I’m gonna start my coverage of the best that the movies had to offer this decade although I don’t think I’ll have a list of my favorites of the decade that I can stand by until March at the earliest, especially since I have to do a 2019 lists first. But I’m gonna start now with genre or category-specific lists to not just dump everything at once.
Today, we are starting with the following music-specific categories: Best Musical, Score, and Songs Written for Motion Pictures.
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If you looked at this year’s output by the major studios, would you believe that these people once gave the green light to classics like Ben-Hur, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, and Amadeus? Sure, not all movies from those periods were good, but would you believe that these movies were produced under a system that allowed The Last Airbender to go into production with that script? A system that would allow the production of Little Fockers and How Do You Know to get so out of hand that the budget went over 100 million dollars for a simple comedy? A system that would allow a the latest film by a master filmmaker like Peter Weir to go unnoticed?
I know I wouldn’t.
I know that Hollywood is not the only system that makes good movies, but living in the middle of Nowhere, USA, I rely mostly on Hollywood to deliver movies that not only deliver quality entertainment, but also some sort of food for thought. But this year, with the exception of a few movies, they failed. Just look at the top 10 highest grossing movies of the year. In there, there are only two original movies, Inception and Despicable Me, and only one of them is good, and one that although based on an existing property, was not a brand name. The rest are sequels and remakes, varying in quality from a masterpiece, and a very good movie, to a bunch of above average or mediocre titles. If you extend that to the top 20, there are a few other original movies, but the only ones I liked were Tangled, TRON Legacy, and The Other Guys, The others are merely entertaining or pure crap.
The Social Network | David Fincher, 2010
How did you react to the news that there was going to be a movie about Facebook? Were you one of those who upong hearing about it condemned it as one of the worst things ever just based on the subject? If so, you must feel pretty silly that that the movie has come out and, well, almost every critic has called it one of, if not THE, best movies of the year. Even I, who thought that the movie had potential because behind every powerful corporation there is juicy drama, was suprised by how great the movie turned out to be. It is, without a doubt, one of the best movies of the year.
The movie opens with Mark Zuckerberg ( Jesse Eisenberg) in a bar with his girfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara, the future Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). From the get go we learn that he is one of those smart guys that can’t help but let the whole world about it. Everything in the conversation is about him, and when it is not about him he is either correcting, complaining about, or offending Erica. So, she call him an asshole and breaks up with him. That leads him to create a site where Harvard students can compare other female studens with one another, and brings down the university’s network in two hours. That catches the interest of the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer) who are trying to launch a social network for Harvard students, so that they can meet girls, or something like that. From then on, he gets the idea for thefacebook and he and his best friend Eduardo Savarin (Andrew Garfield) set on making it a reality. And we go from there, cutting between the drama that this caused and the discussion of the lawsuits that happened after the fact.
That may not seem like much, but this is fascinating stuff. Reviews have compared it to movies like Citizen Kane and All the President’s Men, not because it is as great as those, at least not yet, but because it takes something that is relevant and seemingly insignificant, and finds something fascinating. The credit for this must go to Aaron Sorkin’s fantastic screenplay. First off, the dialogue if fucking fantastic. From the first frames it draws you in by its fluidity and how the words sound together. I’ve never been a huge Sorkin fan, but wow, he outdid himself. Also, how he structured the story, cutting between the making of Facebook and the legal action that was taken against Zuckerberg. Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, the movie is only a bit about Facebook, but more about ambition, and a time capsule for an event that defined a generation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he won an Oscar for this (I’m rooting for the toys though).
Also aiding in the movie’s brilliance is David Fincher’s great directing. There are already some complaints going around because it is not quite as stylish and more straight forward than his previous features, but that does not mean that he did not do a great job, but rather than he was able to show restraint when it was needed. And, who says that his signature style wasn’t there. The cinematography, the fantastic Trent Reznot-Atticus Ross score, and the use of visual effects scream “Fincher.” And I must also mention the editing. It was so great that I rarely noticed it and the movie flew by.
And then there is the acting. Jesse Eisenberg is so good. He is not really playing Zukerberg, but rather building a character out of what is known about him. He is cold, a smart ass, and an ass hole, and Sorkin’s dialogue flows out of his mouth beautifully. Andrew Garfield steals just about every scene he is in. I would love to see him get a supporting actor Oscar (although that won’t happen because he is too young and non-winner John Malkovich is on the derby, no pun intended). Justin Timberlake is very good as Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, and Facebook leech, but it was a bit hard to separate him from this true self. And Armie Hammer also deserves some sort of awards recognition. He plays two personalities perfectly.
The Social Network is a fantastic movie. It may not be the best movie of the year (again, it’s all about the toys), but it will definitely be in my top 10 of the year. Can’t wait to see it again.
I don’t tend to make Oscar predictions until before the nominations come out but I thought it would be fun to make some right now that I don’t know how some movies will fare with critics, audiences, and the members of AMPAS. Some of these I already know are pure wishful thinking (and they will be obvious to you, the reader), but I’m not shooting for accuracy.
Best Picture:
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
Never Let Me Go
Secretariat
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
A Journey Through Cinematic Heaven and Hell 