Monday, January 04, 2010

My 2009 Top Ten Netflix Movies That I Had Not Seen Before

1) Inglourious Basterds - Combine The Dirty Dozen with "I hate Illinois Nazis" from The Blues Brothers and half the movie isn't even in English. An alternate ending to World War II, debate over what is a Mexican Standoff, Nazis still pissed off about Jesse Owens eight years later, Brad Pitt speaking Italian with a southern accent. And yes, lots of the good guys "killin' Natzis." Brilliant.

2) The Big Red One - Lee Marvin and company fight World War II for real. Poignant and at times darkly funny. I can see why it makes so many short lists for Greatest War Movie Ever.

3) Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 - Ivy League football game from forty years ago makes for a great documentary? Believe it. I loved this one.

4) The Friends of Eddie Coyle - Robert Mitchum plus dialogue straight from the great George V. Higgins' novel, and Higgins' dialogue is without peer.

5) The Wrestler - Worth it alone for Mickey Rooney improvising his way through that deli scene.

6) Touch of Evil - I'm not smart enough to write anything about Orson Welles (I'm so dumb I spelled his name wrong when I originally posted this earlier today,) and if I do I'm just going to go find that YouTube clip where he zings Don Rickles anyway.

7) What Doesn't Kill You - Mark Ruffalo in a tour de force.

8) Doubt - As I once infamously said: "I like movies based on plays because they talk a lot."

9) Requiem for a Dream - Spooky, creepy. Why did I watch it before going to sleep?

10) Frost/Nixon - Ron Howard's trilogy of sinister, secretive powers: Opus Dei, Freemasons, Richard M. Nixon.