2009 will be marked as the year of BAD to WORSE releases and one that would alter the way I look at films and made me adjust my approach to the appreciation of this art form.
The award season has officially kicked-off with the recent Spirit Award Nominations and the National Board of Review, and between them, only a handful of films are worth mentioning, while many others wouldn’t even have a chance in any other year. Granted there are many films to choose from–as in the case of the upcoming Golden Globe nominations this coming Tuesday–but many of them unfortunately lack substance and aim at mainstream audiences who were simply looking for escapist entertainment.
On December 15th, the Hollywood Foreign Press will narrow down this year’s nominations from over 170 films in contention, and with so many categories they may have trouble filling in the slots due to lack of worthy films, performances and such. But then again, it’s the Golden Globes and they have been known for having a much broader appeal to films of all kinds than it’s older brother; OSCAR!
Come Oscar nomination time, academy members may find themselves in a pickle as well, as they will have to broaden their spectrum; since beginning this year there will be no 5 Best Picture nominees, but rather 10. This will certainly prove to be very difficult for those more intellectual members who seek good quality films. It’s the second week in December and I can only come up with a quite small number of films worth considering and time is running out for Academy Award consideration–December 31st. The truth of the matter is that there are only less than half a dozen films that I am interested in viewing before the year’s end, and that I think will perhaps be worth my while. The quality of films have deteriorated immensely over the years and it’s a disappointing truth that I have been reluctant to accept. Since I was 15, I have been a avid film fan and have always looked forward to going to the movies, but 2009 unfortunately marks the year that my outlook has finally met reality.
As a result, I have decided to broaden my spectrum by focusing on various forms of filmmaking independently, as opposed to a sum of it’s parts masterpiece, as has been tradition. Some of these forms are: acting, cinematography, art direction, story, etc. And by doing that I have managed to come up with a preliminary list of films that are good, but by no means brilliant or masterpieces.
Here are some of my favorite films this year to exemplify how few these are–in random order and please note that 3 of them are foreign:
Inglourious Basterds
Tokyo Sonata
Hurt Locker
Antichrist
Mancora
Looking forward to see:
Nine
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Lovely Bones
A Single Man
STAY TUNED FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF FILMS AND ARTISTS THAT MADE THE CUT IN MY YEARLY MOTION PICTURE AWARDS…
In the meantime, I make a plea to HOLLYWOOD to get out of this bad road it’s taken over the last few years and become more CREATIVE AND COME OUT WITH MORE QUALITY FILMS, AS IT WAS ONCE THE NORM!!!
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