2010 Movies

2010 was not a good year for movies, at least not for me, which is to say 2010 may have been a spectacular year for film, but given how few new movies I actually saw during 2010, I wouldn’t know. Last year (2009), I managed to see 9 out of 10 best picture nominated films prior to the Oscars, and saw a lot of other films to boot. This year, low cash flow, family emergencies, and me being in Haiti conspired to prevent me from seeing as many films as I usually do. I do like to remember the films I see though, and I guess this exercise will just be easier than usual…

So, in 5 minutes from now, the Academy Awards will fire up, and two of the best picture nominees are Inception and Winter’s Bone. These two films could not be more different from one another, and of the two, Winter’s Bone was the one that really hit home for me.

Inception is a good science fiction film, and by good, I mean it makes you think while also being entertaining and spectacular to look at. I like the dream stealing premise mixed with corporate espionage and Neuromancer/Matrix like computer technology. Unfortunately, Inception lacked for me the additional element that makes good science fiction films great, and that’s humanity. The human element in Inception never really pulled me in. I didn’t feel the characters, and in the end didn’t care about them, positively or negatively, and that’s Inception’s major flaw.

Winter’s Bone, on the other hand, engrossed me completely. Perhaps because the southern rural setting and characters hit home for me personally, or maybe just because it’s a really good indie film, deserving of a much wider audience. Winter’s Bone follows a teenage girl whose mother is an invalid, and whose father cooks meth in the extremely poor, rural community where they live. The whole movie is achingly desperate and depressing, frequently tense, and sometimes uncomfortable to watch. I loved it. All the more because I had no idea what I was going to see when I went to the theater in Tucson that day. Two thumbs up for formerly unknown-to-me actress Jennifer Lawrence. Of the few films I saw this year, Winter’s Bone was my Best Picture, and Jennifer Lawrence my Best Actress. I’m looking forward to watching it again on DVD someday.

Another film that made me really uncomfortable this year was the dark comedy Cyrus, starring John C Reilly, and Marisa Tomei. Jonah Hill plays Marisa Tomei’s manipulative and overprotective son. Basically I laughed a lot, but it was nervous laughter and there were lots of subtle undercurrents that rang true and felt familiar in a disconcerting way. In the end, I was happy that the film was over, but I liked it, and I thought about it all the way home. Did it have a happy ending? I’m not really sure, and that’s a good thing. Thumbs up from me on Cyrus.

Werner Herzog makes films that are always interesting to watch, even if they aren’t always good, and I had a so-so reaction to his Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans this year. It’s not that it was bad in any way, it’s just that I expect Herzog films to be great, and this one was just average. It also features Nicholas Cage is is notably uneven as an actor, and frequently over the top, which in the case of this role as a drug addicted policeman with corrupted morals was a good thing. In the end this is a good but fairly run-of-the mill cop movie, made more interesting by it’s post Katrina New Orleans setting, and the weird Herzogian flourishes [lizards, lots of close-up low-angle freaky-ass lizards, with the human characters out of focus in the background]. A lightweight in the Herzog canon, but still worth a look, and maybe a second watching. Nicholas Cage may be crazy, but he will never touch Klaus Kinski crazy.

In the leftover from 2009 list, I managed to catch Crazy Heart at the dollar theater before it left town, and was happily contented by it. I’m not a big country music fan, but growing up in Nashville, I do appreciate song writers, and down-on-their luck Kris Kristofferson types all the more so. Jeff Bridges really has to work hard to be anything but The Dude in my mind with as many times as I’ve seen The Big Lebowski, but in this film he accomplishes that feat nicely. A happy feeling film with a bittersweet undercurrent and an unresolved-love/if-only-circumstances-worked-out-differently ending that’s a lot more realistic than the usual Hollywood happy ending. Been there, done that. Went home from the theater thinking about past relationships. Drank a beer. the end.

In a completely different vein, I went to see my first Disney movie in several years, and found myself pleasantly surprised by The Princess and the Frog. I don’t have much to say about it other than that it was hand drawn in the classic style, had good story and excellent songs [Randy Newman as usual with songs that are catchy to kids ears, and with plenty of entendres for the adults]. Athena and i saw this one together for fun, and fun it was. Disney for all the flack that gets sent its way, still makes good movies. Sometimes I forget.

Iron Man 2 was a guilty pleasure this year. I think I may be the only person who that that this sequel was as good or better than the original. Maybe I was just in the right mood for it, but as good comic book pulp entertainment, this totally fit the bill, and if Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow character ever gets her own movie, I would go see that in 1 second flat. RRRRrrrrr!

Also in the science fiction realm this year was Splice, which was another dollar theater evening special, and well worth a dollar, though not-all that special. With that said, if you’ve ever wanted to see a woman turn into a strikingly scary/beautiful butterfly-insect-thing and try to eat a man during a sex scene, then you should definitely check this movie out. If not, then you’re not missing too much else, though there is a medical ethics subcurrent which held my interest at least through the end credits.

My favorite action/suspense/adventure film of the year came from Europe and involved Nazis, but not Tom Cruise. North Face, about two german climbers attempting to climb Eiger in Switzerland in the lead-up to WWII should have/could have been the Werner Herzog film I was looking for this year. Man versus nature. Nature wins. I was riveted throughout. Two thumbs up. Wish I had seen 127 Hours, but the last movie theater in Haiti was destroyed in the earthquake, and since none of these films star Chuck Norris, it probably wouldn’t have played here anyway. My other favorite suspense film of the year was the spy-ish thriller Ghost Writer from creepy guy but excellent filmmaker Roman Polanski. This one was good but not memorable over the long term. Better than your average summer film, but not likely to win any Oscars tonight.

I went to see the Girl With The Dragon Tatoo knowing absolutely nothing of the storyline, and never having read the book [I subsequently have, here in Haiti]. What a good story! What a good character in Lisbeth Salander, what a good movie. I was rapt the entire time, though the really intense rape scene made me squirm and afterward tell my lady friends they might not like it. In the end, all the women I know who saw it didn’t even mention that scene when talking about the film. Maybe I’m just over sensitive. In any case, I also saw the second film, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and was disapointed by how much less good it was than the first film, which is a bummer, because the second book is just as good or better than the first. This was my only real movie disappointment at the theater this year [but with money tight, I was more choosy than usual, and one bad outing is not at all bad].

The only new documentary I saw in the theater this year was the intensely amazing Restrepo. Basically, Sebastian Junger (the guy who wrote The Perfect Storm – which incidentelly made me never want to go out in a small boat in the ocean ever again…. ok…I’m over it) spent a full year embedded with a forward combat team in Afghanistan, and recorded the results, sans narration. Nothing glorious here, just terrifying, maddening, frustrating, boring, exhilerating, crazy, fucked up, you name it. Maybe some will disagree, but to me this film manages to be an intensely anti-war film without ever making a narrative comment, yet at the same time is respectful to its subjects, the soldiers. As war documentaries go, this one’s a good one (also, incidentally, Afghanistan is beautiful). Best documentary of the year in my book…

And the best bad movie I saw in the theater this year? An oldie, but a goody: Pieces at the Loft Cinema in Tucson. The last film I saw there before I came to Haiti. Thanks Loft, you Baaaaassssstaaaarrrrddddsssss!

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