I think it's been a pretty abysmal year for movies, though there are some stand-outs in independent cinema. I work at an art-house, so I have my biases. I'll constrain my recommendations to this year (2010) so they're either still in theaters or soon to be out on DVD.
If you wish to be challenged by a piece of art that you may not necessarily "enjoy" but is provocative and stirs discussion and self-examination, Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist" is a psychological tour de force that really plums the depths of grief and survivor's guilt through a very extreme version of woodland "therapy" that turns the whole Fall from Eden myth on its head. Lars Von Trier's films have never been easy to take, from "Crashing the Waves," "Dancer in the Dark," "Dogville," and "Manderlay," (and for the record I loathed "The Five Obstructions", actually I'd be amazed if another GoG-er has seen it), but he is a serious artist and his films have always stuck with me. Fans of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsborough also take note; it's some of their best work in years.
In the similar vein of a challenging film that does something different with the whole medium, I also recommend "Enter the Void" by french director Gasper Noe, that feel-good man behind the camera of "Irreversible." (yes, the Monica Bellucci rape-scene movie). This one is a more polished, profound effort in my opinion, and if by no other merit, the trippy visuals and POV camerawork are emphatically impressive.
"Anitchrist" I know is out on DVD, "Enter the Void" should be in another month. For "lighter" fare (which is about most of the rest of the whole continuum of film!), Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" is a nice visceral ride through the Utah badlands with an affable James Franco carrying the film. It's based on the Aron Ralston incident in 2003, where a lone hiker got stuck in a crevasse for five days and had to amputate his own arm with something akin to a pocket knife. I didn't think Boyle quite trusted the material in that he needed everything on the screen to be "busy" all the time, (I would have preferred Kevin MacDonald as a director for this story, same guy behind "Touching the Void" about the hikers in the Peruvian Andes), but he's a talented "crossover indie" director who knows his shit. It's a gripping survivalist adventure story.
Also "Howl," a sorta-biopic also with James Franco (the man gets around these days) playing citizen alpha beatnik Allen Ginsburg in San Francisco in the 50s, and the scene of those days, culminating in the 1957 obscenity trial against City Lights Bookstore, an independent bookseller connected to the beat artists at the time. A good piece of recreated history, told in an experimental fashion...fitting for the language and medium of the beats themselves, actually. David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels, Jon Hamm, and Mary-Louise Parker have supporting roles.
I'm giving a shout out to "Get Low," a quirky period-piece set in a small 1930s-township with a backwoods hermit, played by redoubtable Robert Duvall, who after thirty years of self-imposed isolation decides to throw himself a "funeral party" where he delivers his own eulogy. Fans of Bill Murray take note, as he's his usual dry, comic self, perfectly cast as an opportunistic funeral director of the town mortuary.
I thought Social Network was sort of middling to be honest. It polarizes many people with love-it-or-hate-it reactions, for me, it was just rather average. The sum of its parts was greater than the whole.
Really looking forward to Black Swan and Blue Valentine when they hit my town. They've gotten a fair amount of accolades from the usual critical quarters, and I'm a fan of the actors in both films.
Post edited December 11, 2010 by MaridAudran
