The experts’ 3 Best movies of 2009
Here are the 3 best movies of 2009 that got our adrenaline pumping and the dynamite exploding. We love good movies and have seen hundreds in our time.
- Crazy Heart. At age 60, Jeff Bridges proves he’s still got it in this quiet but crowd-pleasing adaptation of Thomas Cobb’s novel. Here, he plays Bad Blake, a boozing country singer who quite literally lives up to his name. It’s a big performance in a Crazy Heart movie that is sure to earn Bridges an illustrious fifth Oscar nomination — and quite possibly his first win (yep, he’s that good).
- Coraline. Ushering in the 2009 trend of children’s movies perhaps best appreciated by adults, the stop-motion animated Coraline is dazzlingly inventive, eye-poppingly beautiful … and scary as all-get-out. Coraline’s richly strange and imaginative world gave us one of the best 3D movies ever made, and it will stay with us for a long, long time, even if that’s sometimes unfortunately manifested through horrible nightmares involving button eyes.
- Star Trek. After so much speculation, it didn’t seem as though J.J. Abrams’ reinvention of download Star Trek could possibly deliver. But deliver it did, with a terrific ensemble cast (including a snarky new Kirk in Chris Pine), rousing action sequences, and a storyline that sort of almost made sense. It was everything a summer movie should be, and kudos to Abrams for being bold enough to reboot the franchise — may it live long and prosper.