The Year of the Dude
THE BEST FILMS OF 2010
by Matt Brown
December 30 2010
How To Train Your Dragon is the best film of 2010. This was as much a surprise to me as it may be to you. Dragon is a ripping adventure yarn with the volume turned up to eleven, but it's the best film to do the E.T. thing since, well, E.T. And it might actually be better. If I'd seen it when I was 11, I could have died happy at 12. Who knew Dreamworks animation was ready to roar like this?
Late in 2009 I remarked that 2010 was going to be a very good year to be a boy; I was talking about masculine eye candy like Avatar and Tron, though what ultimately bore out was the degree to which the great films of 2010 trended towards the ups and downs of manhood (The Social Network, The American, Inception) and incipient manhood (How To Train Your Dragon, Kick-Ass, Let Me In), even when the films were about women (Black Swan). There were great boy roles, and less so great girl roles, but these things are cyclical. If 2007 was the best year in recent memory for female characters, 2010 must hold the prize for men. And holy crap, the magnificent dude-crap: The A-Team, Predators, Wall Street 2, Clash of the Tits, Jackass 3-D, Iron Man 2... the films may or may not have been shite, but it was a dick-waving contest par excellence this year. Even Werner Herzog manned up and stuck his stereoscope in our face.
Earlier this year, Roger Ebert wrote an empassioned plea against top-ten lists. I took it to heart. Then Ebert published his top ten list for the year, proving that even the most powerful film critic in the world can't escape the rigours of entertainment journalism. I'm a lot farther under the radar here, though, so: here are the other best films of 2010, in alphabetical order.
The American - Anton Corbijn is now saying that he will only make three feature films; this is his second, and it's better than his first. It's also the best of Clooney's films since Solaris, and the leanest, most thrilling thriller to grace American screens in years.
Black Swan - The work of two masters. A rich, demanding take on identity and duality, brought together with equal commitment by fearless Darren Aronofsky and flawless Natalie Portman. It might be a restrictively male viewpoint, but shit - look at it!
Bluebeard - Catherine Breillat sails it with this understated, profound, giddily disturbing take on - what else? - female empowerment and disempowerment, filtered (this time) through a gruesome fairy tale. For a director who's shown a whole lot of sex in her career, poising this story chastely on the line of threat between a tiny, clever tween girl and her hulking, gigantic husband creates bone-chilling visual mythology without saying a word.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams - Becomes sublime in its final moments. Until then it is merely ("merely!") the continuation of the examination of spirituality and the spirit that Herzog has so faithfully tracked through Encounters at the End of the World, Bells From the Deep, Fata Morgana and further. Oh: it's in 3-D.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One - Been a long time since I've put a Harry Potter film on this list, but HP7.1 earns it with the sixty or seventy hottest seconds of H/H shipping in the history of fan fiction… and the rest of the movie is pretty good too: grim, grand, and elegantly constructed, scene by scene. David Yates is the best director who will ever have to prove himself all over again after grossing four billion dollars.
I Am Love - A banquet for the senses, this film will leave you flushed; as pure cinema, it is an aesthetic marvel. Tilda Swinton grabs for the crown of her generation of actresses with this role, and, oh, every other thing she's ever done.
Inception - Old-fashioned movie-making, not a digital camera or pair of 3-D glasses in sight. Christopher Nolan is at the top of his game; this is not his best movie about movies, but it's a damn good movie-movie. In an IMAX presentation, this might also be the soundscape that defines the art form.
Kick-Ass - You’re damn right, Kick-Ass; other than the Nolans, this might be my favourite comic book movie of all time. A relentlessly enjoyable and fully successful exploitation of a great idea, and a Fight Club style empowerment kick for the tween set. Must-see.
Let Me In - The world needs more good films, and Let Me In is a good film; that it is a remake of another good film is irrelevant. A little angrier, a little gorier, a little more thoughtful about the things that make it American. Everything you'd want.
Marwencol - Jeff Malmberg's touching documentary about a man with brain damage who constructs a doll-scale town in his back yard would be a treat even if it weren't a thrillingly sensitive exploration of human modes of fantasy. Tons and tons and tons to see and feel here.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale - God damn you for ever, Canadian film industry. This should have been yours.
The Social Network - Good Fincher is good Fincher; this is nearly great Fincher, as the director channels Lumet and Pollack to tell a decidedly un-70s tale of 70s-ish interpersonal politicking. Will not, unfortunately, be enough to make you delete your Facebook account.
True Grit - A grandly enjoyable western, that looks like it's having as much fun as we are, containing one of the best female protagonists in memory, played in a confident breakout performance by sure-to-be-a-star Hailee Steinfeld. Oh, you Coens!
Honourable mention: Frozen - There were several "what would happen if" movies this year - Buried and 127 Hours were the higher-visibility ones - but Frozen takes the taco. The only movie I've ever seen that freaked me out so completely, I considered leaving the theatre at midpoint.
Best movie from a previous year: Fantastic Mr. Fox would have made for a three-way tie with Coraline and Where the Wild Things Are, had I seen it in 2009; but after the sixth or seventh time I watched it, I was beginning to wonder if it was my favourite film ever. At the very least, I love it more than nearly anything I saw in 2010.
Worst movie of the year: Oh, if Film Socialisme were in any way an actual film, it would certainly hit this mark.
Best Actress: Ellen Page, who was pretty good in Inception, but single-handedly elevated Super from a weak movie to a great one. I'm all gooshy!
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges - The Dude may have won the Oscar last year, but he brought the guns this year, with a nauseatingly delightful dual role in Tron Legacy and his grizzled-as-fuck job in True Grit.
For a "year of the dude," it certainly didn't suck to be a teenage girl: Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass and Let Me In, Emma Stone in Easy A, Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit... three breakout starlets in one year? Carey Mulligan better hire a bodyguard. Also, 4x roles not about moron bimbos with attention deficit disorder using sex for validation. Win.
Meanwhile, I can't rightly give either of you "breakout star of the year" so can I please just watch you fuck?: Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, lately of Inception. Buddy cops? Road movie? Sequel, sequel, sequel!
Blu-ray of the year: The Alien Anthology, for elevating the game once again.
DVD label of the year: The Criterion Collection, for beginning their true march towards world domination. Enter the Void now, please?
Best original score: This was a surprisingly strong year for movie music, between The Social Network, Inception, and Tron Legacy. But I'm giving it to John Powell's gloriously over-the-top symphony of awesome for How To Train Your Dragon!
How pissed off is this guy?: Hans Zimmer, for not having written, but being presumed to have written, Inception's signature audio cue. BRAAAAAHHHMM
Best venue: TIFF Bell Lightbox may have come front-loaded with a lot of worry and doubt, and may still be fighting out from under some basic customer service wrinkles, but it's still the best thing to open in this city since the Uptown closed. At long last, film geeks, we have our Jerusalem.
Best bets for 2011: I'm betting it all on Hobo With a Shotgun.