Movies
I can only remember six movies that I saw in the theater this year. However, four of them were really good and two just blew away my expectations. The others were all pretty good, but nothing to write home about.
Avatar:
Avatar should rank as the absolute, totally best movie of the year. I thought that the 3D effects would be cheesy. However, they created a feeling of being inside a lush, visually stunning world. The story did what science fiction does best, which is to use a futuristic setting to explore themes which apply today.
Avatar is about a conflict on a distant moon between a greedy corporation who wants to exploit the planets resources and the Na'vi, giant blue bipeds who worship a nature goddess. Inbetween these two forces are the scientists who develop the avatars. Avatars are genetically created versions of the Na'vi but controlled by a human "driver." The avatars are meant to be a link between the Na'vi and the humans. Of course, the project works too well and the Avatar drivers end up siding with the Na'vi against the evil corporation and its soldiers. Jake Sully is the most conflicted character of all. He is a marine who lost his legs who is asked to join the program after his scientist brother is killed. Because he is a genetic match for his brother, he can drive his brother's avatar. However, because he is a marine, he is viewed with suspicion by the scientists and is pressured by the soldiers to infiltrate the scientists' operation.
The theme of human exploitation of a native populace is one which goes back as far as the Spanish conquest of the New World and is as contemporary as Freeport McMoran's activities in Indonesia. The corporate mercenaries could just as well have been named Blackwater (or the evil corporation from the Alien movies). The theme of scientists who want to understand the natives has its real world counterpart in the battle for the hearts and minds of the locals in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The genius of this movie is that it draws the viewer into its world regardless of political or religious persuasions. I am conservative and Christian. The movie's bent is definitely liberal and pantheistic. However, the film transcends these categories to raise issues of what it means to be human and basic right vs. wrong.
The movie has several great scenes. The first time that Jake awakens his avatar, he is able to have legs through his surrogate body. Ignoring the doctors' warnings to take it slow, he leaps off the table and sprints around the compound.
Another great scene is when the marine gunships attack the Na'vi home, a giant tree and one of helicopter gunships piloted by Michelle Rodriquez turns on the Colonel's ships and says "oops, did I do that?" or something like that.
Zombieland:
Zombieland surpasses Sean of the Dead to rank as best Zombie comedy in history. In a case of mad cow disease gone wild, most of America has been turned into flesh-eating zombies.
"Columbus" (Jesse Eisenberg) is a neurotic college student from Austin who longs to get close enough to a girl to brush the hair from her ear. He almost gets the chance when a cute girl seeks refuge in his apartment. However, he has to kill her (with the top of a toilet tank, I think) when she turns into a zombie the next day. He develops a long list of rules for surviving in Zombieland, such as cardio (fatties get eaten first) and double tap (always make sure to shoot a zombie twice in the head).
Columbus teams up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelsen) in an attempt to survive. While Tallahassee knows a lot about fighting zombies, that doesn't protect him from two sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) who steal their vehicle and guns. Of course, the quartet gets back together again in pursuit of survival. The sisters get the idea that they will be safe if they can only get to Pacific Playland and end up ditching the guys. Pacific Playland turns into a zombie magnet, the guys come to the rescue and Columbus gets his first kiss.
Unlike more serious zombie movies, such as 28 Days Later, this movie is much more tongue in cheek. While other people are gruesomelly devoured, our heroes learn how to survive in Zombieland. There is also a degree of sweet innocence here. There is something sad about a guy whose greatest hope is to get close enough to a girl to brush the hair from her ear and for whom getting a chaste kiss is a lifetime accomplishment. There is also something poignant about two grifter girls who are cold-hearted enough to steal from guys who offered to help them, but believe that an amusement park will be a place of refuge.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
I immensely enjoyed the Harry Potter books, especially as they became darker and more desperate. As a result, it is easy to be disappointed by the films. However, this one did not disappoint. The filmmaker crafted a tale from the book which could stand on its own and was not afraid to deviate from the original. You just can't make a watchable movie out of an 800 page book and they didn't try. This was also one of those rareities, a movie that you could take the whole family to.
Grand Torino:
This was the first movie which blew me away this year. Rather than trying to recap it again, here is part of what I wrote on my blog on January 11 of last year:
I rarely walk out of a movie and say "wow." However, that's exactly the reaction my wife and I had when we emerged from seeing Clint Eastwood's latest movie "Gran Torino." While the gaunt, aging Eastwood plays the same iconic loner who appeared in Spaghetti Westerns and the Dirty Harry films, his character is decidedly more complex.
The movie is remarkable on many levels. To see character development in a Clint Eastwood movie is refreshing. The clash of cultures between the traditional Polish-American Kowalski and his traditional Hmong neighbors is delicately played out. The sympathetic portrayal of a naive young Catholic priest is also engaging. Without spoiling the ending too badly, there is also a sequence where Eastwood plays homage to the John Wayne role in "Rooster Cogburn." While the critics have given this a ho-hum response, it is a movie worth seeing.
Television:
I don't watch much TV so this list is pretty short. However, two new series on Sci-Fi (I refuse to say SyFy, it is just too silly) caught my attention. I am totally addicted to Warehouse 13, a show about Secret Service Agents who take possession of artifacts that do weird things. The chemistry between Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly)is reminscent of Agents Scully and Mulder. Claudia(Allison Scagliotti who played Mindy on Drake and Josh) adds some comic humor and coolness to the show. She says dude a lot.
I also watched Primeval on Sci-Fi this year. This show is about scientists who discover a rift in the space-time continuum which allows dinosaurs to wander into modern-day England. This show started out really cool and dragged a bit by the end of the season. Hopefully it will come back invigorated.
Music:
In my family, 2009 was dominated by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Nightcastle. We are all big TSO fans and enjoy seeing their show each year. We have been waiting for Nightcastle for years and it finally came out this year as a 26 track double disc. The ambitious story is a little hard to follow, but like most of TSO's work is grand in scope and uplifting, telling a story about a doomed army officer, a Khmer Rouge general, a drug dealer and a little girl.
Like the story, the music is soaring and grand, mixing rock and classical music. One of my favorite tracks is "The Mountain" which is adapted from The Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt Suite. The music is very story-driven, so that some of the songs dealing with combat are pretty harsh.
I also totally enjoyed MxPx's On the Cover II. This CD includes 13 covers by MxPx, including Major Tom, Somebody to Love and Punk Rock Girl. I love 80s music and these covers are a tribute to the 80s done by one of my favorite punk bands.
Honorable mentions include Sorry for Partyin' by Bowling for Soup. I just got this, so I haven't completely made up my mind, but it seems fun. I also loved individual songs by three female singers: "Hot 'N Cold" by Katy Perry, "So What" by Pink and "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift. I had to try hard not to like Taylor Swift's "Love Story" (didn't like the underlying message of female dependency).
Books:
My favorite book of 2009 was Jay Brandon's Milagro Lane. Jay Brandon is Texas's version of John Grisham. He is a lawyer who writes books which thoroughly capture the feeling of South Texas. Milagro Lane is one of his best, as well as his quirkiest. Originally released in serialized fashion in the San Antonio Express-News, set in real time and featuring local personalities, the story features one of San Antonio's oldest families under siege from determined enemies who wish to destroy it. It also features a mysterious beautiful girl and a ghost who is only marginally helpful.
I am still reading Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes, but am thoroughly hooked.
Toe to Toe With Your Teen by Jimmy Meyers was my favorite non-fiction book of the year. Jimmy is a licensed professional counsellor from Austin who wrote a book for Christians about how to deal with defiant teenagers. I liked the fact that his book doesn't try to sugarcoat reality or resort to Christian platitudes.
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