Todd's Top Picks And Disappointing Flicks Of 2010

With the year wrapping up the time has come to cast an eye back on the year that was 2010 and try to sum up what has come and gone. As always when doing these things I'm a little bit surprised how things have shaken down in the final lists. A few notes before we get rolling.

First, as should always be kept in mind, this lists are purely subjective and should be treated as such. They're not meant to be an objective statement of quality of lack thereof, merely a reflection of my own tastes and viewing habits.

Second, I haven't seen everything yet. The absence of films like True Grit and Bedevilled means only that I haven't seen them yet. There are a few other prominent ones out there that I haven't seen as well.

Third, as I went through my viewing year it quickly became apparent that 2010 was an exceptional year for debut film makers. I normally include three picks as my discoveries of the year in this list but there were simply too many too choose from of such high quality that I wasn't willing to cut it down that I have instead chosen to make a separate post selecting my top twelve discoveries of the year. This discovery post will run tomorrow.

And, finally, please note that I do not claim that my bottom list is a 'Worst Of' list. No, I have seen MUCH, MUCH worse films than these this year, the huge majority of them festival submissions which you have never heard of and will not on this list. Instead what I'm giving you are five films that I personally found to be disappointments.

Got it? On we go with the good stuff.

Todd's Top Ten Of 2010 (in alphabetical order)

13 Assassins

Takashi Miike's foray into the world of the samurai is the most assured, polished and simply best crafted film of his career. Those who gripe that it lacks the stylistic excesses of Miike's early years are missing the point entirely. The goal here was to make a classic and he's done just that, turning in not only what is the best film of his career but also arguably the finest samurai film in decades. The entire cast is stellar, the story is complex without bogging down, and the action brings a fantastic jolt of adrenaline.

Animal Kingdom

David Michod's debut feature delivers fully on the promise shown in his years serving as principal writer for Australia's Blue Tongue collective. The Sundance winner just swept the Australian film awards for a very simple reason. It's very, very good. A crime story at once epic and earthy the picture takes you through the dissolution of a mid level crime family in Melbourne, blood ties being swept away by waves of paranoia and the compelling urge for self preservation at all costs. Ben Mendelsohn and Jackie Weaver steal the show on an acting level but the entire cast is stellar and Michod's writing and direction are both sure handed.

Armadillo

Janus Metz's fabulous war documentary Armadillo made news first by being the first documentary ever selected to compete in the Critics Week program in Cannes. It made news second by being the first documentary ever to win said program. It made news third by triggering an inquiry into the actions of Danish troops in Afghanistan and the rules of engagement there with its incredibly intimate portrayal of the soldiers engaged in the ongoing peace keeping mission and fighting against the Taliban. This is intimate, engrossing, adrenaline pumping stuff, an absolutely fascinating piece of cinema.

Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky proves once again that he is one of the most vital, important and invigorating talents in the American film world. Black Swan deserves every ounce of the acclaim being heaped upon it, credit due in equal parts to Aronofsky and star Natalie Portman, who delivers what is surely the performance of her career. Black Swan is a tricky film to peg - it doesn't fit neatly into any pre-conceived slot - and that's a major part of its power. It unsettles you as it reels you in, the opening acts serving as a slow burn lead in to a barnstorming finale.

Marwencol

Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol is a film I simply can't forget which is more than a little ironic since it's subject - outsider artist Mark Hogancamp - is a man who can't remember. After being beaten literally to death outside of an upstate New York bar Hogancamp was revived by paramedics, spent several days in a coma and awoke knowing nothing about himself or his previous life. Unable to afford proper rehabilitation and treatment Hogancamp instead created Marwencol - a one sixth scale model world populated with heavily modified army dolls and Barbies who live out rich, complex lives as Hogancamp tries to exorcise his demons. Not the slickest or most polished documentary you'll see this year it is certainly one of the most heartfelt, a deeply affecting portrait of a very damaged man trying to put himself together again.

Scott Pilgrim Versus The World

While you can argue that there were significant errors made in the marketing and planning of Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, and while there is certainly a case to be made that this is a film made for a very specific audience - the size of which was grossly overestimated by the bean counters at Universal Pictures - I'm a part of that very specific audience and, dammit, this film nailed it.

Funny, charming, technically flawless, action packed, and constantly surprising Scott Pilgrim deserves better than to be dismissed out of hand by those who have Michael Cera / hipster fatigue. It is a fabulous piece of film making by one of the most talented and ambitious directors on the planet today. That it happens to also be set in my home town is merely a happy bonus.

Separado!

No, I am not being willfully obscure with this pick. The story of Super Furry Animals front man Gruff Rhys travels through the Welsh settlements of Patagonia in search of a distant cousin brilliantly defies expectations as it morphs between concert film, road movie and anthropological study. The style and structure of Separado mirrors the character of its subject, the film a cheerfully shambolic exercise in raw creative power. Whether you know Rhys and his music before the film or not - my own exposure was cursory at best - you'll be hard pressed not to love the man by the time the credits roll. A purely feel good doc that far too few have had the chance to see.

Stake Land

The American horror film of the year. Plain and simple.

Jim Mickle's sophomore film is a 70s style road trip through a grim apocalypse, a land where the men don't talk much because they're too busy cutting down the undead. The living may not be much but it beats a death that never ends.

Mickle's a director with the good sense to know when to back off and when to go for the throat and he is well matched once again with his star and writing partner Nick Damici.

We Are What We Are (Somos Lo Que Hay)

Brighton Rock

Oh, Sam Riley. You had such a promising start with Control, why are you so determined to throw it all away?

To be fair, it's not just Riley at fault here. Of the entire all star cast - Helen Mirren and John Hurt among them - only Andy Serkis seems to have the first damn clue what sort of movie he's in and director Rowan Joffe doesn't seem to have any clue how to handle the complex source material from novelist Graham Greene. This one just piles mis-step on top of mis-step, each mistake pushing it farther and farther away from what it could have been until it ends up as a mangled heap of scrap.

The Butcher, The Chef And The Swordsman

I know I'm in the minority on this one as many people whose opinions and tastes I normally agree with - including our own Kurt Halfyard, who gave the film a very positive review - are quite fond of this mainland Chinese kung fu comedy but I simply found the viewing experience painful.

Mashing up genres is a difficult thing to do and here I found the transitions clumsy in the extreme with many of the characters simply irritating, many of the actors quite poor, the action muddy and - most critically - the comedy was just not funny. I did not laugh. Not once. This is a problem.

I Saw The Devil

I pause a moment here to remind you that this section is dedicated to 'Most Disappointing' films, not 'Worst Films'.

On a technical level Kim Jee-woon's I Saw The Devil - like all of Kim's films - is very nearly flawless. Skill and craftsmanship are not the issue here. The problem is that for a film that has pretensions of being so much more than it actually is, I Saw The Devil is completely hollow and content to skim across the surface of its characters and situations. It is a film that spends well over two hours to make a point that could have been made just as well in a fifteen minute short. It's all noise, no substance. And from a film maker as gifted as Kim I demand better.

The Silent House (La Casa Muda)

No theatrical experience this year made me angrier than watching Gustavo Hernandez's The Silent House. Yes, the atmosphere is good. Yes, the jumps are effective. But the film so stubbornly refuses to have its central character behave in a way that makes any sense at all that if you stop and think about the events of the film for even a moment the entire thing crumbles into total nonsense.

This is a film that confuses story motivation with character motivation. It spends nearly an hour with its leading lady crawling slowly from room to room through a dark house because if she does not do this they have no film. However, if I've had the battered corpse of my father thrown onto me by an unknown assailant within the first ten minutes of the movie - and the assailant is presumably still in the house - I'm not staying there. I'm running like hell and doing whatever is necessary to get out. You need a better reason to keep her there than that your film would be fifteen minutes long if she left and your failure to provide one destroys the entire picture. There's a lot of talent on display here, all of it ultimately wasted, and that irritates me.