What Are We Gonna Do With All This Trash?: Movie Reviews! Best Of 2009 Edition

January 08, 2010

Movie Reviews! Best Of 2009 Edition

I ran across this picture today and it reminded me how much I loved Up. It also reminded me how much I adore fat preadolescents of Asian descent.

Up – I’m in the bag for Pixar. Aside from Cars, they haven’t made a bad movie. And I don’t mean, “for kids’ movies, they’re pretty good.” No, as films, as perfectly constructed pieces of art, Pixar is damn near perfect. They have perfected the kind of concise story and character development that immediately engages an audience, and their meticulously crafted and perfectly lit animation brilliantly illustrates how much can be accomplished within a film frame. Up was my favorite movie that came out in 2009. It’s sad and funny and incredible.

Inglorious Basterds – It’s difficult to separate the artist from his art, especially when that artist is so full of himself and is so painful to listen to, but Quentin Tarantino made a super fun movie that plays with history, idolizes both movies and violence, and shoots Hitler multiple times in the fuckin’ face!

Observe and Report – This may be the darkest comedy I have ever seen. Not in terms of content, but in terms of characters. Not one person in this movie is good or likable in any way. Everyone is a dick, everyone will stab you in the back, and even your mom is just a drunk trying to stave off blacking out so she can drink some more. Even with all that, this movie is incredibly funny in a really pessimistic, gloomy way. Made by the dudes who made Foot Fist Way and "Eastbound and Down."

In The Loop – A brutal British comedy about the impotence and incompetence of politicians. Funny and frightening at the same time.

The Hangover – Las Vegas shenanigans, Zach Galifianakis, and this.

Big Fan – I wrote on this earlier. Awesome movie.

I think that’s it. Don’t let anyone tell you that District 9 was the best movie from last year. Anti-apartheid allegories that shoot its own message in the foot with racist content aren't all that great. I’ll see most of the year’s other top films, like that George Clooney thing and the Coens’ new one, sometime by summertime 2011.

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A History Of Trash

Trash, at first, was a pretty cool guy. You know, he’d come over with some beers, and you’d hang out and have a couple of laughs. Maybe Trash brought some weed with him, and you guys tried to sync up Dark Side Of The Moon with The Wizard Of Oz until you remembered you lost your VHS copy of that movie sometime in college and that you fucking hate Pink Floyd. Good times were had, nonetheless.

But then, you don’t know what changed, but Trash started to overstay his welcome. He’d just linger for hours, never taking the hint you wanted him to leave, no matter how many times you yawned obnoxiously or mentioned how early you had to get up tomorrow. Trash just didn’t get it. You were getting older. You didn’t have the time anymore to stay up until 3 a.m. to talk about the Port season of “The Wire” or how much you miss Jawbox. Eventually, you just stopped taking Trash’s phone calls and no longer replied to his group e-mails about sneaking into abandoned mental hospitals.

Last time you saw Trash, he was smoking alone outside a local dive bar, looking down at his decaying and mismatched shoes. You hoped he had been doing well. You hoped he had not been hurt by the disintegration of your friendship. And if he had, you wanted to comfort him. You wanted to tell him that even though people move on with their lives, it doesn’t mean they stop caring. You wanted him to see in your eyes a sincere appreciation for the time you shared, because all the relationships in our lives help make us who we are, and even if you weren’t the best of friends anymore, you wanted him to know that there would always be a piece of Trash in your heart.

But instead, you looked away and crossed the street. You were with your new girlfriend, and you really didn’t want to have to explain Trash to her. She’d never understand.