The Best of 2010
I don’t know why I still feel compelled to make these silly lists. They’re nothing but a headache, especially when I consider how many films I’ve not yet seen due to either limited releases or just plain lack of distribution. Regardless, here’s a list of my favorite films of 2010. I’ve presented them in alphabetical order, because I think numbering works of art is an inane practice.
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Danny Boyle is one of the most intuitive filmmakers working today and, as such, he rightfully allows James Franco’s mesmerizing performance to do most of the heavy lifting in 127 Hours. The filmmaker’s trademark musical sensibilities are present, but Boyle structures everything in order to aid Franco. The result is one of the most emotionally penetrating and unique films of the year.
If I had to choose a favorite film of 2010, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan would be it. Aronofsky’s vision is an intoxicating choreography of art, psychosexuality, precision, and madness. The film’s powerful ballet sequences (which stand beside those in Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes) are nearly eclipsed by the fearless, transcendent and even at times terrifying performance by Natalie Portman. It is her finest work.
Erotically complex, brilliantly performed and beautifully made, Chloe is one of Atom Egoyan’s best. Also check out Anne Fontaine’s original film, Nathalie…, for an interesting psychological juxtaposition (say that five times fast).
Christopher Nolan’s Inception is one of the most magnificent science fiction films I’ve ever seen—and one of the best films of the decade. Behind its heist movie mechanics and action set pieces operates a furious, multilayered clockwork, which Nolan conducts with inspired precision. The filmmaker’s narrative maze, with its metaphysical and intellectual ingenuity, left me euphoric, head exhausted with ideas and angles of perception. And it is even more impressive that, amid the calculated chaos, Inception never loses sight of the humanity that informs its purpose. With his story of dreams and invading dreamers, Nolan has crafted a masterpiece of cinematic architecture and innovation.
I loved this movie. It’s not political or preachy, but rather an invocative story of modern familial evolution. Lisa Cholodenko’s direction is spot-on and her script (with Stuart Blumberg) is wonderfully intelligent. The film’s cast of seasoned pros (Bening, Moore and Ruffalo) and up-and-coming actors (Hutcherson and Wasikowska) perform the material with unfailing warmth and sophistication.
With outstanding performances by its three leads, Tom Hooper’s film paints a compassionate and visually atypical (as far as historical films go) portrait of a friendship between a king and a commoner.
Never Let Me Go is a profoundly moving science fiction, told with great care by screenwriter Alex Garland and director Mark Romanek. With its haunting images and implications, the film shook me beyond my usual array of emotional responses to well crafted cinema. The writing is too thoughtful, the performances are too devastating and the story’s revelations, too heartbreaking. It’s a great film. I never had a chance.
Martin Scorsese delivers an exceptionally effective and chilling thriller. I hesitate to use the term “horror,” as its genre implications are far too cheap to adequately describe the rich psychological tapestry that is Shutter Island; but, in a way, Scorsese’s film is like a horror noir: dark, sinister, paranoid, and with ghosts lurking around every corner.
David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin have crafted a film of dizzying acuity that is compelling on so many levels, it borders on abusive. Fincher may have been joking when he compared the trials of Mark Zuckerberg to that of Citizen Kane, but, false pretenses aside, the mirroring allusions to classic cinema that permeate The Social Network go far beyond Rosebud. Fincher and Sorkin have made no less than a modern Rashomon.
The Coen brothers’ vision of Charles Portis’s novel doesn’t reinvent the western, but it does prove two things: that there’s no genre the Coens can’t tackle and that Jeff Bridges is a bad ass whether he’s made up of whiskey and true grit or 1’s and 0’s (sorry, Tron. You didn’t make the list this year). The film also introduces us to Hailee Steinfeld, a tremendous new talent.
Honorable Mentions: Winter’s Bone, The American, Greenberg, Leaves of Grass, Sherlock Holmes, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
