My 10 favorite movies of 2010 posted far too late for anyone to care

Jennifer Lawrence (above) starred in my favorite movie of 2010, "Winter's Bone," a film that reminds us that the reason we don't go into the woods uninvited isn't the monsters, but the people.

Sometime in early January a co-worker asked me for a list of my favorite movies for 2010. I hadn't thought about it much at the time. I planned to answer with a blog post. Then I got lazy. Then I started watching "The Big Lebowski"  over and over again. Here we are in the middle of March and I haven’t answered. I am absolutely worthless without deadlines. Many, especially my editors, would argue I’m not much good then, either. Ah well.

Anyway, here are my 2010 picks, each in about 140 characters.

1. Winter’s Bone makes you feel like a stranger in your homeland in a tale of a girl’s struggle to save her family home in the dirt poor Ozarks.

2. Get Low stars Bill Murray and Robert Duvall. If that is not enough of a recommendation, than I'll add it's very funny, warm and touching.

3. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan are painfully shy people make one another better in Jack Goes Boating, a small, lovely romantic story.

4. The Dude outdoes the Duke in True Grit, which is almost as much fun to listen to as it is to watch. Contraction-free dialogue is captivating.

5. The Other Guys is a supposed to be a send-up of buddy cop movies, but it’s really the best buddy cop movie since Lethal Weapon.

6. The Town proves Ben Affleck has a lot more to contribute to movies than being a punchline and Jon Hamm is more than the maddest of Mad Men.

7. The Social Network is really about the increasing disconnection of people from their humanity despite technology designed to do the opposite.

8. Inception feels like walking in an MC Escher drawing while in the middle of a heist being chased by spies and trying to fix a relationship.

9. Salt is a great action movie. Angelina Jolie stomps adversaries in sequences worthy of the Bourne films but becomes a hero we root for.

10. Toy Story 3. Woody. Buzz. Rex. The Potato Heads. Barbie. Ken. Pixar. Adventure. High jinks. Coming of age. All heart. Aw, hell. Just see it.

Movie Review: "The Social Network"

 
5. "The Social Network" really isn't about Facebook or the legal battles over it's creation or any hypertext information super highway gobbledygook; it's the oldest story in the world: It's about a nerdy boy, albeit one with an uncommonly powerful intellect, desperately trying to fit in and woo women.

4. Everything that's already been said about "The Social Network" is true: It's a terrific, well-written and directed modern drama that's masterfully acted with amazing performances by the three young leads Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Joseph Mazzello.

3. What isn't as obvious in the hype is that "The Social Network" serves as a kind of indictment of Facebook as a great connector and minter of friendships.

2. Facebook may be worth $25 billion, but all the website truly offers us is a very contrived illusion of access to others -- we only see what they want us to see in the definitions and terms they choose, a sort of clearinghouse for digital distortion not all that different the an old fashioned fun house mirror.

1. The most telling moment "The Social Network" comes in the brilliant, wonderful and sad scene final scene, which I won't spoil but to say no matter how many ways we have to "connect" via the Internet, our smart phones, it does not change that in our most solitary moments of darkness pierced only by the glow of a laptop screen, we still wonder if anybody really loves us.

=====================================
"The Social Network"
Run time: 2 hour
Rated PG-13‎‎
Genre: Drama‎
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Joseph Mazzello and Rooney Mara
Finney's Flicks Grades: A+