The Best Films of 2010

This was a rich year for films both new and old. All told I saw 97 films theatrically, some more than a few times. There was the restoration of Metropolis, and the repertory findings at Chicago's Doc Films. The great under-released American Independents, and The Chicago International Film Festival's offering of a variety of foreign and domestic discoveries. It even seemed that the multiplexes were offering an increasing percentage of films worthy mention. Because of this, it feels ridiculous to rank the films I loved the most this year. It always does, sure, but for some reason this year especially. I could, if forced, come up with some arbitrary order, but the thing that all of these films have in common with one another is that they've stayed in my memory since I saw them. They're all stylistically inventive and have an excitement in them about the possibilities of the form. They all provoke, they're all personal works, and as such they all have a lot at stake. I've continued to find new reasons praise them all, and like children I feel it's wrong to choose a favorite. And so, in alphabetical order, with minimal, repetitious comment, my favorite films of 2010.

Note: There are still a number of films I haven't been able to see yet that would possibly make it into this grouping. As such, there may be additions in the coming weeks. Long after anyone has looked at this.

The Best Films of 2010

A stunning psycho-sexual melodrama. The promise of a great visual filmmaker like Aronofsky making a ballet movie is met here and it joins the ranks as one of the finest of that genre.

Derek Cianfrance's long gestating portrait of the dissolution of a marriage. It's unsparing, scarily well acted and one of the most fascinating films of this young decade.

One of the more overlooked films of the year is also one of the best. Bradley Rust Gray's simple, engaging observation of a college break spent at home and the relationship between two old friends who could be more than that, it's one of the most accurate portraits of young adult life I've seen on screen. Beautifully shot in a style inspired by the work of Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

I've written about Noah Baumbach's work and his fifth film on this blog before, and my esteem for it has only grown. So filled with nuance and odd details and observations that make it very re-watchable and real.

A complete surprise of a film that bowled me over last summer. There's a line out that it's the "greatest Visconti film Visconti never made" and that holds some truth. It harkens back to European Art Cinema of the 1960s, and is Emersonian in its divide between the natural world and the cultured. Nevermind that Swinton produced and learned Italian and Russian for the role, her performance is lived, not acted. Easily the most beautiful film of the year, it's also the most emotional and moving. It's a big, ambitious risk of a film, and one that paid off immeasurably.

Mark Romanek's delicate, romantic, achingly sad adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's rumination on mortality. Uses a Sci-Fi conceit as a means to explore questions of existence. Beautifully done.

Edgar Wright's great, visually inventive love story/musical/comic book movie. Incredibly detailed, and very funny, the adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's comic series expands on the world of the books and creates its own. It has a tremendous cast, it's filled with great music and it's unlike anything else out this year.

The finest horror film that's been made in decades, and Scorsese's finest since The Aviator. Wall-to-wall great performances, indelible, horrific images and a great use of music.

An extremely well written, fictionalized account of the creation of Facebook is really about the tear that can occur when friendship and ambition get in each other's way. Sorkin's screenplay frames it as a classical story and Fincher meets the material with a classical eye. A portrait of a very specific moment in time made universal.

Sofia Coppola's fourth feature film is radical, and maybe the finest motion picture of the year. It says great things within its silences, and her collaboration with Harris Savides (the second film of his on this list) brings about new aesthetic daring in her work.

Special Mention: Spike Jonze's I'm Here, one of a few short films this year that came into being through sponsorship. It's one of the best films of the year, and it has much in common with Never Let Me Go. The film is available to watch online for free here.

The following list of films are, again, in alphabetical order except where otherwise noted.

Secondary Subset of The Best:

The American - Anton Corbijn's foray into the lone assassin genre is quiet and suspenseful. Almost works as a slightly less arty remake of Jarmusch's The Limits of Control.

Carlos - Olivier Assayas' episodic portrait of a failed revolutionary that serves more as a look at identity in geopolitical terrorism than as a straight biopic.

Daddy Longlegs - The Brothers Safdie made a brutally honest, unrelenting film about a chaotic character played brilliantly by Ronald Bronstein. It has immense respect for the medium and it's gripping and interesting even as its lead does unspeakable things.

Exit Through The Gift Shop - Banksy's funny, thoughtful, inventive exploration of the street art world.

Hereafter - The best Eastwood since 2006's Letters From Iwo Jima, it's audacious, searching and ultimately very moving.

The Illusionist - The wonderful animated adaptation of an unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati. Sylvain Chomet and his animators capture the physicality of Tati, but make the film their own. Gorgeous, unsentimental, and very funny.

Making Plans for Lena - A strong follow-up to last year's La Belle Personne (which I think is a masterpiece and is still unavailable on Region 1 DVD). It set the course for his challenging Man at Bath and features a great lead performance from Chiarra Mastroianni.

Mystery Team - A great self-produced comedy from internet sketch collective Derek Comedy. Funnier than 99% of studio releases.

Night Catches Us - A film that unfortunately got lost in the shuffle. It's a strong debut from Tanya Hamilton, and though it suffers slightly from over thought, it has more to say than most films that have come out this year. A film about politics that's actually political.

Ondine - A beautiful and flawed fairy tale from Niel Jordan, shot by Christopher Doyle.

Soul Kitchen - The maker of one of the more oppressively sad films in recent memory, The Edge of Heaven, made one of the funniest, lightest comedies of the year. Akin's formal strength elevates the film.

Wild Grass - An absolutely indescribable piece of insanity from Alain Resnais that some how stays pleasant without making the least bit of sense.


Festival Favorites (ordered by preference):

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives - Apitchatpong Weerasethakul's Palme d'Or winner is a brilliant last attempt to capture his disappearing homeland. More still than his previous work, it shares that works skill. It feels monumental even as it's unfolding.

Tuesday, After Christmas - Another leap forward for the Romanian New-Wave. Radu Muntean's adultery drama is intelligent and observant.

Man at Bath - A stylistic leap for Christophe Honore, though maybe a leap sideways. Divided between handy-cam footage shot in New York during the press for the US release of Making Plans For Lena, melding fiction and reality, and a sexual drama happening back home in France, it's a gutsy film though it feels like a transitional one.

Cold Weather - Aaron Katz's fine detective comedy, well shot on the RED, subdued and involving.


Worst films of the year (in order from most horrible to least contemptible):

Dinner for Schmucks - An excruciating misfire on every level, filmed in the most staid sitcom style. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.

The Town - Riddled with sentimentality and cliche. Not even a handful of the best English-speaking actors in the world and one of the greatest living cinematographers can save it.

Winter's Bone - A muddled piece of Southern Gothic cliche, inexplicably embraced by critics and festivals around the world.

Kick-Ass - The polar opposite of Scott Pilgrim. Unfunny, poorly staged and deeply unpleasant.

How Do You Know - Makes It's Complicated look brilliant by comparison. Devoid of any connection to real people, or the world as it has ever existed.

Piranha 3-D - A blown opportunity for an exploitation classic. Has all the promise of a diverting piece of trash, and none of the fun.

Machete - Machete is mashitty.

Rabbit Hole - An immature tale of grief, uninteresting to look at and listen to. Belies the promise John Cameron Mitchell showed in Shortbus.

Other Films I Saw and Really Enjoyed Include: Antonio Campos' great debut feature Afterschool, Mike Leigh's study of the bourgeoisie Another Year, Andrew Bujalski's nicely paced story of sisterliness Beeswax, Frederick Wiseman's great Boxing Gym, the Duplass Brothers' mainstream debut Cyrus, Mia Hansen-Løve's haunting The Father of My Children, David O. Russel's imperfect The Fighter, Chris Morris' Jihadi romp Four Lions, Andre Techine's fine morality play The Girl On The Train, Roman Polanski's (unfinished?) thriller The Ghost Writer, the cock and bull story I Love You Phillip Morris, Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix's grand statement on celebrity that's much better than you'd think it would be I'm Still Here, Michael Winterbottom's creepy exploration of a sociopath The Killer Inside Me, the charming Let It Rain, the Beckettesque The Living Wake, the quietly stunning Lourdes, the very funny MacGruber, the also funny The Other Guys, Michel Gondry's funny and moving portrait of his grandmother The Thorn in the Heart, the fine French prison drama A Prophet, a deeply flawed but dazzling rock drama The Runaways, the fine adult comedy Tamara Drewe, the Coen Brothers' amiable Western True Grit, Claire Denis' gripping White Material, Woody Allen's fine morality play You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, and Miguel Arteta's flawed but smart and funny Youth in Revolt.

Moments Not In Time: 2010

Inspired by the annual "Moments Out of Time" series at MSN, some of my own that didn't make their list.

Roger dumping cereal into a toilet in "Greenberg"

Michael Cera's aside justification for not wanting to hit the only female evil-ex in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World": "They're soft..."

The female prisoner drinking from an invisible cup in "Shutter Island"

Ivy and Al sheepishly prodding a baby pigeon in "The Exploding Girl"

The greatest band in the world (in the movie), The Clash at Demonhead, performing Metric's "Black Sheep" in "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"

The constant numbers and 'x's placed throughout the production design, costumes, and dialogue of "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"

The shocking shots of Barbara Hershey sleeping in "Black Swan"

A moment between a mother and daughter, one, at the end of "I Am Love"

Tilda Swinton falling in love with a man through a meal in "I Am Love"

The opening shots of Milan covered in snow in "I Am Love"

Roger staring at the dead possum in the pool, feeling his mortality while the young people around him laugh in "Greenberg"

Kathy, now older, listening to the title song she listened to as a child in "Never Let Me Go"

A young man ready to fight, ten years too late to participate in a revolution, fights anyway in "Night Catches Us"

Best Music of 2010

1. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening


What might be the last record by LCD Soundsystem is fittingly grand. It's the best record of the year, and seeing them play live a few times this year were the best shows I saw. The album ends with a song called "Home," which is appropriate since it's the most oft-repeated word in their entire catalogue, but also because that sense of desire for something you've lost pervades the whole record, if not James Murphy's whole career. If this is the end, I can't think of a better send off.


2. Spoon - Transference


The most reductive they've ever allowed their sound to be, it would be off putting if the songs weren't so consistently good. This is among the strongest stuff they've ever recorded.


3. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record


Forgiveness is as good an idea as any to promote, and as a theme it syncs perfectly with their aesthetic. It's one of their best, most focused albums.


4. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs


The first time I've warmed to any of their albums as a whole. It's a great record, personal but very large in scope. Works just as well in a stadium as it does in a bedroom.


5. Hot Chip - One Life Stand


Another great Hot Chip album, a more diverse sound. Harmonizing, honest emotion, weird synth sounds. I like it a lot.

6. Jónsi - Go


A brighter, happier version of Sigur Rós. Beautiful. Also worth seeking out is Dean Deblois' film of the acoustic version of the record, Go Quiet.



7. She & Him - Volume Two


An incredibly well produced, well performed record. The particulars of Deschanel's other career don't need to enter into the picture to appreciate it at all except that her other career surely informs her vocal performances which are, without exception, confident and emotional. It's an improvement over their very good first record, and goes well beyond pastiche.


8. MGMT - Congratulations


A record that I took a while to warm to, but when I did it was hard not to recognize the greatness. If it sounds a bit like a post-graduate study on the psychedelic, it can be forgiven by the enthusiasm in the songwriting and the dense production. Beyond that it's very enjoyable to listen to.


9. Sleigh Bells - Treats


A grower. I didn't like the EP, then I did. I didn't like this, then I did. They leave something to be desired live, and I wonder how long they can sustain as a band but for now it's great, loud, dumb pop music.


10. Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner


This came out of nowhere for me. It sounds like something I would have loved in High School. That sounds like a back-handed compliment or an insult, but it's an irresistibly charming record.


(The following artists' names are in bold, with the title of their release-if there is one-in parenthesis next to their name.)
Much of the rest of these are bands I'm probably more familiar with a small section of their work than their albums as a collective, but I also enjoyed (in some order at first and then not as much): The follow-up EP by a great live band, Twin Sister (Color Your Life), the excellent EP by DFA act Holy Ghost! (Static on the Wire), the slightly disappointing but still very good album by The Walkmen (Lisbon), the all over the place, but great in stretches album from Yeasayer (Odd Blood), the very enjoyable to listen to and see performed live stuff by The Morning Benders (Big Echo), longtime DFA DJ, first time origina...tor Shit Robot (From The Cradle To The Rave), the highly-influenced-by-Joy Division record from The Drums (The Drums), the disparate, hard to gather releases of Memoryhouse, the ridiculously catchy Swedish pop thing that Robyn (Body Talk) does, the promising EP by Tennis (Boston), I came around to portions of the much derided album by M.I.A. (Maya), the broody beer drinking thing of The National (High Violet), the egomanical, but still kinda good thing that Kanye West (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) does, the soft spoken, folky British thing that Laura Marling (I Speak Because I Can) does, the consistent output of Rufus Wainwright (All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu), the consistent output of The Roots (How I Got Over), the sure-to-improve-as-they-get-older music of Toro y Moi (Causers of This), the she's-better-in-a-live-setting-than-on-a-record recording by Nellie McKay (Home Sweet Mobile Home), the-never-as-good-as-the-first-EP of Amiina (Puzzle), the thing I'm sure I would have liked them a lot if I listened to it more of Joanna Newsom (Have One On Me) and Owen Pallett (Heartland).

I also enjoyed the various live recordings offered throughout the year, including those of LCD Soundsystem (London Sessions), LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip (Live at Alexandra Palace), Phoenix (Live in Sydney), and Arcade Fire (Live at Madison Square Garden Broadcast on YouTube).

I've assembled a number of live performances by some of the artists mentioned over here.

As always, there a lot of holes in these things, and like most people I do not solely listen to new music. The top ten represent heavy rotators for me, the rest are largely things I did not listen to a great deal, but when I did, I enjoyed. There is a playlist below with a song from every artist mentioned.

Things other people seem like but I don't get: Drake, Best Coast, Florence and the Machine, Of Montreal, Sufjan Stevens, Maximum Balloon, Chromeo.

Night Catches Us: Always Black, No Longer Panthers

Tanya Hamilton's debut feature Night Catches Us stars Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington, two of my favorite working actors. They're also actors who are frequently underutilized in the films they're in. Mackie has of course been getting some great roles the past few years with Half Nelson and The Hurt Locker, but they're rarely leads in the films they're in. The film takes place in Philadelphia in 1976. Mackie and Washington are ex-Black Panthers, and Mackie has just returned from a sort of forced exile from the neighborhood after he allegedly snitched on another Panther 4 years prior. The film is very adept at connecting the politics of the time (after the Civil Rights movement, before black urban culture became mainstream) to the personal story of these characters whose lives are so well observed and filled with detail. The Roots provide a lot of the music for the film (a lot of it from their excellent new album How I Got Over), which mixes period music with more modern sounding hip hop that's greatly indebted to 70s Soul and R&B, and Black Thought even shows up in a supporting role. There's a great subplot involving a neighborhood kid increasingly frustrated by the police and angry that he missed out on the cultural revolution that people 5 or 10 years older than him participated in, slowly devolving into a militant is very strong and one of the best things in the movie. Newcomer Amir Cheatom handles the role with intensity and focus. If enough people see this, I think you could easily call it a star making role.

I like the film a great deal, and it's ultimately very powerful, but it has a characteristic I find typical of films that were developed through the Sundance Institute (which this film was in 2000, it took 9 years to get it made), which is that a lot of the rough edges of the script seem to have been smoothed over in the development process. For example, the script was original called Stringbean and Marcus. Marcus is Anthony Mackie's character, and Stringbean was presumably Kerry Washington's. In the finished film, her character's name is Patricia, but he calls her Patty, something that she's displeased by. That would make more sense if he called her Stringbean, but that's the kind of thing that can get taken out when you go through the Sundance Lab. I felt similarly about a film called Sin Nombre from last year that went through the Lab. Like that film though, I'd definitely like to see what writer and director Tanya Hamilton does next, because at the very least this film shows a lot of promise.

Recurrence is the Movie: The Films of Noah Baumbach

The following is a list of recurrent themes and details in the three most recent films by Noah Baumbach. There are spoilers for all three films.

-The Family Pet as a driving force in the story

The Squid and the Whale, the family cat's oscillation between the divorced parents' residencies causes the two characters to keep meeting, keep talking, providing a look at the dynamic, reasons for the divorce, reasons they were a couple in the first place. The cat running out of the house at the end of the film is what causes Bernard to run outside, possibly inducing the heart attack he suffers.

Margot at the Wedding, the family dog Wizard disappears near the begging of the second act, which causes fights both familial and neighborly, its return ends the second act.

Greenberg The Greenberg family dog Mahler is the most central role for a pet in Baumbach's films, is important for humanizing Roger, and brings he and Florence, his love interest, back together over and over again even when complications in the relationship arise.


-The name Greenberg

Walt's girlfriend Sophie Greenberg (Halley Feiffer) in The Squid and the Whale, Roger Greenberg in Greenberg


-A dead animal in a pool

Margot at the Wedding Claude sees a dead mouse at the bottom of the pool after he falls in

Greenberg The party stops as 20 somethings gather around a dead animal, the young people are playful, laugh about it, Roger is freaked out, can't look at it. The young people are callous and unknowing of their own mortality. Roger is obsessed and terrified by aging and death, and the confrontation with the animal's corpse is a strong physicalization of those fears.

-Karen Dalton

The vagabond songstress accompanies Margot at the Wedding's closing credits crawl, and she is mentioned explicitly in Greenberg when Roger puts it on a mix for Florence.


-Childlike, sexual, anal obsessed profanity

The Squid and the Whale Frank's father-aping outbursts "Suck my dick, ass man!"

Margot at the Wedding Claude shouting at his mother "You shit in your shoes and then you fuck them!"

Greenberg Roger shouting at his best friend "Sit on my dick asshole!"


-Masturbation

The Squid and the Whale Frank's burgeoning, supremely confused sexuality is manifested in his public masturbation, and spreading of semen around school.

Margot at the Wedding Margot upon arriving at her childhood home masturbates in her bed, Claude tells his mother near the end of the film that he masturbated in their hotel room after everyone went to sleep.


-The actress Halley Feiffer as an object of lust, agent of sexual discovery

The Squid and the Whale Walt's first real girlfriend, first sexual experience

Margot at the Wedding Claude stares at her chest, is aroused by contact with her. Malcom gazes at her, kisses her, cheating on his fiance.


-Small objects getting lodged in orifices, staying there for most of the film

The Squid and the Whale Early in the film Frank shoves a cashew up his nose, late in the film it comes out.

Margot at the Wedding Early in the film Margot gets a fly stuck inside her ear. Near the end she is still struggling to get it out.


-Last minute decisions as ends for the film

The Squid and the Whale Walt dashes out of the hospital to go confront the titular exhibit and confront his fears.

Margot at the Wedding Margot decides to chase after, wave down, and get on the bus she just put her son on.

Greenberg Roger has a panic attack in the back of his niece's car on the way to the airport and Australia, decides to get out to go take care of Florence, stop running.


-Characters not being able to swim/water as baptism

The Squid and the Whale Walt dips his head in a pond in Central Park, recalls fond memories of bath time with his Mother.

Margot at the Wedding Claude (deliberately?) falls into the pool, not knowing how to swim.

Greenberg Roger slowly enters his brother's pool, doggy paddling across with great difficulty.


-Singing

The Squid and the Whale Walt at the talent show, the stolen song.

Margot at the Wedding Claude sings Blondie into a tape recorder in private.

Greenberg Florence sings at an open mic night.


-The name Ivan

Ivan the Tennis Pro in The Squid and the Whale, the title character's former best friend in Greenberg.

-Personifying animals

Baumbach's New Yorker short story Mouse au Vin contains this line "I thought Louis was me today. Mice are so weird. They’re like humans in rodent costumes." In Greenberg Florence says she sometimes thinks the dog Mahler is really a "human in a dog costume."

Greenberg: Thoughts on Screen

Noah Baumbach is a filmmaker who repeats. I loved The Squid and the Whale and became obsessed with it a few months ago (as I tend to with certain films when I'm writing), and decided that it's basically a perfect movie, even the shots where you see 2000s cars in the '80s setting go into making it great, but that's another discussion. So anyway, I was very eagerly anticipating this new film from Baumbach even though it looked stylistically, and tonally, completely different than anything Baumbach has done, either in his first two 90s post-collegiate intellectual ennui films (Kicking & Screaming, Mr. Jealousy), his two harsh familial drama, rebound, mid-00s films (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) or his co-writing work with Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox). From the trailer I was worried it seemed to contain none of the visual style Baumbach had started with The Squid and the Whale and refined with Margot at the Wedding, but even more than that I was worried by Baumbach's sudden fondness for my most hated "filmmaker," Joe Swanberg, who I will summarize for those unfamiliar as the Uwe Boll of no-budget cinema. Not only had Baumbach produced Swanberg's latest nopus (does that work?), he'd cast one of Swanberg's mainstays Greta Gerwig in a central role. I liked Gerwig in her small role in The House of the Devil, but her connection to Swanberg still soured me on her as a performer. From the trailer the film also seemed like it might be slipping into the Nancy Meyers territory of films about wealthy people with made up problems.

Having now actually seen the film (twice) and not just guessing based on advertising, I can say quite happily that none of those concerns come to pass. The film is different in many ways than Baumbach's previous films but it's also a logical evolution. Visually, it has a very striking resemblance to 1970s American cinema, like that of Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Sidney Lumet, and Peter Yates. Even more so than in Margot at the Wedding (where Baumbach first worked with Greenberg cinematographer Harris Savides), this film visually evokes a long passed period in mainstream American cinema. A period where even in the hokiest of studio genre pictures like Capricorn One, you'd find a competently shot film that has respect for the widescreen frame and knew how to use it to good effect. And unlike so many filmmakers working in a superficially similar milieu who evoke those names of the 1970s American auteurs, Baumbach's film evokes it in content, as well as form. From the frames, to the lighting, down to the way the film is processed, everything visual is rooted in an organic, utterly natural ideology. The same goes for the music from LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, which sounds reminiscent of solo Paul McCartney or the Leonard Cohen songs in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and the structure of the story, which is rooted in character and moments and diverting expectations. Baumbach is also able to resist the temptation so many filmmakers who chase that look and feeling fall into, to remove your characters story from the present and its technology and politics and pop culture. Baumbach embraces the time in which the film was made and doesn't shy away from referring to the world in a way that most people do every day.

The performances all around are so rich and full of nuance that it's hard to focus on one standout. Ben Stiller gives his best performance since Chas Tenenbaum as the title role, and makes such bold choices that I fear some audiences may be put off by it. Stiller has always been attracted to characters who don't pander to audience sympathies, even in his most outlandish comic roles, he almost never begs for the audience to like him, and in his best work he doesn't seem to care. Look back at Zoolander, an incredibly flawed film, but one with a central character who is so stupid, so ignorant, that any viewer with a 5th grade education has no choice but to feel superior to him. In most protagonists there are faults, how else are we to care for a person, but there are also redeeming character traits. They're kind, or their funny, even if they're pricks they find redemption. Stiller, it seems, is interested in pushing the audiences tolerance. In the films he's directed, his characters redemption comes at the last possible moment, and is almost immediately revoked. Tugg Speedman in Tropic Thunder is still a self involved, stupid prick at the end of the movie. Chas Tenenbaum is still disassociated from his family. Even as a public personality, Stiller has always given off the air that he doesn't really care what you think. It's not until this role that that tendency has been explored to such complex and engaging results. Stiller's Roger Greenberg is a misanthropic, self involved, delusional wreck. But we care about him because we can see immediately that he is so confused and lacks such basic skill for accurate introspection, that you know he can't even help himself. When he says horrible things, or shouts profanities, or is insensitive in social situations, you know it's because of this crippling problem. We also care about him because he's an exaggerated version of something that is within every thinking person, criticism, dissatisfaction, and a guard we put up to protect ourselves from pain. If we strike the first blow, it won't hurt as much as it would if we were struck first. For Greenberg, vulnerability is something that doesn't fit into his purview of life. Greenberg is so critical of people who lack self awareness, but of course he in fact has no self awareness himself. He's a walking contradiction of a human being, and it's the unraveling of his persona that partially makes the film's almost plotless nature so fascinating. For Baumbch, this is a character who has bounced around his films from the beginning in various forms, most fully in The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding. Greenberg's invention is a direct combination of Frank, Walt, and Bernard from The Squid and the Whale and Margot from his follow-up film. What Ben Stiller brings to it is incalculable. His performance is so dense and psychologically complex that I felt for the very first time I was seeing something honest from him. Beyond their blind-spots, Stiller's characters always seem to contain an element of distancing irony. But there are passages in Greenberg where you completely forgot you're watching one of the biggest movie stars in the world, because you're not. You're watching a fully formed person inhabiting a space with no regards for an audience, a story, or even a camera.

It is also Greenberg's interaction with Greta Gerwig's character Florence that makes the films aimless, searching narrative so compelling. While one may argue that Greenberg is almost a stock Baumbachian character, Florence is something he's never attempted before. Florence is at heart a good person. She doesn't connive or scheme, she's almost accommodating to a fault. She's a sweet young girl who's main goal it seems is to be happy. She works as a personal assistant to Greenberg's brother, but serves the role of a nanny to the family, and even in this work she finds joy hiking with the family dog, Mahler, interacting with the Greenberg children, picking up groceries for the family. On weekends she sings at open mic nights, not because she's trying to build a career, but because it makes her happy. She goes home with a guy she meets at a gallery party a friend invited her to, because, she says, it felt good. Florence the purest of Baumbach's characters, not saddled with the education, therapy talk, or neurosis of his protagonists in the past. So when we see this decent young women so taken with this misanthropic middle aged man, we're curious and intrigued and we're allowed to view their non-romance as an interaction between people, rather than a sporting event where the audience is forced to take sides, for or against. In life, it is more complicated in that, and so it is too in Baumbach's film. Gerwig's performance is so adept at taking a character who in less assured hands could end up a low-rent Manic Pixie Dream Girl and turn her into a real person. There's an unawareness of the camera in Gerwig that I can only assume comes from her extensive work in no-budget, improvised films wherein she was likely filmed up close for long periods of time. She's used to a camera being there in situations most actresses wouldn't allow. There's a scene in Swanberg's awful Hannah Takes the Stairs where Gerwig rubs the real residue of a towel off of her nipples. Though the scene has no place in the film, and serves no dramatic purpose, it illustrates Gerwig's ability to play every scene as real, to be open to showing the realities of mundanity. It's a quality she brings to every scene in the film, whether it's her driving for long stretches, or walking the dog, or hiking with a friend, she's not concerned with looking "good" so much as she is with being truthful. It's a style of performance you don't see in films often, and when you begin to realize how much of a character Gerwig has built, the performance becomes even more impressive, and it's even more apparent how central it is to Greenberg's success. That frankness is something Swanberg exploited to mostly prurient excess, but what Baumbach does is incorporate it into scenes that would otherwise be meaningless. Those opening shots of the film, with Florence driving around Los Angeles, hold our interest because it feels like we're watching someone living, and we're allowed to drop in and observe for a moment before the "story" starts. It's fascinating, it's unique, and it's damn fine film.

One Time, I Saw A Bad Film

Jim Emerson's post "What do we mean by the 'worst' movies of 2009?" spurred me to write about the worst damn film I saw all last year, Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light. Below is an explanation for why I think it's the worst and what I mean by worst. I would include a photo, but I'd rather not have to look at one of Reygadas' images every time I come here. The following was written as a comment, so excuse the lack of structure and informality.

The worst film I saw last year was Carlos Reygadas' "Silent Light."

I'd been hearing about the film for over a year, heard Scorsese, heard Ebert, and I waited to see it on film at Facets Cinematheque months after I could have seen it on my computer. I spent the entire running time uncomfortable and angry at what was being projected in front of me. Somehow, some way, a lack of perspective or any kind of expression had been confused with a meditative masterpiece. The mere depiction of nature had been confused with an immersion. What I saw was a complete exploitation of poverty, an exploitation on migrant faces and the wear that came with them. Exploitation of these performers and of the landscape they occupied. Film its self is an exploitative medium, but if you have something to convey, something to put across through that exploitation, that makes it worth it. Here there is nothing, it is a film completely devoid of any redeeming facets. Even the supposed "beauty" of the cinematography, the handheld shots of children bathing outdoors, all exploitation, as generic and without purpose as any car commercial.

I enjoy a lot of directors whose films could be described as slow. I love Ozu, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Tsai Ming Liang, Hou Hsiao Hsien, I am not impervious to the charms of nature lovers like Terrence Malick, I enjoy a tale or two of the forgotten people, some De Sica here, some Bresson there. I enjoy films that look good, even slick. David Gordon Green and Tarsem are favorites, but this thing has nothing that all those directors films do, a perspective and a reason to exist.

The most maddening shot I saw last year was the one in Silent Light when Reygadas (or whomever) tracks from outside a dusty gravel parking lot into an open garage, adjusting the iris as he enters and then leaves the garage. You don't see that in other films. You know why? It's lazy and most directors, even the ones least concerned with continuity or traditional film language, avoid doing it in-shot. They cut, they figure something else out, either way it never ends up in their film. But Reygadas does it in his film because he doesn't care, and he expects you not to either. After all, we're talking about a guy whose idea of great cinema is watching an erect penis slowly become flaccid, a shot he included in his previous film (which had an ugly, sexist poster around the globe).

The part that makes me so crazy is that beyond exploiting these people to try and lend some semblance of importance to his meaningless film is the glomming on of religion, death and some kind of idiotic implication of magic and death denial, and cut to a shot of tree in front of a sunset and associate it with nature and we're out.

Terrible film, and for those reasons worse than the other nine awful films I saw this year including Explicit Ills, Gigantic, Amelia, New York, I Love You, The Marc Pease Experience, The Box, Night and Day, Brothers and Year One.

Best Films of 2009

A pair of "children's films" and "documentaries" end up at either end of my top twenty-five this year. The top pair are both adaptations and expansions of beloved, slim children's literature by critically controversial directors popular with a younger cult of moviegoers, and the bottom pair a set of stylistically refined documentaries by revolutionaries in the medium. Spike Jonze's adaption of Maurice Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are and Wes Anderson's adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox both stray somewhat from their source material, but out of them create new works of art, as distinctive and ready to be loved for as long as their print counterparts have been. The documentaries challenge the notion of what a documentary is. In Moore's Godardian essay film Capitalism: A Love Story he argues passionately that the American dream, the ideal that propelled this country from the second world war to the present is bringing about its collapse. Moore's films have always been eclectic, containing comedic stunts, stories of small town families and ironic use of archival footage, but never has Moore argued more passionately and urgently as he does here. This is also the first of Moore's films to be what his others have only obliquely been, a call to action. Conversely, Frederick Wiseman's La Danse contains less overt commentary on its subject. Wiseman refines the style he's maintained since his earliest work like High School, setting the camera down in a corner of a space and watching the events unfold. Earlier in his career, this was dubbed "direct cinema," but Wiseman wisely rebuffs at the term, because the very act of making a film and the act of editing that film is its self a commentary. Sure, there are long takes in this nearly three hour film, where there is no cutting occuring, but what Wiseman focuses on and when it appears in the film gives you all the commentary needed. Without a point of view, the running time would be interminable, but because Wiseman is so adept at sequencing events and capturing them in an intriguing way, the film is engaging, and when it wants to be, moving and funny. Most of all though, it's fascinating, and the same can be said for all of the films in my list, from the Coen brothers' masterpiece A Serious Man, to the Korean-American directed no-budget Rwandan film Munyurangabo, to Steven Soderbergh's pair of digital video experimentations. There was no shortage of great cinema from around the globe this year, you just had to find it.

Special consideration for Michael Haneke's masterpiece The White Ribbon and Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum.

Another 10 (in order):
Observe and Report
Rumba
The Messenger
Two Lovers
Face (Visage)
Fish Tank
Somers Town
Funny People
Taking Woodstock
Duplicity
The International

Also (in order): Air Doll, Bruno, Frontier of The Dawn, Police, Adjective, Still Walking, Summer Hours, Hunger, Goodbye Solo, The Beaches of Agnes, Revanche, The Road, Coco Before Chanel, Invictus, The Hangover, Big Fan, Mother, Sin Nombre, Everlasting Moments, Tell Them Anything You Want, A Christmas Carol, Drag Me To Hell, Adventureland, Crazy Heart, Julie & Julia, Up in the Air, Julia, Rudo y Cursi, Avatar, and Humpday.

Others (not in order): A Single Man, Mary and Max, 500 Days of Summer, Nymph, The Boat That Rocked, The Limits of Control, The Invention of Lying, Zombieland, Whip It, Knowing, Treeless Mountain, The Brothers Bloom, Coraline, Watchmen, Gommorah, Departures, Visioneers, Whatever Works, Cold Souls, An Education, and The Men Who Stare At Goats.

Ten Worst (in order): Silent Light, Explicit Ills, Gigantic, Amelia, New York, I Love You, The Marc Pease Experience, The Box, Night and Day, Brothers and Year One.

Biggest disappointments (not in order): The Limits of Control, The Invention of Lying, Thirst, and The Soloist.

NOT YET SEEN: 35 Shots of Rum, The Headless Woman, The White Ribbon, Of Time and the City, and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done.