Movies seen theatrically in 2009: three. Yes: you could count then on the fingers of one hand, while still hanging on to your large popcorn. This continues a trend noted in last year’s review, though was exacerbated by us moving house in the middle of the year. As well as the experience occupying us and then leaving us drained of energy for the summer blockbuster season, our new location doesn’t have quite the same easy access to cinemas. Though two of the three movies did make it into the top ten – the other being Avatar – I will also admit that four of the listed films arrived in TC Towers, shall we say, in unofficial ways.

Still, when the top five for the year included not only Avatar, but also Transformers 2 and Twilight: New Moon, Hollywood largely has itself to blame for my absence. But since overall American box-office was up 10% on 2008, and cracked the ten billion dollar mark for the first time, I doubt they noticed. However, I also think this does prove that any claims the downloading of movies is killing the industry are clearly nonsense, just as the music business somehow managed to survive audio-cassettes.

As usual, links go to the most appropriate review, which may be here or may be on GirlsWithGuns.org, and I am limiting myself for the purposes of this list, to movies that got their first North American release in 2009.  But here’s also a list of films seen in the past, which might have merited cond for a previous year’s top ten (having been rated B or better]. Lights in the Dusk, Vantage Point, The Memory of a Killer, In Bruges, Let the Right One In, The Wrestler, The Insurgents, Singh is Kinng, Ils, Black Book, Traitor, Fermat’s Room, King Arthur, Stuck, El Rey de la Montaña, Man on Wire, The Strangers, Let Him Have It, Princess Aurora

10. Raging Phoenix
Following up on Chocolate, which made last year’s list, Jeeja Yanin proves that when it comes to action-heroines, the Thais have it. Though not quite as “untainted” [in the sense that this time, the lead’s undoubted talents were more obviously enhanced by some wirework], the action was gloriously hard-hitting, in particular the final confrontations with the scary Roongtawan Jindasing, whom Chris was convinced was a man. The clash of power and flexibility was a joy to behold.

9. Ghost Image
Initially seeming as little more than a lame rip-off of The Ring – a haunted videotape, not seen that before – this managed to get past that, and deliver a genuinely creepy effort, that had a solid script and performance that made it credible. The ghost story has been one of the most over-mined genres of recent years [and the success of Paranormal Activity means that is likely to continue in 2010], but Ghost Image proved that there is still potential for fresh and interesting angles on the area.

8. Monsters vs. Aliens
The trailers didn’t do this justice – it looked like another in the apparently endless line of formulaic CGI animated movies churned out by Hollywood. However, that hid some smart writing, which elevated the film well above its competitors e.g. Bolt, and delivered a loving throwback to monster movies of the 50’s and 60’s, both in the West and Japan. Enjoyable for kids of all ages, this never forgot that the most important point of entertainment, is to actually be entertaining.

7. The Hurt Locker
That is also important for this film, which succeeded where many previous attempts to make a movie centred on the Iraq conflict have failed. It didn’t bother taking sides, and there was no discussion about whether the bomb-disposal unit should be there. They were, and this concerned their efforts to survive, in a world where death conceivably lurked behind every pile of rubble or with each approaching bystander. With tension amped up to 11, it was the year’s most highly-caffeinated movie.

6. Zombieland
Continuing to show that there’s life in the old undead yet, this was probably less a true zombie movie, than a road movie set against a backdrop of shambling flesheaters. Certainly self-aware, but at no time sinking into self-parody [there’s going to be a Scream 4 coming out? Really?], and with four beautifully-drawn central characters, each possessing their own quirks and foibles. Add in an all-you-can-shoot zombie bloodbath at the end, and you’ve got another good entry in the reborn genre.

5. Star Trek
The term “reboot” gets thrown about a lot in Hollywood, and the results have been variable, shall we say. However, this one worked very nicely, managing to return to the two-fisted style of the classic series, while still respecting the original (not least in what was probably the year’s best cameo). They got the casting just about spot-on too, with the actors chosen credible as young versions of the well-loved characters. While I am still not entirely sure about the whole Uhura-Spock thing, this was still a fine re-start to the franchise.

4. The Machine Girl
This lurid tale of betrayal, deep-fried limbs and mechanically-enhanced revenge painted the walls red, at the kind of firehose levels of blood pressure only ever seen in Japanese splatter movies. OTT excess is all the better, when done with a perfectly-straight face, and that’s what we have here. It hits the ground running with an opening sequence (below) that can only be described as berserk, and hardly pauses for breath the rest of its 96 minute running time. If you saw only one movie featuring drill bras last year, this was probably it.

3. District 9
It’s interesting to compare this to Avatar. Both films are about a human who is sent into an alien race, initially with malevolent intentions, but he comes to realize that they are not quite as painted, and he eventually [spoiler alert] becomes one of them [end spoiler alert]. District 9, however, managed to do it with a great deal less ham-handed bludgeoning of the audience, even if the apartheid symbolism here was kinda obvious. Technologically, it was a seamless meshing of CGI – you literally could not see the join – and it was also among the most credible depictions of what might happen when/if we finally have our first encounter.

2. Princess
Denmark is not really regarded as a hot-bed of animation, but this piece of work certainly made up for in impact anything that it lacked in mind-blowing technical quality. Truly a film which could only be done in animation [due to some truly shocking scenes involving the very young child at the center of things], it packed an emotional wallop far greater than all the tentacle rape flicks ever to come out of Japan, and uses live-action flashbacks and fantasy sequences, pulling the viewer in, to the point where the wallops which the movie then delivers have all the more tragic impact.

1. Martyrs
After a stream of highly-touted foreign horror movies that failed to live up to the hype. this one finally delivered the goods on all levels. While not skimping on the gore, with some of the nastiest violence to come across the screen, it was the fact that there was more than sheer psychopathy at work which made it disturbing. The perpetrators truly believed what they were doing was entirely justified, believing the ends justified the means ( I imagine the Nazis probably thought similarly). The degree of man’s inhumanity to man – or woman to woman – shown here can only be admired, in an appalling sort of way.

Everyone else is doing their top ten films of the decade piece, so why buck the trend? Though I’m not even going to start getting into the whole “Well, technically, the decade runs from 2001-2010…” thing. This is based entirely on movies released in years that start “200”, with Wikipedia being the source of information on the date of a particular film.  You may notice some differences from the year-by-year lists previously published. This is mostly because some films stand the test of time better than others. The year-end lists tend to be based on a single viewing, while all the titles listed below hall gone through multiple viewings [in some case, multiple-multiple viewings], and been found to be just as effective – or even more so – than when initially seen.

Links go to the most appropriate review, either here or on GirlsWithGuns.org. Honorary mentions [in alphabetical order]: The Animatrix, The Booth, Children of Men, Finding Nemo, Gladiator, Kung Fu Hustle, Nine Queens, The Returner, The Ring, Shoot ‘Em Up, Signs, Sin City, Sexy Beast, 300.

• 10. Sick Girl
  Horror movies should make you uncomfortable. They should make you squirm in your seat. And even the jaded horror fans that Chris and I are were made very uncomfortable by this, more so than any other of the hundreds of genre entries that strayed across our eyeballs in the past decade. Martyrs made a late push to dethrone this, but Leslie Andrews’ performance here is just so disconnected and matter-of-fact, as she carries out the most unspeakable of acts on her victims. Horror – true horror, not torture-porn – is absolute indifference to the suffering of others, and it’s this chilling effect which lies at the heart of Sick Girl and its impact.
• 9. The Dark Knight
  Would certainly have ranked higher, if we didn’t have a strong urge to clear our throat, every time Bale’s caped crusader spoke. Otherwise, however, this is near perfect, highlighted of course by the stunning performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Every time we come across the film on cable, we have to put it on, especially if it’s in time to see the sublime “How about a magic trick?” scene. The scope and scale of Christopher Nolan’s vision is the perfect backdrop for this larger-than-life performance, which succeeds in engaging both brain and heart in a way few “comic-book” movies have ever managed to do.

• 8. Versus
  At the risk of mixing my metaphors terribly, this fuels up on adrenalin and goes full-throttle straight for the action jugular, Ryuhei Kitamura coming out of nowhere to deliver one of the most purely-entertaining action flicks of all time. Packed with characters who can best be described as “fascinating,” it combines impressive imagination with spectacular execution on a tiny budget, punches far above its weight as a result. Zombies, swordplay, really-big guns and martial-arts combine in a delightful and heady cocktail that is quite unique. Some of Kitamura’s subsequent work has been solid; nothing has quite matched Versus.
• 7. Kill Bill, Volume 1
  Proof that, when Quentin Tarantino reins in his verbal diarrhoea and keeps himself off-screen, he is capable of delivering a thoroughly-entertaining piece of work. He is now 1-for-6 there [not see Inglorious Bastards yet], thanks to the best action-heroine film to come out of Hollywood in the decade. Uma Thurmann’s Bride was a tornado of revenge, chewing up and spitting out any and all who got in her path, be it old friends like Vernita Green, new enemies such as Go-Go Yubari or, in the film’s most impressive sequence, an entire pack of enraged, masked Japanese men wielding samurai swords.  A marvellous swirling of popular cultures.

• 6. Wall-E
  Not the last Pixar movie you’ll see in this list, and the studio dominated the decade as far as animation goes, in the way Studio Ghibli did the mid-80’s to mid-90’s. After a bit of a road-bump with Cars [pun not intended], Pixar roared back with a tale about a garbage clean-up robot that falls in love with a probe. James Cameron could have learned how to make non-human characters – indeed, non-organic ones here – sympathetic. They could conceivably have made the entire film without a single word of meaningful dialogue, and it would still have been eqally as marvellous. Or possibly even more so.
• 5. Borat
  I still have absolutely no idea how this subversive piece of surrealist theatre managed to get a massive release across the entire world [except, I suspect, Kazakhstan]. Too much of what passed as ‘satire’ in this decade was toothless, but Sacha Baron Cohen hit his marks with impeccable precision, as he tore across the United States from New York to Pamela Anderson. Great satire should offend people – especially its targets – but Baron Cohen exposed not just the prejudice inherent in Western society, but also its remarkable tolerance for and patience with outsiders. It made us laugh, cringe, and think, a unique triple-play.

• 4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
  The only martial-arts movie to ever make me shed a tear, because for once, equal attention was given to the characters as to the ass-kickery. The relationships between them had a genuine, timeless feel to them which meant the period setting was not a strait-jacket for the storyline. The amazing action sequences which punctuated proceedings, by Yuen Wo-Ping, had a lyrical grace and imagination to them which has rarely been matched: the duel between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Zi-yi was probably the finest one-on-one fight in the period covered here, like watching water go over a cliff. Add the emotional punch of the end, and it’s a masterpiece.
• 3. Monsters Inc.
  Oh, look – another Pixar movie. I could just copy and paste the paragraph above, about the ability to make non-human characters work.  However, this was not only a very sweet and innocent love story, it was also riotously-funny, and showcased a blizzard of pure imagination – the lifeblood of animation. This was apparent, not only in the construction of Monstropolis, but also the characters which populated it, and all the way to little things like the street signs [Stalk/Don’t Stalk]. CGI animation is no longer anything rare or unusual; however, this film transcends the medium and is simply great movie-making.

• 2. Shaun of the Dead
  Probably counts as our most-watched film of the decade. Any time it’s on – even on a non-premium channel, where it has been been formatted to fit the screen, run in the time allotted and edited for content – we just have to watch it, rejoicing in the glorious dialogue and marvellous combination of horror and comedy, two notoriously difficult genres to combine well [many have tried – most have failed, and few things are worse than a horror-comedy that is neither horrific nor funny]. There is not a wrong step, weak moment or wasted sentence to be found in the entire thing. Makes me proud to be British.
• 1. Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and Return of the King
  To commemorate the end of the decade, I decided it was long past time to pull out all three entries in the series, and watch them back-to-back-to-back, see if they all held up. The versions in question were the extended cuts of parts one and three, and the regular version of part two – we really didn’t feel that it was a film particularly in need of additional footage of tree pontificating. The results of this furry-footed marathon are a separate article, which can be found here.

IFC recently ran a six-part documentary series, chronicling the history of the Pythons, from their beginnings in the Oxford and Cambridge revues, through to Spamalot. It was quite a treat, not least realizing how the troupe was a semi-random collection of people, who gelled into a near-perfect whole for three sublime seasons of television, at a rare moment in television history when the opportunity to make a show like that presented itself.

Of course, as with any sketch-based comedy series, it wasn’t all good: it’s a genre that inevitably lends itself to peaks and valleys, rather than the consistency of things like Fawlty Towers or Blackadder. And, especially in the abortive fourth season, there were plenty of valleys – without John Cleese, the show was lost, and those episodes are the Python equivalent of those Eastern Bloc Tom and Jerry cartoons from the early 1960’s. But the peaks were sublime; both in the TV series and the movies, they created timeless moments of comedy which have rarely, if ever, been matched. It spans generations: my father loved Python. Myself and Chris adore Python. And our son is just as much a fan, who will recite The Four Yorkshiremen at the drop of a dead parrot.

Hence, this list of my favourite Python moments – not just from the TV, but the movies as well, which can hardly be denied their significance in comedy’s Hall of Fame. However, I have excluded stuff from The Secret Policeman’s Ball and its sequels. The hard part was restricting it to ten eleven (for reasons explained later): I could easily have doubled the number without blinking. The link for each title will open a new tab where you can view the sketch in question.

I note that my preference is clearly skewed towards the more verbal side of Python comedy, rather than the physical – I think this is because the slapsticky stuff is rather too well-worn a path, from Charlie Chaplin through to Benny Hill. Hence, sketches like Upper-class Twit of the Year, often ranked highly on other, similar lists, are not ones of which I’m particular fond. It’s in word-play and their use of the English language that the true strength of Python can be seen. They manage to be immensely smart (who else would ever base a piece on summarizing Proust?) without getting pretentious (you don’t really need to know who Proust is to appreciate the results), and that’s a lot rarer than you might imagine.

10. Black Knight (Holy Grail)
The Pythons had a love for and appreciation of OTT hyperviolence – see also Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days. However, this scene, in which John Cleese’s Black Knight is systematically dismembered by Graham Chapman’s King Arthur, yet proclaims “It’s just a scratch” as his limbs go cartwheeling away from their body, is even more memorable. It’s the contrast between the arterial spray – something not seen in cinema at the time, outside a grindhouse screening of Shogun Assassin – and the Black Knight’s completely oblivious attitude that makes this work. Could also have been Castle Anthrax. Or the French taunting. Or the witch-finding.

9. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Life of Brian)
Likely my least favorite of the Python movies, it feels to me like it’s a film with only one idea, which as a result doesn’t have enough energy to drive the film for the entire running-time. However, the ending has to remain one of the all-time greatest in cinema, with the men being crucified alongside Brian, led by Eric Idle, breaking out into a cheerful song extolling the joys of optimism. It shows up in the most unlikely places. In 1993, when the Manchester bid for the 2000 Olympics was (thankfully) rejected in favour of Sydney, the crowd watching in Castlefield spontaneously burst into the song.

8. Mr Creosote (Meaning of Life)
Speaking of “spontaneously bursting”… Perhaps the Python’s deepest excursion beyond the borders of good taste was this hideous sequence, which Chris still has problems watching [she has a thing about vomit, and the sketch has it, by the literal bucket], and which grossed out Quentin Tarantino. Again, it’s the contrast that makes it work: here, between Terry Jones’ obese, obscene restaurant customer, and Cleese’s unflappably obsequious waiter, who is entirely unfazed by Creosote’s behaviour. Again, this is probably more extreme than anything else to pass the BBFC at the time.

7. Argument Clinic
“Is this the right room for an argument?”
“I’ve told you once…”
Thus starts the core of the sketch, which has Cleese duelling with Michael Palin in a pay-per-minute argument, which drifts topic from whether the initial question has answered, over to the very nature of what constitutes an argument. It’s beautifully constructed, though suffers from the frequent Pythonesque problem – they could never work out how to end their pieces, with a punchline apparently being viewed as too traditional. Here, Idle, dressed as a policeman, arrests the show for “simply ending every bleeding sketch by just having a policeman come in.”

6. Spanish Inquisition
Possibly the finest running-joke in the history of running-jokes, it appeared at various points throughout one episode, when a character would proclaim “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.” This would trigger the arrival of Cardinal Ximenez [Palin] and his useless henchmen, who would attempt to extract confessions with the aid of a comfy chair, after getting all confused when listing the Inqusition’s weapons. The show ends with the inquisitors having to rush across town by bus, to the Dick Barton theme, only to be cut off by the closing credits. Brilliance.

5. Mad Barber/Lumberjack Song
While everyone knows the Lumberjack Song, often forgotten is the lead-in, where Palin’s homicidal barber tries to fake cutting a customer’s hair, for fear it will bring out his psychopathic tendencies (“Cut, cut, cut, blood, spurt, artery, murder, Hitchcock, Psycho…”). He eventually admits, “I didn’t want to be a barber anyway,” which leads to the song. This may be the most famous of all Python ditties, as the lyrics drift from extolling the joys of a life of woodmanship, into the pleasures of wearing women’s clothing – to the disgust of the backing chorus of Mounties.

4. Live Organ Transplants/Galaxy Song (Meaning of Life)
Meaning of Life is the most variable of the Python movies, combining moments of genius with dismal failure. This is the highlight of the film, with paramedics Chapman and Cleese arriving to take the liver of Mr. Jones (Terry Gilliam), even though the donor card says, “In the event of death.” As they respond, “No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived.” His wife (Terry Jones) is asked to sign up, and is convinced to do so by Idle’s Galaxy Song. Most of the litany of astronomical facts it contains, are actually surprisingly accurate.

3. Dirty Fork
One of the few Python sketches with a true punchline – announced, in typical self-referential style with both a voice over and caption saying, “And Now… The Punchline!” Naturally, the punchline is not up to the level of the rest of the sketch, which features an escalating series of absurdity, after a restaurant diner (Chapman) complains about a dirty fork. By the end of the sketch, the restaurant manager (Idle) has committed fork seppuku, the chef (Cleese) has to be restrained from attacking the patrons with a cleaver and the waiter (Palin) is clutching a war wound in his head.

2a. The Four Yorkshiremen
I’d completed the list when I suddenly remembered this one. I refuse, absolutely, to lose the Black Knight, so have just gone ahead and inserted this in the appropriate place. On the other hand, it isn’t technically a Python sketch, since it was written for At Last The 1948 Show, with the writer-performers there including Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman, as well as Cleese and Chapman. However, its presence in Live at the Hollywood Bowl and elsewhere has made it part of Python canon, though other enactments have included participants from Rowan Atkinson to Alan Rickman.

2. Nudge Nudge
Eric Idle plays the over-friendly stranger in the pub, who slides up to Terry Jones, enjoying a quiet, solitary half-pint, and proceeds to ask a series of questions about his wife that gradually become more and more innuendo-laden. Idle tries to appear as the man of the world, but the punchline – as in Dirty Fork, a rarity – completely shatters that illusion. It was originally written for Ronnie Barker, but was rejected. The dead-pan delivery by Jones of his responses, as he (deliberately?) refuses to see what Idle is getting at, is what really makes the sketch so memorable.

1. Dead Parrot
Not just the greatest sketch in Python history, but possibly also the greatest sketch of all tine. An it’s not just me who thinks so, as the sketch topped the IFC/Nerve list of the 50 All-Time Greatest, ahead of Who’s on First? and the entire output of Saturday Night Live. It may also be John Cleese’s finest moment, and given the sublime wonder which was Fawlty Towers, that in itself is quite an achievement: he works himself up into a frothing fury, in the face of Palin’s relentless denials that there is anything wrong with the obviously-demised avian. Has been performed in a number of ways by the pair since: for your amusement, here’s a link to one where Palin can’t stop laughing. But, for your amusement, here is the original version, in its entirety. Enjoy.

MTV announced its top ten list of ultimate movie badasses earlier in the week, headed by Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry. It wasn’t as much of an abomination as most such selections go, though quite what Diablo Cody – one of the panel – knows about the topic of badasses, it’s hard to say. However, the list still had some notable omissions, and in that spirit, I offer the following alternative top ten. I humbly submit, this selection would collectively leave the original in the dust, if there were ever some kind of Badass Survivor Series.

I suppose it does perhaps depend on how you define the credentials. Wiktionary says a badass is “A person whose extreme attitudes and behavior are admirable,” but I think there’s more to it than that. I’d be hard-pushed to actually write anything down: however, much like pornography, it’s usually pretty clear when you see it. However, after coming up with ten, Chris and I kept right on going, with a little help from Robert too. Through dinner, on a restaurant napkin, back home and on into the next morning with everyone in the house lobbing suggestions to me like hand-grenades. It became abundantly clear that one list of candidates was not going to be enough.

The MTV list is weakened considerably by an almost complete reliance on Hollywood films, with Mad Mel the token non-American included. Being badass does not require you speak English. Or even speak at all. Indeed the less you say, the better. Which is why Quentin Tarantino will never, ever qualify, and Samuel L. Jackson is also not to be found here. Just as you don’t need to speak to be a badass, you don’t need to spell aluminium without an “i”. Hence, in addition to the American top ten list (which, dammit, we expanded to a top 20, simply because we can), we also include section for British and Asian candidates, as well as a list combining all those from the rest of the world.

For this purpose, every man, movie and character on the MTV list is excluded from consideration. Even though Eastwood could well have made this list, for The Man With No Name, and I wouldn’t argue with John McClane either. That restriction was not applied to the women, as a list without Ripley on top of it would be unthinkable. A more fully-detailed article on the ladies, incidentally, will be appearing separately, over on girlswithguns.org later in the month. And I’ve limited actors to one nomination. Otherwise, the entire top ten could be filled with the works of Rutger Hauer, who was badass in just about every movie he made for a decade after Blade Runner: The Hitcher; Wanted Dead or Alive; Blind Fury; Split Second; Wedlock; Salute of the Jugger; Flesh + Blood; Ladyhawke; even Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I rest my case.

1. Ash in Army of Darkness [Bruce Campbell]
2. Riddick in Pitch Black [Vin Diesel]
3. Snake Plissken in Escape from New York [Kurt Russell
4. Luke in Cool Hand Luke [Paul Newman]
5. Simon Phoenix in Demolition Man [Wesley Snipes]
6. Tony Montana in Scarface [Al Pacino]
7. Creasy in Man on Fire [Denzel Washington]
8. J.J. McQuade in Lone Wolf McQuade [Chuck Norris]
9. John Shaft in Shaft [Richard Roundtree]
10. Sgt. Harman in Full Metal Jacket [R. Lee Ermey]
11. Gabriel in The Prophecy [Christopher Walken]
12. Seth Gecko in From Dusk Till Dawn [George Clooney]
13. Nada in They Live [Roddy Piper]
14. The Lieutenant in Bad Lieutenant [Harvey Keitel]
15. The Kurgan in Highlander [Clancy Brown]
16. Tyler Durden in Fight Club [Brad Pitt]
17. Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings [Viggo Mortensen]
18. Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum [Matt Damon]
19. Micky Knox in Natural-Born Killers [Woody Harrelson]
20. Johnny-23 in Con Air [Danny Trejo]

British badasses

1. Jack Carter in Get Carter [Michael Caine]
2. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs [Sir Anthony Hopkins]
3. Count Dracula in Dracula [Christopher Lee]
4. Don Logan in Sexy Beast [Ben Kingsley]
5. Cleric Preston in Equilibrium [Christian Bale]
6. Big Tony in Snatch [Vinnie Jones]
7. James Bond in Dr. No [Sean Connery]
8. Alex in A Clockwork Orange [Malcolm McDowell]
9. Smith in Shoot ‘Em Up [Clive Owen]
10. Stansfield in Leon [Gary Oldman]

Honourary mentions: Ray Winstone (Beowulf); Bill Nighy (Underworld); Jason Statham (The Transporter); Gerard Butler (300).

Eastern badasses

1. Mark in A Better Tomorrow 1+2 [Chow Yun-Fat]
2. Kai San in The Ebola Syndrome [Anthony Wong]
3. Kakihara in Ichii the Killer [Tadanobu Asano]
4. Ricky in The Story of Ricky [Siu-Wong Fan]
5. Dae-su Oh in Oldboy [Min-sik Choi]
6. Lee in Enter the Dragon [Bruce Lee]
7. Azuma in Violent Cop [Takeshi Kitano]
8. Sky in Hero [Donnie Yen]
9. Prisoner KSC2-303 in Versus [Tak Sakaguchi]
10. DCP Hari Om Patnaik in Aan: Men at Work [Akshay Kumar]

Foreign-born badasses

1. Roy Batty in Blade Runner [Rutger Hauer]
2. Don Lope de Aguirre in Aguirre, Wrath of God [Klaus Kinski]
3. Leon in Leon [Jean Reno]
4. Dutch in Predator [Arnold Schwarzenegger]
5. Jef Costello in Le Samouraï [Alain Delon]
6. Maximus in Gladiator [Russell Crowe]
7. Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men [Javier Bardem]
8. Wolverine in X-Men [Hugh Jackman]
9. Jean Rasczak in Starship Troopers [Michael Ironside]
10. Joseph in Sheitan [Vincent Cassel]

Female badasses

1. Ripley in Aliens [Sigourney Weaver]
2. Varla in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! [Tura Satana]
3. Alice in Resident Evil: Apocalypse [Milla Jovovich]
4. The Bride in Kill Bill [Uma Thurmann]
5. Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger [Cheng Pei-Pei]
6. Mallory in Bloody Mallory [Olivia Bonamy]
7. Ilsa Koch in Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS [Dyanne Thorne]
8. Inspector Ng in Yes, Madam [Michelle Yeoh]
9. Ruger in LA Bounty [Sybil Danning]
10. Coffy in Coffy [Pam Grier]

Honorary mentions: Franka Potente (Run Lola Run); Aya Ueto (Azumi); Anne Parillaud (Nikita); Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix); Leslie Andrews (Sick Girl); Brigitte Lahaie (Fascination); Michelle Rodriguez (Girlfight); Zoe Tamerlis (Ms.45); Christina Lindberg (Thriller: A Cruel Picture); Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct); Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps).

I think this year probably marked a new low-water mark for going to the cinema, perhaps since I moved to London in 1987 – largely for economic reasons, as well as the more traditional ones of sloth and the theatrical experience gradually being overtaken by the home one. There are a declining number of films which I feel need to be seen at the multiplex, when the alternative involves soft, fluffy, pillowy goodness, snacks of our choosing and no young people talking incessantly [well, only Robert, and he has spent most of 2008 watching the complete works of Stargate in the living-room]. Why bother going out, when we can wait for it to appear on cable and Tivo it for viewing at our convenience?

Hence, there are probably a number of films which probably would have qualified, yet have yet to drift across our retinas. Much the same way as, say Shoot ‘Em Up and The Bourne Ultimatum would have been in the 2007 Top Ten, had we seen them when we were writing it, this list should be taken as reflecting only the situation at the present time. Quantum of Solace may make it in due course: Twilight and Beverly Hills Chihuahua should probably not be holding their breath though. On the other hand, for the first time in a while (2004 was the last year), I did actually see both the #1 and #2 at the box-office at the movies, though this may reflect their dominance as much as anything. This year, only three films passed $230 million, the smallest number since 2000 [when The Grinch was top, which gives you some idea what a cinematic feast was available there]. I was quite surprised to see Indiana Jones and the Overlong Title was one of them, though the others are likely no surprise.

The top two both made the Trash City top ten too, which is something of a shock, because popular taste and my taste rarely coincide. It’s the first time that’s happened for the #1+2 in takings, since the double-bill of Return of the King and Finding Nemo topped both box-office and TC charts, five years ago. Not quite as strong a correlation in 2008, admittedly, yet anything is better than nothing. So, bearing in mind the limitations of what I haven’t seen yet, here are my favorite ten films of 2008. Links go to the full review, either here or on GirlsWithGuns.org, as appropriate.

10. The Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust
Certainly winner of the Title of the Year award, this entertaining B-movie had few pretensions, except for a desire to skewer the world of B-movies: talk about biting the hand. With a sharp, witty script, and a host of cameos from people who should probably know better, this was simply a lot of fun, taking advantages of the strengths that low-budget movies possess, and wisely not reaching beyond those goals.

9. Dark Heart (left)
Sometimes, the best films succeed on the simplest level: the viewer wants to know what happened next. This movie demonstrates this admirably, a taut piece of work, mostly taking place in a deserted house where an Iraqi veteran is taken, after unwisely shooting his mouth off in a bar about a stash of money. ‘Hilarity ensues,’ as they say. Ok: it doesn’t, but the script is crisp and taut, and that’s the most important thing.

8. Iron Man
I haven’t been too impressed with most films based on comics before this year, but we had a couple of crackers in 2008. This one was simply enormous fun, with Downey a perfect choice for the role, and thoroughly deserving the career resurrection which resulted. Expensive, loud and packed with well-shot action, it was a rare example of a film that really needed to be seen at the cinema to be enjoyed.

7. Chocolate
Though if you wanted your action flavoured with copious amounts of bone-crunching, then you needed to unwrap a bar of Chocolate. From the director who turned Tony Jaa into a star, this starred the catchily-named JeeJa Vismistananda as an autistic girl who learns martial arts off the TV. Long story short: contains probably the most painful large-scale fight scene since Jackie Chan’s heyday. And quite a few others too.

6. Diary of the Dead
After the somewhat disappointing Land of the Dead, Romero got back to form, by going back to basics: a small band of no-name actors, pitted against a large number of hungry zombies. George adopted some of the concepts from Blair Witch and Cloverfield, but reined in the worst excesses, and was more effective than both as a result. Skewering the flesh and the media with equal enthusiasm, nice to see Romero still has it in him.

5. Machine Girl
Trust the Japanese to go and one-up Romero when it comes to the splatter. I can’t do much better than repeat my GWG recap: “For those who thought the Black Knight scene in Holy Grail was just too restrained in its use of arterial spray.” Right from the opening scene, the film was awash in the old red stuff; I think it probably counts as the goriest film I’ve seen since the heyday of early Peter Jackson. Silly, over the top, cheap, lurid and wonderful.

4. WALL-E
When the world seems to have turned against you, it’s occasionally comforting to curl up with a feel-good flick – and no-one does them better over the past decade or so, than Pixar. Be it insects, toys, monsters, fish or, as here, robots, the studio can take almost anything, giving it heart and making you care about it, in a way most human actors and directors would kill for. Great to see them back on form.

3. The Bank Job (right)
Jason Statham had a bit of a mixed year. Death Race was lame, and working with Uwe Boll is never a good sign, though even I haven’t had the guts to sit through the 127 minutes of In the Name of the King. However, the #1 British action hero reached a new career-high with The Bank Job, which deftly spun a tale of a largely-forgotten moment in our country’s history, and gave Statham a chance to do some acting, an aspect of his talent often ignored by all but Guy Ritchie.

2. The Dark Knight
Rarely are commercial success and artistic acclaim so well aligned as here; one does have to wonder, would it have been quite so popular in either, save the untimely death of Heath Ledger? Regardless: it is what it is, and what it is is probably the best comic-book adaptation ever [though I still love Batman Returns on a number of levels]. Ledger dominates the screen in a sweeping epic that has brains, heart and soul, overshadowing even Bale’s caped crusader. If someone had given Batman a throat lozenge, this would probably have been #1.

1. Sick Girl
Chris found the trailer for this, and we immediately had to have it for our Film Festival. When we got the DVD, we had some trepidation: surely it couldn’t live up to the trailer? It didn’t. It surpassed the trailer, thanks mostly to Leslie Andrews’ completely disconnected performance in the title role. It’s a film that’s probably highly offensive, simply for daring to make the viewer empathize with a character whose idea of fun includes torture of the most sadistic kind. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.