Film Essent Archive for December, 2009

Kim Voynar's Top Ten Films of 2009

By Kim Voynar - Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Here’s my Top Ten List for 2009. A brief disclaimer: I’ve been sick for several months and missed all but the first day of the Toronto International Film Festival this year; illness, medical appointments and surgery also made it very difficult for me to get to a lot of screenings. I did watch as many of the screeners I was sent as possible. I didn’t, unfortunately, get screeners for a number of films I’d hoped to see, so there are numerous films that may very well have been contenders for the top spots that I was unable to consider at all.
That said, here’s my 2009 Top Ten Films list …
1. Up in the Air
2. The Hurt Locker
3. An Education
4. Goodbye Solo
5. In the Loop
6. A Serious Man
7. Where the Wild Things Are
8. Precious
9. Beaches of Agnes
10. District 9

Quote Unquotesee all »

“I remember very much the iconography and the images and the statues in church were very emotional for me. Just the power of that, and even still — just seeing prayer card, what that image can evoke. I have a lot of friends that are involved in the esoteric, and I know some girls in New York that are also into the supernatural. I don’t feel that I have that gift. But I am leaning towards mysticism… Maybe men are more practical, maybe they don’t give into that as much… And then also, they don’t convene in the same way that women do. But I don’t know, I am not a man, I don’t want to speak for men. For me, I tend to gravitate towards people who are open to those kinds of things. And the idea for my film, White Echo, I guess stemmed from that — I find that the girls in New York are more credible. What is it about the way that they communicate their ideas with the supernatural that I find more credible? And that is where it began. All the characters are also based on friends of mine. I worked with Refinery29 on that film, and found that they really invest in you which is so rare in this industry.”
~ Chloë Sevigny

“The word I have fallen in love with lately is ‘Hellenic.’ Greek in its mythology. So while everyone is skewing towards the YouTube generation, here we are making two-and-a-half-hour movies and trying to buck the system. It’s become clear to me that we are never going to be a perfect fit with Hollywood; we will always be the renegade Texans running around trying to stir the pot. Really it’s not provocation for the sake of being provocative, but trying to make something that people fall in love with and has staying power. I think people are going to remember Dragged Across Concrete and these other movies decades from now. I do not believe that they will remember some of the stuff that big Hollywood has put out in the last couple of years. You’ve got to look at the independent space to find the movies that have been really special recently. Even though I don’t share the same world-view as some of my colleagues, I certainly respect the hell out of their movies which are way more fascinating than the stuff coming out of the studio system.”
~ Dallas Sonnier