43
Highlights and Lowlights from 2010
More highlights and lowlights from the movies of 2010:
Most Overrated Sequel Since “The Dark Knight”: “Toy Story 3.”
Most Surprisingly Not-Terrible Remake: “The Crazies.”
Most Surprisingly (Very) Good Remake: “The Karate Kid.”
Best Remake Nobody Saw: “Let Me In.”
Best Teen Comedy Nobody Saw: “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.”
Best Zach Galifianakis Comedy You’ve Probably Never Heard Of: “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.”
Best Movie to Take Grandma and Your Tranny BFF to: “Burlesque.”
Creepiest Ballet Flick Since “The Red Shoes:” “Black Swan.”
Best “Preaching-to-the-Choir” Movie: “Fair Game.”
Most Surprisingly Not-Terrible Sequel: “Paranormal Activity 2.”
Best Romantic Comedy Not Enough People Saw: “Morning Glory.” (Runner-up: “Going the Distance.”)
Dullest CGI 3-D Cartoon About Owls: “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.”
Worst 3-D Live-Action Cartoon About Krakens: “Clash of the Titans.”
Kinkiest Remake: “Chloe.”
Will Somebody Please Give This Woman an Oscar Already? Annette Bening gave two of the most brilliant performances of her somewhat truncated (Beatty, babies) career this year in “The Kids Are All Right” and “Mother and Child.” Hopefully, Oscar voters finally will get the memo.
Who’s That Girl? As the girl with the dragon tattoo in the Millennium Trilogy, Noomi Rapace made everyone sit up and take notice. Look for Rapace opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s new “Sherlock Holmes” adventure next Christmas.
Kid Movies (and Franchise Hopefuls) That I Actually Liked (Yes, Really): “Diary of a Wimpy Kid;” “Ramona and Beezus.”
Kid Movies (and Franchise Hopefuls) That Nobody Liked: “Marmaduke;” “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
Is Harrison Ford Still a Movie Star? “Extraordinary Measures;” “Morning Glory”; Harrison Ford, meet Tom Cruise (“Knight and Day”).
Best Cable Flick: “Temple Grandin.” (Runner-up: “You Don’t Know Jack”)
Best Cable Flick Masquerading as a Theatrical Release: “Conviction.”
It Runs in the Family: Sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning delivered two of the strongest performances of the year (in “Somewhere” and “The Runaways,” respectively), and only one of them (Dakota) is old enough to drive.
Best Animated Film: “The Illusionist.”
Worst Date Movie: “Valentine’s Day.”
Best Date Movie: See “Best Romantic Comedy Not Enough People Saw.”
It’s a DiCaprio World and We Just Live In It: “Inception;” “Shutter Island.”
Best Proof of an Afterlife: “Hereafter.”
Best Proof That Vanessa Redgrave is God: “Letters to Juliet.”
Tomorrow’s superstars today: Tom Hardy (“Inception”); Chris Pine (“Unstoppable”). Ironically (or not), Hardy and Pine are both co-starring with Reese Witherspoon in next year’s McG-directed “This Means War.”
Worst 1967 Disney Flick: “Secretariat.”
Best 1967 Disney Flick: “Tangled.”
All You Need is Love ... and a couple of good movies: To help commemorate the 70th anniversary of John Lennon’s birth, two terrific Lennon-inspired films were released in 2010 (biopic “Nowhere Boy” about the young, pre-Beatles John; and the documentary “LENNONYC” about his post-Beatles life in New York City).
I Love L.A.: 2010 gave us two of the greatest “L.A. Movies” ever. One (“Greenberg”) was directed by an outsider (Noah Baumbach); the other (“Somewhere”) by a Los Angeleno native (Sofia Coppola).
Best Buddy Flick: “The King’s Speech.”
Truth is Stranger Than Fiction: “All Good Things” and “I Love You Phillip Morris” might have seemed like whopping tale tales out of some demented screenwriter’s overly fertile imagination if they weren’t based on actual people/events.
Best Documentary: “The Tillman Story.”
Is This Any Way to Treat an Oscar-winning Best Actor? (Adrien Brody Division): “The Experiment;” “Giallo;” “Predators.” While Brody’s “Splice” may have been yet another genre film, at least it was a pretty good one.
Is This Any Way to Treat an Oscar-winning Best Actor? (Forest Whitaker Division): “The Experiment;” “Our Family Wedding;” “Repo Men.”
The 2010 Movie I Most Wanted to Like More Than I Did: James L. Brooks’ listless, misshapen rom-com nonstarter “How Do You Know.”
At Least It Was Short: Failed DC Comics film franchise wannabe “Jonah Hex” had the common courtesy to run a circumspect 81 minutes (including end credits), making it less of a chore to sit through than some of the year’s other stinkers.
Did It Have To Be So Long?: The fact that the underwhelming “Sex and the City 2” misfired on nearly every count (including forgetting about the city) was sad enough. But did it really have to be 21/2 hours long?
Where’s Jason Bourne When You Need Him? Matt Damon reteamed with his “Bourne Supremacy” and “Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass for the surprisingly flaccid — and at least three years too late — Iraq War drama “The Green Zone.”
Best Straight to DVD Release: Lasse (“The Cider House Rules,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”) Hallstrom’s charming “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” starring Richard Gere and an adorable Akita pup.
You Always Hurt the One You Love: With its Cassavetes rawness, bruising emotional intensity and bravura performances by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine” was the year’s saddest love story.
The recession sucks, but these movies were pretty good stimulus packages: “Company Men,” “Inside Job.”