2010 in review...
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 2:19 pm
The genre year 2010 offered something for pretty much everybody—the highs often attempted to set new standards, the lows were absolutely crashing, and you couldn’t fault anything in the middle for lack of trying, at least. I even found myself reassessing my take on one or two films based on the material surrounding them. So, in my traditional sequence…
THE GOOD
2010 got off to a pretty nifty start with DAYBREAKERS. Sure, it was “yet another” vampire film which perhaps tried a little too hard to dazzle us with visual effects, but the corporate/scientific intrigue woven into it held my interest, Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe always seem to know just what to do, and the climactic chain reaction of violence was both entertaining and original.
Okay, we all know that the new version of THE WOLFMAN wasn’t a match for the Lon Chaney Jr. original, and I think it’s precisely because Benicio Del Toro’s new Larry Talbot was presented as a dark and troubled soul even before getting bitten. Nevertheless, the movie looked great, zipped along and offered some terrific, gruesome action as it paid proper homage to its ancestors.
THE LAST EXORCISM split viewer opinion nearly 50/50 when it came down to the specific resolution of its documentary-style story (which, of course, seriously compromised its own status as an alleged documentary). But few would disagree that it offered one of the very best character portrayals of the year in the form of the charlatan preacher/exorcist himself. Can you give me banana bread? Hallelujah!
Whether or not the Devil actually appeared in THE LAST EXORCISM is beside the point, but there’s nothing left to question when a film is actually called DEVIL. It didn’t quite come together as shockingly as it could have in the end, but this was still a perfectly watchable slice of religion and claustrophobia from the M. Night Shyamalan factory (and no, I didn’t see THE LAST AIRBENDER, nor do I want to).
The remake LET ME IN showed up far too soon after LET THE RIGHT ONE IN to truly shine on its own, and it shied away from some of the most effectively disturbing material in the original (let alone the book on which it was based). But the original wasn’t perfect, either—the remake offered improvements and originality in direct proportion to its liabilities. Oh, and it meant that we finally got to see a Hammer vampire film on the big screen. Too bad it tanked.
Speaking of tanking, one of the very best of the year was the criminally underappreciated SPLICE—this was one of the most mature, moving and frightening looks at out of control science, parental responsibility and family identity since the early David Cronenberg days. Honestly, this really ties as the best horror film of 2010, but if I can pick only one, I’ve got to pick the one that didn’t literally fly out of control before it was all over…
…and I don’t care if it was part of the out-of-control festival of “reimaginings” we’ve been enduring over the past few years… the new version of George A. Romero’s THE CRAZIES was efficient, ferocious, shocking, frightening, cognizant and cynical—all of the things that Romero himself wanted the story to be when he told it for the first time in 1973. And it’s the ONE horror film of 2010 that didn’t make me say “If only they hadn’t…” at one point or another.
THE MIDDLE GROUND
Speaking of George A. Romero, I was quite annoyed that I was never afforded the opportunity to see SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD on the big screen—my perfect attendance record has now been shattered. Nevertheless, coming so soon after DIARY, SURVIVAL had nothing new to say (and Romero was the first to acknowledge that). It’s fun, it’s passable, but it’s scarcely a crucial entry in the saga. Hats off, nevertheless, to Romero for making six DEAD films and making each and every one of them completely different. Wish more people knew how to do that.
I tend to agree with Roger Ebert in finding a film like THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE ‘unratable.’ You’ll never get the taste of the concept out of your mouth, and they found one hell of an actor to play the mad doctor, but when it came time to create an actual story around the sick concept, they still gave us standard flee-and-stalk clichés to stretch things out in the first half, and then they gave us contrivance after contrivance to make sure everybody stayed there in the second half.
ECLIPSE was the third (and most entertaining) book in the TWILIGHT series, so it really ought to have been the best movie in the series (especially coming from the director of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT). So what happened? I really don’t know, but (isolated moments aside), this should have been quite a bit zippier. And by the way, I’m officially done with this movie series—the fourth and final book (BREAKING DAWN) was a stinker and I’m not about to pay twice to see them drag it out in the movies…
PIRANHA 3-D? Well, it did fulfill its promises of piles of gloriously gory, rapid fire trash… but did the writing and editing really have to be so truly awful?
Oh, and speaking of 3-D… its above-average deployment was just about the only thing that saved RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE from my personal slagheap. Look—I like Milla Jovovich. I’ve always maintained a grudging bit of affection for this eager-to-please series. I don’t want to start hating it. And I DID like the scene with the war hammer. But this overblown slice of empty-headed MATRIX riffs brought my threshold of patience down rather dangerously.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 attempted to capture lightning in a bottle for the second time—it actually did a decent job of tying in with the original and it did provide the single biggest jump scare of 2010. But now that we’ve been keyed to expect just what’s what with this premise, there was no way that this prequel/sequel was going to pay off in a similar way at the end. And it didn’t.
The ‘arthouse’ film MONSTERS made plenty of critical “ten best” lists, and I certainly thought it was a good and worthwhile effort. But I also felt that since we were really supposed to be spending time with our two central characters (as opposed to the minimally-encountered creatures) throughout the film, then we should have received something significantly more satisfying than the rush-job “movie’s over” fadeout we were finally handed.
I’m still not convinced that I should regard BLACK SWAN as a “horror movie,” but Darren Aronofsky’s application of horror technique certainly provides it with some excellent moments. It’s only too bad that what could have been a brilliantly acted and directed take on Roman Polanski’s REPULSION got caught up in a rehash of every “price of fame” showbiz melodrama you’ve ever seen in your life.
And finally? The leftover CASE 39 goes completely fruit loops by the time it reveals its true colors, some of the scenes seem to be in the wrong order… and if it’s an utterly unsatisfying ending you want, look no further. Originally, I dropped this one into the basement. But since the first twenty minutes were actually very good, and since the director had already proven where he could go with better material (PANDORUM), and since I’d rather sit through this again than the truly worst films of the year, I bumped it up to the Middle Ground anyway. Don’t take that as an actual recommendation of the film, though!
THE BAD
Oh, sometimes “bad” is glorious. If it weren’t for dunderheaded, theologically chaotic cliché-fests like LEGION, you wouldn’t get to see winged angels duking it out, using automatic weapons or running in slow motion to escape the explosion when they hear someone mouthing a catchphrase and flicking a cigarette lighter. This has nothing to do with religious profundity and everything to do with trying to disguise a blatant TERMINATOR ripoff with everything but actual harps and halos.
Okay, a lot of people really liked SHUTTER ISLAND. And yes, it’s well-acted, handsomely produced, etc. I thought the film spoiled itself in the first five minutes and then took two hours walloping me over the head in an attempt to convince me that it was “big and important.” I’ve enjoyed many a film in which I guessed (or already knew) the ending in advance—it’s not that simple. Short version: I much preferred watching the same actor journey to similar revelations in a much better film released the same year…
Granted fairly and without reservation: I acknowledge and respect that REPO MEN was not, repeat, not intended as a ripoff of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA. Of course, that’s about the only film it did not rip off. What a good cast in such a derivative, unsatisfying jumble.
Hats off to Jackie Earle Haley for tackling the dangerous and intimidating task of becoming the new Freddy Krueger. Truth be told, he himself did a fine job. It’s too bad that the new NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET itself was beneath his talent. Wes Craven’s original became a sensation (and later a classic) for a number of very good reasons. Had there been no such thing as Freddy Krueger and had this hash opened as an original film, we’d have already forgotten it by now.
How can you take such a dependable premise (THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME), populate it with dependable creatures AND dependable actors and still come up with something boring (intelligent or not)? The makers of PREDATORS found a way.
Unrelated to the RESIDENT EVIL film of the similar subtitle was AFTER.LIFE. See the remarks on THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. Something truly compelling and disturbing could have been made of the premise (is Christina Ricci really dead or is Liam Neeson simply a nutjob?)—instead, we get a non-stop parade of Horror 101 cliches and contrivances intended to prevent anybody from actually getting anywhere until it’s finally time for the pre-telegraphed finale.
SKYLINE ends with what might have been a terrific midpoint for such an alien invasion story, and it has its occasional moments, but the amount of time you’re expected to spend with such an uninspired and hokey set of characters (not to mention the horrendous dialogue with which they’re saddled) makes it a true chore to sit through.
And then there was SAW 3-D. The people had spoken. The series was done. End it with VI. Quit while you’re ahead. They didn’t. And they stretched the story out with idiotic, unbelievable twists until they finally betrayed the entire concept as set up by what was once one of the most original, innovative and consistent villains in genre history. Okay, there are still one or two good “cringe” moments, but when these films really worked, the scripts had just as much to do with their success as the gore. The 3-D, by the way, was mostly pointless, but at least it was “real” 3-D and not a lousy post-conversion job…
…which is more than could be said of the desperate technique applied to MY SOUL TO TAKE, a film which was in no way, shape or form intended as a 3-D film. Nor is it in any way, shape or form an interesting, intelligent, amusing, original or even slightly suspenseful film from a director (Wes Craven) who’s quite capable of making all of the above when he really wants to. This was not an attempt to create. This was an attempt to lazily push all the pre-packaged buttons he thought the audience would automatically bring to the theatre. This was the worst film of the year.
Unseen by me: the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake… and doubtless others.
Fantasy served me well this year, especially as I avoided the phony 3-D options where they were applied… I had no problem at all with the new CLASH OF THE TITANS as it delivered the fun and spectacle that it promised. The new HARRY POTTER and NARNIA films were both fine adaptations of their source material: the Potter film suffered necessarily by representing only the first half of its epic, but it’s all going to come together quite amazingly; while DAWN TREADER easily exceeded PRINCE CASPIAN (because it was a better book in the first place).
INCEPTION was one of the best films of the year: I was never less than completely enthralled by the way it juggled so many realities and timelines and still managed to account for itself. Too bad if it’s a crime to request that an audience pay attention to a film and think about it… those who DO will be treated to one of the best final shots I’ve seen in a long time…
KICK-ASS was a surprisingly strong, violent, humorous and engaging look at the “superhero” concept, and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD was a riotously funny and visually energetic delight from beginning to end. As for IRON MAN 2? It offered plenty of spectacle but the intense potential supplied by the trailer in the form of Mickey Rourke's villain was, sadly, not lived up to.
The release of JACKASS 3-D may well have convinced me that I have now seen everything I could ever possibly want to see in that particular format. And then some.
Got my Luc Besson fix (once removed) from the harmless FROM PARIS WITH LOVE and the redundant (but still entertaining and Parkour-packed) DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM. And speaking of martial arts, the title may have been pointless, but the KARATE KID remake had a great role for Jackie Chan—and the “kid” was very, very good indeed.
Michael Caine showed us in HARRY BROWN what might have happened if someone had tried to make a serious DEATH WISH sequel in which Charles Bronson had been allowed to act his age.
We were offered a largely enjoyable trip back to the grindhouse with MACHETE. Too bad Jessica Alba tagged along and did her best to kill it.
The guys who made BAGHEAD proved that they could make a much better film. CYRUS wasn’t a horror film, but it was the sort of comedy that could make you cringe in pain all the same.
If anyone thought that spending eighty minutes in an elevator in DEVIL was a successful conveyance of claustrophobia, they should have seen what others pulled off with Ryan Reynolds in BURIED.
And in the space of a single year, we were treated to all three installments of Steig Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy, known to us as THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST. If you didn’t like the way the books were condensed, you may want to see what David Fincher does with the material… but nobody in the world is likely to eclipse Noomi Rapace’s performance in the role of Lisbeth Salander—perhaps the most intriguing and original literary character of the past decade.
Okay—that’s my year at the movies—let’s see what happens next!
All best,
Remo D.
THE GOOD
2010 got off to a pretty nifty start with DAYBREAKERS. Sure, it was “yet another” vampire film which perhaps tried a little too hard to dazzle us with visual effects, but the corporate/scientific intrigue woven into it held my interest, Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe always seem to know just what to do, and the climactic chain reaction of violence was both entertaining and original.
Okay, we all know that the new version of THE WOLFMAN wasn’t a match for the Lon Chaney Jr. original, and I think it’s precisely because Benicio Del Toro’s new Larry Talbot was presented as a dark and troubled soul even before getting bitten. Nevertheless, the movie looked great, zipped along and offered some terrific, gruesome action as it paid proper homage to its ancestors.
THE LAST EXORCISM split viewer opinion nearly 50/50 when it came down to the specific resolution of its documentary-style story (which, of course, seriously compromised its own status as an alleged documentary). But few would disagree that it offered one of the very best character portrayals of the year in the form of the charlatan preacher/exorcist himself. Can you give me banana bread? Hallelujah!
Whether or not the Devil actually appeared in THE LAST EXORCISM is beside the point, but there’s nothing left to question when a film is actually called DEVIL. It didn’t quite come together as shockingly as it could have in the end, but this was still a perfectly watchable slice of religion and claustrophobia from the M. Night Shyamalan factory (and no, I didn’t see THE LAST AIRBENDER, nor do I want to).
The remake LET ME IN showed up far too soon after LET THE RIGHT ONE IN to truly shine on its own, and it shied away from some of the most effectively disturbing material in the original (let alone the book on which it was based). But the original wasn’t perfect, either—the remake offered improvements and originality in direct proportion to its liabilities. Oh, and it meant that we finally got to see a Hammer vampire film on the big screen. Too bad it tanked.
Speaking of tanking, one of the very best of the year was the criminally underappreciated SPLICE—this was one of the most mature, moving and frightening looks at out of control science, parental responsibility and family identity since the early David Cronenberg days. Honestly, this really ties as the best horror film of 2010, but if I can pick only one, I’ve got to pick the one that didn’t literally fly out of control before it was all over…
…and I don’t care if it was part of the out-of-control festival of “reimaginings” we’ve been enduring over the past few years… the new version of George A. Romero’s THE CRAZIES was efficient, ferocious, shocking, frightening, cognizant and cynical—all of the things that Romero himself wanted the story to be when he told it for the first time in 1973. And it’s the ONE horror film of 2010 that didn’t make me say “If only they hadn’t…” at one point or another.
THE MIDDLE GROUND
Speaking of George A. Romero, I was quite annoyed that I was never afforded the opportunity to see SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD on the big screen—my perfect attendance record has now been shattered. Nevertheless, coming so soon after DIARY, SURVIVAL had nothing new to say (and Romero was the first to acknowledge that). It’s fun, it’s passable, but it’s scarcely a crucial entry in the saga. Hats off, nevertheless, to Romero for making six DEAD films and making each and every one of them completely different. Wish more people knew how to do that.
I tend to agree with Roger Ebert in finding a film like THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE ‘unratable.’ You’ll never get the taste of the concept out of your mouth, and they found one hell of an actor to play the mad doctor, but when it came time to create an actual story around the sick concept, they still gave us standard flee-and-stalk clichés to stretch things out in the first half, and then they gave us contrivance after contrivance to make sure everybody stayed there in the second half.
ECLIPSE was the third (and most entertaining) book in the TWILIGHT series, so it really ought to have been the best movie in the series (especially coming from the director of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT). So what happened? I really don’t know, but (isolated moments aside), this should have been quite a bit zippier. And by the way, I’m officially done with this movie series—the fourth and final book (BREAKING DAWN) was a stinker and I’m not about to pay twice to see them drag it out in the movies…
PIRANHA 3-D? Well, it did fulfill its promises of piles of gloriously gory, rapid fire trash… but did the writing and editing really have to be so truly awful?
Oh, and speaking of 3-D… its above-average deployment was just about the only thing that saved RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE from my personal slagheap. Look—I like Milla Jovovich. I’ve always maintained a grudging bit of affection for this eager-to-please series. I don’t want to start hating it. And I DID like the scene with the war hammer. But this overblown slice of empty-headed MATRIX riffs brought my threshold of patience down rather dangerously.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 attempted to capture lightning in a bottle for the second time—it actually did a decent job of tying in with the original and it did provide the single biggest jump scare of 2010. But now that we’ve been keyed to expect just what’s what with this premise, there was no way that this prequel/sequel was going to pay off in a similar way at the end. And it didn’t.
The ‘arthouse’ film MONSTERS made plenty of critical “ten best” lists, and I certainly thought it was a good and worthwhile effort. But I also felt that since we were really supposed to be spending time with our two central characters (as opposed to the minimally-encountered creatures) throughout the film, then we should have received something significantly more satisfying than the rush-job “movie’s over” fadeout we were finally handed.
I’m still not convinced that I should regard BLACK SWAN as a “horror movie,” but Darren Aronofsky’s application of horror technique certainly provides it with some excellent moments. It’s only too bad that what could have been a brilliantly acted and directed take on Roman Polanski’s REPULSION got caught up in a rehash of every “price of fame” showbiz melodrama you’ve ever seen in your life.
And finally? The leftover CASE 39 goes completely fruit loops by the time it reveals its true colors, some of the scenes seem to be in the wrong order… and if it’s an utterly unsatisfying ending you want, look no further. Originally, I dropped this one into the basement. But since the first twenty minutes were actually very good, and since the director had already proven where he could go with better material (PANDORUM), and since I’d rather sit through this again than the truly worst films of the year, I bumped it up to the Middle Ground anyway. Don’t take that as an actual recommendation of the film, though!
THE BAD
Oh, sometimes “bad” is glorious. If it weren’t for dunderheaded, theologically chaotic cliché-fests like LEGION, you wouldn’t get to see winged angels duking it out, using automatic weapons or running in slow motion to escape the explosion when they hear someone mouthing a catchphrase and flicking a cigarette lighter. This has nothing to do with religious profundity and everything to do with trying to disguise a blatant TERMINATOR ripoff with everything but actual harps and halos.
Okay, a lot of people really liked SHUTTER ISLAND. And yes, it’s well-acted, handsomely produced, etc. I thought the film spoiled itself in the first five minutes and then took two hours walloping me over the head in an attempt to convince me that it was “big and important.” I’ve enjoyed many a film in which I guessed (or already knew) the ending in advance—it’s not that simple. Short version: I much preferred watching the same actor journey to similar revelations in a much better film released the same year…
Granted fairly and without reservation: I acknowledge and respect that REPO MEN was not, repeat, not intended as a ripoff of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA. Of course, that’s about the only film it did not rip off. What a good cast in such a derivative, unsatisfying jumble.
Hats off to Jackie Earle Haley for tackling the dangerous and intimidating task of becoming the new Freddy Krueger. Truth be told, he himself did a fine job. It’s too bad that the new NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET itself was beneath his talent. Wes Craven’s original became a sensation (and later a classic) for a number of very good reasons. Had there been no such thing as Freddy Krueger and had this hash opened as an original film, we’d have already forgotten it by now.
How can you take such a dependable premise (THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME), populate it with dependable creatures AND dependable actors and still come up with something boring (intelligent or not)? The makers of PREDATORS found a way.
Unrelated to the RESIDENT EVIL film of the similar subtitle was AFTER.LIFE. See the remarks on THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. Something truly compelling and disturbing could have been made of the premise (is Christina Ricci really dead or is Liam Neeson simply a nutjob?)—instead, we get a non-stop parade of Horror 101 cliches and contrivances intended to prevent anybody from actually getting anywhere until it’s finally time for the pre-telegraphed finale.
SKYLINE ends with what might have been a terrific midpoint for such an alien invasion story, and it has its occasional moments, but the amount of time you’re expected to spend with such an uninspired and hokey set of characters (not to mention the horrendous dialogue with which they’re saddled) makes it a true chore to sit through.
And then there was SAW 3-D. The people had spoken. The series was done. End it with VI. Quit while you’re ahead. They didn’t. And they stretched the story out with idiotic, unbelievable twists until they finally betrayed the entire concept as set up by what was once one of the most original, innovative and consistent villains in genre history. Okay, there are still one or two good “cringe” moments, but when these films really worked, the scripts had just as much to do with their success as the gore. The 3-D, by the way, was mostly pointless, but at least it was “real” 3-D and not a lousy post-conversion job…
…which is more than could be said of the desperate technique applied to MY SOUL TO TAKE, a film which was in no way, shape or form intended as a 3-D film. Nor is it in any way, shape or form an interesting, intelligent, amusing, original or even slightly suspenseful film from a director (Wes Craven) who’s quite capable of making all of the above when he really wants to. This was not an attempt to create. This was an attempt to lazily push all the pre-packaged buttons he thought the audience would automatically bring to the theatre. This was the worst film of the year.
Unseen by me: the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake… and doubtless others.
Fantasy served me well this year, especially as I avoided the phony 3-D options where they were applied… I had no problem at all with the new CLASH OF THE TITANS as it delivered the fun and spectacle that it promised. The new HARRY POTTER and NARNIA films were both fine adaptations of their source material: the Potter film suffered necessarily by representing only the first half of its epic, but it’s all going to come together quite amazingly; while DAWN TREADER easily exceeded PRINCE CASPIAN (because it was a better book in the first place).
INCEPTION was one of the best films of the year: I was never less than completely enthralled by the way it juggled so many realities and timelines and still managed to account for itself. Too bad if it’s a crime to request that an audience pay attention to a film and think about it… those who DO will be treated to one of the best final shots I’ve seen in a long time…
KICK-ASS was a surprisingly strong, violent, humorous and engaging look at the “superhero” concept, and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD was a riotously funny and visually energetic delight from beginning to end. As for IRON MAN 2? It offered plenty of spectacle but the intense potential supplied by the trailer in the form of Mickey Rourke's villain was, sadly, not lived up to.
The release of JACKASS 3-D may well have convinced me that I have now seen everything I could ever possibly want to see in that particular format. And then some.
Got my Luc Besson fix (once removed) from the harmless FROM PARIS WITH LOVE and the redundant (but still entertaining and Parkour-packed) DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM. And speaking of martial arts, the title may have been pointless, but the KARATE KID remake had a great role for Jackie Chan—and the “kid” was very, very good indeed.
Michael Caine showed us in HARRY BROWN what might have happened if someone had tried to make a serious DEATH WISH sequel in which Charles Bronson had been allowed to act his age.
We were offered a largely enjoyable trip back to the grindhouse with MACHETE. Too bad Jessica Alba tagged along and did her best to kill it.
The guys who made BAGHEAD proved that they could make a much better film. CYRUS wasn’t a horror film, but it was the sort of comedy that could make you cringe in pain all the same.
If anyone thought that spending eighty minutes in an elevator in DEVIL was a successful conveyance of claustrophobia, they should have seen what others pulled off with Ryan Reynolds in BURIED.
And in the space of a single year, we were treated to all three installments of Steig Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy, known to us as THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST. If you didn’t like the way the books were condensed, you may want to see what David Fincher does with the material… but nobody in the world is likely to eclipse Noomi Rapace’s performance in the role of Lisbeth Salander—perhaps the most intriguing and original literary character of the past decade.
Okay—that’s my year at the movies—let’s see what happens next!
All best,
Remo D.