The 2009 Gunaxin Movie Recap
2009 was full of highly anticipated blockbusters, but also some unexpected gems. Here’s a handy-dandy list of all the movies we here at Gunaxin saw this year. We have included our ratings, short-attention span reviews and who’s responsible for each. Many even have links to additional coverage from earlier this year.
2012– 4.5/5 The new queen mother of all ridiculous disaster movies.–Jay
500 Days of Summer– 3.5/5 I’ll watch Zooey Deschanel do anything for 90 minutes, including breaking the kid from Third Rock From The Sun’s heart. –Jay
Adventureland- 2/5 Bland teen rom-com set in a theme park. –Jay
Angels & Demons– 3.5/5 Don’t know why everyone crapped on this. Perfect mass appeal blockbuster, Tom Hanks running around Rome, saving the Vatican from the Illuminati. –Jay
Anti-Christ– 5/5 A failed art movie becomes an awesome horror movie. Except for that part where Willem Dafoe takes a piece of lumber to the nuts and then ejaculates blood. That part, not so much. –Dan
Anvil! The Story of Anvil– 4/5 Awesome yet spirit-crushing Spinal Tap-ish rockumentary about 80’s metal band Anvil, still trying to make it big in their old age. –Jay
A Serious Man– 2.5/5 Read up on the Torah before going to see this disappointing and unfunny re-telling of the Book of Job by the Coen Brothers. –Jay
Avatar– 3/5 Save the trees, humans are bad, boring first half, cool second half, still can’t make people look human in CGI even if they’re blue. –Jay
Boondock Saints 2– 3.5/5 Liked the first one? Here it is again, with a hot chick instead of Willem Dafoe. –Dan
The Brothers Bloom- 3.5/5 Underrated con artist flick with a great cast, great cinematography and the right amount of oddball laughs that should’ve gotten more play. –Jay
Bronson– 5/5- Britain’s most violent prisoner is played by Tom Hardy, our nominee for ‘Actor Most Likely To Get Screwed Out of An Oscar Because the Academy Sucks’, in one of the darkest and most manly movies of the year. –Dan
Bruno– 3/5 Gay Borat. –Jay
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs– 4.5/5 Fantastic kids movie with great 3D and awesome story, but the end a bit long even if the whole thing was less than 90 minutes. –Jay
Coraline– 4/5 Want to get your kids into the goth thing early? Sit them down in front of this 3D stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s kids’ classic. –Jay
The Cove– 4.5/5 Ocean’s 11 style documentary featuring environmentalists attempting to expose mass dolphin slaughter in Japan. –Jay
Crank 2– 4/5 Balls out, goofy, manic Statham action fun that bests the original. Amy Smart, giddyup. –Jay
District 9– 5/5 Engrossing, multi-layered flick about aliens segregated in a South African slum. Then things get crazy. –Jay
Drag Me To Hell– 3.5/5 Sam Raimi returns to the comedy/horror/camp genre, but something is missing, aside from Bruce Campbell. –Jay
Extract-1/5 Jason Bateman tries to maintain order of his extract company, but even an amazing cast can’t save this laughless Mike Judge bomb. –Jay
Fanboys– 2/5 The much-delayed Star Wars road trip movie left a LOT on the table. –Jay
Fantastic Mr. Fox– 2.5/5 A stop-motion kid flick by Wes Anderson with a decent story but most of the humor will be over the kids’ heads. –Jay
Friday The 13th– 3/5 Another mediocre reboot featuring some of the finest boobies in any horror movie ever. –Jay
Funny People– 4/5 and 2/5 Judd Apatow gives us 2 movies in one- a good Adam Sandler comedy, and an awful Adam Sandler drama. Too long, but great cameos. –Jay
G.I. Joe– 2.5/5 Another year, another movie that ignores and shits all over the classic cartoons we grew up on in the 80s. At least Snake Eyes was cool. –Jeff
The Girlfriend Experience– 3/5 Good movie, with a great performance from someone who fucks for a living. –Chris
The Goods– 3.5/5 Decent comedy featuring Jeremy Piven being Jeremy Piven as a used car sales guru. –Jay
The Great Buck Howard– 3.5/5 John Malkovich shines as an over the hill mentalist trying to reclaim his past glory. –Jay
The Hangover– 4/5 Everyone loved the hell out of this, who am I to think it was a bit overrated? –Jay
Hannah Montana: The Movie– 1/5 I laughed. I cried. I suddenly realized I’d walked into the wrong theater. I took my ass over to see The Hangover again. –Jeff
Hotel For Dogs– 1.5/5 Should’ve been called Hotel Rwanda for Dogs– same plot, same Don Cheadle. –Jay
Humpday– 3/5 Two college buddies reunite and dare each other to have gay sex for no real good reason. –Jay
The Hurt Locker– 4/5 Days in the life of bomb disarmers in Iraq. So good it could be mistaken for a documentary, but lacks a bit in plot. –Jay
Ice Age 3– 2.5/5 Yeah, another Ice Age movie. –Jay
I Love You, Man– 4/5 This is how you do a comedy. The other clowns who made Land of the Lost & Year One should take note. –Chris
The Informant– 3/5 Marketed as a goofball comedy, I was disappointed & pissed when I found out otherwise. Not a bad film, I just felt wronged. –Chris
Inglourious Basterds– 3.5/5 Tarantino puts his long-winded spin on the foreign film genre, but manages to still keep it entertaining. –Jay
Land of the Lost- 2/5 Not the worst comedy of the year, but maybe the 4th or 5th worst. –Chris
Law Abiding Citizen– 3/5 Committing murder without due process will get you a promotion and make you a better father probably isn’t the greatest message, but, hey, the kills are Saw meets Tom Clancy. –Dan
The Men Who Stare At Goats– 1/5 Great cast, awful film. –Chris
Monsters Vs. Aliens- 3.5/5 Sci-fi references galore and the hottest giant woman this side of the original 50 ft. Woman. The kids will dig it and you won’t mind it either. –Jay
Moon– 4/5 Sam Rockwell continues to be the most underrated actor working today with this sci-fi tale with Rockwell playing several roles at the same time and keeps you guessing. Seek this out. –Jay
New Moon– 3000/5 if you love shirtless Native Americans and scrawny chicks with serious issues and a big time need to get laid and be done with it, this is the movie for you. Sparkly! –Jeff
Night At The Museum 2– 3.5/5 Great flick for the kids, possibly better than the first. I didn’t know Amelia Earheart had such a nice rump. –Jay
Ninja Assassin-2000’s budget and effects, 80’s acting and script. Whether this is awesome is up to you. –Dan
Notorious– 3/5 By-the-numbers biopic about rapper Biggie Smalls with solid performances by the Biggie and Puffy actors. –Jay
Observe And Report– 2/5 Unexpectedly dark turns at least made this different from Paul Blart. –Jay
Ong Bak 2– 5/5 Tony Jaa proves he can kick the shit out of twenty men while lying down, and backflips off an elephant. –Dan
Paper Heart– 3/5 Part chick flick, part documentary about finding the meaning of love and falling in love in the process, but with Michael Cera? –Jay
Paranormal Activity– 3.5/5 Some great scary moments and some horrible acting moments, but overall a cool Blair Witch style horror flick and the highest grossing indie movie ever. –Jay
Paul Blart Mall Cop– 1/5 An abortion. Who knew that there were extreme sports terrorists? –Chris
Ponyo– 3.5/4 Cute anime take of the Little Mermaid story. –Jay
The Proposal– 2.5/5 Decent, run of the mill romantic comedy. –Chris
Public Enemies– 2/5 Good looking men run around with tommy guns and vintage suits. Not much else. –Jay
Star Trek– 4/5 JJ Abrams done good. Best popcorn movie of the year. –Chris
Sunshine Cleaning– 4/5 Terrific little film with great performances from Amy Adams & Emily Blunt. –Chris
Taken– 4/5 We always knew Liam Neeson was a bad-ass, but having him play a psychotic bad-ass is a stroke of genius. –Dan
Terminator Salvation– 1/5 We thought the franchise couldn’t suck more with T3. Boy were we wrong! –Dan
Transformers 2- Revenge Of The Fallen– 3/5 Eliminate the humans from this and it would be awesome. –Jay
Up– 1.5/5 My least favorite Pixar movie yet and sadder than Bambi. –Jay
Watchmen– 4/5 The graphic novel that couldn’t be turned into a movie is, and as good as it possibly could have. –Jay
Whatever Works– 3/5 Like a mediocre Curb Your Enthusiasm episode written by Woody Allen. –Jay
Where The Wild Things Are– 2.5/5 The 10 sentence book needed a few more sentences to be a good movie. Cool effects and visuals though. –Jay
Wolverine– 3/5 The origin of the X-Man in further detail than we’ve already seen in the X-Men movies. –Jay
World’s Greatest Dad– 4.5/5 Robin Williams is amazing as the father of an a-hole kid who has nothing left to try. Awesome dark comedy that turns black. –Jay
Year One– 1/5 Another great cast wasted on a craptastic film. –Chris
Zombieland– 4/5 The American answer to Shaun of the Dead, except with Woody Harrelson and better teeth. (And Shaun is my favorite movie, so that’s high praise) –Jeff