Josh Spiegel's 2009 Calvins Ballot

By Josh Spiegel

March 2, 2010

Here's the Olympic sport we all want to see: Family House Flying.

2009 was a better year than people initially gave credit for, in terms of the movies. When it was announced that the Academy Awards would nominate ten movies for Best Picture, not five, one of the prevailing questions was: Why this year? Of course, there were more than plenty exceptional movies that came out in 2009, and a large amount came from the studios. Whether it was the colorful and breathtaking world of Pandora in Avatar, the oddly architectured jungles of Venezuela in Up, or the near-expressionistic world of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the last year in movies was not just not a bad year, but it was also a great year in film.

Somehow, a seeming lack of great indie pictures means a lack of quality. While mainstream movies can be terrible (see the second-highest grossing film of 2009, Transformers 2), they can also be freeing and exciting. It's not just that James Cameron was given carte blanche to do what he wanted in Avatar, it's that someone funded Quentin Tarantino's warped vision of the second World War. Someone let Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis tool around Las Vegas, just as the studios allowed the mere existence of District 9, a movie that would seem a near impossibility to get greenlit. What's more, 2009 was a year for great science fiction, including Avatar, District 9, and the exciting and slick Star Trek. Maybe it was more accessible to people who think little of fanboys, but the quality is undeniable.

2009 was also a great year for animation, a year which saw the advent of more 3-D films, from Monsters vs. Aliens to Coraline to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and a return to form for Disney with its hand-drawn The Princess and the Frog. Up dominated the year, certainly, but it was one of many truly brilliant pieces of animation. This year was not filled with as many movies that truly excited me before they came out as 2010 has (what with the Iron Man and Toy Story sequels, a new Christopher Nolan film, and so forth), but 2009's output impressed me. Some of the nicer surprises featured Jesse Eisenberg, the man who Michael Cera wishes he was, with his two releases, Adventureland and Zombieland. Both were funny and had heart; one just also had zombies.

I ended up voting for movies that stuck out to me at the end of the year, chiefly movies such as Up, The Hurt Locker, In The Loop, Moon, Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Star Trek, District 9, and Up in the Air. These were the movies that spoke to me this year, whether from suspense, joy, thrills, or any kind of deep thought. As I eke my way towards maturity, I'm finding that movies that try to have some kind of thought in their messages, for the most part, are the ones that interest me. Granted, Avatar's message is made simple, but that doesn't make it any less fascinating. Sure, movies like Up and Star Trek are for entertainment value, but the former is still quite tragic, and the latter is...well, it's just damn fun.

If there's anything to take away from my Calvins ballot, it's that I'm the kind of person who hates to have to shut my brain off before watching a movie, but I'm not against mainstream movies mixing high and low art. It's just that the majority of people running Hollywood studios assume I'm too stupid to get any kind of message in between explosions.

Best celebrity cameo: That one in Zombieland

Overrated movie of the year: A Serious Man

Biggest disappointment: Year One (yes, it was terrible, but with the cast and crew, it really shouldn't have been)

Most interesting failure: Funny People

Strangest mainstream film: Observe and Report

Actor whose banner year baffled me: Sandra Bullock



Best Picture: 2010 Calvins
Position Film
1 Up
2 The Hurt Locker
3 In The Loop
4 Up in the Air
5 Inglourious Basterds
6 Avatar
7 District 9
8 Star Trek
9 Public Enemies
10 Moon

Best Director: 2010 Calvins
Position Director Film
1 Kathryn Bigelow The Hurt Locker
2 James Cameron Avatar
3 Pete Docter and Bob Peterson Up
4 Quentin Tarantino Inglourious Basterds
5 Neill Blomkamp District 9
6 Jason Reitman Up in the Air
7 Duncan Jones Moon
8 J.J. Abrams Star Trek
9 Wes Anderson Fantastic Mr. Fox
10 Spike Jonze Where the Wild Things Are

Best Actor: 2010 Calvins
Position Actor Film
1 George Clooney Up in the Air
2 Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker
3 Sam Rockwell Moon
4 Sharlto Copley District 9
5 Matt Damon The Informant!
6 Johnny Depp Public Enemies
7 Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500) Days of Summer
8 Chris Pine Star Trek
9 Adrien Brody The Brothers Bloom
10 Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes

Best Actress: 2010 Calvins
Position Actress Film
1 Anna Kendrick Up in the Air
2 Vera Farmiga Up in the Air
3 Zoe Saldana Avatar
4 Zooey Deschanel (500) Days of Summer
5 Meryl Streep Julie & Julia
6 Mo'Nique Precious
7 Gabourey Sidibe Precious
8 Julia Roberts Duplicity
9 Rachel Weisz The Brothers Bloom

Best Supporting Actor: 2010 Calvins
Position Actor Film
1 Christoph Waltz Inglourious Basterds
2 Peter Capaldi In the Loop
3 Anthony Mackie The Hurt Locker
4 Brian Geraghty The Hurt Locker
5 Bob Peterson as Dug the Dog Up
6 Ed Helms The Hangover
7 Zach Galifianakis The Hangover
8 Jason Schwartzman Fantastic Mr. Fox
9 Stanley Tucci The Lovely Bones
10 Jackie Earle Haley Watchmen

Best Supporting Actress: 2010 Calvins
Position Actress Film
1 Melanie Laurent Inglourious Basterds
2 Mo'Nique Precious
3 Mariah Carey Precious
4 Paula Patton Precious
5 Diane Kruger Inglourious Basterds
6 Abigail Breslin Zombieland
7 Kristen Stewart Adventureland
8 Rinko Kikuchi The Brothers Bloom
9 Marion Cotillard Public Enemies

Best Screenplay: 2010 Calvins
Position Person(s) Film
1 Bob Peterson, Pete Docter Up
2 Quentin Tarantino Inglourious Basterds
3 Mark Boal The Hurt Locker
4 Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche In The Loop
5 Sheldon Turner/Jason Reitman Up in the Air
6 Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell District 9
7 Wes Anderson/Noah Baumbach Fantastic Mr. Fox
8 Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers Where the Wild Things Are
9 Scott Neustadter/Michael H. Weber (500) Days of Summer
10 James Cameron Avatar

Best Cast: 2010 Calvins
Position Film
1 The Hurt Locker
2 Inglourious Basterds
3 In the Loop
4 Precious
5 Up in the Air
6 Star Trek
7 The Hangover
8 Zombieland
9 Funny People
10 Fantastic Mr. Fox

Best Scene: 2010 Calvins
Position Scene Film
1 Flashback of Carl and Ellie's life together Up
2 Could I have another glass of your delicious milk? Inglourious Basterds
3 The tavern scene Inglourious Basterds
4 Expectation vs reality (500) Days of Summer
5 Closing credits photo montage The Hangover
6 Mary Lee's breakdown at the social work office Precious
7 The Tree of Souls falls to the ground in Pandora Avatar
8 Dismantling a car bomb The Hurt Locker
9 Serving eviction notices District 9
10 The scene with the big-star cameo Zombieland

Best Use of Music: 2010 Calvins
Position Film
1 Up
2 The Princess and the Frog
3 Star Trek
4 Fantastic Mr. Fox
5 Inglourious Basterds
6 (500) Days of Summer
7 Watchmen
8 Sherlock Holmes
9 Zombieland
10 Coraline

Best Overlooked Film: 2010 Calvins
Position Film
1 In The Loop
2 Moon
3 The Hurt Locker
4 The Brothers Bloom
5 Fantastic Mr. Fox
6 Adventureland

Best Breakthrough Performance: 2010 Calvins
Position Person Film
1 Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker
2 Christoph Waltz Inglourious Basterds
3 Sharlto Copley District 9
4 Zach Galifianakis The Hangover
5 Gabourey Sidibe Precious
6 Chris Pine Star Trek
7 Mariah Carey Precious
8 Anthony Mackie The Hurt Locker
9 Brian Geraghty The Hurt Locker
10 Melanie Laurent Inglourious Basterds

Best DVD: 2010 Calvins
Position Film
1 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Blu-ray packaging)
2 Up (Four-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + BD Live)
3 North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) Blu-ray Book
4 Mad Men: Season Two
5 Better Off Ted: Season One
6 Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5
7 Monsters, Inc. (4-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray]
8 Star Trek
9 District 9 [Blu-ray]
10 Coraline (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy w/3D)

Worst Performance: 2010 Calvins
Position Person Film
1 Amy Adams Julie & Julia
2 Christian Bale Terminator Salvation
3 Eli Roth Inglourious Basterds
4 Taylor Lautner The Twilight Saga: New Moon
5 Michael Cera Year One
6 Megan Fox Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen
7 Julie White Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
8 Isla Fisher Confessions of a Shopaholic
9 Kristen Stewart The Twilight Saga: New Moon
10 Robert Pattinson The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Worst Picture: 2010 Calvins
Position Film
1 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2 The Twilight Saga: New Moon
3 Paul Blart: Mall Cop
4 Terminator Salvation
5 Watchmen
6 The Proposal
7 BrĂ¼no

Best TV Show: 2010 Calvins
Position Show
1 Lost
2 Mad Men
3 The Office
4 Better Off Ted
5 Battlestar Galactica
6 Friday Night Lights
7 The Daily Show
8 The Colbert Report
9 Parks and Recreation
10 Dollhouse


     


 
 

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