someone via a computer screen. Jane Campion once again entertaining a pet uncertainty: Is it possible for art and romantic love to peacefully coexist?<\/p>\n
2. Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s “Il Divo”
\n A brilliantly structured 105-minute film based on the life of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (Tony Servillo), a nondescript hunchbacked dwarf who quietly ran roughshod over his country\u2019s politics for almost 50 years. Not what most American viewers expect from an epic. The film\u2019s high-energy visual style seldom jibes with Servillo\u2019s frozen performance or the action that’s going on around him. Needless to say, it died at the box office, but don\u2019t let that stop you from tracking down the DVD.<\/p>\n
3. Bong Joon-Ho\u2019s “Mother”
\n A mother will go to great lengths to free her mentally challenged son from a murder rap. Bong Joon-Ho\u2019s (\u201cThe Host\u201d) is a complex psychological horror film that played one night at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Hopefully Landmark or Reading will pick this up for a theatrical run.<\/p>\n
4. Atom Egoyan\u2019s “Adoration”
\n A teenager named Simon tells both his class and his Internet chat group that his father was involved in a terrorist plot. A terrific film about a catastrophe that never happened. Atom Egoyan once again uses a lie to get at the truth in the year\u2019s most nonjudgmental picture. <\/p>\n
5. Majid Majidi\u2019s “The Song of Sparrows”
\n A simple story complexly told and a masterpiece of technological miscommunication. An ostrich farmer loses his job and while in the city to get his daughter a new hearing aid, discovers a new career as a motorcycle cabby. A life-affirming character study told in moments of quiet dignity.<\/p>\n
6. Martin Provost\u2019s “S\u00e9raphine”
\n French painter S\u00e9raphine de Senlis was a hopelessly unworldly 40-year-old devout Catholic cleaning woman who was discovered by tenant and art collector Wilhelm Uhde. Filmed in a constant state of overcast, this slow descent into madness is the finest film of its kind since David Cronenberg\u2019s \u201cSpider.\u201d<\/p>\n
7. Hirokazu Koreeda\u2019s “Still Walking”
\n Basically the same subject matter in \u201cEverybody\u2019s Fine\u201d done right. This drama about a family getting together to commemorate the anniversary of a child\u2019s death is the closest contemporary movies have come to capturing the beauty and heartbreak of the films of Yasujiro Ozu.<\/p>\n
8. Quentin Tarantino\u2019s “Inglourious Basterds”
\nThe single greatest Jewish revenge fantasy ever filmed and the year\u2019s funniest movie.<\/p>\n
9. Pablo Larrain\u2019s “Tony Manero”
\n A John Travolta impersonator\/serial killer quietly wreaks havoc over an impoverished section of Santiago in 1978, four years into Augusto Pinochet\u2019s military dictatorship. No film this year appealed more to my dark side than \u201cTony Manero.\u201d Kudos to the Latino Film Festival\u2019s Ethan Van Thillo for bringing this to town as part of the Cinema en tu Idioma series.<\/p>\n
10. Richard Kelly\u2019s “The Box”
\n Let the record show that \u201cThe Box\u201d has officially been classified one of the five worst-reviewed films of the decade. To be quite honest, I\u2019ve seen it four times and I still don\u2019t know what the hell it\u2019s about. If I always complain about Hollywood films barely having one original thought to play off of, \u201cThe Box\u201d has enough ideas to spawn dozens of features. Hopefully Richard Kelly\u2019s eventual DVD audio commentary will help plaster a few black holes and if not, I\u2019ll still be in love with this movie.<\/p>\n
11. Jim Jarmusch\u2019s “The Limits of Control”
\n There\u2019s one too many exchanges of matchbooks and star cameos and when you start addressing the molecular structure of the universe, I need a ticket to get back in. But if Jarmusch\u2019s goal was to spark dialogue and make people think, this is 2009\u2019s most successful film. I haven\u2019t thought or talked more about a movie this year.<\/p>\n
12. John Woo\u2019s “Red Cliff Part 1”
\n John Woo\u2019s return to China turns out to be the best film he\u2019s made since he left in 1993. The three major battle sequences are brilliantly staged and unlike anything you\u2019ve seen come out of Hollywood in ages. WARNING: Avoid the so-called International Cut which takes the five-hour Parts I & II and condenses them into a 150-minute version. <\/p>\n
13. Erick Zonca\u2019s “Julia”
\n Tilda Swinton, in another head-turning performance, plays a career alcoholic who buys into a neighbor\u2019s plan to kidnap her 10-year old son and extort money from the boy\u2019s drug-trafficking grandfather. Needless to say, everything goes wrong in this dark comedic reworking of John Cassavetes\u2019 \u201cGloria.\u201d<\/p>\n
14. Christophe Van Rompaey\u2019s “Moscow, Belgium”
\n It starts with a meet cute: After her husband leaves her for a younger woman, an ornery housewife reluctantly begins an affair with a younger truck driver she accidentally backs into \u2013 and proceeds to go in every direction other than where you\u2019d expect it. The best romantic comedy of the year never found an audience here due to a lack of Sandra Bullock and an overabundance of subtitles.<\/p>\n
15. Avi Nescher\u2019s “The Secrets”
\n Between this movie and \u201cA Simple Man,\u201d every horrific memory from my Hebrew school upbringing went flashing before my eyes. A young orthodox Jewish woman dreams of entering into one of the world\u2019s oldest boy\u2019s club and becoming a rabbi. This bold, sensual fact-based film takes great delight in telling tales out of school.<\/p>\n
16. Oren Moverman\u2019s “The Messenger”
\n Give the filmmakers an \u2018A\u2019 for originality. There have been thousands of war films produced since the dawn of cinema, but none ever told the story of the Army\u2019s Casualty Notification service. Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton figure in the best ensemble cast of the year.<\/p>\n
17. Tom Ford\u2019s “A Single Man’
\n The bleakest of all this year\u2019s holiday releases tells the tale of an English professor (Colin Firth) who spends his day working up the nerve to commit suicide after his lover was killed in a car crash. Impeccable 60s period recreation, stylish direction, a solid script based on Christopher Isherwood\u2019s novel and one of the year\u2019s best performances more than compensate for all the gloom.<\/p>\n
18. Beno\u00eet Pilon\u2019s “The Necessities of Life”
\n A sick Inuit who can\u2019t speak French leaves his igloo and family in order to recuperate at a Canadian sanitarium where he strikes up a friendship with a young orphan who acts as his translator. Here is concrete evidence that there is a great film to be made out of any story, even one concerning a tubercular Eskimo and a sick kid. \u201cThe Necessities of Life\u201d tells its story with grace, style and an exceptional use of expressionistic color. It played one night at the Cinema Society of San Diego where I was fortunate enough to have seen it.<\/p>\n
19. Eran Riklis\u2019 “Lemon Tree”
\n A field of lemon trees representing a battleground between Israel and Palestine sounds a bit facile, but Eran Riklis\u2019 allegorical tale is anything but. As with most events between Palestinians and Israelis, nobody actually comes out a winner and the film concludes with the most devastating curtain shot of the year.<\/p>\n
20. Robert Siegel\u2019s “Big Fan”
\n Still my favorite premise of the year: A sports ubergeek runs into \u201chis\u201d team\u2019s quarterback in a strip club. After an innocent exchange of words, the coked-out hurler beats the guy within an inch of his life, yet the big fan refuses to press charges in fear that the star QB will be sidelined.<\/p>\n
Runners Up: G\u00f6tz Spielmann\u2019s \u201cRevanche,\u201d The Coen Brothers\u2019 \u201cA Serious Man,\u201d So Yong Kim\u2019s \u201cTreeless Mountain,\u201d Ramin Bahrani\u2019s \u201cGoodbye Solo,\u201d Wes Anderson\u2019s \u201cFantastic Mr. Fox,\u201d Steven Soderbergh\u2019s \u201cThe Girlfriend Experience,\u201d Bent Hamer\u2019s \u201cO\u2019Horten,\u201d Park Chan Wook\u2019s \u201cThirst,\u201d Scott McGehee and David Siegel\u2019s \u201cUncertainty,\u201d John Woo\u2019s \u201cRed Cliff Part 2,\u201d The Dardienne Brothers\u2019 \u201cLorna\u2019s Silence,\u201d Pierre Morel\u2019s \u201cTaken,\u201d Matt Aselton\u2019s \u201cGigantic,\u201d James Mottern\u2019s \u201cTrucker,\u201d Kevin Macdonald\u2019s \u201cState of Play,\u201d Bruce McDonald\u2019s \u201cPontypool,\u201d and Marc Webb\u2019s \u201c(500) Days of Summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Performances Worth Remembering: Tony Servillo in \u201cIl Divo,\u201d Yolande Moreau in \u201cSeraphine,\u201d Colin Firth in \u201cThe Single Man,\u201d Christoph Waltz in \u201cInglourious Basterds,\u201d Michelle Monaghan in \u201cTrucker,\u201d Kirin Kiki in \u201cStill Walking,\u201d Tilda Swinton in \u201cJulia,\u201d Evan Rachel Wood in \u201cWhatever Works,\u201d Ben Foster, Samantha Morton and Woody Harrelson in \u201cThe Messenger,\u201d Christian McKay in \u201cMe and Orson Welles,\u201d Nicolas Cage in \u201cBad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,\u201d Jeff Bridges in \u201cCrazy Heart,\u201d Bill Murray in \u201cThe Limits of Control,\u201d Barbara Sarafian in \u201cMoscow, Belgium,\u201d Baard Owe in \u201cO\u2019Horten,\u201d John Goodman in \u201cGigantic,\u201d Abbie Cornish in \u201cBright Star,\u201d Hiam Abbas in \u201cLemon Tree,\u201d Charlotte Gainsbourg in \u201cAntichrist,\u201d Melanie Laurent in \u201cInglourious Basterds,\u201d Alfredo Castro in \u201cTony Manero,\u201d Arsineee Khanjian in \u201cAdoration,\u201d Zooey Deschanel in \u201c(500) Days of Summer,\u201d Juliette Lewis and Alia Shawkat in \u201cWhip It,\u201d John Malkovich in \u201cThe Great Buck Howard,\u201d Anna Kendrick in \u201cUp in the Air,\u201d Patton Oswalt in \u201cBig Fan,\u201d Seth Rogen in \u201cObserve and Report,\u201d Verne Troyer in \u201cThe Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus\u201d and Harrison Ford in \u201cBruno.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Best 20 Films of 2009 By Scott Marks Usually I scramble to put together a Top Ten, but for the first time in more than a decade there is enough of an overabundance of quality movies to warrant a Top Twenty. There is one qualification for a film to appear on this list. It […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":243096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"The Best 20 Films of 2009","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11593,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-no-images","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}