Brightest Young Things

End-of-year lists are fucking hard. Sure, they're fun to read, but they're agonizing to compose (for me, anyway). I could see myself spending hours, hours I say, comparing the merit of No Country for Old Men to There Will be Blood, or Closer to The Shape of Things. Frankly, I'm not willing to undergo such a painful endeavor. Rather than actually rank  the best of the year, I'm going to embrace the arbitrary nature of such an exercise. Here are ten movie superlatives from the past year, presented in (mostly) random order with a  (completely) arbitrary justification.

10. Best near-nonstop torrent of cockney profanity: 44 Inch Chest

It's fitting I start the list with 44 Inch Chest, as I watched the movie on New Year's Day. Two of my closest buddies came over to see gruff British actors do what they do best: portray criminals with an uncanny grasp of obscene language. Colin (Ray Winstone) is heartbroken after his wife leaves him for a young Frenchman. Colin's friends reunite in a spare bedroom, where they decide how best to torture the Frenchman, who is bound and gagged. Malcolm Venville's sometimes-fanciful direction distracts from black humor and insight into the male mind. Still, 44 Inch Chest is at its best when it reminds us how four-letter-words can mask our deepest wounds.

9. Best use of CGI to create on-screen twins: Edward Norton in Leaves of Grass*

Had I not been a part of a panel when I interviewed him earlier this year, I would have loved to ask Edward Norton about Leaves of Grass, writer/director Tim Blake Nelson's portrayal of brotherly love. Norton stars as Bill, a classics professor at Brown University, and Brady, a pot grower whose finely-honed system produces a one-of-a-kind high. After Brady tricks Bill into returning to their Oklahoma hometown, he asks for a big favor: Brady wants Bill to pretend he's Brady, and by swapping roles, Brady has an alibi for when he takes over a rival's business.

The dialog strikes a perfect balance between realism and rural eloquence, especially when characters have a chance to discuss the universe's biggest mysteries. When Brady elaborates on his notion of God, for example, the combination of down-to-earth charm and penetrating intelligence makes the scene as thoughtful as any released this year. Leaves of Grass resembles a Coen brothers movie when things take a turn for the violent, but Norton and Nelson crafted the year's best comedy, one that would appeal to potheads and brainiacs alike.

* Distributor problems prevented the movie from reaching a wide audience, but it is currently available from Netflix.

8. Next-best use of CGI to create on-screen twins: Armie Hammer in The Social Network

It is always easy to distinguish between the Kincaid brothers, but Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are carbon copies  of each other. Played by Armie Hammer, the brothers are blue-blooded Harvard elites who think Mark  Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is the man to program their idea for a Harvard-only online social network. As we all know by now, the enterprising Zuckerberg had other ideas in mind. Written by Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network makes the Vinklevoss brothers the antithesis to Facebook's founder: whereas Tyler and Cameron are handsome and privileged,  Mark Zuckerberg is a brilliant, enterprising nerd who uses his intelligence to justify his ethically questionable behavior. I'll be curious to see what precise place The Social Network finds in the cinema canon, but it deserves a spot by telling an old-fashioned story in an arrestingly captivating way.

7. Most mediocre movie about disavowed tough guys who go on a suicide mission to clear their names: Three-way tie between The Losers, The Expendables, and The A-Team

I wonder whether top-level Hollywood producers colluded to release these action movies within weeks of each other. They all cynically appeal to the summer blockbuster's key demographic: affluent males aged 15-24 who take a break from Xbox to watch badass, gun-wielding spies play by their own rules. And with a cast of bygone action heavyweights, The Expendables also offers a chance for affluent males aged 15-24, as well as their fathers, to appreciate wanton on-screen mayhem. Of the three, The Losers is the most successful, which is surprising since director Sylvain White's previous movie, Stomp the Yard, didn't exactly prepare for him globe-trotting destruction. Then again, White got considerable assistance from Jason Patric, who made a by-the-numbers villain into someone sleazily memorable. As for the  The A-Team, I watched in on a plane and it made me wish airlines would offer complimentary wine instead of mid-flight entertainment.

6. Sorry, Inception. Most eye-popping action sequence: stadium chase in The Secret in Their Eyes

Winner of this year's Best Foreign Film, Juan Jose Campanella's The Secret in the Eyes is a romantic thriller that won audiences through inventive plot twists and heartfelt performances. Its most memorable scene is a foot chase through crowded soccer stadium. The sequence begins with a helicopter shot from well above the stadium, then it seamlessly blends into a crane shot and later a handheld one. Campanella told me, "I wanted [the cuts] to be unnoticeable even if you had the DVD and went frame by frame." Before the interview, I actually rewatched the sequence multiple times, trying to understand how he made such a technically difficult endeavor seem so natural. Christopher Nolan may have built the rotating hallway for Inception's gravity-defying fight sequences, but his cold proficiency is no match for Campanella's viscerally suspenseful highpoint.

5. Worst movie to watch in the middle of snowpocalypse: The White Ribbon

Honestly, I don't know what  was thinking when I sat down to watch The White Ribbon during the worst blizzard DC has seen in years. Maybe it was the cabin fever, but one thing is for sure, Michael Haneke's black and white pre-World War I drama is not ideal for someone who's in a delirious state. With his deliberate eye, Haneke and cinematographer Christian Berger use gorgeous black and white to detail the breakdown of tradition and society in a small German village. From his first shot, where an unseen object is responsible for considerable harm, the movie caused unease that was only exacerbated when I looked out the window and saw a lifeless city blanketed in white. And as Haneke's characters wondered whether their unspoken discomfort would soon end, the endless snowstorm left me, for one night at least, with similarly hopeless questions.

4. Best hallucinatory foreign melodrama: Enter the Void

More than any other movie I can think of, the opening credits of Enter the Void are the best indication of whether the movie is right for you. In harsh, almost seizure-inducing typeface, the credits are an ocular assault. The music, which veers from harsh atonal screeches to nauseatingly intense techno, compounds the intensity. It left me in a trance-like state, quietly horrified and wondering what would come next. The story, which details the end of a drug dealer's life as well as the beginning of his afterlife, is even more surreal than the credits. Writer/director Gaspar Noé accomplishes the seemingly-impossible task of switching off your mind, leaving you open to experience the movie on an impressionistic level. Like the hippie who swam too far away from the shore, Enter the Void is way far out, man.

3. Best non-hallucinatory foreign melodrama: I Am Love

Longtime readers of my year-end lists are familiar with my undying love for Tilda Swinton, and in I Am Love, she again surprises me in ways I didn't think possible. As Emma Recchi, the soon-to-be matriarch of a wealthy Milan family, Swinton is equally comfortable portraying strained unhappiness and exuberant passion. All of Swinton's dialog is in Italian and Russian, and of course she has no problem with either language/accent. Like Noé, director Luca Guadagnino uses cinematography and music to evoke a specific place and mindset. As Enter the Void looks at Tokyo's otherworldly nightlife, I Am Love explores Italy's gorgeous cities and countrysides. It's not hallucinatory, but boldly carthartic. With excellent performances and confident gestures, Guadagnino's lush melodrama is the year's most romantic film.

2. Best vitriol inspired by one of my reviews: Jack London’s comment on Iron Man 2

All movie fans know that strong opinions can lead to heated, even personal disputes. I've had my share of passionate disagreements with friends and family, but nothing quite like one reader's reaction to my review of Iron Man 2. Here it is, reproduced in full and with minimal editing:

there is always a piece of shit that never likes a good movie, has to thread it to pieces simply because a negative review puts them on the map and generates readers online.
FUCK YOU ALAN ZILBERMAN*. It really shows you do not know the story or appreciate the value of a man that suddenly finds out, in the middle of his wealth and power, that he's dying.
Its typical of a critic to be dissatisfied. You will NEVER get to star or write something like this.
Its the expectation that dissatisfies you. Its the anticipation that creates the dissapointment, in a bitter person like you.
The film is over 2 hrs long. And like many people said, this is one of those films you NEVER want it to end.
You obviously did not understand the film. The motivation of the villain its not just MY DAD HATED YOUR DAD.
Vanko's father had AMBITION. Stark's father had a bigger view for this technology to humankind.
He's avenging a life of poverty, incarcaration, exile, a ruined life.
He does not care if he dies. He wants to make Stark suffer.
He spits blood to him. Says "yoo loose".
He wants to prove he's better.
And catches a dying ironman. Not a man in full strenght.

Precisely the fact that the climax its not so full of explosions as it should be according to your little mind, shows that the film prefers to establish a broader view of character development.

This is what a sequel is for, sir.

Character development. And this film alone establishes, like 3 or 4 different movies.

You gotta know a little more about things before you issue a critic.

* Emphasis added.

1. Movie I most want to win an Academy Award: Exit through the Gift Shop

Let me be clear about this: I don't mean to suggest Exit Through the Gift Shop, directed by Banksy, is the year's best documentary (Inside Job has that distinction). But if Banksy won an Oscar, he'd receive a top accolade from a symbol of the modern phenomenon he mocks so derisively (i.e., the intersection of art and commerce). For all its glamor and pomp, the Academy Awards is still annoying self-congratulatory, treating a commercial medium with undue seriousness. It's fun to think just how Banksy would tag the Kodak Theater. Maybe he'd leave a stencil on the podium. Maybe he'd give a genuinely humble acceptance speech via satellite. Maybe he'd tattoo Oscar co-hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, leaving a more permanent mark in celebration of his award. The list of nominees have yet to be announced, but there's no movie I'm more  eager to see on the ballot. Sure, I plan to liveblog the Academy Awards for the third straight year, but without Banksy, the ceremony will be drained of all excitement before it starts.

Thus concludes my admittedly silly 2010 movie superlatives. Now that you're done reading, what are your memorable movie moments from this year?

Previously in END OF YEAR 2010 LISTS:

• 1/21: Songs To Consider ...
• 1/4: The Top Ten Sneakers of 2010
• 12/30: Top Ten Guilty Pleasures of 2010
• 12/21: The Best Musical Moments of 2010
• 12/20: Songs That Made Me! Happy in 2010
• 12/16: Worst Music Packaging Of 2010
• 12/15: Best Music Packaging of 2010
• 12/8: Music You May Have Missed In 2010
• 12/7: Knock-Out Movies of 2010