Yale's top ten list for 2010

I know I am running late with my top ten list for 2010, but since I don’t receive tickets for advance screenings or passes for the numerous film festivals around the world, I couldn’t see every film that counts for 2010 until the new year. This was a surprisingly good year for films, specifically foreign cinema. I know my personal top ten list for 2010 won’t influence academy voters, but I’d like to think that my opinion counts with the best of them. Here are my favorite films of 2010…………

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO. This Swedish hit was overlooked by the academy, but I was mesmerized by this grand and richly layered mystery. Noomi Rapace gives an outstanding performance as the sexually ambivalent hacker who helps uncover the disappearance of a woman almost forty years ago. As much as I liked the Girl Who Played with Fire (2010) I still felt that the first in the trilogy was the strongest and the most accomplished narrative. Just when you think the mystery is solved and the film is over, the plot reveals a bold character development, which reminded me of Kathleen Turner’s scheming plan in Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat (1981).
2. ANIMAL KINGDOM. This dark, gritty, and tension-filled independent film from Australia takes a generic crime story and turns it into an in-depth, sociological and psychological portrayal of a teenager’s survival amongst a dysfunctional family of born and bred criminals. Jacki Weaver gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the conniving, matriarch ringleader of the family. This film was overlooked by many, but I was really glad to see that Jacki Weaver received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
3. MOTHER. A terrific, Hitchcockian thriller from South Korea. A desperate mother cares for her only dim-witted son who’s accused of murdering a young girl. Skeptical about the police investigation, she sets out to find out who was really responsible for the murder. A unique hybrid of quirkiness and mystery makes this one of the best thrillers of the year.
4. NEVER LET ME GO. This is an absolute jewel of a film. Never Let Me Go is an exquisitely crafted tale about love, loss, individuality, and the boundaries of life. I was in awe of the visual overtones of this sumptuous love story. The film has a terrific, sci-fi like revelation, which gives it an improbable connection between images and content. Andrew Garfield, better known as Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate in The Social Network gives a remarkable supporting performance here, and is a career worth tracking. He’s going to become a big star, considering he just got the lead role in the new Spiderman film, but make sure to see his earlier work.
5. THE GHOST WRITER. Roman Polanski is back in action with this highly intelligent mystery, which is reminiscent of his earlier work from the 60s. Even though there is very little violence, Polanski provides a timely, political thriller, which is more suspenseful than most big budget action films this year.
6. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. Documentary filmmaking has never been this fun and inventive. The story is about a shopkeeper’s attempt to document the famous graffiti artist, Bansky, who is revealed as a mystery throughout the film. This spontaneous and hip documentary calls attention to its eccentric filmmaker, but you never know who is really creating the documentary until midway through. I had a smile from cheek to cheek watching this artistic and very funny opus.
7. LET ME IN. A horror remake of the Swedish hit, Let the Right One In (2008), does justice to the original and director Matt Reeves shows a little mastery in direction. This film is about the unlikeliest of friendship between a bullied twelve year old boy and a mysterious girl vampire, who teaches him some life lessons along the way. Both elegant and chockfull of gore, Let Me In is a creeper of a keeper, which cleverly reinvents the vampire genre conventions.
8. 127 HOURS. Aaron Ralston is an adventurous young man who ditches his 9 to 5 life to climb the dangerous crevices of Utah’s canyons, and unfortunately, he gets his arm pinned under a bolder. Narrow spaces and a narrow narrative, but director Danny Boyle gives us a wide range of brilliant imagery—from shaky, digital-video footage to high-resolution textures. 127 Hours is undoubtedly, an unflinching look at a real life, grueling experience.
9. BLACK SWAN. Darren Aronofsky has finally honed his directing skills in this balletic and nightmarish soap opera of the highest order. A strange, very strange psychosexual melodrama, not for all taste, but I think it’s safe to say that Aronofsky’s vision of a hardcore ballerina on the brink of a psychological meltdown is so strong, he transcends what could’ve been a campy, backstage look at the ballet scene in New York City to a dark, brooding, and artsy feast for the audience into a more bizarre world. Black Swan will fall somewhere in between the erotically-charged Mulholland Dr. (2001) and the sexually frustrating Repulsion (1965).
10. THE KING’S SPEECH. A triumphant and beautiful drama about King George VI humiliating defect as a stutterer and his rare companionship with his speech teacher. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush give Oscar-worthy performances in this uplifting period piece about a conflict that is universal, whether you’re about to be king to the throne or promoted from a busboy to a waiter. In addition, this is the best photographed film of the year. I love how the director keeps the actors at the edges of the frame, and the cinematography provides a gloomy, pastel hue, which evokes the period of the film.

Sitback, hangout, indulge.....SOMEWHERE

What’s a mega action star’s instinctive motivation for any role they take? Answer: their salary, what else? Is the life of the celeb-party animal and superficial adoration really what it’s all about?

Sofia Coppola’s artsy, new wave, European-like, lingering film, Somewhere probes the dull lifestyle of an overpaid Hollywood action star, the same way director Michelangelo Antonioni depicted the so-called “swinging” life of a fashion photographer in the influential Blow-Up (1966). Coppola and Antonioni come from different generations, but both filmmakers have an acute eye for what it’s like to be alone, when you’re never really alone.

The opening shot of Somewhere is of Stephen Dorff’s character, Johnny Marco, making the day pass by circling his expensive Ferrari in the middle of the desert. After a few laps, he gets out and glumly looks into the bright sky. He’s obviously bored, but if he’s so bored, why does he doe it? My initial response was that Dorff’s character never really knows what he wants out of life. It’s not his lucrative career, it’s not the drugs and the booze, it’s not the tiresome string of one night stands—it’s a human connection that he’s missing out of life.

Now, before you walk into the theater expecting my distinctive response to be written on the screen, than you’ll be terribly disappointed. This is a quiet and moody film, meandering through a small myriad of authentic characters, specifically the relationship between Johnny Marco and his estranged daughter, Cleo, played with great spontaneity by Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota Fanning.

Sofia Coppola’s work evokes her own sensibility and privileged childhood. The characters in her films are never truly outward with their emotions and are usually the non-traditional lone-wolves of a glitzy lifestyle. Somewhere challenges the viewers to come up with their own conclusion of Coppola’s emotionally ambivalent characters.

Sure, some of her work is a bit self-indulgent, but it’s quite hard to make a highly personal film without being a tidbit self-indulgent. This isn’t Sofia Coppola’s greatest achievement, but it’s nice to go to the movie theaters and hangout with characters that seem like they have it all, but still feel utterly empty inside. Like the title, the central character doesn’t go anywhere, but he has to end up somewhere, and it’s not about a place, it’s about a human connection; discovering a valid state of mind.

*** (out of four stars)