2009 Movie Picks

I’ve been fortunate to set aside time this year to get out and see many of this summer’s movies.

Here are my top movies of 2009 so far:

1. Star Trek: The “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise. OMG this was a great movie. Star Trek was a roller coaster ride start to finish and was a great way to reinvigorate the franchise. It follows on several other successful “reboots” including The Dark Knight from 2008, and I’d include the Spiderman trilogy I think. (Star Trek is ranked #100 on the IMDB Top 250 list.)
2. Up: What can I say, Pixar hits another home run. I was a little skeptical at first when I saw the trailers, but now that I’ve seen the movie, Up is clearly one of my top films for the year. Up is in the vein of The Incredibles, a movie for adults that kids will enjoy. This is vintage Pixar material. (Up is ranked #24 on the IMDB Top 250 list.)
3. Public Enemies: I think I’d best describe Public Enemies as an “old-fashioned” movie. Johnny Depp’s acting is great (though universally every woman I’ve spoken to about the movie would go see the movie just to watch Depp). The story plays out like a movie from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I have slightly mixed feelings about the sixth movie in the series. I finished re-reading the book about a week before I saw the movie, and unfortunately I kept trying to compare the book to the movie instead of enjoying the movie for what it was. It’s still a pretty good movie.

Keep reading to see what other movies I’ve seen this year.

I’ve also seen these films. I was pleasantly surprised with Fast & Furious (I really liked the first movie, The Fast and the Furious, and was disappointed by the two in between.) Next is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers was probably supposed to be the blockbuster of the summer. Problem is, it just wasn’t that good. I’ve ranked it next on the strength of Megan Fox and the fact that I’ll probably watch it again as an “escape” movie. After that I’d rank The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Angels & Demons and Taken about the same. My problem with Angels and Demons is that they didn’t spend enough money on the CGI. I’ve been to Rome, the Vatican and St. Peter’s Square, most of the shots just looked fake :(. Another hope for the blockbuster, fails to deliver. Finally on the list is X-Men Origins Wolverine. This X-Men was also a disappointment, it sort of felt like a movie to just make money, and never was a likely contender. X-Men it had the unfortunate timing to be released after Star Trek (and I also watched it after Star Trek). The story just couldn’t hold up in comparison.

I did miss a couple movies this year including Watchmen and Terminator: Salvation. I have high hopes for Watchmen which releases on DVD soon. Unfortunately, I heard mixed reviews about Terminator, another contender for the summer blockbuster, oh well.