2009 overall has not been terribly exciting at the movies though it’s still quite a feat to pick the year’s top ten movies of my choice.

Despite the fact that I didn’t get to read the original material, Zack Snyder’s version of Alan Moore’s unfilmable Watchmen is a mind-blogging experience. It certainly brought the comic genre into a whole new level even if it doesn’t suit the tastes of the masses. This year is a quiet one for Chinese productions. And the sole entry is Overheard, a low-key thriller from the creators of Infernal Affairs starring one of my fave HK leading man, Lau Ching Wan. From Peter Jackson and a director by the name of Neil Blomkamp making his feature film debut come District 9, an amazing blend of sci-fi and engaging story-telling filled with eye-popping visual effects. Made on a measly $30 million budget but has the capacity to stand alongside any classic Sci-fi movies ever made for the past decades. Motor-mouthed Quentin Tarantino finally turned in his version of a war movie, the weirdly spelled Inglorious Basterds. The talky movie definitely fired out more words than bullets and it sure made Christoph Waltz the next star to look out for. Sorry about that, Mr. Pitt.

I swear I was never a Trekkie, I was more of a Star Wars-Luke Skywalker kinda of guy since age seven. But J.J. Abrams’ reboot of the flagging franchise converted me. With a fresh cast consisting of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho and Simon Pegg, I can’t wait for the sequel to Star Trek. When you think of stop-motion, A Nightmare Before Christmas comes to mind, Wes Anderson adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox uses the same old technology but instill it with his usual quirky storytelling and there you have it, this comes highly recommended for wholesome family entertainment. Most people love to be surrounded with Funny People perhaps not the movie. The third Judd Apatow’s feature and Adam Sandler starrer received a lukewarm response when it was released but it never deter me from embracing it for Apatow’s personal views, jokes and gags about the world of standup comedy.

Finally here comes the top three. Disney/Pixar’s Up scores with it’s unbelievable adventure of an old man and a chubby kid. The one and only animation this year that excites, charms and warms your senses all at once. Well, it’s Pixar, just like what Jimmy Choo does to heels and what Louis Vuitton does to leather goods. The magical touch. I’m sure there will be bunch of haters waiting to stab me for the next announced entry, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Do give credit to Michael Bay and his team for the massive carnage ever concocted onscreen despite the flaws. You can’t deny the movie earned millions if not billions and Transformers 2 is one movie that almost everyone around your cubicle has watched this year. And drumroll please… Finishing the top spot is James Cameron’s Avatar. While Robert Zemeckis took an average of two years to come up with a motion-captured CG movie, Cameron took more than a decade to bring his vision to the screen. The plotline is nothing exceptional seriously but the King of the World compensates by creating an entire splendor world of creatures, flora and fauna (all created in CG) and important messages of environmental conservation that we should walk out feeling ashamed of ourselves.

And with that, here’s a toast to a better 2010!

It's time for that annual ritual of putting out the best-of lists, and a pattern can be spotted each year with the films that make it to mine. This year though it's the rather unfortunate predominance of Death as a theme or a backdrop, and it's no wonder though that it had somewhat lent its invisible hand in the shortlist and eventual whittling down a list of at least 50 to the top 10. Here goes...

Glen Goei's return to the cinema, The Blue Mansion is probably the most expensive local film ever made to date, only to be shot predominantly up north in Penang's UNESCO heritage site, the Cheong Fatt Sze Mansion. But that doesn't delineate the film from its Singapore roots, given its parallels that can be seen from characters, moods and the issues brought up. It's a Singapore film at its best, with veteran thespians from both sides of the Causeway showcasing their acting talents boosted by top class production values. More from Glen Goei, please.

If the first 10 minutes doesn't move you to tears, then you have a certified heart of stone. I cannot recall a film that sucker punches you at an emotional level, like how Up managed to. A reminder that we should live life to its fullest and to continuously create our own adventures. It takes a lot of guts to have a senior citizen anchor a children's film, but Up has proven that it has appeal for all ages.

To learn and acquire knowledge, not just for the sake of passing exams. This Bollywood film, 3 Idiots starring one of the Khans, Aamir Khan, tells the story of a group of varsity friends who get influenced by the live-wire of the trio, with all the ingredients that make that perfect masala movie. Containing deep themes of friendship and learning balanced with crowd pleasing entertainment that only a Bollywood film can offer, Aal Izz Well for this film.

Yasmin Ahmad's final feature film, it has all the hallmarks of the sentimental director in tackling race and religious issues without shoveling them down your throat. With a mixture of fresh faces and the usual suspects in its casting, Talentime will make you laugh and cry at the same time, where the multi-racial school serves as an analogy for the society that we live in, that tolerance and appreciation of our differences were always meant to be celebrated, never scorned at or looked down upon.

City of Life And Death - There are a number of Nanking themed films out there, but Lu Chuan's version provides that comprehensive look at the atrocities that were reportedly committed, and provided a stark unflinching portrayal of those horrors, having in place an iconic scene involving a baby that will definitely shock you to the core. The excellent capturing of Fear through mood and countless of facial close-ups make this compelling viewing.


The Hurt Locker - A war film like none other, Kathryn Bigelow dispenses with the usual routine red-blue wire bomb nonsense, and crafts a film that deals with the addiction of war amongst its combatants. It's edge-of-your-seat stuff gripping from the get go, with ace performances and chemistry shared between leads Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty. joined by a host of notable cameos.

District 9 - Science fiction has a new classic, and it took a rookie feature filmmaker to breathe freshness into the genre with a tale that entertains and puts you deep in thought about the negativity in humanity's flaws, tackling larger issues such as discrimination. But that doesn't mean that it lacked some eye-popping action sequences when the narrative called for it, with some of the most inventive battles ever seen in a life-action film involving humans, aliens, and mechas too!

The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Departures is achingly beautiful, about a man finally finding his calling in life, only to be shunned by his wife for being in a taboo profession. Wonderful characterization, and a fantastic insight into a rarely seen ritual that honours the dearly departed.

Sell-Out - Multi-talented Malaysian filmmaker Yeo Joon Han wore plenty of hats here in order to make his debut feature film, a musical comedy that has one of the most rip-roaring opening sequences I've experienced in a long time. Its brand of humour is broad, from slapstick "mo-lei-tau" to witty dialogue, and there's never a dull moment in this film that has so much going for it that it begs for multiple viewings to catch all the visual gags and easter eggs contained within. A definite delight

(500) Days of Summer - It's still quite a painful film to sit through, for me at least, not that it was badly made, but because it cut extremely close to the heart. A love story that wasn't, and one that had its chance whittle away long before it even began. One simple line was all it took about the inability to feel for someone the same way every morning, to hit the nail squarely on the head with its brutal, honest take on relationships that don't work out.

Pixar continues to amaze in its ambition to represent the most trenchant notions of humanity shown through the eyes of its animated characters – there's a montage in Up that is at once so grand, so uplifting and so yearning that it carries its entire film through with the grace of compassion that Pixar seems to understand the best, if not the most consistently. From the story of one septuagenarian connecting to the world around him to another; Gran Torino is one of Clint Eastwood's most personal and transgressive film of his hallowed career that carried him through as a true man of his generation. Preparing the transition into the great unknown ether of death is a ceremony that's not typically detailed in films but in Yojiro Takita's Oscar-winning Departures, it is a sacred and tender ritual that inspires the reassuring insight that evokes the sadness inherent in life and the contemplative peace found in death.

There's nothing traditional about Hayao Miyazaki's resplendently hand-drawn Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea, a watercolour celebration of childhood's gaiety that's as buoyant as it is breathtaking. But in an increasingly digital world, there has to be room for J.J. Abrams' reboot of the iconic Star Trek universe – an endearing and genuinely cinematic space adventure. But a comeback is on the cards for more than just a sci-fi franchise as Sam Raimi returned to his horror roots in spectacular style with Drag Me To Hell, a film so full of invention and verve that it deftly weaved together powerful scares and rib-tickling humour. In another adroitly realised adulteration of horror that resulted in a welcome transcendence of the genre, Tomas Alfredson creates an entrancing netherworld from the isolation of suburban 1980s Sweden in Let the Right One In, where a young boy falls for the undead pubescent girl next door.

Love is a harsh thing to comprehend as anyone will tell you, but in Marc Webb's stupendous (500) Days of Summer, it sears in its observations about the affairs of the heart and mind that it actually devastates – listen to the protagonist when he tells you that 'this is not a love story'. In Katheryn Bigelow's fabulously kinetic and visceral The Hurt Locker, we have one of the greatest films about war ever made – it's an existential look at the headspaces of a bomb squad grunt in the Iraq War and his fellow technicians as they courageously nullify the explosives in their sights but plainly avoid the perilous circumstances they create in their lives.

Early on in the year, Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married stupefied with its stark honesty of human contradictions and pulsating depiction of the vibrancy of life. It was a razor-sharp antidote to the overly-emotional and twee multitudes of family dramedies of the past couple of years. It is the human urge to light up the dark corners for answers on other people and Demme brings that illumination to a marvellously indelible performance by Anne Hathaway playing the bruised and barely rehabbed daughter returning home for a sister's deliriously multicultural wedding and the ensuing Pandora's box of emotions that it opens. Sensitively written and directed, the things that go unsaid resonates the most in this masterful film.

Honorary Mentions: Mother, Avatar, District 9, Milk, Man on Wire, Coraline, Paranormal Activity, Inglourious Basterds, Halloween II, Pandorum