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Hope to see you over there, thanks!

The following is a list of what I consider to be the best films of 2010, there will be some omissions for the obvious fact that I didn’t see every film that came out in 2010.

10. Easy A

9. How To Train Your Dragon

8. Law Abiding Citizen*

7. Toy Story 3

6. Shutter Island

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

4. Kick-Ass

3. The Social Network

2. Jackass 3D

1. Inception

There’s reasons for all these films being on this list and in the positions they are, if you want to know why leave a comment and I will make sure to reply to it. Here’s hoping for another year of fantastic films.

*Edit: I have been reminded by one of my twitter followers that Law Abiding Citizen came out in ‘09. My confusion stemmed from the fact that it got it’s Australian theatrical release in ‘10.

Jackass 3D (2010) Review.

Jackass 3D is a lot of things, it’s disgusting, it’s offensive, it’s ridiculous, it’s also hilarious, entertaining and most of all 90 minutes of pure fun. But it’s also something else, something rather remarkable. It’s by far the best use of the 3D technology in a film to date. And when you think about it, it makes logical sense that a movie that is essentially throwing shit at the screen for 90 minutes would be the ideal candidate for a technology that benefits from ‘shit being thrown at the screen’.

I won’t spoil anything, because half the fun is the shock value. But if you’ve seen the previous two Jackass films you should know what you’re in for. All the boys from the second film are back and even though they’re getting on a bit they still have just as much energy to subject themselves to humiliation and torture. Their enthusiasm is infectious. I am a fan of the Jackass series and just about every other spin off they’ve been involved in so I admit to bias. The simple fact is if you didn’t like them before this movie isn’t going to change anything.

If there is a problem it’s that the film is so polished, the 3D so well implemented and so gorgeously presented that it almost feels unreal. This isn’t a slam against the stunts in the film though but a testament to this technology. And rather amusingly this film works better as a selling point, even a benchmark (even more so than Avatar) for the brilliance of this technology. But it’s not just the 3D either, the slow motion footage is breathtaking (for so many reasons), with several scenes in the movie being shot with ‘Phantom High-Speed Cameras’ which shoot at 1000 frames per second!

I was an avid opponent of 3D going into Jackass 3D, seeing it as nothing but a gimmick. My opinion hasn’t changed in relation to its gimmicky nature, but the sheer quality of the 3D here is unrivaled. If you are a 3D skeptic and enjoy the antics of the Jackass boys then this is a must see movie as it will open your eyes in more ways than one.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Social Network (2010) Review

Watching The Social Network is a sublime experience. Everything about this film exudes quality, experience, hard-work, polish and just an effortless brilliance that is quite frankly a frightening thing to behold. David Fincher is the talented man behind the helm, his previous works on such films as Se7en, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (to name but a few) almost pale in comparison to the work done here. He not so much directs more he films fiction in such a way to tear down the walls of celluloid and make it as if the story is unfolding and your involved.

The casting is surprisingly brilliant, every one is exactly who they are playing, never did I think ‘oh that Justin Timberlake plays a real good jerk’, I thought ‘that Sean Parker is a real jerk’. But of course it is Jessie Eisenberg who plays the borderline social retard of Mark Zuckerman who steals the show, anyone who compared him in anyway to Michael Cera should eat their proverbial hat because Eisenberg is delivering Oscar material here and years if not lifetimes away from anything Cera could ever accomplish.

Though it is the words which shine as a true hero here, penned by Aaron Sorkin, a man whom is certainly no stranger to praise (writer of nearly every episode of The West Wing). The Social Network’s razor sharp and enviably tight script does not waste a second. I could quite literally not think of a single wasted scene, nor even a line of dialogue that did not contribute to the narrative or character development. Also the script never slows down and patronize the audience, if you can’t keep up you might get lost, so the easily distracted or stupid among you need not apply.

Even simple things prove themselves to be an indispensable part of this film’s experience. Like the soundtrack composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Rose, it’s the perfect compliment to the things on screen. It varies from subtle cues here and there to pounding, powerful selections which are just as addictive as Facebook itself.

Speaking of which it has taken four paragraphs for me to even mention the titular website and perhaps with good reason. This movie is not so much a Facebook movie, as it is a people movie. Certainly it shows the inns and outs of creating a website, from mere thought in mind to billion dollar corporation, the thousands of lines of code and the money behind it. But it’s much more than that, The Social Network is exactly that a movie about the social networks of one man and the people around him who have become a part of it, for better or worse.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

So Christopher Nolan has given us the official title for the third in his Batman films. The Dark Knight Rises, I don’t know about you but this is probably the worst title I’ve heard for a superhero movie… ever. The first one is called Batman Begins, simple and to the point. The second one is called The Dark Knight, a title I wasn’t particularly keen on anyway but makes sense at least and is pretty evocative. But calling the third film The Dark Knight Rises just stinks to me of a studio fearing a title that doesn’t have the words ‘Dark’ and ‘Knight’ in it. As if people aren’t smart enough to know that it’s a sequel to that billion dollar behemoth.

I’m skeptical of this film to begin with, and I worry about the hype it will cause. Not because a Nolan film doesn’t deserve hype, The Prestige and Inception are two of my favourite films of all time. But The Dark Knight was hyped to high heaven and when I finally saw it, I was mostly underwhelmed. It’s impeccably crafted, but it’s not like he’s reinvented the wheel, it’s still only a superhero movie with delusions of depth.

With all this criticism, could I come up with a better title? Probably not, the only title I could think of that don’t have either ‘Batman’ or ‘Dark Knight’ in it was ‘Gotham Vigilante’ and that makes the film sound decidedly low-budget (for some reason). In the grand scheme of things a title doesn’t really matter that much, it’s the merits of the film itself which it will be judged on. Hopefully I’m not left sitting again while the rest of the audience gives standing ovations.

“Sex was like a world so mysterious to me, I really couldn’t believe there was this fantastic texture to life that I was getting to do…it has all these different levels, from lust and fearful, violent sex to the real spiritual thing at the other end. It´s the key to some fantastic mystery of life.”

“Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way. Being explicit doesn’t tap into the mystical aspect of it either in fact, that usually kills it because people don’t want to see sex so much as they want to experience the emotions that go along with it. These things are hard to convey in film because sex is such a mystery.”

- David Lynch on sex.