Mid-Year Top 5 - 2010

Article by Terry Plucknett

Written – 7/1/10

DISCLAIMER: This was written before the release of Inception which would have made this list.

The first half of the year, when it comes to movies, normally consists of a much lower quality of film than the second half of the year.  There are usually some solid films that come through the independent wire, including many of the foreign language Oscar nominees from the year before.  Very few mainstream films show much promise until the summer season starts with its high-budget blockbusters.  However, there are also always some surprises that prove worthy.  Several of the films from the first half of this year will most likely end up in my top 10 of the year, something that only one was able to do last year.  So here are my top 5 films of the first half of 2010.

5.  The Runaways (Floria Sigismondi).  I always seem to have a soft spot for a good music biopic.  This film was one of the surprises for me of the first half of the year.  In two of the best performances of the year so far, Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning star as the two faces of this teen girl punk rock band of the 70’s managed by Michael Shannon in one of the most memorable supporting roles of the year so far.  This film is fun, profound, truthful, and showcases two of the best young Hollywood talents.

4.  Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau).  The first one was great.  This one was almost as good.  The second installment of the escapades of Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark picks up perfectly where the first movie left off.  The action is just as fun, and the dialogue is just as sharp.  This is a franchise that hopefully continues on.

3.  The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella).  The fourth straight surprise unknown Foreign Language Oscar winner, Argentina’s The Secret in Their Eyes was released to American audiences in April and showed, just like The Lives of Others and The Counterfeiters did, that there was a reason it won the award.  This profound story of a retired detective thinking back on a case that changed his life is thought-provoking and suspenseful as the details of the case unravel building to the shocking ending.  The films on the Foreign Film Oscar list have become a reliable source of quality movies in the first half of the next year.

2.  Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich).  The yearly Pixar films have become a reliable source of one of the best films of each respectable year.  Toy Story 3 finally ended the story that started it all.  Seeing Woody and Buzz on their final adventure chasing after their owner Andy not only is a perfect ending to a great trilogy, but rounds out a chapter of childhood memories that stems back to 1995 when the first Toy Story film came out.

1.  Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese).  What could have been in my top five films of last year if it had been released when it was supposed to, Shutter Island became my most anticipated film of the first six months of 2010, the first 2010 film I saw, the best film of the first half of the year, and could easily be the top film of all of 2010.  This psychological thriller about a prison for the criminally insane keeps everyone guessing until the end.  One of the best films in the career of one of the best filmmakers of our generation.