Oscar night and I'm just getting settled in at home from a long and eventful drill weekend. Obviously, I missed a good chunk of 2010 to basic training and I haven't had a chance to play catch up to my satisfaction; still, tradition is tradition, and my yearly film list must be published before the Oscars are announced. Without further ado...
TOP TEN FILMS OF 2010
10. Shutter Island - Interesting mixture of psychological thriller and old-school detective film. Scorsese is obviously not getting any younger, but he's doing a better job than most when it comes to staying relevant. I mean this as no disrespect, but Scorsese did a great job knocking off Christopher Nolan with this film.
9. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - It's no secret that I'm a fan of hyperbole, but this one may well be true: Scott Pilgrim may feature the most stunningly original use of SFX and sound design I've ever witnessed. Award shows tend to give effects awards to the film that has the most explosions/car chases/orcs, so it's an outright crime that this film is being snubbed for taking all those nifty gadgets and utilizing them in a wholly unique and *gasp* artistic way. Edgar Wright took the oft-ignored slacker culture of the last 30 years and transformed it into a stunning, action-packed fever dream.
Why so low on my list if I loved it so much? Because, at the end of the day, the plot is really, reeeeally shallow. But so are many of the people who this film depicts. It's narratively thin by default; to be an accurate representation of lo-fi dork life, it is inherently devoid of any emotional conceit that can't be solved by pressing Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
8. The A-Team - Like Scott Pilgrim, this is the ultimate fantasy film, though this one focuses on professional ass-kickers instead of amateur DDR champs. Also, nothing beats seeing this film on opening day in Columbus, GA right when you're getting ready to ship to BCT on Sand Hill: as soon as Hannibal and B.A. flashed their Ranger tabs and name-dropped Ft. Benning, the whole theater erupted, since pretty much the entire audience has some sort of tie to the post. It was what Walter Benjamin might refer to as an "cult" experience, giving the event an aura of authenticity beyond the merits of the film itself and speaking to the communitas inherent in mechanically-reproduced media; I just thought it was balls-out awesome.
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - Beautifully directed film that corrects many of the book's inherent flaws.
6. How to Train Your Dragon - Easily the best film by Dreamworks Animation (Shrek 2 and The Prince of Egypt are the only others I've truly enjoyed). So far, that company's formula has been to fall back on fart jokes to entertain kids, slip in phallic jokes for adults, and wrap it all in the thinnest of trite plot contrivances. Here, they did what Pixar's been doing all along: construct a living, breathing fantasy world with living, breathing characters.
5. The Social Network - My opinions on this film are many and varied. But the power of this movie and the technology it represents is displayed by the fact that I was able to log onto Facebook via my phone and talk to friends about it as it was playing.
4. Inception - The truly remarkable thing about this movie is not that it turned Paris sideways and blowed up Antarctica and made Juno into an action star...no, the most astounding thing about Inception is that, despite the mounting complexity of the plot, you never *actually* get lost. Sure, you get turned around, but at the end of the day Christopher Nolan and co. give you such a clear thread to follow that, like an eternally-spinning top, you never lose your way amidst the chaos.
3. True Grit - Want to know why the Brothers Coen are the best? Watch the Bear Man scene. Also, consider this: for perhaps the first time in this decade, every Best Director nominee was a relative "new-comer" to the Oscar party. David O. Russell, Darren Aronofsky and winner Tom Hooper were first-time nominees and despite being responsible for some of the most respected cult films of the last 15 years, David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Se7en, Zodiac) was given only his second nomination. The Coen Brothers, with three directoral nominations (well, technically only two because Joel Coen directed Fargo solo) and one win, in addition to awards and nominations for writing and production, were the elder statesmen of the pack.
After spending over two decades redefining the culture and aesthetic of American cinema, Joel and Ethan Coen are finally receiving their due as the top filmmakers currently working; their influence is seen in the work of all their fellow nominees.
2. The King’s Speech - Delightful film that's a throwback to good, clean cinema of yesteryear. It's a story about the people who shaped the world we live in, without trying to make it hip or trendy or explicitly relevant; like King George VI's story teaches, you don't have to be "cool" to be great. It's innovatively British.
1. Toy Story 3 - I'm practically the same age as Andy. I grew up with the same toys as Andy. This film is about my life, my toys, and my childhood. And it has Mr. Pricklepants.
BEST FILM THAT, AGAINST ALL ODDS, WAS AWESOME
Hot Tub Time Machine
And, in the interest of full disclosure, the reason you may not see some of your personal favorites on this list is that I may not have seen it yet, including but not limited to:
AWARD WINNERS, OSCAR BAIT AND OTHER INTERESTING FILMS I HAVEN'T SEEN
Black Swan, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, The Fighter, Tangled, Winter’s Bone, Get Low, Blue Valentine, The Tempest, Four Lions, Secretariat
Cheers,
Dr. Zebulon J. Magnifico, Ed.D
Freeing the Mind, Indulging the Self since 1985
No comments:
Post a Comment