I know the rest of my WAFCA mates eventually settled on The Social Network as the best flick of 2010, but my money and my support was fully behind Christopher Nolan's Inception. No other film this year works on so many different levels: from genre bending sci-fi to action intensive heist flick. Add to that the pounding score from Hans Zimmer and you've got a film that sets a new bar for originality and creativity. Leonardo Dicaprio stars as a high class thief who doesn't waste his time with jewelers or banks, he and his crack team invade the minds of others and steal their dreams and ideas to sell to the highest bidder.
Shrek Forever After
The fourth and supposedly final(yeah right) film in Dreamworks highest grossing animated series goes back to the roots of what made the original so great: biting pop culture humor and a strong emphasis on relationships and family loyalty. Taking an It's a Wonderful Life approach this time around, Shrek makes a rash error in judgement by wishing away the quiet family life he's grown bored of. He soon finds out that things are not always greener on the other side, but in order to get his life back he'll need to defeat the manipulative magician, Rumpelstiltskin.
Restrepo
I would hope that people pair this powerful documentary with the equally great The Pat Tillman Story to get a fully rounded view of what our American soldiers truly go through when in the heat of war, coupled with how the faceless suits that command them treat their heroic service. Restrepo is the story of a singular platoon, serving on a 15 month tour in the dangerous Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. No glorification, no politics, this is a straight forward hard-hitting look at the reality on the ground. One of the best docs of the year.
Lost in Translation(Blu-Ray)
People always look at me funny when I tell them that Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation is in my Top 5 all-time favorite movies. Their point seems to be that not a heck of a lot happens in it, but I would disagree. Coppola has a unique, perceptive eye, capable of saying so much about her characters without having to ram it down our throats. It doesn't hurt that she has Bill Murray putting on his most nuanced performance ever, as a movie star capitalizing on his fame in Japan by signing up to make commercials. His life is in disarray, call it a mid-life crisis if you must. Scarlett Johansson(then only 18!) stars as the wandering grad student who shows up and turns his life completely upside down. Their relationship is honest and real, not full of silly soap opera dramatics, and I still count their final moment together as my favorite scene ever because it can interpreted however you want. Love love love this movie.
A Dog Year
Jeff Bridges in a Marley and Me style doggie flick? And it somehow escaped theaters? Weird. A Dog Year is based on the novel by Jon Katz about the time he spent with a border collie named Devon. Devon is of course a spitfire of pure energy who causes more headaches than anything, but I'm sure Jon eventually learns to love the little pup. I fully expect that Devon dies at some point so that we can all cry over it, but I have to admit a part of me wants to see how Bridges holds up in the type of flick I usually can't stand.
Barry Munday
It's not fair of me to hate a movie before I've even seen it, but such is the way I feel about Barry Munday. Patrick Wilson(Watchmen
, Morning Glory
) stars as Barry, a sleazy womanizer who wakes up in the hospital after being beaten up only to discover that somebody's taken his testicles. That's right. His grapefruits is gone. Oh, and he's facing a paternity suit from a woman he doesn't remember sleeping with. Somehow this is being billed as a "heartwarming" tale, but it sounds like pure torture to me.
