01 1 / 2010

Pop Culture Consumption: 2009 Report

I saw 133 films this year:

  • 1 one star
  • 20 two stars
  • 76 three stars
  • 36 four stars
  • 0 five stars

My average film rating for the year was 3.10.

Of the 133 films, 50 were new (released in 2009). Here’s my top 15:

1. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
2. Precious (Lee Daniels)
3. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
4. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
5. Adventureland (Greg Mottola)
6. Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (Hayao Miyazaki)
7. Bruno (Larry Charles)
8. Coraline (Henry Selick)
9. A Serious Man (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
10. An Education (Lone Scherfig)
11. (500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb)
12. Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer)
13. Away We Go (Sam Mendes)
14. The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh)
15. The Hangover (Todd Phillips)

Honorable mentions include I Love You, Man (John Hamburg), Whatever Works (Woody Allen), Paper Heart (Nicholas Jasenovec), Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee), Big Fan (Robert D. Siegel), and In the Loop (Armando Iannucci).

Update (3/26/11): Since this list was created, I’ve since seen A Single Man (Tom Ford) and The September Issue (R.J. Cutler), both of which belong in 2009’s top five.

The three most disappointing 2009 films I saw were (listed in no particular order):

  • The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson)
  • Cold Souls (Sophie Barthes)
  • The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Chris Weitz)

I also saw 83 older films for the first time (films not released in 2009). The films from this list that I enjoyed the most include (listed in no particular order):

  • Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
  • Kicking and Screaming (Noah Baumbach)
  • Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen)
  • 9 1/2 Weeks (Adrian Lyne)
  • Living in Oblivion (Tom DiCillo)
  • Anything Else (Woody Allen)
  • Monster Camp (Cullen Hoback)
  • Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley)
  • Swingers (Doug Liman)
  • The Great Happiness Space (Jake Clennell)
  • Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)
  • The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola)
  • Man on Wire (James Marsh)

Television

I saw one or more seasons of 21 television shows this year (both old and new shows). My favorites include (listed in no particular order):

  • Curb Your Enthusiasm
  • Californication
  • This American Life
  • The Shield
  • Flight of the Concords
  • In Treatment
  • NewsRadio
  • Mad Men
  • Brotherhood
  • True Blood
  • Summer Heights High
  • Entourage
  • Eastbound & Down
  • It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Books

I didn’t get to read as many books as I would have liked this year. In 2009, I read the following (listed in no particular order):

  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Smashed by Koren Zailckas
  • The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

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