It’s Oscar time!
As usual, the Academy Awards are poised to make some very wrong decisions this year. So as usual, I am prematurely correcting them by releasing my Top Ten of the year.
That year is 2012, of course — real film critics release such lists at the end of December or beginning of January, but since I have numerous other obligations, you get it in late February, once I’ve had a chance to catch up with nearly all eligible films.
Before I started my own entertainment-related blog, my Top Tens had to whore themselves out on my friends’ pages. This one was originally posted on Justin Plus One.
As usual with my Top Tens, I have preserved them as they were, even if, in hindsight, I may disagree with some of my own choices. (Did I really exclude a Darren Aronofsky movie in favor of Iron Man? Gosh.)
Continuing my retrospective Top 10 lists. Keep in mind, this list is from awards season 2010… and I don’t necessarily stand behind every one of these choices anymore…
Okay, so this was the year the Oscars got on my nerves for announcing ten Best Picture nominees. (And judging by what was included in those ten, I think we can all agree that I was right to be irked, which is some vindication, at least.)
As a film school graduate, I’m afraid I have an obligation to take entertainment way too seriously. That’s why, when awards season rolls around, I can’t help but partake in the senseless, arbitrary, and totally nerdy critic’s pastime of ranking all the films I saw and compiling a Top Ten List.
And since 2011′s award season has already come and gone (catch “Best Of Film 2011″ for more on that), why not retroactively look back at movies from other years that were just as good?
Why, there is no reason not to!
Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.
Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Cinema has always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, it’s taking us backward rather than forward.
Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.
Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Movies have always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, they’re taking us backward rather than forward.
