2010 in Review: Film

After some careful (and some not-so-careful) consideration here's my own personal take on film in 2010 starting with the ten movies I enjoyed the most.

My top 10 favourite films of 2010

10. Easy A. Will Gluck’s witty, charming and keenly intelligent high school comedy sees the fab Emma Stone as Olive, the invisible nerd girl who tells a little lie to get herself out of a pickle. Only problem is Olive then sees that small lie grow beyond reason until she is eventually branded the biggest [insert derogatory term for women who have lots of sex with lots of different men] in the school. Stone is wonderful in the lead but she also gets great support from a sterling supporting cast especially Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s loving if slightly eccentric parents. Smart, witty, biting, Easy A sees Emma Stone’s birth as a major movie star. At least it should.

9. Centurion. Neil (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) Marshall’s Roman Britain era film sees the always excellent Michael Fassbender leading a surviving band of Roman soldiers back through the hostile wilds of Scotland to the relative safety of Northern England after their legion is devastated by fierce locals. All the while, mute psycho tracker/hunter Olga Kurylenko is hot on their heels and craving Roman blood. Centurion is one of the best looking films of 2010 thanks to Marshall’s sweeping direction and regular DP Sam McCurdy’s gorgeous (as always) cinematography. Centurion is simple yet grimly elegant with blistering and bloody action, great characters and gorgeous scenery.

8. The Losers. Similar to The A-Team and The Expendables, The Losers is by far the best even if it did make by far the least at the box office. It has a breezy, witty, snappy script and a top-notch charismatic ensemble cast led by the excellent Jeffrey Dean Morgan in rumpled George Clooney mode but with the brilliantly nerdy and funny Chris Evans stealing the show. Director Sylvain White gives the whole thing a glossy, gritty comic book feel while always keeping the ensemble cast front and centre. Also, The Losers has my favourite single shot of 2010: the gorgeous Zoe Saldana firing a rocket launcher in slow motion. Sexiest thing I saw all year. Does that make me a bad person?

7. Whip It. Drew Barrymore’s hugely charming, sweetly anarchic and very funny directorial debut sees Ellen Page’s outsider teen from a nowhere town hook up with a ‘cool’ roller derby team made up of a motley bunch of girls who can’t stop fighting and losing. Beyond the funny and the roller derby madness, the film is at heart a simple story about a mother and daughter’s stressed relationship and their struggle to connect to each other. Ellen Page is fab as is Kristen Wiig as the roller team’s mother figure but it is Marcia Gay Harden as Page’s actual mom who takes the acting gong in a perfectly pitched performance of parental strife.

6. Tron Legacy. Yep, I’m a Tron geek. Have been since 1982. I love light cycles, recognizers, disc wars etc. And though far from perfect this belated sequel is a stunning film to look at and is smarter and richer in substance than it has been given credit for. The script, though messy and choppy, is loaded with allegory and theme and the brilliant score by Daft Punk keeps your neck hairs raised. Oh, and Olivia Wilde makes for one dreamy cyber warrior babe.

5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Edgar Wright directs what is the single most energised and visually inventive and creative film of the year. A very funny, very cool, very smart love story and coming of age story that plays out like a super slick video game. Think Spaced with a budget. Tons of energy, tons of smarts, tons of fun.

4. Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky’s deconstruction and reconstruction of an immature, fragile and fearful girl’s psyche as she struggles to become the mature and confident woman she needs to be is a beautifully poetic and darkly disturbing piece of cinematic art. It is certainly not to all tastes but I for one adored every single frame. Natalie Portman is quite extraordinary as Nina, the troubled young ballet dancer struggling to transform in to the perfect performer. That Oscar should be hers for the taking. To my mind this is Aronofsky’s best work yet. A beautiful nightmare.

3. Kick-Ass. Mathew Vaughan’s bright, bloody, violent, sweary, funny not-so-superhero film adapted from Mark Millar’s comic of the same name is so much fun it hurts. Aaron Johnson is great as Dave/Kick-Ass, as is Nicolas Cage as nutty vigilante Big Daddy, but it’s uber-moppet Chloe Moretz who steals the movie as the viscous, foul mouthed and all round badass Hit Girl. If you’re a geek like me and you don’t love this film then there’s something truly wrong with you.

2. Toy Story 3. Pixar strike again with what is arguably their best film to date. Before TS3’s release who’d have thought they could come close to equalling let alone surpassing the previous two Toy Story films. But that’s exactly what they did. A glorious mix of laugh-out-loud fun, edge of the seat adventure and genuinely heartrending emotion, Toy Story 3 is not just a great animated film but a great film. Period. Oh, and Spanish Buzz, possibly THE funniest thing this year.

1. Inception. Christopher Nolan’s puzzle box film is an absolute masterpiece of ingenious, complex storytelling and thematic depth. It’s that rarest of beasts – a blockbuster that is unashamedly deep and intelligent, that challenges its audience and demands close attention, active thought and multiple rewatching. Nobody makes films like Christopher Nolan, nobody.


The five films I hated most in 2010

NOTE: these are all major releases and don’t include the many dregs I’ve seen from cheap direct to DVD or cable as there’d be far too many of them to list.

5. Robin Hood. Utterly dull, charmless and misguided ‘prequel’ to the old story we all know and love. Batman Begins did this kinda thing so very right. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood got it so very wrong. Boring in da Hood.

4. Case 39. Puffy faced Renee Zellweger looked as bored as the audience in this long delayed scary child horror that was neither horrific nor scary, but was instead just plain silly and bland. Kids, just say no to a puffy Zellweger.

3. Legion. Paul Bettany is a heroic renegade angel in this flashy but stupid and tiresome actioner that wants so bad to be The Terminator with an angry God instead of Skynet but without an ounce of the originality or intelligence of Cameron’s sci-fi classic. Beefcake Angels make me laugh.

2. Law Abiding Citizen. Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx star in this ridiculous, morally dubious and flatly made revenge thriller from hack journeyman director F. Gary Gray. Arrest ‘em all and throw away the key.

1. Resident Evil: Afterlife. Boring beyond belief was how I found this floater; a big steaming jobbie that has no redeeming features whatsoever with no proper story, no interesting characters, terrible acting and a style ripped off ten years too late from The Matrix…and done really badly at that. Die you zombie scum!


Other stuff


Best actor: Ryan Reynolds in Buried. Special mention to Ben Affleck in The Town who was also most impressive.

Best actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan. And a special mention goes to Chloe Moretz for her outstanding roles in Kick-Ass and Let Me In. If not for Natalie it would be Chloe hands down.

Best Guilty Pleasure Film: The Wolfman. Joe Johnston’s gory remake of the 1941 classic is more old school Hammer Films than Universal horror but Rick Baker’s make-up FX are fab as is Benicio Del Toro in the title role and the always great Hugo Weaving as Inspector Abberline.

Most likely guilty pleasure for 2011: Zack (300, Watchmen) Snyder’s Sucker Punch. Kick-ass girls fighting giant samurai, dragons, space robots and mutant soldiers in what Snyder describes as Alice in Wonderland with machine guns. Woo hoo!

Best Trailer for a movie released in 2010: Inception

Best Movie News of 2010: The Hobbit is officially a go with Peter Jackson directing

Worst Movie News of 2010: Warner Bros. and Atlas Entertainment to make a Joss-less Buffy reboot movie. NOOO! GRR ARGH!

Whip It: Juno meets Gertie...on wheels.

Whip It is Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut. And storywise it is nothing original whatsoever.

But that’s perfectly fine as the one time E.T. moppet, then hell raiser, then acclaimed movie star’s first stab at film direction is a hugely entertaining, quirky and affecting little comedy/drama that shows its newbie director has a potentially big future behind the camera lens.

Seventeen-year-old misfit Bliss Cavender (the always great Ellen Page) lives in the tiny Texan town of Bodine with her mum (the wonderful Marcia Gay Harden) and her dad (holy crap it’s Daniel Stern) and her little sister (Eulala Grace Scheel – real life daughter of Marcia Gay Harden). Bliss spends her time either at school, or working as a waitress with her best friend Pash (the funny and charming Alia Shawkat) or attending witless beauty pageants to please her mom who used to do the same in her youth. Then, one day, while on a shopping trip to Austin, Bliss catches sight of a bunch of cool looking girls on roller-skates giving out flyers for a Roller Derby league. Bliss is fascinated. And so, lying to her parents about what she’s really doing, she goes along for a look-see. And loves it. So much so that she gets invited for tryouts for the Hurl Scouts, the local rag tag, underdog roller derby team. Due to her impressive speed on wheels (plus lying about her age), Bliss makes the team despite her general lack of aggression. Now a full fledged Hurl Scout she adopts the moniker Babe Ruthless and quickly bonds with her new teammates - a gaggle of rather eccentric women in their twenties and thirties who don’t seem to really care anything about winning much to the exasperation of their long suffering coach. However with the addition of Bliss the Scouts do now actually start to win…much to their surprise. This soon leads to some big time rivalry in the form of Juliet Lewis (on good bad girl form) as Iron Maven, leader of the top team in the league, who has takes an instant dislike to Bliss and her rising Roller Derby stardom.

Now, its gotta be said…

The Hurl Scouts are a fantastic creation!

Every single one of them is a wonderfully drawn character with a daft-yet-funny team name, the only names we get to know them by. But the standouts are Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), the kindly den (single) mother of the bunch who takes Bliss under her wing and helps her out when things get tough at home. Then there’s the awesome Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore) who is just so crammed full of excitable aggression that in virtually every game she ends up being sent off for beating up a rival player after being smashed bloodily in the face or sent flying on the roller rink. And a special mention goes out to Zoe Bell as Bloody Holly. It was great to see Zoe onscreen again after her cool role in Tarantino’s Death Proof where she essentially played herself, a tough-as-nails stuntwoman. Zoe’s not the best of actresses but she does have an undeniable screen presence and an easy, likeable charm to her. Plus you just know she could kick your arse well and truly.

And so with Bliss/Babe Ruthless now a crucial part of the Scouts new found success the stage is set for an extremely fun and funny coming of age/underdog tale. Can Bliss continue to help the Scouts win? Will her new life alienate her best friend, Pash? Will her lying to her parents about what she’s been doing as well as to her teammates about her real age come back to haunt her? Will Bliss’s parents - especially her mother – see that she is truly good at something she loves and allow her to live her own life and not the one they want for her?

Like I said before, this is nothing original. And it doesn’t matter one jot as the execution of Whip It is wonderful. The script by Shauna Cross from her own semi-autobiographical novel is fun, spiky and also quite insightful in its own way. It is filled with some great characters and moments that Drew Barrymore as director translates expertly on to the screen in her own slightly offbeat way. I’ve always loved Drew. She’s a talented comedy actress full of natural charm and charisma who has now proven with Whip It that she is just as adept at staging and directing comedy as she is at performing it. But amongst all the funny she also finds the moments that work as pure cinema and pure emotion. Two that jumped out at me were when Pash and Bliss dance together around the diner to Dolly Parton’s Jolene…only making up their own lyrics about their sucky town. And a beautifully shot and edited love scene in a swimming pool using only music and no dialogue. There are plenty of other great moments too including everything with Marcia Gay Harden as Bliss’s mum. For at its heart Whip It is a story about a mother and a daughter who have to come to terms with each other. The mother must learn to let go of her growing up child, to let her begin living her own life. And the child needs to learn to listen to the wisdom and to the emotional maturity of her mother, which is there albeit hidden under a layer of hypocrisy (e.g. the running gag about mum hiding her smoking). And it is here that you can see thematic parallels to Drew’s own troubled relationship with her own mother, the stuff of tabloid news now for years.

The visual style of the film is also something worth mentioning. The story is clearly set in present day. However the aesthetic mixes in the 1970’s (music, hairstyles, décor, record players, 8 track tapes etc.) with our contemporary world outside. There is a distinct indie vibe to the whole thing including the sorts of music used and the quirky feel to the direction. This is enhanced by the stylised and colourful photography by regular Wes Anderson collaborator Robert Yeoman. Put this all together and you have a very funny and warm comedy/drama that stands with one foot firmly in the mainstream but the other tiptoeing lightly in indieville.

Sadly Whip It made no impact at all at the US box office last year where it grossed a paltry total of $13m despite gaining positive critical reaction. Perhaps the cheesy idea of Roller Derby put people off. Or maybe they found the film just a bit too quirky for mainstream audiences. I dunno. But hopefully Whip It will eventually find itself an audience. It deserves to. It’s a hugely enjoyable little flick that had me smiling and laughing all the way through.

Way to go Gertie!