Scott Marks | SDUN Film Critic

This year there were almost as many DVD screeners as there were theater screenings, while the motion picture industry cut shipping costs and tried its damndest to encourage an all-digital future. Though it was a mediocre year for independent features and foreign imports, domestic films fared even worse. There is only one American film in my top 10 (thanks, Marty!).

The only good news is comic book/action hero movies appear to be disconnecting at the box office as both “Kick Ass” and “Scott Pilgrim” tanked. Here’s hoping “The Green Hornet” will be the final nail in the coffin.

It wasn’t hard picking 10 films for my year-end wrap-up, and were it not for a wealth of outstanding documentaries, this list would be considerably shorter. The greatest gift I can pass on to you during this most joyous holiday season can be found in the following sentence: Stay the hell away from “Tron.” Happy yuletide, everybody. I look forward to taking more cinematic bullets for you in 2011.

1. “Wild Grass”
A yellow handbag—similar to one Hitchcock’s
Marnie toted around—is lifted from Marguerite, a beautiful redheaded dentist. Stripped of its contents, the wallet is later discovered in a parking garage by Georges, a happily married retiree who is taken by the owner’s pilot’s license photo. The two eventually hook up and this anarchic comedy of miscommunication goes off in all directions—except the ones you’d most expect. (The 20th Century Fox CinemaScope fanfare plays during the closing credits to a film within the film.) And when was the last time you saw a movie that paid such great detail to its expressionistic use of color? This is 88-year-old French New Wave pioneer Alain Resnais’ 18th feature and the only honest to goodness real movie to play San Diego all year.

2. “A Film Unfinished”
Were this just another Holocaust documentary it probably wouldn’t have cracked my top 200. The Nazis sent a camera crew to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 to document their treatment of Jews. For almost 50 years the unedited footage was believed to be an authentic historical artifact. A long-lost reel of outtakes that reveal retakes and cameramen staging shots were later unearthed. Yael Hersonski’s
film is not only a powerful history lesson, it’s a brilliantly pieced together document that calls into question the nature of “filmed truth.”

3. “The Tillman Story”
Pat Tillman would have been just another statistic in the Iraq conflict were he not a star linebacker for Arizona State University and later the Arizona Cardinals. Tillman was struck down by “friendly fire,” an errant bullet discharged by one of his own men. The U.S. government decided to turn Tillman’s corpse into a recruitment poster by reporting that the beloved football hero was gunned down by enemy fire. The harder the military tried to cover up the truth, the harder Pat Tillman’s parents came at them. Director Amir Bar-Lev’s commanding documentary
chronicles the lives of one family forced to confront the end results of Bush’s madness.

4. “Vincere”
Veteran filmmaker Marco Bellochio tells the story of Mussolini’s mistress and her futile battle to get her sex-crazed lover to acknowledge the child they had together. Bellochio’s incorporation of newsreels and clips from narrative features—particularly a scene from “Christus” projected on a hospital ward ceiling—is breathtaking. “Vincere” was an experience I will never forget. It’s 10 minutes before the picture drew to a close; documentary footage of Mussolini addressing the German throngs was suddenly underscored by a rumble working its way through the auditorium. The auditorium emptied, but I sat tight. (We were just getting to the good part!) It’s the only time an earthquake nearly interrupted my enjoyment of a movie.

5. “Ondine”
A fisherman’s life (and director Neil Jordan’s career) takes a turn for the better after netting what appears to be a mythical selkie (read: Irish mermaid). At least that’s the seed his young daughter plants in dad’s head. What we have here is a contemporary romantic fantasy drama for adults that contains no special effects and even less irony. How did this happen? There is even a sick kid subplot—the bane of this reporter’s existence ever since a pre-pubescent screening of “Men of Boys Town”—which the director capably consummates. Those of you tired of the seemingly endless flow of Heigel/Aniston/Hudson silt that gives relationship dramas a bad name need to see how the other half lives.

6. “No One Knows About Persian Cats”
Not one of Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi’s films has ever been legally shown in his native land. “Cats” chronicles the great sacrifices a pair of young musicians recently released from prison are forced to take when trying to form a band in a country where rock ‘n’ roll is forbidden. Narrative in spirit, “Cats” also qualifies as a semi-documentary due to the outlaw manner in which it was shot. Filming without permits, Ghobadi and his crew were twice arrested and the musicians had to travel miles outside of town and rehearse in a cowshed. It’s come to the point where the terms “Iranian cinema” and “masterpiece” practically go hand in hand.

7. “Exit Through the Gift Shop”
A fanboy film with a moral and social conscience as well as a stunning example of an artist biting the hands of fans that feed him. Street artist Banksy decides to position his protégé, hack video artist Thierry Guetta, as the next big thing. A gallery exhibition, most likely ghosted by Banksy, turns out to be a hilariously scathing attack on gullible Comic-Con types and their weakness for dumpster art. Many have argued that this was a propagandistic ploy to promote Guetta and the film succeeded in angering and insulting many of the graffiti artist’s flock. Call it a thinking person’s “Borat,” this grand goof had me laughing harder than just about any film this year.

8. “I Am Love”
From the opening credits, with its fifties style cursive lettering backed by a lush John Adams’ score, one instantly senses that they are about to spend two hours basking in cinematic aristocracy. Director Luca Guadagnino’s
appreciation of film history coupled with his own exquisite compositional sense allows him to “borrow” just enough from melodramamaestros Luchino Visconti and Douglas Sirk so as not to be accused of plagiarism. A grand epic, beautifully photographed—there is not a bad shot in this film—that features yet another dazzling performance by Tilda Swinton, probably the most fearless actress at work today.

9. “Shutter Island”
Marty locks us in an insane asylum with an elite group of America’s most dangerous and damaged mental patients delightfully distilled in a 1954 microcosm that also mirrors current societal fears. All right! This elegant puzzler had me going right down to the moment Ben Kingsley purred, “Baby, why are you all wet? “ A richly detailed ride and enormously satisfying genre picture that gets better with subsequent viewings.

10. “Another Year”
A happily married couple spends another year of their lives nursing emotionally damaged friends in this poignant and beautifully realized drama. Writer, director Mike Leigh orchestrates the year’s most accomplished acting ensemble including Lesley Manville, a shoo-in for a best supporting actress Oscar nomination.