2010: That was the year that was

To begin with my standard disclaimer: This may be my list of the Top 10 Movies of 2010 – but it’s not necessary a rundown of the year’s 10 Best Movies. Because, quite frankly, I haven’t seen every single movie released in the US during the past 12 months. But it most certainly is a list of my favorite films to open in U.S. theaters in 2010.

(To be sure, a few haven’t opened in Houston – yet – but trust me, they’ve opened in theaters somewhere in this great land of ours.)

These are, of course, purely arbitrary and totally subjective choices. And I’ll freely admit that, a decade or so hence, I might look back on the following lineup and want to make additions or deletions. At this point in time, however, I can honestly state these are the 2010 releases that impressed me most. And best.






Inception. Christopher Nolan’s eye-popping, brain-teasing dazzler is an oxymoronic marvel -- a profound popcorn flick. At once intellectually stimulating, emotionally stirring and technically astounding, it is the sort of ambitious and audacious masterwork that results only when a true visionary somehow manages to earn carte blanche to dream big and spend large within the Hollywood commercial mainstream.






Get Low. With meticulously variegated measures of sly humor, homespun grace and affecting poignancy, this beautifully crafted and robustly entertaining dramedy casts a well-nigh irresistible spell while spinning a Depression Era folk tale from the Tennessee backwoods. Robert Duvall gives one of his finest performances – yes, even by Robert Duvall standards – as he compellingly underplays the larger-than-life lead role of Felix Bush, a notorious hermit who rejoins society only to plan his own funeral party. And he’s backed by uniformly excellent supporting players -- including Bill Murray, in an Oscar-worthy turn as a small-town funeral home director who wants to make Felix’s dream come true.






The Secret in Their Eyes. And speaking of Oscar-worthiness: Juan José Campanella’s gripping drama of obsession, retribution and redemption – winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film – is the year’s smartest and most exciting crime drama, meaning that this Argentine import easily could enthrall both passionate admirers of Dostoyevsky and faithful viewers of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. No kidding.






The Social Network. There will be those who’ll tell you that the lion’s share of the credit for this fleet, flashy and fiercely funny drama about the founding of Facebook should be given to director David Fincher. And then there’ll be those who will insist that the ruthlessly clever and relentlessly insightful script by Aaron Sorkin could have been directed by almost anyone, even Uwe Boll, and an instant-classic would have been the result. Such arguments are altogether appropriate for a movie that takes more than a few pages from Rashomon while seeking elusive truths. But take this to the bank: Everyone on either side of the cameras is at the top of his or her game here. Which is why it’s so easy – and yes, so much fun – to connect to this Network.




Love and Other Drugs. Maybe you were not impressed by the sincerity and sensuality of this smart, sexy and sensationally well-acted comedy-drama about two self-absorbed libertines – superbly played by Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal – who find themselves, much to their wary amazement, increasingly bound by a love that transcends any physical or emotional impediment. But, frankly, I would not want to spend a lot of time with you, much less share a drink with you. And I strongly suspect that if you knew I found myself moist-eyed while sitting through the closing credits, you’d feel the very same way about me.




The Fighter. I wish there were some way I could avoid the obvious wordplay, but: It’s a knockout. Seriously. And yet, while there’s no way to dispute that Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo are bona fide Oscar contenders, attention should also be paid to Mark Wahlberg, playing a up-and-coming boxer who must somehow embrace and transcend his humble, hardscrabble origins.




Tiny Furniture. Winner of the top Narrative Feature prize at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival, Tiny Furniture is a sharply observed and precisely detailed indie dramedy that should strike a responsive chord in anyone who remembers – or is experiencing – that post-college period in life when you’re impatiently eager to invent yourself, yet reflexively hesitant to get started. Written and directed by newcomer Lena Dunham, who also plays the lead role, it is intimate and semi-autobiographical – and yet, at the same time, easily accessible because of its universal verities. Check it out for yourself during its Jan. 7-9 Houston premiere at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.




The Company Men. Time Magazine critic Richard Corliss suggested – only half-jokingly – that some movie critics fervently embraced this edgy yet compassionate drama about proud men laid low by corporate downsizing “perhaps because they belong to a job sector that's also suffered severe downsizing in the past few years.” And hell, yeah, I’ll cop to that – up to a point. (Remember: You’re reading something by someone who hasn’t been a full-time film critic since The Houston Post closed in 1995.) But Company Men – which opened in New York and Los Angeles for Oscar consideration in late 2010, but won’t make it to Houston until later this month – also earns a place of honor on this list because it’s one of the very few contemporary movies that directly addresses – intelligently, insightfully and, though it may sound odd to describe it thusly, entertainingly – the way we live now. This is a movie by, about, and for grown-ups. And it showcases career-highpoint performances by Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck, Chris Copper and Kevin Costner.




Monsters. If John Cassavetes had ever made a sci-fi thriller about ginormous extraterrestrial invaders, it probably would have looked and sounded a lot like Gareth Edwards’ impudently offbeat indie. In the not-so-distant future, two plucky protagonists must journey through what is essentially a war zone – a no-human’s-land between Mexico and Texas – where the worst sort of illegal aliens are dominant.




True Grit. A funny thing happened on my way to Joel and Ethan Coen’s darkly idiosyncratic yet unabashedly crowd-pleasing adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel: I took a second look at the 1969 film version – the one directed by Henry Hathaway, showcasing John Wayne’s Oscar-winning performance – and found it was much, much better (and more faithful to Portis’ book) than I remembered it. So please don’t mistake me for some revisionist whippersnapper when I say that the Coen’s remake is not merely a considerable improvement – it is, hands down, the best Western to reach the megaplexes since Clint Eastwood unleashed his Oscar-winning Unforgiven.

Runners-up: The King’s Speech, Solitary Man, The Kids are All Right, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Toy Story 3, Kick-Ass, Unstoppable, Winter’s Bone, Casino Jack, Fair Game.

Robert Duvall talks about (among other things) Get Low

Robert Duvall and I are tucked away in a quiet corner of the spacious lobby of a luxurious Los Angeles hotel, largely hidden from the view of passers-by, and our freewheeling conversation often has an almost conspiratorial tone. We’re supposed to be talking about Get Low – the exceptionally fine comedy-drama opening Friday in Houston – for a cover-story profile I’m preparing for Cowboys & Indians magazine. But, hey, I did say this was a freewheeling conversation, right? And besides: While he would prefer not to name names – well, not for the record, anyway – really, some anecdotes are too juicy, and some episodes are too flat-out bizarre, not to share.

“I guess it’s like they say,” Duvall begins. “You have to be careful what you wish for.”

In this particular case, Duvall had been greatly impressed by the bravura performance of a flamboyant European actor in an Oscar-nominated film, and remarked to many interviewers at the time that he’d appreciate the opportunity to work with this fellow. So, of course, he jumped at the chance to appear opposite the guy in an independent film directed by an idiosyncratic, cult-fave filmmaker.

Early in the production, however, Duvall discovered that the director, for all his visual flair, left a lot to be desired when it came to communicating with actors. (And not just because English was his third or fourth language.) Worse, the actor Duvall had admired on the screen turned out to be an overbearing, camera-hogging prima donna on the set.

“Totally unprofessional,” Duvall says, practically spitting out the words in the manner of someone snapping an obscenity. “He would come into scenes, into the frame, and try to intimidate you – try to push you off your mark. Or lean into the shot, like he wanted to upstage you. Finally, I had enough of this. So the next time he did something like this, bent over this close to me in a shot – I started singing.”

Say what?

“I started singing,” Duvall says, his chuckle slowly escalating into full-throated laughter. “Just bent right back into his direction, got my face up close to his, and then” – try to imagine the sound of Rudy Vallée warbling through a megaphone here -- “What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours…”

Not surprisingly, “The guy backed off after that. I think he thought I was nuts.”

Don’t misunderstand: Duvall, still impressively robust at age 79, normally isn’t the temperamental type. He’s not known for diva-style self-indulgence, and his collaborators – co-stars, directors, screenwriters, whatever – often go out of their way to sing his praises and salute his professionalism. “He’s such an amazing actor,” says Get Low co-star Sissy Spacek, “that he simply is the character. He doesn’t act the character, he becomes the character. And so, really, when you’re working with Bobby, you just have to react.”

On the other hand: Duvall isn’t shy about standing his ground while arguing over which way is the right way to play or shoot a scene. During the mid-1980s Texas location filming of Tender Mercies, the movie that enabled him to claim his first Oscar as Best Actor, he and director Bruce Beresford (whose filmed-in-Houston Mao’s Last Dancer opens next week in theaters nationwide) sporadically clashed while seeking common ground. For that, he makes no apologies.

“Sometimes,” Duvall says, “when you have a little turmoil, things can turn out better than if you had total harmony.”

To be specific, he points to what arguably is the most affecting scene in Tender Mercies, when washed-up country music singer Mac Sledge (Duvall) mourns the tragic death of his daughter while tilling the garden of the woman (Tess Harper) who has given him his last best shot at redemption. (“I don’t trust happiness,” he says, barely tamping down his rage and anguish. “Never did, never will.”) After a long and, ahem, animated discussion, Beresford and Duvall agreed: Keep it simple, straight from the heart.

“That was a nice scene,” Duvall recalls. “And I remember saying to [Beresford], ‘Look, I don’t want to do a lot of coverage. I don’t want to loop dialogue afterwards.’ And I’m glad they didn’t use close-ups while I’m working in the garden there. The scene was nice. And the cinematographer had some great ideas: Low angles, wide shot. Simple.”

To hear Duvall tell it, the collaborations were smoother and tempers were cooler during the filming of Get Low, a small-budget, beautifully crafted labor of love that casts a well-nigh irresistible spell while spinning a Depression Era folk tale from the Tennessee backwoods. Duvall compellingly underplays the larger-than-life lead role of Felix Bush, a notorious hermit who rejoins society only to plan his own funeral party, and he’s backed by smartly cast supporting players – including, in addition to Spacek, Bill Murray and Lucas Black -- who clearly savor the twofer of portraying vividly drawn characters opposite a much-respected living legend.

“Robert is a unique cat,” Murray said during the launch of Get Low at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. “There’s only one drum that’s marching in that head, so when you watch him work, he’s just a magnet. It was a lot of fun to watch him carry this relentless confessional story all the way to its conclusion.”

It’s a story loosely based on a real-life incident, written by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell as a seriocomic fable of forgiveness and redemption, with Felix gradually revealed as man who’s genuinely curious to hear what others have to say about him at his premature funeral, but absolutely certain that anything anyone has to say can’t be worse than his own testimony about himself.

Duvall intends it as the highest of compliments when he says that the Get Low script reminded him of stage plays and screenplays by the late, great Horton Foote, a longtime friend and collaborator who earned Academy Awards for writing the 1962 film version Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (in which Duvall made his movie debut as the eccentric Boo Radley) and the aforementioned Tender Mercies.

“In fact,” Duvall says, “I’ll tell you a very interesting story. The day when we filmed the funeral service, when they brought the casket onto the set, and I was getting ready to give this speech to the people – my wife got a phone call about Horton Foote’s death at that very moment. Very spooky. It felt like things were moving full circle. Because, you know, my first part in a movie was in To Kill a Mockingbird. So it was almost like Horton was there – spiritually -- witnessing this film, too.”

And speaking of first-timers: Although Aaron Schneider won an Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short -- the William Faulkner-inspired Two Solders – he had never directed a dramatic feature before Get Low. Did Duvall have any qualms about playing such a complex role under the guidance of a relative neophyte? Not really.

“I’ve worked with a lot of first-time directors,” he says. “I met George Lucas while I was making [Francis Coppola’s] The Rain People. He was Francis’ production assistant. I mean, here was this guy, about 108 pounds, running around with the Nagra camera, doing his thing. And then we go on to do this feature, THX-1138, and he’s using two cameras, shooting in 16 mm – and it was like he’d been doing it for 25 years. Twenty-five years the right way. And yet it was his first film.

“So after that, I’ve always felt, hey, you meet somebody, you get a sense of somebody -- and if it’s a good project, why not?”

Getting excited about Get Low

The lovely and talented Anne Thompson shares my high regard for Get Low, which opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and suspects, as I do, that it will be a credible contender for glittering prizes. ("I want to see how the movie plays at the Academy. It should be a soft lob down the middle for Oscar voters.") She'll soon post interviews with lead player Robert Duvall and producer Dean Zanuck (son of Richard, grandson of Darryl) on IndieWire. While you're waiting, here's another peek at my Cowboys & Indians piece on this marvelous movie and its mighty star.

Getting down with Get Low star Robert Duvall

Sometimes, I really love what I do what for a living. Like, when I get to talk to living legends like Robert Duvall about great movies like Get Low.

A moment of Zen

On a day like today, when I have a long lunch with Robert Duvall, and we talk about everything from M*A*S*H  to Get Low, and everyone from Horton Foote to Bill Murray, and I know I'm getting paid for this... I thank God that my father left Ireland and moved to the Land of Opportunity.

Speaking of SXSW...

The complete list of films set to unspool next month in Austin at SXSW can be viewed here. Of particular note are three noteworthy films -- Get Low, Harry Brown and How to Fold a Flag -- that I reviewed at the Toronto Film Festival last fall. And I am unashamedly geeked about the world premiere of Elektra Luxx, a sequel to that guiltiest of guilty pleasures from SXSW '09, the unfortunately little-seen Women in Trouble.

Get Low gets a distributor

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to one of the best movies to premiere at this year's Toronto Film Festival. Apparently, there is a God.

TIFF review: Get Low

With meticulously variegated measures of sly humor, homespun grace and affecting poignancy, Get Low casts a well-nigh irresistible spell while spinning a Depression Era folk tale from the Tennessee backwoods. Robert Duvall compellingly underplays the larger-than-life lead role of Felix Bush, a notorious hermit who rejoins society only to plan his own funeral party, and he’s backed by smartly cast supporting players (including Bill Murray and Lucas Black) who clearly savor the twofer of portraying vividly drawn characters opposite an Oscar-winning living legend. Appreciative reviews and savvy marketing could attract adult ticketbuyers, especially if this polished indie production emerges as a credible contender for glittering prizes. You can read my complete Variety review here.