Top 10: 2010

If 2010 can be defined by a genre, then for me this was the year of the documentary. In my six years of doing this website, I can think of none that had as diverse or engaging a crop of documentaries than 2010. Although you could certainly argue that some of the best documentaries weren't actually documentaries at all (but we’ll get to that later). While the big budget fare and the prestige pictures certainly had some great entries, it was the documentaries that will stick in my mind.

Before I break it down to the 10, I wanted to highlight a few titles that fell just short. The film that came the closest was Four Lions, a pitch black comedy about British terrorists with some of the funniest dialog of the year. Animal Kingdom, another strong contender for the top 10, is a gripping Australian crime saga less about the rise and more about the fall of a family of criminals. Comparisons to Scorsese aren't unfounded.

Finally, before I begin I should note that two films I would have liked to see before compiling this list were The Illusionist and Another Year, but due to poor release plans, neither were viewable before year's end. Alright, without further ado:

10. Shutter Island

The pairing of Scorsese and DiCaprio has resulted in some of the best films of the last decade. In this, perhaps their final outing together, they have crafted an over the top dark psychological thriller. The whole cast is electric, but it is again DiCaprio who steals the show, giving one of his best performances to date. It’s a performance all the more captivating when you see the film a second time knowing who this man really is. And Scorsese, freed from looking for an Oscar, goes for something big and crazy, which is a nice change of pace for him. While it’s inevitable that your reaction to the ending will color how you feel about Shutter Island as a whole, there’s no denying that the craftsmanship on display is uniformly excellent.


9. Catfish

One of two documentaries – or are they? – to make my top ten, Catfish is a film best left unexplained to the uninitiated. Much of the film’s power comes from the sense of discovery, as three friends travel across the country to meet a woman in person that one of them has been romancing online for months. By turns scary, thrilling, funny, and deeply moving, this is a film that captures the way we use (and misuse) the internet. It’s interesting that while the internet has been a common thing in most of our lives for 15 years now, cinema is just now starting to look at it with a critical eye. While I am still torn as to how I would feel about Catfish were it to be revealed that the filmmakers were manipulating their subject in order to make this film, there’s no denying that what they found was one of the most fascinating people of 2010.


8. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Edgar Wright doesn’t seem capable of making a generic movie. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is almost certainly the most singular film experience of the year. Indeed, no other film comes to mind that is quite like this. Much like in the comics it is based upon, Scott Pilgrim sees the world through his understanding of video games, comics, and TV. It is so specifically about a generation born into the 70’s and 80’s that it will probably alienate those not of that generation. And to my mind, Scott Pilgrim features the most revolutionary use of editing since The Matrix. Wright’s editor has crafted an entirely new way to tell a story, cutting out the fat and moving things forward at such a clip that it threatens to leave behind those not prepared. To see something that feels so new is exhilarating, and one can’t help but think that this kind of editing will be the future of cinema (for better or worse).


7. Monsters

If Scott Pilgrim felt like the future of cinema, Monsters is a classic throwback to the days of Spielberg at his most scrappy. Shot for little money entirely on location, it follows a pair of Americans as they try to get out of Mexico after it has been infested with giant aliens. While many are put off by the fact that a movie called Monsters has so few actual monsters, it often feels just as much a creative choice as it does a financial one. When we finally see the monsters in all their CGI glory, it is unexpectedly moving. The final moments of this film remain one of my absolute favorite scenes of the year, as what it reveals about the reality of the movie and the world these characters live in is profound and touching in ways you would never expect from a monster movie.


6. Winter's Bone

Perhaps the most stripped down and basic film on my list, Winter’s Bone is not for everyone. The plot is threadbare at best, and it is the atmosphere, characters, acting, and themes that really drive the film. When Ree’s father disappears after putting the family house up for his bail money, the sheriff informs Ree that she has one week to find her father or they will take the house. The journey this young girl takes is harrowing and shocking. Jennifer Lawrence is a wonderful new find as the lead here, but it is John Hawkes that steals the show. One of those great character actors that never really got his due, Hawkes is finally given a chance to shine as Ree’s uncle Teardrop. And that ending is wonderfully confounding in the way it seems both hopeful and hopeless.


5. Blue Valentine

A film simultaneously about the hope for a promising future and despair for lost time, Blue Valentine follows both the beginning and ending of a relationship. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams create two wholly authentic characters, and the feeling of a shared history between the two adds so much nuance to their relationship. The film never falls into the trap so many relationship dramas do, which is to wallow in the despair of a failed marriage. Blue Valentine is always engrossing, and it is intelligent in the things it has to say about relationships. It's refreshing to see a movie like this done with some semblance of subtley, and it never points the finger at one person and says they are to blame for the failure of the marriage; they each shoulder equal blame. It takes a strong filmmaker to make you not take sides in a film like this, but director Derek Cianfrance pulled that off, and he is someone worth keeping an eye on.


4. Exit Through the Gift Shop

While Catfish makes me want to believe it is real, Exit Through the Gift Shop makes me hope it is a scam. If Banksy really did pull off a hoax of this magnitude, it would be amazing. And if it’s all true, then it is still one of the most engaging and delightful films of the year. As a documentation of the world of street art, it opened my eyes to something that was all around me but I completely ignored. The people and the culture of this world are intriguing, and the fact that many of these artists are now creating galleries of their art seems inevitable. But the film asks us to consider if the art world is embracing these artists because of the quality of their work, or because they’ve been told to. Does paying to see and own this art make it any more profound than if we were to see it sprayed on the side of a building? If I fill a warehouse with junk and call it art, then charge you to see it, are you more or less inclined to agree with me that it is in fact art? The film doesn’t seem to want to answer these questions, instead simply putting them out there for us to ponder.


3. Black Swan

Somehow the three most interesting filmmakers of this generation made the three best films of 2010. You would expect at least one to falter, but they didn’t. My top three represent, to my mind, some of the most exciting works in recent cinema. Of the three, Black Swan is certainly the most daring. Darren Aronofksy winds his audience up so tightly with his films, that the end is as much a catharsis for us as it is for his main characters. Natalie Portman, as the increasingly insane Nina, is the best she has ever been here. While the film takes its time showing you how crazy things will become, you need that early lull in order for the film as a whole to work. As a companion piece to Exit Through the Gift Shop, it might serve as an unexpected answer to Banksy’s question as to what makes something great art. The more the art takes out of you, the better it becomes. Nina’s final performance of the film, in which she let’s everything go in order to fully become the black swan of the story, represents the pinnacle of what she will ever achieve as a dancer, and she knows it. When reading the ending through Nina’s eyes, it becomes less dark and more profound.


2. Inception

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the state of the film industry today is that there is no market for independent filmmakers. On a regular basis you see great indie directors abandoning personal projects for mainstream success. This almost never works out, as these filmmakers don’t try to adjust the big budget to their sensibilities, instead adjusting their sensibilities to the big budget. Not so with Christopher Nolan, who has thrived greatly within the blockbuster model. Inception is everything a big summer release should be: thrilling, original, fun, challenging, and debatable. On top of that, Nolan was able to tap perhaps the two best actors working today. One consistently on top of his game (DiCaprio), and one on the rise to superstardom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). And is there a more amazing moment in 2010 than Levitt jumping around that hallway as gravity starts to shift? Impeccable filmmaking all around.


1. The Social Network

I rewatched The Social Network again before writing this to refresh some things. What struck me the most was how incredibly watchable this thing is. Right from that wonderful opening scene you’re hooked. The film is a marriage of the year’s best script, one of our best filmmakers on top of his game, and a cast that delivers career best performances. Jesse Eisenberg has been delivering subtly nuanced performances for a few years now, so it’s nice to see him finally get such a meaty role to showcase that talent for the general public. And special mention must be made of Armie Hammer and the Winkelvi. Such a great, funny dual performance that isn’t getting the credit it deserves. He is able to make what should have been the villains of the movie into perhaps the only characters with any real honor or integrity. It’s hard for me to define what makes this the best of the year over my numbers 2 and 3. I guess the best way to explain it is that not only is every aspect of this movie great, but all those aspects work so perfectly in combination in a way that no other film did this year. Who would have expected such immense greatness from a film about Facebook?