Screened: The Good of 2010
The Two Escobars: Written and directed by local sons Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, this stylish documentary provided a fascinating look at the intersecting lives of the title pair: Colombian soccer star and family man Andres Escobar and his contemporary, the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose narco-trafficking both funded Escobar’s career and led to the athlete’s murder after a disastrous World Cup match.
Micmacs: It’s been almost 10 years since director Jean-Pierre Jeunet knocked the socks off American art house lovers with Amelie. His latest is the story of a bunch of outcasts, including a human cannonball and a contortionist, who plot to dismantle a pair of big arms manufacturers. Touching and off-kilter, it was a return to form for Jeunet.
Exit Through the Gift Shop: The iconoclastic British street artist who goes by the name of Banksy is the subject of this mind-twisting documentary. Or is he? Banksy never lets you know for sure whether or not the film is what it claims to be, but it succeeds, whether truth or hoax.
Friday Night Rewind: It’s technically not one movie—and certainly not from 2010—but the popular throwback series at Cinemark in Hadley consistently brings the goods. Manager Dave Modugno deserves kudos for bringing classics like A Clockwork Orange, Annie Hall and Full Metal Jacket to the big screen.
And while we’re at it: Amherst Cinema scored a huge hit with its summer Hitchcock series, often having to turn away overflow crowds. A Chaplin festival followed; let’s hope for more from this great local resource so we can reward its initiative.
Mesrine: Killer Instinct tells the life story of Jacques Mesrine, France’s best-known criminal for a few decades of the 20th century. Jean-Francois Richet’s two-parter was a giant hit in France, where Mesrine holds a Clyde Barrow-like position in popular culture. Something of a sleeper here, it’s worth a look for anyone interested in whether or not crime pays—and if so, how much.
Babies: Thomas Balmes’ film is the picture of simplicity. To make it, he chose four children from far corners of the globe and followed them during their first few years. The result is a film almost free of dialogue but so full of wonder that it renews our sense of what’s possible for us, as humans, to achieve.
Some Things To Avoid
The comedy MacGruber came out this year, forcing us to ask yet again: When will the powers that be at Saturday Night Live—where MacGruber started as a one-minute-or-less sketch—realize that the short life of television laughs does not translate to the screen?
On a similar note: The upcoming Yogi Bear feature, like so many other updates, reboots and reimaginings, suffers the curse of modernity, which assumes that the old is always worth throwing out for the new. Tell me what the original cartoon lacks, besides Justin Timberlake as the voice of Boo Boo, and I shall gladly concede.
Finally, and if I may generalize: Hollywood, we really, really need fewer remakes of great foreign films. There’s no need (to choose just one example) for Dinner for Schmucks to be made when we have the fine French film The Dinner Game. One is a biting satire, a comedy of manners; the other just makes us look stupid. Please start realizing which is which, and make our new year a happy one.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com