Ailish Bracken gives a rundown of the life At the Movies in 2009 and looks ahead to 2010.

2009: Year of the Ox; Year of Recession and Misery; Year of the Flash Mob and it’s timely death; Year of Jacko and Jedward! With cut backs, sporting disasters (damn you Thierry!), reality TV invasion and weather woes, it’s a wonder any of us got to the flicks at all. However we did get there, with 2009 seeing huge rises in cinema attendance throughout Ireland. So what did we spend our hard-earned and diminished cash on?

2009 was the year of the sequel with most of the top grossing movies being part of a series. Another Harry Potter, Twilight, Ice Age and Transformers came out of the Hollywood mill to name but a few. While they provided the reassurance of something familiar that we all need in these times (who doesn’t love the comfort of angsty supernatural teens and ficitional monsters), the majority were a little flat in the entertainment stakes.

The theme of vampires, dark worlds and the supernatural reigned supreme throughout 2009. From the two big comic book movies, Watchmen and Wolverine disappointing critics, to the eagerly anticipated but lacklustre animation Coraline and The Vampire’s Assistant and The Twilight Saga reaching fever pitch as the nights got longer, you wonder if everything was just a little bit too intense. Personally speaking, the light hearted interpretations of the genre seemed to be the most successful and Zombieland and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus were well received by audiences and critics alike.

Offsetting the misery of economic downturn and anemic love affairs further, the Oscars set the tone for the rest of the year by choosing Slumdog Millionaire, an uplifting, feel good indie film as its winner. Beating out heavyweights like Revolutionary Road and The Reader, it spurred a slew of inspirational offerings to lift our spirits. The Soloist with Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx is well worth the tears you will shed and Julie & Julia is so light and fluffy you’ll feel like you baked it. However the most wonderful of all the thought provoking and feel good movies of the year has to be Pixar’s Up. With a very endearing protagonist and a cast of wonderful weird and warm characters, the more serious sentiment of mortality is undercut by life itself and how worthy you can make it. DVD sales in 2010 are already looking good.

While the international market was teeming with love, pre and post mortem, Irish film releases were for the most part a much more solemn affair. The Dublin International Film Festival started off the year with Dorothy Mills, a somber and disturbing film about isolation and manipulation. Five Minutes of Heaven with Liam Neeson about the aftermath of the Northern Irish troubles and The Eclipse with Ciaran Hinds about a supernatural presence in a Kerry town both won well abroad at Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. The Galway Film Festival introduced the dark and unsettling Savage, which deals with masculinity and violence, and the deeply touching His and Hers, about the collective female voice and the power of love. The most astonishing films to come out of Ireland this year are the beautifully shot One Hundred Mornings, a film about the breakdown of modern society and a group of peoples’ struggle for survival and the superbly animated Secret of Kells, which tells the story of the Book of Kells. Both show us in thoroughly different genres how highly skilled our talent pool is and how much Irish audiences under rate indigenous film. Do us a favour? Go and see an Irish film in 2010, they are pretty amazing!

So what is coming up in 2010 for you to feast your eyes upon? Well internationally, The Lovely Bones is eagerly anticipated and early reviews have been incredibly positive. I think this is going to be a big box office hit in the first part of the year. There will of course be another Harry Potter, another Twilight Saga installment which will get the ratings from its vast fan base. Personally, I’m squirming in my seat for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

Looks like the obsession with the undead and underworlds are alive and kicking for another year at least. Be prepared!