2010 Bottom and Top 10

Bottom 10

After some deliberation, I’ve narrowed things down to this: the 10 movies I wish I hadn’t seen this year. I’m sure there’s worse out there, ones I wilfully avoid, and I believe that without a doubt, these would have trumped all the movies on the list below: Eat Pray Love, Sex and the City 2, Stoute Boudjies (a South African production), and probably one or two more which I flat out refuse to see. But of course the sweet just isn’t as sweet without a taste of the bitter, so in a way I’m thankful, not for having seen them, but for them emphasising just how good some other movies are.

10. Did You Hear About the Morgans?

A bad romantic comedy cliché, but not the worst of the year, as two more follow directly after. Hugh Grant was somewhat funny, but Sarah Jessica Parker has a voice to clean the coral off sunken ships, and an on screen personality to match. The jokes are stale and the story is pale. Did You Hear About the Morgans? Unfortunately yes.

9. Killers

Katherine Heigl continues her decline into pure type-casting. Ashton Kutcher can only keep things alive for so long before the “bigger star” Heigl reappears. The action is regurgitated from the 80’s, the romance from a time I never want to live in, and the attempts at humour rarely deliver laughs. Killers; like too many romantic comedies nowadays: you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

8. The Bounty Hunter

The worst romantic comedy in quite a while, this movie gets side-tracked by action scenes even worse than those in Killers. Jennifer Aniston dials in her performance when we all know she can do far better, and Gerard Butler has some fun at the expense of the story, his performance here only slightly better than he was in Gamer, which came second on this list in 2009.

7. Dorian Gray

A straight to DVD B-grade movie masquerading as a classic, Dorian Gray went for the grotesque instead of the artistic, and failed to impress. Colin Firth and Ben Barnes seemed wooden and only briefly interested in their roles, with the dreaded conclusion never really reaching what I believe Oscar Wilde was aiming at. Undertones from the book are spelled out in unnecessary detail, while many quotable lines from the novel were left on the editing room floor. Pass.

6. The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan continues his downward spiral with a movie sharing The Happening’s, level of film-making mediocrity. The special effects try to partially save the movie, because as bad as they are, they are the best this laborious movie has to offer. The worst part of this movie however: this is not the whole story, as the movie ends, the viewer is left with the awful knowledge that what was just seen is not even a complete story, and you’ll be left on this non-cliff hanger ending forever, as a sequel will never be justified, and hopefully this will be the “Last” Airbender by Shyamalan.

5. Robin Hood

Robin Hood was probably the most disappointing movie of 2010, as better has to be expected from Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. This movie features nothing but cardboard cut-out characters who deliver a story no one can care about building up to a battle with possibly one or two interesting camera angles but which turns into a shambles. Turning a beloved fable into historical fact? Not what I’d call a good call. Cate Blanchet delivers one moment of true emotion that is just as fleeting as any other promise of greatness in this movie, it’s gone before you realise it. Robin Hood copies all the greats (or at least better movies) including, but not limited to, Braveheart, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor (OK, this is NOT a great, possibly not even better), Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot and Lord of the Flies. Couldn’t they just have made an original Robin Hood movie based on legend?

4. A Perfect Getaway

One of the most promising trailers led to the first single-star movie on this list. Relatively accomplished actors shouldn’t allow themselves to be duped into thinking this kind of script is smart, they should have realised that this “twist” is nothing but a cheat by a writer so desperate to surprise his audience he is willing to let any semblance of believability scamper off into oblivion. A Perfect Getaway then by the writer David Twohy, as he was actually paid for writing this.

3. Armored

Having worked for a bank and knowing a little about cash in transit vehicle security, this movie was an exercise in tolerance from start to finish. Just about every detail in this movie about a cash-in-transit heist is inaccurate, and even untrained eyes could spot the glaring holes of no research invested in this movie. The protracted plot is nothing but a desperate attempt to fill feature film length, which the movie still missed out on. Armored? Maybe, but not to specification…

2. The Limits of Control

Hailed as a Zen masterpiece by some, I was thoroughly bored out of my skull during this mess of a movie. Not a bit of sense can be extracted from this movie that offers no plot, no payoff, no purpose and no plausibility. Some cinematography would have been better presented as single photographs, but the only thing that kept me in the cinema was an eventually regrettable Limit of Control.

1. The Box

Norma and Arthur Lewis receive a mysterious box from a mysterious man, Arlington Steward. Push the button, and you get a million dollars. Also, someone you don’t know dies. The Box parades itself as a challenging movie in trailers, but is nothing if not a set of wilfully baffling visual temptations in a movie set in the 80’s for no reason other than possibly trying to add some sense of an arty feeling to proceedings. Press this button and you’ll regret the 2 hours you’ve lost for years to come.

Top 10

And now for the good. I rewarded 7 movies with four stars this year, which made the list a bit easier, as I had to leave one four star movie off the list last year, a difficult choice to this day. And here we go:

10. Up in the Air

Perfectly relevant to the times and perfectly acted by every single actor, Up in the Air proved Jason Reitman wasn’t just lucky on his first two feature length films, Thank You For Smoking and Juno. Up in the Air showcased George Clooney’s brilliance and spoke volumes about the culture we live in today, deftly combining comedy and sadness, entertainment and insight. Up in the Air shows a man embracing the current status quo with all he has, but then it continues him on the path of, in equal measure, enlightenment and disillusionment regarding life and love.

9. Red Cliff

Epic scale doesn’t come much more epic than this. Re-imagining the Battle of Red Cliffs (208-209 AD), John Woo crafts a grand scale movie, and with a budget of $80 million, ridicules Ridley Scott’s laughable $200 million re-thinking of Robin Hood. Sad thing is, more people saw Robin Hood than this brilliant masterpiece in storytelling infused with the Chinese legends of old a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If you can get your hands on Red Cliff do so, as this is a fantastic historical classic.

8. The American

George Clooney again, this man doesn’t have any boundaries; he can play anything to perfection. This time around it’s a weapons manufacturer/assassin on his last mission before trying to get out of the game in a beautifully made, slow-paced thriller that builds suspense effectively without big action and a driving orchestra. The American is subtle and I applaud it for being so, conveying Jack’s sense of awakening to another world, one where he can love, to perfection. A great movie.

7. Toy Story 3

The best of all the Toy Story movies is also possibly the last. One of the best action movies of the year, Woody and Buzz survive a lot in this movie, from betrayal to resignation to the fate of death. Part escape thriller, part emotional rollercoaster, this movie is all brilliance. Pixar just keep outdoing themselves, creating worlds and friendships where most would have thought it unlikely, and as Andy hands his toys over to a next generation, the viewer can only reminisce with him on what it really means to move on in life, to have to let the things of a child go. Toy Story 3 is stunning.

6. How to Train Your Dragon

So DreamWorks can also deliver, and boy in what style. This is by far their best movie, easily trumping Shrek and all its sequels. A few years ago Pixar stood unchallenged, but now, in my humble opinion, this is a welcome warning to Pixar to never give up, to never surrender their crown. From now on they will have to work hard at holding on. Overall I’d rate this as my personal favourite animated movie ever, but on average Pixar still holds the crown by a country mile. How to Train Your Dragon might not be the greatest title for a movie, but once you’re into it, you won’t want to let go.

5. The Book of Eli

If you’re looking for a vivid, if dark, portrayal of a post-apocalyptic earth, your search may just culminate here. The Book of Eli follows Eli across a ruined United States in a bid to reach safe haven with the valuable book he carries. Carnegie believes this book will give him the power to rule and in a sense this is correct. The book in question? A bible. Congratulations go out to the Hughes brothers for remaining so faithful to the source material and creating a movie with such an obvious religious undertone. Visually this movie packs a punch, with a conclusion that’ll leave you breathless in its beautiful simplicity which can also be debated for days. The Book of Eli might be violent, but it tells of what the world could become without, or with the wrong application, of religion.

4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

A comic book adaptation with a twist, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World delivers punch after punch after punch. SterKinekor had a massively disappointing release strategy for this in South Africa, opting to display it at only 3 small or out of the way cinemas in Gauteng. I saw this twice, with the audience laughing out loud throughout the movie at both screenings, and considering that at its core this isn’t a comedy, that’s big. Scott Pilgrim has to fend for his life as his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes try to defeat him in over-the-top anime style battles complete with hand drawn lightning strikes and words like “SMACK” flashed onscreen. This movie classifies as an epic, as the 7 big battles reverberate through you long after exiting the cinema. The love story in itself can also be identified with as each of us has felt in competition with someone’s ex at one time or another. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is certainly one of the biggest blasts I’ve had at the cinemas this year, and is only surpassed by the next three movies, two of which I believe are now in my all-time top 5 movies.

3. Kick-Ass

What an irreverent blast this movie is. Kick-Ass, with its brawny attitude (the actual title of the sequel is Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall), will shock you, it will wow you, and it will entertain you. Not in everyone’s taste though, I can understand if this is too much for you. I loved it, even though an 11-year old girl verbally goes where most refuse to and is brutally beaten up by a grown man, among other things. At its heart there lies a rich and rewarding tale of justice shadowed only by the monstrous truth that we reproduce what we are – parents take note, your children will do as you do, not always as you say. Kick-Ass is certainly that, a Kick-Ass movie…

2. The Social Network

I almost didn’t have a number 2 movie this year as the battle between this one and Inception, in my mind, is an unfair one, these two movies can’t be compared, this one is a wholly inspired take on a well-known story, the origins of Facebook, while Inception is a wholly original and visually impressive mindbender. The Social Network is the more absorbing drama, from its scorching opening scene to the last moment as Mark Zuckerberg pathetically awaits feedback on a friend request sent to an ex. Visually The Social Network is impressive, especially the rowing competition scene, and David Fincher now has two movies in my top 5, Fight Club being the other. The Social Network only grows in stature the more you think of it – a masterpiece.

1. Inception

Christopher Nolan is a genius. No-one else can continue making movies of this magnitude (apart from possibly David Fincher). Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and now Inception, the mother of all mindbenders. Visually magnificent and intellectually engaging, Inception delivers a once in a generation kind of brain blast. The Matrix was genius, and Inception tops that in pure style and class. I can’t think of another movie this year I want to repeatedly see this much, so for that, Inception deserves the number one spot on this list, but be sure to know that it only barely kept the beast that is The Social Network at bay.