Best Films of 2010

What Were The Best Films Of 2010?


As the sort of man who can’t make a list without making at least five lists about the pros and cons of making one, December is a special time for me. It’s the month where I sharpen my pencil, take out my notebook and distil the colour and excitement of my life into prosaic chart form. Somewhere out there, as you read these words, Nick Hornby is doing just the same, only dribbling.

That said, I doubt anyone reading this cares about the top ten injustices Doncaster Rovers have endured via referees this year, or the top twenty styles of moustache I’ve seen on public transport, so I thought I’d kick things off with my ten favourite films of 2010. In case you were wondering where Inception was, next week I’ll be publishing my ten least favourite films of the year.


In time-honoured tradition, I thought I’d start at ten and end at one. Why not imagine a synthetic rendition of Led Zeppelin’s 'Whole Lotta Love' is playing while you read the list? It’ll be more exciting that way...

10. Up In The Air

Jason Reitman’s George Clooney-starring drama was released at the very end of 2009, yet I’m including it in my 2010 list since, in doing so, it got lost at the tail of the year, and appeared in so few critics end of year lists. Also, because it’s one of the most emotionally devastating movies I’ve ever seen, and contains a message concerning the fragility of life as stark and as beautiful as Rolfe Kent’s astonishing soundtrack. As the director says: “on one hand it’s a movie about air miles. On the other it’s an examination of a philosophy, about living with nothing, with nobody”.

9. Toy Story 3

I’ll get to my usual penchant for gore and sci-fi shortly, but first another film that caused me to blub uncontrollably. Pixar’s conclusion to their Toy Story trilogy isn’t so much a film about growing old, but about growing older, and one which contained a coda as affecting as the intro to their film Up was the previous year. That aside, it was a fitting conclusion to the journey of Woody, Buzz, Andy, et al, and leagues above any other mainstream animation released this year. If it doesn’t clean up at the Oscars in February I would be astonished, not to mention pretty disappointed.

8. - The Social Network

I’ll admit that the news a movie was to be made about Facebook - Facebook! - filled me with trepidation, yet the announcement that said film would be brought to fruition by the team of director David Fincher, scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin and lead Jesse Elsenberg quickly dispelled my fears. When the movie did arrive, I couldn’t have been more impressed. The Social Network is a feature which is more a character study of friendship than it is about poking and growing turnips in your virtual garden, as well as one of the coolest, smartest, most intriguing stories told this year.

7. Valhalla Rising

Directed by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn and staring Mads Mikkelsen as the one eyed, mute uber violent lead character, depending on your tolerance for art-house Viking movies, Valhalla Rising was either unbearably self-important or one of the most baffling, yet rewarding movies of 2010. In truth I found it a bit of both, yet came away from the experience thinking, “I’ve never seen a movie like that ever”. Then, “I wish more movies existed like that, um, wow”.

6. Four Lions

Chris Morris may have told a Q&A session at the films premiere in Bradford that he thought trying to cause controversy “was one of the most boring things you could do”, but many still feared his Jihad satire could have been outrage for outrage’s sake. What transpired was akin to a modern, very relevant, take on Dad’s Army - a comedy that was nearly almost funny, often touching, often darker than night – and I’m not talking about the film’s use of Toploader on the soundtrack.

5. Bad Lieutenant: Port Of New Orleans

Not a reboot, not a remake, but a blatant plundering of the title of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film Bad Lieutenant. Despite taking little content from Ferrara’s movie, director Werner Herzog replaced Harvey Keitel as the titular antihero and created one of the years most fun crime capers. If you’re a Herzog fan, chances are you loved it – it’s strange, it’s challenging, it’s got iguanas in it. If you’re a Nicholas Cage apologist like me, you’ll have noted it’s the actor’s best performance in eons. Sadly, Ferrara didn’t agree, telling Variety he hoped all who were involved in the film would “die in hell”.

4. Monsters

Pitching itself somewhere between Cloverfield and The Road, along with 2009’s District 9 and 2011’s Battle Los Angeles, you might see this British film as at the forefront of a new breed of alien invasion movies – movies that are smart, innovative and, despite the extraterrestrial content, ultimately human. Made on a shoestring by visual effects artist Gareth Edwards and set in Mexico (using storm damaged locations en route as real life husband and wife leads Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy travelled cross country), this was 90-minutes of monster movie brilliance – and one that suggests there’s life in its parent genre yet.

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I’d read, and adored, Brian Lee O’Malley’s comic books prior to seeing Edgar Wright’s cinema adaptation, so there was always a danger the fanboy in me would repel and reject what the Spaced man had done with the source material. Yet despite the odd corner shaved off here, and the odd narrative bridge built there, few films excited me like Scott Pilgrim did this year. What Wright succeeded in above all was in celebrating the minutia which made up the title characters world – the video games, the rock and roll, the ability to fall in love with anyone and anything – blowing them up to fill entire scenes, creating an visual orgy of imagination.

2. Enter The Void

Described by writer/director Gaspar Noé as “a psychedelic melodrama”, the Frenchman said upon release he’d been waiting his entire life to make this Tokyo-set headfuck, only being able to fund the movie after the commercial success of 2002’s Irréversible. Given that film saw its narrative told in reverse, it’s extraordinary Noé managed to find even more rules to break this time round – the whole film is shot from behind the lead characters face, or inside his head, or, after he dies twenty minutes in, from the perspective of his omnipresent spirit. The strangest trip of the year, it’s equally as controversial as his previous film was - perhaps featuring the only CGI, inside vagina money shot in the history of movie making.

1. Kick-Ass

Matthew Vaughn’s superhero caper is number one in this list for the simple reason that no other film released this year left me feeling so exhilarated upon leaving the dark of the theatre. Based on Mark Millar’s comic of the same name - only infusing a tonne more heart than you’ll find in those pages - Kick-Ass is funny, and sexy, and at times, deeply moving; the scene where Hit-Girl (played brilliantly by child actor Chloe Moretz) races to save her father Big Daddy (another impressive turn by Nicholas Cage) – in nightvision - is the most exciting thing I saw in the cinema all year. In August, Millar confirmed a sequel had been given the green light – depending on how quick they get to it, and if it’s even half as good as the first, chances are a film going by the name of Kick-Ass might be my film of 2011 too.

What Were The Worst Films Of 2010?
By James McMahon


Last week I published my ten favourite films of 2010 list. Now, after drafting, then whittling down a list almost three times the size of what appears here, I’m back with my ten least favourite movies. Geez, it is amazing just how many people Uwe Boll convinced to let him make films this year...

I should point out that sometimes I enjoy ‘bad’ movies more than I enjoy ‘good’ ones. There’s a perverse sort of pleasure to be taken from silly dialogue, shonky sets, befuddling narrative (see: the film career of Danny Dyer). None of those sorts of movies appear here. Consequently, not all that follow are ‘bad’ per se, just ten films I found boring, overblown, or just so inane that I will be invoicing everyone involved for compensation to the time I lost to them this year.

Once again, then, in reverse order...



10. A Nightmare On Elm Street

You don’t watch a film produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes imprint - a company that exists to such detriment of good in the world that, when they’re not remaking classic horror and rubbing their money over their private parts, I imagine them spending their time skinning babies and skewering them with sticks – expecting, y’know, Judi Dench. Even so, I was amazed at how bad the reboot of Wes Craven’s iconic 1984 slasher was. The time spent fleshing out the backstory of villain Freddy Kruger – attempting to establish sympathy for a mass child abuser! – was perhaps the most stupid thing about the year’s most stupid movie.

9. Date Night

I’m a fan of Steve Carell and Tina Fey, primarily because of the respective shows in which they’ve appeared on TV. It’s not unfeasible then, that director Shawn Levy might have conjured some laughs out of the pair united in this action comedy. Sadly, all he succeeded in doing was nullifying everything I like about both. Perhaps the problem was that Date Night breaks all known effective rules of comedy. The pace is too fast, there’s no ‘straight’ guy, there’s never any wry foil to the others goofs - what played out was one of the most frantic, frustrating comedies of the year, with two talented leads seemingly devolved to two drunken teenage baboons giggling at their own poop.

8. Shutter Island

As America’s greatest living filmmaker, I’d long been excited about what Martin Scorsese could do if he ever turned his attention to horror. As anyone who saw the film's trailer will testify, this adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel of the same name looked, and indeed sounded – Robbie Robertson turning in one of the years most imposing soundtracks – like it could be one of the director’s latter day masterpieces. As you might have guessed by its inclusion on this list, it wasn’t. More of an idea than a realized film, its tone changed midway through into a ‘shock’ ending that was only shocking to someone who had never seen the film's one simple trick realized far more effectively in an mid-afternoon movie on the Hallmark channel.

7. Cop Out

Written by Mark and Robb Cullen, directed by Kevin Smith, on paper, this buddy cop comedy had everything Date Night didn’t – a straight guy (Bruce Willis), a cohesive plot, Tina Fey’s 30 Rock co-star Tracy Morgan. However, it too had many things that were wrong with it. Someone should have told Willis that being the straight guy doesn’t mean you have to act like you’re asleep. Someone should have told the Cullens that whilst their plot was cohesive, framing their entire movie around a stolen baseball card made it hard to care for anyone concerned. Someone should have told Morgan… actually, someone should have shot Tracy Morgan with a tranquilizer gun, then muzzled him, then told him he was a grown man and not the guest of honour at a child’s eighth birthday party.

6. Gentlemen Broncos

Intended to be released to theatres in October 2009, Jared Hess’ comedy finally limped into filmgoer’s consciousness with a straight to DVD release in March. Speaking frankly, I haven’t got a fucking clue what it was all about. I remember Sam Rockwell. I think Jermaine Clement played a part. Was there someone dressed up as a horse? Seriously, I haven’t got a clue. But I don’t remember laughing. Or understanding anything that was going on. Or feeling anything resembling being entertained whatsoever. A terminally depressing experience throughout. Hess, whose career peaked with Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 must be starting to feel much the same way about his career.

5. Robin Hood

I love Robin Hood. I love 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. I love trippy 80's TV drama Robin Of Sherwood. I especially love what Disney did with it. But let it be known that Robin Hood is a total douche. Here’s the thing: all great Robin Hood adaptations accept this. They understand the campery of a man running around a forest in his underpants is a very silly thing and something to be duly celebrated. What they don’t do is spend a year droning on about the nuances of medieval South Yorkshire accents, honing their swordplay while clearing a space on their mantelpiece for an Oscar. Sorry for only just pointing that out now Russell Crowe.

4. Inception

Christopher Nolan’s film isn’t a bad movie - but it certainly is a boring one. Like Shutter Island it’s one that’s again built around a lone idea (the duality of existences, dreams and shit) as opposed to a nuanced narrative, and while I enjoyed the changing cityscapes, there were too many scenes of people sat around asleep and not enough of that for my liking. Also, the spinning top ending is one of the cheapest cop outs to any movie ever – you might as well just run one frame with a question mark on it for two hours – and also, why did everyone involved have such boring, boring dreams? Maybe I just eat more cheese than they do, but I really did expect a dinosaur to turn up somewhere.

3. Red

To quote that bastion of sense Roger Ebert, “Red is neither a good movie nor a bad one. It just features actors that we like doing things we wish were more interesting”. It’s Ebert’s analysis which forms my principal complaint with this adaptation of Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner graphic novel. Red is a film committed to the act of inertia; resolutely devoted to cinemas cardinal sin of boredom. Frustratingly, there are moments in the film when you think the (talented) cast might rise above it, seize something exciting from the (intriguing) premise – aging CIA assassins are being picked off, but by who? Obviously said cast didn’t think so, judging by how many scenes they spend just endlessly whittering on about arthritis.

2. Sex In The City 2

Never in the history of cinema has there been a film more hateful than the Sex In The City sequel. It hates women. It hates Muslims. It hates gay people. It hates men. It hates sex. If it was a biological organism and not a film, you might find sat somewhere in a darkened corner self-harming and smashing itself over the head with a brick. Not only that, but it couldn’t say less about the contemporary world if Sarah Jessica Parker blacked up and drove across the screen in a Sinclair C5 shouting about how she was voting for Ronald Regan. When the world ends in nuclear Armageddon, future alien species will visit the ruined earth, find a charred copy of this in the rubble and say, “oh well, they did sort of deserve it”.

1 The Last Airbender

As surprising as it is that a film which contains the unintentionally lol-some line, “I could tell at once you were a bender” could be my least favourite film of the year, seemingly there is no end in sight to M. Night Shyamalan’s lack of talent. Much scorn has been poured on the director's live action Anime adaptation – the poor casting, the wretched dialogue, the kooky, cod-environmental message – Entertainment Weekly even ran an article with the headline ‘Who’s To Blame For The Last Airbender?’. With Christmas mere days away, I’d like to make one last plea to Santa. “Please Santa, if at all possible, please stop M. Night Shyamalan making films. It’s all I really want. Thanks. Love James”.

the_hound wrote:why aren't you a fan of dk_stevens from the old Oasis rock forum?

Machete is awesome, but don't watch it with the g/f. It's really incredibly graphic and violent.

the_hound wrote:
and here is the same dude on the Worst Films. Fuck knows why he included Inception and Shutter Island, guess he wanted to be controversial! But at least he included fucking Robin Hood.

What Were The Worst Films Of 2010?
By James McMahon


Last week I published my ten favourite films of 2010 list. Now, after drafting, then whittling down a list almost three times the size of what appears here, I’m back with my ten least favourite movies. Geez, it is amazing just how many people Uwe Boll convinced to let him make films this year...

I should point out that sometimes I enjoy ‘bad’ movies more than I enjoy ‘good’ ones. There’s a perverse sort of pleasure to be taken from silly dialogue, shonky sets, befuddling narrative (see: the film career of Danny Dyer). None of those sorts of movies appear here. Consequently, not all that follow are ‘bad’ per se, just ten films I found boring, overblown, or just so inane that I will be invoicing everyone involved for compensation to the time I lost to them this year.

Once again, then, in reverse order...



10. A Nightmare On Elm Street

You don’t watch a film produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes imprint - a company that exists to such detriment of good in the world that, when they’re not remaking classic horror and rubbing their money over their private parts, I imagine them spending their time skinning babies and skewering them with sticks – expecting, y’know, Judi Dench. Even so, I was amazed at how bad the reboot of Wes Craven’s iconic 1984 slasher was. The time spent fleshing out the backstory of villain Freddy Kruger – attempting to establish sympathy for a mass child abuser! – was perhaps the most stupid thing about the year’s most stupid movie.

9. Date Night

I’m a fan of Steve Carell and Tina Fey, primarily because of the respective shows in which they’ve appeared on TV. It’s not unfeasible then, that director Shawn Levy might have conjured some laughs out of the pair united in this action comedy. Sadly, all he succeeded in doing was nullifying everything I like about both. Perhaps the problem was that Date Night breaks all known effective rules of comedy. The pace is too fast, there’s no ‘straight’ guy, there’s never any wry foil to the others goofs - what played out was one of the most frantic, frustrating comedies of the year, with two talented leads seemingly devolved to two drunken teenage baboons giggling at their own poop.

8. Shutter Island

As America’s greatest living filmmaker, I’d long been excited about what Martin Scorsese could do if he ever turned his attention to horror. As anyone who saw the film's trailer will testify, this adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel of the same name looked, and indeed sounded – Robbie Robertson turning in one of the years most imposing soundtracks – like it could be one of the director’s latter day masterpieces. As you might have guessed by its inclusion on this list, it wasn’t. More of an idea than a realized film, its tone changed midway through into a ‘shock’ ending that was only shocking to someone who had never seen the film's one simple trick realized far more effectively in an mid-afternoon movie on the Hallmark channel.

7. Cop Out

Written by Mark and Robb Cullen, directed by Kevin Smith, on paper, this buddy cop comedy had everything Date Night didn’t – a straight guy (Bruce Willis), a cohesive plot, Tina Fey’s 30 Rock co-star Tracy Morgan. However, it too had many things that were wrong with it. Someone should have told Willis that being the straight guy doesn’t mean you have to act like you’re asleep. Someone should have told the Cullens that whilst their plot was cohesive, framing their entire movie around a stolen baseball card made it hard to care for anyone concerned. Someone should have told Morgan… actually, someone should have shot Tracy Morgan with a tranquilizer gun, then muzzled him, then told him he was a grown man and not the guest of honour at a child’s eighth birthday party.

6. Gentlemen Broncos

Intended to be released to theatres in October 2009, Jared Hess’ comedy finally limped into filmgoer’s consciousness with a straight to DVD release in March. Speaking frankly, I haven’t got a fucking clue what it was all about. I remember Sam Rockwell. I think Jermaine Clement played a part. Was there someone dressed up as a horse? Seriously, I haven’t got a clue. But I don’t remember laughing. Or understanding anything that was going on. Or feeling anything resembling being entertained whatsoever. A terminally depressing experience throughout. Hess, whose career peaked with Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 must be starting to feel much the same way about his career.

5. Robin Hood

I love Robin Hood. I love 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. I love trippy 80's TV drama Robin Of Sherwood. I especially love what Disney did with it. But let it be known that Robin Hood is a total douche. Here’s the thing: all great Robin Hood adaptations accept this. They understand the campery of a man running around a forest in his underpants is a very silly thing and something to be duly celebrated. What they don’t do is spend a year droning on about the nuances of medieval South Yorkshire accents, honing their swordplay while clearing a space on their mantelpiece for an Oscar. Sorry for only just pointing that out now Russell Crowe.

4. Inception

Christopher Nolan’s film isn’t a bad movie - but it certainly is a boring one. Like Shutter Island it’s one that’s again built around a lone idea (the duality of existences, dreams and shit) as opposed to a nuanced narrative, and while I enjoyed the changing cityscapes, there were too many scenes of people sat around asleep and not enough of that for my liking. Also, the spinning top ending is one of the cheapest cop outs to any movie ever – you might as well just run one frame with a question mark on it for two hours – and also, why did everyone involved have such boring, boring dreams? Maybe I just eat more cheese than they do, but I really did expect a dinosaur to turn up somewhere.

3. Red

To quote that bastion of sense Roger Ebert, “Red is neither a good movie nor a bad one. It just features actors that we like doing things we wish were more interesting”. It’s Ebert’s analysis which forms my principal complaint with this adaptation of Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner graphic novel. Red is a film committed to the act of inertia; resolutely devoted to cinemas cardinal sin of boredom. Frustratingly, there are moments in the film when you think the (talented) cast might rise above it, seize something exciting from the (intriguing) premise – aging CIA assassins are being picked off, but by who? Obviously said cast didn’t think so, judging by how many scenes they spend just endlessly whittering on about arthritis.

2. Sex In The City 2

Never in the history of cinema has there been a film more hateful than the Sex In The City sequel. It hates women. It hates Muslims. It hates gay people. It hates men. It hates sex. If it was a biological organism and not a film, you might find sat somewhere in a darkened corner self-harming and smashing itself over the head with a brick. Not only that, but it couldn’t say less about the contemporary world if Sarah Jessica Parker blacked up and drove across the screen in a Sinclair C5 shouting about how she was voting for Ronald Regan. When the world ends in nuclear Armageddon, future alien species will visit the ruined earth, find a charred copy of this in the rubble and say, “oh well, they did sort of deserve it”.

1 The Last Airbender

As surprising as it is that a film which contains the unintentionally lol-some line, “I could tell at once you were a bender” could be my least favourite film of the year, seemingly there is no end in sight to M. Night Shyamalan’s lack of talent. Much scorn has been poured on the director's live action Anime adaptation – the poor casting, the wretched dialogue, the kooky, cod-environmental message – Entertainment Weekly even ran an article with the headline ‘Who’s To Blame For The Last Airbender?’. With Christmas mere days away, I’d like to make one last plea to Santa. “Please Santa, if at all possible, please stop M. Night Shyamalan making films. It’s all I really want. Thanks. Love James”.