Steve's Top 5 Top 5's-- #3 Top 5 Movies of 2009

Merry Christmas to You All!! Hope you are having a great day. Today I'm going to share my top 5 movies of the year. We have a true life story, a music concert/documentary, a Sci Fi blockbuster, a romantic comedy, and a humorous look at a fringe sport. Check out my choices, and let me know yours.

5) Star Trek: Take all your favorite characters from the original 1960's TV series. Replace Shatner and the crew with a bunch of young Hollywood rising stars. Throw in the directive twist of JJ Abrams (Alias, Lost) and you have a summer hit. And a guest appearance by Leonard Nimoy is just icing on the cake. Action from start to finish, just what the tired Star Trek franchise needed.

4) Whip It!: The directorial debut of Drew Barrymore is a quirky look at life inside the Texas roller derby circuit. Juno's Ellen Page shines as a young beauty pagent contest who longs for more. Daniel Stern is priceless as her dad. And we gotta love Drew Barrymore as the almost star of the Roller Derby team.

3) This Is It: The documentary about the preparations for Michael Jackson's tour of England. A tour that unfortunately never happened. I mainly went to see this in order to see Orianthi, the amazingly talented guitarist Jackson had hired for the tour. But I was impressed and amazed at the Jackson I saw. Expecting a sickly tired man, on the verge of collapse, if you were to take the word of his father just after his death; I found rather a professional performer ready to take the stage and restart a sagging career. If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to catch the DVD releasing in late January.

2) (500) Days of Summer: A quirky, wonderfully made romantic comedy about a boy who falls madly in love with a girl, and the girl who likes the boy. From my experience I can tell you, not always a good combination. Told in a series of flashbacks and flash forwards, this is one of the cutest and most enjoyable movies I've seen. Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt sparkle!! Just out on DVD this week, I promise you its worth the money to rent or purchase.

1) The Blind Side: The true story of a young man plucked from poverty by a caring woman and made to be part of the family, part of a team, and finally to become an NFL star. Already up for some Golden Globes, and sure to get a few nods at Oscar time. You'll laugh, You'll cry, You'll laugh again.

The Aging Movie Fanatic

WARNING PLOT SPOILERS FOR THE INVENTION OF LYING AND WHIP IT! AHEAD:

When I was very young, my requirement for a movie was simple: Did it have the word Disney stamped at the beginning. As I grew I broadened my film watching window. When I was eleven a little movie came out that turned my world around. Summer of 1977, and everyone was going to see this movie. My sister Gloria went and saw it, and told me I should go. It took a while, but I finally convinced Mom and Dad to take to me to see Star Wars, it was amazing, and introduced me to the wonders of Science fiction and fantasy. I have never looked back.

Through out Jr. high and I High School I filled my time trying to see as many SciFi and Fantasy films as I could. When I hit college I discovered more thoughtful films. Independent films, art films, comedies, and cult classics like YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, BUCKAROO BANZAI, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. My film watching was expanding and growing and maturing. During thid time I simply wanted to fill my film watching days with any and everything I could find.

I've tamed down a bit in recent years, and since getting married I stick largely to romantic comedies, or just plain goofball comedies (Will Ferral type things). We tend to stay away from movies where people die of some long drawn out illness. And I couldn't get my wife to watch a Sci-Fi movie if my life depended on it (although she likes Harry Potter and Twilight). I do occasionally go out on my own to see something that my wife wouldn't enjoy.

That brings me to the movies I saw on Thursday. The first was Jennifer Garner and Ricky Gervase (sp) in The Invention of Lying although it did have the nice under lying message that you should not judge people simply on the outer appearances but on who they really are, i found the film rather disturbing in that the whole premise was that God, Heaven and religion are all lies. I was disturbed by this, and by the fact that none of the previews for the movie had clued me in that this is what was going to be the main thrust of the film. In my younger movie watching days I might have just laughed this off and said so what. Instead I went away very disturbed. Although this was not a horrible movie, and it had its funny moments, and Jennifer Garner was cute as usual; still I can not recommend it.

But the second movie I saw Thursday, Whip It! is another story altogether. Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut in this film of a teenager (played by Ellen Page) who finds herself drawn to roller derby. Her mother wants her to be in all these beauty pageants, and she does these to please her mother, but her real love is for the roller derby. It is a rough and tumble heart felt coming of age film. The scene I love is when her dad brings all the roller derby girls up to where she is in a pageant, and her dad tells her mother , "800 hundred dollars {cost of the dress} I can stand to lose, but what I can't stand is losing the chance to see our daughter happy." That is a very cool dad I would say. Anyway, I loved this film. Go see it.