(in no particular order)
Inglorious Basterds – 21 August 2009
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger
Synopsis: In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds” are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis.
Watch The Trailer
- It’s time for QT to get back to the basics; great storytelling. He kind of lost it with Death Proof – in that I think he made a movie nodding his other movies. We get it, you’re awesome. Now show us again why we think that.
Halloween II – 28 August 2009
Director: Rob Zombie
Writer: Rob Zombie
Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell
Synopsis: Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) returns to his home town of Haddonfield, bringing death in his wake, to bring closure to the secrets of his past. An unlikely individual steps up to put an end to Michael.
Watch The Trailer
- I enjoyed the first Zombie Halloween take, and this one looks like much more fun. He made a safe reinvention of the classic John Carpenter film to my guess; calm people down from hearing he was remaking the film. This time around it looks like Rob Zombie is making a Halloween movie he imagines in his messed up mind. Can’t wait.
The Invention of Lying – 25 September 2009
Directors: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson
Writers: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Karl Pilkington, Louis C.K., Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Patrick Stewart, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Christopher Guest
Synopsis: Imagine a world where everyone can only tell the truth. And no-one has ever lied. There are no big lies. No small lies. Not even white lies. Until one man discovered how.
Watch The Trailer
- I thought I could die after Gervais wrote and starred in his own Simpson’s episode. Well now the creator of the original Office and Extras wrote and directed an original comedy that is already getting some Oscar buzz. Not to mention the ridiculous cast. My idol just got even bigger, how do I go on?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9cAUOfz8yg[/youtube]
Shutter Island – 2 October 2009
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: Laeta Kalogridis (screenplay) Dennis Lehane (novel)
Cast: Leonardo Dicaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams
Synopsis: From Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island is the story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane.
Watch The Trailer
- It’s safe to say that the partnership between DiCaprio and Scorsese has been a productive one for the famed director – Gangs of New York got 10 Oscar nominations, The Aviator got 11 nods (and 5 wins), and The Departed got 5 nominations and won 4, including Best Picture and Marty’s long-coveted Best Director Oscar. So ANY news that Scorsese and DiCaprio are re-teaming should raise the blood pressure of any true film fan. It sounds like perfect thriller material, straight out of the third act of Scorsese’s Cape Fear remake, and an ideal fit for the legendary filmmaker.
Where the Wild Things Are – 16 October 2009
Director: Spike Jonze
Writers: Spike Jonze, Maurice Sendak (story)
Cast: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini
Synopsis: An adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s story, where Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world–a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.
Watch The Trailer
- Not much more can be said about WTWTA. It’s going to be great, I promise. Looking at this film in its trailers, TV spots and posters; you can see the imaginative work put into it, the heart and above all – the risk. Will audience take a chance to see something that may have felt like casual viewing 20 years ago? I’ll be there opening day.
The Road – 16 October 2009
Director: John Hillcoat
Writers: Cormac McCarthy(novel) Joe Penhall(adaptation) Joe Penhall(screenplay)
Cast: Charlize Theron, Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall
Synopsis: Based on Cormac McCarthy’s best-selling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Road is the epic post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son across a barren landscape that was blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on earth.
Watch The Trailer
- Cormac McCarthy, famed for his tough, brutal imagery and absolute mastery of the English language will have his shocking 2006 post-apocalyptic novel, The Road became a film. Australian director John Hillcoat, whose 2005 movie, The Proposition, was one of the best, most underrated Westerns in years is at the helm. I smell awards.
A Christmas Carol – 6 November 2009
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Robert Zemeckis, Charles Dickens
Cast: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman
Synopsis: An animated retelling of Charles Dickens classic novel about a Victorian-era miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas apparitions.
Watch The Trailer
- Loved The Polar Express. Saw the trailer for Carol in front of Potter and was quite surprised at just how ‘real’ this movie is going to look. Why not just do a live action version? Well, because we have enough of those would be my answer. This is going to go down as the new Christmas classic. Jim Carrey is no stranger to bring Christmas classics to life – as we saw in How The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. This time he takes on so many roles he has Eddie Murphy looking lazy.
The Lovely Bones – 11 December 2009
Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Fran Walsh (screenplay) Philippa Boyens(screenplay) Peter Jackson(screenplay) Alice Sebold(novel)
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci, Saoirse Ronan
Synopsis: Based on the critically acclaimed best-selling novel by Alice Sebold, and directed by Oscar winner Peter Jackson from a screenplay by Jackson & Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens, “The Lovely Bones” centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family – and her killer – from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.
Watch The Trailer
- It’s impossible not to take notice when the team behind the Lord of the Rings movies – writer/director Peter Jackson and screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens – reunites for a new film project. Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel, The Lovely Bones, was an unlikely candidate to be a publishing success story, but Sebold’s sad, sweet story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by a neighbor, who watches her family (and her killer) from Heaven as they try to move on following her death, was one of the best-selling novels of the past decade and in this readers mind – one I will remember forever. Anyone familiar with Jackson’s 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures (a true story of teen obsession and murder starring Kate Winslet) would immediately recognize Jackson as an eerily perfect choice to direct The Lovely Bones. Heavenly Creatures proved that Jackson and Fran Walsh know how to write teenage girls, and the more fantastic elements of the novel couldn’t be in better hands.
Avatar – December 18, 2009
Director: James Cameron
Writer: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington,Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi
Synopsis: In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture.
Trailer
- Avatar is the BIGGEST movie of 2009. There is literally no other movie that in any way, shape, or form that could conceivably be bigger. It’s the first theatrical movie written and directed by James Cameron since Titanic, i.e. the highest grossing movie EVER. Second, by all reports, Cameron has spent the better part of a decade prepping for Avatar and has alleged completely reinvented 3D technology to make a blow-you-through-the-back-of-your-seat experience that will remind you why watching DVDs will never replace the glory of seeing a movie up on the big screen. This could save the theater experience! He had to wait for technology to catch up for his creation to be made…jesus. Though the project has been shrouded in secrecy, we know that the film follows a paralyzed war veteran far in the future who is brought to the planet Pandora and finds himself trapped in the middle of a conflict for the fate of the planet between his fellow Earthlings and the planet’s native Na’vi population. Whatever…it’s going to punch me in the face isn’t it?
check out what you're missing
Tags: best of, The Best Movies of 2009
