How They Rank: At the Theater 2010

Here they are, all 52 movies I watched in the theater in 2010, with my thoughts on my top 5 and bottom 5 for the year.

1. Toy Story 3 (viewed 6/15/10):  It’s rare for the third installment of a franchise to be a winner, but Toy Story 3 definitely is. Where else are you going to find toys getting existential trying to figure out what happens when their owner grows up.

2. Youth in Revolt (viewed 2/3/10): Proving once and for all that Michael Cera isn’t just George Michael Bluth.

3. True Grit (viewed 12/23/10): My pick for this year’s Oscar winner. The Coens hit a home run here.

4. The Fighter (viewed 12/29/10): Weeks after seeing The Fighter, I’m still thinking about it. I’m looking forward to seeing this again.

5. Iron Man 2 (viewed 5/13/10): Action movie sequels don’t have to suck. Sometimes they’re just as good as the original.

6. The Town (viewed 10/4/10)

7. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (viewed 8/9/10)
8. Inception (viewed 7/17/10)
9. The King’s Speech (viewed 12/21/10)
10. Winter’s Bone (viewed 12/21/10)
11. Today’s Special (viewed 12/14/10)
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (viewed 11/20/10)
13. Exit Through the Gift Shop (viewed 5/31/10)
14. The Social Network (viewed 10/10/10)
15. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (viewed 1/12/10)
16. Inside Job (viewed 12/21/10)
17. Sherlock Holmes (viewed 1/7/10)
18. Easy A (viewed 9/14/10)
19. Mega Mind 3D (viewed 12/3/10)
20. Despicable Me (viewed 7/21/10)
21. Black Swan (viewed 11/18/10)
22. Tangled (viewed 12/31/10)
23. Unstoppable (viewed 12/16/10)
24. 127 Hours (viewed 11/29/10)
25. It’s Kind of a Funny Story (viewed 10/7/10)
26. Love and Other Drugs (viewed 12/7/10)
27. Red (viewed 11/8/10)
28. How to Train Your Dragon 3D (viewed 4/15/10)
29. Kick-Ass (viewed 4/27/10)
30. Fair Game (12/17/10)
31. Hot Tub Time Machine (viewed 3/15/10)
32. Up in the Air (viewed 1/21/10)
33. The Ghost Writer (viewed 3/25/10)
34. An Education (viewed 2/10/10)
35. Due Date (viewed 12/8/10)
36. Cyrus (viewed 7/5/10)
37. Oceans (viewed 7/20/10)
38. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (viewed 1/26/10)
39. The Last Station (viewed 2/18/10)
40. Grease Sing-A-Long (viewed 7/16/10)
41. Snowmen (viewed 5/1/10)
42. Letters to Juliet (viewed 6/22/10)
43. Paper Man (viewed 5/1/10)
44. Date Night (viewed 5/6/10)
45. Little Fockers (viewed 12/13/10)
46. Tron: Legacy 3D (viewed 12/30/10)
47. Alice in Wonderland (viewed 3/8/10)
48. A Single Man (viewed 3/5/10): See The King’s Speech instead to get your Colin Firth fix.

49. How Do You Know (viewed 12/21/10): Not even the combined cuteness of Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd could save this one. This was the weakest link of Super Tuesday.

50. Mademoiselle Chambon (viewed 7/2/10): I’m amazed I didn’t fall asleep during this boring French adultery film.

51. Greenberg (viewed 4/10/10): I wasn’t ready for a movie this bad only two days after Remember Me.

52. Remember Me (viewed 4/8/10):  The Wackness of 2010.

At The Theater #17: Paper Man

While I didn’t see Paper Man at the Tribeca Film Festival, it is a Tribeca Film Festival film that I saw while the festival was running. We made it back to Brooklyn from our free Snow Men screening with time to spare to catch the 9:30 Saturday night screening of Paper Man at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas. Woo-hoo! Double feature!

I probably would have liked Paper Man less if I hadn’t seen Greenberg. While watching Paper Man, I couldn’t help but think “This is what Greenberg would be like if that movie wasn’t so annoying.” Similar to Greenberg, Paper Man is about a man with mental issues and without social skills who finds himself trying to get by in a new environment. Greenberg has an awkward relationship a personal assistant played by Greta Gerwig. Paper Man’s Richard Dunn, played by Jeff Daniels, has an awkward friendship with a local high school student played by Emma Stone. Greenberg vents his frustrations to his English best friend who didn’t talk much. Dunn vents all his frustrations to his imaginary best friend named Captain Excellent, a superhero played by Ryan Reynolds. In every one of these match-ups, Paper Man wins. But then again, being better than Greenberg isn’t that much of a compliment.

I wasn’t excited about Ryan Reynolds being cast as Green Lantern Hal Jordon in the upcoming Green Lantern movie. Out of all the stars of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, I thought Nathan Fillion would have been the much better choice as Hal Jordan. Besides looking like Hal Jordan, Fillion proved he can do outerspace action in Sci-Fi’s short-lived Firefly.After seeing Ryan Reynolds here, I’m more excited than I was before about Reynolds as Green Lantern. The guy can carry himself like a superhero. Though the costume designer in Paper Man seems to have borrowed so much from Miracleman for Captain Excellent that I kept expecting him to yell out “Kimota!”

Never let your imaginary friend drive, even if he is a Super Friend.
The best part of Paper Man is Emma Stone explaining how easy it is to make soup. She explains that soup is the easiest thing to make, because you just take all the things you have lying around that aren’t maybe in tip-top shape anymore and instead of throwing them in the garbage, cook them in some chicken broth and you’ve got soup. Hmm, that sounds less appetizing than how she described it.
I’m really glad I didn’t pay $16.50 + $3.50 to see this movie. There’s an important lesson to be learned from this weekend. Very few movies are probably worth what Tribeca Film Festival charges for tickets. You’re better off waiting until they make it to your theater or to Netflix. That said, in a little less than a year I’ll once again be anticipating the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Family Festival coming to town.

At The Theater #13: Greenberg

Dear Noah Baumbach,

In your attempt to create a movie that could be described as Garden State for old people, you succeeded in some respects. Unfortunately, you decided to mimic possibly the worst parts of Garden State in Greenberg.

You got a lot of the surface elements right. Ben Stiller plays Roger Greenberg, a single guy on a bunch of psych meds who isn’t certain of his place in the world, similar to Zach Braff’s character Andrew Largeman in Garden State. Also like Garden State, he meets a girl who changes the way he looks at and interacts with the world. You included an indie-music heavy soundtrack. You even had Roger stand in front of garish wallpaper in one of the early scenes, but without the matching shirt.
Garden State: like Greenberg for young people…and much better too.

What you failed to capture was any of the charm that made fans of Garden State fall in love with that movie. Before, I could never understand why some of my friends hated Garden State so much. But watching your movie, I now have more of an understanding of their opinion. If the charm of Garden State was lost on a viewer, I think his experience would resemble mine while watching Greenberg.

I find it hard to believe that you could be responsible for one of the best movies I have seen this year, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and one of the worst, Greenberg. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is full of humor and has a great plot, two things lacking in this movie. Some might point out that The Fantastic Mr. Fox was an adaptation, but to I would point out to them that I have enjoyed your original work as well. I thought The Squid and the Whale was a good movie, even though some of my peers labeled it as pretentious crap. I’d point out the great comedic bits, like anything involving Ivan the tennis instructor or eldest son Walt’s lifting of a Pink Floyd song as his own in a school talent contest. But where’s the humor in Greenberg?
If the point of Greenberg was to show just how unglamorous Los Angeles could be, then congratulations, mission accomplished. Also Greenberg succeeded in making me more afraid of being 40 and single and Couples Retreat did of making me afraid of 40 and married. And if it was any way your goal to make a movie that I would like less than Remember Me this year, good try. You weren’t successful on that last one, but I can appreciate attempt.

The blame for me watching and not enjoying your movie does not only fall on your shoulders. I would like to take to task both the Cobble Hill Cinema and the Angelika Film Center for subjecting me to so many multiple viewings of the Greenberg trailer that it seemed almost preordained that I see this movie. Why were they cramming this movie down their audience’s throats?

Sincerely,

Tuesday Night Movies

PS: Garden State had a better soundtrack