My Favorite Films of the Year

with a few films yet to see it's time to look back at some of my favorite films of 2010. are they the best films of 2010? well they are as far as i'm concerned. will they get oscar noms? not all of them but so what. they are films that in one way or another moved me, touched my spirit, made me laugh or cry or taught me something about real life, possible life or made up life. they all made me think. i would revisit all of them again and in some cases i already have and one of them more than twice revisited. they are the movies i've recommended over the past eleven months and still recommend. i am not a critic in the strict sense of the word although i am quite critical. i'm an opinionist. and i am damn opinionated. at some point after the new year i'll opinionate on my top films of the year. and the worst. and there were so many worst this year as there is every other year. but my worst are those that had the pretense to believe they could/would be the best.

a best:

'shutter island'

the first major film of the year starred the ever growing leonardo dicaprio. martin scorcese directed it and it was a whole new ballgame for him. i think it's his best film. i mean even he seemed to have had enough of gangsters and crooked cops. i'm glad he did. this is a masterpiece of storytelling. it opened in february so the short term memory of the oscar voters may forget it. they shouldn't.

besides the brilliant performance by dicaprio there is the wonderful michelle williams, mark rufalo in the first of two worthy roles this year ('the kids are alright') and the should be nominated as actress in a supporting role the always terrific patricia clarkson. 

simply put it's a story of madness. it's a mystery. i know it's a good mystery because i did not figure it out. therefore it went above and beyond the formular most films follow. not since 'the sixth sense' has a hollywood mystery caught me this much off guard.

i gave it ***stars when it came out. i should up it to ***1/2 stars as no other mystery surpassed it this year.
'shutter island' is available on dvd and blu ray.

i hope hollywood surprises me and gives this film it's due with noms come february. i just won't bet the house on it!

'The Kid's Are All Right' **stars

'the kids are all right' and so are the adults. merely all right. the adults are a same sex couple and paul the biological dad who will soon be referred to by one of the moms as an interloper. this is really just a typical unconventional family trying to live conventionally. now let me say upfront i know unconventional families and enjoy them. just not this one all that much.

the couple nic and jules, portrayed by annette benning and julianne moore respectively, shared the sperm donor portrayed by mark ruffalo although 3 years apart. fast forward 15 years and one of the 'donations' wants to meet his biological dad. sister joni not so much. but they do and they like him. and then the moms meet him. jules likes him well enough but not nic whose entire world is threatened by him. however, in fact jules likes him a bit too much. so maybe nic is right. but nic is just too damn rigid. it is so terribly unsurprising when jules gets "that bit too close" i mentioned. between the rigidity and alcohol consumption by nic all hell breaks loose. jules and nic fight, lazer who set the whole thing in motion kinda crumbles like a whimp and joni goes to college.

poor paul the donor who was minding his own business, running a restaurant and growing vegetables to start off with gets kicked in the balls, the balls he so willingly donated from for a measly $60.00 a pop, so to speak. he's sucker punched by the lot of them. he should have run to the hills and far away from this group sooner. he probably wished by the end of this mess that his cell had gone dead and never answered phone call number one to begin with.

now somehow in this mess there are three really wonderful performances and one surprisingly good one. annette benning is the surprisingly good performance. i've never been a fan but she plays this rigid alcoholic lesbian pretty good. well the lesbian and alcoholic parts anyway. i've always found her pretty rigid on screen so that was no stretch.

julianne moore is truly delightful and convincing as the 'what the hell have i done' jules.

mark ruffalo is in his always brilliant mode in yet another understated role and thus far under-rated as usual performance. but not by me.

but the best of the lot is joni played by mia wasikowska <'alice in wonderland'> as the 'donation' that didn't want any part of this mess in the first place. she was right. by the film's end she is off to college. if she is really smart she will never go home again. or go live with the the sperm donor dad who seems the sanest of the lot.

there is oscar buzz surrounding this film. what can i say? i suspect they will not take the oscar away from 'the hurt locker' so anything is possible. walk don't run to see this movie. better still rent it. in cinematic history it is no more meaningful than spitting into a lake.








*who the hell names a kid lazer?

(and just for the record...as a gay man i really wanted to like this movie. i long for more good gay themed films. this just isn't one of them. and i find it patronizing that straight critic's are going all out and falling all over themselves trying to be cool in their praise. )

'Shutter Island' ***1/2stars Available on Blu Ray and DVD

the best film of 2010 so far. that really may not be saying very much due to all the crap that's come out but this is a damn good film. something different and if not completely unique it's the best of it's kind since 2005's 'the jacket'.

an excellent supporting cast is headed by leo dicaprio in a great performance the oscars will probably once again ignore. mark ruffalo as always is perfect and will be forever ignored by the academy.

max von sydow and ben kingsley support admirably. but it is the always good and always underestimated/underrated patricia clarkson that turns out the type of worthy of a nomination supporting role people remember.

personally i think this is martin scorsese's best directorial effort in years. truth be told he really lost me ages ago retreading the same old same old. here he tries something new with good results.

my verdict is rent it, make popcorn and get caught up in it's web.