So, Watchmen didn’t exactly bomb, nor was it exactly a hit. With a 65% critical Tomato-Meter rating, it was neither a fiasco nor a critic’s darling, and for all its sex and violence, the onscreen content was far less controversial than all the legal maneuvering involved with getting it to screens in the first place.
In other words, the first big film of the year was a lot like the rest of 2009’s films to date: nothing to really get all het up about one way or the other...with two notable exceptions, courtesy of last month’s SXSW festival: the obnoxiously onanistic My Suicide is already a lock for my year-end Worst of 2009 list, while the documentary Best Worst Movie could easily find a spot in my year-end Top Ten, thanks to its winning cast and (mostly) cheery depiction of the pleasures and pitfalls of filmmaking (as well as the mysterious alchemy that transforms a terrible film like Troll 2 into a beloved cult classic).
As for the rest of the first quarter highs: the inventive visuals of Coraline, the good-natured mumblecore bromance of SXSW’s Humpday and the laid-back ‘80s nostalgia of Greg “Superbad” Mottola’s Adventureland were all perfectly enjoyable experiences nevertheless unlikely to chart much higher than Honorable Mention come December (unless 2009 winds up being a truly uninspired film year from here on out...unlikely, considering that our current Year of the Ox is already outpacing last year’s Rat: i.e., by April 2008, I’d seen exactly one memorable film (Full Battle Rattle) and a whole lot of Hamburger Helper (Penelope, Cloverfield, 21 and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day).
Other 2009 offerings unlikely to be more than pleasant hazy memories by December include SXSW fare like Beeswax, The Slammin’ Salmon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle and the Richard Linklater sneak preview Me & Orson Welles, along with Sunshine Cleaning, Monsters vs. Aliens and I Love You, Man...films that, like most everything else I’ve seen this year, seem like Xeroxes of Xeroxes of originals I liked a lot more.
I dunno...maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe I’ve seen too many films by this point, and I’m getting cranky and hard to please, and even if a new Pulp Fiction premiered next month, I’d be too jaded to appreciate it...or maybe it's just that nobody’s released anything truly special, gripping, hilarious, original and/or mind-blowing in a while. (But then again, I haven’t seen Fast & Furious yet, so that could all change in a day or two!)
Long-range forecasts indicate a continuing trend of pleasant but disposable cinema moving forward into the second quarter of 2009, although I have cautiously high hopes for Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, Star Trek, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, Land of the Lost and even HBO’s biopic Grey Gardens, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as Big & Little Edie of Maysles Brothers fame (which may not be a movie in theaters...but, hey, Angels in America was my favorite movie of 2003 on the small or big screen, so who knows?).
Plus, I just saw the following trailer for the new Sam Mendes film, Away We Go, starring the potentially appealing duo of John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, which could be goddamn charming or still yet more indie-mumbly grist for the mill...see you in June for the Second Quarter report!
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Screengrab 2009 Preview: Andrew Osborne’s Picks