Salon.com > Best of 2010 http://www.salon.com Mon, 28 May 2012 00:30:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 My top 5 Web picks of 2010 http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/my_top_5_web_picks_of_2010/ http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/my_top_5_web_picks_of_2010/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2011/01/01/my_top_5_web_picks_of_2010 As a person whose job it is to develop digital products, I'm online nearly every moment I'm awake (whether I'm looking at my phone, my iPad or a laptop), and I'm often asked for recommendations. Frankly, every year it gets tougher to be in-the-know. Just like there's more and more content published on the Web every year, there are new technologies, sites, apps and devices rolling out at a breathless pace. But you don't need me to tell you this; it's a problem we all face on some level.

Given that, I tend to gravitate toward things that are either curatorial in nature -- offering me new ways to skip past the chaff (of whatever variety) and get straight to the wheat -- or that make it easier for me to do things I've always done. So while this is by no means a definitive list, what follows are the five things that elbowed their way out of the crowd and onto my pinned tabs or my home screen in the past year.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/my_top_5_web_picks_of_2010/feed/ 17 The most memorable images of 2010 http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/the_year_in_pictures_2010/ http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/the_year_in_pictures_2010/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 02:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/12/31/the_year_in_pictures_2010 To say 2010 was an eventful year would be quite the understatement. It was an election year, of course. Also a year of plane crashes, landmark legislation, meat dresses, flash mobs, Tea Party protests, faux scandals, Wikileaks and more devastating floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcano eruptions, factory explosions, mine collapses, oil spills and forest fires than we could even begin to count. The world cheered the Olympics, the World Cup and the return of Tiger Woods, and mourned the death of Paul the Octopus. Election disputes turned bloody. The Roma were driven out of France. Celebrities posed for their mug shots. And through it all, the situation in Haiti -- which began with an earthquake on January 12 -- went from bad to worse to indescribably tragic.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/the_year_in_pictures_2010/feed/ 8 10 from 2010: Our favorite Salon stories http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/10_for_2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/10_for_2010/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/about/inside_salon/2010/12/31/10_for_2010 Don't worry — the tsunami of Best Of lists is almost over. I think we're all looking forward to the fresh mystery of the new year. And right now, our necks ache from looking back so much; we're particularly sick of the forced remembering of Christine O'Donnell and the Trololo guy. To the annals of footnoted history, we banish ye!

But we did want to highlight the pieces in Salon that — through an unscientific staff poll — we decided we liked the best this year. None of these should be a huge surprise to Salon readers; they were all big hits with you, too. From Glenn Greenwald's incisive exploration of WikiLeaks, to Mary Elizabeth Williams' gripping accounts of her cancer diagnosis and treatment, our favorite stories this year run a familiar Salon gamut of world-changing importance to the expressly, meaningfully personal.

And with no more fanfare than that, in chronological order, our 10 staff favorites:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/10_for_2010/feed/ 10 1. “Let Me In” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_let_me_in/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_let_me_in/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_let_me_in 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."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_let_me_in/feed/ 59 2. “Toy Story 3″ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_toy_story_3/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_toy_story_3/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_toy_story_3 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?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_toy_story_3/feed/ 8 3. “Winter’s Bone” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_winters_bone/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_winters_bone/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_winters_bone 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.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_winters_bone/feed/ 30 4. “Dogtooth” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_dogtooth/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_dogtooth/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 02:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_dogtooth 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.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/scenes_2010_dogtooth/feed/ 1 5. “The Social Network” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_social_network/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_social_network/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 23:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_social_network 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:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_social_network/feed/ 29 6. “Ne Change Rien (Change Nothing)” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ne_change_rien/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ne_change_rien/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ne_change_rien 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.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ne_change_rien/feed/ 6 7. “Shutter Island” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_shutter_island/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_shutter_island/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_shutter_island 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.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_shutter_island/feed/ 25 8. “Somewhere” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_somewhere/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_somewhere/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_somewhere "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.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_somewhere/feed/ 1 9. “The Ghost Writer” http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ghost_writer/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ghost_writer/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:04:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ghost_writer 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. 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_ghost_writer/feed/ 6 The best scenes of 2010 http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_intro/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_intro/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_intro 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.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/30/scenes_2010_intro/feed/ 3 What 2010 movies do film insiders love best? http://www.salon.com/2010/12/29/expert_picks_movies_slide_show/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/29/expert_picks_movies_slide_show/#comments Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:25:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/29/expert_picks_movies_slide_show 2010 was a year dominated by a few critically acclaimed films ("The Social Network," "True Grit," "Inception"), but as Salon's Andrew O'Hehir argued last week, some of the most unforgettable film moments of the past year were also its most intimate: Annette Bening and Julianne Moore sharing a moment across a dinner table, a father and his daughter bonding at the Chateau Marmont. We asked film industry insiders -- including "Rabbit Hole" director John Cameron Mitchell, "Social Network" producer Scott Rudin and "Biutiful" director Alejandro González Iñárritu -- what moments and movies they couldn't forget, from Chloe Moretz in "Kick-Ass" to Tilda Swinton in "I Am Love" to (of course) that little Facebook movie.

Click below to get started -- and make sure to share your own picks in the letters.

Iain Blair is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/29/expert_picks_movies_slide_show/feed/ 6 The year in food http://www.salon.com/2010/12/28/year_in_food_2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/28/year_in_food_2010/#comments Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/food/francis_lam/2010/12/28/year_in_food_2010 I'll start off with a naked admission: it is a fool's errand to recap the year in food. I mean, it's food. It's like trying to recap the year in breathing, or the year in being protected from the elements. But that's also exactly why we have to try -- food is so fundamental, so vital to our lives and culture that what and how we eat tells us so much about ourselves. And looking at the biggest stories of 2010 tells us that we're a people of passionate extremes, of trends that go off the rails and food fights for which we arm ourselves to the teeth. We go from being vegetarians to butchers, from prim fat-gram-counters to devourers of burgers that pack more calories than an Energon cube. And we drink Four Loko. And so, Salon presents: the food stories that made 2010 so hot, so tasty and so very, very greasy.

9. Food politics, and we don't mean Michael Pollan

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/28/year_in_food_2010/feed/ 13 Year in Crazy: The Top 10 http://www.salon.com/2010/12/26/year_in_crazy_your_winners_slide_show/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/26/year_in_crazy_your_winners_slide_show/#comments Sun, 26 Dec 2010 00:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/25/year_in_crazy_your_winners_slide_show We often say it's been a crazy year, but this time: We have proof. For 12 months now, Salon has turned a spotlight on the nutty, the certifiable, the gobsmackingly cockeyed in news and culture with our "This Week in Crazy" feature, which came to you every Saturday thanks to the superb duo of Alex Pareene and Mary Elizabeth Williams. The series began in 2009 with a year-end story crowning Glenn Beck the king of cracked. Now, as we wind down a year that has included one midterm election, several heated debates over gay civil rights and a million tears shed on cable news, we count down the people who truly hit out of the park. People, we present your Class of Crazy 2010. -- Sarah Hepola

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/26/year_in_crazy_your_winners_slide_show/feed/ 49 10 best viral videos of 2010 http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/year_viral_video/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/year_viral_video/#comments Sat, 25 Dec 2010 15:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/25/year_viral_video We sang, we danced, we marveled at rainbows, we autotuned the living daylights out of everything. As in years prior, 2010 did not lack for puppy cams, wacked-out political statements, bizarrely inspired music videos and penises.

There was, however, often a darker edge to the viral this year, as nicotine addicted-children and bedroom intruders struck the public fancy. But though times and tastes may change, one thing is certain -- as long as there are cute animals, celebrity meltdowns and OK Go, we'll keep hitting the refresh button on our browsers.

10. Trololo guy

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/year_viral_video/feed/ 5 The year in trumped-up pseudo-scandals http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/year_in_pseudoscandals/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/year_in_pseudoscandals/#comments Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/12/24/year_in_pseudoscandals Every day, right-wing blogs and Fox News are abuzz with hysterical reports of partly or wholly invented scandals that, in their fevered imaginations, threaten to once-and-for-all destroy the Obama administration. While most of the bloggers are true believers, convinced that they're one smoking gun away from opening everyone's eyes to the criminality of the administration, on Fox they just run with whatever sounds good until they get bored with it or something more entertaining comes along. Once a pseudo-scandal ceases to be useful, it doesn't really go away forever -- Free Republic commenters will reference it until the end of time -- but most people just sort of forget about it shortly after Megyn Kelly stops mentioning it.

So I went through the archives to help remind everyone just how many silly things the conservative press got all worked up about in the year 2010. (With a couple big items left out. Everyone stopped talking about the "Ground Zero Mosque" once summer ended, but it's hardly been completely forgotten.)

Harry Reid said "Negro"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/year_in_pseudoscandals/feed/ 25 Musicians and critics choose their song of 2010 http://www.salon.com/2010/12/22/best_of_2010_music_expert_picks/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/22/best_of_2010_music_expert_picks/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/22/best_of_2010_music_expert_picks When it comes to pop music, assembling a best-of list can be awfully difficult these days. Everyone is obsessing about their own iPod playlists, and, given the breadth of options, few people can agree on the appeal of individual artists -- let alone albums or singles. That’s why we decided to ask some of our favorite established and innovative artists, as well as a few of our favorite music writers, which songs blew their mind this year. Unsurprisingly, the picks from Girl Talk, Annie, Duran Duran’s John Taylor and our 18 remaining contributors had little in common, ranging from the well known (The National, Lady Gaga) to the stubbornly obscure (Anika, Io Echo). (Though one expletive-laced track managed to draw in both Taylor Hanson and Outkast’s Big Boi -- you might know which one)

Click below to get started -- and let us know about your own picks in the letters section.

John S. W. MacDonald is a New York-based freelance writer who has contributed to Spin and the New York Times among other publications.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/22/best_of_2010_music_expert_picks/feed/ 17 Is “Grown Ups” really 2010′s worst film? http://www.salon.com/2010/12/21/the_movie_list_defended/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/21/the_movie_list_defended/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:15:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/about/inside_salon/2010/12/21/the_movie_list_defended Salon film critic Andrew O'Hehir recently put the finishing touches on his year-end, first-ever, all-encompassing movie ranking list. Salon's editor in chief Kerry Lauerman wanted to challenge him on his rationale. Their IM exchange is reproduced below:

Lauerman: Let's do this!

O'Hehir: Sure.

Lauerman: Actually, that's the sort of enthusiastically clichéd line that might appear in "Grown Ups"! I must ask -- with your year of moviegoing over and your full ranking of everything you've seen completed -- do you really, really think "Grown Ups" was the worst movie you saw in all of 2010?

O'Hehir: Ha! Well, "worst" is always a tough thing to define. I think it appalled me more than anything else I saw all year, in that talented people were involved, and in some sense the intentions could be called good -- by all accounts, Adam Sandler is a great guy -- and the results were teeth-grindingly juvenile and stupid.

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