Ever wonder what our preeminent horror scribe thinks of modern day flicks? Wanna see how his taste in film stacks up to your own? Well check it…Stephen King has recently revealed to EW his top 10 films of 2009, and you know, you may actually be surprised at some of the dude’s selections.
But before you get a gander at King’s crown of ’09, note some of the positive (and not so positive, Mr. Mendes) things the man had to say about cinema as whole:
“I’d give 2009 at the movies a B overall, and that ain’t bad — it is, in fact, about as good as it gets. It’s true that I found only nine straight-A’s when I looked back through my movie notebook (No. 10 on this list was an A–), but there wasn’t a single F, and that’s a first in my years as an EW columnist. Either I chose more wisely or the quality was better than last year’s B–. I prefer to believe the latter, though there were a few disappointments along the way; the trudging Revolutionary Road was the worst of them. With that said, my list of the 10 best follows.”
Without further adieu, let’s see what The King has to say for his top ten.
10. 2012 – No filmgoing diet is complete without some cheese, and this throwback to the great disaster movies of the ’70s (Earthquake, The Towering Inferno) amply filled the bill. It’s staffed by solid actors having fun, and stuffed with eye-popping special effects — you got a problem with that?
9. FANTASTIC MR. FOX – A screwball comedy that just happens to be animated. More for adults than for children, actually, but when Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and his devoted missus (Meryl Streep) put aside their sophisticated banter long enough to gobble their dinner — in about four seconds — both the kids and the grown-ups in my audience screamed with delighted laughter.
8. THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 – Director Tony Scott’s most lucid and suspenseful movie. Denzel Washington is terrific in the part originated by Walter Matthau, but the real pleasure here is watching John Travolta’s balls-to-the-wall star turn as the villainous Ryder (called Mr. Blue and played by Robert Shaw in the 1974 version). This makes Public Enemies look pretty tame.
7. LAW ABIDING CITIZEN – The outraged husband and father decides to punish the baddies himself when the wimpish legal system won’t: Yeah, yeah, we’ve seen it all before, but this version’s script is wound tight and clever enough to draw blood. All of which would mean little if not for the standout performances by Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx, who turns prosecutor Nick Rice into a morally ambiguous antihero.
6. DISTRICT 9 – This quasi (not to mention queasy) documentary sci-fi pic is a clever parable about the price of racial prejudice, but what really struck me about it was how the special effects served the story, rather than the other way around. If 2012 is good cheese, then District 9 is a fine wine.
5. THE READER – I know, it was released in 2008, but my lists go from December to December, and it would be criminal to leave out this wrenching exploration of guilt and atonement. Kate Winslet’s Hanna Schmitz was the best performance I saw all year.
To continue on with King’s top 5, CLICK HERE. Can you guess how many of the top have have been covered here at AITH?
Who’s the hotter 2012 star: Amanda Peet or Thandie Newton?
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