I read a lot of magazines. I read anything from Nintendo Power to Details all the way to Maxim and GQ. Each one has a unique set of writers that as time goes by you learn to love. You laugh with your favorites as they tell a funny joke or you scream at the haters who make negative remarks on your favorite video game. Regardless, magazines are just another form of visual entertainment for a generation that cannot seem to sit still.
Movies are also another form of visual entertainment. I am not sure how many films I watch a week but I would venture to say that the number climbs close to ten or so. I am obsessed with how filmmakers tell a story. Part of that is probably because I want to write my own script one day.
In the most recent issue of GQ Magazine Zohar Lazar breaks down the top ten films of the year. Being the movie buff that I am I wanted to share those with you here and give you a brief summary of why I disagree on almost everything he says. So, what follows are the top 10 movies of 2009 according to GQ Magazine and the reason that Zohar Lazar is full of shit.
10. Bad Lieutenant: Port Call of New Orleans
Yeah, I have never heard of this film either. Next film please.
9. A Prophet
This film was decent at best. It is the story of a French Muslim convict who makes his way from bottom of the barrel to the cream of the crop. It has some twists but is packed with that nostalgic European humor that I just can’t stand.
8. The Hangover
This is nothing more than a good weekend in Las Vegas. Some guys get drunk, sample some illegal narcotics, wake up with a bunch of strippers on their floor half naked, and find a baby in their closet. Who has not experienced all of that in Las Vegas at one time or another?
7. Up
This deserves to be a lot higher on this list. (Too bad this is not MY list.) This film was yet another masterpiece by the folks at Pixar and had a story line meant for the parents in the audience. I have to admit that this film made me cry.
6. District 9
Are you really going to make me explain to you why this is quite possibly one of the worst films ever made? The acting was terrible, the story line has been told time and time again, and the visual effects were just mediocre. The film lacked from the moment it started and I almost think it was meant to be a satire film. I mean, was that Murray from Flight of the Concords in the lead role. How can you take a film like this serious?
5. In the Loop
I must admit that I have not seen this film. I was really hoping that when I sat down to look through this list that I had seen almost, if not all of these films. Perhaps I should visit my Netflix queue.
4. A Serious Man
This is a film from the Coen brothers. I have not enjoyed a single film that those two men have made and this one is no different. I am not even sure why I continue to watch films that come out of these two. I just wish they would throw in the towel and stop making films.
3. The Hurt Locker
This was a great film but not one that I would put in the top ten. Political films like this always get a rise out of me anyway. The film, however, based on all that you have heard is in fact not about what you have heard. (Did you follow that?) There is a lot more underlying principles in this film than what is truly on the surface.
2. Up in the Air
Isn’t George Clooney a doctor from the hit TV show ER? Or wait; maybe that is Uncle Jesse from Full House. Regardless, this film, as much as some like to say the best of George Clooney’s career, is not worth your time. To have someone rate this as the second best film of the year sends chills down my spine. We are better than this Hollywood. Prove it!
1. Inglorious Basterds
Note how the word “bastards” is misspelled? That was on purpose. That does not make sense nor does this film. It was an excuse for Quentin Tarantino, who is usually pretty good at making captive movies, to put his two cents on the world wars. I mean, sure Brad Pitt made it tolerable, but the film is too long and wastes too many good one-liners.
In all of this I hope you see that I do not agree with hardly anything that our published movie critique has to say. If there is a reason that I am not being published for speaking the truth I have yet to find it. But I will be damned the day I turn on a Coen film and enjoy it enough to simply have my name on the inside of a magazine.
