Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2010

1. The Social Network (2010)
2. Sita Sings the Blues (2008)
3. Carlos the Jackal (2010)
4. Toy Story 3 (2010)
5. A Prophet (2009)
6. Winter's Bone (2010)
7. Inside Job (2010)
8. A Film Unfinished (2010)
9. 45365 (2009)
10. The King's Speech (2010)
11. The Tillman Story (2010)
12. The Kids Are All Right (2010)
13. Last Train Home (2009)
14. Lebanon: The Soldier's Journey (2009)
15. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
16. Vincere (2009)
17. Restrepo (2010)
18. Secret Sunshine (2007)
19. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009)
20. Animal Kingdom (2010)

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Village Voice Year End Film Poll, 2010

1. The Social Network (2010)
2. Carlos the Jackal (2010)
3. Winter's Bone (2010)
4. The Ghost (2010)
5. Everyone Else (2009)
6. Dogtooth (2009)
7. Black Swan (2010)
8. Mother (2009)
9. Wild Grass (2009)
10. Toy Story 3 (2010)
11. I Am Love (2009)
12. White Material (2009)
13. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
14. Another Year (2010)
15. Vincere (2009)
16. Secret Sunshine (2007)
17. Enter the Void (2009)
18. Greenberg (2010)
19. A Prophet (2009)
20. Our Beloved Month of August (2008)
21. The Kids Are All Right (2010)
22. Shutter Island (2010)
23. Inside Job (2010)
24. Lourdes (2009)
25. The King's Speech (2010)
26. Red Riding (2009)
27. Inception (2010)
28. Sweetgrass (2009)
29. The Strange Case of Angelica (2010)
30. Blue Valentine (2010)
31. Alamar (2009)
32. I Was Bin Laden’s Bodyguard (2010)
33. Boxing Gym (2010)
34. World on a Wire (1973)
35. Last Train Home (2009)
36. Life During Wartime (2009)
37. Please Give (2010)
38. Hadewijch (2009)
39. Let Me In (2010)
40. True Grit (2010)
41. Never Let Me Go (2010)
42. Bluebeard (2009)
43. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl (2009)
44. Animal Kingdom (2010)
45. Father of My Children (2009)
46. Trash Humpers (2009)
47. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
48. Daddy Longlegs (2009)
49. Four Lions (2010)
50. Somewhere (2010)

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The International (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

USA/Germany/UK

Feature Film

Director: Tom Tykwer

Writer: Eric Singer

Cinematographer: Frank Griebe

Composers: Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, Tom Tykwer

Cast: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen, Brían F. O'Byrne, Jack McGee, Felix Solis, Patrick Baladi

Louis Salinger, a single-minded Interpol agent, with the aid of NYPD officer Eleanor Whitman, attempts to bring down IBBC, an international bank that he is convinced is involved in international arms dealing, in Tykwer’s gripping and well-crafted if rather implausible thriller, which, if nothing else, features a breathtaking gunfight in the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Iain.Stott

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Toast (2010)

Not Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: S.J. Clarkson

Writers: Lee Hall, Nigel Slater

Cinematographer: Balazs Bolygo

Composer: Ruth Barrett

Cast: Freddie Highmore, Oscar Kennedy, Ken Stott, Helena Bonham Carter, Victoria Hamilton, Matthew McNulty, Ben Aldridge

Despite being based on the memoirs of celebrity chef Nigel Slater, this light-hearted BBC production is never really all that believable, which isn’t to say that it isn’t enjoyable, in parts at least, with Bonham Carter’s against-type turn being particularly amusing; but the crux of the narrative – a son’s culinary battle with his stepmother for the love of his father – crucially fails to convince. Iain.Stott

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The Young Victoria (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Film

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée

Writer: Julian Fellowes

Cinematographer: Hagen Bogdanski

Composer: Ilan Eshkeri

Cast: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent, Thomas Kretschmann, Mark Strong

Despite its often intrusive, rather cloying score, Vallée’s depiction of the courtship and early marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, examining the political machinations of those vying for the ear of the young queen, with its gorgeous photography, impeccable production design, and strong central performance, is a handsome and diverting if rather safe-feeling period drama. Iain.Stott

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Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008)

Not Recommended

France/Canada

Feature Film

Original Title: L'ennemi public n°1

Director: Jean-François Richet

Writers: Abdel Raouf Dafri, Jean-François Richet

Cinematographer: Robert Gantz

Composers: Marco Beltrami, Marcus Trumpp

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric, Samuel Le Bihan, Gérard Lanvin, Olivier Gourmet, Georges Wilson

Though more focused than the first part, this second part of Richet’s two-part biopic of notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine is less compelling than its predecessor, and only ever sporadically entertaining, with its action scenes more generic-feeling, and the first film’s human drama all but dried-up – but the performances are still generally fine, and the production values good. Iain.Stott

Follows Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008)

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Whistle and I'll Come to You (2010)

Highly Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Director: Andy DeEmmony

Writers: Neil Cross, M.R. James

Cinematographer: Rob Hardy

Composer: Tristin Norwell

Cast: John Hurt, Gemma Jones, Lesley Sharp, Sophie Thompson

After putting his dementia-suffering wife into a nursing home, James Parkin, a rational man-of-science, eaten up by guilt and grief, embarks on a seaside walking holiday; but before long he is seeing ghostly figures on the beach, and being kept awake at night by increasingly menacing sounds, in this beautifully crafted, expertly acted BBC production, which puts an inspired spin on M.R. James’s ghost story, resulting in a film that is as affecting and provocative as it is creepy and unsettling. Iain.Stott

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The Apartment (1960)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder

Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle

Composer: Adolph Deutsch

Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Hope Holiday, Joan Shawlee, Naomi Stevens

With a razor-sharp, instantly-quotable script, incredibly expressive mise en scène, and an outstanding pair of performances from Lemmon and MacLaine, Wilder’s comedy-drama affectingly and hilariously follows the plight of an office nebbish who works his way up through the company by lending out his apartment to a number of adulterous middle-managers for their various clandestine affairs, but comes unstuck when the object of his affections, a delightful lift operator, becomes a regular visitor to his eponymous abode. Iain.Stott

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Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

France/Canada/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: L'instinct de mort

Director: Jean-François Richet

Writers: Abdel Raouf Dafri, Jean-François Richet, Jacques Mesrine

Cinematographer: Robert Gantz

Composer: Eloi Painchaud

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu, Gilles Lellouche, Roy Dupuis, Elena Anaya, Florence Thomassin

The first part of Richet’s two-part biopic of notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine – a stylish (if vaguely flashy) and well-acted thriller – breathlessly flies through the sickeningly violent early years of his career, often feeling like a highlights reel from another film, before (thankfully) relaxing its pace somewhat as it settles down into a prison escape movie for its last forty minutes or so, the film’s most engaging section. Iain.Stott

Followed by Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008)

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Bad Santa (2003)

Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Film

Director: Terry Zwigoff

Writers: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Cinematographer: Jamie Anderson

Composer: David Kitay

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham, Lauren Tom, Bernie Mac, John Ritter

An alcoholic, almost suicidal safecracker, who every year poses as a shopping mall Father Christmas with his dwarf partner in order to rob it, arrives in Phoenix for his annual pilferings, only to be befriended by a pathetic young boy who believes him to be the real Santa, putting his nihilistic lifestyle to the test, in Zwigoff’s trouser-soilingly and foul-mouthedly hilarious yuletide yarn. Iain.Stott

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The Woman Who Dreamt of a Man (2010)

Best Avoided

Denmark/France/Norway/Poland/Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: Kvinden der drømte om en mand

Director: Per Fly

Writers: Per Fly, Dorthe Warnø Høgh

Cinematographer: Harald Gunnar Paalgard

Composers: Kristian Eidnes Andersen, Stefan Nilsson

Cast: Sonja Richter, Marcin Dorocinski, Michael Nyqvist, Monika Krzywkowska, Olga Boladz

A curious and decidedly disappointing misfire from the director of The Bench (2000), this erotic thriller of sorts, which is neither erotic nor thrilling but merely risible, depicts the tawdry, passionate affair that sparks up between a Danish fashion photographer and a Polish economics professor in a Paris hotel, which, when shifted to Warsaw, develops into a dangerous (and rather familiar) obsession for the female party. Iain.Stott

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My Joy (2010)

Highly Recommended

Ukraine/Germany/France/Netherlands

Feature Film

Original Title: Щастя моє

Writer/ Director: Sergei Loznitsa

Cinematographer: Oleg Mutu

Cast: Viktor Nemets, Vlad Ivanov, Maria Varsami, Vladimir Golovin, Olga Shuvalova, Alexey Vertkov, Yuriy Sviridenko

Georgy, a young truck driver, travels through a barren landscape, populated by thieves, corrupt cops, nameless ex-soldiers, and child prostitutes, battling his way through traffic jams and corruption, journeying ever farther into an increasingly nightmarish world, in Loznitsa’s troubling, blackly comic allegorical road movie, a strikingly shot and skilfully acted fable of quite some originality. Iain.Stott

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Carlos the Jackal (2010)

Recommended

France/Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Carlos

Director: Olivier Assayas

Writers: Olivier Assayas, Dan Franck

Cinematographers: Denis Lenoir, Yorick Le Saux

Cast: Édgar Ramírez, Alexander Scheer, Nora von Waldstätten, Ahmad Kaabour, Christoph Bach, Susanne Wuest, Anna Thalbach, Julia Hummer, Alejandro Arroyo, Talal El-Jordi

Edited down from a three part mini-series, this biopic exploring the life of Carlos the Jackal, from his joining of the PFLP in 1973 to his eventual arrest in 1994, taking in a series of violent terrorist operations in between, though consummately crafted and featuring an excellent central performance from Ramírez, is perhaps a little too rushed in spots to be entirely satisfying. Iain.Stott

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The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/USA

Television Film

Director: David Attwood

Writers: Allan Cubitt, Arthur Conan Doyle

Cinematographer: James Welland

Composer: Rob Lane

Cast: Richard Roxburgh, Ian Hart, Richard E. Grant, Matt Day, John Nettles, Geraldine James, Neve McIntosh, Ron Cook, Liza Tarbuck

After being regaled with tales of a blood thirsty phantom hound, Sherlock Holmes agrees (in a roundabout sort of way) to investigate the death (officially ruled a heart attack) of Lord Baskerville, a case that soon has him rubbing shoulders with spiritualists, American heirs, and escaped convicts, in this handsome, well-crafted BBC film. Iain.Stott

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Partir (2009)

Recommended

France

Feature Film

Director: Catherine Corsini

Writers: Catherine Corsini, Gaëlle Macé

Cinematographer: Agnès Godard

Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López, Yvan Attal, Bernard Blancan, Aladin Reibel, Alexandre Vidal, Daisy Broom

In Corsini’s intense, well-crafted romance – featuring an outstanding performance from Scott Thomas – a bourgeois English housewife begins a passionate affair with a Catalan builder under the nose of her controlling doctor husband, which soon blooms into a full-blown love affair, replete with irrational behaviour and a regression to adolescence, as it billows uncontrollably towards its inevitable, tragic conclusion. Iain.Stott

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Taipei Exchanges (2010)

Recommended

Taiwan

Feature Film

Original Title: 第36個故事

Writer/Director: Hsiao Ya-chuan

Cinematographer: Lin Tse-chung

Composers: Ho Zhi-Jian, Summer Lei

Cast: Kwai Lun-mei, Lin Zaizai, Chang Han, Kosuke Atari, Ma Yuli

Whimsical, delicate, and generally quite lovely, Hsiao’s gentle second feature depicts a year in the life of a pair of young sisters from Taipei, following the progress of their first joint business venture, an eccentric coffee shop, which has the gimmick of lining its walls with odd bits of bric-a-brac that can be exchanged for similar items or those of a more ephemeral nature, as they gradually discover who they are and where their dreams lie. Iain.Stott

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Come Rain Come Shine (2010)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: David Drury

Writer: Jeff Pope

Cinematographer: Tony Coldwell

Composer: Edmund Butt

Cast: David Jason, Alison Steadman, Shaun Evans, Anna Wilson-Jones, Kellie Bright, Drew Blackall, Sally Oliver, Kate Miles, Freddie Annobil-Dodoo

Coming across like a slightly sentimentalised Noda Kōgo script, though crucially lacking Ozu’s light touch behind the camera, and switched from post-war Japan to post-credit crunch South London, this ITV drama gently sings an ode to family and the value of not living beyond one’s means, as it engagingly depicts a prodigal son’s fall from grace when his property development speculations fall through. Iain.Stott

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indieWIRE: Annual Critics Survey 2010

1. The Social Network (2010)
2. Carlos the Jackal (2010)
3. Winter's Bone (2010)
4. Black Swan (2010)
5. Everyone Else (2009)
6. Dogtooth (2009)
7. The Ghost (2010)
8. Mother (2009)
9. I Am Love (2009)
10. Another Year (2010)
11. Wild Grass (2009)
12. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
13. White Material (2009)
14. Toy Story 3 (2010)
15. The Kids Are All Right (2010)
16. Alamar (2009)
17. Inception (2010)
18. A Prophet (2009)
19. Blue Valentine (2010)
20. Greenberg (2010)
21. Secret Sunshine (2007)
22. True Grit (2010)
23. Shutter Island (2010)
24. Enter the Void (2009)
25. Vincere (2009)
26. Sweetgrass (2009)
27. Fish Tank (2009)
28. The Strange Case of Angelica (2010)
29. Father of My Children (2009)
30. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl (2009)
31. The King's Speech (2010)
32. Around a Small Mountain (2009)
33. Our Beloved Month of August (2008)
34. Ne Change Rien (2009)
35. 127 Hours (2010)
36. Animal Kingdom (2010)
37. World on a Wire (1973)
38. Village of the Dolls (2010)
39. Somewhere (2010)
40. Life During Wartime (2009)
41. I Was Bin Laden’s Bodyguard (2010)
42. Boxing Gym (2010)
43. Last Train Home (2009)
44. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
45. Red Riding (2009)
46. Lourdes (2009)
47. Lebanon: The Soldier's Journey (2009)
48. Rabbit Hole (2010)
49. Inside Job (2010)
50. Daddy Longlegs (2009)

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Road to Las Vegas (2010)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Jason Massot

Composer: Glenn Jones

At sporadic intervals over a period of four years, in a decidedly unpredictable and ultimately rather affecting if somewhat discordantly and distancingly structured film, film-maker Massot follows a not-so-average working class family (visions from God, age inappropriate dress, ten children) as they try to build a new life in Las Vegas, detailing periods of homelessness and joblessness, drug addiction and marital strife, and death and loss. Iain.Stott

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Reichenbach Falls (2007)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: John McKay

Writers: James Mavor, Ian Rankin

Cinematographer: Neville Kidd

Composer: Martyn Swain

Cast: Alec Newman, Alastair Mackenzie, Nina Sosanya, Laura Fraser, John Sessions, Richard Wilson

This playful and generally entertaining if somewhat inelegant BBC drama, a de-Rebusised adaptation of Ian Rankin’s metafictional Rebus short story, follows the attempts of a gruff, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking Edinburgh detective as he attempts to get over the death of his partner and his wife’s leaving of him for his best friend, whilst he investigates a 100-year-old murder in the company of a shapely new partner. Iain.Stott

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I Was Bin Laden's Bodyguard (2010)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Original Title: The Oath

Director: Laura Poitras

Cinematographers: Kirsten Johnson, Laura Poitras

Composer: Osvaldo Golijov

Cast: Mostofa Ali

Featuring: Abu Jandal, Habeeb Al-Bahri

Poitras’s thoughtfully shot, distinctively scored, and disarmingly enlightening documentary – despite its horrible retitling for UK television – gently paints a portrait of Abu Jandal (aka Naseer Al-Bahri) a reformed jihadist who was one of Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguards for a number of years in the ‘90s, depicting his tender tutelage of his young son in the ways of Allah, and following him as he attempts to eke a living as a taxi driver in Yemen, all the while teasing out his blunted philosophy on the fight against the infidels, as well as following the trial of his borther-in-law, Salim Hamdan, at Guantanamo Bay. Iain.Stott

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Tere Bin Laden (2010)

Cautiously Recommended

India

Feature Film

Original Title: तेरे बिन लादेन

Director: Abhishek Sharma

Writer: Abhishek Sharma

Cinematographer: Santosh Thundiiayil

Composers: Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Jaideep Sahni

Cast: Ali Zafar, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Pradhuman Singh, Sugandha Garg, Piyush Mishra, Rahul Maharya, Seema Bhargava, Barry John

A struggling Pakistani television journalist, who has long dreamt (but without success) of moving to America, decides to fake an Osama Bin Laden jihad video, which he sells (surreptitiously) to his tight boss, in order to raise the funds necessary to bribe his way to his dream, but instead he inadvertently triggers a war between the USA and Afghanistan and becomes Public Enemy No. 2, in Sharma’s mildly entertaining film, which generally misfires as satire, but succeeds better – with Zafar’s likable lead performance – as a shambling buddy comedy. Iain.Stott

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Festival Round-up, 2010

CAIRO

Golden Pyramid Lust (2010)

Silver Pyramid As If I'm Not There (2010)

KARLOVY VARY

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe The Mosquito Net (2010)

Special Jury Prize Kooky (2010)

LOCARNO

Golden Leopard Winter Vacation (2010)

Special Jury Prize Morgen (2010)

MAR DEL PLATA

Golden Astor Essential Killing (2010)

Special Jury Prize White, White World (2010)

MONTRÉAL

Grand prix des Americas Oxygen (2010)

Special Jury Prize From the Waste On (2010)

MOSCOW

Golden George Brother (2010)

Silver George The Albanian (2010)

SAN SEBASTIÁN

Golden Shell Neds (2010)

Special Jury Prize Elisa K (2010)

SHANGHAI

Golden Goblet Kiss Me Again (2010)

Jury Grand Prize Deep in the Clouds (2010)

SUNDANCE

Grand Jury Prize: Documentary Restrepo (2010)

Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Winter's Bone (2010)

World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary The Red Chapel (2010)

World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic Animal Kingdom (2010)

TOKYO

Sakura Grand Prix Intimate Grammar (2010)

Special Jury Prize Post Card (2010)

TRIBECA

Best Narrative Feature When We Leave (2010)

Best Documentary Feature Monica & David (2010)

WARSAW

Grand Prix Incendies (2010)

Special Jury Prize Outbound (2010)

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Cairo, 2010

Golden Pyramid

Lust (2010)

Silver Pyramid

As If I'm Not There (2010)

Best Director

Svetoslav Ovcharov, Voice Over (2010)

Best Screenplay

George Hachem, Stray Bullet (2010)

Mohammad al-Daradji, Son of Babylon (2010)

Best Actress

Sawsan Badr, Lust (2010)

Isabelle Huppert, Copacabana (2010)

Best Actor

Alessandro Gassman & Amr Waked, The Father and the Foreigner (2010)

Best Artistic Contribution

Chito Roño, Emir (2010)

In Competition

• As If I'm Not There (2010)
• Ask Your Heart (2010)
• Born of the Sea (2010)
• Copacabana (2010)
• Emir (2010)
• The Father and the Foreigner (2010)
• Gold Dust (2010)
• Humiliation (Meekness) (2010)
• The Hostage of Illusions (2010)
• Lust (2010)
• Piran Pirano (2010)
• Sauvage (2010)
• So Much for Justice (2010)
• An Unfinished Letter (2010)
• Voice Over (2010)
• Who Am I (2010)

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Watchmen (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Zack Snyder

Writers: David Hayter, Alex Tse, Dave Gibbons, Alan Moore

Cinematographer: Larry Fong

Composer: Tyler Bates

Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino

Imaginatively directed, intricately plotted, and affectingly acted, this big screen adaptation of Moore and Gibbons’s much lauded graphic novel, a tale of fading superheroes and impending nuclear apocalypse, is a mainstream work of rare power, which (surprisingly) makes good use of its budget to (atypically) poetic affect. Iain.Stott

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The Boat That Rocked (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/France/Germany/USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Richard Curtis

Cinematographer: Danny Cohen

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Sturridge, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Davenport, Talulah Riley Will Adamsdale, Rhys Darby, Katherine Parkinson, Chris O'Dowd

An 18-year-old boy, just expelled from an elite public school, is sent by his mother to live with his uncle, who runs the pirate radio station Radio Rock, on a ship anchored in the North Sea, in order (strangely) to set him back on the straight and narrow; whilst in London, a priggish cabinet minister makes it his life’s work to shut down all such institutions, in Curtis’s unevenly entertaining period piece, which makes the most of its likeable cast, excellent production values, and cracking ‘60s soundtrack, but lacks any real narrative drive, and features a number of rather feeble jokes. Iain.Stott

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Slant Magazine's Films of the Year, 2010

1. Dogtooth (2009)
2. The Ghost (2010)
3. Lourdes (2009)
4. Everyone Else (2009)
5. Mother (2009)
6. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
7. Vincere (2009)
8. Wild Grass (2009)
9. Carlos the Jackal (2010)
10. Let Me In (2010)
11. Secret Sunshine (2007)
12. Ne Change Rien (2009)
13. October Country (2009)
14. Amer (2009)
15. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl (2009)
16. Winter's Bone (2010)
17. Prodigal Sons (2008)
18. Samson and Delilah (2009)
19. Hadewijch (2009)
20. 45365 (2009)
21. Ghost Town (2009)
22. Our Beloved Month of August (2008)
23. The Social Network (2010)
24. Greenberg (2010)
25. Alamar (2009)

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The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: George Cukor

Writers: Donald Ogden Stewart, Philip Barry

Cinematographer: Joseph Ruttenberg

Composer: Franz Waxman

Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, Virginia Weidler

A reformed playboy, aided by a pair of blue collar Spy Magazine journalists, crashes the preparations for his ex-wife’s forthcoming wedding to a nouveau riche neighbour; and before long, blackmail, subterfuge, drunken flirtation, and mischievous siblings are all playing their part, in Cukor’s delicious farce, a beautifully acted, oft hilarious, and generally irresistible romantic comedy. Iain.Stott

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The Battle for Barking (2010)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Laura Fairrie

Composers: Harry Escott, Molly Nyman

Featuring: Margaret Hodge, Nick Griffin, Bob Bailey, Richard Barnbrook, Andy Kinggett, Lawrence Rustem, Robert Taylor: William Dunn, Michelle Hill, Saima Ashraf, Pastor James Gitau, Jackie Griffin, Rev Robert West, John Prescott, Giuseppe De Santis, Martin Reynolds

Despite one or two strangely sentimental moments, Fairrie’s remarkably even-handed documentary – a commentary-free account of the battle between Labour’s Margaret Hodge and the BNP’s leader Nick Griffin for the parliamentary seat for Barking in the May 2010 general election (as well as the campaign for the borough’s various council seats) – is a thoroughly enlightening and, against all the odds, decidedly human work. Iain.Stott

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My Father, Pablo Escobar (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

Argentina/Columbia

Feature Documentary

Original Title: Pecados de mi padre

Director: Nicolas Entel

Cinematographers: Mariano Monti, Patricio Suarez

Composers: Didi Gutman, David Majzlin

Narrator: Laurence Fox

Featuring: Sebastián Marroquín, Rodrigo Lara, Carlos Galán, Juan Manuel Galán, Claudio Galán, Maria Isabel Santos

Entel builds a thoroughly compelling portrait of Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria – doting father, philanthropist, wannabe politician, drug dealer, murderer, terrorist – making the most of a wealth of archive material and candid interviews with his exiled son; less successful, however, is the horribly awkward and irredeemably contrived-feeling bringing together of said son and the sons of a pair of politicians that he had had assassinated. Iain.Stott

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Any Human Heart (2010)

Recommended

UK/USA

Television Mini-Series

Director: Michael Samuels

Writer: William Boyd

Cinematographer: Wojciech Szepel

Composer: Dan Jones

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen, Sam Claflin, Samuel West, Ed Stoppard, Hayley Atwell, Gillian Anderson, Tom Hollander, Kim Cattrall

A downtrodden old man remembers his life from horny undergraduate through years as a struggling author to his dog food-eating latter days, in William Boyd’s simultaneously brilliant, infuriating, and often downright ridiculous (though never less than entertaining) adaptation of his own novel, which – despite lasting more than five hours, five hours filled with sex, death, and twentieth century history – often feels rather rushed. Iain.Stott

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All Tomorrow's Parties (2009)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographers: Jonathan Caouette, All Tomorrow's People

Featuring: Belle And Sebastian, Grizzly Bear, Sonic Youth, Battles, Portishead, Daniel Johnston, Grinderman, David Cross, Animal Collective, The Boredoms, Les Savy Fav, Mogwai, Octopus Project, Slint, The Dirty Three, The Yeah

Made-up of footage shot by countless professionals and amateurs alike, and featuring a raft of indie talent, Jonathan Caouette’s celebration of the titular alternative music festival, a decidedly uncommercial venture taking place annually in various ageing holiday camps across Britain, remarkably manages to feel like the work of a single voice, and a life-affirmingly vibrant one at that. Iain.Stott

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White Material (2009)

Essential Viewing

France/Cameroon

Feature Film

Director: Claire Denis

Writers: Claire Denis, Marie N'Diaye, Lucie Borleteau

Cinematographer: Yves Cape

Composers: Tindersticks

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Isaach De Bankolé, William Nadylam, Adèle Ado, Ali Barkai, Daniel Tchangang, Michel Subor

Whilst an increasingly violent civil war rages in their adopted African homeland, Maria, a white Frenchwoman, and her family strive vainly and foolishly to harvest their coffee crop, refusing to believe that their time there is over, in Denis’s haunting cine-nightmare, which develops from suspense-filled thriller to strangely alluring fatalistic character study, following the majestic Huppert towards her inevitable fate. Iain.Stott

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Linha de Passe (2008)

Recommended

Brazil/USA/UK

Feature Film

Directors: Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas

Writers: George Moura, Daniela Thomas, Bráulio Mantovani

Cinematographer: Mauro Pinheiro Jr.

Composer: Gustavo Santaolalla

Cast: Sandra Corveloni, João Baldasserini, Vinícius de Oliveira, José Geraldo Rodrigues, Kaique Jesus Santos, Roberto Audi

A pregnant maid and her four disparate sons, consumed with football, God, and absent fathers, attempt to hold on to their dreams whilst surviving in working class Sao Paolo, in Salles and Thomas’s tender, affecting, and generally understated slice-of-life drama, which unfortunately starts to feel a little contrived towards the end. Iain.Stott

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The Invention of Lying (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Directors: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson

Cinematographer: Tim Suhrstedt

Composer: Tim Atack

Cast: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey

In Gervais and Robinson’s fitfully amusing and gently satirical though slightly sentimental and somewhat predictable comedy, set in a universe where everyone has always told the truth, Mark Bellison, one of life’s losers, learns how to lie and sets about making the world a better place with tales of the afterlife and other little white lies, but struggles to woo the woman of his dreams. Iain.Stott

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Momma's Man (2008)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Azazel Jacobs

Cinematographer: Tobias Datum

Composer: Mandy Hoffman

Cast: Matt Boren, Flo Jacobs, Ken Jacobs, Dana Varon, Piero Arcilesi, Richard Edson, Eleanor Hutchins

After visiting with his aging boho parents in their chaotic New York flat, Mikey, in the midst of some sort of breakdown, finds it impossible to return to California to his wife and infant daughter, instead retreating back to his adolescence in the comforting bosom of the family home, in Jacobs’s beautifully understated and painfully authentic feeling depiction of fear and anxiety, leavened somewhat by moments of gentle humour and great dollops of alluring humanity. Iain.Stott

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Sight & Sound's Films of 2010

1. The Social Network (2010)
2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
3. Another Year (2010)
4. Carlos the Jackal (2010)
5. The Arbor (2010)
6. Winter's Bone (2010)
7. I Am Love (2009)
8. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010)
   Film Socialisme (2010)
   The Illusionist (2010)
   Nostalgia for the Light (2010)
   Poetry (2010)
   A Prophet (2009)
9. Aurora (2010)
   Dogtooth (2009)
   Meek’s Cutoff (2010)
   Le Quattro Volte (2010)
   Toy Story 3 (2010)
10. Certified Copy (2010)
    Enter the Void (2009)
    Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
    Of Gods and Men (2010)
    Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010)
    White Material (2009)
11. Bad Lieutenant (2009)
    Black Swan (2010)
    The Headless Woman (2008)
    How I Ended This Summer (2010)
    The Kids Are All Right (2010)
    My Joy (2010)
    Mysteries of Lisbon (2010)
    Silent Souls (2010)

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CFB's Top 30 Films of 1931 (2010)

1. M (1931)
2. City Lights (1931)
3. Frankenstein (1931)
4. The Public Enemy (1931)
5. Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)
6. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
7. Le Million (1931)
8. Dracula (1931)
9. À Nous la Liberté (1931)
10. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
11. Little Caesar (1931)
12. Monkey Business (1931)
13. Night Nurse (1931)
14. Waterloo Bridge (1931)
15. The Miracle Woman (1931)
16. La Chienne (1931)
17. Kameradschaft (1931)
18. Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
19. The Threepenny Opera (1931)
20. The Front Page (1931)
21. Marius (1931)
22. Platinum Blonde (1931)
23. Svengali (1931)
24. Bimbo’s Initiation (1931)
25. A Free Soul (1931)
26. Dishonored (1931)
27. Street Scene (1931)
28. The Champ (1931)

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CFB's Top 25 Obscure Films of 1931 (2010)

1. Limite (1931)
2. Blonde Crazy (1931)
3. City Streets (1931)
4. An American Tragedy (1931)
5. Tokyo Chorus (1931)
6. Working on the Douro River (1931)
7. Possessed (1931)
8. Trader Horn (1931)
9. The Criminal Code (1931)
10. The Black Camel (1931)
11. The Congress Dances (1931)
12. Alone (1931)
13. Love Business (1931)
14. Safe in Hell (1931)
15. Symphony of the Don Basin (1931)
16. Flunky, Work Hard! (1931)
17. Hyppolit, the Butler (1931)
18. The Struggle (1931)
19. Berlin-Alexanderplatz (1931)
    One Good Turn (1931)
    Bachelor Apartment (1931)
    Anna Christie (1931)
20. Road to Life (1931)
21. Laughing Sinners (1931)
    Working Girls (1931)

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This Wretched Life (2010)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Frankie J. Mosca

Writers: Frankie J. Mosca, Sal DeLucia, Ande Cira, Christopher Pleckaitis, Pawel Litwinski

Cinematographers: Christo Bakalov, Pawel Litwinski

Cast: Daniel Ball, Ande Cira, Michael Callahan Jr., Frankie J. Mosca, Christopher Pleckaitis, Brian Calek, Carol Wei

A man determined to embrace a second chance at life, still recovering from a near fatal overdose, relates to his psychiatrist the time he spent living in a house shared with numerous slackers, each dealing (or not) with their various psychological ailments, detailing their various ups and downs to her, in Mosca’s raw, visceral, and gently humorous debut, which features a number of (generally) fine performances, with Ball and Cira’s turns being particularly eye-catching. Iain.Stott

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Tales from the Golden Age (2009)

Recommended

Romania/France

Short Film Compendium

Original Title: Amintiri din epoca de aur

Directors: Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru

Writer: Cristian Mungiu

Cinematographers: Liviu Marghidan, Oleg Mutu, Alexandru Sterian

Composers: Hanno Höfer, Laco Jimi

Cast: Diana Cavallioti, Radu Iacoban, Vlad Ivanov, Tania Popa, Liliana Mocanu, Alexandru Potocean, Teodor Corban, Emanuel Parvu, Avram Birau, Paul Dunca, Viorel Comanici, Ion Sapdaru, Virginia Mirea, Gabriel Spahiu

Mungiu (who wrote each of the segments and directed one of them) oversees this beautifully human, darkly comic, and surprisingly consistently entertaining collection of five short films (some prints contain a sixth title), exploring the seemingly bizarre act of merely living under Ceausescu’s despotic reign during the final years of communism in Romania. Iain.Stott

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Private Property (2006)

Cautiously Recommended

Belgium/France/Luxembourg

Feature Film

Original Title: Nue propriété

Director: Joachim Lafosse

Writers: Joachim Lafosse, François Pirot

Cinematographer: Hichame Alaouie

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jérémie Renier, Yannick Renier, Kris Cuppens, Patrick Descamps, Raphaëlle Lubansu

A divorced, middle-aged woman’s grown twin sons, hitherto as close as two peas in a pod, begin acting up and taking sides when she announces her intention to sell their family home in order to open a B&B with her new boyfriend, in Lafosse’s restrained and beautifully acted if never entirely convincing family drama. Iain.Stott

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CFB's Greatest Movies by Country, Chapter 28: Cuba/Caribbean

1. Death of a Bureaucrat (1966)
2. Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)
3. Sugar Cane Alley (1983)
4. Strawberry and Chocolate (1994)
5. Lucía (1968)
6. Vampires in Havana (1985)
7. The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin (1967)
8. Cecilia (1982)
9. Portrait of Teresa (1979)
10. Alice in Wonderland (1991)
11. The Twelve Chairs (1962)
12. The Harder They Come (1972)
13. One Way or Another (1977)
14. Lumumba (2000)
    Amada (1983)
    Dancehall Queen (1997)
    The Man from Maisinicu (1973)
15. Life Is to Whistle (1998)
16. The Waiting List (2000)
    Viva Cuba (2005)

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