3 movies i want to recommend
Here are the 3 best movies of 2009 that got our adrenaline pumping and the dynamite exploding. We love good movies and have seen hundreds in our time.
- A Serious Man. The Coen bothers are back in fine form (which, depending on your take on ‘Burn After Reading,’ they make never have left) in what many are calling their most personal film to date with this comedic drama about a Minnesota college professor’s (Michael Stuhlbarg) life quickly coming to pieces. A Serious Man movie is rich with the duo’s signature dark humor, and while not all of it made perfect sense, we had fun trying to figure it out, anyway.
- 500 Days of Summer. Tired of the same-old, run-o’-the-mill romantic comedies? Here’s the antidote — a film so solid it feels strange to group in that dubious genre. Told out of order with a kickass soundtrack, whimsical flourishes (including a fantasy sequence involving Hall & Oates), and stellar turns by leads/part-time lovers Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, 500 Days of Summer full movie is what so few love stories are these days: lovely.
- Up in the Air. With three feature films now under his belt – ‘Thank You for Smoking,’ ‘Juno’ and now this instant classic — is there any doubt that 32-year-old Jason Reitman is one of Hollywood’s best directors? George Clooney somehow makes a corporate downsizer (topical!) lovable and magnetic in a superb lead turn (his best yet), while Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga kill as the distinctly powerful women who change his life. Download Up in the Air is a near-perfect film that is at times bitingly funny, at other times heartrendingly sad — sort of like life, come to think of it.