Best Films of 2010: #6-5

I'm pretty sure I missed a day but hey who's keeping count really. This whole weekend has been a blur to me. I've been awake for 33 hours currently so I can't promise this will be completely compredable... is that a word? ... I think that might be Spanish. Oh well. You get the picture. Case in point if you will. Speaking of case in points, I'm going to make a horrible segue into the countdown.

Let it begin.

#6: The Social Network

Now I said a whole lot of nice things in last post about the script of The Social Network. It is without a doubt the best script of the year and that certainly aids it significantly in being one of the best films of the year. In addition to the script, however, this film has a whole armload of things going for it. Let's start with David Fincher's direction. It's dark and moody. It sets the tone for the whole film. He understands that the dialogue is the action in this film and shoots that to full effect. Next we have the spectacular performances. Now, like Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg is often criticized as playing the same character over and over again. Also, like Cera, Eisenberg broke out of that in a huge way this year in this film. Yes, he still speaks rapid-fire and yes he's still quite dorky, but here he's also disinterested, sarcastic, mean, and awesome. Mark Zuckerberg is a killer role and Eisenberg knocks it out of the park. Andrew Garfield has some great moments throughout the film, Justin Timberlake makes me forget that I pretty much hate him he's so good in this movie, and finally we have Armie Hammer who played both Winklevos twins in this movie thanks to a little technical wizardry. He gives two great performances. And even beyond the performances we have the score. What a wonderful score it is. Composer Trent Reznor should also expect a Oscar come February and it is more than well deserved. Overall The Social Network is an exceptional film that, under risk of sounding cliche, kind of defines our generation. At least it's this and not Repo Men

#5 True Grit

I can't say enough about this film. Or maybe I just can't say it well enough. Now I am no connoisseur of Westerns, in fact I have seen only a handful, but this is by far and long the best western I've ever seen. First of all it places you in the Old West. I immediate felt like I was watching something authentic. This is achieved by the sets, costumes, accents, etc but a large part of this is the dialogue. It sounds like what I would imagine those in the Old West to sound like, but at the same time it never looses the Coen's sense of humor. How can oddball obscure, and Old West lingo go together? Incredible writing that's how. I would easily say that this film has the runner up for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Dialogue is superb. This is also a highly beautiful film, taking full advantage of New Mexico's landscape. Cinematographer Roger Deakins is a master at what he does and he's in full form here. The score adds a lot too. It is simply old hymns played on piano that accompany this film but sometimes simple is better and it, too, helps add to the authenticity of the picture. The acting is superb from everyone. Jeff Bridges is great as the usually drunk Rooster Cogburg. Matt Damon and Josh Brolin add two more terrific characters to their repertoires. The revelation here is Hailee Steinfeld as the girl Matty Ross. She's really the star of the film. It's her story. The Coens are splendid film makers. This further proves that they can leave behind their own signature brand of film and just make a spectacular genre picture. In the end that's really what this is. Just a spectacular Western, which is something we rarely get anymore.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Not to cheapen this win for Mr. Bale ( he's an avid reader of this blog and I know he'll be just ticked by this), but this is an incredibly weak category this year. There were few, if any, supporting male performances that really stuck out. Not that Bale wouldn't have won if there were such performances, but this just made the decision process all the easier. Bale has always been a chameleon. He has not only changed his appearance, but he's morphed his body for every role he's been. In The Fighter he is a charismtic drug addict  who believes he should be the only one helping his brother to victory. He is riviting. He is odd, and loud, and goofy, and you can't keep your eyes off of him. It's a spectacular performance to add to a spectacular career. I don't know how he can continue to go up, but I have no doubt that he's going to.

Runner Up: John Hawkes, Winter's Bone


The only other male supporting performance this year that really connected with me was this one.  Hawkes is electric in this role. He's the kind of character actor that you never realize is in everything until they explode in something. This is his explosion.

Best Supporting Actress: Barbara Hershey, Black Swan

This was by far the hardest one to choose for me, but I settled on Barbara Hershey. She's is incredible in this role. So clearly emotionally abusive and manipulative with the guise of love. She plays it perfectly. She's dark and scary. She does love her daughter, but almost too much. She's the villain of the film. Or is she? How much of what we see of her is how she really is and how much is Nina's perception? Is Nina this damaged because of how controlling her mother is or is her mother this controlling because she knows how damaged Nina is? The film doesn't give us an answer. What it gives us is an incredible and terrifying performance from a fantastic actress.

Runner up: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit and Leslie Mannville, Another Year


Steinfeld really isn't a supporting performance. She's lead. But she wouldn't have made my lead list and she's so terrific she deserves to be cited somewhere.  Mannville has the difficult task of taking someone innately annoying and off-putting and making her human. This is much more difficult than it sounds. It's easy to take a character like that, pump them full of cliches and play it. Sitcoms can do that. Children on the Disney Channel can do that. Mannville creates someone who we all know and lets us see beneath the vail to the broken person underneath. We even understand her to an extent. We feel for her. It's a pretty tremendous piece of acting.

Well that's it. Come back soon for the next post which will include by picks for Best Actor and Best Actress. Until then,

Soupy Twist.

Best Films of 2010: #8-7

"When is modern science going to find a cure for a woman's mouth?" -Dr. Spaceman

And on that note lets dive right in!

#8. Black Swan

Black Swan is insane. Seriously. There's really no other way to sum it up. It's a psycho trip into the mind of a very naive and damaged girl. Nina, played by Natalie Portman in a spell-binding performance, is a girl in a woman's body. Coddled and emotionally abused by her mother, she spends all her time dancing. She is a terrific dancer. Technically perfect. So, when her company decides to stage a production of Swan Lake, she is an immediate choice to play the sweet, virginal White Swan. But she doesn't have the inner fire to play the White Swan's evil twin, the Black Swan. This is when Nina's dark journey begins. It's a haunting, frightening and enthralling journey, and due to Darren Aranofsky's effective hand-held direction we are placed right in the middle of it. Natalie Portman is flawless here. She's in nearly every scene and she completely carries the film. Barbara Hershey gives a terrific and terrifying performance as Nina's mother. The rest of the cast is strong as well. A couple weak points toward the end are the film are forgiven and forgotten quickly, but other scenes stay with you for days. This is like a horror movie for the mind made by a terrific film maker and it is thoroughly effective.

#7. Catfish

This will likely be my most controversial pick for anyone who saw it. This small documentary was released this fall with one of the most enticing trailers I have ever seen. This trailer has been the center of much scorn heaped upon the film. The claim is that it was false advertising. This is incorrect. Yes, the trailer may be slightly misleading, but it does not misinform. This is a true documentary. Everything on screen happened. This is not, as people believe, a film about the dangers of modern technology and internet relationships. This is a meditation of humanity and how we deal with lonliness. The lengths we go to and the lies we tell ourselves to hide how we feel when our lives doesn't transpire the way we wanted. The last forty minutes of this film are some of the saddest, most poingnant, most fascinating, and most touching moments I've ever seen in a film. I felt this way because I am a deep fan of real human emotion and this movie displayed it to me. It is much more than just a a story of someone who claims to be someone their not online. This is the story of someone who hides behind lies so they don't have to face the depression of the truth. This is wholly human and this narrative is wholly powerful.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

The script for this kinda-true story zings, mesmerizes and captivates for the duration of this two hour film.  Aaron Sorkin, the writer, is the true star of this movie which is saying A LOT for a movie directed by David Fincher, scored by Trent Reznor, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Spiderman and Justin Timberlake. The Social Network is likely going to win the Oscar for Best Picture (among a slew of others) and that is all because of this script. That's not why its winning this award. It wins this one for the dialogue. Wicked fast and razor sharp. Sorkin is a master at wordplay and he outdoes himself here.

Best Original Screenplay: Christopher Nolan, Inception

No one who saw a movie this year could disagree with this pick. The brainchild of Christopher Nolan who spent ten years developing this script. It paid off. This project is wholly original and overwhelmingly complex. The feature is a jigsaw puzzle being put together piece by piece. It is wildly inventive and profoundly moving at the same time. Nolan is about the only director living who can still make blockbuster films that are awards contenders as well. His films are suffused with creativity and humanity yet still find time to blow stuff up in style. He's one of the greatest working today and clearly one of the greatest writing too.

Tomorrow will bring two more picks on down the list. Also I will list my picks for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. Catfish is available on DVD. I suggest you rent it.

Best Films of 2010: #10-9

Well here it is. The Best of the Best of 2010 Countdown. Part 1. I'll start my Best films of 2010 here with #9 & 10 as well as start my list for the 'Bests' in the other categories.  I've been putting this off for long enough so, I figure I'll just put chisel to stone and start counting them down.

#10. City Island

A sweet film about a family in the small fishing village of City Island on Manhattan. It's a great film that can take a completely overused cliche and make it both funny and new, and City Island achieves that. In every awful romantic comedy movie, one or both of the characters have some bad secret that they just can't let the other one know like; My huge book store is the reason your small quaint one is going out of business or; I told you I didn't go to that strip club with my friends but I really did or; I didn't want to admit it but that sexy doctor totally wants me and I totally know it but i think i'm a decent person so i would never admit that to you or myself. Anyway it's bad writing. It's a ploy to create plot to drive the story forward to some kind of eventual happy conclusion. The odd thing about City Island is that it does this, but not in a contrived, cliche way. It's funny and it's feels like something that an actual family could do. The dad played by Andy Garcia doesn't want to tell his wife he goes to acting classes. She assumes he's having an affair. They both 'quit' smoking so they hide it from each other. The daughter is a stripper. The son is a chubby chaser. Everyone has a secret and it all comes to a head at the end, but instead of behaving like over dramatic two dimensional characters, this family behaves like people. Terrific performances by Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Emily Mortimer and the rest of the cast bring some very touching moments as well as some very funny ones too. This was a small surprise, but it turned out to be quite a treat.

#9: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

This under-appreciated gem dropped just in time for my birthday this year. I saw this movie four times in theaters. Four times. I've never seen a movie that many times in theaters. Ever. It helps that I got in for free I suppose but still. Wildly inventive, sharply witty, unexpectedly action packed, deeply romantic, hilariously funny, and overwhelmingly original. This movie has everything. Michael Cera makes quite the comeback in my book after a slew of poorly executed movies that had him playing George Michael Bluth over and over again. He's not George Michael here. It's a new character, a new performance and once again shows how funny and fresh this actor can be. Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives a star making performance as Ramona, the girl who's just a little to captivating for her own good. It's easy to discredit Winstead here as just playing some disinterested hipster chick with a dry sense of humor but she does so much more than that. She's subtly wounded and it comes out in her performance in the most remarkable ways. The supporting cast is as colorful as one comes. Whip smart dialogue and unparalleled, inventive direction both from Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame combine to turn this into a uniquely original experience which is something that can be said for about 1% of the films made per year. This is a film that deserves an audience.

So there are my first two picks. Successors will follow. Now I'm counting down my bests in other categories. Today I give you my pick for.....

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Is anyone who actually saw an animated film this year surprised? How to Train Your Dragon had its moment of goodness (not quite greatness) when it wasn't being awful and all Dreamworks like. I didn't waste my time on Despicable Me but Evil Villain gets a family and learns corny lessons... there I just saved you two hours of your life. Go swimming or something. I don't even remember anything else that came out. You think that's a good sign? OH Tangled! Blah. Mish mash from other, more successful Disney princess films in the past. Nothing new or creative. Toy Story on the other hand completed a trilogy in a fashion that has never been done before. As always Pixar transcends animation to give us real human stories and emotions. This movie was never about Toys. This series never was. What this movie was about is childhood and how it feels when someone starts to leave it behind. This movie resonated with anyone who has ever been a kid with a favorite toy. That toy, though we didn't realize it at the time represented our childhood and still today when we think about that toy we get a twinge of nostalgia and longing. We wish, if for just a moment, that we could go back and play with that toy as a kid again. When anything was possible. When no adventure was too great for the two of you to take on together. It also resonates with any parent who has ever had to pack up their child and take them to college. This movie tackles all these deep, human issues while still being a kids movie and does it with humor and grace. What other movie can boast that this year? Or any year? Toy Story will go down as the one of the greatest trilogies in cinema history and it deserves it fully.

Well that's it. Check by soon for #8-7 in the countdown and my pics for the Best Adapted and Original Screenplays of 2010. Until then,

Soupy Twist.