Film and Lit 2010

January 2, 2011

Films (at the cinema, in seen order):

Again, they're OO5ed

Best

Again, super lucky to get to put some sci-fi in the top of my list. The Road is captivating, if in an entirely bleak, looking at your pets and wondering if you'd eat them in a crisis, kind of way. My favourite was Monsters. It felt like an antidote to all those silly explosion, chase driven, gun-ho monster movies. It's delicate and subtle, and looks frankly amazing and ultra-detailed, and it doesn't treat the viewer like a complete idiot. It's just lovely. I guess Inception is the big one for everyone else - I liked it a lot, but I've kind of forgotten it already.

I had anticipated Splice as being a winner this year, but it totally missed the mark - Womb turned out to be the much more interesting, in depth, film about cloning and genetics (and it's got Matt Smith in it - what's not to go crazy for?). Tron should have been a massive disappointment, but I managed to keep expectations deliriously low and came out entertained. The film I failed to not get excited about before I saw it was Scott Pilgrim, given the sentimental place that I hold the graphic novels in, and fortunately it is really excellent fun.

I also loved The Illusionist and Ponyo. The former is beautiful, and although it's French it doesn't matter - they hardly utter a word, and when they do it sounds like a Sim - it's totally carried by the perfect animation style. And Ponyo is just adorable (sing the Ponyo song!).

The big marmite film for 2011 is definitely going to be Black Swan. It's a ballet drama? Really? Yeah. It is entirely a must-see film. It's an intensely paced psychological thriller and the ballet bit really shouldn't put anyone off. It's probably one of the best crafted films I've seen this year, if not for a few years.

Also loved lots of others, particularly Down Terrace, Dogtooth and Winter's Bone - all share the commonality of being a bit bleak (or, actually, totally screwed up - don't watch Dogtooth with your family, okay?).

Worst

It's only when compiling this list that I'm reminded of all the complete movie mishaps I've suffered this year. Not least, Alice in Wonderland. I'm a massive fan of the story, as many people know, and I was a fool to even think that a new film would capture everything I love about it. Oh, so disappointed. I rated it more highly at the time than I feel about it now. Damn you, Burton.

Other let downs include a whole slew of films that have brilliant concepts, but they were just half-heartedly or plainly executed - The Crazies springs to mind, as does Four Lions (controversial, I know, but it's a bit meh, to be honest - Chris Morris has a long way to go before he's back in "paedophile dressed as a school" territory), We Are What We Are and Daybreakers.

Mostly this year, there has been some severely pretentious nonsense. I Am Love, Certified Copy, The Light Thief, Double Take and A Single Man - all fairly decent concepts, but unfortunately completely boring. I struggled to stay awake in a couple of those. Mostly designed as fodder for film reviewers to fawn over, but actually, totally ridiculous and unwatchable.

Books

I've given up any semblance of attempting to record what I read. I did, however, buy a 3rd edition Kindle 3G, which I love. Surprisingly. Digital books completely lack everything I love about a beaten-up old paperback, particularly the digging through a dusty bookshop and finding random left-overs of previous owner' lives (ticket stubs, receipts... postcards are my particular favourite), but the convenience and the form factor of this thing is amazing. It's also caused me to re-read or find a bunch of classics, for free from manybooks (released through Project Gutenberg), that I would otherwise never have given the time to. I've read the complete Sherlock Holmes adventures, almost all of Robert Louis Stevenson, a bunch of H.G.Wells, and all sorts of other odds and ends. Metamorphosis struck me as an instant favourite of the classic selection.

Of non-ebooks, I read Philip Pullman's newest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, early in the year. Thoroughly disappointing. More hype than substance, in my mind, and felt a little like a cash-in on his controversial position (I enjoyed the His Dark Materials trilogy). I also read my usual fill of science fiction and re-read some favourites. I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road after seeing it at the start of the year - which is unusual, since I'll generally rush to read a book before I see the film - but it's pretty much identical. Definitely recommend it if you're lacking that stark, miserable, hopeless feeling at the beginning of your new year. :)