By Caesar Martini
5. Jackass 3D (dir. Jeff Tremaine)
Yes, I realize that the Jackass movies are not exactly the epitome of noble cinematic achievement, blah blah blah, but hey, shut up for a second. There’s only one other movie I saw this year that I kept talking about after seeing it, and that’s because Jackass 3D is hugely entertaining from start to finish. It may be a horrified fascination-of-a-car-wreck type of entertainment, but still, that’s more than 95% of movies I see can offer, so it’s on my list.
4. The Town (dir. Ben Affleck)
Wow, Ben Affleck is two for two in the ‘win’ column for directing. The Town is a top shelf heist movie, on par with films like Heat. Great characterization, great dialogue, acting, writing, it comes together beautifully. I don’t even care that Affleck might not be physically able of making a movie that doesn’t take place in Boston.
3. Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich)
I’m starting to think Pixar has made a deal with the devil, because every single movie they make is awesome, and they do a pretty good job of making me cry, the evil bastards. The amount of emotional involvement Pixar characters can elicit from their audiences is nothing short of astounding when you consider it’s nothing but ones and zeroes. I’m not crying over toys, I’m crying over digital representations of toys that have never existed. Can humans falling in love with robots be far behind? Mariko, my animatronic Japanese body pillow, says ‘No.’
2. True Grit (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Coen Bros are hit or miss for me. They make mostly-awesome movies, but usually with a somewhat not-awesome part that I just can’t get behind. Not so with True Grit. I can’t think of a single thing to complain about in this film, and by now you all should know how much I like to complain. Jeff Bridges’ performance is so good that if I ever stumble across a man who’s dying of a gunshot wound, I would probably say, “Ah cain’t do nothin’ for ya, son,” even if in fact, I could do something for him.
1. Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan)
Well, this should be a surprise to no one, because this should be the number one film on everyone’s list this year. Usually, I allow a great deal of wiggle room for personal preference, but if Inception is not in a person’s Top 5 Films of 2010 list, that person is possibly an idiot and definitely should not be trusted to give any sort of advice to anyone ever. However, a note to all the people who say they understand Inception perfectly: no you fucking don’t. Just stop it, you sound like an asshole.
Welp, Caesar, maybe I should have read your picks before commenting on your commenting on mine.
Jackass 3D.
…
You know what? I didn’t see it, maybe I would have loved it*.
True Grit- I wanted to see it so much, but it hasn’t happened yet. Looks awesome though.
Eh, Inception. It was brilliantly marketed (if jealously keeping the story close to ones chest is brilliant- I suppose you have to be brilliant to succeed in keeping it a secret these days) and was gorgeous- but it didn’t take the concept far enough. During Ellen Page’s training, she over turned the city, messed with gravity; great visually amazing stuff… but it was never REALLY brought up again.
Yes, Levitt did the stair trick, and the “dream antibodies” were all over the gang because of dream tampering, and there was the train, but all of that was a step below the training montage climax. Poor sequencing for a summer blockbuster- and being “the thinking man’s blockbuster” doesn’t give it a free pass.
*There’s no way I would have liked Jackass.
Have you seen any of the Jackass movies? Just curious. I love them, they’re hilarious, though I tend not to like the gross-out parts so much. I really enjoy the weirdly creative stunts and general idiocy, and I just enjoy the whole thing b/c I can’t BELIEVE there are people who go out there and do stuff like this, to themselves and/or each other.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a cinematic masterpiece and it’s not for everybody. But I talked to so many people after seeing that movie, along the lines of “Did you see the part where ___??” Inception was the only movie I excitedly (and confusedly) talked to with other people long after I saw it.
So you got to the training part and were hoping there would be more reality-bending stuff like that in the rest of the movie? I could see how that would be disappointing, but I never expected much more of that to happen; because it’s explained that the more stuff you do, the more likely the dreamer will reject the dream. Plus, I saw that so many times in the trailer I wasn’t blown away by it in the movie.
I liked Inception so much because it was so creative and original. It was a really excellent heist movie, but with a completely new set of well-actualized rules and unfamiliar, exciting territory. Plus I really enjoyed the acting and the emotional content to it. And it’s SO WELL THOUGHT OUT. The concept, the execution, I just thought it was brilliant.
As far as Jackass goes, I saw a bit of either the show or the first movie at a friends house a long time ago and was pretty turned off by the whole thing. So yeah.
Yeah, I get that the dreamer would reject the twisted reality the crazier things got- but they already had all of the dream antibodies trying to kill the characters in something like 2 out of 4 dream levels, indicating pretty maxed out dream reality already, and it’s not like the dreamer was going to wake up what with the sedation. If there was any danger to pulling insane Matrix moves it couldn’t have been any worse than winding up in limbo, which happened to two characters anyways, both of whom where fine- and that’s a worst case scenario that I’m only just imagining to be possible, because it wasn’t addressed WHAT would happen if you skewed dream logic enough while the dreamer was sedated enough.
Besides the dream antibodies turning on you. I already said that, but I figured I should make it clear that I’m aware of the stated consequences of messing with dream reality.
All that said, Inception is still a perfectly good movie to have on your year end list.