My Top Films of 2010

Now that the Oscars are finally over with (congratulations to The King`s Speech), it is time for the most important award of the year to be given out: My Top Films of 2010. Yes, I know we are in March already, but I had a lot of catching up to do with my 2010 movies.

1-      Inception (10/10)

2-      The Town (10/10)

3-      Exit Through the Gift Shop (10/10)

4-      True Grit (10/10)

5-      Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (9/10)

6-      Toy Story 3 (9/10)

7-      Social Network (9/10)

8-      The Ghost Writer (9/10)

9-      Black Swan (9/10)

10-   The Runaways (9/10)

11-   The Kids Are All Right (9/10)

12-   The King`s Speech (9/10)

13-   Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (9/10)

14-   Kick-Ass (9/10)

15-   Restrepo (9/10)

16-   Shutter Island (8/10)

17-   Let Me In (8/10)

18-   The Fighter (8/10)

19-   Easy A (8/10)

20-   The Book of Eli (8/10)

21-   The Crazies (8/10)

22-   Unstoppable (8/10)

23-   How to Train Your Dragon (8/10)

24-   Tangled (8/10)

And now it`s time for the Worst Movies of 2010:

1-      Vampire`s Suck

2-      Splice

3-      Killers

4-      The Sorcerers Apprentice

5-      Legend

6-      The Losers

7-      The Spy Next Door

8-      The Wolfman

9-      Clash of the Titans

10-   The Last Airbender

11-   Repo Man

12-   Valentine`s Day

13-   Life as We Know It

14-   Grown-ups

15-   The Rebound

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My Review: The Social Network (9/10)

¨You know what's cooler than a million dollars? A billion dollars.¨

How in the world do you make a two hour film about the invention of facebook and make it an engaging thriller? The answer is pretty simple: get David Fincher to direct the film and Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay. Fincher is one of the best modern day directors who seems to turn everything he touches into gold. I don`t think I was alone in the opinion that making a movie about Facebook was a bad idea. I just thought it would be impossible to keep the viewers interested for two hours on a computer nerd; at most it would be decent material for a short film. But once I heard Fincher was involved with the project I totally bought into the idea. Fincher has proved himself with such great films as Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, and Benjamin Button; and with the Social Network he has created one of the best modern biopics I have seen. He will surely be nominated for best director, and the film will also garnish several other nominations, including best picture.

Sorkin (A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson`s War) should also be credited for the success of the film because his screenplay was perfect (it will also be nominated for best adapted screenplay, you can count on it). He creates such great characters that are far from being one-dimensional. You have Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg from Zombieland and Adventureland fame) who is sort of a jerk, incapable of being social, a real intelligent and arrogant guy, but who you end up routing for because let’s face it he invented facebook one of our favorite vices on the internet. The guy may not have any social skills, but he is a genius and there is always something attractive about geniuses. We can forgive him because he is just so wicked smart, but I don`t think any one of us would want to be his friends or much less stand anyone like that. His only friend, Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield, the soon to be Peter Parker in the new Spider Man franchise) is also a student in Harvard who seems to be the only person who stands Mark even though he is treated cruelly at times, but he is good at keeping his composure and hiding his emotions. Eduardo and Mark found the company Thefacebook.com together which begins exclusively for Harvard students but begins to spread to other schools. Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) hears about the website and arranges a meeting with Mark and Eduardo foreseeing the potential the site has. Sean happens to be the inventor of Napster, and unlike Mark he is very social and expressive. The characters seem to complement each other, and it all works to perfection.

The film is non linear as we jump back and forth from Harvard to the law suits that Mark is going through once he has become a billionaire. He is being sued by his best friend Eduardo (which makes the viewer wonder what has gone wrong with their relationship) and on the other hand by the Winklevoss twin brothers who actually suggested the idea for an exclusive Harvard site and claim Mark stole it from them. Mark was always obsessed about getting into Final Clubs in College and when the twin brothers came to him with the idea about a Harvard exclusive site everything clicked for him. He could be the president of his own exclusive site. He was a visionary and everything paid off for him: ¨ We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're gonna live on the internet! ¨

The Social Network is a modern day biopic full of thrills thanks to a great script and a good performance from the cast (especially by Andrew Garfield). The score is also great and contributes to the overall story, as well as the filming which is just brilliant. The rowing scenes were beautifully shot, but they weren`t just there for artistic purposes. The entire rowing scenario with the twins was sort of a parable of how they were used to being first all the time. When they finally lose to the Dutch they realize that being second brings no reward. Zuckerberg beat them at coming up with the idea for Facebook, perhaps a little unethically on his part, but the difference between being first and second in the business world is gigantic no matter how tight the race is. Fincher has directed a great film and will probably get a lot of recognition during award season because he was able to transmit the importance of our modern day internet age. Fincher should be considering making a sequel to this film about the founders of Twitter; nah maybe that is a really bad idea. Anyway The Social Network is my favorite biopic this year and finally brought down The Runaways to second place. It`s all about being first, that’s what makes the difference.

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My Review: Prometeo Deportado (8/10)

¨If Ecuador is the name of an imaginary line, then Ecuadorians are imaginary beings, which means we don`t exist. Ecuador doesn`t exist, but it hurts.¨

Prometeo Deportado is an Ecuadorian movie that couldn`t have been released at a better time. The day before the film`s national debut in Ecuador there was political unrest after President Correa was trapped inside a hospital surrounded by police protesting over recent government measures. Military troops had to storm in and rescue the president while all over the country hundreds of robberies were taking place in the streets due to the police strike. The entire world saw what was happening and it was really an embarrassment for the country which has gone through similar situations over the years. Prometeo Deportado was directed by first time director Fernando Mieles who also wrote the story and in a way gave his fellow countrymen a mirror in which they could see themselves through. The film depicts several different national characters representing a different region and race in a very stereotypical and funny way. The movie is one of the funniest I have seen all year, but I´m afraid that in order to enjoy it you have to be Ecuadorian or at least know them to understand the different stereotypes it tries to make fun of. The movie finds a clever way to put all these people together in one place and the fun begins when these different characters have to interact with each other. Even though they are from the same country, they are very different from each other and at the same time you can find general similarities, but Mieles does a great job at making the viewer identify with each one of these people. I felt I knew every character in the movie, from the devout catholic old ladies, to the circus magician, to the corrupt lawyer, and so on. They are everyday ordinary people you run into in the streets of Ecuador.

The story takes place in an undisclosed airport in Europe where Ecuadorian passengers have to wait in a different line in order to get through migration. A couple of them get arrested and they are all taken to a separate room where they have to wait to be deported. Among the large number of Ecuadorians that are left waiting in the room indefinitely and without any explanation is Prometeo (Carlos Gallegos), Ecuador`s greatest magician and illusionist (or so he claims), a writer (Peki Andino), whose name is never disclosed and who no one has ever heard of, Doa Murga (Juana Guarderas), a lady in her forties who is married but is forced to travel to Europe in order to make more money for the family, Angel (Andrés Crespo) and his wife, who are simply traveling as tourists and feel like they are much more important than the rest because they have money, Hemeregildo (Raymundo Zambrano) a man who seems to be hiding something under his clothes and who the migration officers look very suspicious at, an Ecuadorian athlete who claims to be a swimming champion, a want to be model, three old ladies who are traveling together, a lawyer who takes advantage of people for a living, and many other memorable characters. These people have to learn how to get along with each other in a very small room in the airport. As days pass and more and more Ecuadorians are brought into the room the situation begins to get chaotic and their true nature is brought out. 

Prometeo Deportado was really a well written and funny comedy, while at the same time a philosophical and deep character study on its citizens and the migration cycle the country has gone through in the last decades. The first hour and a half is extremely funny as these characters are forced to go through some unfortunate situation, later the last half hour becomes a bit darker and the movie seems to jump from comedy to drama. It was a very difficult transition to make and I would`ve preferred the director stuck with just the comedy, but he wanted to get his philosophical point across. None of these characters were actually heroes and when they are forced to face difficult situations their real nature comes out and they tend to act as uncivilized people. In a way Mieles has been trying to make us laugh at ourselves and trying to make us identify with one particular character and once we do that he jumps to the darker side and exposes our true nature. Towards the end of the film it seemed as though it was every man for himself; the law of the jungle where only the strongest could have power and rule over the weak. By the end of the film however the director reminds us that we still hang on to our illusion of escaping this chaotic world and that hope is never lost no matter how corrupt our society has become. We still hang on to our hope of becoming better people and learning from our mistakes. I would have preferred the film stuck with the comedy since those are most of the memorable scenes. My favorite scene was when everyone began sharing some of the typical food they were bringing in their suitcases like crabs or barbecued guinea pigs. I wonder how many airport migration officers have had to open suitcases like this in real life with the oddest things in them. They will probably get a good laugh out of this film. I recommend this if you’re Ecuadorian or know anything about them because it is a really funny film that pokes fun at some of their stereotypes. 

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My Review: Oliver! (10/10)

¨I'm reviewing the situation. Can a fellow be a villain all his life? ¨

¨Oliver! ¨ is my favorite Musical of all time, but it could very well be called ¨Fagin! ¨ because Ron Moody`s performance as Fagin is truly the highlight of the film. He shines in every scene he`s in and his musical pieces ¨You`ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two¨ and ¨Reviewing the Situation¨ are the best ones in the movie. Even Oliver`s buddy, the Artful Dodger played by Jack Wild, steals each scene he shares with Mark Lester, who plays the main character Oliver. The film which is based on Lionel Bart`s musical adaptation of Charles Dickens`s novel, Oliver Twist, had been produced for the stage in London before they decided to turn it into a film. The screenplay adaptation for the movie was written by Vernon Harris. The characters are just as I would have imagined them from reading Dickens`s novel and I don`t have a problem with Fagin and The Artful Dodger stealing the show from the protagonist because that is what happens most of the time with Dickens`s main characters in his novels. He is so good at creating remarkable characters and I remember these two were the most memorable in the novel as well. Oliver Twist serves more as a symbol of innocence and purity among an evil world that has turned its back on him, and his goodness proves to be incorruptible even among these villains he lives with. I am a huge fan of Charles Dickens and I really believe this film lived up to it although it was very loosely based on the novel because you just can`t fit everything into the movie and some of the characters had to be left out (Monks, Mrs. Maylie, Henry and Rose for example), or they didn`t have much screen time as is the case with Mr. Bumble.

The movie begins in a workhouse several miles from London where several young orphans are forced to work and live under harsh conditions. One of the orphans, Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) is chosen by the rest of the kids to ask for more food because it is hardly enough. Oliver is a shy good looking kid, but when he asks Mr. Bumble (Harry Secombe) for more food he is instantly put in discipline for misconduct. He decides to sell the boy because he has become an inconvenience. Oliver eventually escapes and is able to arrive at London where he meets another young boy about his age who introduces himself as The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). The Dodger offers Oliver a place to sleep and introduces him to Fagin (Ron Moody) and the rest of the boys. Fagin happens to be a thief who trains the children how to pick a pocket and steal valuable goods like wallets and handkerchiefs from distracted men in the streets. Oliver is innocent and doesn’t really understand what is going on until the day he goes on his very first mission with the Dodger and he is mistakenly accused of stealing a man`s wallet. Oliver is finally declared innocent after an eyewitness claims it was another boy who was trying to steal the wallet and Mr. Brownlow (Joseph O`Conner) apologizes to him and adopts him at his home. In the meantime Fagin is worried the boy will give up his hideout along with his partner in crime, Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed). Bill forces his girlfriend Nancy (Shani Wallis) to kidnap Oliver and bring him back and the plot develops from that point on.

Oliver! won six Oscars in 1968, including best picture, and was the last musical to win an Oscar until Chicago won it in 2005. Carol Reed also won for best direction and he really raised the bar for musicals ever since. It was probably the last of the great musicals. Perhaps the hardest character to portray in this film from the novel was Nancy because she is torn between her love for Bill and doing the right thing for Oliver. Shani Wallis does a good job of portraying this inner struggle which eventually leads her to her fate. Oliver Reed had to portray the darkest and most evil character of the novel, Bill Sikes, and he does a good job as well. Some of the other musical numbers I enjoyed were ¨Who Will Buy? ¨ and ¨Oom-Pah-Pah.¨ The art directions and scenery were also really well done for the time period. I don`t know if I would of enjoyed the movie as much as I did if it weren`t for Moody`s performance. He was great and I think he should have won the Oscar for Best Secondary Actor. Robin Williams`s performance in August Rush was probably influenced by Moody`s character in this film. He was just a pleasure to watch on screen and is the main reason why I like this Musical so much. I am not a big fan of musicals, but this is definitely my favorite one and I recommend it.

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My Review: The Spy Next Door (4/10)

¨I've brought down dictators. How bad can three kids be? ¨

The Spy Next Door is a family movie that actually won`t be enjoyed by the entire family. I can imagine kids having a good time with this film, but adults won`t find any of the material entertaining since they`ve laughed at the same jokes a long time ago. I don`t understand how Disney Pixar or DreamWorks can make animated films adults and kids enjoy alike (such as Toy Story, How to Train Your Dragon, and Shrek for example), but somehow no one has come up with a solution to making an entertaining live action family movies (Marmaduke, Cats and Dogs, and now this). We have seen these kinds of movies before where the villains are really dumb, and the hero can do just about anything except raising kids. Since we`ve been bombarded with so many remakes in the last years, I even thought this might be a remake of The Pacifier which starred Van Diesel as a marine who had to babysit a couple of kids. The only difference was that Jackie Chan was playing the role of Diesel. Even director, Brian Levant, had made a similar movie before this, starring Ice Cube in ¨Are We There Yet? ¨ I guess this was a similar version for white folks. Levant is also the man responsible for bringing us films like Beethoven, The Flintstones, and Jingle All the Way; the writers haven`t done anything better either: Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer are responsible for writing the script for such movies as Just My Luck and Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Gregory Poirier was also hired to help improve the script, but he was the director of Tomcats, so as you can see there wasn`t much talent behind the making of the film, except perhaps the actors.

Jackie Chan is Bob Ho, a Chinese Spy who is working for the CIA. His partner is Colton James (Billy Ray Cyrus) who really doesn`t do much except let Bob do all the work, and their boss is Glaze (George Lopez). They are on a mission to arrest Poldark (Magnus Scheving), a Russian spy who has broken into an American oil refinery. Once Bob makes the arrest he decides to retire because he wants to propose to his girlfriend, Gillian (Amber Valleta), who happens to be his next door neighbor. Gillian is a single mother who is very much in love with Bob, but her three kids aren`t very fond of him so she isn`t ready to commit. They don`t know he is a spy and actually think he is a boring guy who makes a living as a pen importer. Bob will have to find a way to befriend the kids: The oldest is Farren (Madeline Carroll), an adolescent teenager who wants to dress as she pleases, next is Ian (Will Shadley), a very smart kid who gets beat up in class and tends to lie a lot, and the smallest is Nora (Alina Foley), a very cute and adorable four year old girl who likes pink very much. When Gillian has to travel to take care of her sick father, Bob realizes it’s the perfect time to bond with the kids so he decides to take care of them. Little does he know that the kids are planning on making his experience a nightmare, and at the same time Poldark has escaped from prison and wants something from Bob.

The only entertaining value I got from this film was from Jackie Chan, whose stunts are always fun to watch. The opening scene where we got clips of Chan`s previous movies was actually the best part of the film with the ¨Secret Agent Man¨ song in the background. The rest of the movie is very predictable, the characters are one dimensional and stereotypical, and the dialogue is pretty bad. The kid actors were actually pretty good and I thought Alina Foley was very cute in the film (too bad they didn`t have the right material to work with). I have to admit that I watched this film dubbed in Spanish so that did affect the film quite a bit since some of the performances are missed in the translation. The movie was pretty bad and was very similar to The Pacifier and Are We There Yet? so it losses some more points there. I wouldn`t recommend this film, although I know some kids might enjoy the silly comedy, and Jackie Chan fans might want to check it out as well as he plays his usual self. Before watching this movie I had just seen The Godfather Part I and II, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo`s Nest, so that was probably a little unfair on my part to critique this movie right after watching those masterpieces. Anyways, I don`t recommend this.

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My Review: Jaws (10/10)

¨What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all.¨

Jaws marked a before and after in American Cinema; it became the first true Blockbuster movie and it has since influenced films for 35 years. Before Jaws came out, there weren´t any summer movies (perhaps many critics regret this since summer movies aren`t necessarily recognized for its artistic value), but this movie set the standard for what a summer movie should look like. Jaws also launched the career of Steven Spielberg as a director since he was largely unknown by the general public. So you may ask yourself what made this film such a success. There are a great amount of factors that I consider helped turn Peter Benchley`s bestselling novel into such a terrific thriller. First of all John Williams`s score is breathtaking. The suspense he created with a few notes that accompanied the shark`s point of view with the camera where masterful. There was no need to see the terrible shark; the music alone built the fear in us. Sometimes we fear more what is unseen than what is actually seen, and in the case of the shark it was much scarier not knowing where it was going to come out from in the water. The shark tales and pictures we see of people who have been attacked by sharks throughout the beginning of the movie are sufficient enough. Spielberg has already inserted fear in our minds before we even have a chance to see the actual beast. This technique was one of the reasons the movie was so successful. Everyone remembers the speech about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis as one of the highlights of the film and that is because it worked just like a scary tale in the middle of a campfire in the woods works, because it takes the atmosphere and the context and plays with our imagination inserting fear into our minds.

Jaw takes place in a fictitious island resort named Amity Island. Summer is approaching and the town is getting ready to receive thousands of tourists coming to its beautiful beaches, but a local teenager has just appeared washed up in the shore attacked by some sort of animal, probably a shark. Local Police Chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), is investigating the incident. According to the forensic report the cause of death was a shark attack. Brody thinks it is best to close down the beaches until the shark can be killed, but Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) stops him and says this will have a huge economical impact on the town. It is too soon to scare off the tourists and he gets the forensic doctor to change his report on the cause of death, so Brody reluctantly has to follow the Mayor`s orders. The next day another incident takes place, although this time it occurs in plain sight, and a local boy is killed by a shark. Brody closes the beach and the boy`s mother offers a reward to whoever catches the shark. Sam Quint (Robert Shaw) is the local shark hunter who knows they are dealing with a very big shark and tells the Mayor that if he wants the shark hunted then he will have to get paid a lot more than the reward the woman is offering. Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is an Oceanographer who comes to the Island to help Chief Brody with the case. Together Hooper, Brody, and Quint set sail on the Orca to try to hunt the shark that has everyone panicking. They will soon find out that they are gonna need a bigger boat.

Jaws is considered by many as one of the greatest thrillers ever made. It is no surprise that after this movie came out very few people wanted to get into the water. The shark was in everyone`s nightmares. Jaws actually took home three Oscars, one for the musical score, another for the Sound effects, and a third for best editing under Verna Fields who took a lot of the credit for the success of the movie during that time. Spielberg was overlooked as a director, but he later proved in his other movies he was one of the reasons the film was so successful. He was a visionary in his field and was able to create one of the best thrillers without great visual effects. The secret was building the suspense through the unseen and showing the shark as little as possible. By the end of the film we were so immersed in it that we even believed the improbable ending and didn`t even feel cheated by that final climax scene. Spielberg combined suspense and thrills with comedy and action to perfection. Each character played an important part in the film and Brody, Hooper, and Quint became popular characters in movie history. This may have been one of Spielberg`s first films, but it still ranks among his best work because it managed to terrify audiences for ages to come.  

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