Once again, I'm submitting my list of the best films of the year about two months later than everyone else. Since no one is paying me to do this, and since I'm literally in the middle of nowhere, it takes time for films I want to see to make its way to my neck of the woods. I still have missed a good chunk of films I have been dying to see from last year, among them "Another Year", "The Illusionist", and most of all Olivier Assayas' epic "Carlos". I had just discovered Assayas last year when I chose his film "Summer Hours" as the best film of the year, but I knew my city would not get "Carlos" especially in its long televised version. In any case, here is my top ten list of films I saw last year. Enjoy, debate, tell me what you think.
1. True Grit: Joel and Ethan Coen are on a hot streak. "True Grit" is the flip side of "No Country for Old Men", making way for warmer characters, high action and wonderful American dialect the brothers are known for. This time they borrow from Charles Portis' endearing novel of the same name and bringing to life a story that takes its place among the best of western myths.
2. Hereafter: Clint Eastwood's study on the afterlife shows the director's strength as a passive director. The film may have come off as too phony and fussy, but Eastwood seems to be sitting back observing what these characters will do next with death looming over the entire film. The movie isn't depressing, it's life affirming. Not many people responded to this movie, yet I found it to be one of Eastwood's best films.
3. Exit Through the Giftshop: Utterly hilarious, this film shows its true colors about halfway through, when a seemingly true documentary about street art turns on itself and becomes a story about its own filmmaker. The film then takes liberties as to what documentary is and also what makes an artist, all the while being the funniest film of the year.
4. Fish Tank: A british export about a tough, furious young girl who seems to be ready to explode at any given moment. The only person who seems to take notice of her is her mother's boyfriend, but that relationship becomes unstable itself which leads the film to dangerous consequences in the end. The film was one of the hits at Cannes, and is just getting a release by Criterion this month, check it out.
5. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: This film has already achieved cult status having sold out midnight showings. The mainstream missed the boat on this one when it was released, thus missing out on the most inventive movie of the summer (Sorry "Inception") Directed by Edgar Wright and starring the modern great stone face Michael Cera, the film incorporates pop culture such as video games and comic books into its highly comic sensibility, it's also about a cad accepting his responsibilities.
6. The Social Network: A vastly entertaining movie about the creation of Facebook as told mostly fictionally by a wonderful script by Aaron Sorkin and tense direction by David Fincher. The film has a rapid fire pace that reminds one of a Howard Hawks Ben Hecht film. It takes what could've been a run of the mill American made story and turns it into a metaphor of how the world has been monopolized by social media.
7. Shutter Island: Martin Scorsese's largly misunderstood film, I found this to be his best outing with star Leonardo DiCaprio despite that actor's failings at creating a truly believable accent. The film is part film noir, part horror film, with an interesting look to it. Scorsese strives in all of his films to make a personal statement, and he does this with this film while using its genre as a backdrop. The master may have slipped a bit in the years, but he seems to be making a comeback.
8. Greenberg: Noah Baumbach, creates a wonderfully comedy/drama with Ben Stiller giving his best performance ever as a man who's life didn't quite turn out the way he wanted, but he struggles to find happiness within it before it all crushes around him. This is a great, brilliant observational comedy concerned about the heartbreaks but also the surprises of middle age.
9. The Kids are All right: Another wonderful comedy/drama about what happens when children who have two lesbian mothers go out in search of their birth father and the implications that happen after that. The film takes some unexpected twists from the heartbreaking to the ridiculous, but leaves the film with its characters changed and perhaps stronger because of it. There is no bad guy in this film, it deals with everyone on an equal plain, its situations because complicated because that's what life throws at us.
10. The American: George Clooney gives one of his best performances saying almost nothing in this existential thriller about a man who creates weapons for assassins. He lives his life mostly alone not being able to trust anyone, however things are complicated when he tries to leave the business for a woman he falls for. Taking it's cue from the Antonioni films of the early 60s, "The American" turned out to be too arthouse for mainstream audiences, yet it's still quiet and beautiful to look at.
Special mention should also go to Roman Polanski's "Ghost Writer", "Winter's Bone", Tilda Swinton's brave bold performance in "I am Love", Paul Greengrass' intelligent action film "Green Zone", and Zach Snyder's "Legend of the Guardians".
All in all, this wasn't the strongest year for film. Recently I've been watching a box set from the BBS company who produced films like "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces" and watching the power of those films compared to today's is like night and day. I'm still waiting for a film to change the rules on us, until that day comes, I hope the films above will suffice.
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