{"id":12036,"date":"2011-02-21T19:25:37","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T00:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=12036"},"modified":"2011-02-25T19:29:23","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T00:29:23","slug":"top-20-films-and-the-bottom-6-of-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/21\/top-20-films-and-the-bottom-6-of-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 20 Films (And The Bottom 6) Of 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

FilmBuff Online contributing writer Michael McGonigle is the film lecturer for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and sees a lot of films. Here is his of some of the best and a few of the worst films of 2010. Some of the titles may surprise you.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>1. A Town Called Panic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Somewhere in a candy colored, weirdly angled village in Belgium, three roommates live congenially in a house.\u00a0 Cowboy and Indian are excitable and childlike, but the sober, smart Horse keeps them in check.\u00a0 Still, it is Horse\u2019s birthday and Cowboy and Indian decide it would be nice to build Horse a brick BBQ for his present.\u00a0 Going on line to order the 50 bricks needed, they accidentally order several million bricks when the zero key jams on them unnoticed.\u00a0 What do you do with the extra bricks so Horse won\u2019t notice?\u00a0 Well, you hide them on the roof.\u00a0 What do you do when the weight of the bricks collapses the house?\u00a0 How do you handle snowball throwing giant penguins?\u00a0 It\u2019s just one thing after another in his brilliantly minimal animated film that is weird, funny and contains more eye-popping effects than Avatar<\/strong>.\u00a0 And the characters look more realistic too.\u00a0 My favorite is Steven the most irascible neighbor who ever lived, who has a farm across the road from Horse, Cowboy and Indian.\u00a0 This indescribable comedy from Belgian filmmakers Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar is exactly the kind of film that should be on most \u201cBest Films Of The Year\u201d lists, but almost never is.\u00a0 A Town Called Panic<\/strong> is well made, thematically intriguing, and gut-bustingly funny.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 All Good Things<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why this film didn\u2019t get a better critical or box office reception than it did.\u00a0 It has one of Ryan Gosling\u2019s best performances, a labyrinthine plot (based on a true story) that deals with familial conflict, illegal real estate dealings in New York City and the possible murder of a society wife and the definite murder of several other people.\u00a0 Just when I thought I had All Good Things<\/strong> figured out, it changed up and my jaw dropped to the floor.\u00a0 With Kirsten Dunst as the society wife and good old Philip Baker Hall in one of the best roles of his career, toss three Steely Dan songs into the score and I was totally happy.\u00a0 The real mystery is why this film didn\u2019t get more attention.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>3.\u00a0\u00a0 Animal Kingdom<\/strong><\/p>\n

This astounding Australian crime film takes the notorious revenge\/execution murder of two young Melbourne policemen in 1988 as its base and then writer\/director David Michod delivers us a film for the ages.\u00a0 By focusing on character and the inter-relations of this creepy family responsible for the cop-killings, Michod and cast show us a truly demented crime family, but like other mythically dysfunctional families, we can\u2019t help watching.\u00a0 Animal Kingdom<\/strong> is moody, stylized, full of visual and sonic surprises and contains some of the most shocking violence this side of a Martin Scorsese film.\u00a0 With Joel Edgerton as the only sane family member whose murder by the police sets the whole revenge\/assassination dominoes falling and Ben Mendelsohn as the really crazy brother who does more with simple stillness to terrify you than most actors can do with exaggerated movements.\u00a0 James Frecheville is our guide, a wide eyed innocent thrust into this lions den, Guy Pearce is one of the detectives, but not necessarily one of the good guys and Australian stage and TV actress (and current Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee) Jacki Weaver nearly steals the film as the most disarmingly brutal Mom you\u2019ve ever met.\u00a0 But, like any good mother, she loves her boys to death. . .yours I mean.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0 Babies<\/strong><\/p>\n

This film was widely hated by critics and the pithiest put-down came from a local colleague of mine who said (I paraphrase) \u201cBabies<\/strong> is a screensaver, not a movie\u201d.\u00a0 I disagree.\u00a0 For me, Babies<\/strong> was the biggest surprise of the year.\u00a0 Folks who know me, know that a baby held up to my face is more likely to get bitten than kissed.\u00a0 That said, watching Babies<\/strong> was enthralling.\u00a0 I admired the tough choices made by French filmmaker Thomas Balmes who eschewed all voice over narration and explanations of baby development to simply show us four babies (Hattie, Ponijao, Mari, Bayarjagal) in four parts of the world (San Francisco, Namibia, Tokyo, Mongolia) as they lived through their first year of life.\u00a0 The epiphanies were amazing.\u00a0 Watching Ponijao discover her foot, wow, what\u2019s that?\u00a0 Can I get it into my mouth?\u00a0 Mari trying to put a plastic ring on a round pole and upon failing ending up in a complete crying jag of frustration at the technical world.\u00a0 Hey Mari, just wait till you get to computers!\u00a0 But it is when Bayarjagal at age one, who has been struggling to walk, finally steps up to the top of a small hill on the wind swept plains of Mongolia and stands against the bracing wind on his own two feet and smiles brightly, at that moment, I never felt so proud to be a human being!\u00a0 There is no special effect in Inception<\/strong> nor imaginary vista in Avatar<\/strong> more intoxicating than this moment from Babies<\/strong>. Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>5. Casino Jack And The United States Of Money <\/strong><\/p>\n

Alex Gibney\u2019s doco about Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist\/douchebag who used mob style money tactics to help finance a conservative revolution and to line his own pockets as well is one of the most jaw dropping films of the year.\u00a0 Jack Abramoff is a pure example of capitalism\u2019s downside, with none of its positive attributes.\u00a0 Seriously, what did Abramoff ever do besides make money?\u00a0 Did he create any new products?\u00a0 Create any new industries or jobs?\u00a0 Did he ever help anyone other than himself and his rich corrupt friends?\u00a0 There is great joy in watching this strutting ass tumble from his own greed and arrogant stupidity, and stupidity is the key word here.\u00a0 Jack Abramoff was not some idealistic guy who went to Washington to help change the world, who then got corrupted by D.C. culture.\u00a0 No, Abramoff was already a selfish and corrupt jerk when he arrived.\u00a0\u00a0 He was never more than a thuggish manipulator who saw that he could make a lot of money with the limited skills he possessed and that was that.\u00a0 He never did anything for his fellow citizens and if anything good ever came from his tenure in Washington, it can only be described as collateral damage.\u00a0 Director Alex Gibney presents this story with great sonic and visual flair and what could have been a dry expose of a scumbag becomes a consistently entertaining film about a scumbag.\u00a0 And no, I am not being harsh.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0 Catfish<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of people were confused by Catfish<\/strong>.\u00a0 Was it a documentary or a hoax?\u00a0 Did the events depicted really happen?\u00a0 I believe they did and that the filmmakers took various liberties with the truth to make their story more effective dramatically, which is exactly what every filmmaker does with every film, so why the critics were so parsimonious with credit towards directors Henry Joost, Yaniv and Ariel Schulman is beyond me.\u00a0 Maybe because most people missed the real story of Catfish<\/strong>.\u00a0 Without giving too much away, New York filmmaker Yaniv Schulman (Nev) develops a long distance relationship with a young woman in Michigan on-line and in a stupid move, drives out to see her only to discover she was not at all how she represented herself on Facebook.\u00a0 Then, when Catfish<\/strong> could have turned angry and resentful, it became powerfully human and turned into one of the most profound and uplifting films of 2010, but profound and uplifting in the good way, not the Ron Howard\/Steven Spielberg mushy way.\u00a0 Ideally, it\u2019s best to see Catfish<\/strong> without knowing too much about it to retain the genuine surprises; many films promise surprises, Catfish<\/strong> delivers.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>7. Exit Through The Gift Shop<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another documentary that fooled audiences.\u00a0 Was this real, or was this a joke?\u00a0 Exactly who is this \u201cBanksy\u201d and is he a real person?\u00a0 Is Thierry Guetta? \u00a0It\u2019s very hard to get people to see this film because the first question they ask is the one that is almost impossible to answer; \u201cWhat\u2019s the film about?\u201d\u00a0 Even a simple description leads you into abstruse film theory.\u00a0 I can\u2019t call Exit Through The Gift Shop<\/strong> fiction, but if I say it\u2019s a documentary, people automatically expect that everything they are being told is the truth.\u00a0 Oh well, here goes, a French immigrant to Los Angeles began to document all the various street artists he liked as well as the graffiti artists who would tag all kinds of structures and walls often one step ahead of the police.\u00a0 After years of accumulated footage, Banksy, a noted street artist from Britain wanted to put the footage together into a coherent film, but by then Thierry Guetta began to think that he could do street art as well so he sets out to have his own art show in an unused TV studio in downtown Los Angeles where all the elite people came to praise this guys crappy, derivative art.\u00a0 Is Exit Through The Gift Shop<\/strong> a spoof on critics who can\u2019t tell good art from crap?\u00a0 Does it ridicule the rich who buy this dull art because it\u2019s currently fashionable and they have more money than brains?\u00a0 Does it even matter?\u00a0 All in all, this is just prankster Banksy\u2019s joke on the art world, but Exit Through The Gift Shop<\/strong> is nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary.\u00a0 Will Banksy show up at the Oscars?\u00a0 I think he will, but we won\u2019t know it.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

8. Farewell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christian Carion\u2019s film about a Russian translator for the KGB who gives a French diplomat important secrets that show how the KGB has infiltrated the US intelligence service is well made, intelligent and exciting.\u00a0 Director Carion is able to master the alchemy of mixing major political themes with intimate familial themes without seeming pretentious.\u00a0 To describe the plot too much would give away many of the films pleasures, but there are a few great moments, one of my favorites has Kusturica\u2019s moody teenage son standing on a picnic table in the woods listening to the forbidden music of Queen while he struts like Freddie Mercury.\u00a0 This scene underlies the reality that it was soft power that ultimately undid the Soviet Union far more than any nuclear weapons build-up or Star Wars.\u00a0 Farewell<\/strong> also has Fred Ward as Ronald Reagan, complete with his feeble minded rictus, obsessing on the old western movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance<\/strong> when he should have been paying more attention to affairs of state.\u00a0 Why do I have no trouble believing that?\u00a0 There is a great tenseness to the film that comes from hidden motives and since Canet is such an inexperienced spy (he is truly out of his league) he is ironically, very successful.\u00a0 Sometimes, having no idea what you are doing can lead to success.\u00a0 Guillaume Canet and Emir Kusturica, normally directors, play the lead roles here and they are both excellent.\u00a0 One of the most enjoyable films I\u2019ve seen this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>9.\u00a0\u00a0 I Am Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Luca Guadagnino has created a film as sensual as any I have seen.\u00a0 The lighting, the camerawork, the costumes, the sets, the music all work to create a mood of restrained opulence for the members of this wealthy industrial family from Milan.\u00a0 But the cool placid exteriors cannot hide the passions burning within various members of this tribe and when outsiders breach the chateau walls, well hold on.\u00a0 The great Tilda Swinton leads a cast of Italian actors and every performance is delightful.\u00a0 Swinton plays a Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 to Italy by way of marriage and yet there is something about her aloofness that is alluring.\u00a0 So much so, she finds herself engaging in a completely inappropriate relationship with a much younger chef friend of her son\u2019s that turns I Am Love<\/strong> from a cool film about adult relationships into a hot and passionate film about adult relationships.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0\u00a0 Lebanon<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the first day of the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, we find ourselves in an Israeli tank with a young crew and here is where we stay.\u00a0 Writer\/director Samuel Moaz served in a tank during this conflict and Lebanon<\/strong> has the ring of truth to it although, to be honest, I have never been inside a tank.\u00a0 The film makes us believe that everything the tank crew knows about the outside world is gotten through the radio, viewed through their gun sights and portholes or told to them by the surprising number of visitors who literally drop into their space from above.\u00a0 Are they safe in the tank?\u00a0 Can they trust what they are hearing about the outside world?\u00a0 This film has been called Das Boot<\/strong> in a tank, but that is unimaginative and incorrect.\u00a0\u00a0 Assi the tank commander is indecisive, Hertzel, the ordnance loader never heard an order he wouldn\u2019t argue with, Shmulik, the gunner has never fired at anything other than stationary barrels and Yigal the driver is more prone to call for his Mom in a tense situation than respond to commands from Assi.\u00a0 Das Boot<\/strong> this ain\u2019t.\u00a0 But it is one of the most frightening, terrifying depictions of war ever put on screen.\u00a0 Considering we only see what the tank crew sees, the visual variety is astounding and the sound design of this film is knockout!\u00a0 Believe me, you need to know nothing about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to understand this film.\u00a0 Lebanon<\/strong> is very powerful and I have seen people leave the theatre genuinely shaken.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>11.\u00a0\u00a0 Mid-August Lunch<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gianni, a middle aged man who lives with his demanding mother in Rome and drinks way too much white wine is in a bind.\u00a0 His funds are drying up and he owes his landlord money.\u00a0 A solution appears when the landlord is willing to forgive the debt if Gianni will watch his disagreeable mother for a mid-August vacation when everyone leaves Rome.\u00a0 Before Gianni knows it, he is saddled with several other old ladies dumped on him by their families so they can go on vacation.\u00a0 From this unpromising idea springs one of the most delightful and funniest films of the year.\u00a0 Not a laugh out loud comedy, but a film of gentle observations on aging and life and good Italian food.\u00a0 I was thoroughly charmed from beginning to end and I remember more impressive visuals from Mid-August Lunch<\/strong> than anything from Inception<\/strong>.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0\u00a0 Patrik, Age 1.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

A gay couple in Sweden wants to adopt an infant child. Goran is a mild mannered doctor at a public health clinic and Sven is a former hard partying night owl, settled down to an advertising job.\u00a0 After many interviews and much paperwork, they are approved and the orphaned infant named Patrik, age 1.5 years will soon have two daddies.\u00a0 However, due to a misplaced decimal point, what Goran and Sven get is a sullen 15 year old Patrik, who has a criminal record, is definitely homophobic and is decidedly not a baby.\u00a0 This film could go wrong in so many ways and the miracle is that it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 Directed by Ella Lenhagen, Patrik, Age 1.5<\/strong> is a well-written drama with humor, but the humor is not at the expense of the characters.\u00a0 Foster care and orphan placement are difficult issues and not even the Swedes blithely toss infants to gay couples without strict guidelines.\u00a0 This is partly why Patrik has remained in foster care for so long and escapes custody whenever he has a chance.\u00a0 Yet, as we slowly break through Patrik\u2019s shell, we see the years of neglect and parental abuse he endured and the long stretches he spent homeless sleeping in doorways, so we come to understand his wariness about getting close to anyone.\u00a0 Likewise, Goran and Sven are not a perfect couple either and this adoption really tests their relationship.\u00a0 I was surprised by how serious and moving this story was and thoroughly impressed by the entire cast.\u00a0 But if you\u2019re expecting wacky hijinx like on a bad sit-com, you will be disappointed, otherwise, see Patrik, Age 1.5<\/strong> as soon as you can.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>13.\u00a0 Please Give<\/strong><\/p>\n

While everyone is praising The Kids Are All Right <\/strong>(a fine film) I would like to remind you of another film about upscale people trying to negotiate their way through life and still try and do the right thing.\u00a0 Yes, writer\/director Nicole Holofcener\u2019s comedy Please Give<\/strong> is every bit as deserving of praise as The Kids Are All Right<\/strong> and maybe more so.\u00a0 In Please Give<\/strong>, Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt are a married couple who own an upscale furniture shop in Manhattan.\u00a0 They buy furniture cheap from estate sales and then jack up the price to astronomic heights to sell too the less knowledgeable clients who come to their showroom.\u00a0 This causes Keener a lot of guilt and she acts out on this guilt by giving large denominations of money to the homeless.\u00a0 On top of this, they live in a live flat in a building next door to an old lady played by Ann Guilbert who they are waiting to die so they can expand their apartment into hers, but she\u2019s tenacious about living.\u00a0 Rebecca Hall plays the neurotic grand daughter of the old lady, Amanda Peet is Keener\u2019s obnoxious sister and Thomas Ian Nichols is the nice young man (although he\u2019s very short) who dates Hall.\u00a0 Please Give<\/strong> is a comedy about modern life that deserved far more attention that it received.<\/p>\n

14. Red Riding Trilogy<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you love complex mystery stories like I do, then you must see the Red Riding Trilogy<\/strong>.\u00a0 Based on a series of crime novels by David Pearce about police corruption, serial killings and child abductions in the West Riding section of Yorkshire, England, this series of three films, each taking place in a different year 1974<\/strong>, 1980<\/strong> and 1983<\/strong> will keep you shocked, scared and intrigued throughout its length.\u00a0 Each film has a screenplay by Tony Grisoni and despite a different director, cinematographer and production designer for each production, visually, all three films look alike.\u00a0 I guess there are only just so many ways to film cloudy, rainy, dreary northern weather.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the performances of the actors that make Red Riding Trilogy<\/strong> a stand out.\u00a0 Andrew Garfield, Paddy Considine and Mark Addy are respectively great with Warren Clarke, Sean Bean, Rebecca Hall, David Morrissey and Peter Mullan as the scariest, helpful priest you ever met.\u00a0 This is a series of films guaranteed to give you nightmares.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>15. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had no real expectations when I went to see this film.\u00a0 I had liked Edgar Wright\u2019s previous films Shaun Of The Dead<\/strong> and Hot Fuzz<\/strong>, but I thought the antics of those films might have been more due to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.\u00a0 Also, while I like Michael Cera, there is something about his effeminate wimpishness that I wasn\u2019t sure would work in a leading role.\u00a0 But boy, was I wrong!\u00a0 Not only did Edgar Wright keep Scott Pilgrim<\/strong> moving fast, it was because of Michael Cera\u2019s delicacy that he came across so strong.\u00a0 Reading over that last sentence, I know it sounds confusing, but trust me, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World<\/strong> will have you laughing out loud.\u00a0 Cera is Scott Pilgrim, our long-suffering hero constantly worried about his hair looking goofy.\u00a0 When he meets the perfect girl, he finds he has to battle her seven evil ex-boyfriends to get her.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 He just has to, and each boyfriend is a comic masterpiece from Brandon Routh\u2019s militant punk vegetarian, to Chris Evans obnoxious Hollywood action star to Jason Schwartzman\u2019s odious twerp of a music producer.\u00a0 Yet underneath all of this is the adult realization that once you\u2019ve fought all these battles, is the prize really worth it?\u00a0 A special shout out to Kieran Culkin as Scott Pilgrims\u2019s very funny gay roommate.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

16. Toy Story 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most times, the third sequel in a popular series is often just a recycling of the bad ideas rejected for the previous two films.\u00a0 But with Toy Story 3<\/strong>, (with one exception), the writers and filmmakers have not only found new directions to take the toy characters, but were able to incorporate a whole comic\/horror subtext into the proceedings without scaring away the primary audience, which is adults who will pay for their kids to see the film.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s because I had just finished reading Anne Applebaum\u2019s Pulitzer Prize winning book Gulag: A History<\/em><\/strong> that the similarities between the Sunnyside Daycare Center where our toy heroes wind up and a Soviet work camp were just to close to ignore.\u00a0 Everything from the resetting of Buzz Lightyear\u2019s programming, to the fashion conscious Ken to Mr. Potato-Head becoming the flat Mr. Tortilla-Head, the inventiveness and creativity in Toy Story 3<\/strong> was astounding.\u00a0 The emotional high point was when all our toy heroes look like they\u2019re about to be incinerated with no hope of salvation and as they accept this end, they hold each others hands for strength only to be saved by the claw!\u00a0 The follow-up scenes with the college bound Andy making sure his beloved toys have a good home was just filler that seemed to dissipate the previous emotional high.\u00a0 Still, I saw more people leave the theater in tears after watching Toy Story 3<\/strong> than any other film this year.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>17. True Grit<\/strong><\/p>\n

I find it gratifying that so many people have said to me, \u201cI loved True Grit<\/strong> and I normally hate westerns\u201d.\u00a0 When people say they hate westerns, what they usually mean is they hate all the bad western TV programs they saw on TV when they were young.\u00a0 This Coen Brothers re-working of the Charles Portis novel is light-years removed from the family friendly True Grit<\/strong> that John Wayne starred in way back in 1969.\u00a0 In true Coen Brother fashion, it\u2019s the language they find fascinating and the overly formal speaking style of the characters sans use of contractions was of unending fascination to me.\u00a0 Add to that the Coen Brothers penchant for odd visuals like the man hung way high up in the tree and the bizarre, eerie nighttime ride made by Rooster Cogburn to take young Mattie Ross to a doctor, which kills the horse they are using.\u00a0 Toss in a creative use of sound and another excellent score by Carter Burwell and you have a solid, classically styled film that is the most mainstream movie the Coen Brothers have ever made, but it\u2019s still identifiably Coen-esque.\u00a0 All the actors deserve praise, but I\u2019d like to mention Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper the boss of the bad guys, Dakin Matthews as the horse trader who gets out-traded by Mattie Ross (Haliee Steinfeld) and Josh Brolin as the main villain Tom Chaney who manages to be both scary and pathetic at the same time, like Hannibal Lector crossed with Boo Radley.<\/p>\n

18.\u00a0\u00a0 Twilight: Eclipse<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like the Twilight <\/strong>films.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a tween girl so when people hear me say this, they laugh.\u00a0 But people also laughed at Columbus and Einstein, albeit for different reasons.\u00a0 As much as I enjoyed the first Twilight<\/strong> film, I think three times the charm and Twilight: Eclipse<\/strong> is the one.\u00a0 The actors are more comfortable in their roles, the filmmakers have codified the style of the films, much the same way that Goldfinger<\/strong>, the third James Bond film is often cited as the best in that series, all the stylistic elements that make up the Twilight<\/strong> films have reached a unified level of perfection that is perfect for the stories these films tell.\u00a0 And what stories they are!\u00a0 Exciting, romantic, dramatic, surprising, everything the Lord Of The Rings<\/strong> movies weren\u2019t and everybody praised them (undeservedly, I think). Robert Pattinson continues to amaze me with his portrayal of Edward Cullen, a role that could so easily defeat a less talented actor.\u00a0 I do admit, there are times when Taylor Lautner as the wolfish Jacob sometimes looks like a harmless puppy-dog, but then a hardness falls over his eyes and you can easily believe he\u2019s a killer.\u00a0 Twilight: Eclipse<\/strong> has one of the most emotional and inventive marriage proposal scenes in film history and the freezing night in the tent on the mountaintop with Jacob, Bella and Edward is a robust and arousing scene of lust, yearning and downright funny double entendres, it should become a classic.\u00a0 On top of it all, you have Howard Shore providing one of the best music scores of the year.\u00a0 What can I say, I love this movie and I am not even remotely embarrassed to say so.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>19.\u00a0 Unstoppable<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have never made any bones about the fact I love a good action\/disaster film.\u00a0 When they are well made, they are one of the best cinematic highs imaginable and Unstoppable<\/strong> is very well made.\u00a0 Due to a dumb error on the part of a railroad yardman, a freight train carrying some hazardous material gets loose and becomes a runaway.\u00a0 Few man made vehicles have the kind of mass and terrifying weight as a freight train and if one is hurtling uncontrolled, there is little there can be done to stop it.\u00a0 Regular guy engineer Denzel Washington, a railroad veteran and his newbie assistant played by Chris Pine make it their job to try and stop this train before it can do real damage.\u00a0 They do it not because they are especially brave, but because they have the skills and knowledge to do it and like firemen walking into burning buildings or sewer workers walking into hazardous subterranean caverns, if they don\u2019t do it, no one else will.\u00a0 I like the way director Tony Scott (not one of my favorites) ramps up the tension by making their early failures to stop the train both believable and suspenseful.\u00a0 Yet, one of the best characters in the film is the train itself.\u00a0 It has the implacable demeanor of a Terminator and far more power.\u00a0 It also makes some of the best groaning and grinding power sounds I\u2019ve heard from a non-living character ever.\u00a0 With a great underrated score by Harry Gregson-Williams and more than one narrative surprise, Unstoppable<\/strong> proves that a finely made formula film can still be one of the best of the year.<\/p>\n

20.\u00a0\u00a0 Winter\u2019s Bone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oscar nominated for Best Actress, young Jennifer Lawrence stars in Winter\u2019s Bone <\/strong>as Ree, a young girl trying to find her Daddy so the family won\u2019t forfeit their house which has been put up as a guarantee of his showing up in court for drug charges.\u00a0 But Ree\u2019s search takes her through the most unsavory of back-woods meth dealers and cookers and their wives and families and danger is everywhere.\u00a0 Winter\u2019s Bone<\/strong> has taken a \u201cFilm Noir\u201d style plot and transplanted it deep into tarnation country and the result is a hybrid film that knocked my socks off.\u00a0 Along with Lawrence, there is the Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominated John Hawkes as Teardrop, one of the scariest characters you\u2019ll ever met.\u00a0 Director\/Co-Writer Deborah Granik has made a crime film with one of the best young heroines I have ever seen in a movie.\u00a0 This film is a must see.\u00a0 Available on DVD.<\/p>\n

SIX FILMS I REALLY DIDN\u2019T LIKE IN 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>1. Biutiful<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, the disappointment started from the beginning with the dead owl and that guy saying that owls spit out a fur ball when they die.\u00a0 Well, owls do that when they are alive too, it\u2019s how they get rid of waste they can\u2019t digest properly.\u00a0 There is no significance in them doing it when they are dead.\u00a0 What\u2019s with the souls of the dead people unable to pass through ceilings?\u00a0 This is going to be a surprise to the hardcore Christians.\u00a0 If they are indoors when the \u201cRapture\u201d comes, instead of ascending to Heaven they\u2019re just going to bounce off the ceiling like boiled atoms.\u00a0 Why does Bardem have the power to talk with the dead?\u00a0 If I had that power, I wouldn\u2019t waste my time talking to dead immigrant workers, I\u2019d have some questions for say, Ben Franklin or Albert Einstein.\u00a0 Biutiful<\/strong> is lachrymose, dull and completely pointless\u00a0 Did Bardem get his Oscar Nomination for simply walking around peeing everywhere?\u00a0 My dog does that.\u00a0 One final note, Javier Bardem was sick and dying in The Sea Inside<\/strong>.\u00a0 He was sick and dying in Before Night Falls<\/strong>.\u00a0 He was sick and dying in Biutiful<\/strong>.\u00a0 When did Javier Bardem turn into Susan Hayward?<\/p>\n

2. Coco & Igor<\/strong><\/p>\n

What went wrong here?\u00a0 After a great opening showing the premi\u00e8re performance of The Rite Of Spring <\/em><\/strong>which supposedly had polite upper class Parisian audiences fighting each other in the seats, we move on to a meandering tale of the relationship between clothing designer Coco Chanel and composer Igor Stravinsky that is as dull and pointless as any film relationship I have ever seen.\u00a0 I hoped to learn something about these two very different geniuses, each exceptional in their own field of endeavor, but I left the film actually knowing less about Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel than when I entered.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how that was possible.\u00a0 The film seemed to say they were both incomplete people who needed each other to be a complete whole.\u00a0 That sounds like a bunch of crap to me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>3. Greenberg<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the story of an insufferable jerk.\u00a0 A neurotic loser who is also a complete asshole played all too believably by Ben Stiller.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to say, \u201cwho cares\u201d about the Greenberg character, but as I was watching the film, I kept asking myself, who cares about this character?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think a character has to be nice or good to be watchable, goodness knows, Tony Montana, Randall Patrick McMurphy and even the numbskull Jerry Lundegaard from Fargo<\/strong> are all not nice people, but at least they are fascinating characters and watching what they were going to do or say next was part of the fun in movies as diverse as Scarface<\/strong>, One Flew Over The Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/strong> and Fargo<\/strong>.\u00a0 Greenberg<\/strong> was simply no fun.\u00a0 Yet, with Rhys Ifans and Catherine Keener, it should have been.<\/p>\n

4. Green Zone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take a notable book about a deeply ironic story from the unintentionally surreal Iraq War, add a major movie star Matt Damon, fold in Paul Greengrass, an Oscar nominated director with both art house cred (United 93<\/strong>) and action movie chops (The Jason Bourne<\/strong> films) and what could go wrong?\u00a0 Well, actually, all of the above.\u00a0 The Green Zone<\/strong> is a movie that makes you smack your head and ask, \u2018What were they thinking?\u201d\u00a0 The complex manipulation of intelligence by the Bush administration to make it seem like Saddam Hussein had WMDs and the use of that false data to justify an invasion of another country defies easy explication, at least in movie terms.\u00a0 Also, no matter how much good Ol\u2019 Beantown boy Matt Damon tries to be just \u201cone of the guys\u201d, face it, you\u2019re a movie star, so get used to it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, none of us feel too sorry for you, now that you\u2019ve made it, so you could at least act like a star.\u00a0 Finally, director Paul Greengrass has been fracturing shots into smaller and smaller increments with each passing film, and the shakiness of the shots has increased as well.\u00a0 Has Greengrass decided that tripods are a 19th<\/sup> century technology that shouldn\u2019t be used anymore?\u00a0 The Green Zone<\/strong> takes Paul Greengrass to the logical conclusion of his process and at the finale of the film, there is a long incoherent chase sequence, filmed with a shaky camera in the mish-mash of back alleys and unnamed streets of Baghdad, at night, with night vision equipment where I defy anyone to tell me who is where at any given moment.\u00a0 The sad part is, this does not appear to be honest incompetence.\u00a0 It appears to be active artistic lunacy. \u00a0If Greengrass wanted to create a sense of disassociation and confusion in this micro event to mirror the disassociation an confusion on a macro level, he failed.\u00a0 The sequence is a mess.\u00a0 Except for John Powell\u2019s wonderfully minimal, yet evocative score, there isn\u2019t much to recommend The Green Zone<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>5. Hereafter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another year, another Eastwood film on my worst list.\u00a0 Initially, I felt this film was so bland and non-offensive, I was simply not going to mention it.\u00a0 It would have to have actually done something to get on my worst of the year list, but as I thought about the film and its three part structure all leading to a grand and predictable d\u00e9nouement and then considered what it was saying or more precisely how it was saying it, Hereafter<\/strong> got me angry.\u00a0 It\u2019s visually clumsy and the story is muddled; the performances were good and the tsunami scene in the beginning was awesome, but after that presenting the hereafter as bright lights swooping through a tunnel out of focus with little alien like creatures to greet you is insulting.\u00a0 Is that the best you can come up with?\u00a0 You know Clint, don\u2019t try to tackle deeper themes that look at the puzzles of human existence or consider existential questions when you are clearly not up to the task.\u00a0 I like you Clint and I have always enjoyed your films as an actor, but as a director, you generally suck.\u00a0 Your ratio of good films to awful films is not very good and I am very dismayed by the fact that you have shown little or no growth as a director over 35 or more films.\u00a0 You\u2019re good with actors, but you can\u2019t select a story to save your life, your visualization is clumsy at best and you just seem to be a sloppy filmmaker.\u00a0 You know, it is permissible to go beyond two takes.<\/p>\n

6. Never Let Me Go<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was looking forward to this film.\u00a0 I liked the actors (perky Carey Mulligan, sultry Kiera Knightly, adorable Andrew Garfield) and it was based on a book by Kazuo Ishiguro, a well regarded contemporary writer; what could go wrong?\u00a0 Plenty.\u00a0 First there is no suspense in the film.\u00a0 We are verbally told within the first 15 minutes what the grand secret of the story is, that these kids are being raised solely for organ transplant use.\u00a0 Director Mark Romanek visually shows us the whole character denouement in the first scene when a scared and skinny Andrew Garfield gets wheeled into an operating room to have his last remaining organs harvested under the watchful eye of Carey Mulligan, the woman who ostensibly loves him.\u00a0 Jeez, imagine what might have happened if she hated him!\u00a0 And these spare-part kids are so passive about this, it almost seems like they WANT to be carved up like Christmas turkeys!\u00a0 I was reminded of the 2005 film The Island<\/strong> starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson from bombastic director Michael Bay which also told the story of young people being raised as unknowing organ donors.\u00a0 But those kids didn\u2019t accept their fate, they rebelled and escaped from their captivity which lead to exciting chase sequences, imaginative fights, hair-breadth escapes and several dramatic plot twists.\u00a0 Therefore, I am now going to say six words that have never before been uttered in the history of film criticism; between Never Let Me Go<\/strong> and The Island<\/strong>,\u00a0 MICHAEL BAY MADE THE BETTER FILM<\/em><\/strong>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FilmBuff Online contributing writer Michael McGonigle is the film lecturer for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His best and worst films of 2010 may surprise you.<\/div>\n

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