Films of the Year 2010
It wasn’t the year ‘we made contact‘ and I think it’s fair to say, that in the final analysis, that it’s been a year of ups and downs – how’s that for a non-committal stance? On the one hand it’s been a fairly mediocre year for film with a particularly dismal summer, this period has always been choked with the inevitable sequels and remakes but 2010 was particularly dire with only a couple of obscured pearls amongst the swine. I confess I’ve found it hard to identify any more than five top ranking releases over the past twelve months – that’s not to say that the films listed below aren’t fantastic as they are – my main point is that there is a big drop off in terms of quality and merit after these pictures in comparison to much of the other stuff that hit screens this year. On the flip side I attended and covered my first Frightfest and I certainly learnt from that experience (mostly not to try and write a review in the very small hours after a long day and expect it to make sense), I got my first press pass for the London Film Festival which was quite a coup, and its also been a vintage year in terms of BFI events with the Douglas Trumbull weekend and the Ray Harryhausen tribute being amongst the best evenings I’ve ever attended on the South Bank. EDIT – look what I’ve just found, awesome stuff.
Due to the big screen activities I’ve been less committed to any impromptu home viewing film seasons this year, I took a look at a clutch of Polanski’s in preparation for The Ghost Writer, I finally caught a few Orson Welles pictures that I’d never seen before such as F for Fake, Mr. Arkadin and gave The Trial another whirl (a great film), gave Nolan’s career a quick gander and I’m surprised to see that I’m not a complete philistine and caught another four Bergman films, including some of his more obscure works like The Magician and The Serpents Egg. The most extensive retrospective was reserved for Sam Peckinpah however, throughout April and May I saw eleven of his films, including those I’d not seen before such as The Deadly Companions and The Ballad Of Cable Hogue – both were OK (the latter was reputedly his favourite of his own work) but revisiting the likes of The Wild Bunch, The Getaway and The Killer Elite was terrific fun. In terms of the classics I’ve excelled last years activities by managing to see Rashomon, Rear Window, Tokyo Story, Psycho, Vertigo, À Bout De Souffle and The Godfather II, whilst the biggest misses on the big screen I suspect will be Winters Bone, The Hole (c’mon, Joe Dante? Scary Clowns? A film which has got complaints from parents whose precious little angels were upset by the scary men? Sounds essential to me), Uncle Boonmee, the Metropolis re-issue of course and most distressingly a restored print of Five Easy Pieces that I really wanted to see, in my defence it was only playing at the smallest screen in Greenwich or over on the other side of London, I think if you weigh up my other activities this year we can overlook this faux pas? 77 pictures at the big screen is a pretty good output don’t you think? So let’s move on, the nominees as always are not in any sort of ranking order, these are just my favourite big screen releases of the year with potential spoiler references;
Best Films Of The Year
Shutter Island – Scorsese’s terrific return to form and what a glorious revival it is. Even on the small screen the film musters a brooding, eerie quality that doesn’t diminish when you know the full story, I’d argue that some of the dream imagery is also some of the most arresting material committed to screen this year in terms of aura and unease, and I say that as someone who sat through seventeen films at Frightfest. I love the little slips that have emerged from interviews and background material I’ve absorbed, I can’t remember if I remarked on some of the intentional continuity errors in my review (such as when the glass of water vanished during the kitchen interrogations) that I detected during my first viewing but these were genuine mistakes, one of those magical, unscripted moments that a great director will incorporate into the tale when he sees the rushes (just like Marty memorably did with the film reel expiring during the closing shot of The Last Temptation of Christ) rather than re-shoot or fix the problem with inserts, an accident of inspiration if you will that signals what a instinctive, organic film-maker he is. The portentous score, the period design and paranoid ethos all pay dividends, all eclipsed by a sentence that I never thought I’d write, that I genuinely admired Leonardo Di Caprio’s convincing performance. Which leads me to this;
Inception – If you can judge a film’s cultural impact by the number of mash-ups, satires and remixes then this is the film of the year – my favourites are above and this which still makes me chuckle. A third viewing on Blu-Ray (I saw it twice at the flicks) prompts further questions and queries but no matter, this is quite simply outstanding film-making on a spectacle level and perhaps the finest example to Hollywood that original material, that risk taking, that challenging and not offending an audience can still make money – its taken over $800 million to date. A certain spoiler laden (you have been warned) link has been doing the rounds a mere 24 hours after that Blu-Ray release, I knew some clever editor would dissect the final heist in such a fashion. It’s probably not my overall favourite of the year – that would probably be the next film on the list – but it has certainly prompted some fascinating writing and critical musings, the best of which can be found here, here, and here and here. Kim Newman, in his refreshing review of the film in Sight & Sound pointed out some of its failures (it’s not on-line that I can find, hunt it down if you’re interested) and made the insightful point that almost all of Nolan’s film have grief and bereavement as the main plot engines, its a compulsive observation that only his debut Following seems to evade. I’m curious as to what deal Nolan negotiated for DK3, as long as he wields the clout to make the inevitable franchise smashes which he then moulds into a ‘one for them, one for me’ model I’m desperately curious to see what he will examine next, I’m predicting a literary adaption but let’s get that nocturnal trilogy out of the way first eh?
Monsters – I wonder how this will stand up on a second viewing but its status is assured on a historical level at least. Yes, we’ve had Cloverfield and District Nine but this is the one that will really be celebrated as the new model of film-making, the ultra low budget coupled with expert SFX (I’ve heard that the film cost $10,000 before the marketing, print and distribution costs were factored in) that result in astounding results and a non-traditional, more ‘indie’ credibility and credo. Gareth Edwards is a natural story-teller and his ascension reminds me of a thematic strand in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, one plot line concerned a so called ‘garage Kubrick’ who made his own unique short films under cover of anonymity, throwing them up on the web as mysterious artifacts cut loose from the usual chains of traditional marketing and consequently seducing a media savvy audience who are increasingly hostile to those redundant, decaying models of persuasion – I think Gibson is correct in that prediction of how things will develop. Edwards appeared on a podcast I follow and the interviewer coaxed out some further details of the film, he confessed to modeling much of Monsters on Michael Winterbottoms In This World which makes perfect sense now that he’s mentioned it and he also gained several million geek points for mentioning The Quiet Earth as a favourite, it’s an obscure New Zealand end of the world movie (perhaps in both senses of that phrase, heh) from the Eighties which I also love. He’s being quite cagey about his potential follow up but it sounds like a epic SF tale with a Philip K Dick twist, it puts me in mind of this which is Duncan Jones’ follow-up to Moon, that trailer is not good but I hope its a case of the Hollywood machine extracting the usual clichés out of the plot to sell it to the numbskulls, just as they did with The Road.
The Social Network – The more I reflect upon this, the more I like it. Fincher’s film along with Monsters I think will be the movies that most represented their years of release if that makes sense, they are the projects that most define the past twelve months and emerging developments in the social, technological and artistic fields, and the overlaps between those spheres which are growing more and more intensely fertile. There’s not much more to say than to echo my previous comments of this being an interesting, engaging story that is brilliantly told, with fine performances, a solid soundtrack and a contemporary resonance. The best reportage on the web is from the consistently brilliant dudes behind The Hollywood Saloon with their epic two and a half hour analysis, a report interspersed with scene specific references that really unveil the films brilliant construction. For what it’s worth it’s also the first American film in years to top Sight & Sounds worldwide critic poll and having secured a host of other plaudits the Oscar nods seem certain, I reckon Finch is in with a chance for best director but Toy Story 3D is a lock for best picture.
The Black Swan – It’s certainly been a year for the male auteurs eh? Nolan, Scorsese, Fincher and now Aronofsky jostling for position among my top five, all these guys have been on top form this year and their combined efforts have collectively risen the art forms standards during a particularly turgid year. I’m still a little uncertain about Darren, he is unquestionably an enormously talented guy and whilst I liked The Wrester I can’t imagine being bothered if I never see it again, Requiem For A Dream was arresting but over-praised, I recently revisited Pi as you can see here and the less I say about The Fountain the better as I’m in the ‘failure’ camp on that one. His skills have really crystallised with The Black Swan however, it’s a film that really snuck up on me as I confess that a movie that was obstensiously concerned with the world of ballet did not initially punch my buttons, however it’s an incredible synthesis of competing thematic and narrative strands with some instinctive direction, a trio of impeccable performances, a triumphant mélange of sound and image. The lezzing up is pretty cool as well.
Retrospective Films
Dillinger – I’m shocked that I’ve not seen this before, especially since it was screened as part of the Moviedrome schedule back in the day. In this Corman produced, deliciously distorted portrait John Milius treads identical ground to the original Dillinger from 1945 and last years Public Enemies, quite by chance I saw all three over a brief period this year and I have to nominate this central entry, chronologically speaking, as the best of an unintended triogy. It’s less about John Dillinger – a ferocious Warren Oates in this incarnation – as it is about the whole gang whom swarmed around him, including early appearances from a loathsome Richard Dreyfuss and a cheeky Harry Dean Stanton who completely steals the movie. The period detail is convincing and the whole enterprise has a certain grizzled charm as venerable lawman Melvin Purvis, portrayed in this version with an imperial majesty by Ben Johnson, ruthlessly hunts down and terminates his elusive quarry. Like many of those Sixties and Seventies Corman crime pictures it has a sense of kinetics and violence lifted from the likes of Bonnie & Clyde and Peckinpah’s oeuvre, with some fine character actors snarling through the hails of gunfire.
All The Presidents Men – Yes, that shot is really something else, controlled, discrete and perfect for the scene. One of the all time great political scandals deserves one of the all time great political films, and in this movie that’s exactly what we got. There is not one second, one iota of concession to the audience, there is not one moment where the characters clearly deliver any exposition as to exactly what is happening amongst the myriad layer
s of deceit and corruption that Woodward & Bernstein incrementally penetrate as their investigation into the Watergate burglary intensifies. This is quite a brave move as this is not an easy story to follow and as such you really have to work with this film, you have to make the associations and connections between the characters in the absence of any manifest connective membrane. I’d argue that this is Redford’s finest film with his West Coast WASP persona in full effect, Hoffman colliding with him as the anxiously jittering East Coast Jew, but for me Jason Robards embezzled the movie as the Washington Post’s implacable editor, cautious yet inspirational toward his diligent young staff. There are no tedious sub-plots, no redundant romantic distractions to show how the crusade is affecting their personal lives and its almost quaint in this day and age to see journalists rushing to phone boxes and tearing through phone books for contact details, or trawling through mounds of paperwork and reports to uncover facts, rather than sitting at a terminal and clicking a mouse a couple of times before yelling ‘hold the press!!’.
Goodfellas – OK, OK I’m cheating a little as this is of course one of the best films ever made and therefore it could make this list every year, however I wanted to share with you a fantastic article on the twentieth anniversary of the film which provides a rare insight into some of the films history – I’ve read maybe half a dozen Scorsese biographies and career books over the years and this still throws up some new gems. Malkovitch turned down De Niro’s role? Cruise and Madonna were once mooted as Henry and Karen (thank fuck that didn’t happen eh?), the Copacabana scene being partially designed for directors to ‘fuck with each other?’ – that is absolutely priceless. I think Goodfellas is just about a perfect movie, there is absolutely nothing you can or would change – the cast? the soundtrack? It’s numerous, quotable, unforgettable scenes? The sheer invention of the final montage and arrest, or the ‘funny, how’ improvisations? It’s just impossible to switch the film off if you catch it unawares when channel surfing as you figure, ‘oh, I’ll just watch it until that great scene‘, then there’s another to consume, then another, and then you’re right through to the electrifying end. It might be the working class grunt to The Godfathers operatic regality but Goodfellas is just so much damn fun, with a central moral nexus that is often overlooked. I watch it every year without fail and on Blu-Ray it is even more magnificent, I’m deeply sceptical about this in terms of necessity and quality but we shall see. Now go get your fucking shinebox….
La Soufrière – This is quite an eerie documentary from good ole Werner, technically it was made for West German TV back in the Eighties and is only 30 minutes long but it is quite literally awesome, an obscured oddity that really leaves an impression. In atypical mode Herzog is risking life and limb by investigating and filming a Pacific island which has been evacuated due to an imminent volcanic explosion, however not even mother nature herself dares to disrupt the Teutonic’s titanic intentions as he roams the deserted streets and estates of Guadeloupe, as he disinters a few stragglers who refused to evade almost certain death. It’s trademark epic, captivating Herzog and whilst it gets overshadowed by the likes of Grizzly Man and Encounters At The End Of The World if you liked either of those you’ll love this, you can catch part one here. Special kudos also goes to Herzog’s My Son My Son What Have Yea Done for its astonishing cast, for the hostage flamingos and the midget in the woods. Seriously.
Possession – 
It wouldn’t be the menagerie without some depraved material now would it? I have read about Possession for many years, a legendary treasure amongst the genre community that finally found a decent DVD release in 2010, prior to that some dodgy rips of the censored US version had been floating around but in this case my patience paid dividends. An unusual cast centring on Sam Neil and the sorely missed Isabelle Adjani (well, I say sorely missed as I’ve not seen her in anything for ages but she’s made a half-dozen films in the past decade) feature in this 1981 oddity as a couple whose disintegrating marriage descends into a horrific melange of surreal and distressing imagery, it’s clearly a major influence on and from the likes of Von Trier, Cronenberg and Polanski. It’s cold war Berlin setting gives it a potent backdrop and it’s hysterical filming style matches the emotional cruelty on screen, be warned though that quite apart from the intermittent bursts of physical violence it’s explorations of divisions – political, personal, sexual – is a draining experience. The craziest film I’ve seen all year with a mentalist final twenty minutes.
Films to see in 2011
Slim pickings I’m afraid to say, I’m not even going to bother to mention the Tree Of Life for the third year running – oh blast I just did – as once again the release date has shifted back to May from a previously announced January 2011 premiere. The first marketing posters were published a while ago and look fairly unremarkable but now we have the trailer I’m certain that this really is going to be a very unusual project once it finally explodes onto the screen – judging by those empyrean images could this be Malicks riposte to 2001? I’m also unhappy that the mouth watering prospect of seeing the Criterion Blu-Ray of The Thin Red Line has been denied as they’ve only opted to release it in region one, it is allegedly one of the best disks ever made thus far with a breath-taking transfer and a host of supplementals – quite a coup for a Malick film – and some amusing stories of who was cut out of the final print, we’re talking about Viggo Mortensen, Gary Oldman, Billy Bob Thronton, Thomas Jane, Mickey Rourke and most distressingly Martin Sheen – I mean how cool would it have been to see Sheen being directed by Malick again for the first time since Badlands? The US podcasting community have been raving about this as the best release of the year so I may have to invest in an all region Blu-Ray player….and incidently whilst we’re on the subject of World War II HBO’s The Pacific was phenomenal and possibly better than Band Of Brothers…
True Grit – The Coens back with Bridges? Sold. I’m not throughly seduced by the trailers but I’ll see anything by the Coens, in fact I’ve seen every one of their films at the flicks since Lebowski. I saw the original True Grit a year or so ago and for a supposed classic it was pretty dull by todays standards, I’ve never warmed to John Wayne but I’ll watch Bridges, at the risk of repeating myself, in just about anything and the early preview reports have been exemplary. From the trailer is does appear to have a sombre mood that already evokes No Country For Old Men, thus it’s the first must see of 2011.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret – When I first heard that Marty was going to adapt a kids book my eyes rolled and I mentally made a note to check back in with him around 2012, my preconceptions really do need to be toned down however as the more I hear about this the more I’m intrigued, my interest peaking with some comments made at the end of this interview about having to ‘re-think every shot in 3D’ and the intrinsic links that the project has with the birth of cinema, with Méliès and the Lumiere’s, hence my link above as obviously there is no trailer yet.
Rabbit Hole has got some amazing reviews from some early festival screenings, Battle Los Angeles could be fun, this looks potentially controversial, Soderbergh goes viral and on the genre front a remake of Fright Night with Colin Farrell? Will the madness never end? Then there’s a new Refn with an interesting cast, a new Clooney with an interesting cast and Withnail & I director Bruce Robinson is back with Johnny Depp in another Hunter S Thompson adaptation. It’s got an interesting cast. Further afield out in 2012 is Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity with its scripted 20 minute opening shot which has got tongues wagging although he’s been plagued with casting problems. The guy behind Primer, Shane Carruth finally returns to the screen with A Topiary which sounds like another brain blender and on the smaller screen a certain Kubrick finally gets its embargo lifted. I acquired a copy of Fear & Desire through certain methods almost ten years ago and it is unquestionably unremarkable, with only a few glimpses of the genius to come and finally Warner Brothers respond to the extra 2001 footage debate that has been raging, for once a Hollywood studio seems to understand the concept of integrity. I’m not expecting much but there is also a new JC, the first in a decade, which opens in just over over a month and I’m sorry but the Judge Dredd project leaves me cold.
So that’s that. I like how my annual film calendar is beginning to look now, at the turn of the year you have the strange period where product gets dumped that no-one knows what to do with along with the potential Os
car nominees, then from March there is another quiet lull until the summer when the tent pole releases strut their stuff, this bleeds into Frightfest in August with a September respite before the LFF in October, then another month of adjournment until the big Christmas extravaganzas. I’m going to have a bit of a think during my holiday as to exactly where I want to take this hobby of mine next, there are opportunities to appear on certain podcasts (I turned down a Frightfest coverage request back in August as it happens, it wasn’t feasible to start recording live at 1.00am UK time on a school night!!) and I think I should be submitting material to alternate organisations, it would be nice to see something in the more traditional paper based media although I did get a letter printed in Neon once. Seriously. Of course this all depends on how the day job progresses next year, I’m full-time throughout Q1 before probably slipping back to two or three days a week on the current programme I’m managing – it’s a long story – so either I opt to slot in some more contract work or try to make this sideline financially rewarding. There are other irons in the fire which could scupper these plans so I’ll just have to see how things pan out.
In terms of resolutions I’ve just got the one – to make more of an effort with old school Hollywood. I’m reasonably au fait with the period between the Thirties and Fifties, the legendary studio heads and stars, the particular outputs of the likes of Paramount or Warner Brothers and I’ve seen most of the key films but it’s such a massive area that’s always worth revisiting. I’m going to open this avenue up with a season of Preston Sturges films over January and February, criminally I’ve only seen his most famous film Sullivan’s Travels and there are a further seven or eight of his films available through Lovefilm that should get me started. After that I might open the field up to the likes of King Vidor or Allan Dwan, or Raoul Walsh or William Wellman or…..well, you get the picture. Heh. I also aim to make more of an effort on seeing more of these vintage films on the big screen so I’ll be paying closer attention to the BFI schedules as they come through. So that’s it, as the Chinese philosopher said ‘may you live in interesting times’ gentle reader, have a fantastic Christmas and prosperous New Year, and in the spirit of things let me leave you with this fine American montage;
Minty's Menagerie 
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