2010 in movies
Jan. 4th, 2011 02:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nigeltdewell last year was meant to be a year of writing, but I have never been able to get into the habit when it actually means something; I need to learn how to hold myself accountable but how do you hold yourself to account when you find yourself so boring?
The two times I managed to post with any vigour were attempts to understand the frustrating mess of disappointments that is Inception and purge the overwhelming push-pull of Broderskab's narrative conceit and dense sensuality. Beginning with Live Free or Twihard, I also had a series of enjoyable conversations over in the threads of the AV Club Supernatural reviews.
Nevertheless I must, I must write! I must watch and think and read and think and write in proportion or else I will get kicked out of uni, and then the dear knows what I will do.
2010 ended up being about movies. I saw more non-English language movies than I usually do, I checked out some of the classics, and I had a bit of a fitful nostalgic trip down Disney lane (Pocahontas is skeevier than I remembered even though Miss P herself remains the hottest of all the Disney girls, and Sleeping Beauty even more perfect than I remembered). It turns out I can recite and sing the entirety of Robin Hood along with the movie. Hey, if this academia gig don't work out, maybe I can take that on the road!
Of all the movies I saw for the first time this year there were quite a few that stick in the memory.
A Home at the End of the World I remember for Colin Farrell's soft-eyed, receptive, genuine performance, how completely he embraces the people he keeps adding to his life (and then losing) because all he knows how to do is love.
A Serious Man I love for how neatly it pretends to be about some bad-getting-worse days in this guy's life, and then at the end it turns out it's about how stories and questions work, prompting that fade-to-black-what-the-fuck reaction that only feels good when the filmmakers a) give a shit and b) are working to their full capacity.
A Single Man was just about my favourite movie of the year, so stylish and sedate, such a gorgeous flipbook of postcards from places George will never visit, places he will never return. Ford kept the focus so tight, sits you so firmly behind George's eyes the whole way through, and everything he looks at is beautiful, and Firth is just so sad.
Broderskab/Brotherhood and Einaym Pkuhot/Eyes Wide Open each briefly cost me my sanity thanks to their vivid portrayals of the cost of repression in oppressive, homosocial environments. What I mean is, there were some dudes who took their shirts off.
His Girl Friday and Holiday were respective lessons in dialogue and melancholy; the latter is especially compelling, as Katherine Hepburn and her tiny waist trip-trap around that echoing mansion.
Inception I still dislike, but I do enjoy trying to understand it.
Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown rounded out my Tarantino education. Jackie is good, but Basterds is his best thing since Reservoir Dogs, not so much because of Waltz's entertaining work but because Melanie Laurant's careful, righteous Shoshanna is Beatrix Kiddo uncartooned, is a breathing woman and not a series of flared nostrils and finger crooks.
Less Than Zero is the culty movie with Zero in the title that wasn't absolute, mystifyingly overrated tripe (Zero Effect) and is an interesting exercise in how an immersed, all-out central performance can warp an entire movie to the point where we can't even tell we're supposed to join the director and the asshole protagonist in the crusading moral derision they heap upon Robert Downey Jr, who is, if I didn't make it clear enough, about as perfect a fit here as he is in his other great roles -- Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Wonder Boys, Chaplin if I'd seen it. Shame the movie around him is so poorly cast and put together (except you, Spader).
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence had such a memorably odd, tilting step to it; it contained a surprising amount of stiff-necked stillness, in the midst of which sits, humpbacked, that (almost) delightfully weird Bowie flashback.
Psycho (1960) just goes to show the heights that an immersed, all-out central performance can take a movie to when what surrounds is clever, well-crafted and supportive.
Toy Story 3 I saw at about the same time as I rewatched Remains of the Day (still stunning) and The Black Stallion (its bewitching greatness only equaled by how little recognition its greatness receives) so my major memory of that time is just, sobbing on the couch.
Winter's Bone I would like to think about more and watch again, but I think maybe, it's really amazing.
Others highly recommended: Animal Kingdom, The Kids Are All Right, Black Dynamite, Far From Heaven, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Mulholland Drive, Oldboy, Playtime, Sherrybaby, Bad Santa, Bronson, Waking Sleeping Beauty.
Dear God, what a waste of time so wasteful I'm kind of offended above and beyond the various aesthetic and moral offenses committed therein: Legion, Dare, Chloe, the House Bunny, New Moon, Eclipse, Wonder Woman, Zero Effect.
Thus ceaseth the opinions. FOR NOW! Hopefully.
The two times I managed to post with any vigour were attempts to understand the frustrating mess of disappointments that is Inception and purge the overwhelming push-pull of Broderskab's narrative conceit and dense sensuality. Beginning with Live Free or Twihard, I also had a series of enjoyable conversations over in the threads of the AV Club Supernatural reviews.
Nevertheless I must, I must write! I must watch and think and read and think and write in proportion or else I will get kicked out of uni, and then the dear knows what I will do.
2010 ended up being about movies. I saw more non-English language movies than I usually do, I checked out some of the classics, and I had a bit of a fitful nostalgic trip down Disney lane (Pocahontas is skeevier than I remembered even though Miss P herself remains the hottest of all the Disney girls, and Sleeping Beauty even more perfect than I remembered). It turns out I can recite and sing the entirety of Robin Hood along with the movie. Hey, if this academia gig don't work out, maybe I can take that on the road!
Of all the movies I saw for the first time this year there were quite a few that stick in the memory.
A Home at the End of the World I remember for Colin Farrell's soft-eyed, receptive, genuine performance, how completely he embraces the people he keeps adding to his life (and then losing) because all he knows how to do is love.
A Serious Man I love for how neatly it pretends to be about some bad-getting-worse days in this guy's life, and then at the end it turns out it's about how stories and questions work, prompting that fade-to-black-what-the-fuck reaction that only feels good when the filmmakers a) give a shit and b) are working to their full capacity.
A Single Man was just about my favourite movie of the year, so stylish and sedate, such a gorgeous flipbook of postcards from places George will never visit, places he will never return. Ford kept the focus so tight, sits you so firmly behind George's eyes the whole way through, and everything he looks at is beautiful, and Firth is just so sad.
Broderskab/Brotherhood and Einaym Pkuhot/Eyes Wide Open each briefly cost me my sanity thanks to their vivid portrayals of the cost of repression in oppressive, homosocial environments. What I mean is, there were some dudes who took their shirts off.
His Girl Friday and Holiday were respective lessons in dialogue and melancholy; the latter is especially compelling, as Katherine Hepburn and her tiny waist trip-trap around that echoing mansion.
Inception I still dislike, but I do enjoy trying to understand it.
Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown rounded out my Tarantino education. Jackie is good, but Basterds is his best thing since Reservoir Dogs, not so much because of Waltz's entertaining work but because Melanie Laurant's careful, righteous Shoshanna is Beatrix Kiddo uncartooned, is a breathing woman and not a series of flared nostrils and finger crooks.
Less Than Zero is the culty movie with Zero in the title that wasn't absolute, mystifyingly overrated tripe (Zero Effect) and is an interesting exercise in how an immersed, all-out central performance can warp an entire movie to the point where we can't even tell we're supposed to join the director and the asshole protagonist in the crusading moral derision they heap upon Robert Downey Jr, who is, if I didn't make it clear enough, about as perfect a fit here as he is in his other great roles -- Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Wonder Boys, Chaplin if I'd seen it. Shame the movie around him is so poorly cast and put together (except you, Spader).
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence had such a memorably odd, tilting step to it; it contained a surprising amount of stiff-necked stillness, in the midst of which sits, humpbacked, that (almost) delightfully weird Bowie flashback.
Psycho (1960) just goes to show the heights that an immersed, all-out central performance can take a movie to when what surrounds is clever, well-crafted and supportive.
Toy Story 3 I saw at about the same time as I rewatched Remains of the Day (still stunning) and The Black Stallion (its bewitching greatness only equaled by how little recognition its greatness receives) so my major memory of that time is just, sobbing on the couch.
Winter's Bone I would like to think about more and watch again, but I think maybe, it's really amazing.
Others highly recommended: Animal Kingdom, The Kids Are All Right, Black Dynamite, Far From Heaven, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Mulholland Drive, Oldboy, Playtime, Sherrybaby, Bad Santa, Bronson, Waking Sleeping Beauty.
Dear God, what a waste of time so wasteful I'm kind of offended above and beyond the various aesthetic and moral offenses committed therein: Legion, Dare, Chloe, the House Bunny, New Moon, Eclipse, Wonder Woman, Zero Effect.
Thus ceaseth the opinions. FOR NOW! Hopefully.
