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: "Jack Goes Boating"

5. If only every romantic comedy could be as good as "Jack Goes Boating," a small movie about painfully shy people who fall in love despite being adrift in a cynical sea of decaying relationships and social ostracism.

4. The magnificent Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays Jack, a socially awkward limousine driver who gets set up with fellow square Connie (Amy Ryan), who works as a saleswoman for a self-help seminar outfit.

3. Connie loves boating, but Jack can't swim so friend and co-worker Clyde (John Ortiz) teaches him to swim and tries to coach Jack about long-term relationships even though Clyde's own marriage to Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega) is crumbling.

2. "Jack Goes Boating" might set a celluloid record for painful pauses, awkward silences and stilted dialogue, but it's all wonderful because the cast create believable and whole characters taken from everyday life, with real problems -- people who fumble, struggle and miss their mark yet manage to display truly loving acts through small kindnesses and giant leaps of trust.

1. This movie only made about $474,000, but it is so much better than the hideous spate money-making of romantic comedy released this year ("Sex and the City 2," "Date Night," "Going the Distance," "Valentine's Day," "Leap Year," "The Switch," "The Bounty Hunter," "Killers" and "Knight and Day" to name a few) and though its gone from theaters in Des Moines, it merits a must-rent on Netflix, Video On Demand or DVD purchase when it arrives Jan. 18.

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"Jack Goes Boating"
Run time: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Rated R
Genre: Romantic comedy
Director: Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega
Finney's Flicks Grade: A+