Most critics do it, so why shouldn’t I?  For the past six or seven years, I have taken it upon myself to create my list of the 10 best films of the year.  It’s not a critic’s list.  I’m not a critic.  I’m a film fan.  This is a fan’s list.  Yes, many of the films you’ll see on the critics’ lists will show up on mine as well.  Good films are good films (and bad ones are bad), no matter who’s watching them. The reasons I will give for their inclusion will be from a fan’s, not a critic’s, perspective.

Before we begin, a few things to keep in mind.  In 2010, I saw approximately 80 films. That’s quite a few, but still a fraction of the hundreds that were released.  The point being, I’m sure there were many outstanding films that I didn’t see.  They won’t be on the list.  If one of them is a favorite of yours, you have my apologies.  Can’t judge a film I didn’t see. 

One last thing before we move on.  The list is not in any specific order.  I’m not ranking them 1 through ten.  In truth, I find it difficult to compare a film like Toy Story 3 to one like Winter’s Bone.  They are both great for completely different reasons.  Let’s just leave it at that. These are the ten best.  Put them in any order you like. 

Winter’s Bone

This film contains my favorite character of 2010.  She is Ree Dolly, the resilient 17-year old girl at the center of the story.  She’s the toughest, bravest character I’ve seen in years. She lives in the abject poverty of the rural Ozark Mountains, taking care of her younger brother and sister, as well as her nearly catatonic mother.  Her father, a meth cooker, has jumped bail and is nowhere to be found.  Amazingly, that scenario gets worse when the sheriff informs her that dad has put up their ramshackle farm to make bail and if he doesn’t appear soon, they’ll lose their home.  Perfect. But Ree is undeterred.  The film follows her on her quest through the frightening modern meth underground of the Ozarks to find her dad, dead or alive.  She is threatened, lied to, physically abused and told at every corner that she’s best off leaving things be.  She’ll have none of it.  The kid is tough.  The film is tough too.  I found it hard to believe that people are actually living this way in America in the 21^st century, but I have no reason to believe it’s not accurate.  It’s clear that many of the smaller characters are actually played by real live locals.  If you see the film, they’re easy to spot.  I won’t divulge how Ree’s search ends.  I’ll just say that many films are promoted as “a triumph of the human spirit,” which usually causes me to cringe.  Winter’s Bone, on the other hand, is all about the triumph of the indomitable spirit of a 17-year old girl who simply refuses to give up.  It’s a revelation how such a dark and depressing story can ultimately be so uplifting. 

Inside Job

How’s your anger management? Inside Job will test it.  2010 was a good year for documentaries, and this one got my blood flowing more than any other.  In short, it’s the story of the recent global financial meltdown and the financial manipulators – criminals- who made it happen.  Sound boring and complicated? It is neither, and it’s an important film to see if you desire any understanding at all of how we landed in the mess we’re in today.  The film does a great job of making the exotic financial instruments like consolidated debt obligations (cdo’s) and credit default swaps understandable to people like me.  With that understanding, it’s easy to see how the whole house of cards came crashing down.  But the film’s main point is not how the house crashed, but who built it in the first place.  You’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about Countrywide Financial, AIG, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, the Federal Reserve, Columbia University, Harvard and most of all, Goldman Sachs.  And you will shake your head in wonder at the arrogance, the stupidity, the greed, the duplicity and the unadulterated evil exhibited by the players in those and other institutions.  Watch in speechless wonder as a group of Goldman executives admit to a Congressional Committee that yes, they bet against financial products they were selling to their own customers, essentially stealing their clients’ money.  Not only do they admit it, they do so in such an arrogant way that they seemingly dare Congress to do something about it.  I wanted to throw something at the screen.  The film was directed by Charles Ferguson, who created an equally maddening doc about the Bush Administration’s follies in Iraq called No End in Sight.  Many people I’ve talked to say they don’t want to see Inside Job because they’re tired of all the financial meltdown analysis floating around today.  I get that. Recession fatigue, I guess.  But this is an important story.  And if we don’t learn from it, it will happen again and again.  Count on it.

The Kids Are All Right

It’s your standard teenage-kids-of-a-lesbian-couple- find-their-sperm-donor-and –forge-a-relationship-with-him story.  People who haven’t seen the film usually refer to it as “the lesbian movie” or something similar.  They’d be wrong.  It’s not a film about being gay.  It’s a film about being human and how we humans deal with the foibles and quirks of the other humans we love and live with. Actually, the fact that the central characters are lesbians becomes almost incidental to the story.  Yes, it adds tension and impetus to the plot, but in no way is it a “lesbian movie.” Julianne Moore and Annette Bening play the, well, the lesbians. Moore plays the freer spirit of the two – a fledging landscape gardener.  Bening is more ordered, more structured, much more uptight.  Not surprisingly, she’s a doctor.  She’s also clearly the adult in the relationship.  Bening gives a performance that, if Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t win it (she’s Ree Dolly in Winter’s Bone) should bring her an Academy Award.  She’s that good. The joy in watching a couple who have obviously been together for the better part of two decades, is that they aren’t that different from a lot of  “old married couples” we all know.  The same arguments, the same taking-each-other-for-granted, the same little moments of knowing each other’s thoughts without a word being spoken – all the stuff straight couples are famous for. Of course, it’s all thrown for a loop when their sperm donor from 18 years earlier enters their family’s collective life. He’s a prototypical Southern California free spirit, played by Mark Ruffalo, as only Mark Ruffalo can play a character like that.  I mean that as a compliment. Anyway, there are laughs, tears, anger and reconciliation.  Just like real life.  Only better acted.  It’s a film that’s involving, smart and funny from the first moment to the last.  See it before the Oscars, so you’ll know what all the fuss is about.

Toy Story 3

There are some films that feel like they are just the right length.  There are many more that I find myself wishing were shorter.  There are very, very few that I wished had been longer.  Toy Story 3 was one of them. I was actually sorry when it ended. That’s how good it is.  It has more laughs than any other comedy I saw, more tears than any other “serious” film and better action than any live “action” movie I saw all year.  The team at Pixar is well and truly incredible.  They are seemingly incapable of making a bad film.  I’ve never had a ten best list that didn’t include that year’s Pixar release.  Today, they’re surely not the only people doing incredible animation. The Pixar difference is that the animation is always in service to a great story, never the other way around. I think that’s why adults are as entranced by their work as kids.  The story in this one revolves one simple, undeniable fact: toys stay the same, but the kids who own them grown up. As a result, Woody, Buzz and the rest are sent on an adventure to what amounts to a toy work camp.  Inside the camp a teddy bear, of all things, reigns as one of film’s all time great villains.  After a series of fast thinking, well-planned escapes, tests of friendship and loyalty, all building to an action-filled ending that has you on the edge of your seat rooting hard for a bunch of computer-animated toys, the whole thing comes to a happy and entirely satisfying conclusion.  With the only downside being it ended much too quickly for my taste.

Let Me In

Let Me In is a remake of a Swedish film called Let the Right One In. It’s a vampire movie. The original is a beautiful, lyrical film unlike any vampire movie I’d ever seen.  Much to my surprise, Let Me In came very close to capturing its beauty and mystery.  It also bombed completely in the American market.  I think I know why.  If a vampire film isn’t a berserk blood-and-guts fest or doesn’t feature Bella and Edward, American audiences want no part of it.  Let Me In is the story of an awkward, lonely, bullied adolescent named Owen who lives with his mother in a depressing apartment complex in Roswell, New Mexico.  He befriends his new neighbor, a 12-year-old named Abby who has just moved into the complex with an older man. Owen assumes he is her father. By now you’ve probably guessed that Abby is not 12 years old and the old guy is not her dad.  She’s a vampire, who has been alive for hundreds of years, and he is her Guardian, whose main duties include keeping Abby safe from the disastrous effects of daylight and hunting the human victims who will provide her with the fresh blood she needs to survive.  Don’t fret, the film is packed with vampire stuff: Abby can only go out at night, creates no reflections in mirrors and can only enter a room if invited (hence the film’s title).  She can also be a stone cold supernatural killer when she needs to be.  And so she is in more than one well-done – and brutally violent- sequence. But at its core, the film is about the friendship and, finally, the love between two lonely outsiders – the socially awkward kid and the vampire who has spent centuries living in the shadows.  They ultimately forge a bond that will literally last until one of them dies.  The film benefits from some of the best child acting I’ve seen in a long time. Chloe Grace Moretz (Hit Girl from the underrated Kick Ass) kills as Abby and Kodi Smit-McPhee makes us believe in the frailty and loneliness of Owen.  And the always-great Richard Jenkins shows us the pain and the obsession of the Guardian. Let Me In probably won’t fulfill your expectations of a vampire film.  That’s what makes it so good.  Give it a chance.

The Social Network

I know, I know.  The Social Network is already on everyone else’s Best Of list and I’m just jumping on the bandwagon.  So sue me.  Sorry, but the film is good.  I enjoyed it from the first minute until the last.  In fact, the first five minutes were as good as any in the movie.  For those of who didn’t see the film because you “don’t care about a movie about Facebook,” it isn’t about Facebook.. really.  It’s about greed and obsession and motivation and genius and ambition and envy and jealousy and revenge and retribution and one guy’s driving need to be recognized as smarter than anyone else and meet girls.  Is that what drove Mark Zuckerberg in real life?  I don’t know.  I’ve never met him.  It is, however, what drives Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.  That’s good enough for me. It’s good because those are the emotions and motivations that make for great conflict and a good film.  Add in the direction of David Fincher and the otherworldly writing of Aaron Sorkin and you have a couple of hours of first class entertainment about a bunch of young, rich, smart guys who actually exist.  Is everything in the film true? Sorkin and Fincher say yes, mostly.  Zuckerberg says no.  Who cares? It’s been a long time since I’ve been so entertained watching people talk (in truth, not much else happens. This ain’t The Expendables.) Who knew a deposition could be so much fun?  It is when Aaron Sorkin is writing the dialogue.  I actually criticized the film right after I saw it, saying the dialogue was too good.  Real people just aren’t that fast, witty, articulate and erudite.  But I’ve backed off of that.  I still don’t believe real people are that fast, witty, articulate and erudite.  But if the film had been an accurate depiction of how real people really talk – even smart Harvard people – The Social Network would have been unwatchable. Jesse Eisenberg is awesome as Zuckerberg – much more interesting than the real guy (watch the 60 Minutes interview).  And Justin Timberlake makes Napster founder Sean Parker into a slick huckster/dreamer who easily draws cyber geek Zuckerberg into the dreamy world of west coast internet debauchery.  Was that true?  Again, who cares?  It’s good cinema.  So is the rest of The Social Network.

Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky makes films about obsession, addiction and, ultimately, madness.  Think about Sarah Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream or Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler.  Both are typical of the obsessive/addictive personalities who populate his films.  Now move forward to Nina Sayers, the prima ballerina at the center of Black Swan.  To call her obsessive doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of her madness.  In fact, I am now convinced that in the small world of  neurotic/paranoid/obsessive professions, ballet dancers stand alone at the top.  The film is a two-hour journey into the fragile mind of Nina as she deals with the mounting pressures of winning and preparing for the dual roles of the White Swan and Black Swan in the New York Ballet Company’s season-opening production of Swan Lake. We learn early that although she is a near technically perfect dancer, there is some question whether Nina can channel the necessary raw emotion into the dual role, particularly the sensuous and devious Black Swan. No need to get into the particulars of the story except to say that Nina’s world gets more unhinged the closer we get to the performance.  It doesn’t help that she’s surrounded by a collection of people whose eccentricities only make things worse.  She lives in a small apartment with a loony, controlling mother who reminded me of Piper Laurie’s character in the original Carrie. The ballet’s artistic director is an obnoxious egomaniac that alternately berates and hits on her. The one other dancer in the company she associates with is a tattooed free spirit who parties, smokes, drinks and just might be trying to steal the role from her. And then there’s the ghostly, ghastly former diva that used to be the star and is now just so much psychological wreckage. No wonder poor Nina loses touch with reality.  And we lose it right along with her as the line between what is really happening and what is in her mind is increasingly blurred. The film concludes with the performance itself and what I felt was the inevitable final result.  After the film, the audience left the theater undoubtedly thinking, “so that’s what it’s like to go insane.”  Black Swan is riveting, powerful stuff.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

I’ll call it a documentary, but I’m not sure it really is. Exit Through The Gift Shop may be an elaborate hoax… or a subversive work of art… or all of the above. In the end, it doesn’t really matter.  And it certainly doesn’t change the fact that it was one of the most fascinating and entertaining films I saw all year. On the surface, it’s a film by a guy named Thierry Guetta who claims to have filmed just about everything he ever did or saw.  We see that he has amassed literally thousands of tapes through the years, many of them chronicling his favorite subject – street artists.  What are street artists?  Many of us call then graffiti artists, but the people we meet in this film are certainly more than that.  Many have become international celebrities.  We see Space Invader, whom Guetta  claims is his cousin.  Then there’s Shepard Fairey, who has created two of the most famous pieces of street art ever – his Andre the Giant “Obey” image and the ubiquitous Barack Obama “Hope” poster.  But the star of the show is the man who stands atop the world of international street art – the British provocateur called Banksy. We hear from Banksy throughout the film, though his voice is altered and his face is always in shadow protecting the identity he has obscured from the world throughout his career.  He is the one street artist who has broken through into the world of international collectible art.  His installations and other works sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The movie takes us to an actual Banksy exhibit attended by droves of severe, pretentious art types.  We see that he has become a huge celebrity whose work is coveted by collectors.  Okay, so far, so good. Then, about halfway through the film, we learn that Banksy has taken over production of the film we are watching because Guetta really had no idea how to distill all that footage into a comprehensible documentary.  Suddenly we’re not watching a film about Banksy, but a film by Banksy.  Which then begs the question, is Thierry Guetta just another Banksy creation? The last half hour of the film deals with Guetta’s transformation into street artist –Mr. Brainwash. He creates a ton of utterly banal, derivative work that is assembled for an over-hyped show that becomes the event of the year in the minds of the Los Angeles art cognoscenti.  Was the whole thing just Banksy’s statement about the cynical, phony hype machine the world of contemporary art has become?  Is he creating Mr. Brainwash and all of his incredibly bad art simply to prove that today’s art crowd can be sold literally anything with the right promotion?  Is he taking a shot at the assembly-line style of art that has made practitioners like Damien Hirst rich beyond their wildest dreams (Hirst is even mentioned in the film – no coincidence I’m sure)?  Is this “documentary” really Banksy’s most recent work of art?  See it and judge for yourself.

127 Hours

Yes, he cuts his arm off.  Yes, you see him do it.  Yes, it’s hard to watch.  Don’t let that dissuade you from seeing 127 Hours.  When I went to the film, I was asking myself,  “How can a film set almost entirely inside tight little crevice, with a seminal moment I know is coming and an outcome I am already fully aware of keep my interest for almost two hours?”  Just hire Danny Boyle to direct and James Franco to play Aron Ralston (the young outdoor enthusiast who wrote the book and – yeah -cut off his arm) and – no problem.  Great movie.  The man who brought us to the world of heroin addiction in Trainspotters and into the slums of India in Slumdog Millionaire takes us on an incredible trip into the canyons of Utah and the mind of Aron Ralston in 127 Hours.  And it’s not slow, or boring or predictable for a single minute.  In case you’re concerned, the whole film does NOT take place inside the crevice.  There is considerable screen time before he is trapped and a certain amount after he frees himself.  There is also a lot of time spent inside the memories and imagination of Ralston.  Combine that with a great AR Rahman score, some amazing cinematography and Boyle’s frenetic shooting and editing style and you have a film that won’t let you go until it’s done with you. By now, we all know the basics of the story.  Over-confident outdoors guy tells no one where he’s going, falls down a crevice where his right arm is trapped between the canyon wall and a huge, unmovable rock and spends the better part of five days (or, 127 hours) down there figuring a way out.  The irony of the film is that because Ralston is so experienced, he knows full well the mistakes he made and how completely screwed he is.  The one shot in the film that will stay with me occurs shortly after he is trapped.  It starts tight on Ralston’s arm and tracks upward, up and up out of the crevice and high into the sky, showing us that our hero was so deep and so hidden that he probably would never have been found. Such was the depth of his predicament. Franco’s portrayal of a guy who knows he’s in huge trouble yet refuses to give up or give in is amazing. Especially when you consider the fact that he never has anyone but himself, or his video camera, to talk to.  And talk he does, showing us determination, exasperation, sadness, humor, sarcasm – everything but hopelessness.  The sequence when he interviews himself in his own self-produced talk show sequence is sad, funny and exceptional – all at once.  If he wins the Oscar – and he’s a legit contender – that will be the scene that seals the deal.  In the end, 127 Hours is not a film about a guy stuck in a canyon.  It’s about a refusal to give up and a willingness to do whatever it takes to survive. Yes, it ‘s another one of those “triumph of the human spirit” deals.   And even though you’ll go into the film knowing he’ll make it out, I promise you’ll give a little private fist pump when he does.  That’s good film making.

Catfish

Earlier I said that The Social Network wasn’t really a film about Facebook.  However, in 2010, there was a film about Facebook.  It’s called Catfish. Was it one of the ten best films of the year from a directing or acting or cinematic standpoint?  Not even close.  So why is what is essentially a homemade documentary on my top ten? Because no other film I saw during the year affected me in quite the same way.  No other film made me think about today’s digital/virtual/socially-networked world in the way this one did.  No film, not even many better ones, stuck with me the way this one did.  It was fascinating, bizarre and in the end, an odd mixture of incredibly sad and strangely optimistic.  It also had one of the strangest marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen.  If you saw any of the trailers, the film was presented as some kind of quasi-documentary shock-horror Blair Witch knock-off with “a final 40 minutes you’ll never forget!” I don’t know what movie that is, but it’s not Catfish. The film is a documentary, I suppose.  It was created by two New York City-based independent filmmakers – Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost – and tells the story of Schulman’s 24-year old brother Nev.  Nev is a freelance photographer whose work contains many shots of New York’s professional dancers.  Of course, many of his photos are posted on Facebook.  He soon begins receiving intricately done paintings of his photos created by a precocious 12-year-old from Michigan named Abby.  Eventually, a Facebook relationship with Abby develops, and not long after that grows into a deeper connection with Abby’s beautiful older sister, Megan.  A digital romance develops and flourishes until Nev begins to notice that a few things about Megan, Abby and their whole Michigan existence seem just a bit…off.  It’s time for a road trip to Michigan and, ultimately, the discovery of the “secret” of Catfish.  I won’t divulge the whole thing, but if you’ve heard or read anything about the film you already know that Abby is a normal 12-year –old kid… who can’t paint at all.  Megan, well, Megan doesn’t exist at all outside the digital universe of Facebook.  The explanation, and the person, behind the whole mystery, isn’t scary or even that shocking (and yes, to answer the question I have been asked many times, the meaning of the film’s title is explained).  But, as I said, there is a certain amount of sadness mixed with odd optimism as the mystery reveals itself.  What got to me was the realization that there are probably thousands, if not millions, of “Megans” out there on Facebook and other social sites – people who exist only in the vivid imaginations of their anonymous creators.  People who we are totally willing to accept as real as long as they have a photo, a profile and respond to our posts.  For me, it’s nothing less than a new definition of what we consider “real.”  I don’t know if it’s scary or harmless – or both.  At any rate, I maintain it’s something to think about, especially as we log on to check on our friends’ updates, comments and check-ins. I didn’t really think much about it until I saw Catfish.  I do now.

Honorable Mention

As with any list of this type, there is a process of elimination.  It’s a top ten, but that doesn’t mean I only saw ten good films in the course of the year.  A certain number were very good and just missed.  I didn’t want to leave them out entirely, so I gave myself the time-honored cop out of an Honorable Mention list.

Inception – Totally new setting for a fairly standard “brilliant thief and crew of eclectic experts” caper movie structure.  Looked and sounded awesome.  Still confused by the ending.

Animal Kingdom – Australian crime family, unlike any I’ve ever seen in a film.  No American studio would ever make this movie.

The Tillman Story – Another documentary that will make you angry. It’s about football player/fallen hero Pat Tillman and the military’s whitewashing of his death.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Lisbeth Salander should NOT be messed with.

Jackass 3D – Sorry, but Jackass movies will always make my list.

Four Lions  – An absurdly funny movie about suicide bombers.  Really.

The Ghost Writer – Came and went quietly.  It’s a really good Roman Polanski film.

True Grit – The Coen Brothers are money.

What I’m not going to do here is review the films I saw. I did reviews in my last entry. No need for more of that. Instead, I’m going to share some observations from my first trip to what has become America’s largest and most influential film festival.

A Trip to Sundance Doesn’t Need to Cost an Arm and a Leg

I suppose you can spend a ton at Sundance, but you don’t have to. Tickets to the screenings are $15 each. And if you stay in Salt Lake City, which is only a 35-minute drive on I-80 from Park City, there are a bunch of affordable hotels and restaurants. Leave the high-end resorts and pricey Park City restaurants to the folks from Paramount and Universal with the big expense accounts.

Given Its Size and Scope, Sundance is Really Well Organized

The festival lasts 11 days. It screens more than 500 different films in 15 different theaters in four different cities. Screenings begin at 8:30 each morning and go past midnight every day. And it all runs like clockwork. The shuttle buses are there to take you where you need to go when you need to get there. The screenings start on time. The quality of the sound and picture in every venue – many of which are not movie theaters – is impeccable. There are volunteers everywhere to get you in and out of screenings, answer questions, fix problems and deal with complaints. I’m guessing they probably started working on the logistics for the 2011 festival the day after the 2010 version ended. The preparation shows. Sundance has become a well-oiled machine.

The Audience Is Surprisingly Diverse

Full disclosure. I went to Sundance fully expecting to be immersed in a world of insufferable hipsters, pretentious film snobs and obnoxious Hollywood types. Granted, I ran into all three, but the bulk of the crowds were, for the most part, normal people. Young people, seniors, parents and kids, gay, straight, Muslims, Mormons, Asians, African-Americans and Caucasians. And because they receive a discount on tickets, the screenings attract lots of locals. The one thing everyone shared was a love of film and a desire to see things that probably aren’t going to show up at the local multiplex.

Finally, there was one more thing about the Sundance audiences that I found surprisingly refreshing, leading to my next observation:

Sundance Audiences Are Unfailingly Polite

They queue up and wait patiently until it’s time for their screening to be seated. They show up on time. They don’t cut in line. They carry on intelligent conversations about film with others while waiting in line. They turn off their cell phones during the films. Let me repeat that: They turn off their cell phones during the films. They don’t carry on personal conversations while others are trying to hear the movie. They applaud for every film. They stay engaged and ask intelligent questions at screenings that feature Q & A (and most do). In other words, while the audiences may look a lot like those you’re likely to see on a regular Saturday at your favorite 16-screener, they certainly don’t act like them. Did I mention they turn off their cell phones during the films?

The Festival Is a Corporate Marketing Extravaganza

Honda, Hewlett-Packard and Entertainment Weekly were the primary corporate sponsors. Their logos, cars, magazines and materials were everywhere. Everyone was walking around with water bottles compliments of Brita. Every volunteer wore a jacket or vest emblazoned with a huge Kenneth Cole logo that stretched from shoulder to shoulder. Even the areas containing the serpentine lines we all had to stand in while waiting to get in to screenings were sponsored – appropriately – by Southwest Airlines. I suppose one could be up in arms that an event that began as a small, iconoclastic festival celebrating the rebellious spirit of independent filmmakers has become a “marketing platform” for companies like Honda and hp. But I’m not. What isn’t sponsored these days? Concert tours, college bowl games and fireworks displays all have corporate sponsorship attached. Why not the country’s biggest film festival? If the marketing support helps them make the event bigger, better and available to more people, where’s the harm? In America, that’s how we roll.

A Word About the Films

I saw seven features and five shorts in two and a half days. I would have seen eight, but the airline sponsor of the festival – Southwest – was 90 minutes late out of Las Vegas, denying me the opportunity to stand in their “sponsored” line to get into my first screening. But I digress.

Here’s the thing. Just because a film has been chosen to screen at Sundance does not mean it’s a masterpiece. Of the features I saw, three were very good, three were pretty good and one was ponderous, pretentious, political and – for all I know – still running. I bailed out after two hours when it was showing no signs of ending.

I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that ratio pretty much held true for the whole festival. Some great, most pretty good and a few just difficult to get through. That’s OK. That’s the joy of film, especially independent and off-the-beaten-track film. Things get tried, experiments are conducted, and first-time directors gain the experience of making their first films. Not everything works for everyone. But everything probably works for someone. The joy of a festival like Sundance is that of discovery. I walked into each screening without any clue or preconception of what to expect. The point is, you never know. Chances are good you’ll see a film that will never show up at any theater or on any cable channel. Then again, you just might get a year’s head start on something great. Case in point: One of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Film – Precious – premiered at the 2009 Sundance Festival. More than 20 years ago, a young unknown director named Quentin Tarantino brought a film called Reservoir Dogs to Park City. Stories like that abound. Think how cool it would have been to be at one of those screenings.

Overall, Sundance exceeded almost every one of my expectations. I had a great time. I wouldn’t want to do it every weekend, but it is great to immerse myself in film with thousands of others who share the same passion. I would suggest to anyone who enjoys the medium to get to a festival of some sort. It doesn’t have to be Sundance or Cannes. There are hundreds of smaller festivals throughout the year. Find one and enjoy it. We used to have one here in Las Vegas call CineVegas. It was great fun. Unfortunately, it was also a victim of the economic downturn. It is now “on hiatus.” No one knows if it will ever return. Which is a shame, because Las Vegas, with its theaters, its resorts, its nightlife and its energy, is the perfect place for a world-class fest. Anyone can dare to dream. In the meantime, I’m already making plans for my next visit to Park City.

First, some thoughts about 2009. A pretty solid year. Any time I can compile a list with films by the Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog and Pixar Studios, it’s been a good year. In fact, I had a hard time narrowing the list to 10.

But since it’s my list, I also give myself the opportunity to present an Honorable Mention list, for films that were really good, but not quite Top 10. There is no limit to the number of films on that list. Like I said, it’s my list.

Now, a disclaimer. As you read on and say, “But what about…?” or “How could he leave out…?” remember that I see a lot of films, but I don’t see them all. So, before you get upset, here’s a brief list of the films that received positive buzz this year that I just haven’t seen yet. I’m sure they’re all very good: Sin Nombre, Sugar, Tyson, Somers Town, In the Loop, The Cove, An Education, The Messenger, Me and Orson Welles, A Single Man, Crazy Heart, The Young Victoria and The Last Station.

One last note (I promise): I don’t present the list in any order. I don’t have a No. 1 and a No. 6. I find it almost impossible to rate a small documentary against a big-budget special effects extravaganza, for instance. So, a film makes the Top 10, or it doesn’t. That’s it.

Here we go.

A Serious Man – The Coen Brothers make different types of movies. There are the funny Coens – Raising Arizona, Brother, Where Art Thou? Big Lebowski; the dark Coens – Blood Simple, Barton Fink, No Country for Old Men; the dark and funny Coens – Burn After Reading, Fargo. A Serious Man is dark and funny and great. Put simply, it’s a version of the Book of Job set in mid-’60s Minnesota. This time, Job is Larry Gopnik, a Jewish everyman with a family and a position as an as-yet-untenured professor at a Midwestern university. The fact that the Coens grew up the sons of professors in mid-’60’s Minnesota is, I’m sure, entirely coincidental. Anyway, as poor Larry tries to cope while being visited by every conceivable trial, tribulation and tragedy, we sit and wonder how things can get any worse. And they do, right through the film’s downbeat, and perfect, ending. The funny thing is, it’s funny. A lot of people I know didn’t like A Serious Man. Too dark, too Jewish, no recognizable stars. That’s OK. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. I don’t think the brothers meant it to be. At this point, they’ve earned the right to make the films they want to make. I’m glad they made this one.

Every Little Step – One of life’s little pleasures is finding a small movie that I didn’t know much about and wind up happily surprised. Every Little Step is one of those. It’s a documentary that follows the nearly yearlong process of auditioning for and casting a Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. The cameras were allowed to record it all: the auditions; the private discussions with the producers, choreographer and others; vintage footage of the original Broadway production; interviews with some of the performers from the original (one of whom is choreographing the revival) and of course, the thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, aspirations and trepidations of the actors trying to win the roles. I learned a lot. How tough, and long, the process of choosing a cast is. How difficult it is to win a role, because all of the actors competing are so good. I saw the intense pressures of the callbacks, along with the joys of winning and the disappointment in coming close and missing out. I discovered the groundbreaking importance of this particular play to those who make a living on Broadway. I’m not a big Broadway musical guy, but I was fascinated every step of the way. It was easily my favorite documentary of the year.

Up – I don’t think I’ve ever had a year without a Pixar film in my Top 10. No exception in 2009. Up is superb, just like WALL. E, Cars and The Incredibles before it. Cool story, great images, excellent jokes – I still smile when I think of the voice-synthesizers that give us insight into how dogs think (“Squirrel!”). And the still-photo montage that covers more than 50 years of Carl and Ellie Frederickson’s life together in about four amazing minutes is virtually perfect. It should be shown to every student in every film school in America as a lesson in how to use a montage effectively and emotionally while avoiding all the clichés. It is wonderful. Finally, how can I not like an animated film that includes an extended visual homage to Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo? That they would even include homage to Fitzcarraldo is further proof that Pixar exists on a level above the rest of us.

Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call, New Orleans – Speaking of Werner Herzog, in 2009 he blessed us with this delightful descent into madness. The original Bad Lieutenant, released in 1992, was directed by Abel Ferrera and starred Harvey Keitel. It is still one of the grimmest films I’ve even seen, as it chronicles one police lieutenant’s downward spiral into drugs and depravity. Herzog’s film is not really a remake as much as a (to use the current Hollywood cliché) re-imagining. This one is set in New Orleans, right after Hurricane Katrina. The lieutenant is played by Nicolas Cage. Not the silly National Treasure/Ghost Rider Nicholas Cage. He’s no fun. This film features the crazy, unhinged Leaving Las Vegas Nicolas Cage. Much better. As in the original, the lieutenant is really bad. He takes an alarming amount of street and prescription drugs, is not above shaking down young couples outside a nightclub for reasons I won’t go into, and has no qualms about storming into an assisted living facility and cutting off the oxygen of an elderly patient in order to extract information. But he’s also very kind to his girlfriend (who happens to be a prostitute) and is willing to care for his father’s dog. The film takes the original’s premise and renders it with an ironic smile, right up to the ridiculous ending that ties up every loose end in about three jaw-dropping minutes. Herzog is having fun. So is Cage. And so will you, as you try to figure out if the iguanas are really there.

Inglourious Basterds – It’s not perfect. It’s about 40 minutes longer than it needs to be. It has holes in its logic you could drive a truck through. And there are times when Quentin Tarantino indulges his joy for his own dialogue just a bit excessively. But here it is on my Top 10. Because it’s fun! A roving band of Jewish Nazi scalp-hunters under the command of a brash, Southern-accented lieutenant who has no idea how ridiculous he sounds when trying to speak Italian. A beautiful French theater owner with a lifelong grudge she has one great opportunity to settle. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and the rest of the Nazi high command, together in one place at one time – to watch a movie! And at the center of it, the evil, brilliant, cunning SS Colonel Hans Landa, who conducts interrogations, uncovers plots and generally messes with the good guys while effortlessly slipping in and out of four different languages. He is one of Tarantino’s most interesting and compelling bad guys – ever. He’s played by Christoph Waltz, a German actor whose performance, in my opinion, towers above all others in the film. Inglourious Basterds has all the great Tarantino stuff: serpentine plotlines that eventually intersect; quick splashes of brutal violence; an esoteric and interesting soundtrack; and, of course, the dialogue. No one but Quentin Tarantino could have made this film. No one else would have even thought of it. I’m glad he did.

District 9 – There were two pretty big “aliens vs. humans” films released this year. District 9 is the one that didn’t cost $300 million. The film was produced by Peter Jackson (the Lord of the Rings guy) and directed by a young South African named Neil Blomkamp. The two had originally been signed to do a big-budget production based on the video game Halo. That deal fell through and Jackson suggested that instead they do a feature based on a short film Blomkamp had made about aliens stranded in Johannesburg. District 9 was born. It’s about a group of aliens who landed in Jo-Burg, got stuck due to mechanical issues on their ship and have remained segregated inside a ghetto for 28 years. They look like giant shellfish (the humans call them “prawns”), speak in a language of clicks and pops and are clearly the intellectual equals of their human captors. Any parallels drawn between their situation and the past apartheid policies of the South African government are obvious and highly encouraged. But that’s enough about politics. Let’s get on to the cool stuff. All the aliens really want to do is fix their ship and get outta Dodge, but the humans have a reason to keep them there. They want to learn how to use their weapons. You see, in that other movie, the aliens use their DNA, and some cords in their ponytails, to communicate with animals and plants. How nice. In District 9, the aliens use their DNA to fire their kick-ass weapons. How cool. Anyway, the humans are trying to figure out how to fire the alien guns, a resourceful alien does manage to fix the ship, a human turns into an alien, an unbelievably violent battle ensues and the ship finally flies away, leaving many aliens behind – including the new human/alien hybrid guy – but promising to return. Hello, sequel. I see a bunch of films every year, and rarely do I leave one saying I’d never seen anything like that before. I did after District 9. It’s raw, gritty and – even though it’s about aliens who resemble shrimp – incredibly real. For about a tenth of the cost of a trip to Pandora.

Up in the Air – The press and the critics have been saying that this film is a reflection of the zeitgeist of our time, a seriocomic look into the world of corporate downsizing and the emotional pain of losing one’s job. Well, yeah. The film has all that. And its use of real people who have actually lost their jobs is very poignant and effective. But, ultimately, I think it’s about something else. I think it’s about connections. The main guy, Ryan Bingham, is a road warrior who spends 325 days a year on the road firing people and leading them into “career transition counseling.” He’s really good at making travel connections, airline connections and racking up his frequent flier miles. He’s not so good at human connections. In fact, he has a second career as a motivational speaker, telling people to get rid of their connections – empty their backpacks, he says – and keep moving forward. His world of airports, VIP lounges and Hilton Hotels is where he finds comfort, surrounded by others yet isolated at the same time. Enter a young Ivy League grad – Natalie Keener – with an idea to pull everyone off the road and start firing people via teleconference. Of course, she and Bingham become the ultimate odd couple, thrown together out on the road as he shows her the realities of informing people their world is about to collapse. They both learn a great deal. She concludes that firing people might not be her best career choice. And Ryan, seeing the empty capsule his life has become, begins efforts to actually connect with his family and the woman who has become his sometime hookup. He succeeds, and he doesn’t. The film is emotional, without being overly maudlin. It’s also funnier than I expected, with most of the good lines given to Natalie and her observations on Ryan’s miles-obsessed lifestyle. George Clooney is a bona fide MOVIE STAR. He’s good in bad movies. He’s great in this one. Anna Kendrick is cute, vulnerable and, at the same time, bitingly sarcastic as Natalie. And special props to Danny McBride, who leaves the insanity of his Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express characters behind and brings a nice believability to a small role. There’s also a great cameo from Sam Elliott.
So make a connection with your son, daughter, parent or significant other and see Up in the Air. You can bond over it.

The Hurt Locker – Who are my friends? Who are the enemy? Who wants to see me die, or see me live? Who doesn’t care? In the streets of Bagdad, and in The Hurt Locker, the answer to all of those questions is the same: “Who knows?” For the three-man bomb disposal unit at the center of this film, not knowing those answers could literally kill them. A number of films have tried to capture the stress and madness of the war in Iraq. Most have fallen short. Not this one. To say the film is intense is an understatement. Watching it is physically draining. You learn in the first five minutes that any IED can blow at any time, and you keep that knowledge with you through every run the unit makes. You hold your breath along with Sgt. William James as he surveys each bomb and tries to decide which wire to cut. You scan the crowds that always gather, right along with James’ partners, trying to find the man, woman or child in the group who might be holding the cell phone that will detonate the device before James can disarm it. And just like them, you don’t know. Sgt. James is very good at what he does. He’s also a little bit crazy. Jeremy Renner plays the part in a way that shows us James is as exhilarated as he is stressed by his job. He takes chances that he probably shouldn’t. But he does so with an arrogant belief in his own skills that makes him confident he can pull it off. The rest of us aren’t so sure. This is a tight, simple movie that deals with a big issue by keeping it small. We spend most of the film with James and his unit. The film doesn’t ask us to judge anything. It just shows us what it’s like to do a horrible job under horrible conditions in a horrible place. The script was written by Mark Boal, a journalist who spent time in Iraq embedded with this type of unit, so it’s no surprise that it feels totally real. Kathryn Bigelow directed it in the straightforward, economical style that she showed in films like Point Break, Near Dark and Blue Steel. Some better known – and higher paid – action directors out there could learn some things watching her films. We all learn some things watching The Hurt Locker.

Precious – Most films I see because I want to. But every year there are a few that I feel I have to see. They have the critical buzz, I know they’ll be big at awards season and/or they deal with an “important” issue. So I go, approaching it like a school assignment. That was my attitude about Precious. Wrong. This is a great film. Granted, the story of a virtually illiterate, pregnant 300+-pound teenage girl named Precious Jones who is already the mother of a Down Syndrome child and is trying to survive on the mean streets of Harlem in the mid-’80s isn’t necessarily one that’s going to set your heart soaring. Oh yeah, did I mention that both of her kids were fathered by her father, who has now left Precious and her mother living together in their walk-up tenement apartment? Total downer, right? Well, yes … and no. True, things look bad for Precious, but throughout the film we realize that she is resilient, smarter than we originally believed and in possession of a vivid imagination that can literally take her away to beautiful places when the situation in her real world gets too awful. The cool thing is, the audience gets to see Precious’ flights of fancy as she is adored as a movie star or Queen of the Prom. It’s a great way to learn that her mind has not succumbed to the darkness. By the end of the film, Precious has come a long way and seems to have a least a shot at a better future. Will it pan out? Maybe. We don’t find out, but at least she has a chance. In her world, that’s the most one can expect. A young actress named Gaboury Sibide plays Precious. She’s great, letting us see the quiet dignity beneath the sad, silent surface. But the true revelation is comedienne Mo’Nique, who plays Precious’ mother. It has become something of a cliché to call portrayals of negative characters “brave.” But Mo’Nique’s performance is completely fearless. To call her character a monster is an insult to monsters everywhere. She is much worse. And Mo’Nique holds nothing back. It’s a frighteningly good portrayal of a frighteningly bad human being. The rest of the players are solid as well, with a special mention for Mariah Carey, of all people. With almost no makeup and a full-on New York accent, she is almost unrecognizable as a tough but empathetic welfare office counselor. She’s only in the film for about 10 minutes, but she is an integral part of the film’s key scene. She’s surprisingly good. You’ll also see Lenny Kravitz in a role you wouldn’t expect. If you’ve avoided Precious because of the dark subject matter, think again. It can be tough to watch, but the total effect will leave you feeling better for having made it to the end.

(500) Days of Summer – I know I’m going to get raked over the coals for this one, but I can’t help it. I really liked it. Yes, it’s a lighter-than-air romantic comedy that doesn’t deal with any of the big issues a lot of other films on the list take on. Yes, it includes a mid-story song-and-dance number set to a cheesy Hall & Oates song. Yes, it is polarizing. I know as many people who hated it as liked it. Maybe more. And yet, here it is. The thing I liked best was the structure. It’s the story of a 500-day relationship between Tom Hansen and the adorable, and adorably named, Summer Finn. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom and the adorable Zooey Deschanel plays the adorable Summer. The twist is, we don’t see the relationship in chronological order. In fact, we learn fairly early that, as a couple, Tom and Summer aren’t going to make it. We then view, somewhat randomly, a number of their 500 days together. We may see Day 56, then Day 348, then Day 12. It’s interesting to see the two of them in the doe-eyed thrall of new love on Day 16 when we know full well that they’ll be totally on the rocks 400 days later. It’s a little too cute in parts, and the ending is a bit pat for my taste. But I left the theater with a smile on my face, having seen a romantic comedy with two thoroughly likable stars presented in a way that I found refreshing and original. I even liked the Hall & Oates dance video. Sorry, but I did.

Close, but no cigar – Beyond the Top 10, but there were a number of other films I enjoyed a lot. Here’s the Honorable Mention list:

Coraline – Great animation and a wonderfully dark story. Scared a lot of six-year-olds in the theater.

Adventureland – Ahhh, the ’80s. Weren’t they great?

State of Play – Came and went quietly. Underrated.

Star Trek – The best of the big-ass summer movies.

The Hangover – For so many reasons.

The September Issue – Fascinating look at the creative process.

Paranormal Activity – Best use of $15,000 in the history of film. Scary, real and real scary.

Zombieland – Give me zombies, and I’m happy.

Drag Me to Hell – Give me a Sam Raimi horror film, and I’m happy.

Fantastic Mr. Fox – A Wes Anderson film through and through. It just happened to be animated.

The Princess and the Frog – Old school 2D Disney animation. Great story. Great songs. Great film.

Food Inc. – Documentary about the dirty secrets of the American food industry. Eat before you see it.