Expanded version of my contribution to The Oregonian's "Best Films of 2010" feature....
Above: A nice "movies of 2010" montage by Kees van Dijkhuizen. My favorite -- which I couldn't embed here because it auto-plays -- was made by the great Matthew Zoller Seitz, and can be watched right here.
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THE 15 BEST MOVIES I SAW IN 2010, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
(Links mostly go to my reviews.)
"127 Hours" -- Director Danny Boyle and star James Franco used every visual and dramatic trick in the book to turn the true story of a man pinned under a rock into a surprisingly kinetic (and life-affirming) thriller.
"Black Swan" -- Darren Aronofsky took a classic ballet chestnut and mined it brilliantly for over-the-top psychological and body horror in the tradition of Argento, Polanski and, yes, "Showgirls." Crackling feet have never made me cringe like this.
"The Fighter" -- An earthy, funny story about a boxer (Mark Wahlberg) freeing himself from an overbearing family that favors his has-been crackhead older brother (Christian Bale). Like all great sports movies, the actual sport is a small part of what it's about. It's also a great example of someone (in this case, David O. Russell) taking a stock story structure and making it fresh in the telling.
"The Good The Bad The Weird" -- This insane South Korean "Eastern Western" blew the doors off PDX movie-houses early this year. If you like action scenes that go on for a million years each while referencing Leone, Spielberg and "Mad Max," do I have a movie for you.
"How to Train Your Dragon" -- This charming, funny, exceedingly well-made cartoon from the directors behind "Lilo & Stitch" blew wee kids' minds with flying-lizard mayhem. They'll still be watching it a decade later because the film's boy-dragon relationship is surprisingly moving.
"Inception" -- "Hi, I'm Christopher Nolan. For my next trick, I'll simultaneously juggle four or five layers of dream-reality and tons of exposition while still giving you visceral action-movie thrills. Oh, and here's an immaculately tailored Joseph Gordon-Levitt fighting on the ceiling."
"Let Me In" -- Matt Reeves' tone-for-tone (as opposed to shot-for-shot) remake of one of my favorite vampire movies ("Let the Right One In") hit all the original's emotional marks while confidently feeling like its own film -- a rare and quietly impressive feat.
"Louis C.K.: Hilarious" -- Apparently unleashing one of the year's funniest and most creative TV shows ("Louie") wasn't enough for Louis C.K. -- he also released a top-notch concert film of his brutally honest stand-up.
"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" -- Co-writer/director Edgar Wright took a comic-book adaptation and turned it into a stunning mixed-media piece -- a breakneck blend of comedy, indie rock, romance, flying kung-fu and 8-bit videogame love that made 18 references a minute in its sound design alone. Underappreciated in theaters. Deserves a long, happy afterlife on home video.
"The Secret in Their Eyes" -- 2010's Best Foreign Picture Oscar winner was a romantic, adult and occasionally loopy police procedural about the perils of living in the past. It also contained the coolest scene shot in an apparent single camera take that I'd seen since "Children of Men."
"The Social Network" -- Director David Fincher made a movie about two lawsuits and the founding of a website feel like "All The President's Men," only funnier. (For those who prefer their lists to be numeric rather than alphabetical, this was probably my favorite film of 2010.)
"Toy Story 3" -- The third installment of the "Toy Story" series is, incredibly, its best -- a clever spoof of prison-camp-escape pictures that ends up covering far more emotional territory than expected.
"True Grit" -- The Coen Brothers re-adapted Charles Portis' 1968 novel and (unsurprisingly) proved a perfect match for Portis' mix of violence, humor and poetic language. One of the year's great movie pleasures was watching Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld square off -- each employing a wildly different but somehow complimentary acting style.
"Unstoppable" -- The year's best stripped-down thrill ride, no joke. Director Tony Scott brilliantly smacks around America's railway infrastructure while saluting blue-collar knowhow in the face of a failing bureaucracy. He also stages some of his best action scenes (using real live people and machines) in a career full of them.
"Waking Sleeping Beauty" -- Given that it was financed and distributed by Disney, this doc about the creative and ego clashes that gave rise to "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin" and "The Lion King" is refreshingly warts-and-all -- with some great behind-the-scenes footage.
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AND BUT ALSO
HAPPIEST SURPRISE OF THE YEAR
Learning that "The Good The Bad The Weird" existed.
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, for holding her own against Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon in a Coen Brothers movie. A stunningly poised big-screen debut. (Runners-up: Christian Bale for yet another total physical transformation in "The Fighter," and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his graceful zero-gravity punching, which made me giggle like Dash realizing he could run on water in "The Incredibles.")
ADIOS, 2010, AND TAKE YOUR FUZZY, DIMLY LIT, MIGRAINE-INDUCING SCREEN WITH YOU
Studios trying to catch up with "Avatar" committed so many artistic and technical sins this year with terrible postproduction 3D (see: "Clash of the Titans" and "The Last Airbender") that there may be grounds for an eye-strain war-crimes trial.
FAVORITE NON-MOVIEHOUSE MOVIE THING
My three favorite film scores of 2010 -- the wildly creative soundtracks to "Scott Pilgrim," "The Social Network" and "Tron Legacy."
2010 MOVIE YOU'D MOST LIKE TO SEE A SEQUEL TO
"The Expendables" -- not because the movie was any good (alas, it really wasn't), but because I really want Stallone take another crack at his he-man supergroup idea while adding Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan and, what the hell, the dude from "Gymkata."
2010 MOVIE YOU FEEL WORST ABOUT NOT HAVING SEEN YET
"Four Lions." Chris Morris ("Nathan Barley") is a fearless UK comic talent.
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STUFF I SAW IN 2010 THAT I REALLY ENJOYED OR KIND OF ENJOYED OR AT LEAST APPRECIATED PARTS OF
"Kick-Ass," "Get Him to the Greek," those modern-day "Sherlock" telefilms, "Faster," "Centurion," "Daybreakers," "Flipped," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1," "Hot Tub Time Machine," "Iron Man 2," "Knight and Day," "MacGruber," "Machete," "Predators," "Salt," "Splice," "The Book of Eli," "The Karate Kid," "The Last Exorcism," "The Other Guys," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," "The Town," "Youth in Revolt," "Morning Glory," "We Live in Public," "North Face," "Shrek Forever After," "The Exploding Girl," "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," "Best Worst Movie," "OSS 117: Lost In Rio," "Micmacs," "Tron Legacy" (look and soundtrack only), the extended cut of "Avatar" (the one with the introduction on Earth that allowed so much of the ensuing action on Pandora to make dramatic and emotional sense)
THE STUPIDEST CRAP I SAW IN 2010:
"Eat Pray Love," "Prince of Persia," "She's Out of My League," "Legion," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010), "The Last Airbender," "Jonah Hex," "The A-Team," "Clash of the Titans," "Tron Legacy" (everything but the look and soundtrack), "Skyline"
MOVIES I REALLY SHOULD HAVE SEEN BEFORE WRITING THIS
"Valhalla Rising," "Exit Through the Gift Shop," "Enter the Void," "Red Riding Trilogy," "Restrepo," "The Secret of Kells," "A Prophet," "Vengeance" (dir. Johnnie To), "Vincere," "Ondine," "I Am Love," "Mother," "The Human Centipede: First Sequence," "Rampage" (dir. Uwe Boll), "Cyrus," "Animal Kingdom," "The Square," "Get Low," "Biutiful," "Mesrine: Killer Instinct" and "Meserine: Public Enemy #1," "Carlos," "Winnebago Man," "The Kids Are All Right," "Another Year," "Blue Valentine," "Four Lions," "Buried," "Easy A," "Going the Distance," "Fair Game," "Greenburg," "Jackass 3D," "Never Let Me Go," "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale," "Red," "Stone," "The Ghost Writer," "The King's Speech," "Winter's Bone," "Love and Other Drugs," "Somewhere," "Rabbit Hole," "Tamara Drewe," "The Disappearance of Alice Creed," "Inside Job," "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," "The Tillman Story," "Countdown to Zero," "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector," "Last Train Home," "Lourdes," "The Illusionist," "Dogtooth," "Secret Sunshine," "Catfish," "Despicable Me," "My Dog Tulip," "Megamind," "The American," "The Tourist," "The Father of My Children," "The Warrior’s Way," "Night Catches Us," "Fish Tank," "Please Give," "The Company Men," "Racing Dreams," "Rabbit a la Berlin," "I Saw the Devil," "Amer," "A Serbian Film," "Cropsey," "Tales from the Script," "Lebanon," "Sweetgrass," "The Strange Case of Angelica," "Wild Grass," "White Material," "A Town Called Panic," "Flooding with Love for the Kid," "Life During Wartime," "Bluebeard," "The Yellow Handkerchief," "Nowhere Boy," "Babies," "About Elly," "Down Terrace," "Marwencol," "Prodigal Sons," "I'm Still Here," "Mid-August Lunch"
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The Oregonian's Best Films of 2010 (The Oregonian, Friday, Dec. 31, 2010)
