A1 Movie Reviews

Worst Movies of 2010

I wish I could say I had a hard time putting together a list of the worst movies of 2010. Unfortunately, there were some real stinkers in the bunch this year. From remakes of perfectly good existing movies (Death at a Funeral and The Wolfman) to confounding live-action talking animal movies (Marmaduke), Hollywood seemed to pull out all the stupidity stops this year.

Unless you’re a masochist, you’ll want to avoid the following five movies. However, as a public service I’ve also suggested movies that you might see instead of their cruddy counterparts. Enjoy!

5. The American: Warning: Do not see this movie if you intend to operate heavy machinery, as it may inspire unshakeable drowsiness. George Clooney sleepwalks through this nearly silent, absolutely depressing film, as will you.
See instead: The Professional. Jean Reno is the strong, silent assassin type too. But his love story (not of the romantic variety) with a young Natalie Portman makes him one of film’s sweetest, strong silent assassin types ever.

4. Little Fockers: In Little Fockers, a group of veteran actors reunite for a sequel (to an original movie that was only marginally funny to begin with) that makes them all look like amateurs. It’s as though the writing team of John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey saw Grown Ups and said, “I’ll see your pointlessness and raise you a few lame Viagra jokes.” Needless to say, that is no way to make a movie. There’s no plot, no humor, and no reason to see this hunk of junk.
See instead: Tropic Thunder. Ben Stiller does much better work with this star-studded ensemble cast.

3. Cyrus: Some movies grow on you. Perhaps you like them the first time you see them, but on a subsequent viewing that “like” turns into “love.” And some movies only grow more terrible in hindsight. Cyrus falls into that latter category. This film is a one-joke wonder, riffing endlessly on the not particularly funny joke of Oedipal complexes. Add clumsy camera work, shoddy editing, and good actors dumbed down by a faux-arty directorial style, and you’ll find that the only thing worse than a bad movie is a pretentious bad movie.
See instead: The 40 Year Old Virgin. The love story between Steve Carrell and Katherine Keener is much more believable and comes without the baggage of incest, implied or otherwise.

2. When in Rome and You Again: It’s been a rough year for Kristen Bell. I mean she worked a lot, appearing in four big studio releases, including these two headlining rom-com vehicles and Burlesque, another film that many would consider one of the worst movies of 2010. Bell is as cute as button, but her career is doomed if it’s going to consist of this much cheese. That girl needs to fire her agent, stat.
See instead: Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Mila Kunis gets the boy in this one, but Kristen Bell gets the love song and a movie worthy of her cuteness.

1. The Bounty Hunter: An unlikeable leading man, an insufferable leading lady, and 90 minutes of unsophisticated innuendo do not a love story make. That The Bounty Hunter should have the words romantic and comedy appearing anywhere within a five-paragraph radius of them is what’s truly criminal. Handcuffs may be sexy, but this movie certainly isn’t.
See instead: His Girl Friday. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell could have drummed up more chemistry than Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler if they had taken turns reading the phone book. Thanks to the genius of director Howard Hawks, they do much more than that.

The Best Movies of 2010

Compiling this list of the best movies of 2010 was a daunting task. When it comes to movies, this year was the best of times and the worst of times. On the one hand, ill-conceived or retrofitted 3-D clunkers (Saw 3D and The Last Airbender) made me curse little plastic glasses. Simultaneously, witless romantic comedies about sperm donation (The Back-Up Plan and The Switch) hopefully made studio execs reconsider casting actresses of limited talent named Jennifer.

On the other hand, it was an amazing year for documentary filmmakers, whose beautifully told stories reminded us that 77-year-old Borscht Belt comedians can still make you bust a gut (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work); that the state of public education in the U.S. needs an overhaul (Waiting for Superman); and that heroes aren’t always heroes for the reasons you are led to believe (The Tillman Story). In fact, some of the best cinematic works of fiction this year excelled in documentary ways: at telling the truth whether or not you wanted to hear it, capturing the zeitgeist of an era, and delivering gritty true-to-life performances from some of the medium’s finest.

Sometimes, the movies were even funny.

10. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work: Everybody loves a clown…except when that clown is an aging, once-great who has become a plastic surgery cautionary tale and sometime industry pariah. Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s coolly objective look inside a year in the life of Joan Rivers is as blunt, brash and funny as the women it profiles. It reveals that Joan is more than just the jewelry she hocks on QVC or the barbs she throws out on the red carpet; she is a deeply insecure girl (yes, even at 77), on a relentless quest for fame, wealth, and approval. Betty White might have been 2010’s “It” granny, but Joan Rivers is a piece of work.

9. Easy A: If you enjoy the lightning-speed banter of Gilmore Girls, then you’ll love this under-the-radar comedy about a teenage girl who invents a promiscuous reputation for herself, only to have it backfire. Just as Amy Heckerling’s Clueless was Jane Austen’s Emma in disguise, Easy A is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter tarted up in Gossip Girl clothing. As Olive Penderghast, who goes from invisible high schooler to talk-of-the-town hussy, actress Emma Stone is smart, irreverent and mercilessly snarky. Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci also shine as her way-cool parents. And while it’s not an entirely original concept, the dialogue is so funny that you’ll hardly care. It goes to show that just because a movie follows a formula, that doesn’t mean it has to suck.

8. Inception: I wonder if next year will bring us a film titled simply “The Madness of Leonard DiCaprio.” Between Martin Scorcese’s Shutter Island and this, Christopher Nolan’s elastic cinematic dream-within-a-dreamscape (not to mention The Aviator just a few years back), he does seem to be fascinated by dreams, insanity, and the tricks of the mind. Nolan, meanwhile, seems fascinated with the tricks of the moviemaking and storytelling trades. Good for both of them. This worthy follow-up to Memento is both a visual stunner and a head scratcher, with DiCaprio as engaging to watch as ever. Inception also bears the dubious distinction of being 2010’s movie with the most hype and inevitable backlash. But in this case, I say “do believe the hype.”

7. The Town: Say what you will about his real-life romances, bro-mances, and even his acting, Ben Affleck knows how to make a genre film. This movie about a team of Boston bank robbers was as taut and focused as it was suspenseful and thrilling. Meanwhile, superb performances by Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively and Affleck took a good script and made it great. For its ability to reinvigorate the tired heist-film genre, The Town is one of the best movies of 2010.

6. The King’s Speech: Colin Firth is really spoiling me. In the 15 years since he first came to the attention of U.S. audiences, he has gone from a very good actor to a great one. Here, he plays Prince Albert (Bertie to his friends and King George VI to the world), a stammering English royal who forges an unlikely friendship with an unconventional speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush. The script itself, based on real-life events, is a well-written re-imagining of the king as Holly Golightly (with less singing and more swearing). It’s wonderful to see Helena Bonham Carter back from playing a string of strange, insane women. It’s nice to remember just how beautiful and talented she really is. But it’s Firth who delivers a tour de force performance that manages to best everything he’s done to so far. No small feat after moving us to tears in last year’s A Single Man.

5. A Prophet: A sort of coming of age story, A Prophet tells the story of a young man who enters the French prison system a novice and leaves a don. Malik is the Tony Montana for our time: a man forged out of necessity rather than ambition and Muslim instead of Latino. Director Jacques Audiard moves with ease between a style that is at once gritty, hyper-realistic, operatic and surrealistic. Like his main character, he does what he has to do.

4. Toy Story 3: It’s never easy to say goodbye to an old friend. Thankfully, the final chapter of the Toy Story saga–which finds a grown-up Andy going off the college and leaving behind his best friends–makes the process a lot easier. It does so by staying true to both Woody’s heart and Buzz’s spirit of adventure, not to mention skilled animation and terrific voice acting. In a year when other franchises were limping to the finish line, hacking all the way, Toy Story 3 was one the best movies of 2010–a hilarious, sweet, and sincere swan song.

3. For Colored Girls: Much maligned by critics and my Facebook friends alike, For Colored Girls is a movie that I loved. It paints the story of the interconnected lives of a group of African American women in vivid color. The source material, Ntozake Shange’s poem/play, is incontrovertibly powerful and Tyler Perry’s adaptation to suit the screen and the modern day is completely apt. Moreover, standout performances from Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, and Kimberly Elise did what no other film I’ve seen this year has managed to do. They made me cry.

2. The Social Network: I’ll admit to being somewhat resistant to seeing “The Facebook Movie.” Like many, I initially wrote this film off as a studio-manufactured attempt to capitalize on the addictive website’s popularity with my generation. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Adapted from a book by Ben Mezrich (whose previous work made it onto screens as the awful Kevin Spacey vehicle 21) Aaron Sorkin’s clever—but not showy—scriptwriting is in perfect harmony with director David Fincher’s incredible cinematic eye. Meanwhile, Jesse Eisenberg’s nuanced portrayal of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg was part ruthless genius, part wounded outcast, and altogether fascinating. Trent Reznor’s subtle score is just the cherry on top.

1. Restrepo: To look at the faces of the soldiers back from a 15-month tour of duty at OP Restrepo, in Afghanistan’s deadliest fighting corridor, is a strange thing. In so many cases, the softly rounded features you see are those of boys, but the truth in their eyes tells a much different story. Filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Heatherton capture that truth in every frame of this moving–but never manipulative–documentary that shows these audacious young men making each other laugh and holding back tears, all while trying to accomplish something meaningful (often in honor of their fallen comrades, like the one who gives the film its name). There are no camera tricks, no 3-D glasses, no gimmicks of any kind. But Junger and Heatherton’s honest visuals and editing prove that great stories don’t need gimmicks.

Related posts:

1. Gregor Turley’s Best and Worst Movies of 2010