2010 Rewind: "True Grit"

When Oscar season rolls into town you can expect a few things: popcorn flicks are put into hibernation, several foreign language films will see a limited release in New York (meaning no one will see them), and of course there will be a historical film or two about the nazis. Over the past few years a new trend has emerged to join the ranks of these other venerated traditions, the appearance of a Coen brother film. In 2010 we had "True Grit".

Ignoring the fact that this film is based on a novel and has already been adapted to the big screen in the past with legendary screen gem John Wayne himself, the Coens take this rather simple western story about revenge and the emergence of law and intellectuals into the anarchistic wild frontier and reshape it into their own highly entertaining vision that can be enjoyed by nearly all audiences.

The film has great acting, terrific cinematography, a compelling script, and some gut busting scenes of comedy that prove once again that the Coens are masters of comic timing and are always able to pull the best line delivery from their actors.

Helping to deliver those lines is an all-star cast of dependable actors who are strangely all playing second string to a young actress who not only serves as the film's protagonist but also it's sacred cow. To say that she has acting talent seems wildly inaccurate as this girl could have stood to win the best actress award this year, if the Academy hadn't pigeon holed her into the supporting actress category. She'll probably be someone we see a lot of in the near future and I couldn't be more happy to see some fresh blood in Hollywood that didn't get to where they are by posing on the cover of a hot rod magazine.

Everything about this movie is so very perfect that it might seem odd to hear me say that I really felt like the Coens were putting their feet up and vacationing with this one. Everything is by the book and feels like so many other Coen films in the past, but even when they are slumming, the dynamic duo somehow manage to turn out material that blows most competitors out of the water. They definitely know film and are very accomplished artists; "True Grit" may be nothing new or special but it is highly entertaining and is one of those rarities that will please the cinema snobs and matinee popcorn texters alike. Check it out.

2010 Rewind: "Black Swan"

Being an artist is tough. Aside from pursuing a career that has no security or long term prospects, the physical and mental strain it places on the individual is enough to drive most mad. Every morning artists wake up and strive for perfection and in many cases they go by unrewarded and worst of all, sometimes completely unrecognized. It's a wonder that artists don't all lose their minds at some point early in their career, which leads us to the topic of the movie "Black Swan".

Considered a spiritual successor to Darren Aronofsky's previous film, "The Wrestler", "Black Swan" observes the behave and destructive dedication that performers go through in order to reach that next level of their career.

The film follows Natalie Portman, a young girl gunning for the lead role in her troop's production of Swan Lake. In every way she's perfectly suited for the white swan position; she's humble, delicate, fragile, a perfect unblemished innocent. Unfortunately, in order to play the white swan, tradition dictates that she must also be the black swan, a symbol of unbridled sexuality and precocious adolescent lust and temptation. The audience is treated to the maddening lengths that one young girl will go to in order to achieve her goals as she slowly changes from the shy girl next door to a passionately unchecked ball of emotional confusion and sexual discovery.

Where the film truly excels is in the presentation. Mirroring her mental transformation, we are treated to a hauntingly bizarre physical metamorphosis that brings into the very question of the character's mental state and radically alters the viewer's perspective; thrashing and tearing at the walls of reality and exposing a twisted fantasy that blurs the lines of reality and psychosis.

For all the struggling artists out there and even for all of you workaholics, this film is something that needs to be seen. There's definitely a hidden message buried within the context here, about the dangers of perfection and the harsh reality of personal discovery and the nightmarish roads that we sometimes must take that will lead to our own happiness.

2010 Rewind: "The Town"

Americans love a good crime story. Perhaps they're nothing more than a twisted reflection of our inner wants and desires, but I feel like criminals intrigue us because they embody freedom. They do as they please and they're often rewarded for their efforts; the American dream in all of its shady glory. As a result, making a crime thriller seems like the easiest way to print cash but its not always the case. Criminals by their very nature are bad people, and while they may be fun to watch, we also need some semblance of humanity in order to attach ourselves towards whatever their plight is. No matter what a persons' actions may say, deep down we have a hard time sympathizing with those who step outside the boundaries of civility, which is why the great crime stories of our country's filmography tend to focus on strong character development.

Hot off the heels of his previous Boston based film "Gone Baby, Gone" Ben Affleck proves once again that what he may lack in acting skills he more than makes up for in direction. Clearly a learned man, Affleck shows all the potential of a young Scorsese with his latest film "The Town".

On the surface, "The Town" is nothing more than a movie about a bank robber who is trying to find a way out of the business. On a technical level however, there is a lot more going on. The various character relationships and goals of everyone involved spins a delightful web of suspense and white-knuckle entertainment from start to finish. Each person no matter how important or minor, is given some business and feels like a fully fleshed out individual who contributes immensely towards the overall objective of the film. Top it off with the near perfect performances with some clever dialogue and scenes of tension and you've got an instant classic.

One can only hope that we will continue to see more work from Ben Affleck along the lines of "The Town". Now if only the Academy Awards could recognize him for his efforts then we'd all be good.

2010 Rewind: "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World"

One of the biggest cinematic disasters that await studios occurs when they try to adapt a video game or comic book to a live action full-length feature. The concern isn't that the source material is poor or that it wouldn't make an interesting film, the real challenge comes from most peoples' inability or complete misunderstanding of translating two entirely separate mediums into a film format.

Video games are a narrative that is structured around interaction. There is a large emphasis on allowing the player to dictate the event of the story; and as a result, diverges heavily from more traditional screenplay narratives. Comics are a unique visual entertainment in that they are free to play with aspect ratio and distort perspective and reality to communicate nonverbal ideas. These elements have remained a huge hurdle for movie studios to overcome and while a few comic films have broken the mold, most of them are still disasters on the scale of the Titanic, while video game movies continue to be nothing more than shameless cash-ins on popular trends. Thankfully the world was blessed by the grace of Edgar Wright, a man who can seemingly do no wrong who decided to challenge the world by bringing about the first A+ video game title that was based off, of all things, a comic book.

"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" is one of those revolutionary films. Similar to "Fight Club" or even Oscar contenders like "American Beauty", "Scott Pilgrim" changed the way we will forever look at movies. By seamlessly incorporating the imagery and symbolism commonly found in games and comics into the visual narrative, Mr. Wright created a spectacular template of stylized high energy perfection that helped strength the dialogue and exposition.

Visuals and editing aside, it helped that the film was based on some very strong source material. "Scott Pilgrim" is a very smart of clever tale that perfectly sums up the ideologies and modern zeitgeist of a 21st century 20-something-year-old who is entangled in a post-college malaise and all the drama and hyper sexuality that kids have to go through when trying to make it in the world. Taking these common themes and projecting them through the mind of a kid who's entire life is predicated upon music, games, comics, and movies is one of the most satisfying and sensible analogy to be committed to popular expression.

The greatest strength of the movie however, is held in its marriage of fidelity and independence. Because video games and comics are not written as screenplays first it would be silly to do a completely loyal adaptation without making a few modifications. On the other hand, if you change too much then the original message and feel of the story risks getting washed away. A large portion of all film adaptations suffer from these two problems; the ones we remember as classics, like "The Dark Knight" change the stories while keeping the feel and tone of the original intact. "Scott Pilgrim" does just that; it still feels like a thorough translation of the comic while also giving the audience a completely new experience that they haven't seen before.

Normally I don’t pick favorites, but the more and more I dwell on the subject, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” is starting to become my favorite film of 2010. Well done Edgar Wright, well done.

2010 Rewind: "Toy Story 3"

There's a sort of bitter sweet quality involved in the ending of a franchise. On the one hand you hate to see your long time friend leave, on the other you acknowledge that all things are finite and must have a respectable curtain call.

Too movie franchises share the tragic fate of being run into the ground when corporate big wigs demand the teats of the sacred cash cow be milked dry, resulting in a final product that doesn't resolve anything and leaves the series in a state of perpetual limbo only to have it rebooted in a few years. Luckily, Pixar has a tendency to deliver Grade-A products and knows when its much beloved progenitor franchise deserves a comfortable seat at the retirement home.

Thanks to Pixar's awareness of Toy Story's age and importance to the company they put lots of work into this finally. It perfectly ties up all plot threads and gives the audience a memorable ending that both solidifies that the journey we have all grown up with is over, but also reminds us that the adventures of these individual characters will carry on long after the events of this movie even if we never get to see them.

"Toy Story 3" is an emotional experience which most live-action films can only dream of having. In many ways this movie is the greatest love letter made for a devoted fan base in history, but it also serves as a wonderful instruction manual for other film makers to learn from. Where so many have failed, this film provides the perfect template for trilogy resolution.

Honestly, this movie contains it all; in many ways it deserves to win best picture this year, but as we all know, that's not the way the Academy Awards Ceremony works. Oh well.

2010 Rewind: "Inception"

"The Matrix" was a movie idolized by many because of the broad surrealist plot that explored the nature of computers, machines, and what it meant to be human. To most this was something fresh and exciting, a spectacle that had never been conceived before those genius Watchowski brothers penned the story idea into a neat little 110 page screenplay (give or take a few pages). For science fiction nerds it was familiar territory though. Many of the story hooks came from other resources and creative visionaries like William Gibson and Philip K. Dick and the Watchowski bros openly admitted to borrowing heavily from these sources. Were they wrong to take these ideas and fabricate it into something else and slap their names on it? No, of course not, study enough literature and you'll see that pretty much everything has been done already. What set "The Matrix" aside from its predecessors was its amazing camera work, groundbreaking visuals, and fight choreography that governed the way future action movies would be directed. So you can see why I felt lost when a tidal wave of angry consumers came back from seeing "Inception" and dismissed it as nothing more than a "Matrix clone".

Christopher Nolan, now a recognized demigod amongst nerd fandom for his riveting Batman movies, is a person who can seemingly do no wrong. He's a master student that can take nearly any idea and improve upon it with his own unique sensibility. "Inception" was an idea he had been formulating for supposedly seven years and was meant to be both an homage and evolution to the science fiction genre. "Blade Runner", "The Matrix", "Johnny Mnemonic", "Aliens", and a heap of other titles were films Nolan claimed inspired this project. He wanted to leave an imprint on history with his own fantastical creation and in this critic's opinion, he succeeded.

By plumbing the rich lore that comes attached with the psychology of dreams and mixing it with the elements of a heist film, Nolan spawned a rare treat by combining a high octane summer action film with cerebral philosophical concepts. To be fair, most of the language being spoken here is pretty watered down compared to other brain teasers, and while vocal minorities of high nosed pseudo-intellectuals have cried foul they fail to recognize its greatest strength. No, not everyone out there will understand what is going on in "Inception", but most will. It's not a film that talks down to its audience but neither is it an open book. By carefully crafting the exposition holding the audiences hand just a little bit, Nolan managed to arrest any confusion that may be associated with the mechanics of the plot and left the viewer to interpret the various shadowy metaphysical components as independent and autonomous fragments to be analyzed on their own merits.

Rarely do you see a movie that tries to combine two diametrically opposing genres, but it’s usually a treat when you do. "Inception" is that once in a decade action mind bender that raises the intelligence quotient of the general human populace a few degrees and it’s always a delight to have those things around. So no, the movie didn't bring us anything we haven't seen before but the execution of all the moving parts was so flawless that it's hard to get upset without looking like a pretentious parrot who really isn't bringing any solid counter arguments to the conversation other than "It's just like 'The Matrix" or "The movie thinks it’s smart but the philosophy is amateurish at best". Yeah, I'm coming off a little strong on the naysayers with this one but to be honest they deserved to be ridiculed. The movie is devilishly clever and shows a tremendous amount of polish and love for the genre, and if you can't appreciate that, than I don't know what else to say other than, chill out.

2010 Rewind: "Kick-Ass"

Let me begin this one by talking about one of my biggest movie pet peeves (I'll write a whole article about these sometime in the future). I can not stand it when people forgive a horrible movie simply because it had "good action" and "stuff 'sploded real good". Sure, the ultimate goal of any piece of entertainment is to keep the audience entertained, but if it comes at the cost of a decent cohesive story and interesting characters can you really say it was worth it? What I'm proposing is that you CAN eat both sides of this delicious chocolate coin without having to give up anything in return. Don't go setting your standards too low here, folks; "Kick-Ass" is one of those rare movies that delicately balances all the elements together into a smorgasbord fit for a fleet of Vikings in the halls of Valhalla.

As you may or may not know, the film was adapted from a fairly popular comic book which was being published around the same time the film was in production. What hit theaters was a masterpiece that parodied the genre by deconstructing its tropes and being self-aware of the limitations and logistics of real life heroes. The movie was very funny, had some great action segments, and experimented with a lot of quirky, albeit, lovable new film ideas that pleased all but the most curmudgeonly of old cooks (here's looking at you, Roger Ebert). "Kick-Ass" gave audiences everything they could hope for in an action flick and raised it high above the competition by remembering to give us those all important materials of story telling: a structured narrative and interesting characters.

Without a doubt the movie follows a traditional three act plot that goes through the tried and true motions of a hero's journey. In act one, we are introduced to the nerdy comic book kid. We get to know about his life, what he enjoys, and most importantly we see his frustration with other people's lack to help others. Act two begins after the hero rises to the challenge and accepts his calling. We then spend our time being introduced to the supporting cast and allowing for the characters to go through some interesting moral dilemmas and confront some of their darkest moments. Managing to overcome their defeats, the hero goes on to defeat what ever evil threat or obstacle stood in their way in act three. After that its a done deal and we watch the credits roll. Simple, sweet, familiar, and no wasted time or awkward development of fourth or fifth acts.

To compliment the story we are also given characters we can relate to on a human level. The movie spends a large portion of its time lingering on the events of their daily lives and gives us a fleshed out map that illustrates every aspect of their psyche. Even the characters that are clearly meant as comical parodies seem strikingly human and realistic thanks to this effort to develop them as real people first and characters second.

This extra effort to go the distance and ensure all pieces of the puzzle are properly put into place is what set this movie apart from other mindless action schlock. No matter how mentally enfeebled we may think the average movie goer is, there is a portion of the brain that picks up on these subtle touches and recognizes them as the all important cherry that completes the cinematic sundae. "Kick-Ass" had everything most action movies have been failing to incorporate and as a result it managed to stick around as one of the top movies I remember watching in 2010.