The Top 25 Movies of 2010, Part 2

No, "The King's Speech" will not be appearing on my list.  It was a good movie, just not one of my favorites.  "Best Picture" my ass.

Monsters
Directed by Gareth Edwards

Like a giant monster movie directed by Terence Malick, "Monsters" is more concerned with its characters and their relationships with each other, their immediate surroundings and their inner turmoil than with the usual monster movie shenanigans.  Years ago, a space probe carrying alien life form samples from another planet crashed into the heart of Mexico.  Now a large portion of the country is walled off in order to contain the spread of alien critters, and a freelance photographer (Scoot McNairy) must escort his boss's daughter (Whitney Able) through the infected zone and back to America.  Produced on a minuscule budget, Edwards shot much of this movie himself, on the fly, while traveling through Mexico with his actors.  He even created all of the visual effects himself on his home computer, which are fantastic, especially during the mesmerizing finale.  The result is a movie that feels very grounded and real, and looks much more expensive than it actually was.  Some people have bemoaned the lack of monster action, but this movie is like a little slice of life set in a much larger story, which we don't really see, just receive hints of.  It's focused and meditative, laced with scenic photography and a subtle musical score, and anchored with solid central performances (McNairy and Able).  The fact that Gareth Edwards is now directing the new big-budget American Godzilla reboot makes me happy.

The Karate Kid
Directed by Harald Zwart

Yeah, the original "Karate Kid" (1984) was just a rip off of "Rocky" (it was even directed by the same guy, John G. Avildsen), but it was such a beloved part of my young movie-crazed life that I wasn't planning on ever seeing this remake.  Then I did some "research" (definition: I read something on a movie news website) which revealed that this movie is actually a sequel/spinoff of the original series rather than a reboot (it was even titled "The Karate Kid 5" in some countries, "The Kung Fu Kid" in others), so I gave it a chance.  And you know what?  It got me.  While it will never replace the original in my heart, it's yet one more prime example that the classic "Rocky" formula, when done well, will always work (like "The Fighter", also in 2010).  Produced by Will Smith, the movie stars his son Jaden (nepotism at its finest) as a kid who moves with his mom (Taraji P. Henson) from America to Beijing, China.  Out of place and tormented by a gang of local tough kids, he finds help and friendship from an emotionally broken down handyman (Jackie Chan, who won a Chinese "best actor" award for this role, and deservedly so), who mentors him in the ways of kung fu.  Word on the street is that Ralph Macchio, who played Daniel-san in the original series, will reprise the character in the upcoming follow up to this 2010 version.

Never Let Me Go
Directed by Mark Romanek

Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, "Never Let Me Go" takes place in an alternate reality where people's physical health and lifespans are increased through organ donations from living clones, who are created in test tubes and then raised in various isolated facilities until they come of age.  Fully aware of their roles in life, they live quiet lives only to die in surgery, usually from their second or third donation.  The movie centers around the lives of three of these unfortunate individuals and how their relationships grow and strain over the course of time (the movie starts in the '70s and ends in the '90s), and how love may offer a way out of their bleak situation.  Like "Monsters", this movie tells a smaller, more intimate story in what could have been a much larger tale.  It could easily have been yet another sci-fi movie about a slave class rebelling against their repressors (let my people go!), but thankfully it never gets arch.  It's meditative (there's that word again), tragic, heartfelt and at the same time cold-blooded stuff.  Carey Mulligan is in the lead, with Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley playing the other two characters in this love/friendship triangle.  All of them do fine jobs portraying three distinct characters and how they consciously and subconsciously deal with mortality.  Rough stuff.

Micmacs
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Micmacs is French for "shenanigans".  Sort of.  Young Bazil's dad was killed while disarming a mine in the war-torn Middle East.  Then, while working at a video store late one night, he's hit in the head by a stray bullet, where it becomes permanently lodged.  He lives, but the bullet can kill him at any moment.  After leaving the hospital, he loses his job and his apartment and is forced to live on the grimy streets of Paris.  This is a comedy.  After falling in with an endearing group of misfits who live in a junkyard, he decides to wreak vengeance on the two arms corporations who made the bullet in his head and the mine that killed his dad.  With his misfit buddies at his side, they enact a complicated plan to play the companies off of each other and teach their respective CEOs a powerful lesson.  Bursting at the seams with visual flair and comic mischief, Jeunet (a master of this kind of stuff - he made "Delicatessen", "The City of Lost Children", "Amelie") guides this entertainingly weird heist tale with a practiced hand, bolstered by an ensemble cast of gifted comedic performers.  Ultimately, this story about using dumb luck as a springboard for taking destiny by the balls is just a plain 'ol good time.  With subtitles.

Frozen
Directed by Adam Green

When programming the lineup for a Halloween horror movie marathon, choose plenty of "fun" horror movies.  Then put one movie right in the middle of the lineup that will set the audiences on their asses and make them chew their fingernails off in terror.  Then go back to the fun ones.  "Frozen" is a good fingernail biter and also the best horror movie of 2010, says me.  Emma Bell, Keven Zegers and Shawn Ashmore are three friends on vacation at a popular ski resort in New England.  A convincingly conveyed chain of events leaves them stranded high above the ground in a chair lift and, what's worse, the resort is closed for a week and there's a snowstorm moving in.  What do you do?  Loosely inspired by a real event, indie-horror rising star Adam Green (the "Hatchet" movies, "Spiral") gives us this well crafted yet raw piece of filmmaking which actually fits the overused buzz term "nerve-shredding".  I find certain sequences hard to watch, but I really love inflicting this movies on others and watching them squirm.  Does that make me a sadist?  Probably.  And yet this is no "shock for shock's sake" cheapie.  The characters are so well established and the lengthy lead-in is so deftly done that when the shit finally hits the ski lift, it's much more hard hitting.  It's an original little low budget gem that deserves to not be overlooked.  And there's a satisfying little coda/epilogue for this movie in Adam Green's next film "Hatchet 2".  But you don't need to see that to enjoy "Frozen".