2010 in Review: Favorite Films of the Year.

At last, we're down to the probable grand finale. I'd love to toss in a couple more essays (best trailers/posters, the year in review, etc), but that depends on whether or not my daughter takes a nap on any given afternoon. But should this be the final major entry of 2010, so be it. Below is a list of fourteen of my favorite pictures that were released in theaters or DVD in 2010, plus a final nod to my favorite film of 2010 (no surprise if you've been reading me with any regularity). They are not necessarily 'the best', as there are plenty of allegedly great films that I missed (likely contenders: Inside Job, Blue Valentine, Animal Kingdom, Tiny Furniture), but they are all pretty great. As usual, the first fourteen are in alphabetical order.

127 Hours
First and foremost, that 'incident' that occurs at the third act isn't nearly as hard to watch as you've heard. If you're staying away out of fear, buck it up, because James Franco's grandmother thinks you're a 'p***y'. Danny Boyle's dazzlingly compelling and sharply edited character study about a young climber trapped in a cave is about so much more than its climax. It's a shockingly unsentimental yet genuinely moving look at the choice that we all have to make to truly live. James Franco, Hollywood's most versatile entertainer (he's the equivalent of that kid in high school who wanted to be on every page of the yearbook), gives the performance of his career. And you know what? If you want to close your eyes and ears at the end, I won't hold it against you. The movie works whether you keep your eyes open or not.

Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky's dazzling creepy and intense psychological horror picture works for two very specific reasons. First of all, we have Natalie Portman's astonishingly physical and emotional tour de force, which is worthy of every plaudit and award she has and will win. Second of all, the characters are not drawn in broad strokes. Mila Kunis's Lily is far from a stereotypical 'bad girl' rival, as she genuinely appears to be interested more in befriending Nina than competing with her. Vincent Cassel's seemingly draconian ballet director may come off like a cad, but we have no reason beyond our preconceptions to believe that he's lecherous, and all evidence points to a man who will do whatever it takes to get the performance he requires from his dancers. And even Barbara Hershey's seemingly conventional overbearing stage mom gets moments of empathy and depth. For a film that sells itself as a visually-stylized thriller, the characters are surprisingly three-dimensional.

Easy A
I happen to consider Mean Girls the best teen-girl comedy ever made. So when I say that Easy A is the best comedy about teen girls since Mean Girls, that's high praise. Emma Stone becomes a mega-star in this deliciously well-written and sharply acted take on The Scarlet Letter. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson (two actors who got their big break on Murder One) shine as arguably the world's coolest screen parents, but the film is unafraid to subtly question their 'my kids are my friends' parenting style. Thomas Hayden Church, Lisa Kudrow, and Malcolm McDowell round out the type-flight adult cast. And Amanda Bynes gives one of her best performances as the leader of the school's unofficial God squad. But it's Stone's movie through-and-through. While the film basically highlights how little we've progressed in regards to how we treat sexually active young women, the picture goes deeper and becomes a passionate and timely plea for privacy and tolerance in an age where the generation of kids have willingly chosen to become their own high-tech Big Brother.

Going the Distance
I missed this one in theaters, and shame on me for that. This is easily the best romantic comedy of the year, and a near-perfect example of the much-derided genre. Writer Geoff LaTulippe and director Nanette Burstein seemingly have a checklist of romantic comedy clichés to avoid, and steer around every single one of them. Drew Barrymore and Justin Long both shine as two professional adults trying to do the 'long distance relationship' thing, with mixed results. The devil is in the details. First and foremost, the main couple is so likable that we actually want to see them end up together. The dialogue is incredibly smart and funny without being obnoxiously clever. The film openly deals with the real economic world as it is now, and is far from idealistic when dealing with the reality of both young love and keeping romance alive after kids. More than a great romantic comedy, it's just a great movie period.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I
This is easily the best in the long-running series, and the first picture in the constantly good franchise that achieves true greatness. Plunging into despair and cynicism on a level most adult dramas wouldn't dare, the penultimate chapter of 'the boy who lived' is a dark, violent, and overwhelmingly sad adventure story, where the quest to destroy evil is not a Campellian hero's journey, but perhaps merely delaying the inevitable defeat. Harry, Ron, and Hermione basically carry the film on their burdened shoulders and they are quite up to the challenge. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Gint, and especially Emma Watson deliver heartbreaking performances that in a different genre might have netted them year-end awards. As we round the final curve, Harry Potter finally earns his place among the great fantasy franchises of our time.

How to Train Your Dragon
In a different year, this would have arguably been the top cartoon. But coming in second-place is no shame when your movie is this bloody good. This Dreamworks animated fable tells a simple tale of a young man befriending a baby dragon in a society where dragons and humans are sworn enemies. The vocal cast (Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, etc) shines, with Gerald Butler giving the best performance of his career as a loving but conflicted father. This was the one film that was worth every penny of that IMAX 3D ticket, as it told its thoughtful and moving geopolitical parable in high visual style. This is a beautiful movie, inside and out.

The Karate Kid
This was easily the year's happiest surprise. The much ridiculed remake of the 1984 classic got the last laugh, as the picture was a moving and compelling character drama on its own merits. Jaden Smith has obvious charisma, but also genuine instincts on when to turn off the charm. Jackie Chan delivers the performance of his career, which in a less crowded year would have netted his first Oscar nomination. The film works by refusing to coast on the coattails of its predecessor, and by refusing to condescend to its young audience. It's an intelligent and thoughtful motion picture, and stands by the original with pride. This was actually the year's biggest hit that didn't play in 3D or IMAX. Perhaps that's because it was one of the summer's few big movies that made quality its highest priority.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
This was the one movie that I missed in theaters that I instantly regretted. I can only imagine how beautiful this must have looked in IMAX 3D. The plot is basically a mishmash of Lord of the Rings and The Dark Crystal, but it's told with a genuine cynicism toward the whole 'hero warrior myth'. In this film, war is tragic and ugly, with no winners and only survivors. But the reason it makes the list is that Zack Snyder's adventure story is the most beautiful movie released this year, bar none. Every image is frame-worthy. Every scene is astonishingly detailed and lifelike. I liked watching this picture, but how I loved looking at it.

Let Me In
This was the year's best horror film, and it gives American remakes of foreign horror films a good name. Whether or not this Matt Reeves picture is better than the original Let the Right One In is frankly irrelevant. Both are richly atmospheric and strikingly acted mood pieces. Reeves makes enough token changes to make the film his own, often replacing the clinical detachment of the original with a tighter and more character-centric look. Chloe Moretz gives an Oscar-worthy turn, and Elias Koteas again proves that he's arguably the industry's most valuable character actor.

Mega Piranha
Yes, that's right Mega Piranha. This is one of the few SyFy monster movies that actually delivers what it promises. You want giant piranha crashing into buildings, eating whole houses, causing massive explosions, and generally killing the hell out of everything in sight? Well, early and often folks, early and often. You get the requisite carnage, plus the goofy kick of Paul Logan doing his best Jason Bourne/Horatio Caine/Jack Bauer impression amidst the carnage. Like Chris Klein in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, Logan gives a heroic performance every bit as awesome as the ones you delivered when you played in your backyard as a youngster. You haven't lived until you've seen Logan kick-box a piranha. Edited like a cheap episode of 24, and featuring straight-but-goofy turns by 80s pop-star Tiffany and Barry Williams, this craptastic delight delivers in a way that Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus could only dream of. God I loved this stupid, wonderful piece of pure fun.

Mother
Joon-ho Bong's follow-up to The Host applies that same weirdly inappropriate humor to a genuinely gripping thriller that would truly make Hitchcock proud. Hye-ja Kim delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as an overbearing mother of a developmentally-disabled adult child. After her son is arrested and charged with the murder of a schoolgirl, she sets out to clear her son's name. That's all you need to know. But this one is a doozy, plain and simple.

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
I was hopelessly behind on seeing documentary films this year. But while Inside Job may have made the cut, one cannot deny the astonishing wealth of information found on this retrospective documentary of the original eight Nightmare on Elm Street series. The feature itself is four hours long, with a second disc containing another four hours. And every single bit of it is worth seeing. With interviews with probably 90% of the relevant talent and a refreshing honesty regarding the uneven franchise, there isn't an ounce of fat to be found on any of the eight hours of interviews and documentary footage. If this project came about because of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, then it was all worth it.

Unstoppable
This Tony Scott yarn, easily his best since Enemy of the State, is a perfect example of the kind of movie that they just don't make enough of anymore. This lean and mean little thriller concerns two over-their-head train operators (Denzel Washington and Chris Pine) attempting to stop a runaway train filled with explosively toxic chemicals that is heading into populated areas. With smart characters who ask the same questions we would, just enough character development to make us care, and just enough class commentary to make it socially relevant, this terrific action picture was one of the most enjoyable theater going experiences I had last year. That it got made means that Hollywood can deliver on the basics. That it rebounded after a soft box office opening due to word of mouth means that there is still an audience for this kind of old-fashioned thrill-ride.

Winter's Bone
Arguably the best live-action picture of the year, this tense and moving thriller contains two of the best performances of the year. Jennifer Lawrence deservedly got the lion's share of the media, but John Hawkes delivers a career-best turn as well. The plot is simple and stark: a young woman must track down her criminal father after he puts up the house as collateral and then apparently jumps bail. But the film presents a look at the devastatingly poor backwoods communities and how meth did just as much damage there as much as 1980s explosion of crack/cocaine in the inner-cities. The film never glamorizes nor lingers on the obvious hardships, and it is refreshingly unsentimental. Most importantly, Winter's Bone never tries to be about every person living in Ozark Mountain or similar areas of America, but instead is about a single young girl who finds herself surrounded by family, but rendered completely alone by her inability to count on anyone other than herself.

And now, the best film of 2010. It was an easy call:

Toy Story 3
I've written quite a bit about this one, so I'll try to avoid repetition. But the film is the most enjoyable, funniest, most exciting, and most moving cinematic experience of the year, bar none. It is perhaps the finest 'part 3' ever, and closes out perhaps the finest trilogy in film history with a climax that perhaps tops the two prior masterpieces. If it were a live-action film, it would be the front-runner at the Oscars. No film was more haunting and no film was more powerful. Tom Hanks caps off his finest character with his best performance in years. Pixar caps off their crown jewel series with perhaps their best film to date (to argue whether it's better than Up, The Incredibles, or the prior Toy Story films is kinda silly). I presume most of you have already seen this film and have decided what it meant for you. So I'll simply say that Toy Story 3 is my favorite film of 2010, and it darn-well is probably the best film of 2010 to boot.

And that's a wrap for this year, folks. Feel free to share your thoughts and check out the rest of the year-end wrap up. For more, read the various year-end wrap-ups for 2009, 2008, and 2006.

Scott Mendelson

2010 in Review: The 'Worst' Films of the Year.

I use the term 'worst' subjectively, both because I'm stating subjective opinions and because there are plenty of allegedly terrible films that I did not see this year (Yogi Bear, Gulliver's Travels, Sex and the City 2, Little Fockers, Grown Ups, etc). Sadly, this was the first year in as long as I've been doing this where it was easier to make up a 'worst of year' than a 'best of year'. Not because there were so few good films, but because there were so many astonishing failures from some of my favorite filmmakers. So, without further ado, and in alphabetical order, I give you my personal picks for the ten worst films of 2010.

Alice in Wonderland
It is a strange thing to see a director that you worshiped in your youth score by-far the biggest hit of his life from one of the worst films of his career. Yet Alice in Wonderland is easily Burton's worst film, give-or-take Planet of the Apes (the latter is duller, but I love the 'up yours' ending). The screenplay turns Alice into a passive character defined by predestination and what other people expect from her and then expects us to find the film a rousing piece of female-empowerment. The result is an equally passive film that contains no suspense and no driving force. The film is inexplicably ugly to look at, and the 3D only muddies the image that much more. This was an assembly-line paycheck job for all involved, and a sign that, traumatized by the box office failure of (the secretly right-wing?) Mars Attacks and the outrage over Batman Returns back in the 1990s, Burton may have given up any attempt to be a visual or narrative original. If this were any one else's artistic failure, it would simply be a very dull and uninspiring film. But coming from Tim Burton, it was just one of the heartbreaking failures of the year.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
Granted, I have only myself to blame for this one, but I really wanted to see that Road Runner cartoon that proceeded the feature. I laughed by butt off at "Coyote Falls", even if my three-year old was unamused ("I don't like this, Daddy," she said as if trying to make me cry). As for the unneeded and unwanted sequel to a completely mediocre 2001 flick, said daughter was as bored as I was. There is little to no creativity and a stunning lack of actual animal action. Also problematic was the general lack of cats. We have three felines in the house. We are certainly a cat family. I have no problem with seeing cats as the villains (as long as they are smart, devious evildoers), but I do take exception to a film called Cats and Dogs that is basically all about the dogs. I took Allison to see G-Force last year, and she more or less enjoyed that one. G-Force is Babe compared to Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.

The Last Airbender
Oh, M. Night Shyamalan, I wish I knew how to quit you. I cannot fathom how the man who made The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable has so swiftly fallen from grace. I've heard any number of theories about his latest whiff ('he's lost his mojo', 'he was inspired by Bollywood', etc). I liked The Village as a political parable, admiring its acting and the stunningly beautiful score. I acknowledged that Lady in the Water was a deeply flawed, but extremely personal pet project. And I was even occasionally amused by the 1950s B-movie silliness of The Happening. But The Last Airbender is conclusive, incontrovertible proof that the once-great Shyamalan has completely lost his way. I still believe that the writer/director who made two of the best films of the last eleven years is buried in there somewhere, beneath the hubris and defensive posturing. But I may have to face the fact that Anakan Skywalker has been lost inside Darth Vader. In a year full of great filmmakers dropping the ball, none was more heartbreaking than this.

My Soul to Take
I talk a lot about directors who seem to be two different people, longtime filmmakers who seem capable of great work and utter garbage with no real pattern to discern the two. The main culprit has always been Wes Craven. Alas, this newest Wes Craven film was from the director of Deadly Friend, The Hills Have Eyes 2, and Shocker. After this dull, airless misfire, which is a failure on almost every level, it's no wonder that Craven again journeyed back into the Weinstein pit (see or don't: Cursed) for Scream 4. I'm a huge fan of the director who made Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Scream 2, and Red Eye. I sincerely hope that filmmaker gets to eventually make another movie someday.

A Nightmare On Elm Street
I have no problem with remakes on principal, and in fact a horror remake made my best-of list just this year. But this may be one of the worst horror remakes in the history of the sub-genre. The film is claustrophobic, both visually and narratively, as it exists in a world where no outside of the main characters reacts to what's transpiring. The film feels like it's missing an entire first act of set-up and character development, leaving the actors adrift with nothing to really play. Clancy Brown and Connie Britton are given nothing to do, and even the usually reliable Kyle Gallner (The Haunting In Connecticut, Red, Veronica Mars) stumbles. Rooney Mara has found greener pastures elsewhere, but her main attribute as Nancy is to be insanely pretty. Jackie Earle Haley is actually more interesting as the pre-burned Fred Krueger than as the infamous boogie man, as the film feels unsure about how real-world disturbing to make him (fortunately, he's found a steady gig on Human Target). But the film's biggest offense is to take its one interesting idea (that alleged-pedophile Fred Krueger may have been an innocent victim of McMartin-type accusations) and completely cops out at the end. The lack of a differing viewpoint, along with the complete lack of any creative violence, renders this remake completely unnecessary.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Remember that rant above about Wes Craven's duel-personalities? Same goes for Christopher Columbus. It is difficult to fathom how the man who kicks-tarted one of the best fantasy film series, and the most-successful franchise, of all time, could also helm this frankly piss-poor misfire. The film reads like a checklist of everything that didn't go wrong on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. An all-star cast is assembled as Greek Gods to barely appear onscreen as we focus on three 'hip' teenagers. The film is filled with pop-culture references, needless rock music on the soundtrack, and a young cast who treats this like it doesn't matter. The dialogue is filled with "We have to stop her!"-type exposition that often mars bad kiddie films. It's a film filled with exciting actors and notable effects work that manages to be stunningly dull. It's perhaps the year's best example of something Gene Siskel often spoke of: "Is this film better than a documentary of these actors sitting around eating lunch?" No.

Piranha 3D
Maybe it's because I'm past puberty, but I don't find the sight of scantily-clad women randomly gyrating on a beach to be all that titillating, let alone a reason to praise an otherwise terrible film. But if you're going to be fill your picture with such imagery, don't then condemn the fictional exploiter of said imagery (Jerry O'Connell's 'not-Girls Gone Wild' producer') as a villain. Take away the random T&A, and remove the five-minutes of pure carnage at about the hour mark (which is so real-world traumatic that it's not fun), and you're left with a boring and insulting piece of garbage that wouldn't be out of place as a Saturday night SyFy Channel movie. I've been forced to watch quite a few of those with my wife, most of them aren't nearly as sloppy and misogynistic (most of the men get quick and/or noble deaths, most of the women get long and leeringly graphic 'awesome' demises) as this one. Still, the For Your Consideration ad is worth a gander.

Saw VII 3D
Alas, they saved the worst for last. The series had a perfectly terrific finale with Saw VI, but they just had to play around with 3D and screw up the entire mythology. The film feels like a dirt-cheap straight-to-cable Saw picture, trading detailed indoor murkiness for inexplicably bright and shiny exteriors. The cast is uniformly terrible, and there is but a single fleeting appearance by Tobin Bell himself. The picture turns Jill Tuck into a scream-queen damsel-in-distress, and the last act tries to convince us that the previously brutish Mark Hoffman is a super-villain who would impress The Joker. The film is basically nothing but traps, and the film feels every bit as sexist and misogynistic as the previous films were not (again, the men get painlessly hanged, the women are slowly slashed and buzz-sawed to death). And yes, this is the first film in the franchise to truly feel like 'torture porn'. In my mind, the series ended with the sixth installment. Saw VII does not exist.

Tron: Legacy
I've read smart people come to the defense of this one, offering their takes on what the film was really about and/or trying to say. But let's not pretend that a film showing the fallacy of playing God, the instinctual urge for freedom, and the peril of tyranny is all that groundbreaking. The picture is still a mess, with bad acting, paper-thin characterizations, and a shocking lack of action and/or adventure that shows off the world inside 'the grid'. Poor writing and acting were all-but expected, but the lack of more than one decent action scene (itself reminiscent of Spy Kids 3D and/or the versus-mode on Mario Kart) and any real visual wonder (most of the film feels shot in a fog, with ugly grey muddiness prevailing), the film negates its own reason for existence.

Why Did I Get Married Too?
I'm generally a bend-over-backward to be fair 'fan' of Tyler Perry, and for most of the running time, this needless sequel is just one of his lesser entries. It even has two genuinely great scenes (a long duel monologue from Louis Gossett, Jr. and Cicily Tyson, plus a marital argument conducted entirely in a whisper). But the last five minutes, in which a sympathetic character does something cruel and stupid which causes a terrible tragedy, and we're supposed to take the side of the perpetrator, takes such a giant nosedive that they turn the film from just bad to yes, one of the worst films of the year. It's easily the biggest shoot-yourself-in-the-foot ending since Spanglish.

And there you have it, folks. What were your least favorite films of 2010? I'm sure I left more than a few off (there were plenty of bad movies that were merely kinda-terrible), so have your say. The final list, 'Favorites of 2010', should be up tomorrow.

Scott Mendelson

Funny or Die: James Franco's grandmother reviews 127 Hours.

Christmas Greetings From the Franco's from James Franco

Who are these people who keep fainting at the climax? Did they also pass out during the action climax of The Empire Strikes Back? Do they feel ill while watching the first Aquaman episode from Justice League? Did they leave the theater 25 minutes into Robocop? Sorry, there's just no excuse. 127 Hours: Yes you can take it!

Scott Mendelson

Goodbye to You: Franchises That Left Us This Year.

While every year brings its share of would-be franchise starters, 2010 marked the would-be finale for a surprisingly large number of ongoing series. Here is a rundown, in alphabetical order, of the film franchises that were either officially cancelled, fittingly finished out their arc, or likely will not return based on lackluster box office numbers. I have no idea how to make music play when you click on a blog entry, but feel free to boot up your favorite farewell song. Me? I'm currently playing Elton John's Candle in the Wind (the original, not that wet-fart 1997 remake).

The Chronicles of Narnia (12/09/2005-12/12/2010)
In the aftermath of the one-two punch of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Fellowship of the Ring in late 2001, studios all went digging for various fantasy-lit series to turn into their own long-running franchises. Of the many would-be contenders, only two of them received a sequel. The Twilight Saga will be ending in 2012, but this year we likely said goodbye to the only other notable contender, The Chronicles of Narnia. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe debuted in December 2005 to an earth-shattering $65 million, completely knocking the wind out of King Kong, which debuted a week later. Spurred by a major Disney ad blitz that highlighted major big-budget fantasy spectacle which was based on a book that pretty much everyone read in elementary school, plus an 'on the side' ad campaign based on the book's (and author C.S. Lewis's) well-known Christianity, the film was the first fantasy-lit film post-2001 to really hit it big. It ended its leggy run with $290 million domestic and $745 million worldwide. But the first book was really the only popular one in the series.

Prince Caspian debuted in May 2008 and opened to a rock-solid $55 million. But the film crashed quickly, hurt by both heavy summer competition, the darker and more violent nature of the story, and the lack of a real Christian push. It ended up with $142 million domestic and $412 million worldwide on a $225 million budget. That might have been the end of the series, as Disney decided not to pursue a third Narnia picture. But 20th Century Fox decided to partner with Walden Media to embark on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, at a reduced cost ($140 million) and the same pre-Christmas release date that had served the first film. But lightning did not strike twice.

Fox frankly completely dropped the ball on marketing, with a barely-there campaign that raised no pre-release awareness and an ad campaign that highlighted the more kid-friendly and 'safe' nature of the story at the expense of actually establishing what the film was about. The film debuted with just $24 million over its opening weekend and it took just over two weeks to even match the $65 million opening weekend of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The film is doing well overseas (current worldwide total: $300 million), but massive worldwide grosses were not enough to save the His Dark Materials trilogy, which stopped at the $372 million-grossing The Golden Compass in 2007 (just $70 million of that was from domestic dollars, creating the impression that it was a bomb). Unless another studio needs a tent-pole to fill a hole in their schedule and/or the fourth film can be made for under $100 million, there will likely be no film adaptation of The Silver Chair.

The Fockers saga (10/06/2000-12/22/2010)
In a decade filled with fantasy epics and comic book adaptations, the 'Fockers series' was arguably the only real comedy franchise that survived past a single sequel. Meet the Parents was in fact a remake of a foreign picture, complete with even more squirm-inducing humor and an unhappy ending. The remake was intended as a star vehicle for Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, the idea being 'What if your father-in-law turned out to be Travis Bickle?'. It debuted with a knockout $28 million, which was an October record at the time. It had mighty sea legs, ending its domestic run with $166 million. Ten years later, it's still the highest-grossing movie ever released in September or October. Warts and all, it worked because of a relatable premise and a certain willingness to make the audience uncomfortable for the sake of a long joke. It may have been farce, but the cast played it like it was an August Wilson adaptation.

A sequel came four years later, opening with a monster $46 million three-day/$70 million five-day opening weekend over the Christmas holiday. While the film received lesser reviews, Meet the Fockers added Stiller's 'nebbishy', liberal parents played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand to the mix. While it is a sloppier, less disciplined film, I actually preferred it to the original, mainly because the addition of Streisand gave Blythe Danner (De Niro's wife) more to do this time around. It was an unbeatable choice for casual moviegoers and big groups through the first chunk of 2005, and the film grossed and astonishing $279 million in the US. That's the second-biggest comedy in history (behind Home Alone's $281 million).

But while the first sequel was powered by the longterm popularity of the first, the newest installment, Little Fockers, had to contend with middling word of mouth for the sequel. Six long years went by, and the audience disinterest over opening weekend was palpable. The $100 million picture debuted last weekend after months of reshoots, mediocre test screenings, and an ad campaign that contained no real laughs to advertise. The film opened with just $43 million over the five-day holiday and just $30 million over the Fri-Sun portion. It will probably crawl to $140 million and Universal will probably make its money back with overseas dollars. But the desperation was obvious and the actors' discontent was noticeable. Unless Universal is desperate enough to pay everyone on board record-high salaries and/or they just reboot the series with new actors, the Focker series has ended as a trilogy.

Saw (10/29/2004-10/29/2010)
I've written quite a bit about this series over the last few years, so I'll try to not repeat myself. Say what you will about the uneven quality of the franchise, but Lionsgate pulled off something genuinely unique. For seven years in a row, they had a new Saw installment all set to go for Halloween, and for five of those years, the films each opened to boffo box office and stayed alive just long enough to be massively profitable. Eventually the series became so hopelessly convoluted in its own web of continuity and mythology that only the fans could keep up. The sheen wore off ironically enough right at Saw VI, which was the best film in the whole franchise. While the series should have ended at that perfectly solid finale, Lionsgate overplayed their hand and unleashed Saw VII in 3D, which resulted in the very worst film in the series and the least-satisfying series finale since, I dunno, Seinfeld?

The Saw franchise is the biggest-grossing horror series in history with $415 million in domestic grosses and $859 million worldwide. It helped Lionsgate produce and/or distribute all manner of prestige films (Crash, Away From Her, Precious), arthouse cinema (Rabbit Hole, Buried, The Lucky Ones), and documentary films (More Than A Game, Sicko, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man) and turned character actor Tobin Bell into a movie star. It defined horror for an entire decade, rescuing the genre from the safety of teen-friendly PG-13 trifles and plunging it back into the take-no-prisoners grindhouse zone of the 1970s. It was rarely torture porn, it was only halfway decent, and it was often frustrating. But the Saw franchise matters, and I shall miss it.

Sex and the City (05/30/08-05/28-10 - movies only)
Count this one as dead before its time. Warner Bros. officially killed this ongoing adaptation of the popular HBO television series due to one soft-performing sequel. Said sequel grossed $288 million on a $100 million budget, which if it were based on a male-driven comic book probably would have merited a third entry. But this 'Star Wars for adult women' was always held to an unfair standard. Before the release of the first film, everyone crowed about how Warner wouldn't recoup their $65 million investment. When Sex and the City: The Movie opened to $57 million in three days (a record for a romantic comedy), the pundits held up the film as an example of 'Why they hate us'.

The first film had legs, and grossed $415 million worldwide. Sex and the City 2 did not fare as well, grossing just $32 million over the three-day portion of its opening weekend and just $51 million over the five-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. No one noticed that maybe releasing a film aimed at adult women on a family-centric holiday weekend might be a bad idea (can't do 'Girls Night Out' when the kids are all home and there's a barbecue to prepare). The film limped to $95 million in domestic grosses and Warner Bros. officially announced that there would be no third film. I'm not saying either of the films were 'good', but there was still money to be made on this series, so call this one 'gone too soon'.

Shrek (05/16/01-05/19-10)
The fourth Shrek film is entitled Shrek: The Final Chapter, and it literally ends with a character closing the Shrek book and putting it up on a shelf, so regardless of box office, the fourth film was indeed intended as a series finale. The first Shrek debuted both as a hail Mary pass from Dreamworks ("We can make a cartoon just as popular as Disney.") and a personal bit of revenge from Jeffrey Katzenberg. The villain of the first film was modeled after Disney boss Michael Eisner, and the film was filled with token pokes at Disney and slight deconstructions of the classic fairy tale model. The first film opened with $42 million (a record for a non-Disney cartoon at the time), and ended up ruling summer 2001 with $267 million in the domestic till. Me? I knew it was going to be a monster on opening night, when I looked around during the end credits and a packed audience was dancing in the isles to "I'm A Believer". But had the film just been one big inside joke, we wouldn't still be talking about it nine years later.

Mike Meyers's incredibly endearing vocal work was instrumental, as were the sharp screenplays that emphasized drama and character interaction over frenetic action. Take away the glossy animation and pop-culture references, and the Shrek series is basically a big romantic comedy. Ironically enough, all four Shrek films (even the comparatively middling third installment) were arguably more intelligent and realistic romantic comedies than most of what passes for rom-coms actually aimed at adults. The films were always about the illusion of storybook romance versus the reality of making a relationship work, and the films never shied away from the less glamorous aspects of marriage and family.

The first two films were genuinely hilarious and moving relationship comedies, and the latter two films paled only in comparison to the high standards set by Shrek and Shrek 2. But the story is indeed over at the conclusion of Shrek: Forever After. Unless we really want to see Shrek and Fiona go through real marital difficulties and, deal with the inevitability of empty-nest syndrome, and then grow old and die, it's best to leave them now when they are close enough to how we remember them from back in 2001.

Toy Story (11/24/1995-06/18-2010)
Call this one 'wishful thinking', as I really and truly hope Pixar decides to let this franchise end with the perfect trilogy as it is now. Sure, if you want to do cartoon shorts dealing with peripheral characters like Ken and Barbie, go for it. But the saga of Woody, Buzz, and Andy is over. Toy Story was of course the first computer-animated cartoon and the feature-length debut of Pixar, a company that would change the animation game for good. Toy Story established the template for their first several pictures, as it was a film taking place in our world with a look at another world just out of sight (the toys that come to life, the bugs beneath us, the fish in the sea, the monsters in the closet, etc).

Tom Hanks may have won his Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, but he did no better work than his heartbreaking performance as Woody the sheriff. In 1995, Woody was that young parent who didn't want their children to grow up too fast. In 1999, Woody was the parent who wasn't ready to watch their children grow up and leave for college. In 2010, Woody was the parent who finally came to terms with their son or daughter's adulthood. He knew that his time with Andy was done, and that it was time to make a new life someway, somehow.

All three films were about the fear of abandonment, of being left behind by those you love. The first film was almost innocent, dealing with accidental abandonment, complete with a reassuring ending. The second film went into darker territory, dealing with the idea that yes Andy will eventually stop playing with his favorite toys, and it offered no happy ending other than the idea that Woody's eventual obsolescence was a price worth paying for a life well-lived. The third film, of course, finally delivered on the theoretical 'end', as Woody and the gang had to decide what to do now that their owner had no use for them. The Toy Story series is perhaps the finest trilogy in cinema history, give or take The Lord of the Rings, and the wrap-up is hopeful and heartbreaking, while playing fair on both counts. All indications point to Toy Story 3 being the final Toy Story film, and I sincerely hope that turns out to be the case.

And thus ends our obituary of sorts for the franchises that departed. Next year will be a big one, as we finally say a tearful goodbye to 'the boy who lived'. Please catch up on the continuing '2010 Year in Review' essays as we wind down to the best/worst of the year.

Scott Mendelson

2010 in Review: Good Movies You Missed.

Let us continue our look back at the year in film with a token acknowledgement of eleven good if-not great films that flew by the radar without much acknowledgment from audiences and/or the critical community. For the record, not all of the films below are great pictures, but they are all worth a look and deserve a bigger audience than they received. The following are in alphabetical order.

Agora
This expensive and lavish period piece came and went without a peep, but it remains a thoughtful and socially relevant piece of history. Rachel Weisz gives a solid star turn as Hypatia of Alexandria. As a rare educated female who holds esteem over many of her male colleagues, Hypatia's gender is refreshingly irrelevant, until it's all that matters. The film concerns the rise of Christianity in Roman Egypt, and it deals rather objectively with the dangers of fanaticism and extremism in all faiths. It eerily draws parallels to modern day religious fundamentalism while acknowledging that the East and the West have a nasty habit of inciting those who would lash out in retribution. It's a piece of forgotten history and a darn good movie to boot. R-rating aside, this would be just the kind of film to be shown in classrooms, be it for would-be historians (better to pick out whatever factual inaccuracies that I didn't notice) or future mathematicians.

Chloe
Most of what little attention this Atom Egoyan picture garnered concerned the moments of sexual intimacy between Juliane Moore and Amanda Seyfried. What was missed in the gossip pages was a sharp, thoughtful, and surprisingly fun little erotic thriller that deals with how our own imaginations can be our own worst enemy when it comes to keeping a family together. The ending is a bit pulpy, but Moore, Seyfried, and Liam Neeson shine in this under-seen gem. It's yet another film (like Solitary Man and The Kids are All Right) that would have been a mainstream release just a few years ago but now ended up stranded in arthouse theaters.

Daybreakers
While most vampire pictures serve as a metaphor for rape or 'immoral' consensual sex, this Spierig Brothers picture used the vampires' thirst for blood as a not-so-subtle metaphor for our addiction to energy and/or fossil fuel. The film is no vampire classic, but it's a rock-solid B-movie with a fine cast (Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neil) and an emphasis on character and storytelling over sensationalized blood-and-guts. You get your violence, and the ending has a bit of gratuitous action, but the film has something worth saying, it says it well, and it tells its thoughtful story with style to spare.

Devil
M. Night Shyamalan has so fallen from grace that his name above the title now may be more of a obstacle than a help. But this creepy and compelling little horror film is just what he should be doing with his time. The story is pure Shyamalan: several morally flawed people stuck in an elevator as they start being bumped off one-by-one. But he let Brian Nelson (Hard Candy) write the screenplay and the Dowdle brothers (Quarantine) direct the picture. The result is a genuinely engaging and deliciously old-fashioned spook story, the kind of story that was found halfway through one of those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark collections you used to read at Halloween. It's not art, but it's popcorn-flying fun.

Four Lions
This surprisingly thoughtful and compelling little black comedy concerns four would-be terrorists in their attempt to set off explosives in downtown London. The subject matter is obviously a bit disconcerting in this day and age, but director Christopher Morris carefully balances the desire to expose the buffoonery of most modern-day terrorists and the need to keep his lead characters somewhat recognizable on a human level. The movie doesn't shy away from the consequences of such a pursuit, but it remains oddly comforting in confirming that the terrorists we fear are not comic book super villains, but foolish human beings prone to error and vulnerable to circumstance.

Frozen
This one was in theaters for ten minutes, but it's one of the best horror films of the year. The picture concerns three young friends who find themselves stuck on a ski lift in the middle of the night, with no means of rescue for several days and seemingly no safe escape. What would you do? This is a classic example of plausible horror. It's a genuinely nerve-wracking little movie and well worth a rental.

Mystery Team
This direct-to-DVD comedy has a knockout idea at its core: what if Encyclopedia Brown never matured past adolescence and kept trying to solve neighborhood mysteries well into his teens? Donald Glover (MVP of Community, currently the best show on television) leads a trio of high school graduates who are stuck in their boyhood adventure years, still running around the block trying to find out who stole Ms. Maple's apple pie. But their skills are put to the test when they are asked to solve a most horrifying crime with broader implications. The film runs out of steam before the credits roll, but it remains a genuinely laugh-out-loud gem that deserved a theatrical release.

The Oxford Murders
I could easily sit and listen to John Hurt reading the phone book. Which is basically what you get with this Magnolia release. Sure, there is a fun murder mystery at its core, and Elijah Wood provides solid support as an overeager Oxford grad student who gets caught up in a serious of homicides that involve his educational mentor. But the real appeal of this genuinely fun little movie is listening to Mr. Hurt pontificate about the nature of mathematics, the science of human reason, and the flaws of believing in absolute fact. The movie isn't quite as intelligent as it thinks it is, but good god is it swell to have one of the greatest voices in cinema joyfully lecturing at us for 100 minutes.

The Square
This direct-to-DVD thriller is one of the finest pieces of pure film noir I've seen in quite some time. It's no reinvention of the wheel, but this Australian thriller is a dynamite example of genre filmmaking done just right. The plot is simple: a married man plots to steal money from his mistress's husband. And the plan goes off without a hitch, no one gets hurt, and everyone lives happily ever after. Oh no, wait... the exact opposite of that. I won't spoil what transpires, but this is bloody good fun and a picture that deserved a wider audience. Come what may, I fully expect this little pot-boiler to be remade in the next five years.

Splice
We all complain about the lack of truly unique and original films in our mainstream entertainment, but then we ignore and/or ridicule a beauty like this. The film is deceptively simple: two romantically-linked scientists create life from a test tube and then find themselves playing mom and dad to the difficult-to-manage and unpredictable creature. With a lesser cast and a weaker script, this might have ended up as a Saturday night SyFy original movie. But Sarah Polley and Adrian Brody bring class to the proceedings, and the film works as a metaphor for raising a special-needs child as well as a disturbing fable of science-gone amok. It also earns big bonus points for having, hands-down, the funniest scene in any theatrical movie this year.

Waking Sleeping Beauty
This wonderful documentary chronicles the Disney animation divisions from 1984 to 1994, when Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Eisner, and Roy Disney brought Disney animation back to their former glory. The copious behind-the-scenes footage is astonishing (among other things, we get a young Tim Burton animating bits of The Black Cauldron), and the level of candor from this Disney-sanctioned project is surprising. This is a warts-and-all look at the people who took Disney back to the top and how their own fragile egos almost wrecked it all over again. I would love to see two more of these, chronicling the rise of Pixar and the death of Disney 2D (1994-2004), along with how Disney and Pixar faced the brutal challenges to the throne from Dreamworks and the like (2004-2014).

And that's it for this year. Of course, there are plenty of allegedly good films that I missed this year, so feel free to add your own unfairly-ignored gems for 2010. We'll be back with a few extras, and then the best/worst of 2010.

Scott Mendelson

Weekend Box Office (12/26/10): Little Fockers opens soft, True Grit opens strong, Tron: Legacy flounders.

I remember being genuinely shocked at the success of Meet the Fockers back in Christmas 2004. It had been well over four years since the original and, box office aside, it wasn't a film that cried out for a sequel. I figured that no one cared, that it had been too long since the original, and that the sequel would do token business but no more. For the second time in 2004, I was dead-wrong. Twice that year, sequels that didn't have all that much pre-release buzz around them exploded out of the gate and kept going for the next few months. The other was Shrek 2, which opened out of nowhere on the pre-Memorial Day weekend to $108 million over three days and $128 million over five, to end up winning the year with an astonishing $441 million. Meet the Fockers grossed $46 million over the three-day portion of Christmas 2004 and a stunning $70 million in its five-day opening weekend. The film kept on rolling, ending up with $279 million domestic and $516 million worldwide. That makes Meet the Fockers the second-biggest live-action comedy in US history (behind Home Alone with $281 million) and the world's highest-grossing live-action comedy ever. So when I say that there wasn't all that much buzz for Little Fockers, that really didn't mean much in theory. Except this time, when it did.

Little Fockers was indeed the number one movie over the long Christmas weekend. The would-be finale of the Fockers trilogy ("This Christmas... the journey ends.") pulled in $30.8 million over the Fri-Sun portion and $45 million over the five-day opening weekend. Amusingly enough, the critically-hammered comedy sequel did a majority of its business over the last two days of release, where it grossed $14.6 million on Christmas Day and $11.6 million on Sunday. Going into Christmas Day, the film had grossed just $19 million in three days. The big business over the last two days turns this from a genuine flop into a question of whether moviegoers just waited until it was convenient to see the film. I've often warned about opening films on Wednesday that aren't uber-anticipated, as most moviegoers don't need to rush out on a weekday to see a given picture. We'll know more as the film plays over the last week of the year. But for now, the film is indeed a disappointment.

The film pulled in 32% less over the five-day weekend than Meet the Fockers did ($46m 3-day/$70m 5-day) on the same weekend back in 2004. The picture cost $100 million and reeked of post-production chaos, with reshoots and test screenings galore, plus Dustin Hoffman being brought back in at the last minute to 'save the picture'. The trailers weren't the least bit funny, with clips from the first two films, Viagra jokes and replays of the first film's gimmicks from all the way back in 2000 that made the film feel that much more desperate and lazy. Little Fockers scored a meager 'B-' from Cinemascore, meaning that the film was indeed as unfunny as it looked and that the picture will likely die immediately after the holiday season. $100 million is likely but no longer a certainty. This appears another clear-cut case of a franchise being extended one film too many. It appears that we can add the Fockers epic to the surprisingly long list of franchises that left us this year.

Second place went to the critical winner of the weekend, the Coen brothers' remake/adaptation of True Grit. The critically-acclaimed Jeff Bridges/Matt Damon/Hailee Steinfeld western scored a dynamite $24.8 million over three days and $36.8 million over five days. This is the biggest opening weekend ever for a traditional western, far eclipsing the normal $14-$17 million openings for westerns like 3:10 to Yuma, Open Range, Unforgiven, and Maverick. This is also easily the biggest Coen brothers opening weekend ever, surpassing the $19 million opening of Burn After Reading. It's already $1 million away from the $39 million total gross of Intolerable Cruelty (their fourth-biggest hit) and should surpass Burn After Reading's $60 million gross by the end of next weekend and the $74 million gross of No Country For Old Men a week or two after that.

$100 million is a strong likelihood for the $38 million-budgeted western, especially with the film appearing on many a best-of-2010 list (not mine, but that's another story). The film scored a B+ from Cinemascore, with an A- from the under-25 crowd. It played 65% male and 70% over 30. This is a huge win for everyone (the Coens, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, surefire Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld). Jeff Bridges just scored his second and third biggest opening weekends ever over the last two weeks, and if True Grit can out-gross Seabiscuit ($120 million), then Bridges will have his second and third-highest grossing films ever in a five day span. While we may bemoan the famously idiosyncratic filmmakers tackling a somewhat generic genre piece, it's a rock-solid piece of big studio entertainment and pays for at least a couple more personal projects like A Serious Man.

Third place went to that other Jeff Bridges would-be blockbuster, Tron: Legacy. The film did use the Christmas weekend to avoid complete collapse, but it is not a very happy longterm picture. The um... critically-divisive sci-fi picture dropped 56% over the three-day weekend, grossing $19 million in its second frame. That gives the film $87 million after ten days. The comparison I've been using for the last week has been King Kong, which opened a little softer than expected but held on over the holiday to eventually cross $200 million. Tron: Legacy grossed about $1 million less on its second weekend and currently sits $21 million behind Peter Jackson's pet project. I bent over backwards to be fair last weekend, not wanting my distaste for the film to color my perceptions of its opening weekend. But the holiday legs are not strong enough to get this $200-300 million picture to profitability without uber-strong overseas numbers, which so far have not been coming (worldwide total is $111 million so far). While it's not a major financial disaster yet, numbers like this will not get a sequel greenlit.

The only other major opener was the Jack Black comedy Gulliver's Travels, which opened on Saturday. Its two-day total was just $6.3 million, bringing a fitting end to a year when studios looked at Avatar's success and screamed 'Everything must be in 3D!'. As I've said countless times, it's the movie, stupid. And Gulliver's Travels looked awful, with nary a single laugh in the marketing materials and horrible reviews to match. Black still has the Kung Fu Panda franchise to rely on (the second picture opens next May), but his career as a live-action leading man is pretty much finished. The psychological horror film Black Swan finally expanded to true wide release over the weekend, grossing $6.2 million on 1400 screens. It's not a massively successful expansion per-se, but the ballet thriller and surefire Oscar contender has already grossed $28.6 million with the entire awards season still to go (congrats to Ms. Portman on her engagement/pregnancy, such free publicity won't hurt the film either). Also likely to figure into the Oscar race is The Fighter, which grossed another $7.8 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. Again, it's not an earth-shattering hold (-37%), but the $25 million boxing drama has already amassed $26.6 million.

The King's Speech finally debuted in somewhat wide release on Christmas Day, as the theoretical Oscar front-runner finally braved the actual paying audience, as opposed to wracking up big per-screen averages on under 50 screens week after week. The Colin Firth period piece grossed a solid $4.4 million on 700 screens, bringing its cum to $8.3 million. The film is sure to get showered with Oscar nominations, so this should be a long and leggy run for the $15 million drama. There were a few limited debuts this holiday season as well. Sophia Coppola's Somewhere debuted with $17,000 per each of its seven screens. The Illusionist, otherwise known as the cartoon that might steal Toy Story 3's Best Animated Film Oscar, opened with $38,595 on three screens. The Gwyneth Paltrow melodrama Country Strong debuted with just $17,300 on two screens over three-days and $30,000 for five days. From a marketing standpoint, the film smelled like a cash-in on Jeff Bridges's Crazy Heart, and the unintentionally funny preview literally played like a satire of Oscar-bait trailers.

In holdover news, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader dropped just 24% over the holiday weekend. Alas, with $62.5 million over seventeen days of play, the film has yet to surpass just the $65 million opening weekend of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. On the plus side, it's nearing $200 million worldwide. Tangled now has $143.6 million, making a few days away from besting Lilo and Stitch ($145 million) becoming Disney's most successful non-Pixar cartoon since Tarzan ($171 million) back in 1999. I still think this one was severely damaged by Disney's need to market Tron: Legacy right after Thanksgiving. The Tourist sits at $40 million, which would be fine for a star-driven thriller had the picture not stupidly cost $100 million. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I sits at $272 million. It's still $12 million ahead of Goblet of Fire at the same period, but it's doing less per day on a consistent basis. And Yogi Bear plummeted 52% in its second weekend, meaning the $85 million family film will struggle to earn $70 million domestically. Looks like that alternate ending had the right idea.

That's it for this weekend. Join us for the last weekend of the year, as the holiday releases attempt one last shot at glory, Mike Leigh's Another Year opens on six screens, and the much-discussed drama Blue Valentine gets an Oscar-qualifying run on four. I'll be slowly doing the whole 'year-end rundown' as time allows, so check in periodically for a look at the year in film.

Scott Mendelson