Top 15 Films of 2010

RED One Digital Camera; what many of this years most acclaimed films were shot on, including The Social Network

In 2010 we witnessed numerous natural disasters across the world; from Chile and Haiti to the Gulf of Mexico and Pakistan people suffered in numbers that are difficult to fathom. That wasn't the only sort of suffering though, the world's financial troubles only seemed to deepen. Greece and Ireland both needed to be bailed out and numerous other countries were brought to the brink. Amid all of this turmoil and angst, in the face of an uncertain future, movies continued to be made. And it is in terms of all that is happening globally that this year's films are best analyzed.

In the 30's we reacted to the Great Depression with stories that all but ignored it. People wanted escapism on the sort of scale that they could only get at the movies. This time around (and maybe this says something about the scale of this crisis compared to that one) our greatest films tackle our problems head on. Small regional films like Winter's Bone, about a young girl who must do the unspeakable to protect her family, resonate far more than as isolated tales of woe and were more widely seen than they would have been even 5 years ago. Two other surprise box office successes in The Town and True Grit also tackled characters who were down and out, financially and otherwise. They are genre films tailored to our times, made with care and skill.

500 Million Friends (or The American Dream)

"Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far way, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness." -F. Scott Fitgerald

             The Social Network is easily the critical darling of the year. Everyone talks about the technical genius, the screwball paced dialogue, and the performances, but an examination of the film's relationship to the audience has been largely lacking. I believe that the film's true genius lies in the way it updates "The American Dream" to the modern era. Everyday we see self-made millionaires like Zuckerberg and celebrities with no more claim to fame than being friends with Paris Hilton (or being Paris Hilton for that matter) and we have almost no choice but to think about how it could be us -- suddenly rich for some simple idea or for who we know. That may be "The American Dream" but it isn't "The American Story". That story can be seen everywhere, from works of art like Citizen Kane to real life melodrama like William Randolph Hearst's censorship of that same film. The American Story is broken dreams and the corruption of ideals and no film has better shown it recently than The Social Network.

10 Years of Fight Club

I was poking around the other day when I stumbled across this DVD review on slant about a 10th anniversary edition of Fight Club. Its a film I've seen several times and would include on any list of films that define my generation.  I saw it first when I was 14 or 15. Truthfully, I didn't understand it at all. Satire was lost on me, but I knew the film wasn't trying to get me to join a fight club, start infiltrating support groups, or blow up buildings. Instead the film sort of took up a passive residency in my brain (the part that wants to say "fuck you" every time people tell me how to live my life and fit in) and really helped me to understand the world around me. The older I got and the more I understood about the world, it seemed like the more I figured out the film.