Salon.com > Best Film Scenes of 2010

1. “Let Me In”

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:00 +0000

I'm reluctant to use the word "remake" to describe strong new versions of material that was great the first time around. The directors of such films sometimes call them "cover versions." That's a somewhat defensive term -- "I liked the original, too! This is just my version!" -- but it's more palatable and in some ways more accurate. The filmmakers aren't presumptuously trying to fix what wasn't broken but trying to bask in the success of a beloved work while putting their own (hopefully unique) spin on it. Any music buff will tell you that cover versions of a great recording sometimes end up being different from but equal to the original. Not always, but sometimes.

Such is the case with "Let Me In," American writer-director Matt Reeves' adaptation of the 2008 Swedish vampire love story "Let the Right One In."

2. “Toy Story 3″

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Oh, come on! They wouldn't kill off Cowboy Woody and Buzz and Jessie and Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and Hamm and Rex and Slinky Dog!

Would they?

3. “Winter’s Bone”

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:01:00 +0000

Atmosphere is everything in this film version of Daniel Woodrell's novel, set in a poor rural area of the Ozark mountains, where life seems to have changed little in the last 50 years. When the film begins, 17-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is already under immense pressure, caring for two younger siblings and a mentally deteriorating mother after her dad — who was never much help to begin with — has gone AWOL, maybe for good. When she's given less than a week to save her family's home — the only thing standing between them and the hard lives of woodland creatures — the strain becomes nearly unbearable.

4. “Dogtooth”

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 02:01:00 +0000

In "Dogtooth," a black comedy from Greek filmmaker Giorgos Lanthimos, a well-to-do businessman creates his own garden of Eden. He and his wife live in a secluded compound and raise their son and two daughters -- now in their 20s -- free of influence from the fallen world outside. The air starts to leak out of the bubble when the father starts bringing in women to satisfy his son's sexual urges. One of these women, a security guard, starts dallying with one of the daughters and gives her forbidden videos of "Rocky" and "Flashdance." The effect of all this becomes clear after a family dinner as the sisters dance for their parents and the brother plays guitar.

5. “The Social Network”

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 23:01:00 +0000

As written by Aaron Sorkin, this riff on the ego wars surrounding the creation of Facebook consists almost entirely of actors delivering rapid-fire dialogue in close-up. Sorkin's belief in the primacy of the word ensures that everything he writes -- from features like "A Few Good Men" to TV shows like "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" -- has a sawdust-and-footlights feel. David Fincher's adaptation of "The Social Network" is easily the most theatrical-feeling Sorkin story yet. The film has a spiky energy reminiscent of old Hollywood, a snap that can come only from a well-constructed script and merciless forward momentum.

But it would be a mistake to say "The Social Network" merely transcribes Sorkin's script to the big screen. Fincher's direction is unassuming, save for a few cocky technical flourishes (such as hiring a single actor, Armie Hammer, to play Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's identical twin nemeses, the Winklevoss brothers). But that's not the same thing as bloodless. As New Yorker film blogger Richard Brody pointed out:

6. “Ne Change Rien (Change Nothing)”

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:01:00 +0000

Here is what you need to know about this scene:

1. It comes from a black-and-white 2005 documentary about French singer-actress Jeanne Balibar that finally got a U.S. theatrical release this year.

2. The movie is all about musicians reacting to each other in the moment and making art through collaboration. It has zero interest in telling you about the life of Balibar, her past work, her acting gigs, her parenting, etc. Its attitude seems to be "If you want to learn about this woman's history, look it up online, and if you want to get acquainted with her discography, download it. We're interested in other things." Watching the film is like being able to stand in the same room with Balibar for five to 10 minutes at a time. It's a fly-on-the-wall movie, pure and simple.

3. The movie's laserlike focus is expressed in its shooting style. Director Pedro Costa ("In Vanda's Room") picks an angle and stays on it for minutes at a time. The entire film has perhaps three dozen shots. Most are impeccably composed and lit like something out of a film noir dream. The only exception is the film's very last shot, which happens to be the one we're watching here.

7. “Shutter Island”

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Recent film history is filled with movies that have twist endings or twist narratives -- movies in which a character you thought was male turns out to be female, or the hero turns out to be a ghost, or the hero's best friend turns out to be a figment of his imagination, etc. "Shutter Island" isn't one of those movies. Minutes after U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive on the island that houses the titular mental hospital, you know something is amiss -- that the mystery these men are investigating isn't the real mystery, that what we're seeing is some sort of projection on Teddy's part, although we don't yet know of precisely what. Which is another way of saying that although "Shutter Island" is a deeply subjective film, it plays fair with the audience, never leading you anywhere that it didn't at least hint that it would go.

8. “Somewhere”

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:05:00 +0000

"Somewhere," about a divorced, bored, spoiled action film star (Stephen Dorff) who becomes more alive and alert when his daughter (Elle Fanning) comes to visit, is a stylistic departure for its writer-director, Sofia Coppola. Her previous movies ("The Virgin Suicides," "Lost in Translation" and "Marie Antoinette") were built around montages and music, and parts of the films were so dissociated and dreamy -- chock-full of dissolves and slow fades -- that they recalled the films of Hong Kong sensualist Wong Kar-wai ("In the Mood for Love").

"Somewhere" is much more austere. With a "we'll get there when we get there" feeling reminiscent of the '70s cinema the director adores, Coppola takes her sweet time and only goes places that interest her. The movie is less of a story than an experience, a mood, a set of situations -- something you look at and listen to and either engage with or don't; perhaps more like an album of aloof yet mysterious pop songs than a typical American narrative film.

9. “The Ghost Writer”

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Roman Polanski is an economical director, and "The Ghost Writer" is one of his most economical films. This story of an unnamed man (Ewan McGregor) hired to ghostwrite the memoirs of a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan) never makes a move without reason and never holds a shot -- or pauses after a line -- a millisecond longer than it needs to. You can see it in the scene we're examining here: The film's widely celebrated ending, which wraps up two hours' worth of plot in just four shots.

"The Ghost Writer" is an example of a vanishing type of film direction rooted in the values of classical (pre-TV) Hollywood. Although Polanski didn't make his first feature until 1962 ("A Knife in the Water"), he has done most of his work in that tradition. The subject matter of his movies is often disturbing -- jealousy, insanity, conspiracy, the triumphs of chaos and evil -- but his style is usually conservative, with a touch of elegance. He doesn't cover action with two or three or 10 cameras to produce enough usable footage to create the illusion of comprehensiveness. Polanski more often tries to plan and shoot action from one, maybe two angles, and he doesn't cut to a new angle unless he can get a better result than by staying where he is. Polanski's screenwriting sensibility is just as exact -- a point vividly demonstrated on "The Ghost Writer," which Polanski co-adapted with Robert Harris, from Harris' novel. The filmmaker doles out words the way he doles out shots: sparingly, never giving the viewers more than is necessary to keep them on the hook and waiting for the next revelation. This is a nearly perfect entertainment, never more so than in its final few minutes.

10. “Solitary Man”

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:02:00 +0000

The vast majority of movies stick to the commercial narrative template: a three-act story following a small number of heroes (preferably just one) through a series of events that lead to a potentially life-changing decision. Such a film might demonstrate mastery in every important area -- direction, writing, performance, image, sound, music -- then end up a victim of its own modesty at year's end, largely forgotten by critics and viewers who understandably gravitated toward showier or more innovative films.

"Solitary Man" is that kind of movie. It's being singled out here partly on its merits (which are considerable) and partly because it exemplifies the kind of invisible excellence that ought to be common in commercial cinema but isn't. Written by Brian Koppleman, and directed by Koppleman and David Levien, it's the bittersweet tale of Ben Kalmen, a onetime used car magnate and compulsive womanizer stumbling through the wreckage of his life. Casting Michael Douglas as Ben was arguably the filmmakers' masterstroke; the character invokes every clever, self-centered, hard-living horndog Douglas has ever played in his career.

The best scenes of 2010

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Despite the definitive, down-from-the-mountaintop title of this series -- the Best Scenes of 2010 -- the group of 10 video essays we're unfolding over the next day is less about list-making than exploration. It's an opportunity -- an excuse, really -- to zero in on the DNA of movies: the shots and cuts, lines of dialogue and music cues that illustrate a film's personality and sum up its style, themes and sense of life. We're launching with the last three in the series, and we'll keeping rolling out more entries till we hit No. 1 on Friday afternoon.

The scenes run the gamut in terms of genre, budget and storytelling mode. There are a spectacular action sequence, grueling suspense scenes, two dreams, a mortifying display of family dysfunction and a couple of intimate moments so dependent on pop songs that they could double as stand-alone music videos. The most popular movie on this list cost $200 million to produce and has already grossed a half-billion worldwide. The smallest cost less than a used car and was such a labor of love that it didn't open in U.S. theaters until five years after its completion. Taken together, these 10 scenes give a sense of the dazzling range of movie year 2010 and illustrate the idea that there is no single, irrefutably "correct" way to make a good movie. It's all about the material and what the artists do with it; in other words, alchemy. We can parse the result, but only up to a point.