Here we are, on the de-facto first day of 2011. (If there were ever a day that should count as a mulligan, it's New Year's.) Since we haven't posted here in a while, this seems as good a time as any to catch up on the end of the year's cinematic goings-on, reflect on 2010 in general, and look ahead to the new year in film.
As the tally in the sidebar shows, I've seen a fair number of films since I posted on Black Swan about a month ago, and a fair number of good ones at that. (Just because a film isn't posted on doesn't mean it didn't make an impression.) Foremost of these is, naturally, True Grit. Any new Coen Brothers movie is an event to me, especially one that has them teaming back up with El Duderino and Llewelyn Moss to tell a classic story imbued with Coenesque themes of revenge and redemption, and in a setting reminiscent of Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo (though a bit less snow), and No Country. Their newest film isn't thematically delving in the way Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, No Country, or A Serious Man was, but a film doesn't have to be profound to be hugely entertaining, with a bevy of terrific performances and a simple story masterfully told.
Two other upper-tier films I saw in the past month were 127 Hours and The King's Speech. The former counts as one more notch on Danny Boyle's already impressive cinematic belt, imbuing a single person stuck in one place for days on end, unable to see more than a few feet around him besides up, with more drama than a hundred TV police procedurals and more energy than a hundred music videos. The latter deserves better than to be dismissed as stuffy Oscar bait; though I didn't exactly find the story exciting or compelling (believe me, I'm as surprised as anyone, given my interest in history and royalty), the subtle and touching performances that Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, and ol' Clau-Clau-Claudius himself, Sir Derek Jacobi, turn in are easily worth the ticket price.
We finished the year off with another good film hasn't gotten the credit it deserves, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. (Though not exactly imaginative, ending 2010 with 2010 just seemed too appropriate to deny, especially after having failed to do the same in 1900, 1984, or 1999.) I'd say the main reason 2010 is scarcely remembered nowadays is its bad luck in being a sequel to one of the greatest motion pictures ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Hélas, there are still some out there who have to take my word on that assessment of the original.) On its own merits, though, 2010 has an exciting and intriguing story that ties in well thematically with the original (like it, ending with a new beginning); fine performances by the late Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow, and Bob Balaban (with the original's Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain reprising their iconic roles as Dave Bowman and HAL 9000); and, most memorably, dazzling and gorgeous special effects (except for a mulligan or two in blending the Leonov to the space background) reminiscent of the similarly breathtaking effects in the original, Close Encounters, and Blade Runner. (Those three films had effects by the great Douglas Trumbull, and though he didn't work on 2010 himself, his effects house did, and they all certainly bear the same visual-effects stamp.) The best way I can summarize 2010 is by saying that it's not so much like 2001 the film as it's like 2001 the novel (having read about ten pages back in high school); it may not transcend character and story the way Kubrick's film does, but it nails those elements nonetheless.
Speaking of Blade Runner—probably my favorite film back in high school; as I've said, I'm a sucker for a pretty movie—it's my sad duty to acknowledge 2010 as the year that I gave up on one of my former favorite filmmakers, and all but gave up on another of my former favorites. I was raised on Tim Burton; Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Batman are some of the staples of my childhood, and I've counted myself a fan of his even as recently as Sweeney Todd. But his Alice in Wonderland was so predictable, so idiotic, so mediocrely and unimaginitively executed, so insulting to anyone who's seen Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, or Big Fish, that, as much as it pains me, I can't help but write him off as nothing more than a hack working his own "dark," "gothy," "quirky" niche in the studio assembly line.
As for Ridley Scott, 2010 didn't see him fall as far in my eyes as Burton did, but Robin Hood certainly didn't help. That film is exibit A that both his historical-epic well and his Russell-Crowe well have run dry, and that it's time to make in a new direction. (That should, God willing, free Crowe up to make another Master and Commander film, thereby also fishing Paul Bettany out of the cinematic ghetto in which he's found himself. Also, he should tell his brother Tony to release Denzel Washington from whatever signed-in-blood, deal-with-the-devil thirty-picture contract he's trapped him with.) That's certainly not to say that I'm at all pleased with his plans to return to the now-moribund Alien franchise, with, of all things, a prequel (for those for whom a sequel risks too great a danger for creativity; this way you know where it will end) giving the origin of one of the great unexplained, enigmatic mysteries of Xenomorphia, the "space jockey" briefly seen in his 1979 classic. Maybe next he'll dispel the remaining mystery surrounding the later life of Féraud from The Duellists or Batty's reference to Tannhäuser Gate from Blade Runner. You're in your seventies, Mr. Scott; stop wasting your great ability and little remaining time on mediocrity.
So 2010 had a couple major cinematic disappointments for me, and not a lot of truly great work to counterbalance them. Black Swan, Inception, True Grit, The Social Network, and Scott Pilgrim were all great, of course, but 2010 didn't see a film on the level of No Country, There Will Be Blood, The Fountain, Brokeback Mountain, Eternal Sunshine, or Adaptation. Oh well, maybe next year. And speaking of next year, what's 2011 got in store for us cinephiles? (Other than more installments in the Transformers, Pirates, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Big Momma's House franchises, that is.) Well, Terrence Malick will be giving us The Tree of Life, after working at break-neck speed to release a film only six years after his last. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) If you haven't seen the trailer yet, prepare to be blown away. Spielberg and Jackson will be launching their ambitious motion-capture Tintin trilogy in December. Another childhood-adventure franchise will be wrapping up with the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The summer will see two more Marvel films, Thor in May and Captain America in July, setting the (rather crowded) stage for The Avengers the following summer; meanwhile, DC is getting in on the act with Green Lantern. Genres will mash in Cowboys & Aliens and Your Highness. The X-Men, Planet of the Apes, and The Thing will get the prequel treatment. Not exactly a line-up that has me tingling with anticipation—this will be an off-year for the Coens, Nolan, Aronofsky, and Edgar Wright, who all just released films, and P.T. Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, Spike Jonze, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro, and Charlie Kaufman don't have any new films in the immediate future either—but still my film-loving fingers are crossed that 2011 won't turn out to be a cinematic dead zone (or dark territory, if you prefer).
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