Awards, Lists & Prestige: A Look at the Year-End Awards Craze and the Top 10 of 2010

Now mid-January, we find ourselves in the thick of movie awards season. The critics have published their Best of the Year lists, and just about every other weekend you can catch a glimpse of the Hollywood elite sipping on drinks and wearing their designers’ finest on any number of award broadcasts. But what are we supposed to take away from this frenzy? What does winning Best Picture mean? Or topping a Top 10 list? The cynic in me is tempted to dismiss it all. “There’s no way to determine an objective best film in a given year,” he says. And he’d be right to say so.

On the other hand, the realist in me (a close cousin to the cynic) understands that, for better or worse, the end of the year hubbub that builds up to the Academy Awards is an unavoidable part of the movie industry, so there’s no sense in bemoaning its existence. Despite what one might think seeing the annual onslaught of big-budget blockbuster hopefuls each summer, studios aren’t solely interested in box office receipts. Those glittering statuettes – whatever shape they may be – offer a chance to accumulate that other type of wealth (the non-monetary kind): prestige. The fight for prestige is not limited to studios either. Who wouldn’t want those three wondrous words (“Academy Award Winner”) attached to their name in trailers for the rest of their career?

The problem is that the winners are not always deserving of their new titles. Often, the Oscars generate a lot of (ultimately fleeting) enthusiasm around undeserving films and so the list of Best Picture winners becomes riddled with forgotten movies that, in their year, were deemed the best of the best. The Academy Awards are also painfully predictable. Nominations have yet to be announced, but I can already confidently say that The Social Network will win Best Picture.

Hold on a moment, though. The cynic in me is taking control again. Sure, the Academy Awards are a fallible cultural game that cannot accurately predict which films will be remembered 10, 20, or 50 years later, but they’re hardly worthless. They help to highlight movies that the general public might not have paid attention to otherwise.

A few weeks back, for example, I saw The King’s Speech at my local theater. The movie had been getting a lot of critical attention and the Oscar prognosticators had begun to beat their drums, so I was excited to see it. I wasn’t the only one either. The movie played to a sold-out theater and ended up being a crowd-pleaser. Exiting the theater around me as the credits rolled were excited moviegoers chatting about their favorite parts. Oscar buzz led us into the theater, but the film’s humor and heart sent us home, wanting to recommend it to a friend. The film overcame the daunting expectations that are placed on an Award Winning Film and was able to sway the many subjective opinions in its audience.

Which leads me to critics’ lists. Like the Academy Awards, they do not offer a definitive statement of the year’s best films, but instead provide insight into a critic’s personal tastes. Seeing which critics chose which films as their favorites says something that the blinding glitz and glamour of the red carpet cannot. Of course, a critic’s list can be just as susceptible to end-of-the-year hype as an awards show. In my own experience, I often look back at my choices for the year’s best and scratch my head. In 2007, I wrote that Juno was the year’s best, with No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Zodiac all taking a backseat to that cutesy-quirky romantic comedy. Three years later, Juno is still a funny movie, but each of those other films has appreciated better, rewarding multiple viewings in a way that Juno’s one-liners cannot.

Predicting which films will be remembered years from now can be a tricky thing. So with that limitation in mind, I craft my Top 10 of 2010 list. There were no movies this year that I found truly great in the four-star sense of the word (last year I saw at least four: The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man and Up in the Air), but there were still some very fine movies that may yet become great in time.

The numbered order is subjective almost to the point of arbitrariness, but when organizing the list, I kept in mind the following: To what degree was the film a wholly satisfying experience? How have these films appreciated in the short time since I left the theater (or ejected the DVD as the case may be)? Organizing the list in this way led to some surprising results for me, but I think the list is an honest one. What follows are the ten films that most affected me in their various ways.

10) True Grit

Of course a Coen Bros. western would be heavier on talking than shooting. The prolific writer/directors seem to be able to take their style in just about any direction they please, and their adaptation of the novel that also inspired the 1969 classic is a witty and often violent trip out West. Add a grumbling, drunken Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role and the promising young talent of Hailee Steinfeld and you have a very entertaining film.

9) The King’s Speech

Sometimes the best historical dramas are the ones with the narrowest focus. The King’s Speech centers on King George VI’s stammer in the burgeoning years of the Radio Age. This may not sound like much of a subject for a drama, but the story is a surprisingly touching and inspirational one. Colin Firth as the titular King and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist are thrill to watch play off each other too.

8) The Kids Are All Right

No other movie I saw this year has as keen an understanding of how people interact as The Kids Are All Right. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore star as lesbian mothers who struggle with their children’s desire to connect with their sperm donor father (Mark Ruffalo). This is wonderful comedy that occasionally flirts with melodrama but even then remains an honest a depiction of family dynamics. That the family is an unconventional one dampens none of its universality.

7) A Prophet

This fascinating French film follows a young man’s years in prison as he navigates the multicultural politics of organized crime on the inside. Though only a handful of scenes take place outside the prison walls, the film is as expansive and grand as a crime epic. Absorbing from beginning to end.

6) The Ghost Writer

A political thriller about a biographer (Ewan McGregor) who agrees to write the memoirs of former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) after Lang’s former ghost writer mysteriously committed suicide. Director Roman Polanski hasn’t lost any of his knack for crafting great thrillers, and this one is one of the most rich and involving mysteries in recent years. It has a phenomenal ending too.

5) The Social Network

How much is fact and how much was made up? Does it matter? Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin take the story of Facebook’s creation and turn it into the stuff of Greek drama. Jesse Eisenberg is wonderful as the borderline misanthropic Mark Zuckerberg and is surrounded by a strong supporting cast. Often dark, sometimes funny, and always engrossing.

4) Inception

Christopher Nolan is a marvelous craftsman and he outdoes himself here. He builds, then solves his own puzzle, playing by the rules he invents for himself. The result is one of the most dazzling and inventive action movies since The Matrix. Like that earlier film, Inception toys with metaphysical ideas just long enough to hold you over until the action scenes, all of which are exceptional.

3) 127 Hours

Only Danny Boyle could take the true story of Aron Ralston, who was trapped in a rock crevice for over five days, and turn it into one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Despite the seeming physical limitations of Ralston’s story, Boyle’s film is a kinetic and exhilarating ride. 127 Hours has all the tension of an action movie and its protagonist doesn’t even move for most of the film. Credit must also be given to James Franco for carrying the film in a career-best performance.

2) Black Swan

The best horror movie in years. Darren Aronofsky’s tour de force about a ballerina losing her mind is an eerie, paranoid thriller with top-shelf performances from Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey and Vincent Cassel. There are a number of twists and turns along the way, but the movie wisely does not trap itself into any one version of reality. The movie exists within Nina’s mind, so the question of what is or isn’t real is irrelevant. To her, everything is real, and I’m only all too happy to get caught up in her surreal nightmare.

1) Toy Story 3

Each of the previous Toy Story movies followed a basic formula: The toys leave the house, have an adventure, and eventually find their way home. In between, we’re treated to some exceptionally clever gags and top-notch animation. The third film delivers all of this plus a pitch-perfect, heart-breaking coda. Rarely does a sequel work as hard as Toy Story 3 to thematically unite its predecessors, but Pixar rises to the occasion and ends a wonderful series in a wholly satisfying way. Not even the unnecessary 3D could bring this movie down.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/17/11

REVIEW: 127 Hours

127 Hours (2010): Dir. Danny Boyle. Written by Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, based on the memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. Starring James Franco. Rated R (language and some disturbing violent content/bloody images). Running time: 95 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

In reviewing Conviction a few weeks ago, I wrote that “some great stories just aren’t cinematic stories.” 127 Hours argues quite convincingly, however, that in the hands of a skilled enough director, any story can become cinematic. At first, the story of Aron Ralston (played in the film by James Franco) would seem to be as inherently un-cinematic as they come. Trapped for 127 hours in the crevice of a Utah canyon with a rock crushing his arm, Ralston fought the elements to survive and wrestled with his personal demons during his isolation. Director Danny Boyle, fresh off an Oscar win for Slumdog Millionaire, takes up the difficult task of transforming this material into something visually interesting and the result is exhilarating.

Following Slumdog, audiences should be familiar with the director’s kinetic style. His films are fueled by an inexhaustible energy, incorporating handheld camerawork, split screens and any other device at Boyle’s disposal. One would think that being confined to such a physically small space as he is here would limit his style, but Boyle makes the most of the canyon crevice’s spatial limitations. His camera takes the viewer to the bottom of Ralston’s water bottle, miles up into the sky to provide a literal bird’s-eye view, and even inside the very muscles of Ralston’s injured arm.

Boyle’s stylistic flourishes are not self-indulgent though, but essential to bringing out the humanity of the story. The film visualizes the internal struggle of an isolated man with nothing to listen to but his own thoughts. As Ralston’s mind races, the viewer dives in and out of memories and fantasies. Here we get snippets of backstory. Ralston is confident to the point of arrogant and has pushed away the most important people in his life – his girlfriend, his parents. He’s so cocky that he doesn’t even need to tell anyone where he’s going or what he’s doing the day of the accident. From the bottom of a crevice in the middle of nowhere he replays the accident in his mind and cannot help but see his current situation as the inevitable result of his egotism.

Much credit must also be given here to James Franco, whose performance is a career-best. When presented with a story such as Ralston’s, we often wonder: What would we do if faced with the same situation? Franco understands this and brings us even deeper into the film by making his performance relatable. We see his initial bewilderment and feel his frustration and eventual despair. By the end of the film, Franco has taken us through every step of an emotional catharsis and the experience is a draining one.

Fortunately, that experience is brief and editor Jon Harris keeps the film at a manageable 95 minutes. As editor, Harris maintains complete control over the film’s chaotic style. The combination of handheld cameras and fast-paced editing can often have nauseating results, but Harris knows how to use these techniques to elicit a response from the audience. We only feel claustrophobic or dizzy when he wants us to. And despite the quick cuts in cramped quarters, the audience is always fully aware of what is happening.

Perhaps this is the film’s greatest strength. Danny Boyle has not only succeeded in making a seemingly unfilmable movie, but he somehow made it accessible too. There are a few scenes in 127 Hours not for the feint of heart (Boyle doesn’t shy away from some of the more gruesome moments in Ralston’s story), but the film does a wonderful job of taking an extraordinary experience and putting it into terms we can all understand. More so than Slumdog, 127 Hours puts Danny Boyle on the map of today’s best directors and shows that films can tell any story as long as the filmmakers are up to the challenge.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/07/10

LIST: The Best Films of 2008

For various reasons, it took me a while to catch up with last year’s releases, and I’ve only just finished watching 2008’s more prominent films. Fortunately, just about all of these movies are now out on DVD for your renting, Netflixing, or I suppose, torrenting pleasure. Since the list is arriving late, I thought I’d make this part 1 of a two-part post. The following are my Top 10 films of 2008, with my favorites of the first half of 2009 to be posted in the coming days.

Honorable Mention - a few films that just missed the list, but I still feel a great deal of respect or affection for:

Doubt for creating drama out of the unsaid and the ambiguous.

Gran Torino because Clint Eastwood growled (and unfortunately sung) in an excellent performance.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall for introducing non-HIMYM fans to Jason Segal’s smart, self-deprecating brand of humor.

Revolutionary Road for its brutal depiction of broken dreams in suburbia.

Synecdoche, New York because it’s confusing, maddening, possibly brilliant -- and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

And now, the list...

10) Burn After Reading

I never had much intention of seeing Burn After Reading a second time, but it was on TV and thought I’d watch the first few scenes. Ninety-six immensely enjoyable minutes later I realized I had watched the whole thing straight through again. I used to say I wasn’t a fan of the Coen Brothers’ slapstick comedies, but this is a slick ride through a series of misunderstandings, coincidences and absurdities that moves so effortlessly it’s no wonder I didn’t notice I’d watched the whole thing again. Burn After Reading has a fantastic ensemble cast and is the second Coen Brothers film in a row (No Country For Old Men) to feature virtually perfect editing.

9) Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) proved here that despite working within starkly different genres, he has a kinetic visual and storytelling style all his own. The film bounces from the comedic to the tragic in a touchingly human story that proves the strength of emotion (and game shows) across cultures. Jai Ho all the way.

8) Vicky Cristina Barcelona

This breezy film from Woody Allen may have the feel of a minor work from the prolific writer/director, but it’s not to be dismissed. The film is one the best latter-day Allen films: an examination of interpersonal relationships affected by adultery with a healthy dose of cynicism. Pénelope Cruz steals countless scenes in an Oscar winning role, but it’s Rebecca Hall’s breakout performance that had me hooked. Add some beautiful shots of scenic Barcelona and crackling writing from Mr. Allen and you’ve got a film that is very hard to resist.

7) Waltz With Bashir

This “animated documentary” from Israel follows a filmmaker through a series of interviews in pursuit of memories from his days in the Israeli army during the Lebanon War of 1982. Using a stylish animation (“Not rotoscoping!” insists the animator on the film’s DVD) to bring former soldier’s accounts to life, Waltz With Bashir is an explosion of color and shape. It examines how the human mind deals with war and what happens to those memories years later. An emotional and intelligent film, equal parts war action and psychology.

6) In Bruges

Deepest apologies to Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express (both of which I enjoyed), but In Bruges is my favorite comedy of 2008. The blackest of comedies, this is a foul-mouthed, violent movie about two hitmen killing (pardon the pun) time in the tiny tourist trap of Bruges, Belgium. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson boast the comfort of a classic comedy duo in their banter and Ralph Fiennes shows up at the end for an extended cameo that brings the film to bloody, but oh so wonderful finale. For those who love the politically incorrect or hearing the f-bomb in an Irish accent, a better film doth not exist.

5) Happy-Go-Lucky

A charming character study of the carefree and seemingly air headed Poppy (Sally Hawkins in an energetic and absorbing performance). Largely improvised, Happy-Go-Lucky follows Poppy as she hangs out with her friends, teaches kindergarteners, dates and (most memorably) gets driving lessons from an authoritarian instructor (Eddie Marson). Avoiding a standard plot, writer/director Mike Leigh chooses to follow several threads of Poppy’s life, in an effort to show all sides of her. The final result is not only representative of Poppy’s life, but also rings true on a more basic, human level. It is, at turns, laugh-out-loud funny and quietly poignant.

4) The Wrestler

The fourth film from Darren Aronofsky departs from such highly stylized films as Pi and Requiem for a Dream, choosing instead to simply observe its subjects. The film immerses the viewer in an honest portrayal of the life of a (fictional) former pro-wrestling star, Randy “The Ram” Robinson. Despite the sometimes brutal violence that occurs in the ring, The Wrestler reveals pro-wrestling to be a supportive community of men that share a common interest and the film gets to the heart of what this man wants and needs in his life. I became more emotionally involved in Mickey Rourke’s performance in The Wrestler than any other this year, following his elation and depression with strong emotions of my own. The film examines how people can extend "fake" personas into their personal lives, and the very real effects that result. Exceptionally written, brutally directed and brilliantly acted.

3) Milk

By seamlessly combining historical footage with its dramatized portrayal of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, Milk has an authenticity few biopics possess. Director Gus Van Sant moves the movie at a fast pace, but finds the time to closely examine a man during a politically charged moment in history. Both entertaining and informative, Milk is an enjoyable experience that holds huge relevance for the current times. It also features a superb performance from Sean Penn who always impresses me by absorbing himself so thoroughly in his roles and a strong supporting role from Josh Brolin who has been building an impressive body of work as of late.

2) WALL-E

No other film this year showed more creativity both visually and narratively than WALL-E. It’s a touching story wrapped in an intelligent science-fiction film and might just be Pixar’s finest yet (although I still hold a candle for Finding Nemo). The environmental message never upstages the innocent romance that takes cues from old Hollywood films. WALL-E also pays tribute to such sci-fi classics as 2001. It is a hybrid of all these things, but mostly it’s just irresistibly charming.

1) The Dark Knight

There are very few things I can say about The Dark Knight without resorting to hyperbole or repeating what seem to have become clichés (“the greatest superhero film ever!” “a gripping crime epic!” “iconic!”). All of those things are true, but The Dark Knight gets my #1 spot because it is the most entertaining film this year. Because it is smart and stylish and just plain awesome. Because it has more quotable and memorable scenes than any other movie in recent memory. Because it unearthed an excitement in me not felt since childhood. As a fan of Batman, movies in general, and all of American pop culture, I embrace The Dark Knight with cape-soaring, coin-flipping, pencil-stabbing glee!

- Steve Avigliano, 7/31/09