My favorite films of 2010…

My favorite films of 2010…

It’s that time of the year, people, the world over, are making lists. Resolutions… good and bad… good deeds done, good deeds to do… dreams… hopes… do’s and don’ts… the list goes on. 

It’s that time of the year, people, in movie industry as well start making lists. Top 10 films of 2010… top 5.... All over the web, there are various lists – from critics, to regular readers… to also, most importantly the financiers. Which films made money… which didn’t… the lists goes in varied forms - top films of 2010 from Hollywood… top films of 2010 from World Cinema... top animated films from around the world, top box office grosser, etc., Here in India too… lists of top hits of Bollywood, critics choice of the best of them… also  the list of worst movies… worst flops… the list goes on. After all, it’s that time of the year...

So, I am also not going to sit back… I am getting into the bandwagon too. My own favorite films list. I do make my choice and write it down every year, but this time, there was a difference -  being in Trivandrum, the choices that I had, was limited, especially for movies from Hollywood and also films from India that didn’t have big theatrical releases. Among the top films suggested by most critics around the world, there is Kings Speech, Black Swann etc. of course; I cannot blame Trivandrum for not seeing those films, as even in Bombay I wouldn’t have seen those. They are not released in India yet. Yet there are few other films that I was not able to see, which otherwise in Bombay or madras I would’ve. For example – Despicable me, Alice in Wonderland,… those films and many others did not release here at Trivandrum. So, as is the case should be, my list is of films that I have seen from those released last year.

But, on the brighter side, being in Trivandrum, I had the good fortune to see few films which haven’t released otherwise – through the International film festival of Kerala 2010 (IFFK 2010) – like – “Buitiful” the latest film of Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu and the new film from Sofia Coppola called “Somewhere”… so it is a mixed bag in terms of cinema viewing… anyway, coming to my favourite films…

I am keeping a single list, where it’s taken from all languages and also it will be both live action and animation.

Inception – (English) – Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan,

Nolan created a maze and put us in there. It seems he took 10 years to write this script and if we thought Momento was confusing, then as Roger Ebert told in his review that was just a warm up.

The story is simple – Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) is a man whose job is to steal people’s ideas from their sub conscious, from their state of dream. That is the time when a man is at its most vulnerable and thus the time to steal ideas. But here, he is given a task even tougher… not to steal an idea, but to plant one… Inception.

It has CG that will shake up your mind. It has great performances and it has some stunning music… I really need not write much, but I would say watch it and then there will be so much to talk. Since Avatar, this is a film that will be talked about for years to come and this is for me, this year’s best.

Toy Story 3 – English – Animation – Written by Michael Arndt and Directed by Lee Unkrich

May be because I have a son now and I also sit with him and play with his toys that I valued this film so much. i have very rarely cried while watching movies, even here, I didn’t, but this is a film that got me close to tears during the last 15 minutes. You forget after a point hat you are watching animated cartoon characters, you become part of them and that for me was the success. Pixar, has made better films in the past (Finding Nemo, Wall E and ‘Up’ comes to mind), but Toy Story 3 will remain for me, the best film, after Inception last year.

My list of other favorite films last year, mostly in the same order is…

I am not going to write summaries of my reviews for the next films, will just put the name and few words in here…

Buitiful’ – (Spanish) – Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu – Innaritu leaves behind his favourite kind of story telling – the multiple storylines – and tells a straightforward story in chronological time frame and with Javier Bardem in one of his finest performances, this is a remarkable film.

The Social Network – (English) – David Fincher (Competing with Inception and King’s Speech, a real big chance that this might take the best picture oscar) to tell a story of a computer programmer and make it interesting to almost thriller quality is just remarkable and David Fincher, after a small disappointment with “The curious case of Benjamin Button, returns in great style.

Somewhere – (English) – Sofia Coppola – with a simplicity, that she brought across in one of her earlier films, Lost in translation, Sofia Coppola brings across simplicity and a certain maturity in narrating the mundane life of a Hollywood superstar.

Unstoppable – (English) – Tony Scott  - Unstoppable is one that gave me immense satisfaction after watching something that is in real definition terms a delightful edge of the seat thriller,

Tuan yuan – (Chinese) – the English title is ‘Apart Together’ – directed by Quan'an Wang – an incredibly touching story of a man returning to his native Shanghai after spending 50 years in Taiwan in the army. He comes back home to his wife, who is married and has a big family. Its how family members react and decisions they make.

Angadi theru – (Tamil) – Director – Vasantabalan – a beautiful film about a retail outlest in Ranganathan street, looking very much like the Saravana stores. A heartfelt story narrated, acted and cast exceptionally well.

I liked Sherlock Holmes and Iron man 2, not great cinema, but very enjoyable.

There were two hindi films that I liked a lot – Love, sex aur Dhoka by dibankar banarjee and Ishqiya by Abhsihek Chaubey.

I didn’t see Dabang, last year’s biggest hit and alos didn’t see last year’s 3 big flops – Kites, Guzaarish and Action Replayy… I didn’t like anything in Malayalam… ofcourse, I can say, closest to something that gave me some satisfaction was “pranchiyettan and the Saint”, directed by Ranjith.

So, that sums up my movie list this last year. I think I have covered all I could remember… This year, ahead, I have lot to look forward to…

I wish PVR will open its operations in lulu mall at Cochin very soon and then will get to watch lot more better movies. Ofcourse, I have to travel to cochin… but that is just a small part.

Movies to Look forward to

Animation:

Rango (GoreVerbinski, first full length animation feature film from ILM)

Kungfu Panda 2 (from DreamWorks, directed by Jennifer yhu)

Cars 2 (from Pixar, directed by Joh Lassetter)

Rio (from Bluesky, directed by Carlos Saldhana)

The adventures of Tintin (direted by speilberg – not sure of the date yet, might sometime push to next year)

Live action

Hereafter (Clint Eastwood and starring Matt Damon))

True Grit (Coen Brothers and again starring matt Damon and Jeff Bridges)

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky))

Love and other durgs (Directed by Edward Zwick and starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyanhelhaal)

127 hours (directed by Danny Boyle and starring James Franco)

Kings Speech (Tom Hopper, starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush)

(These above are going to be released in India in 2011 – films from 2010 –)

Hangover part 2

MI 4

Pirates of the Caribbean

Sherlock Holmes 2... 

and many many more...

Some of the hindi films – No one killed Jessica, Dhobhighat, Agent Vinod, Zindagi na mile dubara, Saat Khoon Maaf… etc…

I hope we enjoy watching these and many other movies and I hope, very sincerely that the theatres improve our viewing experience…

Cheers and good luck!