he's been rubbish since Memento
I was going to scribble some sort of "best films of the 2010" list, but actually my cinema-going was rubbish last year due to being away on the road and other work commitments, so I didn't see that much. Therefore, here's just a few thoughts...
1. the most recent Harry Potter film was fucking dull, wasn't it? Apart from the scary lady who turned into a snake.
2. Inception was fucking dull, wasn't it? And was also one of those films where many men firing lots of machine guns are defeated by one man firing a teeny little handgun. Christopher Nolan is a very ponderous director, albeit one with amazing visual flair.
3. Paranormal Activity 2 was rubbish, but did a very effective job of scaring the absolute willies out of me. Equally, Iron Man 2 ticked lots of boxes very efficiently, and I grinned like an imbecile all the way through. And Predators made me very happy.
4. Winter's Bone was a splendidly stark and chilly thriller.
5. Shutter Island was utter nonsense, but was definitely the best Leonardo DiCaprio-starring thriller of the year (have that, Inception!).
The two best films I saw this year were both screened at East Finchley's magnificent Phoenix Cinema...
A Single Man was moving, melancholy, poignant and dry, with Colin Firth giving a perfectly understated role and Julianne Moore giving perhaps the finest English accent this side of an actual English person. Nicholas Hoult was in it too, and I hate Nicholas Hoult, but even he was excellent. Terrific movie.
On a different level entirely, though, was Of Gods and Men, which might just be the best film I've ever seen. A true story, about a community of Christian monks in Algeria in the mid-1990s, it told a potentially very sensationalist story with dignity and restraint. The monks know that their lives are at risk from Islamic militants if they remain in their monastery, and the bulk of the film simply deals with how they decide whether to stay or go. It is spare, beautiful, and almost impossibly sad - I cried a remarkable amount. It is simply exquisite. See it.
xxx.