Behold, my Evil opinion and Machiavellian attitude.
I’m cheating with the dates, claiming my Summer movie vacation began all the way back in May, with the premiere of Summer Hours. That’s 99 days ago. This is a highly subjective and personal list. I’ll admit it’s not ranked by any standards of Ultimate Cinematic Value. It’s more gut-level, visceral, based purely on how much of a thrill I felt sitting in the theater, how satisfied I felt when the lights came up.
- The Hurt Locker
- Inglourious Basterds
- District 9
- (500) Days of Summer
- Flame & Citron
- Public Enemies
- In the Loop
- Summer Hours
- Star Trek
- Goodbye Solo
- Up
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Adventureland [add]
- Ponyo
- Julie & Julia
Inglourious Basterds might move to #2 after I see it again tomorrow. Haven’t seen Sugar, Away We Go, Bandslam or The Brothers Bloom. (Haven’t seen a whole bunch of other stuff either, but those are the only four titles I hate that I’ve missed.)
If a movie ranks lower on my list than it would on your own, that only means that I’m not anxious to rush out and buy the DVD so I can watch it again and again. And yes, boo-hoo, Up is only my 11th favorite movie of the year (well, 12th, if we were to add Coraline). Sorry, it never surpassed the courtship and marriage montage for me. I wanted to love it like so many of you do. But I guess I’m just cold and heartless and hate balloons.
I’ll be sorely disappointed if the first 7 films on this list don’t figure prominently on year-end critics’ top tens and score some Oscar noms.