The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Films

Posts Tagged ‘Kevin Smith’

Good

Someone actually found an unintended use for Twitter. Beyond the micro-blogging, the ranting, and the messages about the Shit My Dad Says, it turns out to be a fairly accurate predictor of a movie’s box office revenue.

Researchers, Sitaram Asur and Bernardo Huberman from HP Labs in Palo Alto, counted over 3 million “tweets” over 3 months, then compared them to box office revenues. The frequency of tweets correlated directly to the money coming in. More accurate than any other method to date.

However, when it comes to the accuracy of forecasts, counting the rate of tweeting trounces the Hollywood Stock Exchange, say Asur and Huberman: “Our predictions are consistently better than those produced by an information market such as the Hollywood Stock Exchange, the gold standard in the industry.”

-Technology Review

Of course, now that this has been found out, watch studios try to game the system by flooding the twitter feeds with movie tweets.

Bad

As much as I dislike Saturday Night Live and find the majority of their segments overly long and most of their movie adaptations a torturous 90 version of the same bits, there have been a few exceptions. MacGruber is shaping up to be one of them.

What started off as a slightly funny bit that was a rip off of MacGuyver (which was funny in its own way), has turned into a feature length movie, with Val Kilmer as the main villain no less.

Being a fan of Richard Dean Anderson and the original MacGuyver, I watched the clips online from his appearance on SNL and all of the MacGruber stuff. I found the concept weak and mildly funny. When I heard that they were making a movie out of it, I figured that it was going to be more of the same and not worth my time. Then the second Red Band trailer came out for it…

Now that I’ve seen this, I kind of want to see it. It kind of feels like it’s going to be a bit of a rip-off of Get Smart, with the bumbling agent and the very capable sidekicks, but I had some laugh out loud moments watching the trailer. I don’t think it’s going to be a good movie, by any stretch of the imagination, but one I’ll still watch, nonetheless, for the mindless comedy.

Ugly

I found this article on Cinematical about a theatre in Dallas, Texas warning patrons that a movie was going to have subtitles. I share the same befuddlement as the author. Has the American audience become that short of attention that they need to be warned away from something that might make them read? Have we all become too used to quick edits and flashy explosions that to have to read the dialogue too, would just be too much?

The movie in question was Mother, a Korean language film by the director of The Host, Bong Joon-ho.

This reminded me of the dumbing down of the subtitles for the North American release of Let The Right One In. You can read all about that here.

I just don’t understand people that won’t give a movie a chance because it has subtitles. I would have missed out on so many great foreign films if I didn’t like to read. Too many to list here.

The Good

Kevin Smith announced via Twitter that he will begin shooting Red State in July! Red State is a complete departure from Smith’s usual style – a horror film! The film was written by Smith in 2007 and has not had much success finding financing until, apparently, now. Cop Out was Smith’s first outing as a director for hire, but Red State is…

a total 180 from anything he’s done before — A psychological horror flick with an extremely dark tone. The few folks who have seen early drafts of “Red State” have spoken of how it stuck with them, how unsettling it was, and that it’s so un-Kevin that it’s exciting to see his take on a totally new genre

-News Askew

Any director that is so synonymous with a particular brand of film making willing to take a chance is a very cool, very good thing – we can only hope the final product is as exciting!

The Bad

The Movie Industry is such a schizophrenic beast. While confidently pushing forward in new technologies like 3D on the theatrical front, the home video market is becoming quite a mess. Warner Brothers signed a deal with Blockbuster that would give the dino-chain a leg up over Netflix and Redbox by allowing Blockbuster to rent their new releases day and date, while the others will have to hold off for 28 days before making the same titles available to their customers.

When Redbox and Netflix agreed to the 28-day moratorium, they did so to ensure a steady flow of product at a reasonable cost. In Blockbuster’s case, insiders said its deal with Warners was expiring, so an extension — with modifications — was in order. To help heavily indebted Blockbuster stay afloat, the studio agreed to let Blockbuster keep more of the rental money upfront but pay more on the backend.

-The Hollywood Reporter

This is bad news for consumers on all fronts – it creates confusion! You see a movie advertised on TV coming to home video, you think you can add it to Netflix queue, or pick it up at Redbox while your at the supermarket, but no, you need to wait 28 days to do either. Or to try to track down a rapidly disappearing Blockbuster to see it right away. Plus if studios make exclusive deals with each vendor you will need to factor in which studio the film comes from and if they are married to your preferred vendor. You need a freakin slide ruler to rent a damn DVD! Of course you could always avert all confusion and just buy it – an option the studios would be delighted by.

As for Blockbuster…

Blockbuster raised the possibility of bankruptcy during its annual report last week, a revelation that knocked its stock down 29% in a day. On Tuesday, shares rose 3% to 33 cents.

Blockbuster has about $964 million in debt and about $189 million in cash. It lost $435 million during the fourth quarter.

-The Hollywood Reporter

The company is wheezing out the last death rattles before it is no more – I can’t see where this is going to save it. In its glory days, Blockbuster rolled over smaller stores, snatching business away and then abused their new patrons with heavy late-fees.  C’mon Warner – Bad behaviour should not be rewarded!

Speaking of bad behaviour being rewarded, the head of the International Actor’s Federation feels the use of “pirate” to define someone stealing media needs to be changed, as pirates are too sexy!

“We should change the word piracy,” she said at a press conference. “To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we’re talking about a criminal act. We’re talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do.”

-Arstechnica

James (Son of Rupert) Murdoch echoed these sentiments saying pirates should be labelled simply as thieves. However, it is hard to be sympathetic when when one person in the industry is talking about people unable to make a living, and then you have MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman saying in Showest speech…

“What a year! As John said, a 10 percent lift for the box office here at home…a 30 percent jump globally since 2005. Reversing a two-year trend, we have more people going to the movies…and more folks going more often…with a hard-core of movie fans—the 10 percent who go once or more a month—accounting for half of all ticket sales.”

-Arstechnica

So, which is it? Are you hemorrhaging money from sexy pirates, or rolling around naked in your increasing wealth?

The Ugly

It must be great being James Cameron – never having to wait for someone else to pat you on the back n’ all. ¦¬) At a media event Cameron claimed that Avatar presales are leaning heavily on the Blu-Ray side, in effect doing for home video what he did for theatres – taking the format to the next level like he did with 3D.

“ …presales of the higher-quality Blu-ray Disc version have consumers “choosing a premium experience in the home, just as they did in theaters.”

Cameron said he expects Fox Home Entertainment’s worldwide release of “Avatar” on Earth Day to drive sales of Blu-ray players and discs much in the way the pic convinced filmgoers to pay extra for 3D and pushed theater owners to upgrade their movie houses.

He said he hopes the home video release will allow more children to see history’s top-grossing film and that they will become “warriors for our planet, or else it’s not going to survive.”

-the Hollywood Reporter

Ah, Mr Cameron; King of the World… Eco-General… Churner of stomachs…

For those of you that were craving it, here it is: Movie News! The four of us sit down and chew over the items that caught our eye over the past couple of weeks. Some of the stuff we talk about includes:

• Box Office news
• Kathryn Bigelow picks up the Director’s Guild Award
• Battle of the Exes in the media
• Lionsgate drops Descent 2 down the STV hole
• Kevin Smith’s Red State
• Director’s cut of Nightbreed
• Mr. and Mrs. Smith reboot
• Harry Potter, Spider Man 4, and Clash of the Titans getting the 3D treatment
• Superman reboot news
• Disney plays around with release windows
• Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on the remake trail
• Three Musketeers gets yet another remake

Our movie we reviewed this week was Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair. It covers the lengths black women go to in order to achieve what society at large considers “good hair”. It follows the chemistry behind relaxing hair and how weaves are made. There’s also a section on a massive hair product show in Atlanta Georgia, where stylists compete against each other in what could easily be made into a reality TV show. See where each of us very white guys fall when it comes to the final verdict on what we thought of this film. Have you already seen it? If you’d like to comment, please feel send us an email to podcast@goodbaduglyfilms.com or leave us a voicemail via Skype.

*If you listen closely, you’ll see that John doesn’t actually say the title of the film. He did in the pre-show discussion though, so we’ll give him a pass here.

A couple of mistakes creep in to the podcast, but hopefully some of the smaller ones will go without notice. One of the ones I made, I’d like to correct. Paul Hogan put the movie Lightning Jack on the Australian Stock Market, not Crocodile Dundee III. – Mark.

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This week we review three new home video releases, but before we do, we talk about the end of Miramax films (which saddens Allen more that it should).

Next we discuss the remake of “The Stepfather” – a remake none of find much good in.  “Couples Retreat” managed to amuse us, but no one was terribly overwhelmed by it. And while we did find some things about “The Time Traveler’s Wife” intriguing, overall it just kinda fell into the middle as well. Check out everything we said about these movies, and leave your comments about them here, or by email at podcast@goodbaduglyfilms.com – and remember, you can leave us a voice message via Skype through the “Contact Us” tab at the top of the page.

WARNING!!! After the close of the podcast are some major spoilers for The Time Traveler’s Wife!!! 

Next Tuesday we will be back with discussion about movie news, and a review of the Chris Rock documentary “Good Hair,” And this Friday will be our Spotlight Special on Flops.

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The urge to jump onto a new video format is pretty easy to resist, especially when the standard is not only serviceable, but ubiquitous. DVD is everywhere – in our living rooms, bedrooms, computers and cars. The picture quality is solid, especially when compared to VHS, which DVD stomped to a painful death. It’s reign as undisputed king of video was hardly the dynasty of its predecessor before HD was being touted as the next big thing. The format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray was at best uninteresting due to most homes being completely unprepared for it, and consumers oblivious to the revolution.

Even when the dust settled and Blu-Ray was crowned HD Champ, I was still not interested. I had an HD TV, but I also had an up-scaling DVD player, and a shit-ton of disks. What did Blu-Ray have to offer that what I had wasn’t already comparable to? Eventually studios wised up and floated the bait I could not resist… Exclusive Content.

They got me once before like this… Laserdisc! I won’t admit here what the tipping-title to that format was, but suffice is to say I owned a Laserdisc Player for one title, and ended up with a handful more before DVD came along and signed the death warrant for that format as well. DVD was an easy sell to me, and on the first week of the hardware release, I owned a $1000 DVD player! DVDs delivered on their promise of exclusive content right out of the gate, and finally Blu-Ray has caught on that content is king as well.

It was on the News Askew site that my interest for the format was piqued. News was breaking that Smith’s early catalogue titles were being tricked out for their Blu-Ray release and that the new content would be exclusive to the format.

Cut to me at Electronics Boutique buying a PS3.

So at last the disks that made me surrender to the Blu Side have arrived in stores. Now begs the question, was it worth it? Lets take a look at what I had VS what I got…

Clerks

Original DVD Release

Released in 1999, this first release of the film was a decent package with very good extras. The fact that it was a widescreen version didn’t matter very much as everyone had a standard 4×3 TV, but playback on some equipment now with a 16×9 set will result in black bars all around the picture – most of the Disney releases at this time are formatted like this; who knew then what a pain in the ass it would become.

Special features on the Disc:

• Audio Commentary with Kevin Smith and members of the cast and crew
• Deleted Scenes with Introduction by Kevin Smith
• Alternate Ending
• Soul Asylum Music Video
• Theatrical Trailer

Clerks X

This 3 Disk collection of the film, released in September, 2004, included the original theatrical version of the film as well as “Clerks: The First Cut”, the version of the film before it was sold to Miramax and ran theatrically. This cut includes its own newly recorded commentary track with Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier, Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes. The deleted scenes and alternate ending are restored in “The First Cut” and are thus are not separated as they were in the original release, but otherwise all of the special features were brought back for this 16×9 anamorphic release. Oh, but that is not all… The release also includes the feature length documentary “Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks,” about the making of “Clerks”. Other Special Features Include:

• An "enhanced playback track" featuring trivia subtitles and title card descriptions.
• "Clerks: The Lost Scene" animated short. This scene was originally written in the screenplay for the film but was never shot. For the DVD, the scene was animated in the same style as Clerks: The Animated Series. The scene can be presented in two different ways.
• The DVD also presents the owner with the ability to play the theatrical cut of the film with the animated scene as if it were part of the feature.
• ”The Flying Car”, a short film featuring Dante and Randal with an introduction from Kevin Smith.
• A series of short television ads that MTV commissioned from Kevin Smith featuring Jay and Silent Bob.
• An original film trailer for the film edited by Matthew Cohen with a brief introduction from Kevin Smith.
• Three short featurettes about the restoration process used to recreate the feature film for the Clerks X DVD.
• Original auditions for the film featuring Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, and Ernest O’Donnell. The auditions are introduced by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
• DVD-ROM features.
• “Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary”, a short student film that Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier made during their time at film school. It comes with an introduction by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
• 10th Anniversary Q&A session with Kevin Smith, David Klein, Scott Mosier, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Jason Mewes, Jeff Anderson and Brian O’Halloran.
• 13 deleted scenes and outtakes from "Snowball Effect"
• A still photo gallery of over 50 photographs and production images from Clerks as well as early photos of crew and cast members.
• Two collections of journal entries written by Smith. The first entries were written before finishing Clerks and the second were written while Kevin took the film to Sundance Film Festival.
• Eight articles and reviews about the film.

This is am amazing, comprehensive set that exemplifies how DVD can be done right, giving fans everything they could possibly want!

Clerks 15th Anniversary Edition (Blu-Ray)

This is, by Smith’s own admission, essentially just a format upgrade of “Clerks X” (and more money in his pocket). However, as a concession, Smith offers a 90 minute cut of “Oh! What a Lovely Tea Party,” a documentary about the making of “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back,” directed by his wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith. There is a three hour version of this out there somewhere, so i feel another dip coming… but likely for “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”

Chasing Amy

Criterion Collection

Disney/Miramax never gave “Chasing Amy” a Region One digital release before Criterion released their ported-from-laserdisc edition in 2000. Smith was initially a major laserdisc supporter, resisting the new DVD format and even saying in the commentary “Fuck DVD!” – a statement he humorously addresses in the introduction to the DVD. He is joined by Scott Mosier, Ben Affleck, Jason Mewes, Robert Hawk, Jon Gordon and Vincent Pereira on the commentary. Other features include:

• Ten Deleted Scenes
• Out-takes
• Trailer
• Special video introductions from the cast and crew
• The Askewniverse Legend – a guide to the characters in the (at the time) “New Jersey Trilogy”

Chasing Amy (Blu-Ray)

Since all the original special features of the Criterion release are owned by Criterion, this Disney/Miramax release had to go to the well to find all new features… and they took a BIG bucket! The 81 minute documentary “Tracing Amy” is a great addition to the disc and really nice retrospective on the making of the film. If you are a follower of Smith, you will know much of this information already, but it’s nice to have the variety of perspectives cooberate the story. “Was it Something I Said?” is a really nice 18 minute conversation between Kevin Smith and Joey Lauren Adams about how they tried to balance their personal relationship  with their working relationship, and the effects and aftermath of the films success and conclusion of their relationship. There is also a 28 minute Q&A with Kevin and the cast. The obligatory trailer and deleted scenes and outtakes are all included here as well, Sadly, the disks weakest point is the new commentary; recorded as a SModcast, Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier revisit the film in the tangential manner they do on their podcast, which is amusing, but ultimately not what I am looking for in a commentary.

Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Collector’s Series DVD

Following it’s 2001 Theatrical Run, Disney/Miramax (Dimension) released this super-packed Collector’s Series edition in Early 2002. Jay & Silent Bob headline this hilarious comedy that was made directly for fans of Smith’s Askewniverse as characters from “Clerks”, “Mallrats”, “Dogma” and “Chasing Amy” all appear throughout the film. The DVD release continues to cater to fans with the following features:

• Commentary with Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes and Scott Mosier
• An hour and a half of deleted scenes with introductions from Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Jennifer Schwalbach, Harley Smith, Scott Mosier & Walt Flannigan
• Gag Reel
• Still Galleries
• 2 Internet Trailers
• 6 TV Spots
• 13 minute Behind the Scenes Featurette
• Morris Day and the Time: Learnin’ the Moves
• A Guide to Morris Day & the Time
• 2 music videos: Afro Man “I Got High” & Stroke 9 “Kick Some Ass”
• Comedy Central’s Reel Comedy: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (22 minutes)
• Cast & Crew Filmographies
• Storyboards
• DVD-ROM materials, Open Mic Commentary, Screenplay Viewer, Cast and Crew Filmographies, Guide to Morris Day and the Time and Web Links

Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (Blu-Ray)

What-the-huh?!? Bucking the trend of adding some new original content to the Blu-Ray releases, Disney/Miramax instead here drop the ball, stumble, chase after it, kick it, follow it out into the street, and get hit by a bus. Seriously, all that is here for special features is the DVD commentary ported over from the feature rich DVD. Seriously! That’s IT!

SO, in the end, is the upgrade from DVD to Blu-Ray worth it (or in my case, purchasing a Blu-Ray player in preparation for it’s release)? Well, let’s first go title-by-title…

While Smith inclusion of the “Oh! What a Lovely Tea Party” documentary as new content to the “Clerks” Blu-Ray as it’s sole new content is appreciated, it feels out of place on this disk. Furthermore, knowing there is a cut of it that is double the running time makes this seem more like a teaser for a future release. The advents of Blu-Ray can really do nothing but draw attention to the technical flaws of the film, so that is not a big booster for this release either. Really, if you already own the “Clerks X” DVD, you are pretty much good, making this particular upgrade BAD. However, having the the 3 disk collection on a single disk is a sweet perk (no having to swap out disks to enjoy all the supplement material! Yay!)

“Chasing Amy” fairs better in the supplements department, especially the “Tracing Amy” and “Was It Something I Said” features. The SModcast commentary though, is lacking, and it would have been great to have Joey Lauren Adams participate in it since she was glaringly absent in the Criterion commentary. The film looks great though, and I would want this as a supplement to the Criterion DVD anyhow, so I would still call this a GOOD upgrade even thought I feel the DVD is still an essential disk in it’s own right.

To be fair, the “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” Blu-Ray was not released for this collection, but in fact was released in September of 2006. This does not however excuse that hours of features were stripped away to make the release just a tit-hair above a bare-bones release. This is just UGLY, and if you own the Collector’s Series DVD, hang onto it!

Overall, “The Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection” is a disappointment for owners of previous DVD releases. I understand that having a complete Askewniverse collection is a near impossibility, what with Universal owning “Mallrats”, and Sony having rights to “Dogma” (Lionsgate in Canada), but, c’mon! Where is “Clerks II”? Or if you really wanted to trick this bitch out, “Clerks: The Animated Series”? This is box set built around one solid release, a format release, and a rip-off, which averages out to BAD.

WOW! It seemed we had so much to talk about, but we blew through it in 30 minutes! And Ross and I almost throw down over Kevin Smith… again! ¦¬)

Discussed this week:

• Box Office (Night at the Museum 2, Terminator 4)
• Coming Out This Week (Up, Drag Me to Hell)
• Sherlock Holmes Trailer

• Dan Lin Interview
• 3D coming to BluRay
• Inglorious Bastards reaction
• Terminator Salvation gets motion control seats
• Fox remaking American films for Foreign Markets
• King Kong returns to Universal Tour
• Can a Pornstar cross over to the mainstream?
• Feature Commentary for theatrical films

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In spite of recent reviews ¦¬) there is much love for Kevin Smith here from me, and yes, I am going to continue to watch Kevin Smith movies because they are Kevin Smith movies. News recently has come that Smith will be making a movie with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan called “A Couple of Dicks.” This will be the first feature film Smith will direct that he has not also written.

As an unapologetic Kevin Smith fan, a large part of loving his stuff is because I love his “voice,” meaning that I really like his use of language, words, his point-of-view, and how he tells stories I relate to. The key to a Kevin Smith movie is the writing because, as even he will admit, visually his films are not extremely cinematic. So what would a film with Smith as a director-for-hire be like? It’s hard to say, though I can not imagine it not having Smith touches all over it – like it or not!

Here is a interview with Smith from the Huffington Post, where he talks about taking on this new project

I recently watched an amazing documentary about Stanley Kubrick, and it was proposed that he belonged to a rare group of directors whereupon the theatergoer would see his films regardless of the theme or story. The mere fact that it was a ‘Kubrick Film’ would be the main selling point. Now you’re wondering: What the hell am I doing mentioning Kubrick in a review for Zak and Miri?

Kevin Smith seems to suffer from the Kubrick syndrome. From the countless appearances at Comic Cons, to his egomaniacal Live Concert appearances – Smith feels no film lover is a complete person without a requisite dosage of his self-serving reflection. If you want to save 80 dollars (the cost of Gold Circle seating at his upcoming Vancouver concert gig), go down to your local comic shop and hang out with some of the guys there for free.

It’s becoming more common to hear people say: “Did you see the latest Kevin Smith movie?”. It’s truly a notion that irks me – Given Smith’s spotty track record at producing quality fare. If I want to use the term ‘Kevin Smith Movie’ on everything he directs, I expect the same level of snappy writing and character building as witnessed in such classics as “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy”. Instead, a ‘Kevin Smith Movie’ is as unpredictable as deodorant on a fanboy.

Zak and Miri follows the travails or two best friends/ room mates (Seth Rogen & Elizabeth Banks) as they try to outrun an avalanche of unpaid bills and debt. After their heat, water and hydro get shut down – Zak meets a gay porn star (great performance by ‘Mac Guy’ Justin Long) at his high school reunion. After this meeting (and a funny You-Tube subplot), Zak decides that the road to financial salvation will be to produce a homemade porn with Miri and a few other local actors.

Smith loves to jam references to his favourite films into the movies he makes. I enjoyed the ‘Star Wars’ parody porn riff, but the Lord of the Rings joke felt like a total repeat from ‘Clerks 2’. Then things get more contrived and forced. You might notice during the opening scenes that there’s a ‘Monroeville Zombies’ poster on Zak’s wall. I thought: “Yes, the story takes place in Monroeville, but what a cool & subtle nod to the Romero classic”. Then we see the Monroeville Zombies are actually a hockey team, and we get to see them in action… “OK, I get the point, let’s move on!”… Then, in case you haven’t gotten the homage to the fact that Kevin Smith F*CKING LOVES ‘DAWN OF THE DEAD’, we get exterior shots and an interior scene where Zak is walking around the same mall that was filled with zombies 30 years ago. It’s this type of sloppy direction that makes me wonder if Smith really appreciates the films he alludes to, or if he just wants to showboat to his viewers in a vain attempt to make him appear ‘cool and trendy’.

The movie derails half way into a quasi-‘When Harry Met Sally’ motif. There are some great lines, however, and you’ll stay interested until the limp ending. Traci Lords is in the supporting cast; looking like she’s a 70 year old woman with lots of cosmetic surgery (I’m totally serious). Also in the supporting cast is Jason Mewes. He appears to have taken his meds on a consistent basis, and actually delivers an enjoyable performance. As for the two main actors: Elizabeth Banks commits to a solid performance, and Seth Rogen looks as though he stumbled into the wrong set on the way to his latest Judd Apatow opus.

My Blu Ray appears to be defective, as the extras do not include a commentary from Kevin Smith. If there’s anyone who enjoys the sound of his own voice; it’s gotta be Kevin Smith (Seth Rogen a close second) – and this missing commentary is a glaring omission. There are some great deleted scenes and outtakes. The extended Justin Long/Seth Rogen gay porn improvisation takes were classic. A ‘Making Of’ documentary doesn’t really do much – other than give time for the usual suspects to mug for the camera.

GOOD

• Not as bad as ‘Jersey Girl’
• the clogged rectum scene enters my annals of comedy classics!

BAD

• Story was choppy and felt hastily constructed in certain parts
• Smith’s use of genre nods for cheap pops

UGLY

• Traci Lords of the Sith
• No commentary track

Overall Rating: Go rent it; Star Wars porn spoof might elicit repeat views

Release Date: February 3, 2009