Every year, I read countless top ten lists, and I always vow that one year, I will make my own. Though I have only seen 33 of this year’s film fodder, I believe I have a good sense of what was trash and what was not. Of course, if I have trash on my list, I am sure people will ring in as they always do, and that is fine. I love hearing other opinions. This top ten is mine!
1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. True Grit
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
6. Tangled
7. Kick-Ass
8. How to Train Your Dragon
9. Inception
10. Waking Sleeping Beauty
Click the above links or scroll down to read my explanations for each choice.
The first time I saw this film, the last 20 minutes had me in tears. I watched it a second time. The same thing happened. I watched it a third time on Blu-Ray, this time with the commentary. I cried again, even without being able to hear any of the dialogue. A film that can make someone cry every time they view it is amazing.
This film is a testament to how much Pixar has grown and to how much we have grown up with Pixar. This film is mature, it is well crafted, and it is both hilarious and heartwarmingly sad. Toy Story 3 is another example of Pixar at its best.
I will be completely honest when I say that the first scene in this film was horrible. The dialogue was complicated, the characters spoke too fast, and it reminded me why I did not watch The West Wing or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Past that scene, though, the movie was brilliant.
Jessie Eisenberg, whom I last watched in Zombieland, showed his acting skill, and he made you want to hate Mark Zuckerberg. At the same time, you still felt for the guy. Andrew Garfield also showed he had some acting chops, and I only hope he can bring something to the character of Spiderman. Justin Timberlake was himself.
As for the score, it was brilliant. Trent Reznor did a wonderful job by embedding the film with an electronic undertone. Had the film struck me as emotionally as Toy Story 3, it could have been number one!
I have a soft spot for a good western. I do not see many, but when I do, I love them. There is just something enchanting about the “Old West” that I can not quite pinpoint. Beyond the setting, you had a wonderful script and great direction by the Coen Brothers. After A Serious Man and Burn After Reading, I was beginning to tire of them, but this film was redeeming.
Hailee Steinfeld shows up in her first major acting role and absolutely nails it! Good child actors are hard to find, but this one is quite a gem. She has a bright career ahead if her agent is good! Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon are at the top of their game, as always. It is amazing how much better in this Bridges is than Tron: Legacy.
Finally, the script is wonderful. I have never seen the original film, nor read the book both films are based on, but the story was extremely engaging and was full of surprises toward the end. This film was a great bookend for 2010!
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
This film is not for everyone. I completely acknowledge that. This film knew what it wanted to be. Had Edgar Write tried to change this film in a major way from its source material, it could have been a disaster. Even though this film was a Box Office disappointment, it was still great and it is unfortunate only a segmented audience will ever see it.
Michael Cera, again, played himself, which in this case was not bad. He had the charm and the look that this film needed. Kieran Culkin, who played Scott’s friend Wallace, was the best actor of the film. He had great comedic timing, and showed that the Culkin family is still relevant. The rest of the cast was great, but Culkin was by far the funniest.
The editing in this film was also great, with all the cool transitions. Some might say they transitioned too much, but it was necessary to give the film a “comic book feel.”
Of course, this film had one major flaw: the ending. I know it was faithful to the book, but I would have preferred the alternate ending as seen on the DVD.
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
This is the best Harry Potter film of the franchise. It was beautiful, well acted, and had much more emotion than the last six films, at least for me. It ended in a wonderful place to pick part two up at. This film actually surprised me, because it actually made me tear up at the end.
Growing up with these onscreen characters has been weird, because they were once so young, and now they are years older than the characters they play. Still, why get rid of good actors if they can still play the part?
This film possibly could have been higher except for the fact that the films, for me, are a bit forgettable. I loved this film, and I meant what I said above, but these films are not films I would revisit. I would reread the books, though.
Before this film came out, I was at odds. I love CGI animation, but the trailers for the film looked, to put it lightly, very lame. Of course, I had ready early reviews of the film saying it was good, so I went, and I am so glad I did.
This was Disney’s return to form. And in 3D, no less! It looked so beautiful, and the story never relied on any pop culture jokes, not even once! The voices fit the characters, the film was emotional, and the score was not half bad.
What kept this film from being on my top five was the singing. While a couple of the songs were great, a few were quite bad, mostly the ones involving the mother, a character I did not like at all, not even as a villain. I am hoping Winnie the Pooh can beat how much I liked Tangled!
This was such an original take on the superhero genre. It, like Scott Pilgrim, was a film that people either hated or loved. The main complaints people had was that it changed tones too much and that many found the script to be… poor. I found that neither was the case. My problem lied in the acting.
Aaron Johnson bugged me. So did Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Unfortunately, these two actors held a majority of the screen time. Other actors, such as the Nicholas Cage and Chloe Moretz, the latter of which is a great young actress, were in it for smaller amounts of time and were great! Cage does a great Adam West, by the way. The supporting cast was good, as well. Better than the two male stars, at least.
Another flaw was the outlandish ending. Everything else in the film, however crazy it may have been, was not nearly as crazy as the very end. That bugged me quite a bit. Still, the film was strong enough to keep a spot on my list.
Dreamworks has always been a notch or two below Pixar, even at their best. So far, this film is their best. It did not rely on pop culture humor or scatological humor. It had AMAZING visuals, and the story was even a bit emotional, or at least it attempted to be.
I did not feel the emotion that others felt watching this film. Perhaps this is because I have never gotten attached to any pets. I have only had two cats, and those died while I was young. Yes, I still found Toothlesss cute, but that was as far as my emotions got involved. Well… the very end surprised me, but I will not spoil that.
What else was not up to my expectations? The main character’s voice! I do not like Jay Baruchel’s voice. It was way too annoying, and ranks with Seth Rogen as one of the most annoying voices in show business.
Beyond that, the film was BEAUTIFUL, and is worth a look on Blu-Ray if you have not seen it already.
This film has a lot of flaws. It has a long exposition. It creates rules that seem legitimate, but are broken by the end of the film. It believes it is smarter than it actually it. It has an ending that is a cop-out. I could go into much more detail, but I would rather focus on how this film made it on my list.
Last year was not a great year for film. Luckily, Inception was well written, and the ideas it did explain and stick to were handled well. The dialogue was intriguing and you wanted to know more about the world. You were sucked into the story.
The cast was great, as well. Leonardo DeCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and company had such a familiarity with one another that you believed they could actually all work together.
Then there were the dream sequences. Nevermind that I have never had any dreams like the ones in the film, but they were wonderful action set pieces. It is for that reason this film makes my list. Well, that and 2010 was not filled with great films.
This documentary takes a wonderful look into Disney animation between 1980 and 1994. It is also a good look at Jeffery Katzenberg and Michael Eisner’s pasts at Disney. It is a must see for anyone who has ever seen a Disney film and loved it, or anyone who wants to one day work for Disney Animation.
As someone who knew nothing about the animation side of the company before 2000, I found this film very informational. For those who were actually alive during the time, it may be less so, but it will still be very interesting to watch. Again, it is a documentary, so you have to be in that mindset before watching the film. It does nothing original to tell its story, though that is not necessarily a bad thing in this case.
Honorable mentions:
• MacGruber
By no means was this a great film. It was barely a good film. That being said, it has a couple of the funniest moments I have ever seen in film. I would recommend renting this film at least once in your life.
• Flipped
I was not in love with the film, but I did like its narration style, and would not mind if I saw it in another film in the future.
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Though I missed a number of films in theaters such as Black Swan and 127 Hours, I believe I caught the better films of the year. Hopefully, next year, I can catch even more good films and even more bad ones. Sometimes even bad movies can inspire you.