Friday, December 31, 2010

Ne Te Retourne Pas (Don't Look Back), Marina de Van, 2010

Marina de Van's is most specifically anatomical cinema, and while the severe conceit of this, her latest, film doesn't quite work, the director further establishes her place as cinema's most tactile, sensory filmmaker.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Pocket Cinephile's Best of 2010



1. Io sono l'amore (I Am Love), Luca Guadagnino, 2009

Guadagnino's domestic tragedy is at once familiar and endlessly refreshing. Working within the well established framework of a large, monied European family, the director subsumes a barrage of influences (from Ophuls to Roeg to Chabrol, amongst others) into a vision that is, in the end, wholly and masterfully his.


2. Un Prophete (A Prophet), Jacques Audiard, 2009

A sweeping and fully realized prison saga, Un Prophete is Audiard's best film to date by some margin. Tahir Rahim's Malik El Djebena has definite echoes of Henry Hill, and, like Scorsese's protagonist, is that rare character that seems to authentically evolve on screen.


3. Somewhere, Sofia Coppola, 2010

Coppola draws from a cadre of European and Asian influences (think Claire Denis and Tsai Ming Liang) in crafting this intimate and enchanting riff on American alienation.


4. True Grit, Joel & Ethan Coen, 2010

The Coens' reboot of True Grit is a wholly original experience, and all the hallmarks you expect are there - Deakins' immaculate vistas, a panoply of perfectly pitched characters, and, most noticably, a vertiable thesaurus full of funny, flowery talk.


5. The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski, 2010

Polanski's latest is an unfussy, efficient, and effective mystery. Much like Brad Anderson and his similarly classicist Transsiberian, Polanski draws from Hitchcock, Reed, et al to create an eminently watchable yarn.


6. Inspector Bellamy, Claude Chabrol, 2009

The most consistently great director of the French New Wave delivers yet another dignified, engaging, and well-made movie with this, his last film. Set against the tacit backdrop of a procedural, the film is ultimately more a twilight years examination of things left unsaid, and, as such, respresents a fitting and graceful coda for one of cinema's best filmographys.


7. The American, Anton Corbijn, 2010

Corbijn's film is a precise, deliberate, and labyrinthine thriller, recalling closely the classic European crime cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Julien Duvivier.


8. The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko, 2010

Lisa Cholodenko's latest film is, on its face, a solid but unremarkable film. That it, much like the director's previous work, is a witty, approachable, sexy, and well-acted film for adults, however, might just be remarkable enough.


9. Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold, 2009

While a bit overlong, Arnold's grimy, sub-working class distillation of the Lolita trope is, ultimately, an engaging piece of cinema. Katie Jarvis' Mia rings true as an outwardly defiant, inwardly naive youth and the ever-solid Michael Fassbender is at once disarming and unsettling as the lecherous Connor.


10. White Material, Claire Denis, 2009

Arguably the most commanding screen presence of her generation, Isabelle Huppert positively dominates Denis' fractured tale of civil and cultural unrest in contemporary Africa.

Somewhere, Sofia Coppola, 2010

Coppola draws from a cadre of European and Asian influences (think Claire Denis and Tsai Ming Liang) in crafting this intimate and enchanting riff on American alienation.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

True Grit, Joel & Ethan Coen, 2010

The Coens' reboot of True Grit is a wholly original experience, and all the hallmarks you expect are there - Deakins' immaculate vistas, a panoply of perfectly pitched characters, and, most noticably, a vertiable thesaurus full of funny, flowery talk.

Carlos, Olivier Assayas, 2010

Assayas' monomanical assassin has a clear (and specific) antecedent in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, and while the director nearly matches Lean in scope and sprawl, his film unfortunately lacks any of the narrative drive, tension, and precision of that masterpiece.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Oliver Stone, 2010

Stone's sequel is as overblown and on-the-nose as one might expect, but, much like the first film, manages to land in that all too vacant space populated by sufficiently trashy, eminently watchable adult dramas.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

White Material, Claire Denis, 2009

Arguably the most commanding screen presence of her generation, Isabelle Huppert positively dominates Denis' fractured tale of civil and cultural unrest in contemporary Africa.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Town, Ben Affleck, 2010

Affleck's blue collar caper yarn is sturdy, if a bit aimless. The director goes a long way to establish the film's Boston bona fides, and ultimately that intense localization is overwhelming and somewhat tiresome.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Les Herbes Folles (Wild Grass), Alain Resnais, 2009

Reminiscent at times of Ian McEwan's stalker/fate
story 'Enduring Love,' Resnais' film is an often odd and briefly remarkable contemporary meditation on fantasy, obsession, and aging.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

All Good Things, Andrew Jarecki, 2010

Jarecki's domestic disturbance is the kind of workmanlike adult yarn that barely exists anymore. And while the film's merits are certainly (and at best) modest, one does miss the era where this film might have shared a cineplex with Presumed Innocent, Sleeping with the Enemy, and the like.