My Top 10 of '10

The year 2010 got off to a slow start cinematically, but picked up steam as we went along. By mid-June I was calling it the worst year for movies in at least a decade, but then late summer smiled on us with "Toy Story 3," "Inception" ... and even a "Twilight" movie that wasn't half bad.

A strong showing of Oscar-contending films in the latter months -- some of which won't hit local theaters until 2011 -- pushed the year into respectable territory.

Here are my picks for the best and worst of 2010.

THE WORST

First, the least.

In selecting the worst movies of the year, I should add the caveat that I haven't seen what are likely the absolute bottom of the barrel. A lot of the flicks that are truly awful, like the relentless annual issuing of a new "Saw" movie, are not screened in advance. It's a little game the studios and critics play: They know their movie stinks, so they don't show it to us, figuring no review is better than a bad review.

So these 10 films are the worst I saw in 2010, or at least that disappointed me the most.

1.   Yogi Bear -- I never thought I'd see a movie that made me look back fondly on "Garfield," but this aggressively awful CG-meets-live action romp sets a new high in low for kiddie fare.

2.    Machete -- Robert Rodriguez made a movie based on one of the fake trailers contained in the "Grindhouse" double feature from a few years ago. It's not nearly as much fun as it seems to think it is.

3.    Legendary -- WWE wrestler John Cena tackles a dramatic role in a movie about real high school wrestling. Tag this one out.

4.    Jonah Hex -- A silly comic adaptation of a bloody comic book, written by the guys who did those awful "Crank" movies.

5.    The Bounty Hunter -- Two likable stars, Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, in a cynical movie that manages to dredge up every cliché of both the romantic comedy and buddy cop genres.

6.   Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time -- This big-budget summer flick from Disney featured a bunch of Caucasian actors pretending to be Persians, and a plot that pretended to be coherent.

7.    Repo Men -- I give it credit for some bold ideas, but this strange movie about thugs who repossess bodily organs out of live people should've been recalled for a rewrite or five.

8.    The Wolfman -- Hollywood hasn't made a werewolf movie in ages. And after this howlingly bad effort, it probably won't again soon.

9.  The Book of Eli -- An admittedly great-looking movie set in a post-apocalyptic world in which everyone is looking for the last copy of the Bible. Audiences needed a lot of faith to make it through this one.

10.  Wild Grass -- This effort from celebrated filmmaker Alain Resnais is like a parody of every stereotype of European art films: Dense, impenetrable and deliberately off-putting.

 

THE BEST

10.  Tangled -- Some have dismissed it as just another Disney princess movie. If the house that Walt built can still make them this good, I have no problem with many, many more.

9.    Biutiful -- This lovely, dreary Spanish-language film from director Alejandro González Iñárritu is notable mostly for its strong performance by Javier Bardem as a street hustler burdened with a soul and a death sentence.

8.   Freedom Riders -- The best documentary I saw this year. Stanley Nelson's film takes what we think is a well-traversed piece of Civil Rights history, and continually surprises and enlightens us.

7.    True Grit -- Joel and Ethan Coen's oater of a Western is not so much a remake of the John Wayne film as an entirely new vision based on the same book. It's darker, more violent, and better.

6.    Blue Valentine -- A tragic romance story about two people falling in love, intermixed with the same couple's marriage dissolving several years later. Two amazing performances from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams -- a Sundance Film Festival favorite, and now we know why.

5.   How to Train Your Dragon -- The best animated film of 2010, and it had some healthy competition. "Toy Story 3" will win the Oscar, but I deem this DreamWorks effort superior because it created a whole new world, and contained a sneaky theme about overcoming disability.

4.    Inception -- Truly the most audacious, original and innovative film of the year. Yes, the settings and world-within-a-world theme are reminiscent of other films ("Blade Runner," "The Matrix"). But Christopher Nolan's intricately-layered storytelling left audiences amazed and gasping.

3.   Winter's Bone -- Cold and sharp, this outstanding drama from co-writer/director Debra Granik is set among the cloistered confines of poor hill people, but never once does it look down upon them or treat them as a zoological exhibit. Terrific performances by Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes.

2.    127 Hours -- The cinematic performance of the year from James Franco, and another bravura directing job by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Forget the grisly details about a trapped mountain climber who cut off his own arm. This is the story of a lost soul who was saved by the boulder that pinned him.

1.    The Social Network -- The "Citizen Kane" for Generation Y. In its portrait of a New Media mogul, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, this film from director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin may have taken as many liberties with the facts as Orson Welles did with William Randolph Hearst. But it's a dizzyingly smart, verbose film that highlights how computer code is rewriting the way we communicate.

 

THE REST

Making lists of your favorite things is fun -- except for the anguish of having to leave deserving films off. Here are 15 more movies (in alphabetical order) that didn't make my Top 10, but vied for a spot:


The American
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Fighter
Get Him to the Greek
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Kick-Ass
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
Morning Glory
Mother and Child
Rabbit Hole
Red Cliff
Salt
Splice
Toy Story 3

Video review: "Winter's Bone"

As we edge closer to year's end, film critics have started work on The List.

The List, of course, is the best movies we've seen this year. With 2½ months left to go in 2010, I feel confident "Winter's Bone" will have a place among my Top 10.

This sharp, authentic drama from director and writer (with Anne Rossellini) Debra Granik still grips me. From the spot-on, Oscar-caliber performances from Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes to the severe beauty of the Missouri terrain that frames the characters, "Winter's Bone" bleeds its way into an audience's soul.

Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a smart, willful teenager who dropped out of school to look after her younger siblings and mentally impaired mother. They survive the cold in a ramshackle cabin, relying on squirrel meat and the charity of neighbors.

One day the sheriff shows up to inform Ree her drug addict father has jumped bail after putting the family plot up for collateral. If he doesn't show, they'll be put out.

Much of the plot is taken up with Ree's journey, on foot, to visit her scattered kinfolks in search of her dad. Suspicious of outsiders -- even those with whom they share blood -- the mountain people are unwilling to help beyond the offer of a little cash and menacing warnings.

Even her uncle Teardrop (Hawkes), who's feared by lawman and criminal alike, rejects her pleas for help -- at first.

Expect "Winter's Bone" to show up on a lot of critics' lists.

Video extras -- the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions -- are terrific, and easily turn this disc from a rental to must-buy.

Granik and cinematographer Michael McDonough team up for an excellent feature-length commentary track. They talk not just about how they composed individual shots, but touch again and again on the happenstance that continually blessed the production.

A number of the principle actors were non-professionals they ran into and cast in the film. In the 43-minute making-of documentary, William White is asked on his last day of shooting what he'll do next. The next morning, he says, he'll head back to his factory job as a wirecutter.

The same feature also includes audition footage for several of the actors, which is intercut with the final scene from the movie -- thrilling stuff.

There's also an alternate opening sequence, four deleted scenes, theatrical trailer, links to songs and musicians featured in the film, and a lovely musical sequence set to "Hardscrabble Elegy," the main theme composed by Dickon Hinchliffe.

The lack of a digital copy is the only downside.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras :3.5 stars

Review: "Winter's Bone"

"Winter's Bone" has a sharp authenticity like a leather strap to the face on a marrow-freezing night. It's a bracing, thrilling cinematic experience -- its tragic charms are not to be missed.

Watching this mesmerizing drama from director Debra Granik, which she co-wrote with Anne Rosellini based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, I'm reminded of "Frozen River," another stark indie about a rural woman pushed to extremes by looming destitution.

Except in this film, the heroine is not even full-grown.

Ree Dolly is a 17-year-old wise beyond her years -- a necessity when you've dropped out of school to raise your younger siblings because your father has run off to cook meth and your mother has absorbed so much heartbreak, there's only a shell of a woman left.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree in a performance with weight and conviction. Despite her unlined face, she lends Ree a weary, aged soul.

Early on, there's a scene where she wanders through her old high school, peering in on the home ec classes and ROTC drills she's left behind. It's a wordless, wistful look back over the shoulder for a girl who's been robbed of decisions about her own life. There are no forks in her road ahead.

At their ramshackle home, Ree's brother watches their neighbor butchering a deer and wonders if he should ask for some meat. "Never ask for what ought to be offered," she instructs.

Ree's glum, dirt-poor existence is at least stable, until the sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) arrives with the news that her father Jessup has jumped bail after putting the family home and plot up for collateral. If he doesn't show up in court, they lose what little they have.

Hedged in by the cloistered countryfolk, with their secretive ways and ancient codes of honor, Ree has little choice but to go around knocking on doors asking after her dad. Many of these terse, unhelpful encounters are with fellow Dollys, and she learns that if blood is thicker than water, it doesn't always flow as freely when it comes to familial kindness.

"Some of our blood at least is the same," Ree says to one disobliging woman. "Ain't that supposed to mean something?"

"Ain't you got no man to do this?" the relation (a solid Dale Dickey) responds.

This exchange highlights a key aspect of Ree's world: Women are automatically assumed to be subservient to men. They're caretakers and gatekeepers to their husbands and brothers. It's something even smart ones like Ree accept without question -- it's baked into the family bread.

At one point Ree is beaten to a pulp for her transgressions, and when her uncle, Teardrop, shows up to claim her, the only question he asks is to make certain that only women laid hands on her, not men. This, by the way, is the same uncle who choked Ree a day earlier.

The implication is that among their kind, violence against women is perfectly acceptable as long as it's kept in the family.

Teardrop is played by John Hawkes in a layered performance of veiled menace, and something else hidden even deeper.

Despite seeming small and spindly, Teardrop's reputation is such that lawman and drug kingpin alike take a step back when they see him coming. Teardrop is aware of their fear, cradles and nurtures it, and wields it when necessary; he accepts who he is without relishing the brutality that often travels with him. It's an Oscar-caliber turn.

What I admired most about Granik's approach is that she never for a moment looks down on these people. Though Ree may shoot squirrels to put meat on the table, and be ashamed of her father's involvement in drugs, there's a stubborn pride that runs through like a backbone.

With all the cold receptions she receives on doorstep after doorstep, the only time she becomes offended is when it's suggested she might talk to the authorities about the family business. And when someone claims her father blew up a meth lab, Ree responds with indignation: "He's known for knowing what he's doing."

"Winter's Bone" is a film that knows what it's doing, and does it with chilling expertise.

3.5 stars out of four