Until Colin Firth popped up at year's end in Tom Ford's A Single Man, it looked as if the gay face of American cinema in the year after Milk would be—ugh!—Brüno.
Sacha Baron Cohen's travesty wasn't the only queer presence on screen. There were real gays in Valentino: The Last Emperor, The September Issue and Every Little Step, not to mention the ones Kirby Dick outed in Outrage.
There were gay characters played by Firth and Matthew Goode ( and maybe Nicholas Hoult ) in A Single Man, James Brolin in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, Demetri Martin in Taking Woodstock ( with Liev Schreiber as a trans individual ) , Andy Samberg in I Love You, Man, Robert Pattinson and Javier Beltrán in Little Ashes ( although one of them turns straight ) , Mark Rendall in My One and Only, Pavel Liska in The Country Teacher, Zach Sanchez in World's Greatest Dad and maybe ( mustn't spoil the ending ) Jack T. Carpenter in I Love You, Beth Cooper.
The "bromance" trend continued unabated, carried to hetero extremes in Humpday. It's hard to tell what Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are supposed to be in Sherlock Holmes, even though each has a female love interest. Likewise there was definite chemistry between Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro in Red Cliff. Cultural differences can't explain away the scene where they make beautiful music together after their first meeting.
Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans had a "Hasbromance" in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
Lesbians were less visible ( what else is new? ) , except for the nice statement made by Paula Patton in Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, directed by out Lee Daniels; Sharon Gless in Hannah Free, Katherine Parkinson in Pirate Radio, Paige Turco and Sherry Stringfield in The Stepfather and maybe ( mustn't spoil the ending ) Drew Barrymore and Katherine Moennig in Everybody's Fine.
There was also the usual complement of gay secretaries and best friends, female couples making out in party scenes; plus a couple of bisexuals in "The Informers."
While Americans reportedly had less money to spend in 2009 than any year since 1821, we spent more of it at the movies than ever before. December wasn't half over when the total boxoffice for the year passed $9.7 billion, setting a new record.
This obviously left us less money for food, yet there was no reported drop in our national obesity level.
I'm glad I write about movies so I don't have to analyze this data. Analyzing the movies is a tough enough gig. I recently spent a frustrating evening rewatching a few minutes each of several of my 2009 favorites, refreshing my memory on their virtues so I could put a "best" list in some sort of order.
It's not easy to compare animated apples with live-action oranges, not to mention computer-generated grapes. How does a lavish spectacle match up against a gritty drama? A comedy is funny but is it Art? Should that matter? Is photographing true events more praiseworthy than recreating them? And if they want their film appreciated in America, should we make them speak English?
All this to ponder at the end of a stressful week in which distributors that made us wait until the last minute to see their films made us wait an extra hour in one case for the print to arrive, an extra quarter-hour in another while everyone entering the theater was searched for recording devices.
Security is far more important to the studios than quality these days. Paranormal Activity proved that audiences will still pay to see anything. Of course there will be a sequel, because seven of the year's ten highest grossers ( at presstime—one or two may be surpassed by the end of the year ) are sequels or, in the case of Star Trek, a franchise reboot. These figures do not encourage Hollywood to take chances on new material.
Although I was able to show some love for performances I saw later, the latest I previewed any of the films that made my Top Ten was Nov. 17. Avatar might have fared better if it hadn't been screened in the same 72-hour period as Sherlock Holmes, Broken Embraces, Nine, A Single Man and The Maid; but who knows?
If the box-office total ends up over $9.9 billion, as appears likely, it will be a fitting end to The Year of the Nines, which saw Nine, 9, $9.99, District 9, Cloud 9, One Nine Nine Four and, in some festivals at least, The Nine Lives of Marion Barry, Nine Dead, The Back Nine and 9/9/09.
Anyway, here are my choices for the best of a pretty good year. I didn't intentionally exclude franchises, but only the new Star Trek made it into the Top Twenty. I'm sure the others would rather have their share of $9.7 billion ( and counting ) than my approval.
A few titles in the various lists haven't arrived here yet or never will. Watch for them on DVD or the various forms of new media that the unions are still fighting for a piece of. Everyone needs their stimulus.
Top 10:
1. Up
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. The Hurt Locker
4. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
5. Goodbye Solo
6. Summer Hours ( L'heure d'été )
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. A Serious Man
9. District 9
10. Every Little Step
Honorable mention ( listed alphabetically ) :
—Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
—An Education
— ( 500 ) Days of Summer
—Invictus
—Red Cliff
—Star Trek
—State of Play
—Taking Woodstock
—Up in the Air
—Zombieland
Best Foreign-Language Film: Summer Hours ( L'heure d'été )
Runners-up: Red Cliff, Everlasting Moments
Best Documentary Feature: Every Little Step
Runners-up: Anvil! The Story of Anvil, The Cove
Best Animated Film: Up
Runners-up: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Runners-up: Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire; John Woo, Red Cliff
Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia
Runners-up: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side; Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Best Actor: George Clooney, Up in the Air
Runners-up: Morgan Freeman, Invictus; Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Runners-up: Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air; Julianne Moore, A Single Man
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher McKay, Me and Orson Welles
Runners-up: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds; Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Runners-up: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, ( 500 ) Days of Summer; Bob Peterson & Pete Docter, Up
Best Adapted Screenplay: Nick Hornby, An Education
Runners-up: Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire; Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
Breakout Actor: Christopher McKay, Me and Orson Welles
Runners-up: Souléymane Sy Savané, Goodbye Solo; Ben Foster, The Messenger
Breakout Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education
Runners-up: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire; Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Best Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker
Runners-up: Lu Yue & Zhang Li, Red Cliff; Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds
Comedies You Saw: The Hangover, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Comedies You Should Have Seen: Extract, Black Dynamite, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Not to Be Confused With...:
The Informant!/The Informers, A Single Man/A Serious Man, Push/Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire ( originally titled Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire )
Best. Fall. Ever: George Clooney ( Up in the Air, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Fantastic Mr. Fox )
Highs and Lows: Sandra Bullock: The Blind Side, The Proposal/All about Steve
Runner-up: Woody Harrelson: The Messenger, Zombieland/2012, Management
Best and Worst Performance in One: Nicolas Cage, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Transformer: Matt Damon, adding 30 pounds for The Informant, then turning it into muscle for Invictus
Runner-up: Taylor Lautner, bulking up for The Twilight Saga: New Moon
New Sci-Fi Queen: Zoe Saldana, Avatar and Star Trek
Showbiz Nostalgia: The Great Buck Howard, Me and Orson Welles, Every Little Step, Is Anybody There?
Improved Sequel: Angels & Demons
Unimproved Sequels: The Pink Panther 2, Halloween II, Terminator: Salvation, The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Lightning Strikes Once: Sacha Baron Cohen, Brüno
Remake This!: The Stepfather, Fame, The Last House on the Left, Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine
Bottom 10:
1. Antichrist
2. Paranormal Activity
3. All about Steve
4. Chandni Chowk to China
5. Observe and Report
6. Outlander
7. Halloween II
8. Free Style
9. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
10. Post Grad
Dishonorable mention ( listed alphabetically ) :
—Chéri
—Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
—The Fourth Kind
—G-Force
—The Informers
—Knowing
—Little Ashes
—Push
—Two Lovers
—Whiteout
Steve Warren is in the movie Scarce ( www.myspace.com/scarcemovie ) , available from Netflix, Blockbuster, Movie Gallery, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, TLA Video and other fine outlets.
