BEST in 2010
1. Inception – It’s a total ride – with a kick. Love the now easy reference to totems as much as the anti-gravity fight scenes. It felt real – and oh-so-matrix. I enjoyed it immensely for the visuals and the story as well as the stunned audience reaction at the end. Great stuff.
2. Red – Refreshing spy games as I’ve never seen them. Don’t let the aging cast fool you. This film is sexy. It’s delightful and sexy. Bruce teases with his low whispering voice and action-star moves. Helen Mirren only gets cooler – and not Betty White cool, but like Alias moving-into-season-2-for-Alias-fans kind of cool. Malcovich is appropriately insane, Richard Dreyfus is the perfect villain, and Mary-Louise Parker successfully plays the love interest slash giddy rookie (shocker since I thought she’d be the weakest link). Karl Urban & Morgan Freeman can do no wrong. See it. Win. Win. It’s Lost Ark cool in its slick post-card transitions and clever dialogue.
3. Sherlock Holmes – Guy Ritchie, you did it. You stepped up your game and made a family film. I love the brain of Sherlock at work, the detective as portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. Jude Law was the perfect Watson. Unexpected delight.
4. The Social Network – Smart. You know what I mean when I say smart. Witty, fast dialogue. Not the comical Gilmore-style, but honest, genius material. The writing matched the Zuckerberg character in true autobiographical fashion. Known, but a mystery. Our protagonist’s character is in question until the very end when Rashida Jones demystifies and encourages the hero. His foil, the likable front man, beside and against him the whole time, was perhaps my favorite character. Two scenes made the film for me: the entire opening sequence from argument through the tension-framing scored opening credits, and the race on the Thames – voiceless yet as elegant as a ballet and as telling as a novel.
The journey of Facebook, only just begun, is happening as we speak. It’s the equivalent of a modern day Neverending Story. Now Bastion’s story is online and we can click a quick change of status and then friend him. Just like that.
5. Knight & Day – Tom is crazy and an action hero. Cameron is a dizzy but beautiful blonde. Go ahead, play to your stereotypes and own them fully. Fast paced and funny. Well done.
6. Toy Story 3 – Summer. Childhood. Joy.
7. Alice in Wonderland – Stop hating. I liked it. No. No one liked Johnny’s dance at the end. But stop being so bitter about it that you miss the developed story based on the Jabberwocky poem that we memorized in 4th grade, the stellar costuming, and the lovely Miss Wasikowska.
8. Shutter Island – Incredibly detailed filmmaking. Love the twists. Love Leo. Love Mark Ruffalo. Love the colors & symbols & storms & life. Didn’t love the language and extreme violence. Watch as a thinker and as a student of film.
9. Exit Through the Gift Shop – Documentary. Brilliant. Brilliant Hoax? Film is art. This makes you think – as Banksy would want.
10. Iron Man 2 – A classy sequel? Certainly anticlimactic, but well done nonetheless.
WORST of 2010
Valentine’s Day – A sincere try at sincerity, with real heart, and almost the entire Marshall legacy destroyed from within. I’m destroyed within.
Leap Year – I thought Amy Adams could act. I thought that Anglophilism was a common vice. I thought it could work. Her green eyes. His Irish brogue. Nope.
The Last Song – I wish with all of my heart that it would have been Miley’s last song. Sparks supposedly wrote the part for her. I feel it was aptly titled.
The A-Team – I will say it again. Why, Blue Eyes, why?
Eclipse – Twilight, Episode 3. In which Bella must choose between the dark side or the, uh, dark…side…
Salt – I want to forget it so, so much. I want to keep forgetting it for as long as I live.
Charlie St. Cloud – Tragic. Zac sees dead people, even dates them. Bad premise. Ok. It’s just all bad.
Life as we Know it – Reminds me of another potential equivalent= Love Happens. Remembering both of these so-called Rom-com-esque chick flicks makes me sick inside. Eew.
Clash of the Titans – remake in CG 3-D action with “that guy from Avatar”
Date Night – Tina + Steve Carrell = endless off-camera hilarity and about 15 min of on.
Letters to Juliet – Love the hair-brushing scene. It makes me cry. So does her incessant lip-biting.
Robin Hood – gets rid of the hood, and the story, and the accent, and the point.
Hereafter – Here, forever after, this will remind us that Eastwood is getting closer to his afterlife and that this makes Matt Damon really sad.
Morning Glory – watch the preview. It’s actually sweeter than the movie itself, and one bite is just enough of that meal.
Eat Pray Love – This was a tough one to categorize. It’s not a best or worst. I will think of it, and I suppose, remember it, but I didn’t love or hate it. I suppose in that lack of feeling lies the essence of a forgettable film. Sad. Sad like this movie made me feel. Oops.
HONORABLE MENTION 2010
Prince Of Persia – Jake was a believable action star, and it was clean fun.
City Island – quirky but lessons learned
Tron – Don’t miss it big screen.
Dawn Treader – I wasn’t disappointed, and I LOVE the book.
Jaws – My first viewing happened in 2010, so I have to add it since I see why people keep devouring it!
Happy FILM watching in 2011!
Splatter: on FILM 