{"id":244086,"date":"2010-12-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/2010s-cinematic-cream-of-the-crop\/"},"modified":"2010-12-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T08:00:00","slug":"2010s-cinematic-cream-of-the-crop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/2010s-cinematic-cream-of-the-crop\/","title":{"rendered":"La crema cinematogr\u00e1fica de la cosecha de 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Marks | SDUN Film Critic <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"2010&#039;s<\/a>
A scene from Alain Resnais' "Wild Grass." (Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year there were almost as many DVD screeners as there were theater screenings, while the motion picture industry cut shipping costs and tried its damndest to encourage an all-digital future. Though it was a mediocre year for independent features and foreign imports, domestic films fared even worse. There is only one American film in my top 10 (thanks, Marty!).<\/p>\n

The only good news is comic book\/action hero movies appear to be disconnecting at the box office as both \u201cKick Ass\u201d and \u201cScott Pilgrim\u201d tanked. Here\u2019s hoping \u201cThe Green Hornet\u201d will be the final nail in the coffin.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t hard picking 10 films for my year-end wrap-up, and were it not for a wealth of outstanding documentaries, this list would be considerably shorter. The greatest gift I can pass on to you during this most joyous holiday season can be found in the following sentence: Stay the hell away from \u201cTron.\u201d Happy yuletide, everybody. I look forward to taking more cinematic bullets for you in 2011.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cWild Grass\u201d
\n<\/strong> A yellow handbag\u2014similar to one Hitchcock\u2019s
\nMarnie toted around\u2014is lifted from Marguerite, a beautiful redheaded dentist. Stripped of its contents, the wallet is later discovered in a parking garage by Georges, a happily married retiree who is taken by the owner\u2019s pilot\u2019s license photo. The two eventually hook up and this anarchic comedy of miscommunication goes off in all directions\u2014except the ones you\u2019d most expect. (The 20th Century Fox CinemaScope fanfare plays during the closing credits to a film within the film.) And when was the last time you saw a movie that paid such great detail to its expressionistic use of color? This is 88-year-old French New Wave pioneer Alain Resnais\u2019 18th feature and the only honest to goodness real movie to play San Diego all year.<\/p>\n

2. \u201cA Film Unfinished\u201d
\n<\/strong> Were this just another Holocaust documentary it probably wouldn\u2019t have cracked my top 200. The Nazis sent a camera crew to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 to document their treatment of Jews. For almost 50 years the unedited footage was believed to be an authentic historical artifact. A long-lost reel of outtakes that reveal retakes and cameramen staging shots were later unearthed. Yael Hersonski\u2019s
\nfilm is not only a powerful history lesson, it\u2019s a brilliantly pieced together document that calls into question the nature of \u201cfilmed truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. \u201cThe Tillman Story\u201d
\n<\/strong> Pat Tillman would have been just another statistic in the Iraq conflict were he not a star linebacker for Arizona State University and later the Arizona Cardinals. Tillman was struck down by \u201cfriendly fire,\u201d an errant bullet discharged by one of his own men. The U.S. government decided to turn Tillman\u2019s corpse into a recruitment poster by reporting that the beloved football hero was gunned down by enemy fire. The harder the military tried to cover up the truth, the harder Pat Tillman\u2019s parents came at them. Director Amir Bar-Lev\u2019s commanding documentary
\nchronicles the lives of one family forced to confront the end results of Bush\u2019s madness.<\/p>\n

4. \u201cVincere\u201d
\n<\/strong> Veteran filmmaker Marco Bellochio tells the story of Mussolini\u2019s mistress and her futile battle to get her sex-crazed lover to acknowledge the child they had together. Bellochio\u2019s incorporation of newsreels and clips from narrative features\u2014particularly a scene from \u201cChristus\u201d projected on a hospital ward ceiling\u2014is breathtaking. \u201cVincere\u201d was an experience I will never forget. It\u2019s 10 minutes before the picture drew to a close; documentary footage of Mussolini addressing the German throngs was suddenly underscored by a rumble working its way through the auditorium. The auditorium emptied, but I sat tight. (We were just getting to the good part!) It\u2019s the only time an earthquake nearly interrupted my enjoyment of a movie.<\/p>\n

5. \u201cOndine\u201d
\n<\/strong> A fisherman\u2019s life (and director Neil Jordan\u2019s career) takes a turn for the better after netting what appears to be a mythical selkie (read: Irish mermaid). At least that\u2019s the seed his young daughter plants in dad\u2019s head. What we have here is a contemporary romantic fantasy drama for adults that contains no special effects and even less irony. How did this happen? There is even a sick kid subplot\u2014the bane of this reporter\u2019s existence ever since a pre-pubescent screening of \u201cMen of Boys Town\u201d\u2014which the director capably consummates. Those of you tired of the seemingly endless flow of Heigel\/Aniston\/Hudson silt that gives relationship dramas a bad name need to see how the other half lives.<\/p>\n

6. \u201cNo One Knows About Persian Cats\u201d
\n<\/strong> Not one of Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi\u2019s films has ever been legally shown in his native land. \u201cCats\u201d chronicles the great sacrifices a pair of young musicians recently released from prison are forced to take when trying to form a band in a country where rock \u2018n\u2019 roll is forbidden. Narrative in spirit, \u201cCats\u201d also qualifies as a semi-documentary due to the outlaw manner in which it was shot. Filming without permits, Ghobadi and his crew were twice arrested and the musicians had to travel miles outside of town and rehearse in a cowshed. It\u2019s come to the point where the terms \u201cIranian cinema\u201d and \u201cmasterpiece\u201d practically go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

7. \u201cExit Through the Gift Shop\u201d
\n<\/strong> A fanboy film with a moral and social conscience as well as a stunning example of an artist biting the hands of fans that feed him. Street artist Banksy decides to position his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, hack video artist Thierry Guetta, as the next big thing. A gallery exhibition, most likely ghosted by Banksy, turns out to be a hilariously scathing attack on gullible Comic-Con types and their weakness for dumpster art. Many have argued that this was a propagandistic ploy to promote Guetta and the film succeeded in angering and insulting many of the graffiti artist\u2019s flock. Call it a thinking person\u2019s \u201cBorat,\u201d this grand goof had me laughing harder than just about any film this year.<\/p>\n

8. \u201cI Am Love\u201d
\n<\/strong> From the opening credits, with its fifties style cursive lettering backed by a lush John Adams\u2019 score, one instantly senses that they are about to spend two hours basking in cinematic aristocracy. Director Luca Guadagnino\u2019s
\nappreciation of film history coupled with his own exquisite compositional sense allows him to \u201cborrow\u201d just enough from melodramamaestros Luchino Visconti and Douglas Sirk so as not to be accused of plagiarism. A grand epic, beautifully photographed\u2014there is not a bad shot in this film\u2014that features yet another dazzling performance by Tilda Swinton, probably the most fearless actress at work today.<\/p>\n

9. \u201cShutter Island\u201d
\n<\/strong> Marty locks us in an insane asylum with an elite group of America\u2019s most dangerous and damaged mental patients delightfully distilled in a 1954 microcosm that also mirrors current societal fears. All right! This elegant puzzler had me going right down to the moment Ben Kingsley purred, \u201cBaby, why are you all wet? \u201c A richly detailed ride and enormously satisfying genre picture that gets better with subsequent viewings.<\/p>\n

10. \u201cAnother Year\u201d
\n<\/strong> A happily married couple spends another year of their lives nursing emotionally damaged friends in this poignant and beautifully realized drama. Writer, director Mike Leigh orchestrates the year\u2019s most accomplished acting ensemble including Lesley Manville, a shoo-in for a best supporting actress Oscar nomination.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Marks | SDUN Film Critic This year there were almost as many DVD screeners as there were theater screenings, while the motion picture industry cut shipping costs and tried its damndest to encourage an all-digital future. Though it was a mediocre year for independent features and foreign imports, domestic films fared even worse. There […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1292,"featured_media":244087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"2010's cinematic cream of the crop","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}