Best and Worst of 2010: Movies

Best:

5) Hot Tub Time Machine

This was like a collection of all my favorite things. John Cusack. The '80s. Chevy Chase. Time travel. Easily the funniest movie of the year, although, that's admittedly not saying a whole lot, given the competition. Regardless, it was a fantastic cast, and the surprisingly touching part where Rob Corddry admits that he was trying to kill himself at the start of the film, was one of my favorite scenes of any movie this year.

4) The Last Exorcism

I'm not sure the world needed another documentary-style horror film, and I'm fairly positive it doesn't need another one anytime soon, but I'm glad this one got made. Producer Eli Roth and director Daniel Stamm take what could have been a dull, predictable premise, and made arguably the second best exorcism film of all time. The ending, especially, packs a real punch, and if we lived in a world where actors in horror films got Oscar nominations, Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell would have legitimate shots.

3) Toy Story 3

I was originally confused by so many grown men admitting that they openly wept at this movie and the memories it brought back of how they gave up their childhood toys. Then I realized the reason I couldn't relate is because I never gave up my toys. They're still in a box somewhere. So it sucks to be those guys. But this was a great film, easily the best in the series. Lotso and Big Baby may be the best villains of any film in recent memory, and in that one scene towards the end, I really and truly thought the movie might kill off all the characters. You don't come across many films that can achieve that level of suspense.

2) Inception

I sort of have a grudge against Leonardo DiCaprio, and have for a while, and here's why: Every other actor in the world sells out to some degree. It's just part of the game. They star in dumb romantic comedies. They play superheroes. They make cameos in films that are clearly beneath them (i.e., Matt Damon in Eurotrip). Not DiCaprio. It seems like all he makes are highbrow films with Martin Scorsese that seem mainly designed to finally get him a Best Actor award. So it was satisfying to finally see him in something so blatantly commercial. Oh, and the film's really good, too.

1) The Social Network

I don't care if most of it is made up. The fictional Mark Zuckerberg is probably more interesting than the real one, anyway. But it was fascinating to see the Zuckerberg character go back and forth between hero and villain, where you're rooting for him one moment, and appalled by him the next. The whole movie is almost a Bizarro World version of The Karate Kid, where the good-looking tough guys get bullied by the nerd. And it's always great to hear Aaron Sorkin's dialogue.

Worst:

5) How Do You Know

The entire premise of this film depends on the viewer accepting the idea that Reese Witherspoon's character--a gorgeous, overachieving athlete--would stay with Owen Wilson's character, despite the latter being a jerk who constantly assures her that he's cheating on her and sees no real reason to stop. Paul Rudd being dependably Paul Rudd-ish prevents the movie from being a complete waste, and it's fun seeing Adams Morgan and Nationals Park (although I was surprised by how little the whole baseball player aspect was featured, outside of an excuse to give Wilson's character a bunch of jock stereotypes as friends), but I can't think of a recent film with so little substance.

4) Charlie St. Cloud

Oddly enough, I like Zac Efron. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because he's a better actor than most of the ones that come out of the Disney kid actor factory. Maybe it's because he keeps playing saintly characters, like in Hairspray and 17 Again. Or maybe it's that when he takes his shirt off, he occasionally makes me question my heterosexuality. Who can say. Regardless, he deserves a lot better than crap movies like Charlie St. Cloud, which is so bad, you actually find yourself hating the ghost of a dead little boy. And that's not easy for a movie to do.

3) When In Rome

Whenever I meet an attractive woman with a great job, it seems like she has an equally attractive boyfriend who also has a great job. But in stupid romantic comedies, beautiful women with great jobs are all single and neurotic! In fact, Kristen Bell's character is so totally single, she had to fly to Rome to meet a guy, and then spends most of the movie freaking out over whether he loves her or is under the spell of a magic poker chip. Look, I like romantic comedies. But it seems like if you're writing the script for one and the plot requires a magic anything, you've already lost.

2) Clash of the Titans

I'm not even going to get into the whole 3-D mess, because I was smart enough to not pay to see this in the theater. But it's absolutely mind boggling how the producers managed to take a beloved classic adventure film, strip it of all the stuff that made it awesome, and churn out such a completely soulless remake. Perseus is now a whiny, petulant jerk, the CGI effects somehow look worse than stop motion animation from 30 years ago, and the inexplicable change to the relationship between Perseus and Andromeda basically undermined the entire point of the film.

1) Jonah Hex

My many reasons for despising this film can be found here. I'll just repeat what I wrote then: As far as comic book adaptations go, Jonah Hex is worse than Batman & Robin. I can't think of a worse thing you can say about a movie.