Some kind of yearly best seen favorite good attempt to get into the zeitgeisty list mood

In no particular order, and based on things I saw this year, ignoring “real” release dates:
The Kids Are All Right
Please Give
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Police, Adjective
A Prophet
Exit Through the Gift Store
The Wild and Wonderful Whites
Winter’s Bone
Mystery Team
The Social Network
Crazy Stone
Collapse
Hunger
The Chaser
House of the Devil

And I watched little tv but caught a few shows via on-demand or netflix, and some were so awesome like OMG!

Damages, season 1 (Thanks for the rec, Gio!)
Louie
Party Down
Community
The Thick of It, all three seasons

17 thoughts on “Some kind of yearly best seen favorite good attempt to get into the zeitgeisty list mood”

  1. here, i’m putting the films i haven’t seen at the top of my netflix q., so we have a conversation. last night i finally watched the kids are all right and FUCKING HELL! i didn’t like it!

    did you finish the first season of damages? some pretty amazing stuff there, hey? glenn and ted chew the camera and spit it out in a little dense lump of goo.

  2. Yeah, I really enjoyed Damages–I rushed through the season. I’ve been hanging on 2, saving it for a dry spell.

    I’m sorry you didn’t like Kids. I wouldn’t say it changes the world–it’s in some ways a kind of conventional domestic comedy-drama, despite its somewhat more explicit sexual talk. I really liked the actors, particularly the “kids.”

    Check out the Exit doc–I watched it streaming last night, and damn I enjoyed it….

  6. I didn’t see everything I wanted in 2010 – monasticism will do that to a man – but I did see a few worthy films:

    Un Prophète
    Mother
    Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Hunger
    Bronson
    I Am Love
    Greenberg
    Fish Tank
    Home
    Please Give
    Revanche
    Toy Story 3
    The Social Network
    The Fighter
    The White Ribbon
    After School
    Winter’s Bone

  7. Forgot Bronson and After School!

    I’ve yet to see Mother (I KNOW, I KNOW), and I’m betting True Grit (and maybe even The Fighter) pop up for me, too…

  8. Maybe I should have made a list as I went along. I always think that. Well, as with any list I make it’s very non-definitive.

    The Social Network

    Get Low – For Bill Murray more than anything else.

    I Am Love – It’s not my plate of shrimp, but I appreciated it.

    Machete

    Scott Pigrim Vs. The World

    Red Riding 1974

    Geez, did I really see so few movies this year? Toy Story 3 was ok. Michael Keaton’s “Ken” doll made me laugh a lot.

    I suppose there are a lot of movies out right now that I might actually like: 127 Hours, True Grit, Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo…

    I can’t really list the underwhelming “White Ribbon” or “Revanche.” Even House of the Devil which I loved, seems like a stretch.

    Oh wait- Hunger – from Jeff’s list. That was excellent. That might even be near the top of my list.

    TV:

    Louie.

  9. can the people who put I Am Love in their lists provide an explanation?

    now that netflix no longer allows us to see our own list of watched movies (except i) in alphabetical order ii) by genre or iii) by rating — but not iv) by when we friggin watched them) it’s going to be hard to remember what i watched this year. i am going to start off by saying that i didn’t like The Kids Are All Right when i saw it, then had two conversations about it that turned it around entirely for me. if you are interested i can share my original reaction and what people said that made me think differently about this whole movie (to the point that i’d be willing to teach it).

    i liked The White Ribbon a lot, and Ajami. i liked both of them better than The Prophet, though i can’t quite say why. i really enjoyed watching Baader Meinhoff for the first time against the wikileaks affair.

    i absolutely loved The Maid and i liked Chop Shop quite a lot.

    i saw Lorna’s Silence this year and loved it. same for A Serious Man and A Single Man.

    i share mike’s enthusiasm for Please Give, probably my favorite film of the year.

    i really liked Revanche. i’m going to put Police, Adjective in the same paragraph as it because of the slowness of the pace and the aloneness of the protagonist, and also for a sweetness of the portrayal of an individual man that seems to me a relatively recent trend, as if feminist and gender work were freeing filmmakers from representing men as bitter, angry, and violent (or beset by/fighting with same).

    Yes Hunger.

    best film this group is never going to see, Cherry Blossoms.

    best lesbian film i have seen in the last 12 months, lukas moodysson’s Show Me Love (1998).

  10. i did some remembering and i realized i saw Show Me Love more than 12 months ago, hence: best lesbian film i’ve seen in the last 12 months, The Kids Are All Right. i keep trying to think of best gay film but i’m drawing blanks. anyone?

  13. mark, are you funnying me? there is no way i am going to watch a movie with will ferrell that netflix categorizes as “goofy.” there would have to be explicit full frontal (so to speak) gay sex, and even then i’d balk.

    s. and i are in the middle of watching Exit through the Gift Shop and if it doesn’t have its own lively and intelligent thread on this blog it sure needs it. it’s fantastic. thanks mike and jeff.

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