Top Ten of 2010

There are many films I have left to see, but the only one I foresee cracking my top ten list is Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, which I can't imagine myself having access to before the year ends. So before I fill this blog with futile and wrong predictions of the flurry of critics awards coming down the pike next week, I think this is a prime time to post this.



Honorable mentions: Certified Copy, The Oath, The Kids Are All Right.



10. Red Riding Trilogy
Three talented directors pull the audience into their penetration of a system that unfolds in layers of corruption, greed, and terror. The story unfolds slowly in aggravation but with a dread that you're hard pressed to turn away from, especially with the first installment on the shoulders of the always compelling actor Andrew Garfield.



9. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg use rather typical elements of the documentary genre to tackle a very unconventional subject — the enigma of the public persona that is Joan Rivers — and completely spins our prior impressions of her right on our heads that has you leave the film with a newfound respect and admiration for this trailblazing American institution of comedy.



8. Poetry
Chang-dong Lee takes his time for his central character, at the end of her life, to find the artistic inspiration she needs to write her very first poem. The journey is filled with tragedy, heartbreak, unspeakable horrors and ultimately utter depravity. We're taken on this whirlwind journey by Jeong-hee Yoon in one of the performances of the year until she is finally driven to poetic inspiration by the very end in a beautifully bittersweet sequence of pure cinematic poetry.



7. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky proves the extent of his directorial vision as he paints a gradual portrait of a horrifying descent into madness, and Natalie Portman's performance drags the viewer right down into it with her.



6. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu
In a year of mundanely crafted preachy documentaries hogging all the attention, director Andrei Ujica puts together a political documentary among the most innovative, informative, penetrating and challenging films of the year. Three hours of unnarrated footage puts you, squarely, into the world of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu as he saw it through his own eyes. This immersion into the mind of one of the 20th century's most enigmatic dictators — in all of his delusional glory — exposes the world of global politics in all its pomp, circumstance, and insincerity and something to be taken as seriously as a three-ring circus.



5. Toy Story 3
The final installment of a trilogy I grew up with that is aimed at many others in my generation, almost ruthlessly taking command of our nostalgia and transporting us back to a place of such playful bliss before the final message that we should probably move on. Don't forget about the wonderful moments of childhood, even relish in it once in a while, but now its time to move forward and allow the Toy Story films to stand alone for a new generation of children.



4. Another Year
Mike Leigh chronicles a tragically average year in the lives of a couple named Tom and Gerri and the friends from their past and present that come visit them. Little vignettes featured from each season allow the audience to put together a puzzle that tells a story of life and how those in advanced age deal with it every other year. Lesley Manville plays their most centrally featured friend, Mary, whose own character gives a spirited performance at the start of the film but unravels piece by piece throughout the story until you're left with an utterly shocking shell of a woman near the end of her string by the Wintertime.



3. The Social Network
David Fincher's airtight direction of Aaron Sorkin's multifaceted and epic parable for our times goes by as fast and as efficiently as the technology we depend on in this digital age, and the result is what looks like an American masterpiece on all fronts. Jesse Eisenberg's verbose performance incapsulates one of the most complicated and flawed visionary geniuses ever put to the screen, while Andrew Garfield's performance holds down the film's humane and emotional center with the gravitas of an actor like Al Pacino before him wreaking with a heartbreaking vulnerability, insecurity, and longing to be loved by his only friend — who comes to betray him.



2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul uses every cinematic tool in his artillery to create a dreamy, free floating world of fleeting beauty filled with mystique and wonderment. A quiet meditation of a land past, present and future. Alive with the sounds of insects, of night, of rustling leaves. The beautiful cinematography can capture the richness of the luscious Thai forests, the pristine water flowing from a falls, or the monotony of manmade walls at any given moment. It's a stunning achievement.



1. Blue Valentine
Derek Cianfrance delicately films Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in the performance of their respective lifetimes, packing a punch of full authentic emotion at both ends of the spectrum. It's a searingly real film full of contrasts, going back and forth to when they first met to where their marriage is ending. The flashback counterpart to the film is a film full of passion, tenderness, and a pure love. The present day shows a shattering of lives and family, an intensity of disappointment and sadness. Cianfrance fills the final sequence with the emotional climax of both stories jumping back and forth between a perfect past and the present falling apart that leaves you floored in the emotional event of 2010.