Ten Movies That Were Better Than Eclipse This Year

I see a lot of movies. I've tried in the past to keep track of exactly how many movies I see in a given year, but any organizational system I implement is either too complicated to maintain or too simple to even remember. So I'll just say the number of movies I see every year is somewhere between "many" and "too many." Hell, this year I saw over a dozen movies just for the purposes of this blog. The point is: I watch a lot of movies. And I love top ten lists. And this is the first year I even have the most marginal justification for publishing my own top ten list, so I'm going to do it.

A few notes: I am just outright exempting Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows pt. 1, because I can't judge it as a standalone film. It just isn't one, okay? I enjoyed it, but I think I enjoyed it as something other than a movie. My memories of the book and my fondness for the actors played too big a role. It might have been terrible - I can't rightly tell.

There are a few movies I suspect might be on this list had I seen them. Particularly: Winter's Bone, Exit Through The Gift Shop, Black Swan, and The American. I'll get back to you on those ones.

The worst movie I saw this year was Dread starring Jackson Rathbone. I don't know what year that one was officially released, but it doesn't matter. It sucks every year. The two worst movies I saw in theaters this year were Let Me In and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I wrote at length about my indifference to the LATTER; the FORMER (thanks, Justin!) was simply too direct a remake to really deserve to exist.

Anyway: I saw more than ten movies that were better than Eclipse this year, but here are the ten that were the most better than Eclipse this year.

10. Piranha 3-D

I loathe 3-D. You have no idea the pain it causes me that the greedy pricks behind the Harry Potter movies are apparently going through with 3-D up-conversion for Deathly Hallows pt. 2 while the people behind Breaking Dawn had the good sense to stay away. Up is down and left is right.

But I did have one positive 3-D experience this year: this campy, gory blast from Alexandre Aja. Piranha 3-D packs more blood and boobs into 88 minutes than I previously thought possible. Also: more severed penises than I ever thought possible, but I didn't really think severed penises were something I was ever going to encounter previous to this. I'm not entirely sure this movie would work outside of a 3-D theater experience; if I saw it again at home, I might hate it. But I probably won't see it again anyway, so who cares? I was almost going to say it was worth the price of admission, but 3-D ticket prices are ridiculous. It was ALMOST worth the price of admission, which is really the best you can say about 3-D.

9. The Runaways

I keep waiting for this film to get a little more recognition, but our nation's collective bio-pic hangover hasn't worn off yet. In a few years, I will be vindicated.

8. Shutter Island

Do you guys think Leo DiCaprio won't do a movie anymore unless he gets to play a character with possible psychological issues who has problems with his wife? I can see him getting scripts pitched to him:

Agent: There's this great new movie, and -

Leo: Does it have something to do with the architecture of the mind?

Agent: Well, you could say that...

Leo: Does my character have marital problems?

Agent: Yeah, actually he-

Leo: I'm in.

If that is his rule, it paid off twice this year. I think people who complained about the predictable nature of Shutter Island were missing the point. It was more about mood than plot, and "mood over plot" was big with me this year. Shutter Island is pretty and gothic and has several visually stunning moments (in a year of many visually stunning moments). That is enough for me. Why do we want surprising twists? Twists that are surprising usually stop making sense two blocks from the theater. Fuck M. Night Shyamalan, you know?

7. The Town

Sorry, but Ben Affleck just earned a lifetime pass with me. You probably have to live in Boston to appreciate the great (and real!) locations Affleck used, the pitch-perfect accent Jeremy Renner employs. But even if you've never been to the North End, you'll dig the show-stopping car-chase Affleck sets there late in the film. I was enthralled, and I don't even like car chases!

Ben Affleck, believe it or not, is a filmmaker in the classical style. This year Inception was a movie unlike any you'd ever seen, but The Town was a movie unlike any you'd seen in too long. They don't make 'em like this anymore, you know?

6. Catfish

I don't care if this documentary exaggerated or not. I don't care that I went in thinking it was going to be a Blair Witch-style horror movie. It isn't that; it's real. Or mostly real. It probably doesn't matter, actually. What matters is the experience of seeing it, without knowing anything about it. Don't read anything. Don't even read this. Just see it.

5. Kick-Ass

If the year had ended in April, Kick-Ass would have been my favorite movie of the year. Of course, that is not how years work. But it's still a great time, and certainly is second only to Inception as the best action movie this year. Visual coherence is a skill modern filmmakers seem to be losing rapidly, and Kick-Ass is one of few modern exceptions. (Hell, the fight between Edward and Victoria in fucking Eclipse is another notable exception! That is how bad action scenes have gotten!) Also: it's very funny.

4. Toy Story 3

But Kick-Ass is nothing, humor-wise, compared to Toy Story 3. Hands down, this is the hardest I have laughed in a theater in a long time, and maybe ever. Kudos to Michael Ardnt and the team of fucking miracle workers at Pixar. I didn't get the same emotional catharsis from the last 20 minutes of this movie most critics seemed to get, but that scene in the incinerator fucked me up but good.

3. The Social Network

I can't wait to see this movie again. I suspect if I did, it would move higher up the list. Last year Quentin Tarantino somehow managed to captivate audiences with an overlong movie that mostly consisted of people sitting at tables and talking, and Inglorious Basterds seemed like a rare feat. But one year later, Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher did it again, and maybe did it better? Again, I still need to re-evaluate this thing. I have literally one objection to this movie: a rowing sequence set on the Thames River that feels out of place. The rest of it is crackerjack, and how often do you get to describe something as crackerjack?

2. Inception

Stephanie Zacharek, in her pan of Inception, tried to draw a distinction between "great" movies and "awesome" movies. That's an imaginary, rhetorical distinction. Movies have always been about spectacle. I posit that Inception is both great and awesome, an imaginative quantum leap in filmmaking that is just a pure pleasure to watch. I defy you to not audibly react the first time you see the above hallway scene. I defy you!

1. Never Let Me Go

Gorgeous, heartbreaking, perfect. I have not read the novel on which this film is based, but Mark Romanek's second film is a thing of terrifying beauty.

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Do you guys have a top ten list? A top five list? Your loose justification for sharing it is in the comments.