As I sat down to sift through the films of the past year, I was shocked to find how many films I had really enjoyed. I had thought it was a bad year. But I look at what films did not make my top 20, and I was stunned by some that had not made it. A year ago, I had said Crazy Heart would make my top ten. It isn't in my 20. Neither is The Ghost Writer or Easy A, both of which I give high marks to. To say nothing of animation: I annually have animation high on my list, but Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Secret of Kells ended up on the outside looking in.
A note about eligibility: The film are eligible in the period they play my area, west central Ohio. Two films I have seen of this writing, Blue Valentine and Rabbit Hole, did not play until 2011. They will be considered for next year's list. Same with Biutiful, Country Strong, and Somewhere. Meanwhile 2009 films that did not get here until 2009 are eligible for 2010, such as The White Ribbon, The Lovely Bones, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and the afore-mentioned Crazy Heart. But I judged none of them as good as the 20 movies that follow.
Also, in the past, I have restricted myself to the Dayton-Springfield area for eligibility. I have decided to include Columbus in my eligibility period this year, as a surprising amount of films played there and did not get to Dayton. Included in that group are The Secret of Kells, Enter the Void, Red Riding, Waking Sleeping Beauty, and Buried. I'm not sure if The Tillman Story played Dayton, but it played Columbus, so it is also eligible.
Not eligible are movies made for television. I've seen HBO movies specifically make reviewers lists in the past. But if I allowed them, Temple Grandin would definitely made my list. As a father of an autistic child, I appreciated this look into the autistic mind that was like nothing I've ever seen. It would have ranked in the top ten if eligible.
Without further ado, the ten runners-up, in alphabetical order:
Best Worst Movie. Anyone who loves bad movies owes it to themselves to see this. No film has captured the allure of awesomely terrible films than this documentary of the rise and fall of Troll 2 years after its making. The funniest thing about the film is how most of the cast seems to know they made a disaster, while most of technical crew seems to think they made a masterpiece. (And yes, Troll 2 is as bad as advertised.)
The Girl that Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The conclusion of the Milennium trilogy rewards those who have watched the previous two films. It is not a mystery, but a fine example of the old standby of the courtroom drama, and puts the trilogy back on solid ground after some of the stumbles towards the end of the second chapter.
The King's Speech. I don't care about royals, and the desciption of the film sounded like nothing for me. But it is so well acted, and so well put together, that it is termendouly entertaining.
Let Me In. Unnerving, simply unnerving. Most films about vampires have vampires which involve romanticizing of the cold blooded characters. The stakes seem real here. The atmosphere is so thick, using the issue of bullying to show how a loner child could be attracted to a vampire in the first place.
Red Riding. Three films, each with different main characters, blend together to tell the story of how local corruption rots the system and is responsible for destoying many souls.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Life as a video game. One the true pure entertainments of the year, even though some of the criticisms of the main character in the source material are clearly missing, to the detriment of the film. A film not so eager to make the main character too bland and likable would have made my top ten instead of the runners-up.
Shutter Island. The true mess with your mind film of the spring, assembled as only a master like Martin Scorsese could do it.
The Tillman Story. Rather than just tell the story of a hero, this film dug more and gave us much more a sense of what was lost when Pat Tillman was killed in action, as well as an indictment of a system so deperate for a hero that the facts were brushed aside.
True Grit. Yes, the Coen brothers land in my top 20 again. But this feels less like one of their films and more like a pure western the way it was, with a star-making performance in the lead by Hailee Steinfeld.
Waking Sleeping Beauty. Yes, the story of Disney's animation renaissance in the 1980s is well-known (especially by me) but this telling of the story, with behind the scenes footage, priceless caricatures and drawings from the artists and even handed direction from Don Hahn (who produced Beauty and the Beast, so he knows the story well) is the most fun I've had hearing the story.
