Every Film I Saw Theatrically In 2009, Ranked In Preferential Order

Every Film I Saw Theatrically In 2009, Ranked In Preferential Order
Words Written by Dirk Calloway

1. Avatar (3D)
2. Up (3D)
3. Where the Wild Things Are
   
4. Fantastic Mr. Fox
   
5. Watchmen
   
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
7. The Hangover
8. District 9
9. JCVD
10. Ponyo
11. State of Play
12. Synecdoche, New York
13. Defiance
14. An Education
15. Inglourious Basterds
16. Separation City
17. Star Trek
18. The Secret Life of Bees
19. 2012
20. Zombieland
21. (500) Days of Summer
22. Public Enemies
23. Sherlock Holmes
24. Away We Go
25. A Serious Man
26. Duplicity
27. This Is It
28. Hotel for Dogs
29. RiP: A Remix Manifesto
30. Surrogates
31. Taking Woodstock
32. Terminator Salvation
33. The Spirit
34. G.I. JOE: The Rise Of Cobra
35. Confessions of a Shopaholic
36. Fast & Furious
37. Transporter 3
38. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
39. 12 Rounds
40. Bruno
41. Under the Mountain
42. Big Stan
43. I Love You, Beth Cooper
44. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
45. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
46. Seven Pounds

I saw 46 films in a cinema this year. Because I saw a few twice - Watchmen, Star Trek, District 9, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - I came very close to seeing one film per week, throughout 2009. Combine that total with the amount I saw on DVD and it's probable that I spent nearly an extra 300 hours of my life watching films. 

There are a few conspicuous absences: Moon, Let The Right One In and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I'm fairly certain the latter is pants, so I didn't bother to endorse it with my $16. I'd have watched the other two if they'd been screened in more than one boutique cinema in my home-town. That theatre decided to screen them at either inconveniently late times, or during work-hours. Their decision was no doubt based on the fact that staunch genre fans would make the effort, regardless of timings. Well, I say, screw 'em! If a film's good, promote the hell out of it, and schedule it for a time when the largest possible audience can see it.

We've a real problem on our hands with the silo'd world of boutique theatres. They've misguidedly pigeon-holed their audience as mid-40s women who drag their husbands / friends to anything that has subtitles or a small budget or what I have begun to call a "mid-concept" plot. The same demographic has misguidedly decided that it won't be caught dead at a multiplex in a mall, regardless of the quality of films screening there. The two groups are mutually reinforcing themselves into an endless loop of movies that feature any of the below:

• a bumbling assassin
• women who must band together doing something folksy (cooking and gardening, usually) to shake off their midlife blues
• a Westerner interacting with "world culture" and learning its many pleasured joys
• a soundtrack that regularly lapses into accordion playing, regardless of the film's nationality
• a broken family unit that lives together in a grim decorated apartment block, before an outside arrives and adds colour to their world... then the outside leaves again
• anti-American / anti-globalisation sentiments that uphold the conservative rural way of life as the only virtuous existence
• two or three dancing scenes, no matter how needless their inclusion be
• a running time that is no shorter than 110 minutes
• a period setting of the mid-90s or late-80s, without any real need for it
• a dog that acts as comic relief

Now I don't want you to think that I'm bashing on the "arthouse scene," but I need to remind you that 2009 was an amazing year for multiplex fare. Directors like JJ Abrams, James Cameron and Spike Jonze injected real smarts into their big budget extravaganzas. Directors like Zac Snyder and David Fincher poured their hearts into their projects and somehow made them into works of digital art (even if Watchmen and Benjamin Button were an hour too long for most people's tastes).

This was the year where, hopefully, everyone saw at least one 3D movie. If you haven't yet, book a ticket for Avatar. I hear there might be a session that's not sold out, um, sometime next week.

One small gripe: The Hurt Locker never made it to my town. I've seen a copy, though I won't repeat the methods I employed to do so. Rest assured, I am so fond of that film that if it had been screened nearby, Avatar's position on this list would be threatened.

At the other end of the spectrum, Will Smith might be tempted to go into hiding after the disastrous three-peat of I Am Legend, Hancock and Seven Pounds. Here's hoping that 2010 is a better year for The Fresh Prince.