Continued from here and here.

GOOD MOVIES

31. The Town (Ben Affleck)- We’re starting to figure out, after only two credits, that Affleck is way more of a director than he is an actor. The action here is taut and explosive but punctuated by lovely small moments that only accentuate how reckless that action is. (I’m reminded specifically of that tiny pause in the car chase when a cop, knowing he’s outnumbered, looks the other way to avert danger.) The Jon Hamm character is underwritten, and the end is a bit too sweet; but this is a well-structured, unflappable entry in the heist genre.
30. Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)- Sometimes Baumbach can’t help himself—when a dead bird floats in the pool and someone asks “What’s that?,” I was tempted to yell out, “A symbol!”—but his wry dialogue and detailed characters have an emotional formalism that most films of the same type lack. Greta Gerwig is incapable of a false moment, and Ben Stiller—stripped of all artifice—gives the best performance of his career.
29. Kick Ass (Matthew Vaughn)- Especially by the end, this film doesn’t know if it wants to be the antithesis of a superhero picture or the apotheosis of it, but that’s sort of what makes it interesting. It’s knowing and irreverent toward its inspirations in the exact same ways that it’s in awe of them. When it wants to be, it’s genuinely shocking. And when it wants to be, it earns some genuine emotion as well. This is a movie that average nerds liked a lot more than mainstream credits, and that says a lot about average nerds.
28. The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Ji-Woon Kim)- Plain and simple, this is a movie intoxicated by its own energy. Every single shot is invested with as much wit and animation as possible, and the film—a mish-mash of western and treasure hunt influences—never stops to catch its breath until its joyously ironic conclusion.
27. Casino Jack and the United States of Money (Alex Gibney)- I only saw one of the three projects Gibney released this year, but that one, a documentary about Jack Abramoff and lobbyists in general, is just as probing in its execution as it is broad in scope. Gibney uses every tool at his disposal to deliver a complicated portrait pregnant with guilt and righteous anger. I’m starting to think he might be one of our best filmmakers.
26. The Fighter (David O. Russell)- This would have been a standard underdog story without the perspicacious local color afforded by Russell’s camera and the towering performance of Christian Bale. How much worse would this movie be with an average actor in that role? 20% 25%? Luckily, we don’t have to find out. The music cues are uniformly terrible, and it takes a long time to get where it’s going; but, at its best (the birthday cake sequence), The Fighter is absorbing and rich.
25. Animal Kingdom (David Michod)- A totally flawed but ultimately rewarding crime saga. The teenaged lead brings nothing to the table, but everyone else—especially the menacing Ben Mendelsohn—is amazing. It goes on for about fifteen minutes too long, but its explosive violence and tense, protracted silences show a grim and paranoid portrait of crime’s lasting consequences.
24. Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe)- The first twenty minutes of Enter the Void are shot in first-person, complete with blinking. The next half-hour is told from the sky. The next hour is told in third person with the protagonist’s head hogging the center of the frame. It gets weirder from there. Noe is a provocateur, so there are many moments that are more about experimentation and shock than actually serving the story. (There is no reason for this to be two-and-a-half hours either.) But you have to appreciate the film for what it is: the second most visually-arresting piece of art of 2010. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch a handful of things a year that are legitimately like nothing else I’ve ever seen. At its best (the break-neck opening credits sequence) and its worst (vagina cam), Enter the Void qualifies.
23. The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper)- This is a heartwarming film that earns every one of its inspiring moments. It never takes the easy way out, and the performances are all spot-on. That being said, I can’t figure out exactly why it’s getting the attention it is. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I can’t see why anyone would feel really strongly about it either way. It’s not changing anyone’s life.
22. Going the Distance (Nanette Burstein)- Conversely, this is a movie that no one cared about when it came out, but that doesn’t make it any less fantastic. Bolstered by an able supporting cast, it’s one of the most genuinely funny romantic comedies of the past ten years, and it’s rooted in completely realistic concerns of its time. While Drew Barrymore and Justin Long don’t always seem like the most modern couple, (Why are you calling cross-country on a land line, fam?) their chemistry is palpable. Every scene is there for a reason, and it catches an aspect of a relationship that hadn’t been committed well to film.
21. Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)- This is a movie filled with bourgeois complaining, but that complaining is done by such elaborately-drawn, urbane, interesting characters that it doesn’t really matter. The cast is full of absolute pros (especially Oliver Platt and the unimpeachable Rebecca Hall), and every single element of the movie is elegantly resolved by the end.
20. The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)- See above, except the performances are even more developed and impressive, Mark Ruffalo’s being the best of the film and maybe the year. He plays Paul as earthy but realistic, enlightened but maybe not smart, self-absorbed but not exactly selfish, and he never takes a wrong step in that complicated portrayal. The fact that the film doesn’t really treat his character fairly in the end is the only thing holding it back. Julianne Moore has never really had a weak performance in her whole career, but as she gets older, her face has become a bit more expressive, and she’s only getting better. The writing here is superb, honest, and, at times, surprising. Cholodenko, a lesbian filmmaker, implies that the nuclear family is in some ways necessary, and the Moore-Ruffalo relationship in the film flies in the face of a lot of queer theory. But that probably deserves its own column.
19. 127 Hours (Danny Boyle)- Boyle throws an entire bag of postmodern tricks at the screen to complement what is, in effect, a simple story; but you’ll mostly be watching this for James Franco’s performance, which is as good as advertised. As the film goes on, he manages to portray desperation as well as he reflected brashness, but his character loses none of his humanity as the struggle goes on. The film is so visceral and claustrophobic, and it’s specific and moving in its depiction of the passage of time.
18. Carlos (Olivier Assayas)- This film is five hours and forty minutes long. No matter what you have to say about it, that has to come into play. It’s the film’s biggest weakness and strength. On one hand, the enormous length allows for a much more fully-fledged portrait of its subject than the normal biopic. On the other hand, it obviously could have been cut down, and the fact that it wasn’t seems indulgent and tedious. Edgar Ramirez’s charismatic performance, for which he speaks five different languages, is the best tool the story has to approach its theme. Carlos the Jackal said he didn’t care about money, when many of his actions seemed motivated by it. He presented himself as an accomplished leader, but he really wasn’t responsible for much revolution. It’s a progressive, expansive film about someone who might have worked on a smaller canvas than he gets credit for.
17. Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)- Few films exist on such a purely visual level as Shutter Island. This is a perfect example of what happens when a master approaches a genre exercise and elevates it with his own gravitas and film grammar. The mystery and atmosphere of this film hang in a thick fog over the actual plot’s machinations and, in some ways, overshadow them. Similarly, the performances are sort of thankless here, but everyone involved contributes admirably.
16. Mother (Bong Joon-Ho)- The reason South Korea is at the top of the international film scene is its resistance to genre conventions, and this one is no exception. As is the case with Bong’s other films, this one, driven by a vulnerable performance by Kim Hey-Ja, will showcase a serious scene next to a scary scene next to a funny one, and it never goes quite where you would expect. It doesn’t give us any easy answers, not even in its triumphant conclusion, but it begs deeper thought to anyone who watches it.
15. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)- I saw eighty-seven movies this year, and I only cried at one. Everyone talks about the near-death of these rich characters, but no one talks about the brilliant satire and studied allusions that make up the first two-thirds of this more than proper send-off. It’s an emotionally complex story of abandonment, and we’re past the point at which we should be surprised by that.
14. True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen)- The Pixies are one of my favorite bands, and I got to see them on their reunion tour after living most of my life with them being disbanded. They were great and did nothing wrong, but, with a lack of banter and improvisation, still left me cold. That’s sort of how I felt about True Grit. Because of its classic three-act structure and the way it introduces characters, because of its fast-paced dialogue and ratcheting of stakes, it will probably be taught in screenwriting classes. But as perfect as it is, something still didn’t connect with me on an emotional level.