I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

Continue Reading →

Winter’s Bone is  stark, bleak and haunting. It won the Grand Jury Prize and a screenwriting award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. This is the second film by director Debra Granik.  Her debut film Down to the Bone played at the 2004 Sundance Festival, and earned her a Best Director Prize.

At the heart and soul of this drama is Ree, a seventeen year old girl living in the wooded Ozarks with her mother and two younger siblings.  It is never made  apparent why, but Ree’s mom is completely incapable of caring for the family. She is non-communicative and just sort of stares into space all the time.

That leaves Ree to man the household, so to speak. She chops wood, shoots and skins squirrels, and cares for their animals the best she can. As played by an astonishing Jennifer Lawrence, Ree is the embodiment of a girl forced to be a woman and caretaker far before her time.

Continue Reading →