Film of the year
The Social Network
Honourable mentions
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives , A Prophet, The Headless Woman, Greenberg, Gentlemen Broncos, Father of My Children, Beeswax, Another Year, Lebanon, The Time That Remains, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, The Arbor, Still Walking, The Ghost (though let’s keep things in perspective — what’s with the 3,017 prizes for Polanski’s picture at the European Film Awards?).
Most unjustly forgotten film of the year
The Road, which also contained the scariest scene of the year: good to see there’s life (and death) in the creaky old “Don’t go down to the cellar!” routine.
Soundtracks of the year: The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and Greenberg (James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem)
The “What took you so long?” prize for delayed distribution
Contenders included I Love You, Phillip Morris, with 15 months elapsing between its Sundance premiere and its UK release, and The Headless Woman, which opened here nearly two years after its Cannes debut. But the most extreme case of delay was Frownland,an extraordinarily abrasive US independent film about a lonely, emotionally victimised door-to-door salesman. It took more than three years to get here, but it was worth the wait.
Knockout comic performance of the year
A tie between Nicolas Cage as a drug-crazed cop who hallucinates iguanas and breakdancing spirits in The Bad Lieutenant Port of Call: New Orleans, and Jemaine Clement as the pompous science-fiction novelist Dr Ronald Chevalier in Gentlemen Broncos.
Most inventive death scene
Many contenders here, all of them from the impressive Hong Kong socio-horror film Dream Home, which included: a man forced to slash with a penknife at his own neck in an attempt to sever the cord that was strangling him; mid-coital disembowelment; asphyxiation by plastic bag and household vacuum cleaner. And the winner is… (cue fumbling with blood-spattered envelope)… the “man stabbed in the neck with his own glass bong” scene. That’s what you call going out on a high. By the by, Dream Home also wins the L’emploi du temps award for Best Recession-related Film of the Year.
Rip-off cinema of the year
The Vue, Shepherd’s Bush, west London. One adult, one child, bringing their own 3D glasses to a 10.30am screening of How to Train Your Dragon, on a Sunday morning three months into the film’s release. Ticket price? £21. Consequence? I don’t go to Vue cinemas any more. Admissions may have risen, but multiplexes shouldn’t think they can price prohibitively, especially in off-peak times. Joe Flint wrote a sound piece on the subject on the LA Times website this year. His beef was with the pricing structure at Hollywood’s otherwise wonderful Arclight cinema, a classy venue that knocks any Vue into a cocked popcorn tub. Extortionate pricing, Flint says, “gives people just one more reason to stay home. At a time when theater operators are worried about movies popping up sooner on DVD and video-on-demand and thereby undercutting ticket sales, making it costlier to go out to the local multiplex seems ill advised.”
Misjudgement of the year
The violence in The Killer Inside Me. A straight minute, or however long it was, of Casey Affleck bashing Jessica Alba’s face until it resembled an overripe nectarine may have grabbed headlines. But for visceral, enduring impact, it was manifestly not the cinematic equivalent of the few, sparing sentences that Jim Thompson used to convey the attack in his original novel. Winterbottom receives a partial pardon for some gorgeous moments in his six-part BBC2 series The Trip (especially episode four — the “We leave at daybreak!” one), which started limply but proved a real grower.
Guilty pleasure of the year
The crude action movie spoof MacGruber was good, indefensible fun. Even doubters should seek it out for the divine Kristen Wiig (she plays the unimprovably-named Vicky St Elmo). I’m hoping 2011 will be the year that Wiig, who was also excellent this year in Drew Barrymore’s underrated Whip It!, breaks out with a scorching lead performance. Nicole Holofcener, director of Please Give, has expressed a desire to work with her.
The “I don’t get it” award for movie phenomena that passed me by
I experienced strange waves of guilt for failing to warm to either Of Gods and Men or Toy Story 3. That said, the latter film featured both my favourite character of the year — the lumbering, shabby, horribly mewing Big Baby, who was both tender and menacing — and the most traumatic scene: the toys holding hands in acceptance of mortality as they descend toward a furnace. No such guilt about disliking Inception, a film which felt like being trapped in business class on a grounded flight, listening to CEOs discussing their dreams for two-and-a-half hours.
Funniest line of the year
This award goes not to any screenwriter, but to an anonymous wag with a biro at London’s Holborn underground station. On the poster for Please Give, the certificate advice reads: “CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND INFREQUENT SEX.” Next to which someone scribbled: “Story of my life.”
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