Now that the year is coming to a close, it's time to pass judgement on my top five movies of 2009!
My top five could have been occupied by any number of movies, Zombieland, District 9, Black Dynamite, Star Trek, Watchmen, Ponyo, Monsters vs Aliens, Fantastic Mr Fox, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs,
Where The Wild Things Are were all films I've enjoyed and were all considered,
but the final top 5 are listed below along with
their trailers.
All in all, a very good year for science fiction and animation - two of my favourite film genres - and at last, with the film Moon, a science fiction film that isn't all about lots of explosions, lots of CGI and a barely strung together plot (looking at you Mr Bay and Mr Emmerich). And when a director decides to step up to the plate and push the boundaries of cinematic technology, by 'eck, doesn't he just do that! James Cameron's Avatar totally redefines the computer generated special effect, as much as George Lucas and Industrial Light & Magic did with the original Star Wars films in the Seventies and Eighties, Peter Jackson and Weta with the Lord of The Rings trilogy, John Lasseter and Pixar with Toy Story, Up and Robert Zemickis with The Polar Express and the recent A Christmas Carol. I think I know where the Oscar for best Visual Effects will be going, although the people behind the excellent District 9 will probably be pushing hard too!
And talking of Oscars, the Oscar for best animated film could be hotly contested with some very good films that could be up for nomination too. Pixar's Up and Henry Selick's Coraline, in my opinion, lead the pack with Dreamworks' Monsters vs Aliens and Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo not far behind, in what was a stellar year for animated films - whether it was computer generated, stop motion or hand drawn.
And so here's my Top 5 films of 2009, in no particular order; Moon
