Top 10 movies of 2010

Every year, I look back at all the films I reviewed in the Weekend Pinnacle’s “Movie Lines” column. Each year, I am shocked at the number of movies I see in the theater and the number I also see on DVD or on TV. In 2010, I saw at least 45 movies in the theater and reviewed a handful more that were already out on DVD.

It was no surprise to me that a few of my favorite movies that I saw in early 2010 were actually 2009 releases. The top of the list includes “Crazy Heart,” “Up in the Air,” and “Invictus.” But since this is a list of the best movies released in 2010, I’ll leave those off and hope that I will have a chance to see some of the Oscar-buzz fare that is just now coming into wild release. For now, here is my top 10 of 2010, based on the few dozen films I had a chance to see.

10.) The Other Guys
This is the one “guy” movie that makes my list. Why? Because Mark Wahlberg is really funny and paired with Will Ferrell, I laughed more at this movie than any other movie I saw this year. Was it a good movie? Not really. Was it predictable? Yeah, pretty much. But it made me laugh as Wahlberg and Ferrell work together as two misfit cops who are the only ones who can unravel a mystery. Michael Keaton also earns a few laughs as their Captain, who moonlights at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

9.) Red
“Red” is another movie that isn’t really good, but I just can’t resist Helen Mirren toting a semi-automatic weapon. She’s played the Queen Mum and Tolstoy’s wife – now she is a former covert agent who knows her way around espionage. Mirren’s role in the movie is small, but still worth a watch. Bruce Willis is the lead character, a retired CIA agent who is the target of an attempted assassination, who tries to figure out who and why someone would want to kill him. His cohorts include John Malkovich, who always plays the crazy guy, and Morgan Freeman, as the distinguished martyr. Mary-Louise Parker plays Willis’ love interest who sticks by his side despite an unorthodox first meeting.

8.) The Fighter
Anything with Christian Bale is bound to be good and “The Fighter,” is a good movie that went a little awry into melodrama for me. The movie is about Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg,) a working class guy from Massachusetts who has his sights set on being a champion boxer. The biggest thing holding Ward back is his family, which includes an overbearing mother (played by Melissa Leo) and half brother Dicky Ecklund (Bale), who is more interested in getting his next score than training his younger brother. Amy Adams turns up as Micky’s girlfriend in a role that couldn’t be farther from her turn in “Enchanted.” There are no fairy princesses in this movie, though there are a slew of evil older sisters in the form of Micky and Dicky’s seven sisters who chime in together once in a while.

The movie is touching in that it is based on a true story, but the caricatures of the sisters and the melodrama between Micky’s family members just held it back a bit.

7.) La Mission
I might just like “La Mission” so much because I saw it at the Cinequest Film Festival in March, got to walk up some stars next to Benjamin Bratt, who certainly didn’t look in my direction, at the California Theatre before it screened, and heard the filmmaker talk in depth about it. In some ways, the movie reminds me of the more recent release “The Fighter,” but without all the melodrama. The thing that made the movie work is that all the heavy scenes in it are balanced with just the right amount of humor. Peter Bratt directed brother Benjamin Bratt in the film about a recovering alcoholic and former jailbird who is trying his best to raise his son on the straight and narrow in the Mission district of San Francisco. The problem is Che’s son Jesse (Jeremy Ray Valdez) is a great kid, but he’s gay, something that his father’s machismo won’t let him accept. The movie follows Che as he struggles with his pride and his desire to love his son.

6.) Easy A
As with romantic comedies, the pure comedy genre has also had its share of misses in recent years. I saw quite a few movies with what I would describe as “guy humor,” including “Due Date,” “Dinner for Schmucks” and “Cop Out.” The movies combined low-brow humor with lame plots and ended up less than entertaining. So perhaps it’s no surprise that my favorite comedy wasn’t a “guy comedy.”

“Easy A” is about a high school teen who finds her popularity increasing as she gets an undeserved reputation for being easy. She helps the nerds and geeks at her school by pretending to have relations with them to increase their social standing, but she soon finds her own status plummeting. Emma Stone plays the lead role in the film. It is witty and clever in a way that reminded me of my favorite ’80s teen comedies, and there is even a sequence in it that pays homage to John Hughes.

5.) It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Every once in a while I will see a movie that is sort of under the radar that really surprises me. This year it was “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” It was the one movie with Zach Galifianakis that I actually liked this year and that is probably because he didn’t play is typical type. In it, he is a mentor of sorts to Craig (Keir Gilchrist,) a teenager who checks himself into a mental hospital and then immediately has second thoughts about it. While Bobby (Galifianakis) has real problems, Craig’s issues seem to pale in comparison. He just gets stressed about his schoolwork and anxious about his future. Even Noelle (Emma Roberts,) another teen in the hospital seems to have worse problems than Craig, as the bandages on her wrists attest. Gilchrist is sweetly likeable and comes into his own in a way he hasn’t yet on the Showtime series “The United States of Tara,” in which he stars as the gay son of a woman with multiple personalities (it’s a comedy, in case you couldn’t guess that.) Galifianakis is likeable as a mentally ill man who is trying to take the first small steps of starting over. The movie stays light most of the time, though it is dealing with serious stuff and it makes it understandable that even the best of us might sometimes need a little mental break from life.

4.) The Social Network
A movie about a corporate lawsuit has a lot against it in creating the kind of tension that keeps a film interesting. But “The Social Network” works nonetheless. The biopic follows Mark Zuckerberg as he creates the social phenomena we all know as Facebook. Luckily the movie doesn’t focus on the computer geek programming a bunch of code, but on the ways that he may or may not have screwed over friends and acquaintances on his way to the top. Jesse Eisenberg is perfectly awkward as the Harvard student turned Internet start-up owner and Andrew Garfield is well placed as his best friend and first investor. Justin Timberlake also proves that he has enough acting chops to make it in the business, with his turn as the creator of Napster, Sean Parker. The movie moves back and forth in time, between Zuckerberg’s time on campus and during the early stages of Facebook to the time period when he was facing two lawsuits. At the very least, it was interesting to watch one interpretation of how Zuckerberg got to the top and created something that people embraced so thoroughly in just a number of years.


3.) Babies
I’ll admit I don’t see a lot of documentaries. If I want to see a documentary, I am much more likely to see it when it comes out on DVD. Part of that is because documentaries aren’t very likely to play around Gilroy. But it’s also because a lot of documentaries can be dry and depressing, as was the case with “Waiting for Superman,” which chronicles issues with public school education. But there was one documentary that was a joy to watch and that was last year’s almost dialogue-less “Babies.” The filmmakers picked four families to follow through the first year of birth from different countries. The babies came from Africa, Mongolia, San Francisco and Japan. The parents’ lifestyles are all drastically different, but the movie really shows are similar the human experience can be as each baby takes the same milestones of crawling, talking and walking in stride. The thing I liked the most about the movies is how loved and content all the babies seemed to be, no matter where they lived.

2.) Toy Story 3
I am a sucker for a cartoon that can make me feel real emotions and this year’s “Toy Story 3” did just that. Of course, it is a Disney Pixar movie, and the filmmakers are masters at creating children’s fare that appeals to adults. Just remember 2009’s “Up,” which had grown men crying in the theater. “Toy Story 3” is the last in the trilogy and it’s been quite a while since movie No. 2 came out. Andy is all grown up and ready to head off to college. But before he leaves, he has to clean out all the childhood things he doesn’t want or need anymore. Andy quickly picks Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) to come with him to college, but the fate of the other toys is less certain. The toys end up on another journey, but the thing about the movie is that it creates an emotional response for anyone who has put aside childish things as they grew up.

1.) Inception
A lot of movies I saw this year were bad or just mediocre, but there was one movie that stood above all the rest for me. I had high expectations for the film, which I know from experience can often lead to disappointment. But when I heard the director who was behind “Memento,” a twisted mystery thriller starring Guy Pearce, and the much lauded “The Dark Knight,” I knew I wanted to see “Inception.”

Christopher Nolan directed this more recent twisted story that had me still guessing what had really happened even after it ended. Leonard DiCaprio leads the cast as a master manipulator of dreams. Using high-tech equipment he and his crew of dream bandits can go into someone’s dreams and find their secrets. But when he is hired to perform inception, the act of planting an entirely new idea in someone’s mind, he and his crew have to go more layers deep than they have gone before. I am not sure that I really understood the movie, but it is one of those movies I want to watch again and again. The movie also had a profound effect on me, apparently, since I had some crazy dreams for a few weeks after seeing it. Now that it is out on DVD and Blu-ray, I am looking forward to watching it a few more times and seeing if I can find any new answers to the puzzle Nolan created.

A year in the making - 19 resolutions set and 15 squared away

There are a couple years left of the year, but the truth is I know I won't complete any of the resolutions that aren't already done. And the great thing about a new year is that it offers 356 new days to tackle the items that are left and to add some new ones.

When I started this list of resolutions early this year I wanted to force myself out of my comfort zone a little bit as well as get back to some things I really enjoy, but for which I don't always make the time. The list was also sort of a back up plan in a ways because the one thing I really wanted last year was to get a fellowship to study at Stanford, which I knew was a long shot. I thought the list would be a way to distract myself if the fellowship didn't come through, which it didn't.

I finished a lot of the resolutions, such as eating at five new restaurants and cooking with five new ingredients, early on in the year. Others took a lot longer to accomplish, like going on a date. Still others have yet to come to fruition - like clean out the garage. For the resolutions I didn't complete, I'll carry them over to next year. And there are some I did complete that I'd like to keep as a reminder to try new things next year. In the next few weeks. I'll spend some time thinking about new things I might want to add to the list, just to keep things fresh next year. Look for an updated list soon after the New Year.

For now, here is a recap of how things went so far in 2010:

1.) Read 10 new books
I actually just finished an 11th book a couple days ago - an early work by the author of "Bridget Jones Diary," "Cause Celeb" just wasn't quite as endearing as the later works to come.

Some of the books were by authors I know well, such as Nick Hornby. Others were by people I'd heard of, but never read before such as Chuck Palahniuk. I found that I have a habit of picking books on the serious side, so maybe next year a resolution will be to find a little lighter reading through the year.

Other reads included:
Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang
Lullabye by Chuck Palahniuk
Click by multiple authors
Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
Passing for Thin by Francine Kuffel
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
A Version of the Truth by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

2.) Eat at five new restaurants - I ate at more than five new restaurants this year and I am proud of myself for getting out of the regular routines of going to the same, old restaurants. The list is longer than what I have below, and includes some places I tried while on vacation in San Diego as well as a great breakfast place in San Jose called Bill's Cafe that has eggs Benedict served up in unique ways. This is a resolution I'd like to carry over into next year, especially since I still haven't gone to the fancy Los Gatos restaurant that inspired the resolution in the first place.

Rosy's at the Beach -Morgan Hill
Pluto's - Santana Row
Village Bistro - Santana Row
Lizarran Tapas Selectas - Gilroy
Knife and Fork Cafe - Hollister
The Mucky Duck - Monterey
Brickhouse Burger Company - Indianapolis - okay, this place has a pretzel bun for their burgers - enough said.
Champp's - Indianapolis
Kona Jack's - Indianapolis
Aqui - Campbell
Satura Cakes - Campbell

3.) Make homemade ravioli
The homemade ravioli should have been simple - had the pasta maker I have at home not been broken. Pasta is not meant to be rolled out by hand with a rolling pin so my ravioli were a little bit thicker and tougher than they should have been. But they still tasted good, especially with the homemade sauce.

5.) Take a trip somewhere (other than Indiana)
Now I thought this resolution was going to be complete in May, when I booked a flight to Denver and made plans to stay with someone I knew there. But it didn't work out and I ended up cancelling that part of the trip. I did, however, make two trips to Indiana two months in a row. The first was to surprise a good friend at her bridal shower/bachelorette party. She was surprised when I showed up at her house in a rental car. It was a whirlwind trip, where I flew in on a redeye and back out early the next morning, without any time to sleep. It was exhausting, but worth it to be with my friend and the rest of the wedding party. I flew back for the wedding and it was worth it.

Now for my trip somewhere other than Indiana, I spent a few days in San Diego to see my cousin graduate from marine boot camp. The extra time was spent visiting the San Diego Zoo and scoping out Old Town San Diego. One of the great finds on the trip was some artisan olive oil and vinegars from Temecula Olive Oil Company. In fact, the stuff is so good, we hardly want to use it because we have such a limited supply. It can be ordered online, so I might have to order some more.

6.) Cook recipes with five ingredients I haven't used before
Hoisin sauce - This tangy sauce is perfect with chicken, though a friend of mine argued that it doesn't really count as an ingredient. I think it did.
Swiss chard - This vegetable can be sauteed and served alone, or added into pasta dishes. It has plenty of healthy ingredients, though I prefer the regular chard to rainbow chard, because the latter tastes a bit bitter to me.
Quinoa - This seed has is a complete protein, but it was something I couldn't stomach. I am not sure if it was just the way I prepared it or if I had a bad batch. Whatever it is, the experience turned my stomach and now just seeing photos of quinoa makes me queasy.
Celery root - This root vegetable is perfect roasted in the oven with a little bit of olive oil. It was one of several new root vegetables I tried this year, and it's about time to cook some up again.
Golden beets - Until shit year, I had never cooked beets at home. For people who have only had canned beets, the fresh variety roasted in the oven is an epiphany. The vegetables and sweet and complex, and so worth the time of making them oneself.

8.) Write a short story - I actually wrote a few things, though I am not sure if they are complete yet so I don't really know whether to call this one done. I plan to continue working on this pieces of started and try to find time to start some new ones.

9.) Go on a date - I actually end up going on more than one date, with more than one person, in addition to a few kinda, sort of date situations. But at least last month, I went out with someone when I knew for sure it was a date and had a good time.

10.) Apply for a fellowship - I applied for the Knight Fellowship early in the year, and was disappointed when I got the news early in February that I had not made it past the first round of the application process. It's one of those things I could apply for again, but part of me feels like I was applying because I felt really stuck where I was and I didn't know what else to do. I'd love an opportunity like this in the future, but for next year I'm happy with where I am with the paper for which I work.

11.) Quit farmville - I had to give it up cold turkey - though I still received requests from family and friends for quite sometime. No more FB games for me. I can't do it.

12.) Take a class - I took a cupcake decorating class and I wasn't very good at it. I don't think I will be decorating many cupcakes, and in fact, except for the plethora of baking around the holidays, I don't really like to bake all that much. I will be using one of the tips I got, however, of using an offset spatula when I bake a cake for Christmas. Hopefully I can get the cake to look decent since I have a bad history with them not turning out quite like I'd like them to.

I'd like to keep this resolution again for next year, even if it is just a cooking class.

14.) Keep up the gym routines - I've been to the gym once in the last week - due to a cold that morphed into a sinus infection - but I am proud to report that since January, with the exception of this week, I have been an avid gym-goer with a record of five to six trips a week. I run everyday I go, I weight train, I ride the bike and I use the elliptical. At the end of August, I even started taking a boot camp class twice a week and it really seemed to add intensity to my workout. When I first started, I would be sore for days after class, from the squats and lunges and crunches, but it all started to get a lot easier and I started to see the difference in myself.

It helps that I have family who go with me a few times a week to keep me motivated from skipping all the time. And I love having a nike sensor that tracks my mileage for me so I know how far I've gone - since July I've run or walked more than 300 miles! I feel healthier, less stressed out at work and just feel better overall. It's a resolution I definitely plan to continue over to next year.

15.) Decide on what kind of car I want - My parents bought a car and I got their old car so I didn't really have to decide what I wanted. It worked out pretty well for me.

16.) Enter (and complete) a 5K run/walk
I entered my first 5K in March and was glad just not to be the last one in. My time was a mediocre 41+ minutes. But I kept running at the gym and entered another 5K in May, and one in October. For my last 5K, I came in just over 34 minutes, a vast improvement from my original time. Now, with the exception of the last week or so when I've been pretty sick, I run 1.5 miles five days a week and tackle a longer 3.5 mile run once a week. It's something I hope to continue to do, with the goal of whittle my time down a little for each 5K I enter.

18.) Have tulips or lilies in my garden
I missed the winter planting time for tulips last year, but I did buy some transplants when they were available at a local hardware store in early spring. This year, I am hoping to get some bulbs in the ground early in the year in hopes that they might bloom on their own in spring. I haven't had much luck with bulbs in the past, but I can always try.

19.) Make homemade pasta sauce (entirely from scratch)
This resolution turned out to be a lot of work. With my mom's help, I roasted a bunch of tomatoes, only to get about 1/2 a cup of tomato sauce to use in the pasta sauce. It was tasty, but required a lot of work, especially since a glass pan exploded in the oven with the first batch of tomatoes, which then had to be thrown out.

To be continued next year:
4.) Learn my aunt's gnocchi recipe - My aunt has promised to show me the recipe early next year, so hopefully this will be in the bag soon enough. On the other hand, I did learn to make spinach gnocchi, which was a tasty and pretty easy meal to prepare.

7.) Watch all the Academy Award best picture winners - With this one, the truth is I was just watching too many movies in the theater and too many TV shows on DVD at home. I watched the complete series of Criminal Minds, the Gilmore Girls and Joan of Arcadia so that took up a lot of time. I rented "Hurt Locker" with someone once, but we didn't actually watch it so this is still one to work on next year, preferably before a new best picture is added to the list.

13.) Scan old photos of family and friends - I never got around to this one, but I'd still like to work on it for next year. I did print out some digital photos for my family, however, since my aunt wanted to know how to get "normal" pictures.

17.) Clean out the garage - My mom did some work on the garage on days when I wasn't home, but this one needs to get done but always ends up a last priority. So next year, I'll keep this on the list.

Resolutions No. 4 and 9 collide - gnocchi and a dinner date

When I started my resolutions last year, I thought some of them would be harder to complete than others. I thought making gnocchi (resolution No. 4) with my aunt would be easy enough. I told her I wanted to learn the recipe about six months ago and I mentioned it when I saw her for family gatherings throughout the year. But as the holidays rolled around, she has been busy with work and when she made gnocchi for a cousin who was home from marine boot camp, I happened to be out of town that day so I couldn't help. But she's promised to show me the recipe in January so I'll still get around to it.

But I did make gnocchi this year even though it wasn't my family's traditional gnocchi recipe. And strangely enough the gnocchi-making was tied to another resolution. I made a resolution to go on one date this year (No. 9.) And this is one of the resolutions I thought would be hardest to complete since it required someone else to make it happen.

I had a couple "was it or wasn't it a date" experiences earlier in the year and though my coworker insists that if the guy pays, its' a date, I didn't agree. The whole dating thing just seemed like a lot of work most of the year as I asked my friends to set me up on blind dates and tried other ways to meet people.

I needed something clear cut to clear the resolution. So when my sister's girlfriend asked if she could set me up on a blind date I agreed. I met the guy for coffee, and since it was a short 30 min. meeting at Starbucks, it didn't really feel like a date. But we followed up with dinner, so I figured that must count as a date. The thing is, when dinner was over after an hour, I was ready to go.

But a few weeks later, I made plans with another guy. We had lunch together, and when lunch was over, I wasn't ready to go. We walked around Santana Row. And when we'd walked around there for a while, he asked if I wanted to rent a movie and hang out some more. And I found I did want to spend more time with him. And after I left, I knew wanted to make plans with him again.

So a couple weeks later when he offered to make me dinner, I knew it was a date. And I really knew it was a date when I arrived and he was preparing to make homemade spinach gnocchi instead of pasta from a box with a jar of sauce (which is what I expected.) If he was trying to impress me, it worked. He did most of the work, though I offered to help. The gnocchi recipe is not much like the one my family makes which uses potatoes since it used spinach, parmesan cheese, flour and eggs to make the gnocchi. The only thing that was similar was the shape of the dumplings. I had a hand in putting in a few of the ingredients into the gnocchi mixture and I helped roll them into dumplings, though he did most of the work. I brought garlic bread and a bottle of my favorite wine. The recipes are definitely ones I would use again and it was nice to share a meal with someone else on what was clearly a date.