beat: James Burt's weblog

My favourite films of 2009

I'm running a little late with this so I'll post it briefly now before it's too out of date. My favourite films of 2009 were:

1. Synecdoche, New York - currently my favourite film ever.
2. Antichrist - although I had my eyes closed for a couple of bits
3. Morris: A Life with Bells On - I had a great time seeing this at the Duke of York's, surrounded by real-life morris dancers
4. Up - although mostly for the first five minutes.
   
5. The Wrestler - I was underwhelmed when I watched this, because the ending seemed a disappointment, but I found myself thinking about it a lot afterwards.
   

I didn't see as many movies last year as in 2008, and I missed a few that looked amazing. I was underwhelmed by both Moon and District 9, which seemed illogical and obvious. I'm not sure why they received the acclaim they did.

Beat: the movie

On Saturday I watched a very curious movie, 2000's Beat. The film tells the story of Joan Vollmer (played by Courtney Love) and William Burroughs (played by Kiefer Sutherland). The film collides two obsessions of mine, Burrough and Cobain (the two actually met once - Burroughs apparently said of Cobain "There’s something wrong with that boy; he frowns for no good reason") and it's strange to watch Love playing Vollmer.

The back of the box doesn't raise your hopes, promising "As the story unfolds we see that behind every great man or woman there (sic) lives are far from simple". The film suffers from a poor budget, the New York scenes filmed on very simple sets, all far cleaner than I imagine Vollmer's real life appartment would have been. The film also features the worst flashback ever (violins! a knife! slow motion!). On the other hand, Sutherland does a fantastic Burroughs impression and the final sequences are heart-wrenching. I'm not sure how much the film relies on knowing the details of the story, though.

All-in-all, it's one of the better films I've bought for a pound, and far superior to Urban Menace.