Continuing a yearly trend here is a list of my favorite movies of 2010. At the bottom of this post, is the pool of the roughly thirty-five movies that were released in 2010 and that I saw.
Vying for position number 9 are two really good animated movies. Both How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 are heartfelt and entertaining, I would easily recommend either for kids or adults alike. That said, my 9th favorite movie of 2010 is Toy Story 3. I don’t love everything Pixar does as much as everyone else, but the Pixar story telling skill really elevates Toy Story 3 above How to Train Your Dragon. I left both movies thoroughly entertained, but Toy Story 3 also left me moved a little teary-eyed.
I saw a lot of really good comedies this year that did not make the list, movies like Hot Tub Time Machine, MacGruber, Get Him to the Greek, Dinner for Schmucks, The Other Guys, and Easy A. While all of these movies are very funny, movies 7 and 8 stood out over these movies by being slightly more funny but more importantly by being better stories. Both movies are hilarious and developed characters that I cared about. My 8th favorite movie of 2010 is She’s Out of My League. My 7th favorite movie of 2010 is Date Night.
Number 6 needs no explanation or introduction, my 6th favorite movie of 2010 is Inception. Inception is a intriguing, exciting blockbuster. The film is made good by flawless film making and acting, but made great by crispness in story that is usually lacking in science fiction. My only issue with this film is largely unfair, I expected the movie to be less direct. Based on all the hype, I was expecting a real twist at the end. While the ending is certainly good and intelligently ambiguous, I need my heist movies to have a reveal at the end that reorientates everything you just saw, and that was not present.
My 5th favorite movie of 2010 is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The way the story is told – dynamic distortion of time and place, wonderfully vibrant visuals, and pitch perfect comedy – is as fantastic as the story itself. Furthermore, the action is great and I am still 100% on the Michael Cera bandwagon. All of that said, I spent the entire movie thinking “I am seeing an awesome movie”, without ever feeling it. This movie is definitely less than the sum of its parts, and I failed to connect with it for some reason I don’t fully understand. That said, I strongly recommend it, and it is the only movie on my list that would probably increase its rating after a second viewing.
My fourth favorite movie stands in direct contrast to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Whereas Scott Pilgrim was a clean, sharp film, my number 4 favorite movie was relatively muddled on multiple levels. However, unlike Scott Pilgrim, I didn’t think “Hell ya! This is awesome.”, I felt it! My 4th favorite movie of 2010 is Kick-Ass. This movie has the best action/fight scenes of any movie I have seen since The Matrix and definitely lives up to its title.
On January 8th, I was quite sure my third favorite movie of 2010 would be my first. That is because my top three movies from last year were all comedies, and this movie is funnier than all three. I have nothing interesting to say about this movie except that it is really funny, start to finish. My stomach hurt from laughing when I left the theater. My 3rd favorite movie of 2010 is Youth in Revolt.
There seems to be a critical consensus that 2010 was a weaker year for movies than 2009, I clearly disagree when the top three movies of 2010 are better than the best movie of 2009.
It should be clear by this point that I have a really unsophisticated taste in movies. I largely hate slow paced character studies, independent movies, etc…. Give me a blockbuster or I will likely be bored. That is why I was shocked by how much I loved my second favorite movie of 2010. This movie has amazing scenes of both suspense and comedy, and the realism of situations, people, and relationships serve only to heighten these moments. This movie is about how to live life without ever being obvious or preachy. My 2nd favorite movie of 2010 is The Kids Are All Right.
Without further ado, my favorite movie of 2010 is The Social Network. This is a flawless, amazing movie. Aaron Sorkin is the best writer in Hollywood and this is the best thing he has ever written. Each moment of dialog is like the best moments of West Wing dialog, but backed with amazing acting, cinematography, and score. This movie a brilliant depiction of things from the mundane to the amazing, from using computers to solve problems, through the internal conflict of a geek that wants to be cool and the relationships he builds up and tears down, to the amazing concept that we live in a world where a person with an idea can manipulate bytes on a hard drive and change the nature of human connections.
I think a real testament to the quality and complexity of the story is the different way people can and have interpret it. Many critics read Mark Zuckerberg as a sort of villain in this film, others read him as a sort of tragic figure. Place me a third, admittedly less well represented, category of people who believe Mark Zuckerberg is a straight up hero, neither evil nor tragic. He is not a bad guy that screws over people and he doesn’t fail to maintain relationships with people because he is incapable, he rationally rises above relationships that hold him back to execute his vision.
As a smaller of point, though perhaps of greater relevancy to this blog, if you were to create a list of most accurate depictions of computers in films, The Social Network would have to top that list and would likely be the only movie at all that could be placed on such a list.
Finally, I want to call out a few of the overrated and bad movies of 2010. The Girl Who Played With Fire is a really poor follow up to, the fairly good, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. A series that had been very grounded up to that point, finishes its second movie with a scene out of Kill Bill. I am an adult male who likes kids movies, but the chorus of people praising Despicable Me baffles me. The movie is shockingly unfunny and quite boring. The award for most overrated movie of 2010 however has to go to Winter’s Bone. It won Sundance Grand Jury prize and topped the AV Club’s 2010 list. However, it was an actively boring movie obnoxiously in love with its own melodrama. Finally, Cop Out deserves some sort of runner up prize. It isn’t as bad as the rest of these films, but I expect more from Kevin Smith.
The movies I saw in 2010 were Youth in Revolt, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Valentine’s Day, The Ghost Writer, Cop Out, Alice in Wonderland, Green Zone, She’s Out of My League, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Hot Tub Time Machine, How to Train Your Dragon, Date Night, Kick-Ass, Edge of Darkness, Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Losers, Iron Man 2, MacGruber, Shrek Forever After, Get Him to the Greek, Splice, The A-Team, The Karate Kid, Winter’s Bone, Toy Story 3, Despicable Me, The Kids Are All Right, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Inception, Dinner for Schmucks, The Other Guys, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Easy A, The Social Network, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, and The Town.