Always interesting to see where (or if) Wes' film comes in a yearly top ten. That usually ends up being arbitrary for me because they're probably my most watched films, but anyway, this is what my top would be now.

1. Where The Wild Things Are
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. A Serious Man
4. La Belle Personne
5. Inglourious Basterds
6. The Girlfriend Experience
7. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
8. Tetro
9. Bright Star
10. The Informant!

I ended up making a top twenty-five (and about ten more), and a worst list, over here. There's still four or five movies I haven't seen that I think could break in (including The Squeakual, obviously).

What are your top ten?

Where the Wild Things Are takes the cake for being a priceless artifact of my child hood and transitioning successfully into my adult life.

Up in the Air this films hits you on so many levels. i live in Kansas City where a little bit of the film takes place. the Elliott Smith song gave me chills right from when i recognized those first few chords.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Drag Me to Hell
Inglourious Basterds
Adventureland
Star Trek

this is comprised soley of films i've seen. i still haven't seen many films that came out this year.

I was surprised by seeing Adventureland again. Even though I'd seen Daytrippers, I think I kinda expected a broader comedy because of Superbad but upon re-watch with different expectations, I enjoyed it much more.

So many good movies I missed this year but here are my favorites in the order I saw them.

Milk
Watchmen
Up
Star Trek
A serious Man
Where the Wild Things Are
The Informant
Inglorious Basterds
Hurt Locker
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Up in the Air

Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Jason Reitman, Spike Jonze - what a great year for these guys.

Here's to 2010!

1. Inglourious Basterds
2. The Road
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. Pirate Radio
5. Star Trek
6. WTWTA

I really haven't seen much else in 2009, but in the last couple of weeks I've seen both Up in the Air and Avatar. The former definitely one of my favorite movie-going experiences of all time. I'm convinced Jason Reitman and I are the same person, only he's talented and brave.

But even though I liked Up in the Air better on just about every level, and haven't seen most other films this year, I can't help but thing Avatar deserves to be called the year's best film. Cinema will not be the same, and that counts for a lot.

As far as cinematic language, Avatar isn't doing anything that Birth of a Nation didn't do in 1915. It's 3-D that's not gimmicky, but the movie is going to live as a flat movie too, and seeing it flat you'll just be seeing a pretty good action-adventure film. Even seeing it in 3-D that's what you're seeing. Cinema will be the same.

Avatar was terrible in my opinion. it's just a big expensive mesh of Dances with Wolves, Pocohantas and Delgo.

The Fanboy effect is destroying cinema

I don't disagree. I just didn't care.

In terms of film language, neither did Star Wars, Loraxaeon. Not every movie since is a big budget special effects spectacular, but the advancements -- and more importantly, the public's acceptance (which hasn't happened with 3D until Avatar) -- did change cinema. We'll still get flat movies, sure. But that doesn't mean this isn't a game-changer. You're right -- nothing will change in how my old film theory professor would teach his class (and note, I'm not deriding the value of film theory), but that's not what I meant by "cinema won't be the same."

I get that a lot of people who hadn't seen 3D movies are seeing them now and they'll probably be more open in the future to seeing 3D movies, but it still doesn't seem very significant. Maybe I'm wrong though, frankly I'd prefer stick with flat movie. One of the things that bugged me about Avatar was how much the 3D eroded the frame. It seemed to fudge where the frame was, and since they're actually shooting two images, it actually does completely distort the idea of the frame. If cinema is, as Scorsese says, a matter of whats in the frame and what's not, then 3D seems to be gently bulldozing that notion.