Best of 2009

It’s been too long since I’ve sent out one of these. I nearly stopped writing movie reviews this year – just ran out of steam. But I didn’t stop viewing or ranking; so hopefully this list is still appreciated by some of you.

Assuming that the Oscar nominations (coming out in 2 weeks) will get it all wrong, and watching the Globes get at least some things right, and along the lines of the format of AFI, I'm listing my choices for the Oscar top categories and the Best of TV for 2009.
The 2009 movies I DID see are:

• 2012
• 500 Days of Summer
• Adventureland
• Armored
• Avatar
• Battlestar Galactica: Caprica
• Blind Side, The
• Box, The
• Brothers Bloom, The
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
• Cold Souls
• District 9
• Drag Me to Hell
• Duplicity
• Hangover, The
• Hurt Locker, The
• I Love You, Man
• Informant!, The
• Inglourious Basterds
• International, The
• Invictus
• Knowing
• Lovely Bones, The
• Men Who Stare at Goats, The
• Michael Jackson: This Is It
• Moon
• Paranormal Activity
• Perfect Getaway, A
• Precious
• Proposal, The
• Public Enemies
• Road, The
• Saw VI
• Sherlock Holmes
• Star TrekState of Play
• Stepfather, The
• Sunshine Cleaning
• Taken
• Taking of Pelham 123, The
• Up
• Up in the Air
• Watchmen
• Where the Wild Things Are
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Zombieland

There are very few movies from 2009 that I missed and want to see. So the following movies could be added at a later time:

• Crank 2: High Voltage
• Crazy Heart
• Extract
• Invention of Lying, The
• Julie & Julia
• Messenger, The
• Single Man, A
• Transiberian
• Whip It

Movies:

Top Movies of the year (in order):

1. Inglourious Basterds
2. 500 Days of Summer
3. Avatar
4. Moon
5. Precious
6. The Brothers Bloom
7. Sherlock Holmes
8. The Men Who Stare At Goats
9. Up in the Air
10. Sunshine Cleaning
11. The Blind Side
12. Duplicity
13. The Hangover
14. Taken
15. The Proposal

Best Actor:

1. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer)
3. Sam Rockwell (Moon)
4. Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds)
5. Matt Damon (The Informant!)
6. Robert Downey, Jr. (Sherlock Holmes)
7. Viggo Mortensen (The Road)
8. Mark Ruffalo (The Brothers Bloom)
9. Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
10. Clive Owen (Duplicity)
11. Russell Crowe (State of Play)
12. Liam Neeson (Taken)
13. Paul Giamatti (Cold Souls)
14. Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal)

Best Actress:

1. Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
2. Rachel Weisz (The Brothers Bloom)
3. Amy Adams (Sunshine Cleaning)
4. Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer)
5. Julia Roberts (Duplicity)

(Admittedly, I don’t watch many movies with female leads)

Best Director:

1. Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
2. James Cameron (Avatar)
3. Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
4. Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom)
5. Steven Soderbergh (The Informant!)
6. Lee Daniels (Precious)
7. Grant Heslov (The Men Who Stare at Goats)
8. J.J. Abrams (Star Trek)
9. Todd Phillips (The Hangover)
10. Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes)

Best Supporting Actor:

1. Christophe Waltz (Inglourious Basterds – the clear winner)
2. Ed Helms (The Hangover)
3. Zachary Quinto (Star Trek)
4. Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
5. Tim McGraw (The Blind Side)
6. Scott Bakula (The Informant!)
7. Jeff Bridges (The Men Who Stare at Goats)
8. Adam Arkin (Sunshine Cleaning)
9. Timothy Olyphant (A Perfect Getaway)
10. Matt Damon (Invictus)
11. Oliver Platt (2012)

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Monique (Precious – the clear winner)
2. Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)
3. Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds)
4. Paula Patton (Precious)
5. Melanie Lynskey (The Informant!)
6. Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)
7. Mariah Carey (Precious)
8. Betty White (The Proposal)
9. Emily Blunt (Sunshine Cleaning)
10. Sigourney Weaver (Avatar)

Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted):

1. 500 Days of Summer
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. The Hangover
4. The Brothers Bloom
5. Precious
6. The Men Who Stare at Goats
7. Moon
8. Up in the Air
9. Sunshine Cleaning
10. The Informant!
11. The Road
12. The Hurt Locker

Best Cinematography:

1. Avatar
2. Up in the Air
3. The Road
4. The Hurt Locker
5. A Perfect Getaway
6. Sherlock Holmes
7. The Blind Side
8. The International
9. The Lovely Bones
10. Star Trek
11. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
12. Invictus

And the Razzie awards (so many worthy [unworthy] contenders):

Worst movie of the year:

1. The Lovely Bones (just awful)
2. The Box (just awful)
3. Paranormal Activity (just awful)
4. Drag Me to Hell
5. Armored
6. Michael Jackson: This Is It
7. Knowing
8. 2012
9. Saw VI
10. Watchmen

Worst Director of the year:

1. Peter Jackson (The Lovely Bones)
2. Zack Snyder (Watchmen –anyone who thinks we wanted to see a huge blue penis as a primary character on screen deserves to be high on this list)
3. Clint Eastwood (Invictus – should’ve been a much better movie)
4. Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker – she’s the reason the movie isn’t higher on my list)
5. Richard Kelly (The Box)

Worst Actor of the year:

1. Nicolas Cage (Knowing – if he did a movie, he will probably top this list)
2. Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland)
3. Michael Jackson (Michael Jackson: This Is It)
4. Micah Sloat (Paranormal Activity)
5. Laurence Fishburne (Armored)

Worst Actress of the year:

1. Katie Featherston (Paranormal Activity)
2. Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones)
3. Kristen Stewart (Adventureland)
4. Cameron Diaz (The Box)
5. Alison Lohman (Drag Me to Hell)

Worst Supporting Actor of the year:

1. Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland)
2. Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road)
3. Jason Segel (I Love You, Man)

Worst Supporting Actress of the year:

1. Maggie Grace (Taken)
2. Malin Akerman (Watchmen)

Worst Screenplay of the year:

1. The Lovely Bones
2. The Box
3. Armored
4. Knowing
5. Where the Wild Things Are

Revisited Movies
Best Movies from 2004, Revisited 5 Years Later

1. Team America: World Police
2. Passion of the Christ
3. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
4. Spanglish
5. Million Dollar Baby
6. Finding Neverland
7. Manchurian Candidate
8. The Bourne Supremacy
9. The Machinist
10. Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle

Best Movies from 1999, Revisited 10 Years Later

1. Mumford (of course)
2. Office Space
3. The Insider
4. Arlington Road
5. Notting Hill
6. The Sixth Sense
7. Drop Dead Gorgeous
8. Fight Club
9. Mystery, Alaska
10. Spring Forward

Best Movies from 1989, Revisited 20 Years Later

1. The Fabulous Baker Boys
2. Batman
3. Glory
4. Lethal Weapon 2
5. Say Anything
6. Dead Calm
7. Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade
8. When Harry Met Sally…
9. Heathers
10. Steel Magnolias

Best Movies from 1979, Revisited 30 Years Later

1. Being There
2. Kramer vs. Kramer
3. Alien
4. The Champ
5. The China Syndrome
6. Apocalypse Now
7. Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Best Movies from 1969, Revisited 40 Years Later

1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
2. The Wild Bunch
3. Midnight Cowboy
4. Easy Rider

Best Movies from 1959, Revisited 50 Years Later

1. Ben-Hur
2. North by Northwest
   

Television (a little awkward halfway through the season):

Best Drama:

1. Dexter
2. L O S T
3. 24
4. The Good Wife
5. Burn Notice
6. Mad Men
7. FlashForward
8. The Mentalist
9. Monk
10. CSI: Miami
11. V
12. Castle
13. CSI
14. Leverage
15. Grey’s Anatomy

Best Comedy:

1. The Big Bang Theory
2. Glee
3. Cougar Town
4. The Office
5. How I Met Your Mother
6. 30 Rock
7. Better Off Ted
8. The Middle
9. Psych
10. My Boys
11. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Best Actor:

1. Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
2. Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)
3. Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice)
4. Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
5. Simon Baker (The Mentalist)
6. Terry O’Quinn (L O S T)
7. Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
8. James Roday (Psych)
9. Tony Shaloub (Monk)
10. Kiefer Sutherland (24)
11. Steve Carrell (The Office)

Best Actress:

1. Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
2. Lea Michele (Glee)
3. Cherry Jones (24)
4. January Jones (Mad Men)
5. Courteney Cox (Cougar Town)
6. Evangeline Lilly (L O S T)
7. Emily Procter (CSI: Miami)
8. Tina Fey (30 Rock)
9. Sonya Walger (FlashForward)

Best Supporting Actor:

1. John Lithgow (Dexter)
2. Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother)
3. Tracy Morgan (30 Rock)
4. Michael Emerson (L O S T)
5. Atticus Shaffer (The Middle)
6. John Slattery (Mad Men)
7. John Krasinski (The Office)
8. Jack McBrayer (30 Rock)
9. Jorge Garcia (L O S T)
10. Josh Hopkins (Cougar Town)

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Jane Lynch (Glee)
2. Elizabeth Mitchell (L O S T)
3. Yunjin Kim (L O S T)
4. Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)
5. Annie Wersching (24)
6. Christina Hendricks (Mad Men)
7. Beth Riesgraf (Leverage)
8. Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Mother)
9. Eden Sher (The Middle)
10. Gina Bellman (Leverage)
11. Jane Krakowski (30 Rock)
12. Morena Baccarin (V)
13. Jayma Mays (Glee)
14. Jenna Fischer (The Office)

Best Reality Series:

1. Survivor
2. Wipeout