Best Films of 2009: #5-1

#5: Broken Embraces

#4: Avatar

#3: Up in the Air

#2: A Single Man

#1: Inglourious Basterds

AFT Awards: Top 10 Scenes of the Year

This is a special category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. These are my ten favorite scenes of the year, listed in alphabetical order by film title. Click here to see previous years of this category. Beware minor spoilers for these films.

Avatar
There are so many great moments and battle scenes in this film, but the coolest part was definitely when hard-ass Colonel Quaritch bailed out of his exploding ship while his arm was on fire.

Away We Go
The most delightful of the various model family visits was that to the home of crazy LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who terrifies and infuriates Bart so much that he feels the need to traumatize her child forever by taking the child for a wild ride in a stroller.

The Hurt Locker
Before Jeremy Renner’s William James ever set foot on the scene, Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce) undertook a valiant effort to diffuse a bomb that took his life in the powerful, tone-setting opening minutes of this film, leading to one of the most intense and lengthy stand-offs that doesn't obsess over action and instead just painfully, slowly happens.

The Hurt Locker
Out in the middle of nowhere, the unit encounters a band of friendly contractors led by Ralph Fiennes, but the peace doesn’t last long.

Inglourious Basterds
Colonel Hans Landa arrives at the home of Perrier LaPadite intent on finding hidden Jews in the chilling first scene of this film. Landa’s calm and conversation, compared with the terror on LaPadite’s face, makes it even more mesmerizing.

Inglourious Basterds
The Basterds meet with Bridget von Hammersmark in a bar filled with Nazis, and one arrives to interrogate the supposed captain about his origins. It’s a scene wrought with tension that’s equal parts terrifying and hilarious (watch the tail end of it here).

The Men Who Stare At Goats
As promised by the title, George Clooney’s Lyn Cassady takes down a goat with the sheer force of his mental prowess. The stunned look on the face of Major Holtz (Glenn Morshower) makes it all the more astounding.

Police, Adjective
After spending days following a suspect on his own authority and trying to decide whether he is truly guilty, Cristi learns the true meaning of police when his commanding officer forces him to look up words in the dictionary.

Surveillance
The corrupt cops shoot out one car’s tire and another car comes to a screeching halt behind it, and an uncomfortably long sequence begins with an immense amount of foreboding and a lot of swearing, shouting, and tears.

Up
Almost no sound is present (or needed) in the opening minutes of this film, where a lifelong relationship is chronicled beautifully. It’s touching, heartbreaking, and gives the movie the heart that will fuel it for the rest of its running time.

AFT Awards: Best Director

This is the twenty-eighth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Runners-up:
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN (A Serious Man)
ZACK SNYDER (Watchmen)
NEILL BLOMKAMP (District 9)
MICHAEL HANEKE (The White Ribbon)
JASON REITMAN (Up in the Air)

The winner:
Tom Ford (A Single Man) transitioned careers from fashion designer to filmmaker and created an astounding, breathtaking work of art.

Other nominees:
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) took a deliriously violent and entertaining story and embedded it within a complex and carefully-crafted drama. James Cameron (Avatar) undertook an entire planet’s worth of adventure and created an extraordinarily exciting and visually spectacular exciting movie. Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) dug deep into the horrors of war and produced a powerful portrait of the soldiers in Iraq. Pedro Almodovar (Broken Embraces) gave life to a host of colorful characters and staged a poetic and moving story.

AFT Awards: Best Trailer

This is the twenty-seventh category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Even if the movies weren’t great, the trailers definitely were. Watch them for yourself below. Read more about A Single Man, A Serious Man, Nine, The Men Who Stare At Goats, and The Lovely Bones.

The winner:



Other nominees:

AFT Awards: Best Movie No One Saw

This is the twenty-sixth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
That Evening Sun is a gorgeous film and meaningful experience that captures a Southern sensibility and the soul of one man.

Other nominees:
Trucker is a nuanced, glimpse of what it takes to truly influence someone with few, if any, attachments to anything that’s grounded which doesn’t attempt to over-dramatize any of its characters or events. Julia was fascinating, engaging, and unhinged from start to finish, spotlighting a brilliant lead performance from Tilda Swinton. Skin was the third movie about South Africa this year which was a moving story of survival in the face of segregation that bravely didn’t offer any fantasy escapes. The Messenger was a heartfelt, resounding film about those affected by the casualties of war with bristling performances that invokes unparalleled intensity and emotion.

AFT Awards: Worst Movie of the Year

This is the twenty-fifth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors, or dishonors in this case. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category. I'm proud to announce that I have seen none of the Razzie Award nominees from this year, but there are still a few films I loathed from 2009.

Runners-up:
THE STRIP
THE PROPOSAL
THE INTERNATIONAL

The winner:
Bruno was heinous, crude, offensive, shocking, and in no way good. It was especially difficult to bear after the success of “Borat” and its blatant failure to reproduce that same creativity.

Other nominees:
Observe and Report was despicable, unfunny, crude, and off-putting if you managed to stay awake. The Ugly Truth took two good actors and gave them nothing to work with save for the same recycled jokes that weren’t anywhere near as unhinged or perverse as they should have been. The Girlfriend Experience was a terrible exercise in artistic filmmaking which got so wrapped up in its portrait of a porn star that it disregarded story and sequence altogether. Whiteout featured so many things that didn’t make sense which made being trapped in Antarctica the least of its characters’ considerable problems.

AFT Awards: Best Ending

Beware spoilers for “A Serious Man,” “Avatar,” “Fast & Furious,” “Julia,” and “Duplicity.”

This is the twenty-fourth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
A Serious Man brought its peculiar end to a swift, mesmerizing end. Just as things are leveling off, there’s news of torrential weather on the radar. Danny’s class is evacuated, and he is finally ready to pay off his bully. As he tries to give him the money, he is struck by the sight of what is coming toward him: a fast-approaching tornado. It’s a shocking, speedy finale that really leaves its viewers with a puzzled expression on their faces in the most fantastic way.

Other nominees:
Avatar finally gave its hero what he wanted all along: a chance to become one with the Na’vi. As his human body is laid down next to his avatar and the Na’vi all try to make his body leap, the eyes of his avatar burst open and the title of the film appears on the screen. The ensuing visuals accompanied by the song “I See You” seal the deal.

Fast & Furious was about to send Dominic Toretto to jail, but somehow that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, police officer Brian O’Conner, Toretto’s sister, and some new buddies prepare to hijack the prison bus. It’s an ending so ridiculously awesome that even Toretto can’t believe it, and he shakes his head, laughing, as Brian pulls up and spins his wheels, preparing for the big take.

Julia turned its protagonist into someone she never thought she’d be. After going to such lengths and enduring so much to try to earn some extra cash, Julia gives it all up to protect the safety of the boy she kidnapped. Her last line and the expression on her face is priceless: “I’m taking you back to your mother.”

Duplicity pulled the rug out from under its triple agents as their ridiculously well-constructed plan was destroyed by the simplest fabrication on the part of Howard Tully. Their reactions are completely worth it, and it’s also a nice touch to see the utter dismay on the face of Richard Garsik, who realizes his career is over now that he’s announced a revolutionary product that doesn’t exist at all.

The AFT Awards will resume and conclude in February. Final Oscar predictions begin tomorrow.

AFT Awards: Best Opening

This is the twenty-third category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Note: This category is for opening sequences. Full scenes like those in “Up” and “Inglourious Basterds” are represented in the upcoming Top 10 Scenes of the Year.

The winner:
Watchmen gloriously rewrote history to the tune of “The Times They Are A Changing” with an stunning and affecting montage of the Watchmen from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Other nominees:
That Evening Sun introduced its protagonist with a lasting chronicling of his escape from a nursing home and immersion back into the real world. Gentlemen Broncos perused science fiction novel covers to the tune of “In The Year 2525,” lending its opening far more cleverness than the movie. Bruno was flashy and exciting, to “Nessaja” by Scooter, before there was too much…flashing. House of the Devil invoked the 1980s in a fun, creative way and conveyed the naivety of its protagonist.

AFT Awards: Best Ensemble Cast

This is the twenty-second category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Runners-up:
THE HURT LOCKER
A SERIOUS MAN
BROKEN EMBRACES
THE LAST STATION
INVICTUS

The winner:
Inglourious Basterds tackled so many different threads, and all the actors were equally spectacular, from the serious – Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Denis Menochet – to the absurd – Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, and the rest of the Basterds.

Other nominees:
A Single Man was an exercise in subdued expression of feelings, and all of the actors were remarkably up to the task. Away We Go allowed its protagonists to see a vast array of families, all wonderfully and kookily portrayed by an array of talented actors. Up in the Air took off as a result of its strong, realistic performances. An Education came to life with the help of its plucky heroine and those who enriched her experiences.

AFT Awards: Best Limited Performance – Female

This is the twenty-first category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category. Due to a surplus of nominees this year, I’ve decided to split it into two categories, male and female.

The winner:
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Away We Go) was a whole ball of crazy as a mother with a particular dislike for separate beds and strollers, and by far the most entertaining stop on Burt and Verona’s trips.

Other nominees:
Margaret Colin (The Missing Person) was vibrant and energetic as a duplicitous flirt, and the only refreshing thing about this otherwise abysmal film. Allison Janney (Away We Go) let herself go completely as the ultimate portrait of a woman without any sort of boundaries or filters. Olivia Thirlby (New York, I Love You) was alluring and artful as a girl in a wheelchair who gets the chance to go to a high school prom. Cloris Leachman (New York, I Love You) shined as a woman still deeply in love with her husband after many decades in her film’s most moving segment.

AFT Awards: Best Limited Performance – Male

This is the twentieth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category. Due to a surplus of nominees this year, I’ve decided to split it into two categories, male and female.

The winner:
Denis Menochet (Inglourious Basterds) was the less showy one in the terrifying first scene where his dairy farmer is interrogated about hiding Jews, but his stoic face said so much.

Other nominees:
Eric Bana (Funny People) kept his Australian accent for once in an American film and enhanced this otherwise troubled and unfunny comedy. Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) necessarily had to go in the first few minutes, but his bomb diffuser was just as intense and emotive as his replacement. J.K. Simmons (Up in the Air), a Jason Reitman regular, stood out as the most moving fired employee to talk back about the people who axed him. Christian Camargo (The Hurt Locker) was calm and kind in the face of danger, though perhaps a bit too trusting.

AFT Awards: Best Breakthrough Performance

This is the nineteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
Carey Mulligan (An Education) was effortlessly charming and absolutely marvelous a young girl enchanted by a mystery men and the promise of excitement.

Other nominees:
Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) conveyed how much the tragedy in his bleak world had forced him to grow up at a monstrously accelerated pace. Christian McKay (Me and Orson Welles) stole the show and out-acted his entire cast in a tour de force performance. Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) handled a tough role with true strength and made the character feel unbelievably real. Leonie Benesch (The White Ribbon) brought light and enthusiasm to an otherwise gloomy, colorless village.

AFT Awards: Best Foreign Film

This is the eighteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in alphabetical order. Click here to see previous years of this category. For this category, I consider eligible only films that were released in their native countries within the past year. Therefore, films like “The Band’s Visit” and “The Counterfeiters,” had I seen them earlier, would have been eligible last year.

The winner:
Broken Embraces (Spain) was one of Pedro Almodovar’s strongest films, probing the world of Spanish cinema and capturing the heart of a writer and his muse.

Other nominees:
The White Ribbon (Germany)
A Prophet (France)
Police, Adjective (Romania)
Wild Grass (France)

AFT Awards: Best Animated Feature

This is the seventeenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in alphabetical order. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
9 was an incredible journey of David and Goliath which took on a whole new meaning and fantastic form in its animated presentation.

Other nominees:
Up
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog

AFT Awards: Best Visual Effects

This is the sixteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
Avatar dazzled with the most enticing and visually astonishing vision of a new planet and its fascinatingly conceived and designed creatures.

Other nominees:
District 9
Star Trek
Watchmen
Zombieland

AFT Awards: Best Makeup

This is the fifteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
Zombieland populated its new world with a whole host of undead, deformed menaces for its heroes to destroy.

Other nominees:
District 9
Star Trek
Watchmen
Inglourious Basterds

AFT Awards: Best Sound Editing

This is the fourteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
Watchmen was enhanced by the subtlest sounds of its superheroes coming to life and its world coming apart.

Other nominees:
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
District 9
Fast & Furious

AFT Awards: Best Sound

This is the thirteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
Watchmen wove together a spectacular soundtrack with just the right noise to make this dystopian alternate reality seem real.

Other nominees:
Avatar
Fast & Furious
The Hurt Locker
District 9

AFT Awards: Best Original Song

This is the twelfth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I've ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
The Weary Kind (Crazy Heart) condensed country singer Bad Blake’s life down into four melodic and heartbreaking minutes, and it’s especially moving and powerful when performed in the film by Jeff Bridges.

Other nominees:
I See You (Avatar)
Colorblind (Invictus)
Cinema Italiano (Nine)
Winter (Brothers)

AFT Awards: Best Original Score

This is the eleventh category of the 3rd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I've ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

The winner:
A Single Man (Abel Korzeniowski) made even the most seemingly mundane sequence of shots essential and heightened the dramatic meaning of every moment.

Other nominees:
A Serious Man (Carter Burwell)
Duplicity (James Newton Howard)
Bright Star (Mark Bradshaw)
Coco Before Chanel (Alexandre Desplat)