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Top 10 Films of 2010


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Posted

OK, at the risk of moving these posts like I did J/NZA's TRONversation, I will respond thusly: Deciding to not watch a movie based on Roper's criticism of Splice is no more letting him make a decision for me than watching the film based on your praise would be. I simply choose to weigh his opinion more than yours in making my decision to not watch the film. I suspect you know this (wink smiley?) and were merely doing a bit of trolling, but I just wanted to make sure just in case. :2T:

 

Now, back to bidness--where are the rest of the top 10 lists? Baytor, J/NZA, Mal????

 

Well yeah, except, you're clinging on to Roeper's review that it was bad because he's a "professional" and you believe that what he says is true. Though my opinion is that the movie is at least "okay" my review is that you should maybe give it a chance. My "opinion" is that maybe you should make your own decision instead of standing on the platform of "Professional Critic has rendered this movie bad, *pop collar* your tastes are all horrible" My opinion is, at least watch the movie before you start acting like a douche about it.

Posted

Ultimately, whether one critic likes or dislikes a films says very little. I often listen/read what a critic has to say specifically, and I can derive plenty from it whether they liked it or not. If a critic hated Machete and says that it was "shameless campy ridiculous over the top explotation," I know whether I what to see it or not. I also think that while one critic is not a great barometer, the aggregates like RottenTomatoes or Metacritic are helpful if you haven't already made up you mind.

 

That said, DoJ, your top ten list does not include Toy Story 3. Either you didn't see it or you think ten films that you saw and also came out this year were better. Either way, :no:. Pancho, you had Toy Story 3 at #9. That's almost worse.

 

Alrighty, I've gone though http://www.imdb.com/year/2010/ and compiled all the 2010 films I've seen. A top ten list is pretty meaningless if you don't know what films made the first cut in my process by actually being watched by my eyeballs.

 

In 2010, I saw the following new releases:

 

Tron: Legacy 3D

Black Swan

True Grit

Inception

Kick-Ass

Toy Story 3 3D

Iron Man 2

The Social Network

How To Train Your Dragon 3D

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Machete

The Last Airbender barely in 3D

Get Him To The Greek

Shrek Forever After 3D

The Kids Are All Right

Tangled 3D

The King's Speech

I Love You Phillip Morris

 

There they are. The 19 films that were both released in 2010 and seen by me. Right off the top, with a bitterly angry tear in my eye, The Last Airbender is eliminated. So is Shrek Forever After. The remaining 17 films I enjoyed (and Shrek wasn't even horrible, it was just wholly uninspired and kinda boring). Not a bad batting average. So what I'm really working with is 17 flicks. Here we go.

 

10. Kick-Ass

 

The film has it's faults, but it shines in the one area that any reasonable person who read the books would agree would be the hardest to adapt and the key getting the tone of the movie right: Hit-Girl as portrayed by Chloë Moretz. This movie, as well as Scott Pilgrim, tanked at the box office, which does not bode well for other indie/less recognizable comic books getting the same balls-out treatment in the future.

 

 

9. How To Train Your Dragon

 

I'm writing these reviews in reverse order, so this is the ninth I've writen, and I'm getting tired. Best animated film not by Pixar since Happy Feet.

 

 

8. True Grit

 

Solid in every way. Solid production, direction, writing, and solid performances from vetern professionals, whom despite solidity of said performances, were outshined by, in my estimation, the most sensational debut performance from a child actress since Natalie Portman in Leon/The Profressional. Maybe, dare I say, even better.

 

 

7. Iron Man 2

 

This movie got more hate than it deserved, but especially more 'meh' than it deserved. I feel alot of hate for Paltrow projected on her despite a fine performance. RDJ is pure fun in these movies, but the back and forth between RDJ and Paltrow is more fun than RDJ's back and forth with any other character. Other than RDJ, Paltrow is the actor most responsible for making these two movies work so well.

 

 

6. Black Swan

 

I'm a sucker for a well made movie told from the perspective a person who has lost or is losing their mind and uses the character as a kind of unreliable narrator. One that makes you question whether what you are seeing and hearing is real or not. Black Swan builds on this slowly from the beginning and by the end you don't know what's what. Nina's masturbation scene is one of the most unnerving, unsettling moments I've seen in a movie in a long time. While not quite Christine Bale in The Machinist, you can see than Natalie Portman has put her body through hell for her craft. Performance of the year.

 

 

5. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hollows Part 1

 

I was very happy after seeing HP7.1, but I wasn't sure if it was going to make my list. I saw the first Harry Potter film when it came out in 2001, and quickly read all the booked that had been released up to that point, which were the first four. I thought quickly afterwards that the same team that made the first movie could make excellent adaptations from the next two, but that any adaptation of book 4 would have to take a hatchet to the story, or preferably, split it in two. I was hopeful they would do this, not because movie studio always do the right thing by the source material, but because there would be a financial incentive to charge for two tickets rather than one. The 870 page Order of the Phoenix and the 652 page Half-Blood Prince came out, and the desire to see the books adapted into two movies each increased, and movies 4, 5, and 6 were released, each fine as movie, but falling short of the standard the first 3 movies set for quality of adaptation. Then I heard that the 759 page final book would be split in two. The result? This movie breathes like none of its predecessors did. It was like watching Kill Bill, in how it took the time to tell its story with passion and care. Kill Bill could have been edited down to a kick ass 2-hour film, but so much would have been lost, and I can say the same for this film. All that said, all the payoff is in the back half of the story, so Part 1 by itself doesn't stand on it's own as a great film, so that's why I wasn't sure I was going to put it on my list, but ultimately, I left the theater excited and practically salivating for Part 2, so I put it here for that reason.

 

 

4. Machete

 

This movie probably shouldn't be this high on my list, but I'll be damned if I don't have a blast watching this. It was more than a great explotation movie, it was a great explotation movie about illegal immigration! Furthermore, it's a great explotation movie that took advantage of a bunch of tax incentives and subsidies that Texas Governor Rick Perry put in place to attract filmmakers to make their films in Texas, only to have him want Rodriguez to give Texas back the money after release because he didn't like the message of the flick.

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A story like this shouldn't be reason to knock a film I like higher on a list than it might otherwise fall, but it's my fucking list, and I'll do what I want with it.

 

 

3. Inception

 

Despite the fact that this movie is at #3, I actually have my share of issues with it. The fact is, under the weight of all the complexity, the movie does not make sense. I don't mean that it's confusing, I mean that after you've seen it, more than once, and you start understanding it, it has many parts that are beyond ambiguous or mysterious, but actually inconstitant. I appreciated the fact that Nolan made no effort whatsoever to try to explain the extraction/inception technology scientifically, because it would have been stupid. By not attempting to explain it, he tells the audience to simply accept the premise that the technology exists and works the way it does. The issues the film has are more than made up for in style, ambition, scale, artisanship, and sheer beauty. And the fact is you can only really see the flaws in the film after being forced to think about the film quite a bit, and there is not much high praise for a film than 'it makes you think about it for hours and days after viewing it.' Haku compares it to watching the first Matrix the first time. I can see where he's coming from, but I don't think I'll have the same reverence for Inception 11 years later as I do for The Matrix today. So long as I don't think about the sequels.

 

 

2. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

 

There's something about an underdog. I get the feeling that if SPVTW had made Inception money, I might be less dissapointed with the world, but the place it has in my heart would be different. In the end, I had two complaints about the movie. I wish Roxy Richter had exploded in a dozen or so adorable scampering woodland creatures like she did in the book, and I wish we'd gotten more Wallace. And to be fair, the movie was superior to the book in terms of Wallaceness.

 

 

1. Toy Story 3

 

Pitch-perfect from start to finish. In the theaters, I literally felt the heat in the incinerator scene, and without a word spoken, and without a living organism captured on film, Pixar created perhaps the most human moment I've even seen put on celluloid, and it was all a bunch of ones and zeros. No person or team in Hollywood history has ever had an uninterupted string of ten gems, only to top it off with an 11th which is their best. The only analogy I can muster is that the Pixar team are the cinematic equivilant of the Beatles.

 

 

There were a bunch of movies I didn't see that I wish I had, and might have found their way on this list if I had, but this is the list I could make today.

Posted

Jax, your top ten list does not include The Last Airbender. Either you've entirely repressed it, or you think ten films that you saw and also came out this year were better. Either way, :no:.

 

 

still haven't watched Toy Story 3, but my ignorance only reinforces Inception being the better film! also, hakus: if i don think i even saw 10 films this year, im not gonna do a list. tend to agree with jax, if you didnt see much, you can't really gauge.

 

Posted

I loved Toy Story 3 and it probably should have been higher on my list, but I think it was the circumstances of the time during which I saw it that pushed it down. I wasn't 'all there'.

Posted

If I'm reading between the lines of Panch's post correctly, and I think I am, he took Solara to go Toy Story 3 while he was stoned and doesn't remember most of it, but does remember enjoying it very much and also remebers Solara driving him home.

 

Nick, I forgive you, for you know not the ignorance of what you say.

Posted

Damn, Jax. That's some pretty cold full disclosure shit there, son.

 

Nick, you didn't see 10 films that were released in 2010 this past year--not even w/ DLs renting and sharing flix?

 

Well yeah, except, you're clinging on to Roeper's review that it was bad because he's a "professional" and you believe that what he says is true. Though my opinion is that the movie is at least "okay" my review is that you should maybe give it a chance. My "opinion" is that maybe you should make your own decision instead of standing on the platform of "Professional Critic has rendered this movie bad, *pop collar* your tastes are all horrible" My opinion is, at least watch the movie before you start acting like a douche about it.

:uhm:

If I hadn't known your mindset before the cancer I'd say you're having a bad chemo day here. But this is, sadly, typical BaytorH8R5000 jabronism at work.

 

I'm not clinging to Roeper's opinion/review because he's a professional any more than I'm dismissing your opinion/review b/c you're a non-professional. I honestly don't know where you're coming away w/ this opinion that I'm trying to be elitist in anyway by taking his opinion over yours. I've read/watched Roeper's reviews for years and he's a critic who's opinion I've come to respect and often (not always) concur with.

 

Likewise, I've read your blogs and reviews here. I've come to have a *ahem* certain respect for your opinion as well. Obviously our tastes and takes on film don't often gel, so naturally I'd be less likely to take your recommendation for a film I was reluctant to see to begin with--which is what Splice is.

 

So, no, I'm not skipping Splice b/c Roeper "told me to," or b/c you "told me NOT to." Rather I'm skipping it b/c I've heard differing opinions on the film, watched the trailer and have decided [here it comes. . .] for myself to skip this film. And other than saying I'd take his opinion over yours, I'm not really seeing how I was being a douche about the film. I didn't put it on a worst of 2010 list.

 

*whew*

 

I felt like I was back in Algebra class and had to go back and "show my work" on that one.

 

 

 

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