Evidently, a lot of people weren't on holiday over the holidays. Instead, they were listing, and since New Year's Day, when Moving Image Source posted its walloping collection, "Moments of 2010," the fruits of their labors have been tumbling out all over.
The Playlist has posted more tops tens, most recently from Oli Lyttelton and Gabe Toro, and they've also gotten started on their list of the "100 Most Anticipated Films of 2011," certainly the most comprehensive of its kind so far. Here's Part 2. And Part 3.
To qualify for Hammer to Nail's "Top 13 Films of 2010," you have to be an American narrative feature produced for a million bucks or less. #1: Jody Lee Lipes and Henry Joost's NY Export: Opus Jazz. "De beste films van 2010": De Filmkrant collects lists from 17 contributors. Badass Digest has the Alamo Drafthouse Team's Top Ten of 2010. #1: Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Dana Stevens has called Slate's Movie Club to order, pointing to the top tens of each of the participants. And this year, they are Dan Kois, who's posted a terrific "Flowchart of the Pleasure He Experienced While Watching Black Swan," Karina Longworth ("I guess it was inevitable that I would become the Trash Humpers Girl"), Matt Zoller Seitz ("If we ourselves cannot stop thinking and talking about Inception, might there in fact be something to it?") and Stephanie Zacharek ("Pleasure is becoming the hardest thing to defend").
"Now's the time of year when we piss people off," announces Reverse Shot. "And trust us, though our annual 11 Offenses column (oh, how we could go higher than 11...) incites the angriest mail and message board postings we get, we do not do this for attention (completely). We genuinely hated sitting through these movies." They're so wrong about Winter's Bone. And I say that, of course, with love.
Spend some time with Roderick Heath's "Confessions of a Film Freak, 2010" at Ferdy on Films. Lord knows he did. By the way, both he and Marilyn Ferdinand are interviewed at Wonders in the Dark.
Tom Hall's long countdown of his "Top Ten Cinematic Experiences of 2010" reaches quite a climax. During the Sarasota Film Festival, "I was privileged to work with Steve Buscemi, Oren Moverman, Wren Arthur and the team at Olive Productions to present a staged reading of Queer, Moverman's adaptation of the early novels of William S Burroughs. The cast? Buscemi directed and performed as Burroughs, Stanley Tucci read stage directions and played a couple of small roles, Ben Foster played Allerton, the object of Burrough's desire, Lisa Joyce was Burrough's wife Joan, and John Ventimiglia performed as various denizens of the expat bar scene in Mexico. The location? A small, 130 seat black box theater on the edge of downtown Sarasota. Before the reading began? Patti Smith walked on stage to say a few words of remembrance for Burroughs, and her honest, heartfelt tribute to the writer set the stage for a great evening."
Bilge Ebiri lists his "Top 12 Older Films I Discovered in 2010." With occasional bonus clips.
Josef Braun on Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives: "The latest from what's arguably the most playful and provocative new voice to emerge within the last decade opens with fecund visions of errant livestock and fleeting sightings of mysterious jungle-dwelling beasts before crafting a gentle, funny, funky portrait of Thai country life, interrupted one evening by apparitions of loved ones who have either died or been transformed into exactly what you'd get if you crossed a wookiee with a jawa. Using the simplest of screen tricks, this sequence is the most magical thing I saw at the movies last year."
"As I sat reveling in Gainsbourg at last spring's SF International Film Festival," writes Michael Hawley, "I knew I had my top movie of the year. In his filmmaking debut, graphic novelist Joann Sfar took key moments from Serge Gainsbourg's life and career, and turned them into richly-conceived mythical fantasias. Eric Elmosino delivers an astounding lead performance, aided by brilliant supporting turns by actresses portraying the women in his life (particularly Laetitia Casta and Anna Mouglalis as Brigitte Bardot and Juliette Gréco). While my obsession for the man's music may have colored my appreciation for a film many disliked, at least Neue Zürcher Zeitung agrees with my assessment."
Joe Leydon on Inception: "Christopher Nolan's eye-popping, brain-teasing dazzler is an oxymoronic marvel — a profound popcorn flick. At once intellectually stimulating, emotionally stirring and technically astounding, it is the sort of ambitious and audacious masterwork that results only when a true visionary somehow manages to earn carte blanche to dream big and spend large within the Hollywood commercial mainstream."
FirstShowing has Quentin Tarantino's top 20 of 2010. #1: Toy Story 3. New lists at Twitch: Kurt Halfyard and Ben Umstead. Filmcritic.com posts its collective and individual contributor lists. David Poland's #1: Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go, the "true forever film of 2010."
Rounding up the usual suspects: The Online Film Critics Society and nominations from the Producers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.
DVDS
"I continue to love this poll," confesses DVD Beaver's Gary W Tooze. Well, so do I. Top ten DVD and Blu-ray releases, second rounds of ten, individual ballots, best covers, extras, guilty pleasures... "We appreciate esteemed journalists Jonathan Rosenbaum and Peter Hoskin, archivist/producers Nick Wrigley, Christiane Habich and James White, author Stuart Galbraith IV, webmasters Daniel Stuyck, Ross Willbanks, Michael Den Boer, editor Mikkel Leffers Svendstrup, informed cinephiles Jan Bielawski, Bruce Kimmel and David Hare plus the staff of Slant Magazine and many more joining in the fun."
"Warner Archive really hit the ground running in 2010, bringing scores and scores of titles (which were previously unavailable) to DVD via their Manufacture-On-Demand system," writes Moisés Chiullan at Badass Digest. "Here I've collected not just the best of the best. Most of those have appeared on various sites' lists. I'm also picking out the weird, the not-so-great-but-memorable, and a few on a theme."
Roundups of this week's releases: Ed Gonzalez (House Next Door), Harley W Lond (Cinematical), Bryce J Renninger (indieWIRE) and Michael Tully (Hammer to Nail).
EVENTS
"The 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam will open on the evening of Wednesday 26 January with the world première of the Greek film Wasted Youth, a fiction film also selected for the festival's Tiger Awards Competition. Co-directors Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Jan Vogel, the producers and cast members Haris Markou, Ieronimos Kaletsanos, Arthouros Kiviliof, Jason Wastor and Themis Bazaka will be present at the opening."
The exhibition Moving Stories will itself be moving through Belgium, Italy, Austria, Germany, France and Poland as organizations from each of those countries stage six exhibitions of work by six artists, each of whom have been "asked to explore new or innovative strategies involving moving images, each in a highly personal artistic way: along the lines of fiction or documentary, fact or suggestion, linear or interactive approach."
If you're in Zurich, there's a Barbara Stanwyck retrospective on at the Filmpodium through February 25.
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