Cinematic Shame of 2010

Before I reveal my favorites of 2010, I thought I'd share the more unmentionables of the year in film.  Currently, I'm way too fickle about my favorites-- I personally blame the fact that the studios choose to release their "good" films in the last week of the year-- dumb, stupid release patterns.  I'm almost caught up, I think, but still in end of the year confusion\dispair, even though it's already 2011.  Trying to be relevant, yet thoughtful this time of year is something I struggle with.  Anyhow-- the worst in 2010 is set, and a lot less volatile, and in all honestly, a lot more fun.

TOP (BOTTOM) TEN OF 2010:

Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton)- Such an ugly, unnecessary, opportunist take on such a classic-- shamefully considering the Walt Disney Company has one of the most essential parts in the Alice canon.  A feeling of desperation swept through me, when I wasn't totally bored, or facing some of retinal discomfort, due to shoddy 3-D and the ugly art direction, which is shocking considering that's always been such a wonderful staple in Burton films.  It carried down onto the derivative, cartoon performances from Burton regulars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, whose brimming screen charisma should really go off into a different direction.  Mia Wasikowska had spunk as Alice, but the listless, and unimaginative adaptation by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast) gave her little to work with (thankfully Lisa Cholodenko gave her a doozy of a role in The Kids Are All Right to happily redeem a public in favor of her), but the re-tweaking of the story did absolutely nothing to charge with the film with any sort of real identity for itself.  Calling Wonderland, Underland, why?  Fighting Jabberwocky?  Sure, why not...bad movie!
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The American (Anton Corbijn)-  Slow, European-influenced art films are usually so far up my alley, that at first I was surprised I didn't appreciate this George Clooney-headlined thriller\existential angst-fest.  Then again, thinking about the film makes my brain scream.  Call it the cinematic equivalent of Ambien, it's a slog to sit through, or to think about.  A heavier brand of thinking is unnecessary, despite strange praise from big time critics (Roger Ebert?)  It's slow, but builds up to nothing.  At first I was angry that it was pre-packaged as Bourne-style thriller, but even the thriller aspects of the film are terribly plotted, and predictable.  Clooney didn't have movie star mug to save the film from the tedium.  Even the pretty camera work, and deliberate-ness of the film stylistically felt unimpressive, and this is coming from someone who embraced the widely dismissed Somewhere.
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Chloe (Atom Egoyan)- Egoyan was once an incredibly filmmaker-- thinking back to The Sweet Hereafter (1997), my heart just breaks, so the question must be asked, what has happened since then?  Chloe, based on what must be a truly terrible French movie, or who knows, perhaps not (!) presented Amanda Seyfried as a hooker messing on the miserable, fading marriage of Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore.  Part sub-Adrian Lyne psycho-sexual thriller, part made-for-cable softcore porn, part dumbed down adult indie.  Moore's performance works for better than the others, but can't compensate for the silly story, or Seyfried's embarrassing portrayal.  A ridiculous film!  I suggest that director Egoyan needs to go on a year(s) long retreat, perhaps while reading loads of books, and consulting with The Sweet Hereafter star Ian Holm before stepping foot anywhere near a movie seat.
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Cyrus (The Duplass Brothers)- A queasy, wacky Sundance comedy featuring John C. Rielly as a middle-aged, dumped sad sack (essentially playing a third rate Paul Giamatti role) who finds love with single mom Marisa Tomei.  All goes well until her psycho son, played with great irritation by Jonah Hill, enters the fray with creepy plans to break the two up.  Awkward, but not exactly smart, or funny, Cyrus is a real downgrade from the smaller, simpler, more astutely humorous films the Duplass Brothers have made in the past (The Puffy Chair), and a sigh of hope for me that perhaps Mr. Hill will have less films coming out in the near future.  The always lovely Catherine Keener was the sole, redeemable factor is this terribly uncomfortable movie.
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Dear John (Lasse Hallstrom)- I knew what I was getting into, I went into this sappy, sophomoric and cheesy flick, fully aware is was adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel, but there's a sad degree of bad filmmaking at stake here, one that makes another Sparks adaptation The Notebook look like a masterpiece.  Unsubtle, predictable, and featuring such bad, mannered performances from Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum, whose physically beauty grows old after the first reel.  The romance was terribly cheesy, over-the-top; the photography sunny, but hollow, and the conclusion, depressingly bad.
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Happiness Runs (Adam Sherman)- I feel like a bad person beating up a little, itty-bitty film, especially since it's one that nobody saw, but without question, this life-on-hippie-commune coming of age tale was terrible, terrible enough that after a few festival runs, it should have quietly died, without a quiet Los Angeles release.  It's a contemporary take of aging hippies and their offspring who are all fairly terrible human beings-- drug addicts and sexual fiends.  Andie MacDowell and Rutger Hauer saw something in the script to agree for face time here, but asides from loads of nudity courtesy of the young and pretty Hanna Hall (The Virgin Suicides), I can't imagine a single reason why anyone might be appealed to this awful film.  Nobody has seen this film, and there's a very good reason for that.
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I'm Still Here (Casey Affleck)- The famous faux Joaquin Phoenix documentary.  My problem is this: in the premise that Phoenix decides to give up an acting career to pursue a passion of hip-hop, what exactly is the point of his folly?  Who is the joke on?  And it's such a mean-spirited one at that, so there's never a rooting factor in Phoenix acting like a mental patient.  Aside from that, the film is ultimately too boring to be anything else.  And pointless scenes of an interloper defecating on Phoenix, or gratuitous shots of male genitalia, or a scene of Phoenix snorting coke off a prostitute's body just add to absolutely nothing.  A terrible movie, but also quite possibly an offensive one as well.
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Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)- An unnecessary sequel to his indie shocker Happiness (1998) that featured a top notch ensemble, all giving it them all with absolutely no help from a terrible mess of a script (oddly the screenplay winner at 2009 Venice Film Festival) with no reason for being.  Perhaps it only exists because of the disjointed ego of a filmmaker more interested in shock and awe than story or purpose.  Whatever the reason, this disengaging snooze-fest was one of my least pleasurable moviegoing experiences of 2010.  What's shameful is that terrific actors of likes of Allison Janney, Ciarian Hinds, Shirley Henderson and Charlotte Rampling have to utter such mindless dribble, all at the service of a writer\director that appears more interested in making his characters more and more unlikable than relatable; hinged on an obsessive memory of Happiness, which while I appreciated that film for many reasons, probably isn't healthy for the psyche.
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The Thorn in My Heart (Michel Gondry)- Gondry made a documentary in loving honor of his aunt.  That's all very thoughtful, and there's a few notes of the kind of originality Gondry is know for highlighted in the film, but this is an overly glossy family movie that outside of members of Gondry family, likely will mean absolutely nothing.  This isn't a mean-spirited, bitter person trying to knock someone's family, but there's no drama, no rooting factor, or any particular reason for this film's existence, other than to serve Gondry's ego on some way.  It's disheartening that every film Michel Gondry has made since the incredible Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, has kind of been a let down...I'm hopeful for his return to real filmmaking, but this left a bad, and altogether boring taste in my mouth.
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When in Rome (Mark Steven Johnson)- The worst in a year (decade?) of bad romantic comedies.  With a genre so utterly irrelevant, why not put it out of it's misery.  It would be unfair to blame this silly Disney flick that starred chemistry-less Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel on the failure of the genre as whole, but this flick does represent something so unappealing about why it's in such an in-flux, misbeggotten shape.  If a film has conceive something to ridiculous in order to pair it's leading lady and man, a question must be asked: why should we care?  This flick, a riff, and a badly conceived one at that on Roman Holiday has it's couple falling for each other thanks to an enchanted Italian fountain.  High concept and romantic comedy should be barred from co-mingling for the next three years.
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and the worst picture of 2010:

THE LAST AIRBENDER (M. Night Shyamalan)

Do I even have to get into this one...the worst picture of 2010, and the most evil in that grandly awful, pre-packaged studio blockbuster way.  The sick fact that the film actually made money is depressing and utterly repugnant.  Yes it's true the god-awful 3-D inflated it's grosses; still people came out to see this failure of film; that's all Paramount Pictures cares about while they prep number 2.  The real crime is the two hours of my life I lost while watching this piece of crap!

Stay tuned, my mood gets far cheerier...