Best films of 2010

[Hannah Bell]

Wealth and social insularity, as well as a lack of historical knowledge and perspective and other ideological impediments, continue to hold back even the more interesting figures in both Hollywood and independent film circles from seriously looking at reality in their own country, or anywhere else for that matter...

You would hardly know it by what shows up in movie theaters, but genuine drama and comedy continue to exist in American life... Life is there, if one wants to find and make it the basis of one’s work. The writer or director, of course, has to be oriented toward that and not career, image, status...

The saintly and heroic are not perhaps the best subjects for filmmaking, nor is thoroughly destroyed humanity, but people as they are for the most part, struggling, complicated, flexible, capable of almost anything.

Although it remains largely inarticulate, moreover, there is vast anger and discontent with the present state of things. What people in America say every day, politely or otherwise, about the banks and corporations and politicians finds almost no artistic reflection...

Money, class and social pressure remain significant questions, one would think, but we barely feel their presence in contemporary movies, far less than in Hollywood films of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. A social and psychic urgency was present in the better films of those decades that is largely lacking today...

The impasse in American films is not unrelated to a more general, social and political impasse...


This is a list of what seemed to us to be the best films that played in movie theaters in the US in 2010...

The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski



Ajami, Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani

Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik



Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz

Conviction, Tony Goldwyn



Lebanon, Samuel Maoz

Vincere, Marco Bellocchio

No One Knows About Persian Cats, Bahman Ghobadi

It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Another Year, Mike Leigh


There were also a number of documentaries worthy of note:


Last Train Home, Lixin Fan

Inside Job, Charles Ferguson

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith

The Tillman Story, Amir Bar-Lev

The Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, Michèle Hozer, Peter Raymont

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/best-d31.shtml

[Capitalocracy]

1. Rented The Ghost Writer a couple of weeks ago

It was definitely interesting and I liked it... but one thing about it, when my wife and I were watching it, we were amazed by how much of a slave to his curiosity the main character was. It was like he had a death wish. SPOILER ALERT: Seriously? You're going to tell her you know before you tell anyone else? And you expect to continue breathing?

[riderinthestorm]

4. Spoiler alert!! I also rented and watched it

And my husband and I figured it out early (when she "met" Ewan MacGregor on the beach when he went looking for the spot where his predecessor washed up).

And we were like, is this supposed to be shocking? Does anyone think this DOESN'T happen?

Maybe we're just conspiracy theorists but we didn't get that "gee wow!" impact that the film was trying so hard to portray. It was more like "yawn, so what?" Of course the CIA plants people all over the world to influence global politics....

[PoliticAverse]

6. If there was a weakness to the movie...

it was in the ending event you mention. It didn't make a lot of sense.
The book's ending is different.

[Capitalocracy]

7. How does the book end? nt

[PoliticAverse]

8. The book ends...

with him discovering the secret of the chapter-beginning words at his home (not at the book party as in the movie).
He hears after that Richard Rycart has been killed and writes down what he knows while moving from place to place
because he's afraid to stay at any one location too long. He gives a copy of his suspicions/manuscript to Kate (his
now-former girlfriend that he trusts completely) instructing her to get it published if something happens to him.
In the book he writes that if "you are reading this""it probably means that I am dead".

[Capitalocracy]

12. That's a better ending

but pretty difficult to illustrate in a film... can't use the "if you're reading this I'm dead" line in a film. But it's odd in the film, it's like, "Ha ha! Gotcha! Now kill me."

[RandomThoughts]

2. Saying the media is intelligence.

Is a distraction story. :D

[nashville_brook]

3. nice to see "It's Kind of a Funny Story" on this list

[SpiralHawk]

5. Inside Job is high recommended.

See how RepubliConomic 'thinking' totally trashed America...

[peekaloo]

10. is that narrated by Matt Damon?

I may be confused.

:-)

[PoliticAverse]

11. Yes it is.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/inside-job-matt-damon-wants-you-to-punch-greed-in-the-face-with-a-pitchfork/Content?oid=5336670

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. i was very impressed with Fair Game and think it should be included

It's a powerful film.