Not Many Best Films - 2010

          On Groundhog Day I received this comment-question in a film-related article I posted near the end of 2009:
Hey there :)

What was the best and worst film of last year in your oppinion?
For me it might have to be:
Very best: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Worst: A Nightmare on Elm Street


Thanks a lot :) <3
          Well...hey back in your brain-addled and anonymous direction.

          Your unfamiliarity with spealcheque, date/time stamps, and your emoticon abuse/misuse (colon end-paren less than three is...happy dick-n-balls) causes me to assume you're a 4th grader playing on mummy's computer and bored with Myspace?  But, here's the thing, (I thought for a long three seconds to come up with an analogy you could relate to) when it comes to film opponion I'm like Eric Cartman when someone starts Come Sail Away.

          Consequently...even though last year was a dreadful year in American film...I will finish what you've begun:  2010 started with me keeping track of every film I watched, but I quit that foolishness in April because I'd yet to see one newly-released American-film worth recommending.

          My favorite-best film of last year was the amazing mystery-thriller Mother, which was released in the US in 2010 (so, technically, it qualifies as a last-year film even though it was released in South Korea in 2009).

          The vast majority of 2010 films were average-to-unmemorable dreck.  I didn't see either of the movies you mentioned, anonymous-commenter, so I can't provide you with my oppioidin on them.  I can, however, explain why I chose not to see them.

          I'll probably watch the first-half of the last Potter film, just before I watch the second-half...maybe sometime this year.  Stephen King fleeced his avid-reader's with six mini-books released monthly in the mid 90's, which I realize was before you were born, Anon-commenter, but—nonetheless—they (The Green Mile series) were an early example of a financially-successful-yet-scummy way to make more money than would otherwise be possible.  I felt almost the same way when Quentin Tarantino released Kill Bill in two parts (wouldn't a four-hour film with an intermission have been fantastic?)

          As for the remake of Nightmare:  I doubt you're aware of too very many things that occurred before your mom was born, Anon, but that movie was originally released in 1984 (to make it easier:  that's just after the Vietnam War and just before Nine-Eleven).  When your grandparents watched the first Freddy Kruger slasher flick on their parent's Betamax, they definitely were scared but, also, they were aware it was not a very good film.  So...it should not come as a surprise that the re-brand re-remake turned out bad.  (This is not to say every re-branded re-made film is like re-heating decade-old noodles; this year's True Grit was definitely worth seeing.)

          There were so many worst films of 2010.  So very many.  I successfully avoided watching most of them by paying attention to their metric and choosing to only see those films with a score higher than 60.  This is not a very good way of deciding, because...

          I posit that the worst film of 2010 was: 127 Hours.   It was a let down.  Mediocre.  It became suckage because I enjoy films by Danny Boyle and my hopes were so high.  Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later, Millions, Trainspotting...how could the director of such good-to-greatness make something so empty and flat?  127 Hours was shit because it had the potential to be fantastic but really was average-to-forgettable.  I'm amazed so many people like it (its metric is in the low-80's ferfucksake).  I'm very surprised it was nominated for awards.  It will win some because it has little competition; it's one of the best turds in the 2010 septic tank.  In my pinionop, a much better film (and best trapped-man performance of 2010) is Buried with Ryan Reynolds.  But, because Buried was filmed by a almost unknown Spanish director, in Spain, it gets less attention (even though it's in English).  ...way, come sail away with me...

2 comments:

Mary Witzl said...

I don't see a lot of movies, but I've heard good things about True Grit -- I want to see it! And how can I NOT have heard of 'Mother' when my kids are insane for anything Korean? I'll look out for that one too.

Have you seen 'Black Swan'? I was surprised at just how much I liked that -- I thought it was great.

veach glines said...

Black Swan was... not bad.

I think Natalie Portman deserves recognition for her dancing not just her acting accomplishment (Because, in this CGI-happy world - instead of months of arduous training, like she did - Portman's head could have been 'dub-pasted' onto a professional ballet dancer's body).

I don't think the film as a whole was 'great'. Predictable; too-slow for the 'psychological-thriller' tag it desires; but very good for 2010 (with hardly any competition). My score for Black Swan is 3+.