Since Oscar Day seems like the last opportunity to wrap 2010 up, I figured I would at least offer a brief review of my own. As you can probably guess, I did not think 2010 was a stellar year. In fact, the best Film of last year I watched on television, not to mention I believed the third season of "Breaking Bad" probably topped most, if not all of these movies as well. There were many good films, but I cannot say that my enthusiasm level was all that high.
Even the above still is misleading, as I considered Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" a very good film that was surprisingly elevated to a great film by perhaps those wanting to support a film of solid craftsmanship while overlooking some of its glaring flaws. But, still, that last shot was my favorite of the year and probably represents what I thought about the year in film in general. Interpret that as you will.
This post will cover what I considered the best movies of the year and a few questions for some of the films that stuck in mind for all the wrong reasons. Finally, I also included my best experiences watching older movies on the big screen, which were the true highlights of moviegoing in 2010. I perhaps may write about or do a video essay about films from last year sometime in the future, one of which is already being planned. But I figured this would give you a good idea of what my overall feelings about the films of 2010 since this blog went dark during a few stretches last year. Here we go:
The Best Film of 2010, By Far:
Carlos
Dir: Olivier Assayas
Scrs: Assayas, Dan Franck & Daniel Leconte
The Rest of the Top 10 (in alphabetical order):
127 Hours
Dir: Danny Boyle
Scrs: Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
Animal Kingdom
Dir & Scr: David Michôd
Another Year
Dir & Scr: Mike Leigh
Black Swan
Dir: Darren Aronofsky
Scrs: Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz & John J. McLaughlin
Mother
Dir: Joon-Ho Bong
Scrs: Bong & Eun-kyo Park
A Prophet
Dir: Jaques Audiard
Scrs: Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri & Nicolas Peufaillit
The Social Network
Dir: David Fincher
Scr: Aaron Sorkin
True Grit
Dir & Scrs: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone
Dir: Debra Granik
Scrs: Granik & Anne Rosselini
The Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
The American
Dir: Anton Corbijn
Scr: Rowan Joffe
Blue Valentine
Dir: Derek Cianfrance
Scrs: Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne & Joey Curtis
Dogtooth
Dir: Giorgos Lanthimos
Scrs: Lanthimos & Efthymis Filippou
Four Lions
Dir: Chris Morris
Scrs: Morris, Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain & Simon Blackwell
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Dir: Ji-Woon Kim
Scrs: Kim & Min-suk Kim
Never Let Me Go
Dir: Mark Romanek
Scr: Alex Garland
Please Give
Dir & Scr: Nicole Holofcener
Secret Sunshine
Dir & Scr: Chang-dong Lee
Solitary Man
Dirs: Brian Koppelman & David Levien
Scr: Koppelman
Toy Story 3
Dir: Lee Unkrich
Scr: Michael Arndt
The Documentaries (in alphabetical order):
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Dir: Banksy
Inside Job
Dir: Charles Ferguson
Scrs: Chad Beck & Adam Bolt
The Tillman Story
Dir: Amir Bar-Lev
Scr: Mark Monroe
Some Random Questions:
Did Anything Remotely Resembling Drama Actually Occur During This Movie?
The Tempest
Was There Any Scenery Left After Christian Bale and Melissa Leo Finished a Take?
The Fighter
Was This Not the Most Uneasy Mix of 70's Sitcom Plot Devices with Self-Satisfied Political Correctness?
The Kids Are All Right
How Many People Must Die to Get Two Characters to Meet?
Hereafter
Are These Filmmakers Really the Vacuous, Opportunistic Assholes They Portray Themselves As in Their Own Film?
Catfish
Did My Favorite Filmmaker of All Time Really Make Something This Ridiculous?
Shutter Island
Did the Hysterical Critical Reaction to this Film, Both Pro and Con, Illustrate Banksy's Point in "Exit Through the Gift Shop" That There is a Little Bit More Posturing Than Depth in Criticism Today? And a 2nd Question: All of That For This Movie, the Equivalent of a Mr. Brainwash Painting?!
Inception
The Best Movie Revival Experiences (in chronological order):
Red Cliff: The Complete Version (Walter Reade Theater as part of The New York Asian Film Festival)
Raging Bull (Loews Jersey Theater)
The Blues Brothers (Loews Jersey Theater)
Unforgiven (Walter Reade Theater)
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (Walter Reade Theater)
The Seven Samurai (BAM Rose Cinemas)
Ran (BAM Rose Cinemas)
Love Streams (Walter Reade Theater)
Once Upon A Time in the West (Walter Reade Theater)
As I have stated many times, I certainly plan for the blog to be more active this year. Here is hoping 2011 will have movies worth talking about.
