My Top 30 Films of 2011: 30-21

End of year list season is well and truly upon us. 2011 has long felt like a weak year for the movies, with a few notable exceptions. So much so that I was originally thinking of abandoning last year's "top 30" template for a more conventional, not to mention streamline, "top 10". Yet looking back over the last twelve months I was delighted to discover there were at least 30 films I liked, probably about 20 of which are unambiguously terrific. Maybe the year hasn't been so bad after all.

I was going to wait until I'd seen the much talked about 'Margaret', Nanni Moretti's 'We Have a Pope' and Fincher's take on 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' before compiling this list, but for a range of reasons I'm going to kick off now. For one thing, 'Dragon Tattoo' is based on source material I have a serious problem with - already adapted into three Swedish films that I despised - whilst there is no guarantee I'll get the opportunity to see the other two before the month is out.

It's worth noting before I begin that this list is comprised of films I've seen this year, including festival movies - some of which aren't on general release in the UK until next year. If you're wondering why some of this year's most stunning releases aren't included, such as 'Black Swan' and '13 Assassins' (both seen in Venice last year), that's because they were in 2010's list. So here are my choices, my favourite films of 2011 numbers 30-21:

30) The Green Hornet, dir Michel Gondry, USA

What I said: "Rogen's hero isn't charming and erudite - he is an obnoxious oaf and by and large stays that way right the way through the film. Rogen's delivery - of dialogue he penned with writing partner Evan Goldberg - is superb too, in all its underplayed, mock-macho brainlessness and the relationship between him and Jay Chou, who plays sidekick Kato, is fun to watch."



By no means perfect, it's fair to say that Michel Gondry's 'The Green Hornet' benefited from extremely low expectations when I saw it back in January. A poor trailer, troubled production history and use of much-derided post-converted 3D suggested this would be a creative misstep for all involved - and a potential career-wrecker for writer/star Seth Rogen. Yet - at the box office - the film outperformed the studio's own modest expectations owing to the fact that it's a lot better than we had any right to expect. This comes down to a combination of the brilliant Christoph Waltz as the villain, Rogen's incredulous, hyper-enthusiastic style of delivery which injects humour into every line and, most of all, the director's knack for innovation and imagination.

There are a lot of pretty cool in-camera effects in 'The Green Hornet' and, though Gondry's more personal documentary 'The Thorn in the Heart' (released around the same time) would be the more respectable choice for this list, here is a film very much in the same spirit as 'Be Kind Rewind' and 'The Science of Sleep', if not his superior Charlie Kaufman-penned work. That the action scenes are also quite effective - in what's basically a quirky comedy about a rich douchebag learning to become a marginally smaller rich douchebag - only adds to the pleasantness of the surprise.

29) Winnie the Pooh, dir Stephen J. Anderson & Don Hall, USA

What I said: "As you might expect from a gentle children's tale, this film is very much aimed at youngsters... there are no nods to the adults or in-jokes at all. But it's nice to find a modern animation totally free of any post-modern winking and there is fun to be had here for adults so long as they are prepared to indulge their innermost child. As the credits rolled I found myself identifying with the sentiment of this bittersweet passage from [A.A] Milne's The House at Pooh Corner: "And by and by Christopher Robin came to an end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop.""



Let down only by a bafflingly short running length (is 63 minutes technically even a feature film?), Disney's "51st Animated Classic" is as charming as it is beautifully animated. The best of the studio's 90s animating talent returned to work on the picture and a lot of love has gone into the detailed and fluid hand-drawn animation, as well as the faithful voice-acting and delightfully hummable ditties. There isn't much of a story as Pooh, Piglet and company bumble their way through the Hundred Acre Wood, but it hardly matters if you approach it in the intended spirit of open-hearted whimsy. This is potentially only a film for toddlers and animation enthusiasts, but I found it to be one of the year's unqualified pleasures.

28) Contagion, dir Steven Soderbergh, USA

What I said: "It feels slightly too long and, in terms of narrative focus, it's every bit as scattershot as its director's filmography - with some characters unceremoniously forgotten, whilst others reappear just as you've forgotten they were in the film to begin with. Yet it's gripping, frightening, filled with haunting images and, I suspect, it will come to be seen as the definitive film about worldwide medical crisis... It certainly left me wanting to stockpile supplies and seal the exits, too frightened to touch my own face. And that's the sign of a good film."



I love a good doomsday scenario movie and they don't come more frighteningly credible than Soderbergh's 'Contagion', which shows how a new virus could significantly reduce the global population within months of killing Gwyneth Paltrow. After Mrs. Coldplay bites it in the opening moments, we know that nobody in the film's stellar ensemble (Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard and more) is safe, increasing the sense of dread. It's a bit jargon-heavy, filled with clumsy exposition and a little unfocussed, but it's also one of the most memorable and visceral movie-going experiences of the year.

27) Limitless, dir Neil Burger, USA

What I said: "Limitless is a well executed and intelligent thriller which suggests, when the cinema going public finally succumb to that long-overdue Zach Galifianakis overdose, Bradley Cooper will be the Hangover actor left standing. It’s also evident that Burger is a capable hand for exciting, character-based movies. It’s patient, cerebral and unpretentious pulp science fiction fare on a sensible scale."



In 'Limitless' Bradley Cooper's serial underachiever - a deadbeat wannabe writer - gets a taste of the high-life after taking an experimental drug (NZT) that unlocks the full potential of the human brain. Within days he's wealthy, sexy and extremely arrogant, taking on organised criminals and Robert De Niro's morally dubious business tycoon. Released around the same time as Duncan Jones' dispiritingly conventional 'Moon' follow-up 'Source Code', the unsung 'Limitless' quietly went about being the superior film - both in terms of the interesting sci-fi morality questions it posed and the style in which it was made.

For the most part a male-empowerment wish-fulfilment fantasy gone wrong, 'Limitless' goes to some incredibly dark places, with it even suggested via news reports that Cooper has murdered a woman whilst on NZT (a fact which is chillingly never resolved). This is made all the more sinister by an ending which reminded me of Hal Ashby's 'Being There', as Cooper's protagonist contemplates his potential future as President of the United States, implying that hubris and over-confidence - as well as smarts - are key to success in capitalism.

26) Tales of the Night, dir Michel Ocelot, FRA

What I said: "There is a deep-rooted love of basic human kindness here which reminds me of Miyazaki, and yet Ocelot’s films are never cute or sentimental and you get the impression he is resolutely sincere. And though his art style looks simple and even a bit cheap, the fluidity of his animation – particularly when it involves running and dancing – is at the peak of the art form. Added to that, in terms of imagination 'Tales of the Night' is filled to the brim with ideas."



In a year which saw Pixar release a 'Cars' sequel and Studio Ghibli give us the nice but forgettable 'Arrietty', Michel Ocelot's 3D 'Tales of the Night' is indisputably the best animated film I've seen. Ocelot's embrace of multiculturalism and earnest humanism, as seen previously in 'Kirikou and the Sorceress' and 'Azur & Asmar', is heartening, as is his ability to tell simple children's tales with incredibly sophisticated morality. Animated in silhouette, the use of 3D gives this the look of a pop-up book and complements nicely the film's conceit: that the series of short stories we are told are being performed by a secret, nocturnal theatre company with a surplus of imagination.

25) Coriolanus, dir Ralph Fiennes, UK

What I said: "Making the story relatable and relevant isn’t something [director Ralph Fiennes] does merely by enforcing [a] change of setting... This is also made possible by the actor’s Paul Greengrass-style direction: handheld cameras stripping the film of the formalised, sanitised sheen prevalent in many more traditional adaptations. In fact the scenes of urban warfare in 'Coriolanus' are bloody and visceral like those in a straight-up war movie. The other major contributing factor to the film’s success – and probably the most important – is that the dialogue is delivered incredibly naturalistically which makes it immediately understandable."



Resolutely avoiding the pitfalls of stagy, mannered Shakespeare adaptations, Ralph Fiennes directorial debut delivers one of the Bard's lesser known works with a visceral punch in the jaw. Fiennes himself stars, creating a menacing, towering presence as the titular military general whose abilities as a public speaker do not match his aptitude for conflict. Transported from ancient Rome to what looks like a modern day urban war zone, Fiennes uses riots, camera phones and 24 hour news coverage (brilliantly deploying real Channel 4 news reader Jon Snow as a herald) to explore the play's still-relevant themes. He retains all the original dialogue - much like the 1996 'Romeo & Juliet' - having his actors (including Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox and Jessica Chastain) deliver their lines in such a way that they are always understood in spite of the arcane verse.

24) Innocent Saturday, dir Aleksandr Mindadze, RUS/UKR

What I said: "Alexander Mindadze’s oppressive style of direction puts the viewer in the same uncomfortable position as his protagonist. You feel unable to escape and paranoid at the threat you can not see. There are very few occasions where the camerawork affords you an establishing shot or even a medium shot, and even fewer times when it is held still. This isn’t a conventional disaster movie and we don’t ever get to glimpse the full horror of the disaster or the eventual mass exodus from the town. This is rather the intimate story of one person struggling with his fears and desires as he grapples with the knowledge that the cheery oblivious, innocents around him – who are busy getting married, playing football and taking walks – are all likely doomed."



This extremely queasy and claustrophobic drama follows one man's doomed bid to escape the Soviet town of Prypiat, modern day Ukraine, in the hours following the 1986 meltdown at the neighbouring Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Valerij (Anton Shagin) works at the plant and, by chance, learns of the disaster before it is belatedly revealed to the public. And yet he can't bring himself to flee town: whether it's morality or fate something compels him to stay and drink the night away with his friends. The almost constant use of close-ups brilliantly gives the sense that something dangerous is in the air they breath, whilst also serving to frustrate the viewer by withholding information. This last action is perhaps the most overt critique of the Moscow government's handling of the disaster in a film which otherwise avoids polemics.

23) True Grit, dir Joel & Ethan Coen, USA

What I said: "I've oft heard it said that the Coens are heartless storytellers: that they don't like their characters and that they are cynical about people. I don't buy into that view at all and if I did I wouldn't be a fan. The Coen brothers, for me anyway, are defined by their willingness to look at all the cruelty of the human experience through the lens of absurdity and stupidity. People aren't evil or good in Coen brothers movies, they usually just don't know any better. Bad things are done by people in a state of panic (most murders in Coen brothers movies occur this way) and pre-planned acts of inhumanity always find their way back to the often hapless perpetrator (think of Jerry Lundegaard in 'Fargo'). Even if, in this case, [Mattie Ross] is a little girl avenging her father's murder - a goal many filmmakers would find unproblematic."



Perhaps this one would factor higher up my list if it was fresher in the memory. But, released last year in the US and a contender at February's Academy Awards, it feels like a 2010 movie. In any case 'True Grit' is a superb western and - by all accounts - a more faithful adaptation of the Charles Portis novel than the fondly remembered John Wayne film of 1969. One reason it stands apart as the stronger film is that Jeff Bridges' cantankerous drunken Marshal Rooster Cogburn is a more effective anti-hero under directors comfortable with moral ambiguity.

The Coens don't imagine that the audience has to like their characters, which isn't the same thing as making them unlikable. They just don't feel the need to flag Cogburn up as any species of hero. Any warmth you feel for him comes because of his flawed, grizzled humanity, and Bridges portrayal, rather than because of his effectiveness with a firearm and penchant for frontier justice. Likewise Oscar-nominated newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who plays young, revenge-obsessed protagonist Mattie Ross, is scrutinised and ultimately scarred by her adventures - something which wouldn't have been palatable in '69 but is actually essential to the telling of this story. The cold, elegiac tone of the piece - so common to Coen brothers movies from 'Blood Simple' onwards - also fits the western myth so perfectly it's a wonder they haven't done this sooner.

22) Beginners, dir Mike Mills, USA

What I said: "'Beginners' is a tearjerker without feeling manipulative and it's life-affirming without being sickly. A large part of its success rests with Christopher Plummer, whose performance as Hal is especially heartbreaking, with the old man facing death when he is at his most vital. His insatiable appetite for new experiences is particularly bittersweet and Mills' reflection on his own father's life as a closet homosexual in the 1950s shows great insight and empathy. All of the characters are well drawn and sympathetic - with each of them coming to terms with misfortune and tragedy without self-pity. As romantic leads, McGregor and Laurent enjoy great chemistry and their scenes together are a charming."



Until this year, with one possible exception, Ewen McGregor hadn't been in a good film since 1996 - the year of 'Brassed Off' and 'Trainspotting'. My perverse love of 'The Phantom Menace' aside, the closest he'd come to being in a halfway decent movie over the last fifteen years had been in Tim Burton's 'Big Fish'. But in 2011 McGregor starred in Mike Mills' 'Beginners', which is much more than a halfway decent movie. In fact it's a beautiful and incredibly moving portrayal of loss in which McGregor is the emotional centre.

Like the aforementioned 'Big Fish', 'Beginners' is about a son coming to terms with the loss of his father. But whereas Albert Finney's Edward Bloom was a dominating figure with a life of extraordinary (if exaggerated) adventures behind him, the father here - played by Christopher Plummer - succumbs to cancer months after beginning to live anything like a fulfilled life, having only recently embraced his long-repressed homosexuality. McGregor and co-star Melanie Laurent have a good chemistry together and the film is life-affirming without being saccharine.

21) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two, dir David Yates, UK/USA

What I said: "Everything seems to fit so well together now that I am even beginning to credit Warner Brothers with some sort of unlikely overall plan behind the series' game of directorial musical chairs. Unlike 'Star Wars' or 'Indiana Jones', the films have grown with their audience and, for those the same approximate age as the heroes, it seems entirely appropriate in retrospect that the brightly coloured, John Williams-scored whimsy of the opening Christopher Columbus episodes has developed into this more macabre and downbeat conclusion. As the stakes have been raised, and the supporting characters have started dying at an exponential rate, so the films have become more complex and interesting."



With the possible exception of Alfonso Cuaron's early entry, the Harry Potter series has never interested me until the last few episodes as directed by David Yates - a UK TV director. In fairness, he's been helped immeasurably by a number of factors outside of his control - the child actors have become better in their decade in front of the camera, whilst the later books seem to be darker and richer - but he still deserves a lot of credit for the way he has handled the end of JK Rowling's ubiquitous child wizard saga. In Yates' Potter films there is a clearer sense of threat, with some quite nasty goings on in this entry in particular (as when a major character has his throat slit before being savagely attacked by a snake whilst lying helpless). And once pantomime characters, like Alan Rickman's Professor Snape, are fleshed out in ways both pleasing and surprising.

But my favourite thing about Yates' take on the series has been the increased banality in the presentation of the non-magical (or "muggle") world in which Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends must live. Yates seems to understand what Christopher Columbus, Mike Newell and even Cuaron missed: the magic is only wondrous and exciting if it takes place in a recognisable world to our own. The Roald Dahl inspired evil step-family of the earlier installments were larger than life caricatures, meaning that Harry's life was already out of the ordinary and bizarre before he went to Hogwarts school and got all wizardy on their asses. But here magic seems to have a visceral impact on a recognisable world.

In the concluding chapters another pleasing fact has become clear, which I had previously dismissed and for which Rowling presumably deserves credit (I've never read a Harry Potter book). In the past I've bemoaned Harry as this pathetic, passive protagonist - always helped by some deus ex machina or by his more capable friends/members of faculty. But it's now obvious that Harry's special talent is that he is extraordinarily nice to people. All people. He is, however bland it might sound, good. It is this which allows him to succeed because this is why people help him when he's in trouble. It's the same logic that sees the previously bullied, but-of-all-jokes Neville Longbottom (Matt Lewis, above) steal the film's most bombast instances of heroism. Harry Potter isn't about being the smartest or the strongest and an understanding of this allows this megabucks franchise to attain a sort of innocent nobility.

Come back later in the week for numbers 20-11.

The Worst of 2010?

After the unbridled positivity of my Top 30 Films of 2010 list it is now time to take a look at the reverse. What were the worst films of 2010?

The likes of 'Inception' and 'Toy Story 3' may not have lived up to my very high expectations, but neither are bad. 'Inception' was the year's most over-hyped, exposition-laden behemoth and 'Toy Story 3' was the film that most disappointed me (being a huge Pixar fan) - but they are both well made films and far from terrible. There were also (by definition) a lot of quite average films over the summer, such as 'Knight and day' and 'The A-Team'. Some were more fun than others but most were nevertheless passable. This list, a "top 10" (if you can call it that), is reserved strictly for the year's most risible wastes of celluloid.

10) Monsters, dir Gareth Edwards, UK

What I said: 'Monsters' is suffocated by constant exposition with people saying things like "so let me get this straight: we have 48 hours to get to the coast" and when we aren't having things we have just seen and heard simplified for us we are forced to spend our time in the company of a couple of morons. Andrew has, he tells us, seen the corpses of the aliens before on several occasions. The creatures are also on the television news or caricatured by informative children's cartoons whenever we see a television. The duo are aware they are heading through the infected zone, as a great many sign posts tell them so. They see the destruction of areas affected by the so-called monsters. Yet when confronted by them they are forever shouting (and I mean shouting) "what the hell is that thing", over and over and over again... The shouting doesn't stop even when their armed guards - who by the way are asked several times "why have you guys got guns?" (gee, I wonder why) - tell them to be quiet during one attack sequence. The pair just can't shut up... When they pass through a destroyed town they ask aloud "all these people's homes. But where are all the people?"




"Argh! So infuriating!" is the expression that best characterises my experience of watching Gareth Edwards' roundly lauded road movie 'Monsters'. The endless stupid questions and the pseudo-mumblecore intensity of its boring lead actors as they meander on an "emotional journey" that feels horribly contrived. We know that they have been profoundly effected by their trudge across alien-infested Mexico because they tell us so, but what they are supposed to have learned is not exactly clear. That humans are the real monsters? Yawn. The film was dubbed "Film of the Month" in the January issue of Sight and Sound, but it seems to me that a great deal of the attention it has received (in the UK press especially) has been owing to its director being British and operating on a very low budget (doing his own computer effects from home). The latter is laudable and exciting, but the film itself is boring, as are the hordes of dullards who cack on enthusiastically: "it's good because it's not about the monsters." Whatever that means.

9) La solitudine dei numeri primi, dir Saverio Costanzo, ITA

What I said: "I found the film extremely uninvolving for most of its 118 minute running length. It was greeted with a chorus of boos when it ended [in competition in Venice], and I may have been tempted to lend my voice to them had I not been lulled into a dazed stupor by that point... La solitudine was boring and its characters irritating. The first few moments of tension are interesting, but they come to nothing and you quickly realise that they never will. And with nothing to keep you involved, this unhappy jaunt through the world of two young depressives, becomes a chore."



I have managed to almost entirely erase having watched this from my mind. Whilst in Venice I saw over 30 films in a two week period and so some of them have become a bit of a blur. What I can remember is that it was beautifully lit, but uninvolving and it seemed to go on forever. I didn't really understand the characters or care for them and I was tempted to walk out (which I never do). There may be something here that I'm missing. After all, Nick James wrote in Sight and Sound magazine that it was "the one Italian film [he] saw with imagination" (I found 'La pecora nera' to be much more imaginative, personally). Likewise, one reader at Obsessed With Film commented on my review that "It was a beautiful, sensible film. Alice and Mattia are intrinsec [sic] characters, not to be tagged by social stereotypes like you do so lightly" and made light of the film's robust running time and slow pace saying that "it takes time and thought to truly say something about anyone." Fair point well made, but it didn't resonate with me at all.

8) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, dir Michael Apted, USA

What I said: "Michael Apted has stepped in for the third film [in the 'Narnia' series] and made something much blander. He isn't aided by the fact that a lot of this story takes place at sea and not amidst sweeping vistas, but even when action does take place on terra firma, many of the locations are much more obviously the result of CGI than in the other two films. The result is that even though the set pieces are on a grander scale - with a dragon battling a huge sea serpent around an elaborate galleon on a tempestuous sea at the film's finale - they actually feel smaller and less tangible... The film's pacing is also amiss, as the characters are each presented with moral trials which are overcome far too quickly and easily, the film just jumping from event to event without conveying any feeling of significance or genuine peril along the way... Narnia, as a concept and as a literary world, isn't a place I want to take my imagination... [But] even if you are one of the 468,916 people that "like" God on Facebook (correct at the time of writing) and worship the Narnia stories, 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is a tedious telling of this story."



The tedious dogma of the Christ-lion saga reached its nadir in 2010 with 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. Uninvolving and with ropey visual effects, it has exactly nothing to recommend it other than the fact that it's not one of the following seven films. I don't like this series of films, but even so 'Prince Caspian' was much better in every way.

7) Robin Hood, dir Ridley Scott, USA/UK

What I said: "[Russell] Crowe has less charisma than a hellish lovechild of Gerard Butler and Shia LaBeouf. He grunts and mumbles his way through the film, never really raising a smile, flattening any line which might be humorous as he marauds the English country side looking like a huge, bearded potato on horseback. Flynn might not have played a Hood mired in psychological concerns (“who was my father!?” etc etc), but he was watchable and charming, bringing the character to life in your imagination. Children could (and did) aspire to be Flynn’s Robin Hood, swinging on chandeliers and besting his enemies with his wit as well as his arrows. I can not conceivably imagine anybody growing up wanting to mumble there way through Sherwood Forest as Russell Crowe... Ok, so maybe that’s the point here: this Robin Hood is not for kids. It’s an adult version, with a tough, wilful Maid Marian played by Cate Blanchett (far from the courtly and mannered presence of, say, Olivia de Havilland) and a rugged “manly” hero in Crowe. Yes, I can see that Crowe is more convincingly a man who could have fought in the Crusades than Flynn or Costner or Elwes ever were. But is that an excuse for boring me with his mumbling presence? To paraphrase Benjmin Franklin: those who would give up essential entertainment to purchase a little temporary realism, deserve neither entertainment or realism."



Ridley Scott's 'Robin Hood' was a cynical attempt to do for Mr."of Locksley" what Christopher Nolan did for Batman. It's a re-boot and, with it ending at the point where Hood becomes the vigilante woodsman of folklore, a tentpole for a series of these "gritty" and "realistic" movies. However, the differences between 'Batman Begins' and 'Robin Hood' are many. For one thing Russell Crowe is here at his mumbling worst and Scott is at his most flashy cheesiest (with lots of silly slow-motion action). It's the heart-rending story of a bunch of affable lords angry with the high taxation they are being levied (the world's biggest evil). Hood is their champion rather than that of the poor in this telling of the story. It's also full of allusions to the American Dream and the American Constitution, despite its setting in medieval England. Boring, self-important nonsense.

6) The Ghost, dir Roman Polanski, FRA/GER/UK

What I said: "Perhaps ‘The Ghost’ will age quite well as audiences grow more distant from the recent political past. Then the Blair references will seem more obscure and may add colour to the picture in giving it an interesting historical context. But as a film for this political moment (the upcoming 2010 UK election) the film’s cynicism about politics and its practitioners is at best unhelpful and at worst irresponsible. Many will say that artists have no responsibility other than to their own creative whims and they would probably be correct. But I still find ‘The Ghost’ a little distasteful all the same."



My distaste for Roman Polanski's "political" thriller - fancied by many as a possible nomination for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards - operates on many levels. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, I didn't find it thrilling or involving and I found the performances to be woeful (with the possible exception of Olivia Williams). It is slickly made, but totally conventional and not the sort of film you'd associate with one of the world's most highly rated auteurs. My other (more passionate) objection is ideological and possibly hypocritical (given my love of disputed biopic, 'The Social Network'). I hated the way it perpetuated received wisdom about former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, working as an elaborate, thinly veiled, character assassination. Pierce Brosnan played a sleazy, sinister Blair analogue who (last minute plot twist aside) is a puppet of the American government. I am not much of a fan of Blair, but this all seemed in bad taste to me. I am all for a serious film tackling the Blair years, but the use of the popular perception of the man within a fiction framework seemed at best cowardly as a way of making criticism. Worse still, in an election year it felt like a propaganda film seeking to discredit the Labour Party in general. I don't mind polemical films - in fact I quite like them - but making this attack with innuendo and half-baked conspiracy theories really bothered me. Especially as all dialogue relating to politics was so simplistic and unnatural.

5) Alice in Wonderland, dir Tim Burton, USA

What I said: "None of Carroll’s trademark wit and wordplay is evident in Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which is an especially great shame, as that is clearly the highlight of the original stories. It seems that when Burton starts re-imaging older properties, such as Wonka, ‘Planet of the Apes’ and this ‘Alice’ film, he invariably diminishes them. I very much hope his next film is smaller in scale and harkens back to his earlier days, when he seemed like a relevant (possibly even great) filmmaker. For now we can only sit back and mourn his artistic decline, whilst he and Disney laugh all the way to the bank."



The above video demonstrates everything you need to know. Tellingly it features two CGI enhanced Matt Lucases (Lucasai?) and they aren't the worst thing on screen. It was a moment (like the mid-battle wedding in 'Pirates 3') that literally made my jaw drop as it followed my thinking "this film can't get any worse can it?". Oh yes it could and it did, with Johnny Depp's embarrassing Mad Hatter celebration dance. Congratulations Johnny Depp and Tim Burton: you are now totally rubbish. One of the most interesting American directors of the early 90s and one of the best actors of his generation have well and truly hit an all-time low. First 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and now this? Jesus wept.

4) The Millenium Trilogy, dir Niels Arden Oplev ('Dragon Tattoo')/Daniel Alfredson ('Played With Fire' and 'Hornet's Nest', SWE

What I said: On 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest': "Lisbeth Salander has been through some truly horrible events: beaten up by gangs of armed men; repeatedly raped by her legal guardian; and incarcerated in a mental institution at the age of twelve as the result of a shady government conspiracy. Yet she is still a manifestly unlikeable creation. She is a charmless psychopath and when she is forced to defend herself against charges that she is mentally unstable it is hard not to feel like her despicable, paedophile assailants at least have a bit of a point - although their reasons for making it are obviously not on the level. Again, like [Uma] Thurman's Bride character [from 'Kill Bill'], Lisbeth is hellbent on bloody, callous revenge in a film which thinks old testament "eye for an eye" justice is for wishy-washy Guardian readers. It is true that the film always totally convinces you that these balding, sinister Vince Cable-alikes deserve every bit of what Lisbeth gives them, but therein is the reason I hate these films so much."



I am so glad to see the back of this whole wretched, hateful trilogy - if only for a year before David Fincher's own adaptation of Stieg Larsson's bestselling books is realised. They are black-hearted, right-wing, vengence fantasies of the worst kind, with horrible acts of sexual violence inflicted upon the central character so as to make us even angrier with the film's villains for whom anything goes. But aside from that, these three films are blandly made by a Swedish television unit and look like gritty ITV detective serials rather than films. Noomi Rapace is good as Lisbeth Salander, but that isn't enough to stop the whole enterprise from feeling so horid.

3) Miral, dir Julian Schnabel, ISR/FRA

What I said: "It’s hard to argue with in terms of politics and sentiment: Israelis and Palestinians should live side-by-side peacefully and atrocities have been committed by both sides (though the film, perhaps reasonably, shows rather more perpetrated by the Israelis). But the thing is, Miral is just so contrived, so false, so cravenly seeking out approval, that it lacks impact and says nothing that isn’t either obvious or trite. The fact that the majority of the cast are speaking (at least what sounds like) their second language, only makes things worse. It is a far cry from the Wire-esque likes of 'Ajami', with a complete lack of authenticity. The sets look cheap, the make-up used to age actors – as the film spans the decades – is wholly unconvincing and the non-Arabic actors speak with hammy accents, reducing their parts to caricature."



I never want to see this again. Ever. It is well-meaning in its sympathetic depiction of the life of Palestinian people living in Israel, but it is far too simplistic and manipulative an account. The dialogue often feels as though it has been written for an educational programme for schools rather than for a feature film, as characters tell each other very basic things that they should probably be expected to know already. The acting is hammy and the film looks cheap. Schnabel's last film, 2007's 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', saw him nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. He can be certain of no such honour this year.

2) Sex & the City 2, dir Michael Patrick King, USA

What I said: "Carrie is a relationship columnist of international renown and acts as a sort of female version of the James Bond wish fulfilment fantasy. At one point she walks into a “wardrobe” bigger than most people’s bedrooms (and full of expensive designer clothes) and I distinctly heard two disparate ladies in the audience say “cool!” ‘Sex & the City’ is to women what ‘XXX’, ‘Fast and Furious’ and Danny Dyer movies are to men, in that they are not really for women at all: just for stupid people. If Samantha is deluded and slightly nauseating, then Carrie is just downright hateful. She makes her husband go out with her to a party, ditches him for her friends and then drags him home when she sees that he is starting to have fun (talking to Penelope “why am I here?” Cruz). For their anniversary her husband buys them both a flat screen television for the bedroom (getting a derisive chuckle from the ladies in the audience) but his intentions are decent and even romantic: he wants to lie with her and watch “old black and white films” in bed. She is indignant and, in the manner of an ungrateful child, says “a piece of jewellery would have been nice”. What a horrible person (but then Bond isn’t much better as a role model for male behaviour). Carrie and her friends feel like the subjects of an MTV reality show."



If you've seen the above clip you'll know that "culturally insensitive" isn't really an adequate description of 'Sex & the City 2'. Neither is "bad taste". But that is not why it's so high up this list. It's on this list because it promotes a hateful set of stereotypes about relationships, both sexual and Platonic. The "girls" are materialistic and bitchy to the extreme and the film itself is tacky and garish. The only reason it isn't number one is because there are times when I wondered whether or not the whole thing was intended as a satire of itself. I'm fairly sure it isn't and that we are supposed to love these characters and their antics, but the thought kept me entertained regardless. There is little left to say about 'Sex & the City 2' that isn't said by the above clip or my earlier review, so I'll leave it at that.

1) The Expendables, dir Sylvester Stallone, USA

What I said: “Take it off!” bellow Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke, pleading with Jason Statham to remove his shirt. Earlier, in the same scene, Rourke tells a topless Stallone he has a body of steel. “Why don’t we both just stop jerking off?” Bruce Willis suggests to Stallone a few scenes later before testosterone levels reach their peak as Arnold Schwarzenegger enters the room and begins eyeing up his one-time rival. They trade flirtatious manly banter for a few minutes before Willis takes exception, saying “you guys aren’t going to start sucking each other’s dicks are you?” Welcome to The Expendables, a faintly homoerotic ode to all things macho and a poignant elegy to the 80’s action picture: a time when a man was measured by the size of his biceps and where… well, as Rourke asks one girlfriend, “what’s your name again sweetheart?”



The delicate blend of homoerotic knob-gags, manly punching and heart-rending pathos seen in the above clip typifies 'The Expendables'. It is the male version of 'Sex & the City 2' as it plays to the very worst, basest elements of humanity and to the grossest of cultural, racial and gender stereotypes. My original review earned me a lot of angry comments earlier this year (being called a "human cancer" is still my favourite) which lead me to write an article explaining the tone of my review for those bereft of a sense of humour. But whether or not it's right to insult a film's potential audience as I did in my review, 'The Expendables' remains a film for hardened dunces everywhere.

Dishonorable mentions go to the following films: 'The Way Back', 'Round Ireland With a Fridge', 'Showtime'. 'Clash of the Titans' (which was guest reviewed by David Bierton) and 'Le Concert'.

Merry Christmas readers!

It's Christmas Day today, so hope you're having a good one. I thought I'd just say "merry Christmas" to you all to thank those of you who've supported this blog over the last year, through feedback or just from reading my musings on the last year of cinema.

I've had a decent day, made even better by my having received a pile of blu-rays and DVDs of films from the "top 30" list I published earlier in the week. They include Romanian drama 'The Happiest Girl in the World', Herzog's 'Bad Lieutenant', 'Greenberg', 'The Father of My Children', 'Life During Wartime', 'Mother' and 'Dogtooth'. I'm looking forward to re-watching all of those soon and settling down to reappraise 'Toy Story 3' with my girlfriend and her family.

If you missed it, here are links to my list of my personal top 30 films of 2010:
30-21
20-11
10-1

Also, in the Christmas spirit, I reviewed the latest Narnia film yesterday.

I hope you enjoy all that and the rest of your holiday!

My Top 30 Films of 2010: 10-1

The earlier parts of this top 30 can be found here:
30-21
20-11

10) Of Gods and Men, dir Xavier Beauvois, FRA

What I said: "Any good film is a film of ideas, even if those ideas are transmitted through seemingly disposable entertainment. But rarely are films so consciously about ideas whilst remaining so unpretentious... 'Of Gods and Men' lives up to its billing as one of the year's strongest films, with its sombre, contemplative mood as captivating as it is a profoundly moving experience."



The most recent entry into my top ten, I saw (and reviewed) 'Of Gods and Men' very recently after it's UK release earlier this month. 'Of Gods and Men' is a sober and thoughtful film based on the true story of a group of French monks who lived in an Algerian monastery until they were apparently beheaded by Islamic militants (though their actual killers are disputed). The film doesn't detail their deaths, but rather spends its time observing the conversations the men have as they ponder whether to stay or leave. It's a film about ideology and the idea of morality. It is also full of beautifully composed images and the use of the monks' Gregorian chanting (actually performed by the terrific ensemble cast) is haunting and powerful.

9) Ovsyanki (Silent Souls), dir Aleksei Fedorchenko, RUS

What I said: "It never out-stays its welcome and always has something new and interesting to show you, in its slow, deliberate and beautifully banal way, sometimes with an odd and unsettling atmosphere. Silent Souls also has plenty to say about culture, tradition, belief and love. Many films today say far less over 3 hours than this film manages in 75 minutes. Which isn’t bad going."



A strange Russian film about ritual and tradition, set in a remote part of the country and following a forgotten people with a distinct set of cultural practices. It's a film of long, still takes in which we are left to observe these curious ceremonies in real-time. One such scene sees a bereaved husband and one of his co-workers cleaning the dead body of his young wife. How the lady died is never mentioned (was she sick? Did she commit suicide? Was she murdered?) with the film just focusing on the final journey of her body as the two men embark on a sort of macabre road movie - and we are invited along on a sort of sedate, malancholic cultural safari. All the while there is the sense that it is about more than the passing of one man's wife, but about the death of an entire culture - which we are almost lead to believe is only being practised by these two stern and quiet men. For such a slow and simple film, 'Ovsyanki' is also full of surprisingly bravura shot choices. For instance, director Aleksei Fedorchenko executes a amazing panning shot which takes us 180 degrees around the inside of a moving car. 'Ovsyanki' was one of the major highlights of this year's Venice Film Festival and a film that I sadly can't see receiving any sort of UK theatrical release.

8) Police, Adjective, Corneliu Porumboiu, ROM

What I said: "[Police, Adjective] quietly paints a picture of urban decay, bureaucracy, and even seems to have fun satirising the conventions of the police procedural genre. There is no action or excitement here: no gun wielding, no interrogations, and [the protagonist] doesn’t even have a partner to accompany him on his long, eventless stake-outs, following a child suspected of a petty crime. There is also a great awareness of the hypocrisy of his task, as he offers one child (an informant) cigarettes and alcohol – arbitrarily deemed socially acceptable drugs... As the title suggests, the film is also concerned with the nature of language, specifically as a route to meaning. The final exchange between [the cop] and his superior is magnificent, ending a mostly silent film with a terrific scene of funny dialogue and top-class acting."



The 'Un Certain Regard' section of the Cannes Film Festival was especially good in 2009. All four of the chosen films found limited releases in the UK this year and all four of those films have been in this top 30 ('The Father of My Children' #22, 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' #14 and 'Dogtooth' #13). But for me the pick of the bunch has to be the Romanian police procedural 'Police, Adjective'. Never has the "procedural" part of that genre been so heavily emphasised - not even in brilliant TV shows like 'The Wire'. In this film there is no action, no major crime bust in operation. There is just one Romanian cop doing seemingly endless paperwork in the pursuit of the most juvenile of offenders at the insistence of his pedantic superiors. Like 'Ovsyanki', this is a patient film of long, slow takes and the most exciting scene is one sustained shot as three men defer to a Romanian dictionary in a discussion of ethics and the social purpose behind policing. Totally absorbing and entirely brilliant, with a wicked, dry sense of humour that seems to characterise the New Romanian cinema.

7) Greenberg, Noah Baumbach, USA

What I said: "The most breathtakingly beautiful moments of the film are those that follow [Greta] Gerwig as she sings along to Paul McCartney’s “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” in her modest studio flat or gets dressed after a one-night stand. When she impulsively asks Greenberg “could you ever love me?” the moment is profoundly moving and totally honest, never becoming saccharin... Greenberg is also impressive in the way that it depicts anxiety, ageing and social awkwardness (by now a sub-genre in itself), in a way which is just as precise and heartfelt as The Squid and the Whale."



Many will just flat-out hate Ben Stiller's title character, a self-obsessed, delusional and whiny loser, but I found 'Greenberg' immensely moving and poignant - never more so than when Rhys Ifans' character (whose music career was curtailed by Greenberg's selfishness) tells his friend that "It’s huge to finally embrace the life you never planned on." 'Greenberg' is a film about damaged people who haven't necessarily gotten what they expected from life. As a screenwriter and director, Noah Baumbach has come to specialise in this sort of sympathetic portrayal of these sorts of fully-developed and deeply flawed characters. Ultimately, I love these kinds of films that are honest about human frailties yet never resign themselves to ever-fashionable apathy or hopelessness.

6) Mother, Joon-ho Bong, ROK

What I said: "The film is suspenseful and tense, but also darkly funny throughout... Joon-ho is supremely skilled at mixing genuine tension with humour in this way. Maybe Sam Raimi and the Coen Brothers strike the same delicate balance when working at the peak of their powers, with these filmmakers able to inject absurd, black comedy into horrific events without detracting from their impact. Like those American directors, Joon-ho is also to make his scenes of graphic violence extremely visceral without verging anywhere near the "torture porn" end of the spectrum."



In retrospect I don't know that I think 'Mother' is as good as his last film 'The Host', but Joon-ho Bong has now established himself as one of the directors to watch in "world cinema". His films are so witty, so packed with satire and so very mad whilst always somehow just clinging to credibility. 'Mother' is a sort of detective thriller, where a lone middle-aged woman embarks on a fight against the odds to prove that her mentally handicapped son is not guilty of the murder he has been imprisoned for. It is at times quite jumpy, but the stand-out aspect of the film is the overriding creepiness Bong creates as we see the disturbingly close relationship between the mother and her son. As well as featuring many of the director's ongoing preoccupations (including the portrayal of South Korea as a seedy and corrupt place with a mobile phone fetish and overzealous media), the film works as a powerful meditation on the idea that a mother's unconditional love can work as a force for evil as much as good.

5) Another Year, Mike Leigh, UK

What I said: "[Another Year] moved me close to tears with Leigh's customary blend of well observed, wonderfully acted human drama. As always, even the smallest roles in Leigh's film feel imbued with real depth."



'Another Year' has a stunning cast, which includes Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville, who bring to life another banal, slice of life story from Mike Leigh - without doubt my favourite living British director. It's a film of wonderfully observed moments and rich, three dimensional characters that resonate with you on a gut level. One of the film's great strengths is that its characters are fully formed people who can be taken in many different ways. I have spoken to several different people about it and hear contrasting reactions to each of the characters. Some see the central couple (Broadbent and Sheen's comfortably middle-class Tom and Gerri) as being judgemental and even hateful, whilst I saw them as being tender and quite accommodating (trying their best to help their friends but finally accepting that there is nothing they can do to help people who aren't open to the idea of happiness). Lesley Manville's overbearing Mary was someone I felt was tragic and very real, whereas I have heard people say that her character is too extreme and too unlikeable.

As with a number of other film's on this list, such as 'Greenberg', 'Life During Wartime' and 'Submarine', enjoyment of it is subject to how much you can tolerate the idea that the life you lead owes a lot to luck and that almost everyone is a fuck up in one way or another. It also depends on how accepting you are of those people when you can see their many, obvious character defects. If you're the sort of person that just wants to slap them or tell them to "get over it", then you'll find this film (and many others on my list) infuriating. However, I found 'Another Year' to be deeply humbling and incredibly sad, with Leigh's bittersweet, gentle brand of humour (which hones in on small character moments and speech patterns) as effecting as ever.

4) 13 Assassins, Takeshi Miike, JAP

What I said: "Miike is less enamoured with the ancient traditions and the bushido warrior code than Kurosawa was. It is true that Seven Samurai does express – through Mifune’s peasant – a critical view of the samurai class, comparing them to bandits (something this film also does in its own way). But the tone and resolution of 13 Assassins, make it quite clear where Miike’s sensibilities lie. At one point, the most typically formally beautiful character – the bad guy and a Lord – comments on the great “elegance in fighting one on one” during a climactic duel. Miike then cuts to the warriors feet, shuffling through the mud. He continually employs touches like this to undermine Japanese traditions of formal beauty and a culture that finds nobility in violent death."



'13 Assassins' is prolific Japanese director Takeshi Miike's insane take on the central idea behind Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai': that one noble, old samurai must protect the weak by forming an elite gang and staging an epic all-or-nothing battle against an overwhelming adversary. There are three major differences though that set this film apart from that old classic. Firstly, it is graphically violent in the extreme. Secondly, the set pieces are much more high-octane, exaggerated and cartoonish (but in a way which thrilled me immensely). And thirdly - and most crucially - this film is far more critical of the samurai class and Japanese tradition than even Kurosawa was. In fact the film could be seen as the sort of direct challenge against the old guard that was typified by the Japanese New Wave of the 70s. This film has no respect for tradition and ceremony - or in the bushido code of the warrior - although it depicts all of that stuff in meticulous detail even as it sneers at it.

There is a lot going on in Miike's playful film (in terms of commentary on class, violence, beauty and on movies themselves), but its single best feature is that it is so very entertaining and inventive from start to finish. As soon as the credits rolled I wanted to see it all over again and I am more excited about re-watching this one than any other film I've seen this year.

3) The Happiest Girl in the World, Radu Jude, ROM

What I said: "[The Happiest Girl in the World] provoked an incredibly visceral response from me whilst I sat watching it. I felt like I wanted to shout at the girl for being so selfish and giving her folks such a hard time. I wanted her dad to be able to get her signature and sell the car before the day’s conclusion. At times I was gripped with suspense uncommon in this sort of quiet, low-key film as I genuinely worried about what decision the girl would make. But the biggest strength of all is that I wasn’t led to feel that way particularly (or at least I don’t feel as though I was, which is just as good). I can just as easily imagine people wanting the girl to keep her car and I can see people thinking badly of her parents for pushing her into selling it for them."



A brilliant little Romanian film about a small town girl who journeys into Bucharest with her parents to collect a brand new car that she has won after entering a competition on a soft drink label. Her pragmatic mother and father, who have lived through the more frugal communist years, want to sell the car and use the money to invest in a business that will see them through retirement. However, the girl just wants to ride around in her car with her friends. It's another excellent piece of slow cinema, with long takes and little action. Most of the film takes place on the set of a soft drink commercial the girl must complete before she can collect her prize. In the advert she must repeatedly say that she is "the happiest and luckiest girl in the world", with increasing irony as she argues with her parents about the prize between takes and becomes quite sulky and miserable. There is a lot of fun to be had from watching the filming of the commercial itself, as the director battles with the girl's incompetence and bad attitude, combined with the pushy, interfering executives of the soft drink company, who keep insisting on changes which slow down the shoot.

There are so many dynamics at work in 'The Happiest Girl in the World', which can be seen as a tale about young Romania versus old Romania, the small town versus big city, communism versus capitalism and also about filmmaking, and this is what makes it is such a rich and enjoyable film.

2) The Social Network, David Fincher, USA

What I said: "I have some sympathy with business writer Andrew Clark at The Guardian when he asks: "does a 26-year-old businessman really deserve to have his name dragged through the mud in a murky mixture of fact and imagination for the general entertainment of the movie-viewing public?" Probably not. But whatever the "truth", and whatever the moral implications of this type of dramatised treatment of very recent history, 'The Social Network' is a quite brilliant piece of entertainment and a wonderful example of American cinema at its very best."



I saw this film twice within twenty-four hours and it was even better a second time, mainly thanks to the joy of listening to Aaron Sorkin's famously quick and clever dialogue. Everyone speaks like they are a genius, which given that most of this film's characters are Harvard students and top lawyers is probably not too much of a stretch. This writing is coupled with Fincher's restrained and tight directing which has the effect of making a film about nerds suing each other feel like an intense thriller. Everyone is superb in it too, from Jesse Eisenberg - as Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook - to Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. My favourite exchange of dialogue is this one:

Lawyer: Mr. Zuckerberg, do I have your full attention?
Mark Zuckerberg: [stares out the window] No.
Lawyer: Do you think I deserve it?
Mark Zuckerberg: [looks at the lawyer] What?
Lawyer: Do you think I deserve your full attention?
Mark Zuckerberg: I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition, and I don't want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no.
Lawyer: Okay - no. You don't think I deserve your attention.
Mark Zuckerberg: I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing.
[pauses]
Mark Zuckerberg: Did I adequately answer your condescending question?

After saying those words there are shots of everyone in the room, including Zuckerberg's own lawyers, looking embarrassed (presumably as much for him in his arrogance as for themselves at being outwitted by him) accompanied by an ominous note on the soundtrack, which itself deserves a mention. Along with Hans Zimmer's resonating tones from 'Inception' and Robbie Robertson's innovative work on 'Shutter Island', the film features one of the year's best scores, written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

'The Social Network' is not that "film about Facebook" everyone wrote off a year or so ago. It's a powerful document of the world we live in (where huge wealth and power rests in the hands of the likes of Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs), yet also a timeless Shakespearean tale of friendships broken by betrayal and ambition, where the protagonist - in trying to become so popular - in fact becomes even more lonely: ironically a symptom of the kind of social isolation brought about by the same Facebook Zuckerberg helped to invent.

1) Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, USA

What I said: "Aronofsky said, at the post-film press conference, that he always likened Black Swan to The Wrestler in his own mind... But that he felt it properly combined his earlier, perhaps more experimental and less literal style, with that later film’s more realist documentary aesthetic. I think that maybe a key ingredient behind this film’s success. It is the perfect marriage of those two styles and the real beginning to Aronofsky’s claim to true greatness. Time will tell if he can do it again. But regardless, Black Swan is a towering achievement. Both as cinema and as an unadulterated emotional ride."



'Black Swan' is my favourite film of 2010, narrowly defeating 'The Social Network', but way ahead of everything else. I was absolutely stunned by it, and at times gripped by intense fear, when I saw it on the opening day of this year's Venice Film Festival. It comes out in the UK in the new year and I suspect it will at least be nominated for every major category at next year's Academy Awards, though I predict it will lose out on the big prizes to 'The Social Network' (with its mighty "95" rating on metacritic) and 'The King's Speech'.

Natalie Portman is simply amazing in a physically demanding role which required her to spend the last few years learning ballet to a high standard. This central performance is complemented by a film that is a perfect blend of sound and image. Not overly literal or dialogue heavy, 'Black Swan' pushes at the boundaries of what cinema can be as a sensory experience. It feels as though there isn't a flabby, unnecessary shot (let alone scene) in the whole piece, which is about as meticulously crafted and tightly directed as it's possible for a film to be. Like the title character, it goes sublimely from being as delicate and beautiful as bone china, to being horrifying and bone-crunchingly brutal - a fitting analogue for ballet itself, with its mannered public face hiding years of disfiguring, back-breaking effort within a world of jealousy and intense rivalry.

So that's 2010. In an outstanding cinematic year I couldn't even find a place in the top 30 for films as strong as 'Shutter Island', 'The Kids Are All Right', 'Sons of Cuba' and 'Post Mortem'! I hope 2011 provides the same problem with as many really excellent films. If you didn't read the first two sections of this top 30 list, then they are available here:
30-21
20-11

My Top 30 Films of 2010: 20-11

This is the second part of my 2010 top 30 films list. If you haven't already read through entries 30-21 then do so here.

The final top 10 is available here.

20) Capitalism: A Love Story, dir Michael Moore, USA

What I said: "‘Capitalism’ is a fiery essay, delivered by a master propagandist and manipulator, but it is never less than compelling and exciting, and is a skillful piece of documentary filmmaking. Even if you come away unconvinced or even angered by Moore’s opinions, I for one am very glad he is airing them in this way. Especially on this subject which usually goes un-discussed, yet has such total and invisible control over our everyday lives. The fact that Moore can turn this discussion into populist entertainment is his unique gift and I for one applaud him for it."



Nothing this year has left me feeling as enraged or as energised as Michael Moore's documentary on world capitalism. Moore's critics point to a lack of "balance" or "objectivity" in his films, but for me they work for this reason. They take a view and argue that point. I don't particularly like the wacky stunts he pulls, such as closing off Wall Street with crime scene tape, as these moments have the effect of trivialising the other more serious points he is making, of which there are many. What I really liked was the sequence that linked the rise of Reagan to the rise of capitalism and advertising, and the bit where he talks about FDR's siding with striking workers over the police, sending the army to protect them (a moment that actually made me punch the air with joy). It is populist and manipulative in the extreme, but "the left" needs a voice like this in a world where shamelessly biased, right-wing media organisations like Fox News dominate the ratings on American cable news.

19) Ponyo, dir Hayao Miyazaki, JAP

What I said: "I loved ‘Ponyo’. It was purely and immensely joyful and if my fandom of Miyazaki has in any way compromised my judgement and rendered me unable to find any negatives in this film, then I am entirely happy with that outcome. In an age where most children's films have a post-modern, knowing cynicism about them, it is really refreshing to find something so sincere in its unabashed enthusiasm and childish naivety."



Miyazaki's most childish film since 'My Neighbour Totoro', 'Ponyo' is a little undiluted capsule of raw fun. It takes place in that recognisable world of his where the sky is the brightest blue and the grass is the lushest green and where there is no such thing as "evil" or "bad guys". As in all Miyazaki films - with the exception of one - the villain of the piece is redeemed rather than killed and everyone is more or less decent. He also continues to be one of the keenest observers of the behaviour of young children in all of cinema. His last film 'Howl's Moving Castle' is richer and more detailed in terms of storytelling, but it is great to see a film aimed a really young children that is so respectful of that audience and brimming with imagination.

18) Lebanon, dir Samuel Maoz, ISR

What I said: "Of course, the film is anti-war, but without seeming like a polemic. Maoz doesn’t stand on a soapbox: he simply presents the events to us as he saw them and in doing so we come to share his viewpoint. You could not sit through that experience and come to any other conclusion than war being a terrible exercise... But the strength of Maoz’s picture is that, confined to the men in the tank and bereft of any political context or discussion, we just see the humanist plight of people in a nonsensical situation asked to wreak violence upon their fellow man."



Sam Maoz documented his personal experiences, during his compulsory time in the Israeli army during the first Lebanon war, in this film which takes place entirely within the confines of a tank. All we see of the world outside is what we are permitted to see by the vehicles viewfinder. As you'd expect the result is tight and claustrophobic. It's a film about the horrible things men do to each other and the immense pressure put on young people to do them - usually for reasons they don't understand.

17) Submarine, dir Richard Ayoade, UK

What I said: "Rarely in a debut feature do you find a director so in command of the form, as you sense that everything in 'Submarine' has been carefully played out in its director's head and translated exactly that way onto the screen... 'Submarine' is as sweet and at times unsettling as it is beautifully made and wonderfully acted. It is funny - but not too funny - and also melancholic and above all truthful, in spite of that fact that it takes place in a reality heightened by its narrator's ego."



Richard Ayoade's debut feature film reminded me equally of Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick. It has all the detail and French New Wave inspired mise-en-scène of the former, but with the narrator - a Welsh teenage boy with delusions of grandeur - sharing dark thoughts in a cheerful and amoral way that channels Alex from 'A Clockwork Orange'. It is witty and at times bizarre, yet at its core it's a very sincere family drama and a heartfelt coming of age story.

16) Tangled, dir Byron Howard/Nathan Greno, USA

What I said: "For years I've been a hand-drawn snob who felt that by going over to computer animation Disney had lost their way - along with all of their charm. 'Tangled' has won me over wholeheartedly, putting a recognisably Disney style into computer animation for the first time. If they keep this up, the studios identity crisis might finally be over and the problem of differentiating Walt Disney Animation Studios from their more lauded cousins PIXAR might finally be solved."



My favourite animated film of the year, which is no small feat when you consider 2010 saw the UK releases of superb return to hand-drawn animation 'The Princess and the Frog', as well as Miyazaki's 'Ponyo'. Not to mention the charming likes of 'Chico & Rita' and 'The Illusionist'. (I didn't care much for Pixar's slide into sequel excess, 'Toy Story 3'.) Walt Disney Animation Studios has finally made a decent computer animated film, something I thought would never happen. The secret seems to be that they have moved forward with the technology (the best hair, water, light and fabric effects I've ever seen), but looked backwards with the storytelling. Like all classic Disney it is a fairy tale (based on Rapunzel). It is also a Broadway-style musical to rival the best of the Disney renaissance from the 90s. The whole thing feels like a hand-drawn Disney movie pulled out into 3D, rather than the sort of charmless, personality-free stuff that came to typify their output of the last decade.

15) Four Lions, dir Chris Morris, UK

What I said: "Whilst nobody in the audience is encouraged to agree with the measures Omar takes to try and register his political dissatisfaction as a British Muslim, in ‘Four Lions’ we are given a humanistic picture which demythologises the bogeyman of the evil suicide bomber. This is arguably a laudable aim if, like me, you see empathy and understanding as crucial to finding a future peace... ‘Four Lions’ will certainly not be to everybody’s taste, with some scenes destined to make audiences uneasy, but long term fans of Morris will find it to be a satisfying and devastatingly funny experience."



"If they're about to blow themselves up in wrong place, you've got to make sure they blow themselves up in the right place" counsels the wife of a disillusioned British suicide bomber on the verge of giving up. The couple's young son is equally encouraging in a scene that reminded me of something from director Chris Morris' unsettling sketch show 'Jam'. I love the way that scene plays on movie convention, as Morris' film picks apart the recognised formula of a Hollywood narrative (here the "hero" has a crisis and is helped by his family) by transposing it onto a group of would-be terrorists. I expected 'Four Lions' to be clever and funny, being from the maker of 'Brass Eye' and 'Nathan Barley', but I never expected it to be so tender and moving as it was in the final minutes.

It is also a deeply humanistic film that looks at the different reasons people go along with Omar's plans: one is brainless, another younger man wants to be seen as a radical and thinks it'll be cool, another guy (Barry) is just homicidal and wants to blow people up and is using his shaking grasp of Islam as an excuse. Omar himself is motivated by sincere conviction, but even then he is not shown to be a dedicated Muslim, but is instead driven by a misguided sense that terrorism is some kind of ultimate form of anti-consumerism. Characteristically, Morris doesn't pander to anyone or sanctify anything, so the practicing Muslims are also satirised, keeping their wives in a cupboard ("it's not a cupboard, it's a small room") and playing football in impractical clothes. The police are equally nonsensical, with a sniper shooting the wrong man during the London marathon ("is a wookie a bear?") Like his frequent collaborator Armando Iannucci (who directed 'In the Loop'), Morris plays up basic human absurdity with a straight face. To both men incompetence and ignorance can be found at the root of all "evil".

14) No One Knows About Persian Cats, dir Bahman Ghobadi, IRN

What I said: "Aesthetically, the film sometimes looks a little amateurish and the music video sequences (whilst clever) can seem a little cheesy. But that said, ‘No One Knows About Persian Cats’ is an enjoyable and at times poignant look at a modern Tehran, which provides a really good insight into the social and cultural life of that city. The film tantalisingly blurs the line between fact and fiction in many ways. For example, the lead actors boast the same first names as their characters and the bands they encounter are real bands playing themselves. But more relevant and interesting is the movie’s opening scene in which a character talks of a great movie that will be made about the underground music scene in Iran. After seeing ‘Persian Cats’ I was left in no doubt that this is that great movie."



An interesting look at the hidden artistic life of a secretive and fascinating country, 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' looks at the great variety and vibrancy of the music on offer in Tehran for those who know where to look. It is a film that shows young people in Iran referencing Western movies and 60s rock music, which reveals something both wonderful and tragic: there is vibrant, modern youth culture here, but it is being stamped on by an authoritarian regime. As you'd expect for a film made on location in Iran which features real footage of underground musicians performing banned music, 'Persian Cats' at times feels amateurish and cheap - with the extended musical sequences looking laughably unsophisticated as they try to ape Western music videos without the glamour or the technology. Yet as a film it is ultimately every bit as hopeful and heart-breaking as the modern Tehran it presents so vividly.

13) Dogtooth, dir Giorgos Lanthimos, GRE

What I said: "For something so thoughtful and demanding of close analysis, ‘Dogtooth’ is also more purely entertaining than it has any right to be: equal parts harrowing family drama and subtly amusing black comedy. The film is sometimes tense, occasionally funny and often disturbing. The performances are perfect across the cast, with Mary Tsoni and Aggeliki Papoulia particularly effective as the two daughters. They imbue their young-adult characters with childlike mannerisms, particularly in one scene where they perform an excruciatingly bad dance for their parents. All the actors transmit a certain coldness and convey that the characters have no real understanding of how to be affectionate."



An incredibly rich film that you could probably read as being "about" three thousand different things. For me it was about the arbitrary nature of language and meaning, as it looked at three "children" (now adults but still treated as infants by their parents) who have never left their high-walled family home and whose socialisation has been left entirely to their strange parents. They are taught different meanings for any words that imply an outside world. It is explained to them that cats who enter the garden are dangerous and evil creatures and that passing airplanes are made of paper and thrown into the air by their parents as a game. It all goes "wrong" however, when the father invites an outsider into the house to teach his son about sex. Soon the siblings are consumed with a curiosity to discover more about sexuality and this mysterious outsider. 'Dogtooth' is unsettling, darkly funny beautifully shot.

12) Micmacs, dir Jean-Pierre Jeunet, FRA

What I said: "[If] you are one of those who didn’t get swept up in the whimsical charms of ‘Amélie’, then I would suggest you will not find much more to enjoy in ‘Micmacs’. If you hated that film's sensibilities (as a great many seem to do) then I don’t think this is the film for you. Conversely, I think fans of that film will find much to recommend about ‘Micmacs’, as it has the same oddball sensibility, along with many of Jeunet’s familiar visual motifs and thematic preoccupations."



Like ever other Jeunet film before it (including 'Alien 4'), 'Micmacs' follows a set of quirky oddballs - social misfits who find strength in banding together. It feels like exactly the sort of film Terry Gilliam would be making if he was French and if he was given money and control. It's a highly visual modern fairy tale about a group of homeless people fighting to destroy two major arms corporations - a sort of slapstick, silly 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington' for the modern age. It's sweet, warm and sentimental (just as Capra was), and its heart is so definitely in the right place, that it is just such good, uplifting fun from beginning to end. Along with del Toro, Gilliam and Burton, Jeunet is a modern auteur who fully embraces imagination and the possibilities of cinema as a visual medium. Also, French comic star Danny Boon is brilliant in the lead role, especially during one pantomime scene of which any of the great silent clowns would be proud.

11) Life During Wartime, dir Todd Solondz, USA

What I said: "By far the best reason to see ‘Life During Wartime’ (aside from the performances, the drama and the directorial precision) is for the riotous black comedy. As with Chris Morris’ ‘Four Lions’, some may squirm uncomfortably in their chairs, but I personally found it struck the right note throughout. Solondz never pulls back, never flinches. We are always taken right to the dark core of his chosen subject matter and we laugh along the way. It is often said that if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry – that laughter is the best medicine. In Solondz case this is true, as he examines difficult social problems which, without his wonderfully comic writing, might prove too much to bear."



Chris Morris and 'Four Lions' is perhaps the best point of comparison for Todd Solondz 'Happiness' sequel. Both directors take a knee-jerk social issue and run at it head-on, seemingly without fear. For Solondz that subject is arguably even more controversial than a comedy about Islamic terrorism: he is looking at sex in suburban America and even paedophilia. And just as Morris aimed to understand the terrorist by looking at him as just another flawed, complex human being, Solondz give a matter of fact representation of a paedophile as a man driven by desires that have ruined his life (time in prison, break down of all his family relationships and shattering of his reputation). Again, as in 'Four Lions', we are not asked to sympathise with or support the vice itself, but to feel some empathy for the man who (for whatever mental reason) commits that act. Finally, both men use razor-sharp comedy to look at these issues, to get to the core of the absurdity at work in the human psyche and to avoid the despair that would otherwise accompany such an honest look at what lies within all of us. In Morris' film that takes the form of more obvious jokes and wordplay, whilst Solondz gets laughs from social awkwardness and a very real desperation which operates at the heart of all his very sad characters.

It's not an out and out comedy, but rather it's funny because people are funny, even in their blackest moments. The film is equally a visceral punch in the guts, especially in a key scene in which the paedophile attempts to reconcile with his now adult son.

The final part of this list, detailing my top 10 films of 2010, will be online tomorrow. If you haven't read the first part (films 30-21) then you can do that here.

If you want to see the top ten, then that is now available here.