Watching For... SMALL TOWN MURDER SONGS (2010, Canada)

Look what Soul Foodie Santosh Ninan has turned up...

Small Town Murder Songs

A modern gothic tale of crime and redemption about an aging police officer from a small Ontario Mennonite town who hides a violent past until a local murder upsets the calm of his newly reformed life.

"A rare film. Virtuoso helmer Ed Gass-Donnelly achieves that longed-for thing, a whole greater than the parts."
VARIETY

"Eerily beautiful. Evoking the Coen Brothers. Ed Gass-Donnelly is a filmmaker to watch."
SCREEN DAILY

"Sweeps you off your feet from the opening credits. A great achievement!"
QUIET EARTH

"A magnificent crime drama. In a category all its own."
CITY TV

40 spiritually significant films | a&f 100

I've started messing around with my Soul Food Movies book again. I doubt that I'll be able to get back to it as a book any time in the imaginable future, but I'll admit I've been toying with the idea of setting up at least a website. A book, you need to finish the whole darn thing before you can send it off to a publisher (oh, and you need a publisher): a website, you can build it as you go. So, maybe. We'll see how things go.

Anyhow, contemplating my book means playing around with my movie lists, and as I did so it occurred to me that there are forty movies that have appeared on all four iterations of the Arts & Faith 100 poll of "spiritually significant" films - though they decided to drop that descriptor for the last poll (and I think it shows in the list's drift away from films with a specific spiritual emphasis toward a more generic list of "great films.") Be that as it may, it's still a great list - and especially interesting to me when all four polls are combined. And I think it's significant when any film finds a place on all four polls, with their varying methodologies and parameters.

Here they are.

40 Spiritually Significant Films
selected in all four Arts & Faith 100 polls: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010

Andrei Rublev (1966, USSR, Tarkovsky)
The Apostle (1997, USA, Duvall)
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966, France, Bresson)
Babette's Feast ("Babettes gæstebud" 1987, Denmark, Axel)
The Bicycle Thief (1948, Italy, Vittorio de Sica)
Breaking The Waves (1996, Denmark, von Trier)
Chariots Of Fire (1981, UK, Hudson)
Close-Up ("Nema-ye Nazdik" 1990, Iran, Kiarostami)
Day of Wrath ("Vredens dag" 1943, Denmark, Dreyer)
Dekalog ("The Decalogue" 1989, Poland, Kieslowski)

Dersu Uzala (1975, Japan, Kurosawa)
The Diary of a Country Priest ("Journal d'un curé de campagne" 1950, France, Bresson)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew ("Il Vangelo secondo Matteo" 1966, Italy, Pasolini)
Ikiru (1952, Japan, Kurosawa)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946, USA, Capra)
Jesus Of Montreal ("Jésus de Montréal" 1989, Canada, Arcand)
Magnolia (1999, USA, P.T. Anderson)
A Man Escaped ("Un condamne a mort s'est echappe" 1956, France, Robert Bresson)
A Man For All Seasons (1966, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Bolt play)
The Mirror ("Zerkalo" 1974, Russia, Andrei Tarkovsky)

My Night At Maud's ("Ma Nuit Chez Maud" 1969, France, Eric Rohmer)
Open City ("Roma, Citta Aperta" 1946, Italy, Roberto Rossellini)
Ordet ("The Word" 1955, Denmark, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Kaj Munk play)
The Passion Of Joan of Arc ("Le Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" 1928, France, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Ponette (1996, France, Jacques Doillon)
La Promesse ("The Promise" 1996, Belgium, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
The Sacrifice ("Offret" 1986, Sweden, Andrei Tarkovsky)
The Seventh Seal ("Det Sjunde Inseglet" 1956, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)
Solaris ("Solyaris" 1972, USSR, Andrei Tarkovsky)
The Son (2002, Belgium, Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Stalker ("Сталкер" 1979, USSR, Andrei Tarkovsky)
The Straight Story (1999, USA, David Lynch)
Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (1927, USA, F.W. Murnau)
Tender Mercies (1983, USA, Bruce Beresford, Horton Foote screenplay)
The Three Colors Trilogy (1993-1994, Poland/France, Kieslowski)
Tokyo Story ("Tokyo monogatari" 1953, Japan, Ozu)
Wild Strawberries ("Smultronstället" 1957, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)
The Wind Will Carry Us ("Bad Ma Ra Khahad Bord" 1999, Iran/France, Abbas Kiarostami)
Wings Of Desire ("Der Himmel über Berlin" 1987, Germany, Wim Wenders)
Yi-Yi ("A One and A Two" 2000, Taiwan/Japan, Yang)

son of man | netflix.ca

No time for a proper post, but I've heard that Son Of Man - perhaps my favourite Jesus movie, along with The Gospel According To St Matthew - is available for streaming on netflix.ca. I believe the service costs eight bucks a month. I'm loathe to point anyone in that direction - far better you should subscribe to videomatica.ca, keep a phenomenal local video shop in businesss, with its infinitely better selection of films. But still, if you want to see the South African film about the life of Jesus that I saw twice when it was here in the Vancouver International Film Festival, and am dying to see again... It's the only movie Videomatica does not have, I'm pretty sure.

PS Free one-month trial membership. Enough to watch Son Of Man five or six times, realize there's not that much else available there, cancel your membership before you have to start paying, and open a new subscription to videomatica!

jan 29 | mississippi remixed | missions fest film fest + reel light

Deb Sears is a Soul Foodie long connected with Pacific Theatre. Here's a note from her in connection with a special event at the Missions Fest Vancouver Film Festival, which she curates.

Saturday, January 29, 2011 at 6:30pm
Reel Light Movie Night & Talkback Social
at Vancouver Convention Centre & The Old Spaghetti Factory
999 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC

You are warmly invited to join the Reel Light community on Saturday, January 29th. We are viewing MISSISSIPPI REMIXED at the Missions Fest Vancouver Film Festival (Rooms 1 - 3, Level 2) at the Vancouver Convention Centre followed by a post-show talkback social with Producer / Director Myra Ottewell, Associate Producer / Camera Operator Trevor Meier and, Story Editor Erin Mussolum.

The screening is $3.00 (tickets can be purchased at the door) and is part of the Missions Fest Vancouver 2011 Film Festival (January 28 – 30) – you can see more information on the film festival here. There's also an article about film fest in the January issue of BC Christian News. There are four (FREE) film festival associated seminars taking place (two on Friday and two on Saturday) – please see the attached document for details on the seminars. Since it is not available online, the detailed list of those participating in the (FREE) Sunday afternoon short mission film showcase (which includes work by a number of Reel Light associated filmmakers) is also attached to this e-mail.

MISSISSIPPI REMIXED is a 57-minute documentary (see additional description below). Immediately following the screening, there will be a brief Q&A. The Reel Light community is then invited to travel to The Old Spaghetti Factory which is located at 53 Water Street (about an 8 block walk from the Convention Centre). There is an 8pm reservation under “Reel Light” – we’ll be in the back area known as “section 14”.

The Talkback Social is open to all Reel Light connected people to attend as an opportunity to do a bit of a Q&A with the MISSISSIPPI REMIXED reps as well as whichever other filmmakers / panelists from the film festival are at the dinner. It's very low key - everyone is responsible to pay for whatever they order and the restaurant will prepare separate bills.

You are welcome to come to both the movie and the talkback social time or just attend one or the other.

MISSISSIPPI REMIXED
Documentary (Canada, 57 minutes)
Producer / Director Myra Ottewell - in attendance
Associate Producer / Camera Operator Trevor Meier - in attendance
Story Editor Erin Mussolum - in attendance
Screenwriter Titus Heckel
website
Vancouver based filmmaker and Christian Myra Ottewell travels back to her roots in Jackson, Mississippi to take a fresh look at race relations in America’s Deep South. The film exposes audiences to rarely seen archival footage, interviews with civil rights leaders, everyday citizens and high school students. It shows first-hand not only the struggles but also the successes Mississippi is having with integration today.

The Missions Fest Vancouver Film Festival 2011 trailer includes a clip from MISSISSIPPI REMIXED

The Films of 2010 (MCN) Jan 12

New to Vancouver screens this week, Mike Leigh's "Another Year" (#13), and Peter Weir's "The Way Back." The intriguing "Marwencol" (#46) plays half a dozen times at VanCity and then will be gone. Also on this list and still playing on Vancouver screens are The Social Network (#1), Black Swan (#4), The King's Speech (#6), 127 Hours (#7), The Kids Are All Right (#8), True Grit (#9), The Fighter (#12), Inside Job (#18), Blue Valentine (#19), Never Let Me Go (#29), Rabbit Hole (#35), Somewhere (#41), Tangled (#55), Conviction (#85), Fair Game (#91).

And Videomatica's got a whole pile of the best films of 2011; Animal Kingdom (#26) is a recent arrival, with Nowhere Boy (underappreciated at #92), Let Me In (#21), Dogtooth (#17), Never Let Me Go (#29) and Conviction (#92) soon to hit the shelves. Plenty of other Videomatica titles are noted below.


And what the heck, I've listed my favourites at the very bottom. A good crop in 2010: lots I like a lot.

Movie City News
Compilation of Critic Top Tens for 2010
January 12, 2010

1 The Social Network 1122 VM
2 Winter's Bone 612.5 VM
3 Inception 602 VM
4 Black Swan 573.5
5 Toy Story 3 532 VM
6 The King’s Speech 502
7 127 Hours 335.5
8 The Kids Are All Right 327.5 VM
9 True Grit 323
10 Carlos 315.5

11 The Ghost Writer 286.5 VM
12 The Fighter 276.5
13 Another Year (Mike Leigh) 221.5
14 Exit Through The Gift Shop 206 VM
15 A Prophet 183 VM
16 I Am Love 182 VM
17 Dogtooth 162.5 VM Jan 25
18 Inside Job 156.5
19 Blue Valentine 153.5
20 Please Give 138.5 VM

21 Let Me In 128.5 VM Feb 1
22 Mother (Madeo) 127.5 VM
23 Greenberg 125.5 VM
24 Shutter Island 107.5 VM
25 Everyone Else 105.5
26 Animal Kingdom 98.5 VM
27 Scott Pilgrim vs The World 98 VM
28 Red Riding Trilogy 92.5 VM
29 Never Let Me Go 91.5 VM Feb 1
30 Four Lions 87.5 VM Mar 8
30 Sweetgrass 87.5 VM

32 The Town 84 VM
33 Wild Grass 83.5 VM
34 White Material 78
35 Rabbit Hole 71.5
36 How to Train Your Dragon 71 VM
37 The Secret in Their Eyes 70.5 VM
38 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 66.5 VM
39 Fish Tank 63 VM
40 The Last Train Home 62.5 VM Feb 1

41 Somewhere 61.5
42 Vincere 58.5
43 Secret Sunshine 58 VM
44 Enter the Void 55.5 VM Jan 25
45 Kick-Ass 51.5 VM
46 Marwencol 51
47 The Oath 45.5 VM
48 Alamar (To The Sea) 45 VM Mar 1
49 Buried 41.5
50 Illusionist, The 41

51 Life During Wartime 40.5
52 Lourdes 39.5
53 Trash Humpers 38
53 Daddy Longlegs 38
55 Tangled 37
56 Restrepo 36 VM
57 Lebanon 35.5
58 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 35
59 Catfish 33.5 VM
60 Strange Case of Angelica, The 33

61 Tiny Furniture 31.5
62 Monsters 28.5 VM Feb 8
62 Our Beloved Month of August 28.5
64 Splice 27
65 Boxing Gym 26
66 Biutiful 25.5
66 Tilman Story, The 25.5
66 Father of My Children, The 25.5
69 The American 24.5 VM
70 Inferno 22.5

71 Company Men 21.5
72 Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench 21
73 Agora 20.5
74 Waiting for 'Superman' 19
74 Mother and Child 19
74 Hereafter 19
77 Film Unfinished, A 18.5
78 And Everything Is Going Fine 18
78 I'm Still Here 18 VM
78 Prince of Broadway 18
78 Machete 18
78 Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl 18
78 Night Catches Us 18

84 Bluebeard 17
84 World on a Wire 17
84 Around a Small Mountain 17
87 Jackass 3D 16
87 Girl Who Played With Fire 16
87 Fair Game 16
87 Ricky 16
87 Get Low 16 VM Feb 22

92 Conviction 15 VM Feb 1
92 Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 15
92 Ajami 15
92 Amer 15
92 Nowhere Boy 15 VM Jan 25
97 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work 14.5
98 Mademoiselle Chambon 13.5
99 I Love You Phillip Morris 13
100 Despicable Me 12.5 VM

101 The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu 12
101 Mesrine (Parts 1 and 2) 12
101 Made in Dagenham 12
101 Easy A 12 VM
105 Town Called Panic 11
105 The Square 11 VM
105 Hadewijch 11
105 Howl 11 VM
105 October Country 11
110 Mid-August Lunch 10.5 VM

111 Alice in Wonderland 10
111 City Island 10
111 Cyrus 10
114 Down Terrace 9.5
115 100 Voices: A Journey Home 9
115 Tron: Legacy 9
115 Exploding Girl 9
118 Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector 8.5
118 Juche System, The 8.5
120 Way Back, The (Peter Weir) 8
120 Soul Kitchen 8

122 My Dog Tulip 7.5
122 Babies 7.5
124 OSS 117: Lost in Rio 6.5
125 Other Guys 6
125 It's Kind of a Funny Story 6
127 RED 5
127 Robber, The 5
127 45365 5
130 Green Zone 4
130 Nice Guy Johnny 4
130 Waste Land 4

133 Unstoppable 3
133 Piranha 3D 3
133 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger 3
133 Tempest, The 3
137 Runaways, The 2

*

Ron's 14 Favourites So Far
1. Animal Kingdom / Blue Valentine
3. Winter's Bone / The King's Speech
5. Nowhere Boy / True Grit / The Fighter
8. Please Give / The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo / The American
11. The Secret In Their Eyes / Kick-Ass
13. Marwencol / Get Low / Black Swan / Toy Story 3

Of Gods And Men would be up there with Nowhere Boy & Co., except it hasn't gotten distribution outside of film festivals so far, so it will wait for the 2011 lists.

london river | marwencol | sweetgrass

Soul Foodie Rudi writes: "If you can fit this into your schedule, go see London River at the VanCity this week. Very fine movie."  It shows Tue 18 at 8:30, and Thu 20 at 6:30.

Here's the write up from the VanCity website, which also provides links to trailer, official website, etc.

LONDON RIVER

Failing to reach her daughter in London after the bomb blasts of 7/7 2005, Elisabeth (Brenda Blethyn) journeys to the capital and shows up on Jane's doorstep – a flat above a Halal butcher in Finsbury Park. But Jane's not home. The police aren't much help – they’re inundated with enquiries from concerned friends and family. The hospitals have posted lists of the injured, but her name isn't among them. As she continues to search, Elisabeth keeps bumping into a North African, Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyate). Their children were a couple, it seems – but neither parent can comprehend what this might mean for their chances...

French-Algerian writer-director Rachid Bouchareb (Days of Glory; Beyond the Law) keeps us guessing for most of the film’s modest running time, and sifts for common ground between the hostile white Christian lady and the concerned black Muslim. Anyone who has seen Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies will know that Brenda Blethyn is more than capable of carrying harrowing emotional scenes, but the late Malian actor Kouyate (he passed away last April) is the film’s most poignant revelation.

Marwencol

Good thing I checked that out at the VanCity website. Turns out Wednesday's Cinematheque showing of Marwencol won't be the only chance to see the idiosyncratic documentary which somebody or other described as "Saving Private Ryan meets Toy Story."  Fact is it plays at VanCity a bunch more times as well...
Fri 21 | 8:30
Sun 23 | 4:30
Sun 23 | 8:30
Mon 24 | 6:30
Wed 26 | 6:30

Here's the blurb;

MARWENCOL

“One of the oddest and most moving documentaries since Best Boy or Grey Gardens . . . Marwencol is a marvel” (Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail). In 2000, 38-year-old Mark Hogancamp was savagely beaten by five men outside a Kingston, N.Y., bar. He emerged from a coma nine days later unable to walk, talk or remember much of his previous life. When his medical benefits ran out, Hogancamp was on his own. To heal both emotionally and physically, he embarked his own unique therapy: constructing, in his backyard, a 1/6th scale model of a WWII-era Belgian town called Marwencol, and populating it with more than 100 G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls. He also dreamed up complex narratives for this mini-world, involving his alter ego, U.S. Air Force Captain Mark “Hogie” Hogancamp, and various vamps, assassins, Allied and German soldiers, friends and family. As these scenarios became more elaborate, Mark started photographing them — stunningly realistic and evocative tableaux. Mark’s “outsider art” caught the attention of the New York art world, forcing him to choose between the safety of his fictional town and the real world he’s avoided since his attack. Winner of Best Documentary honours at several festivals, including SXSW, Seattle, Cleveland and Fantasia. Colour, HDCAM. 83 mins.

There is, in fact, another film which is showing only once, and that once happens to be on Wednesday the 19th, when the VanCity is screening Sweetgrass at 7:00. The bumf;

SWEETGRASS

Americans have built a mythology around cattle-farming and their hired hands, the cowboys. Sheep farming has not been romanticized to the same degree (Brokeback Mountain notwithstanding), but this ravishing, contemplative non-fiction film changes all that.

With patience, humour and rare insight, Sweetgrass reveals the effort and endurance that goes into herding 3000 obstreperous sheep some 200 miles through Montana’s Big Sky country.

“Wonderful… A graceful and often moving meditation on a disappearing way of life” Manohla Dargis, New York Times

On the Movie City News tabulation of critic top ten lists for 2010, Marwencol is #42, Sweetgrass is #31, and London River hasn't yet had wide enough circulation in North America to be on those lists.

true grit | greydanus

I enjoyed True Grit tremendously, and while I was intrigued by Mattie's piety, the scripture references and hymn tunes, I was caught up enough in the sheer entertainment of the film not to spend a lot of time reflecting. (Also, it was my third movie of the day, following The Fighter and Black Swan, so I'm not sure I had all the requisite brain cells available for deeper consideration). But Steven Greydanus's review brings those matters back to mind, and inclines me to put the film alongside O Brother Where Art Thou? on my Coen brothers mental shelf...

Excerpted from True Grit and the Grace of God
by Steven D. Greydanus
National Catholic Register, Dec 29 2010

“There is no law west of St. Louis,” a popular saying had it over a century ago, “and no God west of Fort Smith.” It is a verdict one would be not at all surprised to find confirmed in a Coen brothers film set in the time and place in question—even if by then a semblance of law had come to Fort Smith in the person of reputed “hanging judge” Isaac Parker. In fact, one could easily imagine the Coens being drawn to such a setting precisely for those qualities of lawlessness and godlessness.

In 14-year-old Mattie Ross, though, the Coens have a protagonist whose adamantine sense of purpose defies both halves of that 19th-century aphorism. Arriving in Fort Smith to identify the body of her slain father, Mattie is single-minded in her determination to see justice done for her father’s murder. She has a good lawyer whose name she deploys to considerable effect, she knows the difference between malum prohibitum and malum in se, and she is confident that Providence is with her.

“My father would want me to be firm in the right, as he always was,” she resolves, quoting the 23rd psalm (“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”). “The Author of all things watches over me,” she concludes, “and I have a good horse.” About the horse, she is unquestionably right. As for the Author of all things, squint though I may, I cannot see that even the Coens necessarily dissent. . . .

The Coens’ film is franker than its predecessor about the violence of the old West and of Portis’s book; it is also franker about the religiosity, from frequent scriptural references to a score shot through with hymnody (mostly “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” but also “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “The Glory-Land Way” and others). The film opens with an epigram from Proverbs (“The wicked flee when none pursueth”), and in the first-act public hanging one of the condemned men earnestly urges onlookers to “train up your children in the way that they should go” and avoid a similar fate. But the next condemned man is defiant—“I see men out there in that crowd worse than me”—and the thoughts of the third man, alas, are lost forever.

Is there justice? Does the Author of all things see? In an opening monologue Mattie declares: “No doubt Chaney fancied himself scot-free, but he was wrong. You must pay for everything in this life, one way and another. There is nothing free, except the grace of God.” Chaney pays for his crime—and Mattie pays for her vengeance, in one and the same act. Significantly, the Coens depart from source here, and there is no mistaking the moral rigor of cause and effect in this reworking.

There is justice, but there is also grace, if we choose to see it, in the same scene, in a whispered two-word prayer and the pull of another trigger—an impossible shot that winds up saving two lives, including Mattie’s. And there is grace, too, in Rooster’s finest moment, in which he comes to the end of himself, and finds that there is more there than we might have thought.

*

Following Steven's review, reader Nick Milne posts a fascinating response to one or two details.

> ...and the thoughts of the third man, alas, are lost forever.

It’s odd, about that. I don’t recall what they did with it in the 1969 film (if the hanging scene was even included - if it was, I don’t remember it), but in the novel the Indian who is about to be hanged does not have his last words cut off as they are, so cruelly, in the Coens’ film. What happens is this:

“The Indian was next and he said, ‘I am ready. I have repented my sins and soon I will be in heaven with Christ my savior. Now I must die like a man.’ If you are like me you probably think of Indians as heathens. But I will ask you to recall the thief on the cross. He was never baptized and never even heard of a catechism and yet Christ himself promised him a place in heaven.”

Another note that doesn’t make it into either film comes shortly thereafter, though its exclusion makes more sense given that it’s just some narrative speculation on Mattie’s part rather than something that actually happens in the events being described. Of Judge Parker, she declares that:

“His manner was grave. On his deathbed he asked for a priest and became a Catholic. That was his wife’s religion. It was his own business and none of mine. If you had sentenced one hundred and sixty men to death and seen around eighty of them swing, then maybe at the last minute you would feel the need of some stronger medicine than the Methodists could make. It is something to think about.”

In any event, a good review of a great movie. I look forward to seeing it again soon, and, if possible, watching it back-to-back with The Night of the Hunter, to which film it makes a startlingly compelling companion piece.

jan 23 | a star is born | cineplex classic films

A Star Is Born (1954)
IT IS SOMETHING TO SEE THIS 'STAR IS BORN'! STUNNING!" N.Y. Times, 1954
Directed by: George Cukor
Cast: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson
Plot: A movie star helps a young singer/actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

Sunday, January 23, 12:30pm

Presented in HD. All tickets five dollars. SilverCity Riverport, SilverCity Coquitlam, Colossus Langley, Scotiabank Theatre. The Classic Film Series presents one great title each month on the big screen from September 2010 to August 2011: details here.

A STAR IS BORN is available on DVD at Videomatica

A STAR IS BORN is available on DVD at Videomatica

The Films of 2010 (MCN) Jan 8+

Vancouver audiences have the chance to view at least the shortened version of the hard-to-see #10 critic favourite Carlos this week at our beloved Hollywood theatre. Also, Mike Leigh's new one (Another Year, #13) previews tomorrow morning at the Park, and will likely open soon. And if you're interested in seeing one of the year's most intriguing documentaries (Marwencol, #42), probably your only chance this year will be Wednesday night at Pacific Cinematheque: see you there! (Ah, just learned that Marwencol moves to the VanCity a couple days after its Cinematheque run, and that Wednesday night is our one chance to see Sweetgrass (#31) - details here.)

I haven't quite figured out how updates to the Movie City News tally of critic top ten lists are working this year. It seems they add to it on an ongoing, ad hoc basis. Though the current chart is still dated January 8, it includes far more critic lists than it did on January 8: for example, the front-running Social Network has grown from 862.5 to 1022.5 points.

The bad news this week is that the hyped-up and much-hyped action puzzler Inception has muscled aside the extraordinary smaller film Winter's Bone for the #2 slot, with Darren Aronofsky's ballet mellerdrammer steaming up behind. In the good news department, the astonishing Aussie crime drama Animal Kingdom hit video shelves this week, and perhaps as a result has leapt from #32 to #24, with another new-to-DVD foreign crime drama hot on its heels (England's Red Riding Trilogy). Two of my favourites inched up, Blue Valentine and Please Give. Get Low is popular with Soul Food readers: it jumped up from #107 to #85. And Hadewijch sounds like Soul Food: we'll know more once we get a chance to see it: it entered the charts at #102.

Movie City News
Compilation of Critic Top Ten Lists for 2010

1 The Social Network 1022.5 ( was #1 ) onscreen & Videomatica
2 Inception 563.5 ( 3 ) Videomatica
3 Winter's Bone 525.5 ( 2 ) Videomatica
4 Black Swan 519.5 ( 5 ) onscreen
5 Toy Story 3 494.5 ( 4 ) Videomatica
6 The King’s Speech 468.5 ( 6 ) onscreen
7 127 Hours 330 ( 7 ) onscreen
8 Kids Are All Right, The 319 ( 8 ) Videomatica
9 True Grit 288 ( 9 ) onscreen
10 Carlos 275.5 ( 10 ) Short version at The Hollywood to Jan 20

11 The Fighter 272.5 ( 11 ) onscreen
12 Ghost Writer, The 239.5 ( 12 ) Videomatica
13 Another Year (Mike Leigh) 200.5 ( 13 ) Preview: Park, 10am Sun Jan 16
14 Exit Through The Gift Shop 174 ( 14 ) Videomatica
15 Prophet, A 172 ( 16 ) Videomatica
16 I Am Love 155 ( 17 ) Videomatica
17 Inside Job 150.5 ( 15 ) onscreen
18 Dogtooth 143.5 ( 18 ) Videomatica Jan 25
19 Blue Valentine 132.5 ( 20 ) onscreen
20 Please Give 129.5 ( 21 ) Videomatica

21 Let Me In 120.5 ( 22 ) Videomatica Feb 1
22 Greenberg 109.5 ( 19 ) Videomatica
23 Mother (Madeo) 107.5 ( 26 ) Videomatica
24 Shutter Island 98.5 ( 24 ) Videomatica
24 Animal Kingdom 98.5 ( 32 ) Videomatica
26 Red Riding Trilogy 92.5 ( 33 ) Videomatica
27 Town, The 90 ( 23 ) Videomatica
28 Scott Pilgrim vs The World 88 ( 29 ) Videomatica
29 Four Lions 87.5 ( 34 )
30 Never Let Me Go 76 ( 28 ) Videomatica Feb 1

31 Sweetgrass 73.5 ( 27 ) Videomatica
32 White Material 72.5 ( 25 )
32 Wild Grass 72.5 ( 30 ) Videomatica
34 How to Train Your Dragon 71 ( 38 ) Videomatica
35 The Secret in Their Eyes 70.5 ( 39 ) Videomatica
36 Rabbit Hole 69.5 ( 40 ) onscreen
37 Everyone Else 69 ( 31 )
38 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  65.5 ( 35 ) Videomatica
39 Somewhere 61.5 ( 37 ) onscreen
40 Enter the Void 55.5 ( 36 ) Videomatica

41 Fish Tank 53.5 ( 41 ) Videomatica
42 Marwencol 48 ( 42 ) JANUARY 19 ONLY, PACIFIC CINEMATHEQUE
43 Vincere 46.5 ( 47 ) Videomatica
44 Alamar (To The Sea) 45 ( 45 )
45 Buried 38.5 ( 43 ) Videomatica Jan 18
46 Kick-Ass 38 ( 44 ) Videomatica
46 Trash Humpers 38 ( 51 ) Videomatica
46 Last Train Home, The 38 ( 55 ) Videomatica Feb 1
49 Secret Sunshine 36 ( 55 ) Videomatica
50 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 35 ( 48 ) onscreen
50 Restrepo 35 ( 52 ) Videomatica

52 Tangled 34 ( 50 ) onscreen
52 Daddy Longlegs 34 ( 59 )
54 Catfish 33.5 ( 46 ) Videomatica
55 Strange Case of Angelica, The 33 ( 47 )
56 Life During Wartime 31.5 ( 65 )
56 Tiny Furniture 31.5 ( 99 )
58 Lebanon 30 ( 54 ) Videomatica Jan 18
59 Lourdes 29.5 ( 53 )
59 Illusionist, The 29.5 ( 61 )

61 Monsters 28.5 ( 86 ) Videomatica Feb 8
62 Oath, The 27.5 ( 63 ) Videomatica
63 Splice 27 ( 60 ) Videomatica
64 Boxing Gym 26 ( 55 )
65 Biutiful 25.5 ( 64 )
65 Tilman Story, The 25.5 ( 79 )
67 The American  24.5 ( 58 ) Videomatica
68 Father of My Children, The 22.5 ( 69 )
69 Company Men 21.5 ( 61 )

70 Agora 20.5 ( 88 ) Videomatica
71 Waiting for 'Superman' 19 ( 66 ) Videomatica
71 Mother and Child 19 ( 94 ) Videomatica
73 Film Unfinished, A 18.5 ( 81 ) Videomatica
74 And Everything Is Going Fine 18 ( 67 )
74 I'm Still Here 18 ( 67 ) Videomatica
74 Prince of Broadway 18 ( 88 )
77 Bluebeard 17 ( 70 ) Videomatica
77 World on a Wire 17 ( 70 )
79 Jackass 3D 16 ( 72 ) onscreen
79 Machete 16 ( 72 ) Videomatica
79 Girl Who Played With Fire 16 ( 72 ) Videomatica
79 Inferno 16 ( 75 )
79 Fair Game 16 ( 91 ) onscreen
79 Ricky 16 ( DNC )

85 Conviction 15 ( 76 ) Videomatica Feb 1
85 Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 15 ( 76 ) Videomatica Jan 25
85 Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench 15 ( 81 )
85 Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl 15 ( 94 )
85 Get Low 15 ( 107 ) Videomatica Feb 22
85 Ajami 15 ( DNC ) Videomatica
85 Amer 15 ( DNC )

92 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work 14.5 ( 78 ) Videomatica
93 Hereafter 14 ( 79 )
94 Mademoiselle Chambon 13.5 ( DNC )
95 Our Beloved Month of August 13 ( 81 )
95 I Love You Phillip Morris 13 ( 81 )
95 Night Catches Us 13 ( 81 )
98 Despicable Me 12.5 ( 86 ) Videomatica
99 Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, The 12 ( 88 )
99 Mesrine (Parts 1 and 2) 12 ( 100 ) Videomatica
99 Made in Dagenham 12 ( DNC ) onscreen

102 Town Called Panic 11 ( 91 ) Videomatica
102 Square, The 11 ( 110 ) Videomatica
102 Hadewijch 11 ( DNC )
105 Mid-August Lunch 10.5 ( 93 ) Videomatica
106 Around a Small Mountain 10 ( 94 )
106 Alice in Wonderland 10 ( 94 ) Videomatica
106 City Island 10 ( 94 ) Videomatica
106 Easy A 10 ( 104 ) Videomatica
106 Cyrus 10 ( 110 ) Videomatica

111 Down Terrace 9.5 ( 105 ) Videomatica
112 100 Voices: A Journey Home 9 ( 100 )
112 Tron: Legacy 9 ( 100 ) onscreen
112 Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector 9 ( 103 )
112 Exploding Girl 9 ( DNC ) Videomatica
116 Juche System, The 8.5 ( DNC )
117 Nowhere Boy 8 ( 107 ) Videomatica Jan 25
117 Way Back, The 8 ( 118 )
117 Soul Kitchen 8 ( DNC ) Videomatica

120 My Dog Tulip 7.5 ( 105 ) Videomatica
120 Babies 7.5 ( DNC ) Videomatica
122 OSS 117: Lost in Rio 6.5 ( DNC )
123 Other Guys 6 ( 107 ) Videomatica
123 It's Kind of a Funny Story 6 ( DNC ) Videomatica Feb 8
125 RED 5 ( 110 ) onscreen
125 Robber, The 5 ( DNC )
127 Green Zone 4 ( 113 ) Videomatica
127 Nice Guy Johnny 4 ( 113 )
129 Unstoppable 3 ( 115 ) onscreen
129 Piranha 3D 3 ( 115 ) Videomatica
129 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger 3 ( 115 )
129 Tempest, The 3 ( DNC )
133 Howl 2 ( DNC ) Videomatica

The boldfaced titles are my strong favourites, plus Of Gods And Men, which hasn't had a wide enough release yet to show up on critic lists. I also liked - quite a lot - True Grit, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, The Secret In Their Eyes, Secret Sunshine and Get Low.

jan 10-13 | raging bull, taxi driver, psycho

pacific cinematheque

jan 10 | 7 taxi driver, 9:10 psycho
jan 12 | 7 psycho, 9:10 raging bull
jan 13 | 7 taxi driver, 9:10 raging bull

The Films Of 2010 (MCN) Jan 8 sixth tally

The Movie City News tabulation of critic year-end top ten lists, as of Jan 7. Their chart includes links to all the individual top ten lists. But mine is way better because those lazy bums only rank the first 20 films.

It's a messy chart this time around, because I've added in a bunch of Rotten Tomatoes numbers, for comparison. So mine is actually way, way better.

Note that Lourdes has debuted at #53, Winter's Bone holds its own at #2 but Inception is gaining on it. Sadly, no other critic shares my enthusiasm for Me And Orson Welles. And Nowhere Boy is loved by precious few. Alas.

Aha!! I need no longer feel abashed at my enthusiasm for Me And Orson Welles! It was on last year's chart, ranking #51. Whew.

1 Social Network, The 862.5 Videomatica Jan 11 97% 258 9
2 Winter's Bone 446.5 Videomatica 94% 143 8
3 Inception 432.5 Videomatica 87% 272 8
4 Toy Story 3 422 Videomatica 99% 247 8.8
5 Black Swan 393.5 onscreen 87% 198 8.2
6 King’s Speech, The 363 onscreen 96% 146 8.7
7 127 Hours 274 onscreen 93% 147 8.3
8 Kids Are All Right, The 270 Videomatica 94% 193 7.9
9 True Grit 231 onscreen 95% 175 8.3
10 Carlos 222 93% 54 8.1

11 Fighter, The 205.5 onscreen 89% 163 7.9
12 Ghost Writer, The 188.5 Videomatica 83% 187 7.4
13 Another Year (Mike Leigh) 151.5 90% 59 8.2
14 Exit Through The Gift Shop 150 Videomatica 98% 96 8.2
15 Inside Job 144.5 onscreen 97% 91 8.3
16 Prophet, A 140 Videomatica 97% 143 8.3
17 I Am Love 121 Videomatica 81% 114 7.2
18 Dogtooth 104.5 Videomatica Jan 25 91% 47 7.7
19 Greenberg 101.5 Videomatica 74% 151 6.6
20 Blue Valentine 99.5 95% 73 8.0

21 Please Give 94.5 Videomatica 88% 130 7.5
22 Let Me In 90.5 Videomatica Feb 1 89% 193 7.6
23 Town, The 89 Videomatica 94% 201 7.7
24 Shutter Island 82 Videomatica 68% 231 6.6
25 White Material 72.5 88% 64 7.2
26 Mother (Madeo) 70.5 Videomatica 95% 108 7.9
27 Sweetgrass 67.5 Videomatica 96% 45 7.5
28 Never Let Me Go 67 Videomatica Feb 1 67% 121 6.7
29 Scott Pilgrim vs The World 66 Videomatica 81% 226 7.5
30 Wild Grass 62 Videomatica 66% 77 6.2

31 Everyone Else 61 88% 33 7.6
32 Animal Kingdom 60.5 Videomatica Jan 11 96% 109 8.1
33 Red Riding Trilogy 59.5 Videomatica 86% 57 7.4
34 Four Lions 57.5 82% 109 7.2
35 Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The 56.5 Videomatica 86% 163 7.2
36 Enter the Void 55.5 Videomatica Jan 15 70% 23 6.6
37 Somewhere 52 76% 123 6.7
38 How to Train Your Dragon 51 Videomatica 98% 157 7.9
39 Secret in Their Eyes, The 46 Videomatica 91% 126 7.8
40 Rabbit Hole 45 onscreen 85% 96 7.7

41 Fish Tank 42.5 Videomatica 90% 129 7.6
42 Marwencol 39 100% 44 8.4
43 Buried 38.5 Videomatica Jan 18 85% 130 7.2
44 Kick-Ass 37 Videomatica 76% 229 7.0
45 Alamar (To The Sea) 35 89% 37 7.2
46 Catfish 33.5 Videomatica 82% 125 7.1
47 Strange Case of Angelica, The 33 90% 10 8.0
48 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 32 onscreen 78% 237 7.1
47 Vincere 32 Videomatica 92% 85 7.6
50 Tangled 30 onscreen 89% 132 7.6

51 Trash Humpers 29 Videomatica 56% 34 5.0
52 Restrepo 28 Videomatica 96% 102 8.1
53 Lourdes 27.5 91% 35 7.8
54 Lebanon 27 Videomatica Jan 18 88% 69 7.8
55 Last Train Home, The 26 Videomatica Feb 1
55 Boxing Gym 26
55 Secret Sunshine 26 Videomatica
58 American, The 24.5 Videomatica 65% 199 6.4
59 Daddy Longlegs 24
60 Splice 23 Videomatica

61 Illusionist, The 21.5
61 Company Men 21.5
63 Oath, The 20.5 Videomatica
64 Biutiful 20 65% 37 6.3
65 Life During Wartime 19.5
66 Waiting for 'Superman' 19 Videomatica 88% 100 7.6
67 And Everything Is Going Fine 18
67 I'm Still Here 18 Videomatica 55% 117 5.5
69 Father of My Children, The 17.5
70 Bluebeard 17 Videomatica
70 World on a Wire 17

72 Jackass 3D 16
72 Machete 16 Videomatica
72 Girl Who Played With Fire 16 Videomatica
75 Inferno 15.5
76 Conviction 15 onscreen 68% 139 6.4
76 Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 15 Videomatica Jan 25
78 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work 14.5 Videomatica Jan 11
79 Tilman Story, The 14
79 Hereafter 14

81 Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench 13
81 Film Unfinished, A 13 Videomatica
81 Our Beloved Month of August 13
81 I Love You Phillip Morris 13
81 Night Catches Us
86 Monsters 12.5 Videomatica Feb 8
86 Despicable Me 12.5 Videomatica 81% 180 6.8
88 Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, The 12
88 Prince of Broadway 12
88 Agora 12 Videomatica

91 Fair Game 11 onscreen 80% 130 7.2
91 Town Called Panic 11 Videomatica
93 Mid-August Lunch 10.5
94 Around a Small Mountain 10
94 Mother and Child 10 Videomatica
94 Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl 10
94 Alice in Wonderland 10 Videomatica
94 City Island 10 Videomatica 81% 98 6.8
99 Tiny Furniture 9.5 75% 56 6.6
100 Mesrine (Parts 1 and 2) 9 Videomatica
100 100 Voices: A Journey Home 9
100 Tron: Legacy 9 onscreen

103 Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector 8.5
104 Easy A 8 Videomatica 87% 164 7.1
105 My Dog Tulip 7.5 Videomatica
105 Down Terrace 7.5 Videomatica
107 Get Low 6 Videomatica Feb 22 86% 112 7.5
107 Other Guys 6 Videomatica
107 Nowhere Boy 6 Videomatica Jan 25 79% 131 6.9
110 Square, The 5 Videomatica
110 RED 5 onscreen
110 Cyrus 5 Videomatica

113 Green Zone 4 Videomatica
113 Nice Guy Johnny 4
115 Unstoppable 3
115 Piranha 3D Videomatica Jan 11
115 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger 3
118 Way Back, The 2

Me and Orson Welles 85% 142 7.2
Of Gods and Men 100% 18 8.3

My favourites are in bold

jan 12 & 23 | a star is born | cineplex classic films

A Star Is Born (1954)
IT IS SOMETHING TO SEE THIS 'STAR IS BORN'! STUNNING!" N.Y. Times, 1954
Directed by: George Cukor
Cast: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson
Plot: A movie star helps a young singer/actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

Wednesday, January 12, 6:30pm
Sunday, January 23, 12:30pm

Presented in HD. All tickets five dollars. SilverCity Riverport, SilverCity Coquitlam, Colossus Langley, Scotiabank Theatre. The Classic Film Series presents one great title each month on the big screen from September 2010 to August 2011: details here.

A STAR IS BORN is available on DVD at Videomatica

quick mcn update | critic top tens

Movie City News didn't wait a full week before posting this latest update to their tally. For now, here's a link to the January 4 iteration. Their comment: "While The Social Network stays put, True Grit and The Fighter are slowly working their way up the chart. More lists still to come." The Ghost Writer slips one slot (yay!), Please Give gives way to Let Me In at the #20 slot.

imdb | top 25 user-rated movies of 2010

IMDb: Top 25 User-Rated Movies of 2010
"Here's our list of our top 25 movies for 2010, as rated by users of the IMDb. These rankings were not based upon critical assessments or box-office performance but the actual ratings by more than 100 million unique monthly users of IMDb.com; the films listed below all received at least 5,000 votes by users." Says IMDb.

Well...

Since I'm often more interested in films that not everybody sees, I've added in a bunch of titles seen by fewer than 5,000 voters. Like the Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner, Of Gods and Men. Or Animal Kingdom, the stunning debut by Australian director David Michôd. Or an idiosyncratic favourite like Me And Orson Welles. And it's only a matter of time until Tom Hooper's late-released The King's Speech garners enough votes to jump onto the bronze podium (currently with an 8.6 user rating).

And (presumably because the IMDb ratings are constantly changing) I also noticed that some films do not appear to be in the right order on the IMDb list. For example, Unstoppable ranks twenty-first with a 7.1 rating, ahead of the final four films which rate 7.2 and 7.3. (I don't know what date IMDb posted their Top 25 User-Rated Movies.) Or Exit Through The Gift Shop, which did not appear on the IMDb list but which has now garnered the requisite five thousand votes (it has 5,536) and boasts an 8.2 rating, which should qualify it for a top ranking. Or True Grit. Or 127 Hours. Or The Fighter. Or... (Think they released their list a bit prematurely?)

Frankly, it appears they simply leave out foreign language films. Like The Secret In Their Eyes, with an 8.3 rating based on a hefty 23,167 voters. Didn't that one win the Oscar last year? Dumb rule, excluding the foreigners. Who made up these rules - Americans? (Okay, I'll admit, a lot of foreign films that were first seen here in 2010 are dated earlier. It takes a long time to get your green card, even if you're a movie. And IMDb probably just did their search for movies dated "2010," which refers to the year of a film's initial release anywhere in the world. So they're not necessarily dumb, or xenophobic. But it does make their list a little... Flawed.)

In general, expect ratings to be inflated in early voting, and to deflate once a film is more widely seen. Which is why they went with the 5,000 vote requirement. But bearing that in mind, and since we want to include some really interesting films that haven't made that cut just yet...

IMDb Top User-Rated Movies of 2010
January 2, 2011

1. Inception 9.0 (269,138 votes) #1 on original list
2. Toy Story 3 8.7 (95,785) #2
3. The King's Speech 8.6 (3,409) --
4. 127 Hours 8.5 (5,342) --
5. True Grit 8.4 (9,226) --
6. The Fighter 8.4 (5,835) --
7. The Secret In Their Eyes 8.3 (23,167) --
8. The Social Network 8.2 (60,274) #3
9. How To Train Your Dragon 8.2 (50,863) #4
10. Tangled 8.2 (9,231) #5

11. Exit Through The Gift Shop 8.2 (5,536) --
12. Inside Job 8.2 (827) --
13. Kick-Ass 8.0 (110,259) #6
14. Shutter Island 8.0 (123,442) #7
15. A Prophet 8.0 (18,000) --
16. Mother [Madeo] 8.0 (4,839) --
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 7.9 (50,692) #8
18. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 7.9 (49,544) #9
19. Another Year 7.9 (1,036) --
20. Blue Valentine 7.9 (929) --

21. Marwencol 7.9 (121) --
22. The Town 7.8 (38,496) #10
23. The Illusionist [L'illusionniste] 7.8 (1,534) --
24. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo [Män som hatar kvinnor] 7.7 (31,335) --
25. Carlos 7.7 (1,142) --
26. Despicable Me 7.6 (27,935 votes) #13
27. Ip Man 2 7.6 (6,916) #12
28. Animal Kingdom 7.6 (3,987) --
29. Never Let Me Go 7.6 (2,550) --
30. Of Gods and Men 7.6 (1,020) --

31. Last Train Home 7.6 (393) --
32. The Ghost Writer 7.5 (31,407 votes) #14
33. Buried 7.5 (14,678) #11
34. Winter's Bone 7.5 (9,566) #15
35. Four Lions 7.5 (8,451) #17
36. Fish Tank 7.5 (7,214) --
37. Rabbit Hole 7.5 (2,515) --
38. The Kids Are All Right 7.4 (10,888 votes) #16
39. Let Me In 7.4 (5,630) #18
40. Get Low 7.4 (1,963) --

41. Waiting for Superman 7.4 (823) --
42. Alamar 7.4 (360) --
43. Red Riding Trilogy [1974/1980/1983] 7.3/7.4/7.3 (2,407/1,555/1,386) --
44. Easy A 7.3 (20,039) #20
45. Megamind 7.3 (6,731) #22
46. Dogtooth [Kynodontas] 7.3 (3,984) --
47. Enter The Void 7.3 (3,883) --
48. Secret Sunshine 7.3 (1,426) --
49. Iron Man 2 7.2 (78,910) #23
50. Machete 7.2 (36,107) #19

51. Red 7.2 (23,937) #24
52. Unthinkable 7.2 (17,463) #25
53. White Material 7.2 (734) --
54. Unstoppable 7.1 (12,829) #21
55. Catfish 7.1 (2,964) --
56. I Am Love [Io sono l'amore] 7.1 (2,806) --
57. Me and Orson Welles 7.0 (3,168) --
58. Daddy Longlegs [Go Get Some Rosemary] 7.0 (247) --
59. Please Give 6.8 (2,976) --
60. Boxing Gym 6.8 (61) --

61. The American 6.6 (17,016) --
62. Somewhere 6.6 (3,306) --
63. Life During Wartime 6.6 (1,570) --
64. Everyone Else [Alle Anderen] 6.6 (905) --
65. Sweetgrass 6.6 (192) --
66. Wild Grass [Les herbes folles] 6.5 (1,192) --
67. The Strange Case of Angelica [O Estranho Caso de Angélica] 6.5 (126) --
68. Greenberg 6.4 (9,278) --

(Boldfaced titles happen to be my 2010 favourites so far.)

rotten tomatoes | a better best of 2010

In a previous post I linked to the list of the best films of 2010 which Rotten Tomatoes provided yesterday, but I was a bit puzzled about some of the selections (Harry Potter at #10, with at 78% freshness rating?), and the absence of others (no mention of The King's Speech, with a 96% rating?). A closer look at the list shows that it's not actually a list of the films that scored the highest on the Tomatometer. Maybe it incorporates the subjective judgment of the staff person who compiled the list, maybe it factors box office into a film's score, I don't know. But it's not the interesting list it could have been.

So here's the actual, statistical Rotten Tomatoes ranking of the top films of 2010, sticking to what Rotten Tomatoes does best -- assessing each review of a film for the percentage of positive vs negative response, then combining all those rated reviews into an aggregate Tomatometer score.  (There may be other 2010 films with similarly high ratings, but I restricted my survey to films that also placed in the top sixty or so on the Movie City News tally of critic top tens. The current MCN ranking is provided in parenthesis).

The Top Films of 2010
Rotten Tomatoes Ranking
as of January 2, 2010, 6:55 am
(ranking / tomatometer freshness rating / # reviews / avg rating / MCN ranking)

1 Of Gods and Men  100% 18 8.3
2 Toy Story 3  99% 247 8.8 ( 4 )
3 Exit Through The Gift Shop  98% 96 8.2 ( 11 )
4 How to Train Your Dragon  98% 157 7.9 ( 63 )
5 The Social Network  97% 258 9 ( 1 )
6 A Prophet  97% 143 8.3 ( 17 )
7 Inside Job  97% 91 8.3 ( 14 )
8 The King’s Speech  96% 146 8.7 ( 6 )
9 Animal Kingdom  96% 109 8.1 ( 32 )
10 Sweetgrass  96% 45 7.5 ( 24 )

11 True Grit  95% 175 8.3 ( 12 )
12 Blue Valentine  95% 73 8.0 ( 31 )
13 Mother (Madeo)  95% 108 7.9 ( 29 )
14 Winter's Bone  94% 143 8 ( 2 )
15 The Kids Are All Right  94% 193 7.9 ( 7 )
16 The Town  94% 201 7.7 ( 19 )
17 127 Hours  93% 147 8.3 ( 9 )
18 Carlos  93% 54 8.1 ( 8 )
19 The Secret in Their Eyes  91% 126 7.8 ( 51 )
20 Dogtooth  91% 47 7.7 ( 16 )

21 Another Year  90% 59 8.2 ( 13 )
22 The Fighter  89% 163 7.9 ( 15 )
23 Let Me In  89% 193 7.6 ( 20 )
24 Everyone Else  88% 33 7.6 ( 27 )
25 Please Give  88% 130 7.5 ( 22 )
26 White Material  88% 64 7.2 ( 26 )
27 Black Swan  87% 198 8.2 ( 5 )
28 Inception  87% 272 8 ( 3 )
29 Get Low  86% 112 7.5 ( 85 )
30 Red Riding Trilogy  86% 57 7.4 ( 36 )

31 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  86% 163 7.2 ( 61 )
32 Rabbit Hole  85% 96 7.7 ( 38 )
33 Me and Orson Welles  85% 142 7.2 ( )
34 The Ghost Writer  83% 187 7.4 ( 10 )
35 Catfish  82% 125 7.1 ( 68 )
36 Scott Pilgrim vs The World  81% 226 7.5 ( 35 )
37 I Am Love  81% 114 7.2 ( 21 )
38 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  78% 237 7.1 ( 40 )
39 Kick-Ass  76% 229 7.0 ( 44 )
40 Somewhere  76% 123 6.7 ( 30 )

41 Tiny Furniture  75% 56 6.6 ( 88 )
42 Greenberg  74% 151 6.6 ( 18 )
43 Enter the Void  70% 23 6.6 ( 28 )
44 Shutter Island  68% 231 6.6 ( 25 )
45 Never Let Me Go  67% 121 6.7 ( 39 )
46 Wild Grass  66% 77 6.2 ( 23 )
47 The American  65% 199 6.4 ( 59 )

It's worth keeping in mind the number of reviews whose ranking contributes to the Tomatometer score. For instance, Of Gods And Men ranks first with a 100% freshness rating, but note that the score is derived from only eighteen reviews, far fewer than most other films on this list. The more reviews a film receives, the more likely it is to receive divergent responses, which will somewhat diminish the score of a very highly rated film like the Cannes Festival Grand Jury prize-winner that's a surprise box office smash in France, but has yet to be widely seen in North America.  As more the film is moe widely seen, and more reviews appear, that percentage will drop.  But not a lot: it's an exquisite film.

rotten tomatoes | best of 2010

Here's the Top Ten list from Rotten Tomatoes

1. Toy Story 3
99 percent approval rating from critics, based on 247 reviews, an average score of 8.8/10

2. The Social Network | 97%, 258 reviews, 9/10
3. Inception | 87%, 272 reviews, 8/10
4. How to Train Your Dragon | 98%, 157 reviews, 7.9/10
5. Black Swan | 87%, 198 reviews, 8.2/10
6. The Town | 94%, 201 reviews, 7.7/10
7. The Fighter | 89%, 163 reviews, 7.9/10.
8. The Ghost Writer | 83%, 187 reviews, 7.4/10.
9. Winter’s Bone | 94%, 143 reviews, 8/10
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part1 | 78%, 237 reviews, 7.1/10

Now, I had thought the list was based on some algorithm of those three statistical factors, but I'm not so sure.  The King's Speech has a 96% approval rating (fourth highest), based on 146 reviews (which should be enough to qualify, since Winter's Bone only has 143), an average score of 8.7/10 (third highest).  So...  Huh?