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I'm glad we waited until after the new year to make our 'best of' lists. With a potential "list breaker" dropping on Christmas weekend, it only seemed responsible to wait until we'd sampled everything 2009 had to offer before we spouted off on the best movies of the year. Unfortunately It's Complicated was a little too preachy for me, so the list remains unchanged. (I saw that detective movie too, it was pretty okay).

Read my list after the jump!

--Mark Collins
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5. Avatar 
You hate to start a list by immediately discrediting yourself but I can't help it. Avatar captured my imagination. From the plants that sucked into themselves to the helicopter bugs, I was entranced with the Na'Vi's shimmering world. Pandora looks like a place where it rains Skittles every afternoon and all the colorful, sugary residue gets left behind. Forget about making another Avatar movie, I want to see a 3D mockumentary about the world of Pandora hosted by Steve Irwin piloting his very own avatar.
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4. The Princess and the Frog 
Trumpet playing alligators, a Voo Doo bad guy, a lightning bug sidekick named Ray and a heroine shooting for the stars. The Princess and the Frog is a legacy film carrying on the tradition of hand-drawn animation and good clean Disney fun. The mouse house didn't deliver an instant classic, but in this case its the thought that counts. The animation was so unique and beautiful in all its impurities. Just think, in 10 years Disney will make a new movie with "old school computer animation," and you'll think fondly on the glory days of Pixar when Finding Nemo was the hot new technology. Here's to the Disney movies of the future...and the past.
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3. Thirst
When you use words like ravenous, gory, cruel, and contemptuous to describe a movie you don't expect it to be called "the best modern love story written in years" but that's exactly what this is. The dark undertones of this film bring out the romantic, sensual, and, often times, disgusting life of a preacher-turned-vampire dealing with a new found lust for blood AND carnal pleasures. Who would have thought the best vampire of the year would be made in Korea? Masterful cinematography, good acting throughout; it's a movie for people who like movies.
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2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
 The reason people keep bringing up the reptile scenes is because without them this is an entirely different movie. A meandering crocodile made it okay to laugh at Nicolas Cage putting a gun in an 80-year-old woman's mouth. The tense nature of getting a hand job from a hooker was levied by a lazy iguana. I recommend seeing this movie when you have a really terrible hangover - that will only begin to convey what it must have been like to be Nicolas Cage's character in this movie.
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1. Inglourious Basterds 
 Seeing as how this was a Tarantino film, I knew I was predisposed to liking Inglourious Basterds, but it was my mother's reaction that made me realize how well the writing and acting had come together to create a perfect storm for Tarantino to direct in. My mother (who has never sat through an entire Tarantino movie) stayed awake for the entire thing and was actually disappointed when she had to miss the end to cook dinner! She didn't even flinch during the Bear Jew scene. So either my Mom really hates Nazis, or this movie was just that damn good.
 


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