Monday, January 3, 2011

Food for Thought: Favorite Films 2010 (updated)

Here are my favorite 2010 films In no particular order:

1. The Black Swan (US)

2. Inception (US)

3. The Chaser (South Korea)

4. The Fighter(US)

5. The King's Speech (UK)

6. The Secret In Their Eyes (Argentina)

7. The American (US)

8. True Grit (US)

9. Mother (South Korea)

10. Carlos (France)

I Also Liked: The Kids Are All Right, Fair Game, The Social Network, Somewhere, Unstoppable, Casino Jack, Un Prophete, Machete, Salt, Shutter Island, Greenberg, The Town, The Ghost Writer, Monsters, Winter's Bone...

TV: Sherlock (ongoing BBC mini-series) Holmes I-Phones and Watson blogs.

And about The Social Network. For a film that tells us that Facebook founder Zuckerberg insisted on no advertising and now is worth
$50 billion, I'm disappointed to learn that most of that dough is from advertising. Why didn't scriptwriter Sorkin tell us that? And how much of Z's worth is from selling info submitted by users, by which an obtuse Zuckerberfg has created a "firestorm," according to a June 2010 article in PC World? (For specifics, see http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/) While the film is well done on most levels, this Citizen Kane for our times ("Rosebud...err...Erica...") dumbs down the actual social effect of the website by totally ignoring the issue of privacy. This omission must have been a calculated choice on Sorkin's part, since so much of the script deals with how the site can make money, and its hard to believe that the "social marketing" scheme, which is presently being used, did not come up.

Confession: I have yet to see Vincere, White Material, 127 Hours, Another Year, Toy Story 3, etc., etc. But, hey, no one's perfect!