Movie culture, like the rest of American can society at this late date, is in a serious state of flux. The one-two combo of the recession and the continued fracturing of the pop-cultural landscape have resulted in fewer movies of every size and stripe being made by fewer distributors both big and small (the once-venerable Miramax Films is the latest casualty).
Of the movies that do get made, fewer still actually make it to a mid-level Midwestern city like Cincinnati. Less than half of the Top 40 films mentioned in Indiewire’s annual critics poll had a conventional release — at least one week in a commercial theater — in the Queen City.
Despite a crowded, ever-expanding entertainment marketplace and another parade of lame remakes and creatively bankrupt sequels, box-office grosses (supposedly) went up 8.6 percent in 2009. (That will happen when you keep raising ticket prices.)
Such a number likely means studios will do nothing to reverse their risk-averse ways: Seven of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of 2009 were a sequel, spin-off or remake. Everyone ready for Transformers 3: Revenge of the Stupid in 3-D?
But the multiplex did have its pleasures.
Pixar’s Up, which placed third in the box-office race ($293 million) and ninth in the IndieWire critics poll, and Todd Phillips’ The Hangover, which has grossed $277 million despite a budget of $35 million and no stars, were the big winners on the mainstream front — unique, engaging movies that actually drew a large audience. Expect Jason Reitman’s zeitgeist-synching Up in the Air and James Cameron’s visual feast Avatar, both of which were released in late December, to join them as the year’s most satisfying high-profile movie-going experiences.
Elsewhere at the multiplex, a trio of entertaining, crafty genre movies, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 and Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland, deservedly drew large audiences. Perhaps the year’s biggest box-office surprise, the micro-budgeted horror/thriller rip-off Paranormal Activity, was also the year’s biggest letdown — 20 minutes in, I was hoping its annoying, painfully dull protagonists would die already.
Yet there was no more curious a phenomenon this year than the juggernaut that was The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which, despite being released in late November, has already raked in $274 million and will likely end up second to Michael Bay’s abysmal Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($402 million) as 2009’s biggest box-office draw. No movie in recent memory had audiences eager to revel in the communal experience of the movie house like New Moon, as erotically charged females of all ages geeked out on its hunky, bare-chested lead dudes, both of whom were sensitive and romantic, too.
Team Jacob! Team Edward! Ah, the power of repressed animal attraction. (Bella, the Twilight series’ heroine, is still a virgin.) A cheesy, brooding, family-values vampire blockbuster with a killer Indie Rock soundtrack was the movie event of the year? I suppose anything’s possible in the age of Sarah Palin.
Meanwhile, the home viewing experience has never been better — another reason that the theatrical option no longer dominates the movie business. Armed with crystal-clear images and booming surround-sound, the DVD/Blu-ray/video-on-demand option has made home viewing a reasonable re-creation of cinema’s sensory-enveloping experience. While I’d argue that it’s impossible to replicate the glories of the local movie house — there’s still something singular about watching 40-foot images in the dark with dozens, if not hundreds, of strangers — many find it infinitely more convenient to flop down on the couch and fire up their giant, flat-screen HD TVs.
All in all, it was another intriguing, often frustrating and sometimes thrilling year at the movies. Quentin Tarantino returned with the history-altering, movie-mad smorgasbord Inglourious Basterds. Lars von Trier shook up the Cannes Film Festival with Antichrist, his polarizing take on the horror genre (by way of Ingmar Bergman).
Romania continued its impressive contributions to recent world cinema via Corneliu Porumboiu’s neo-realist gem Police, Adjective. And old-school masters Alain Resnais (Wild Grass) and Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum) gave us films as compelling as new-schoolers Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman) and Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours).
Back on the home front, Wes Anderson found his true calling via the stop-motion fantasia Fantastic Mr. Fox. Spike Jonze finally got his dream project — an elaborate, heartfelt adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are — in front of an audience. And the long underrated Kathryn Bigelow (admit it, you love Point Break) made the best Iraq War war movie yet with The Hurt Locker, an unrelenting pressure cooker that felt both deeply authentic and appropriately unsettling.
I could go on and on (wait, Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control might the most overlooked film of the year!) but we need to save something for next week’s Year in Review issue, in which CityBeat’s film writers will unveil their Top 10 lists.
As the massive success of the Twilight series proves, there’s nothing as satisfying as delayed gratification.
Check out these other takes on the year (and decade) at the movies from
CityBeat ‘s film writers:
• Steven Rosen discusses how “film distribution got a shake-up via video-on-demand.”
• Phil Morehart offers “a discerning list of 2009’s best DVD releases.”
• TT Stern-Enzi puts together a Top 10 list of movies of the decade: “How the decade with no name stacks up in the rearview.”
This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2009.
