Films seen so far this year: 17
Films seen this week: Scoop, All About Steve, Crude, The Book of Eli, Invictus, Lebanon, Extraordinary Measures, The Headless Woman
Top Ten Films of 2010
Fed up with lists yet? Of course you're not! All the list-making of the last few weeks got me to wondering whether I'd seen enough 2010 films to come up with a list of the best films of 2010 yet. And guess what? It turns out I have. In fact, some of the films on this list are so good that I'll be very surprised if they're not still on the list come December 2010. And if they're not, then it will have been a very good year for films indeed. I've included release dates and brief summaries below, but basically this is a list of Films You Must See In 2010.
1. A Prophet (Terrific French prison / gangster film, out 22nd Jan)
2. Whip It (Wonderful sports movie / girl power / comedy directed by Drew Barrymore and starring Ellen Page, out April 9)
3. Dogtooth (Deeply disturbing Greek thriller about a man who keeps his family imprisoned by telling them that the world outside their garden is deadly, out April 23)
4. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Utterly gripping Swedish thriller based on the best-selling novel, out March 12)
5. Mary and Max (Brilliant, hilarious stop-motion animated feature, which I saw and reviewed in Edinburgh – no release date yet, but that might change if it picks up an Oscar nomination)
6. The Road (out now)
7. Up in the Air (out now)
8. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Herzog's fabulous reworking of Bad Lieutenant, featuring Nic Cage in perhaps his greatest ever performance – review here, out May 7)
9. The Disappearance of Alice Creed (Superb low-budget British kidnap thriller starring Gemma Arterton, out April 30)
10. Lourdes (Disturbing French drama starring Sylvie Testud as a disabled woman who is miraculously cured during a trip to Lourdes, out April 2).
Trailerwatch: The A-Team
I'll be honest, I'm not that excited about The A-Team movie yet, at least not if this trailer is anything to go by. I loved the TV show but don't have any particular attachment to it, so it's not like I'll be plunged into depression if they mess it up or anything. Anyway, here's a random collection of thoughts about the trailer, in no order other than the order in which they popped into my mind.
1. Where the hell is the theme tune? What sort of stupid A-Team trailer doesn't even feature the theme tune? The theme tune was always the best thing about The A-Team. Okay, there are half-hearted snatches of it, but you'd expect the trailer to be blasting it out front and centre.
2. The conjunction of “One year ago” and “Today, still wanted by the government” seems pretty stupid to me.
3. Liam Neeson playing Hannibal / George Peppard looks really, really weird.
4. What? No “I pity the fool!”? No “I ain't gettin' on no PLANE, fool!”? What kind of stupid A-Team trailer sticks in “I love it when a plan comes together” but leaves out “I ain't gettin' on no PLANE, fool!”? I ask you.
5. I do like Bradley Cooper as Face. That's pretty good casting. I also like District 9's Sharlto Copley as Howling Mad Murdock, but we don't get to see as much of him in the trailer.
6. The jury's still out on Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson as B.A. Baracus, but my first impression is that he's not scary enough.
7. According to the imdb, Dirk Benedict (original Face) and Dwight Schultz (original Murdock) both have cameos, but sadly Mr T seems to have turned them down.
8. If I was in charge of making the trailer, I'd make sure people knew Jessica Biel was in it. I'm just saying.
9. “Sucks to be you, homey” is no substitute for “I pity the fool!”, catchphrase-wise or otherwise.
10. I still can't decide whether the parachute on the tank thing is really cool or really dumb. No, wait. I can. It's really dumb. It's also a little bit too Charlie's Angels.
Anyway, the film's not out till July 30th, so hopefully the next trailer will shed a bit more light. Watch this space.
Top 10 Films On Release This Week (as recommended by me):
Three more new entries this week, with Jason Reitman's hotly-tipped-for-Oscars Clooney drama Up in the Air, superb David vs Goliath legal battle documentary Crude and joyous OSS 117 sequel Lost in Rio all making it into the top ten. Speaking of which, there's apparently a third OSS 117 film in the works, which is, frankly, the best news I've heard all week. Press conference-wise, you can read an interview with Up in the Air director Jason Reitman here, as well as interviews with co-stars Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick (Jessica in the Twilight movies) here and here. No Clooney though. You can't have everything. (Where would you put it?)
1. Where the Wild Things Are
2. The Road
3. Up in the Air
4. The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
5. A Serious Man
6. Avatar
7. Crude
8. OSS 117: Lost in Rio
9. The Informant!
10. Me and Orson Welles
DVD of the Week: (500) Days of Summer (out 18th January, RRP £19.99)
This week's DVD of the Week is (500) Days of Summer, which was one of my favourite films of last year. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Tom, a heartbroken greetings card writer, who looks back over the 500 days of his romance with work colleague Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and tries to work out where it all went wrong. Charming, funny and wonderfully inventive, this is a brilliantly directed, superbly written romcom with delightful performances from its two leads. The DVD extras include a digital copy of the film (so the kidz can watch it on their iPodz or whatever) and nine pretty decent deleted or extended scenes, including the “Worst Day” musical montage sequence that Joseph Gordon-Levitt talked about in our exclusive interview. If you somehow missed this at the cinema last year, here's your chance to catch up with one of the best films of last year. Highly recommended.