My Top Rated Shows Watched in 2009

Sister-in-law Shirley suggested I do a year end piece on my top ten or on academy award style winners. I still have Siskel & Ebert lists that Shirley sent me each year, going back at least to 1992, on which I periodically check off my viewing. A personal list of favorites of an individual, like Siskel or Ebert, is helpful if you are familiar with the tastes of the individual. Lists and winners determined by group voting, like the academy awards, are less specific guides, but I still consult them for leads to movies to investigate.

NPR did a fun piece this morning about the academy best movie category being expanded to ten films. Seems they want to make sure enough blockbusters are being promoted to help sell tickets and also to pump up the ratings for the academy awards TV show.

I don't go to theaters to watch movies. What I watch comes from Netflix and the public library. I like a variety and have lots of historical interest in movies. During 2009, I watched 420 DVDs, in 17 different genres, in 17 different languages other than English, released in years from 1924 to 2009.  I rated them for myself as explained elsewhere in this blog. Below is a list of the dozen top rated ones, rated 3.7 or above. When I compiled the list from my database, I was surprised to see that eight are documentaries and only one of the 12 is from before 2000.

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. From PBS American Experience in 2000, excellent documentary on this fascinating case from the Jim Crow era.

John Adams. The 2008 HBO miniseries on our second President.

Anne Frank: The Whole Story. From ABC in 2000, this drama tells the story of what happened to Anne after their hiding place was discovered.

Beyond Belief. Documentary from 2006 about two 9/11 widows who travel to Afghanistan to meet with widows there.

What I Want My Words To Do To You. Documentary from 2003 about a writing program for women prisoners who read from their writing and have them performed for other inmates by professional actresses.

Freedom Writers. Drama from 2007 with Hilary Swank as a teacher inspiring at-risk students to keep journals about what violence does to their lives.

War Made Easy. Documentary from 2007 about how in the last 50 years American Presidents have propagandized us into wars.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster.  Documentary from 2008 about the pressure of sports and competition and steroids.

Cats of Mirikatani. Documentary from 2006 about a Japanese artist who was visting America at the time of Pearl Harbor and the bittersweet life he has led since then.

Leila. A drama from Iran in 2000, telling the story of societal pressures on a couple having difficulty conceiving a child.

October Road - Season One.  Drama series from ABC in 2007 about an author returning to his small town roots and confronting old friends upset aboout how he portrayed them.  This is an example of a good one season series that became grossly inferior in its second year.

Frost-Nixon.  The documentary of the original interviews from 1977.

How about letting us know what shows you watched in 2009 that you rated tops?

Christmas Movies

Rake suggested this post. Christmastime lasts about a month and is a time when many people are drawn back to religion and experience a renewal of generous feelings toward others.  The length of the holiday and the emotions evoked make Christmas a part of numerous movies. Some movies center on the theme, either embracing the story of the birth of Jesus, the existence of Santa Claus, or both. Some find a comic holiday angle, or, at least in the case of Santa Claus, satirize it.

I don't have childhood memories of Christmas and movies. I think Mom may have taken us to see "Come to the Stable", when I was 8 or 9, but going to Catholic school, I got enough religion and did not seek it at the movies. Literary classics on the screen seemed like just more school.  The annual Amahl opera on TV bored me senseless, though I never watched more than the first few minutes. By the time animated Christmas fare came along I was too old to be interested.

Scrooge in the Christmas Carol is the classic literary embodiment of a miserably selfish person opened to love by the spirit of Christmas. Many such classics of literature, including stories for children, have been made into Christmas movies. As parents, we watch these with our children, delicately explaining the stories, balancing fact and fantasy.

I love movies about people who hide their hurt inside and then come to realize there are other people who hurt even more, who they decide to reach out to help, and thereby end up helping themselves too. This theme is perfectly at home in a Christmas movie. "It's a Wonderful Life" has become a Christmas staple on TV. Though not a purely Christmas movie, the climactic community generosity perfectly summarizes the message of the entire movie and fully embodies the personal Christmas spirit of giving. Another film where Christmas comes as an appropriately climactic part, though this time in a sad way, is the wonderfully nostalgic "Meet Me in St. Louis", in which Judy Garland introduced the song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

Christmas episodes usually appear about a week ahead of the holiday on television series.  I just watched a particularly good one called "So-Called Angels", from the 1994 short lived but very good family and teen series, "My So-Called Life".  (Too many intelligently written TV series have never made it beyond one year, or two at the most, which could be the theme for another blog post).

The funniest Christmas movie has to be the TBS marathon subject, "A Christmas Story". I crack up every time I see it and I can remember almost every scene. I'll be watching it again this year.

How about sharing your Christmas movie memories and musings?

What are your earliest movie theater memories?

Tell us about your first trips to the movies.

How Do You Decide What to Watch?

How about sharing the way you decide what movie is next on your list?

What science fiction movies do you like?

What do you look for in a science fiction movie and what are some science fiction movies that you like?

What Did You Just Watch?

How about letting us know what movie you most recently watched and what you thought about it?  You can post your comment below.