So this is a highly-skewed list of raves and roasts from a cranky movie-goer who has perhaps become a bit self-righteous about proper storytelling. I counted sixteen 2010 releases that I’ve seen so far this year, nearly all commercial films, I just haven’t had the time to keep up with the indies. Here are my three favorite and my three least favorite.
The Best
An excellent, clever family drama, the gist of which is two teens raised by a lesbian couple seek out their biological dad—a sperm donor—and discover something important amidst the chaos that ensues. No cheap sentimentality. The mothers aren’t perfect, and the bio dad is a particularly well drawn out guy who is at turns despicable and sympathetic.
The Social Network doesn’t qualify as an original story per se, but the filmmakers did something with a real life narrative that I really liked: letting the action speak for itself. There isn’t any fluffy “humanizing” of the characters, no clunky musical cues to tell the audience how it should feel. If you want to excavate the humanity of Mark Zuckerburg and his too-smart-and-too-rich-for-their-own-good college cohorts, you’re going to have to pick up a mental shovel yourself. Exactly what I think a good story should do.
On to lighter fare, the film adaption of Jeff Kinney’s middle-grade series was the funniest movie I’ve seen all year. The premise: a late-blooming, world-embattled 12 year old enters middle school and goes on a quixotic mission to achieve popularity. It’s high school movie stock and trade, but setting the story in the horror show of middle school opens up new, cringing possibilities.
The Worst
The 80’s film had woeful special effects, dully-imagined mythological characters and epically corny dialgoue. But like a Saturday morning cartoon, it was innocuous and oddly nostalgic. It also told a coherent story.
The 2010 update had decent special effects but recast Perseus as a Jesus figure caught between Zeus (God) and Hades (The Devil). A waste of a spectacular ancient world setting. And way too earnest. Even Sam Worthington’s hotness couldn’t save the film.
Speaking of overly earnest, this “comedy” in which a junior record producer and a washed up rock star looking for a come-back discover what’s important in life through their unlikely friendship really disappointed. The film had more missed beats than a cardiac arrest.
In order for a story to work, it has to be believable or in the case of sci fi/ fantasy maintain a sense of internal logic. So, in the future everyone needs organ transplants why? No one can afford them but they’re getting them anyway, why? They’ve figured out a way to create synthetic organs, but to control the deadbeats who are late with their monthly payments, they created a special repo force to brutally reclaim the organs instead of flipping a switch to deactivate them? Ugh.
