Top Ten 2010: Part One – The Second Ten
It was a really odd year at the movies… made more so by generating a list of my favorite films of 2010.
I was shocked and a little horrified that my Top 20 has just one foreign language film. I love Carlos and Red Riding Trilogy, but both are really television films and not theatrical features. When I included You Don’t Know Jack on the list, I can include those. But not right now.
So I went to where there must be a LOT of foreign language films at the top of the charts, the Village Voice poll (now extra snotty!). But no. They went for Carlos, the Korean film, Mother, and Alan Renais’ Wild Grass in their 10. I haven’t seen Wild Grass, I guess because Sony decided not to put it on Blu-ray. Nothing else got mentions from as many as 20% of the voters.
There’s stuff on there, but it almost all feels like films from 2009 or the same old names that get loved every time they put out a film.
So, less embarrassed.
More importantly, 2010 in American cinema has been a year of very challenging movies. At least a third of the films in my 20 are movies that are either divisive, splitting audiences, or have found it near impossible to find audiences who are willing to go on the journey at all. I love perfection… but if, like 99.5% of films, you are going to fail here and there, I would rather be challenged to consider a strong set of ideas.
I’m going to do my Second 10 in alphabetical order… and then, The 10.
127 Hours – Danny Boyle is not given nearly enough credit for being a digital revolutionary. Here again, he pushed the envelope on form. But mostly, he and his collaborators found a way to make a seemingly hard-to-watch movie as entertaining as anything this year, without stunting or cheating. James Franco was the perfect partner, holding the screen from the first minute to the last.
The American – One of the many Lost Films of 2010. Anton Corbijn didn’t make the George Clooney movie people wanted to see. Boo hoo. Instead, he delivered Clooney’s best career performance in a 70s throwback to great Boorman and Zinnemann. People will wake up to the beauty of this film one of these days.
Biutiful – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s best film. Javier Bardem delivering the most ambitious and empathically realized performance of the year. But it’s very hard for people to get all the grime off the window to see the sunshine on the other side. Try harder. The film is masterfully realized from Prieto on down. There is a boat full of wonderful performances, though Bardem is so dominant, no one much talks about them. And the theme of looking truth… and death… in the eye and finding peace with life is powerful.
Blue Valentine – This one just found its way onto the list and I can’t say that it got here consciously. For me, the “third act” falls apart. But the film and the performances linger with me in a way that I haven’t thought about enough to try to explain. There is nothing of my personal experience in this movie. But there it is. Two great performances and a film written and directed with a personal view that permeates.
Exit Through The Gift Shop – My second favorite doc of the year. I have spent time with the filmmakers and they have convinced an awful lot of smart people that the story is a real story and not a manipulation. Unlike Catfish, which I don’t care about in any way, I got real pleasure and insight from what I saw here… even if Banksy is Mr. Brainwash. And it’s always possible that he is. It’s like the sexuality of certain male movie stars. Some of the closeted ones don’t keep the door closed too well. But some, however many people swear it’s obvious, haven’t left a trail behind. Personally, my take is that if Banksy were MBW, the work would be better. I love the Marilyn wigs on everyone. I use the four 2008 candidates as blondes as a screen saver on my iPad. But the more of MBW you see, the less interesting it is. It’s Keith Haring repeptitive and idea-free. Gag.
Inception – Nolan did all kinds of great things in this film. I respect and admire that. Unfortunately, the film’s emotional content is null. It just didn’t work. So you have this beautiful toy without any great music in its soul. But a great and beautiful puzzle.
Nowhere Boy – I am kind of shocked by how little traction this film got. A really special performance by Aaron Johnson, balancing perfectly between the hurt boy and the budding star. The whole movie manages that feat. Sam Taylor-Wood paints the canvas and lets her actors be great, never showing off, never getting too hung up on The Beatles. The only thing that could have been better is having some more of the real music… but in a way, not having that crutch makes it feel even more authentic. Just a lovely film that is both universal and amusingly specific.
Rabbit Hole – Another movie that grows on you. It’s a fairly simple tale, rather smartly expanded from its foundations as a stage play by the playwright. Kidman gives a great performance, though I still have some trouble putting her in the working class background of her movie family. Eckhart has to do the Ginger Rogers thing… backwards and in heels… and both takes his moments and generously hands the screen to other actors as they have theirs.
Somewhere – Sofia Coppola’s response to Marie Antoinette is not a documentary… but it’s closer to a Maysles film or an Allan King film than to anything else in American cinema. And if it was in French, it would be being hailed as the year’s great masterpiece. More self-loathing from American critics.
But I completely understand why many audiences completely turn off to this movie. It is like watching someone’s laundry dry… someone very rich and overly pampered. But with due respect to the right of some not to care, the best response is as old as Shakespeare and Shylock. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”
It’s fearless work. It’s an entertainment that never demands that you be entertained. And if you don’t like it… great. If you want to tell the filmmaker to reconsider her life, you probably need a life yourself.
Unstoppable – A masterpiece of stupidity. How else can I explain it? It is as slight as it is compelling, which is to say of both, VERY. It’s not Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it evokes a similar kind of glorious, old-school, cynicism-free thrills, masterfully directed as only a few could deliver. The most fun you’ll have with your brain off this year.
Good list, one major critical point.
Unstoppable: SPOILERS!!!!
I have no problem with ‘brains off’ thrill rides. In fact, i kind of love them. But every time the movie cuts away to the news reporters (which they do 4-5 times), it went from stupid to insulting. As if the film needed a recap at the end of every reel. Also, the ending just killed it for me. all that drama and they end up driving up with a pickup truck and jumping on? And Rosario Dawson was just awful in that part. Total miscast.
Those 3 things killed the movie for me. I’m fine with stupid, but that movie was insulting in places. The sad thing is how good of a movie i think it could have been with someone other than Tony Scott helming. I think it could have been a modern day equivalent to The Wages of Fear. But they would have to abandon the majority of the cutaways other than the dispatcher segments. And it would require someone who can direct a ‘thriller’ that doesnt require beating your audience with stimuli.
Talk about burying the lead: In BIUTIFUL for like two scenes, Javier Bardem has THE most supernatural POWER in the history of cinema, just some TRON-level insanity, and then he just shrugs it off and goes back to eating cereal with his kids for three hours.
It’s a good but exhausting movie, but the way Innaritu throws in this tossed-off element that its protagonist can communicate with dead souls, even if it does tie in to his thesis and bookends, is one of the oddest elements ever in a movie that’s such a roll call of mortal misery.
HIGHLY disagree that the mourning, grieving, longing romanticism of INCEPTION doesn’t shine through, that the life lived through pop culture undercurrent (a la Vanilla Sky) gets such short shrift from critics (a la Dave) who just see it as a clockwork plot delivery device; Those waves crashing and that Bond imagery and Cotillard’s haunting performance, all way more emotion and much deeper portrait of grief and guilt giving way to possible madness, all set to Zimmer’s beautiful score. Guess you either hear it or you don’t. It’s still the best movie of the year.
Also: SOMEWHERE POWER.
I had Nowhere Boy on my top 10 list too and surprised more people didn’t. The other one from my list no one else seemed to like as much as me is Mao’s Last Dance. I loved it.
What about A Prophet. That movie was awesome. How does that not make an top 10 list.
Cuing IO’s rant……. NOW.
🙂
I have Carlos in my top 10, because I saw it in a theater and we didn’t get the TV series up here in Canada.
David, I would like to know what you mean by how the third act fall apart for Blue Valentine. Just curious.
The reporters in Unstoppable bothered me, too, but it’s more than just a lazy way to pass along plot information. I work in TV so I know more of the logistics and people who work in news, and the live reporters frankly know too much too soon. Considering I’ve seen some reporters/anchors shout at producers for three minutes because they put the word “deluge” in their script, I found it funny that live reporters who barely know the situation and just have enough time to set up their shots suddenly know everything about trains and procedures and what’s going on even when the action itself doesn’t make it clear what’s going on.
I think The American is going to stay lost. I enjoyed it while I watched but as soon as it ended, it meant nothing to me.
Ruh-roh. I have a sneaking suspicion Dave’s going to name Shutter Island a better movie than Inception.
i liked Shutter Island more than Inception.
I liked Inception as entertainment, but i found the motivation behind the character in Shutter Island far more interesting. I also think the tragedy in the back story is far more gripping. I never bought Marion Cotillard in that part. She felt like the proverbial sore thumb in that cast.
Shutter Island > Inception
Anghus: you still remind me of Dooley from King of the Hill and that’s why your posts read to me like this; “Shutter Island… rules. Inception stinks.”
I am pretty sure An Prophet (as it is known here, for legal reasons) was in my Top Ten last year.
My problem with the “third act” of Blue Valentine, which I put in quotes because of the movie’s structure, is that I feel like the extreme behavior on his part comes a bit out of nowhere and she gets off a little lightly. It seems to me she outgrew him and his once charming unwillingness to aspire to his best self is no longer charming. Adding alcohol and abuse seems to take is somewhere less subtle and real – though those things can certainly be 100% real – than the rest of the narrative. It didn’t need the accelerant.
I discussed it a bit with the filmmaker and I get where he was coming from, but I’m not sure what he thinks is there in the movie is quite there. I’d also be very interested in seeing the other cuts of the film, which is you saw it in Sundance, Peter, is apparently significantly different than the release version.
Like I say, the movie sticks. Maybe I will feel it’s even better in time.
I’m pretty sure that Inception being in my 20 and not my 10 is neither an insult or HATE SPEECH.
Seriously though:
Bardem is fucking psychic in Biutiful. Is that NOT the most INSANE shit anyone’s ever tried to pass off in a terrestrial movie? And the movie seems to forget about his SUPERHUMAN POWERS for the ninety fucking boring hours when he’s droning on to his wife’s enormous nose.
David, that in and of itself, HATE SPEECH! SHAMEFUL!
His connection to the dead is not exactly his pleasure… or flying around Barcelona in a spandex suit.
It is his empathy… and a way of earning a few more dollars… though there is clearly something horrible about it, no?
IO, preferring Shutter Island to Inception is not hating Inception. I liked Inception, i just found Shutter Island to have more depth and a stronger emotional center.
and just for the record IO, you have devolved pretty quickly into a pretty useless conversationalist. You waste words on how you perceive me or other people who post here. I’m interested in your film related opinions, but i could give a damn about how you interpret what i have to say. You’d be well served sharing your opinion about film and leave your poorly thought out observations about the people posting out of it.
i don’t have an opinion one way or the other about 99% of the people who frequent the blog because we’re just talking about movies or awards or the box office.
In other words: i don’t need your fucking validation junior.
So would you count The Secret Behind Their Eyes as last year as well? Right now that tops my list, with Prophet not far behind.
For all the studio stuff that bored me to tears this year (Inception and Grit being the two major exceptions so far), the indie and dependent studios seem to have had a banner year. Searchlight seems to have come back after some weak years, SPC had a ton of great films, and while I am still trying to catch up with all of IFC and Magnolia, they both seem to be getting better product each passing year.
Not putting CArLOS on teh list cause it was financed for TV is just lazy. It is easily the most ambitious, exciting film I saw last year.
The only reason why Inception or Shutter Island would be in anyone’s Top Ten of the year is because 2010 was one of the lesser film years in a very long time.
And I agree with EOTW… leaving Carlos (and the Red Riding trilogy) off a list because of how it may have originated is a bunch of bull.
I watched Red Riding 1974 and 1980 over the weekend. Absolutely gripping. I’ll be sad when it’s over. Would definitely make my top 10 list.