The kindly souls at SF Signal are hosting my third annual Alternative Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.
It is effectively a short-list of some of the best genre films of 2009 as well as a discussion of some of the not particularly good genre films from 2009 that managed to make their way onto the Hugo shortlist. For some deeper thinking on a few of the films mentioned in the piece, please take a look at :
Back at the beginning of July I posted the first half of my film log for the year 2009. In the first six months of 2009 I watched 103 films. In the second half I have done significantly better.
Since the first of July I watched 158 films giving me a total for the year of 261 films. Which is quite a lot more than the 200 films I had originally intended to watch.
As with the first half of the film log, I have linked to reviews of the films I wrote at greater length about.
2009 has been, by my estimation, an excellent year in film. In the wake of the recession, many people are moaning about the collapse of mid-range budgets (leaving only Avatar and Paranormal Activity). This may well prove to be true but I suspect that the UK will not feel the cinematic bite of the recession until this year as we tend to be months behind the pace when it comes to releasing smaller films. This time slippage also means that some of my favourite films of 2009 were in fact made in 2008 or even 2007.
In no particular order…
I have decided to split my favourite films into two distinct groups. The first group is a list of the films that I have particularly enjoyed this year but which were not made or released this year. It is a longer list than the other and because it is more a reflection of what I have seen than anything else, it will have a touch less impact. However, for those interested, here are some of my favourite films of the year.
As I’ve expanded my film watching habits, I have frequently taken chances and moved outside of the kind of film that I might have expected to like (more on this when I put up my best of 2009 post!). Sometimes, the results were disastrous. Other times, I was nonplussed but looked into the director and found good things. But occasionally, I have been pleasantly surprised. I have gone into films expecting the worst and come out not only impressed me but also changed me. This is a list of those films.
While I have seen a lot of films this year, I have been relatively lucky as far as avoiding stinkers is concerned. Following disastrous trips to the cinema to see films like Jumper and Quantum of Solace on the grounds that I had a card that allowed me to get in for free, I have resisted seeing rubbish. The only exception being District 9, the film that effectively cured me of action films for good.
However, while I have avoided seeing terrible films, I have been lured to the cinema with high hopes only to see those hopes brutally crushed by terrible film-making. These are my five most disappointing films of the year.
Over the past couple of months I have been making the most of the improved median ambient temperature and doing quite a bit of walking. Where before I might have taken the bus or the tube, I now walk. This left me with something of an entertainment shortfall as while it is easy to read a book on public transport, it is much harder to do so whilst walking. In fact, reading a book whilst walking through London is very much like eating a roast dinner whilst sitting on a public lavatory : A combination of activities that is neither intuitive nor particularly healthy. However, One thing that all of this walking has allowed me to do is increase the number of podcasts I listen to on a regular basis and I thought I might share some of my favourites in order to a) encourage people to listen to them and b) maybe illicit a few suggestions from the people who read this blog.
Back in December, I decided to keep a running tally of how many new films I managed to watch in a year. Initially, this little experiment was a simple list of titles bu, before long, I started also noting down brief opinions of the films. I found that not only did this justify the amount of time I spent watching films, but it also served as a handy mnemonic device should I return to write about a film later on.
So, for your amusement and delectation, here are the films I have managed to watch in the first half of 2009. I was hoping to see 200 new films this year and evidently I am on course to make it :
