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Director John Waters' Funky Picks for the Best Films of 2009
by Alex Billington
December 28, 2009
Source: artforum.com
Hearing the name John Waters, you should already expect this list to be quite eccentric, and that's exactly why I'm featuring it. We'll be seeing plenty of the big Oscar on all kinds of best of lists, so why not feature a few films that you probably haven't heard of or never saw? Waters posted his complete list on artforum.com (thanks to Anne Thompson for the link) with explanations for every film. For example, on why he included Whatever Works: "Gerontophilia never seemed so appealing. This time, Woody goes a little gay and lives to tell about it with lovely, comic success. I am so mad I don’t have this director’s career." Read on for his list!
John Waters' Best of 2009:
1. Import/Export (dir. Ulrich Seidl)
2. Antichrist (dir. Lars von Trier)
3. In the Loop (dir. Armando Iannucci)
4. World's Greatest Dad (dir. Bobcat Goldthwait)
5. Brüno (dir. Larry Charles)
6. Lorna's Silence (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
7. Broken Embraces (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
8. The Baader Meinhof Complex (dir. Uli Edel)
9. Whatever Works (dir. Woody Allen)
10. The Headless Woman (dir. Lucrecia Martel)
My other favorite explanation is for Brüno. Waters states: "Don't listen to the critics—it's better than Borat. Imagine a hetero teen couple in a mall on a first date somewhere in Middle America watching Sacha Baron Cohen pantomime every known gay male sex act, ending in a joyous 'facial.' Sometimes audiences get what they deserve." Ha! If you're wondering what Import/Export is, it's a 2007 film directed by Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl about the "miserable lives of Ukrainian immigrants in Vienna." It just opened in New York this summer, even though it played at Cannes in 2007. Odd choice for #1, but that's why I love Waters.
18 Comments
1
good job john.
il hone on Dec 28, 2009
2
4 absolutely incredible film
movieraider321 on Dec 28, 2009
3
mine top 10 from 2009 1. Adam " filmed in 2005 🙁 " 2. Avatar 2. (500) Days of Summer 3. Funny People 4. The Hurt Locker 5. The Messenger 6. Sin Nombre 7. Disgrace 8. An Education 9. The Vicious Kind 10. Goodbye Solo still yet to see A Serious Man, the White Ribbon, Up in the Air and Trucker. p.s Precious is so overrated, feel obligated to say the director seek sympathy from the viewers by putting a fat black unfortunate teenager within a flick that in my opinion, never delivered.
PinkSushi on Dec 28, 2009
4
p.s Lymelife should be upthere somewhere.... yeah... place LL fourth, ..... now its a real goodbye Solo.
PinkSushi on Dec 28, 2009
5
Just goes to show once again John Waters has no taste.
JeepFu on Dec 28, 2009
7
Lol. This guy kills me. In a way, I kinda like his list. 8 and 2 are excellent.
Ozzie Davis on Dec 28, 2009
8
Haven't seen many of them but I loved "In the Loop". As it happens I'm an Englishman living in DC so perhaps the perfect target audience. But there were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in the theater...
Andy on Dec 28, 2009
9
Finally some love for In the Loop and Baader Meinhof Komplex,
Jos van den Atmos on Dec 28, 2009
10
This is one very weird dude, but the movie world needs weird dudes like Waters just to keep things interesting.
Hattori Hanzo on Dec 28, 2009
11
No Avatar? Fail. 😉
Geoff on Dec 28, 2009
12
Typical Waters. Genius. I hate the fact that his Hairspray film was hijacked and made into that touchy feely nonsense musical but if he got a fat check for it, all the better... maybe he'll spend it on making Female Trouble II??? One can hope. If you dig his writing style, do yourself a favor and read his books SHOCK VALUE (probably the greatest director autobiography of all time) and his sidesplitting collection of essays, CRACKPOT.
Jeff on Dec 28, 2009
13
When I think of John Waters, all I can see in my mind's eye is Divine eating dog poop off the sidewalk.
Frank N. Stein on Dec 28, 2009
14
Im glad to see World's Greatest Dad on this list.
Redstrin on Dec 28, 2009
15
Antichrist. YESSSSSS
Steven on Dec 31, 2009
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