Since we’re at the All-Star break, it’s time to take another look at my list of 10 Best Baseball Movies.
Movie Lists
Patriotic Movies for the 4th of July
I haven’t found any other acceptable lists of patriotic movies. Other lists tend to be less patriotic and more jingoistic and nationalistic, less about celebrating the essential American values and triumphs (sometimes triumphs over ourselves) than about dominating some furriners in war or sport. That’s why Top Gun and Miracle show up on those lists, but not on mine.
Throughout our history, American patriots have taken risks and made sacrifices for ideas and causes greater than themselves. Here are ten movies that celebrate such authentic patriotism: 10 Patriotic Movies.
Incendies: best movie of the year so far
This searing drama is the year’s best film so far. Upon their mother’s death, a young man and woman learn for the first time of their father and their brother and journey from Quebec to the Middle East to uncover family secrets. As they bumble around Lebanon, we see the mother’s experience in flashbacks. We learn before they do that their lives were created – literally – by the violence of the Lebanese civil war.
Because the film is anything but stagey, you can’t tell that Canadian director Denis Villaneuve adapted the screenplay from a play. Lubna Azabal, a Belgian actress of Moroccan and Spanish heritage, is brilliant as the mother.
It’s a tough film to watch, with graphic violence against women and children. But the violence is neither gratuitous nor exploitative – it is a civil war, after all, and the theme of the film is the cycle of retribution.
Incendies was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, but lost out to a much inferior film on the same subject of violence, In a Better Life.
Coming Up on TV: The two best Civil War films
The Civil War began 150 years ago this month, and TCM is broadcasting the two best Civil War movies on April 25.
Ron Maxwell’s 1994 Gettysburg is the gold standard of Civil War films. It follows Michael Shaara’s superb historical novel The Killer Angels and depicts the decisive three day battle. It was filmed on the actual battlefield with re-enactors. Maxwell took great care in maintaining historical accuracy. Civil War buffs will recognize many lines of dialogue as historical, as well as shots that recall famous photographs. In addition, Gettysburg is especially well-acted, especially by Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger, Stephen Lang, Sam Elliott and Brian Mallon.
The other very best Civil War movie is the 1989 Glory, which tells the real-life story of an all-black unit in the Union Army. Glory has tremendous performances by Denzel Washington, Andre Braugher, Morgan Freeman and Jihmi Kennedy.
Best Movies of 2011 – So Far
I’ve starting my running list of Best Movies of 2011 – So Far. So far, I’ve included Source Code, Carancho, Potiche and The Adjustment Bureau.
There are some intriguing candidates coming out soon, including Poetry, In a Better World, Incendies, Meek’s Cutoff and The Princess of Montpensier.
My top movie so far, Source Code, is in theaters right now. Here’s the trailer.
2010 in Movies: The Year of Food Porn
To conclude my 2010 in Movies series, here’s another very fun trend: 2010 brought us more food-centric films than any year in memory: I Am Love (Io sono l’amore), Mid-August Lunch, The Kings of Pastry, Today’s Special, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle House and Soul Kitchen. The Movie Gourmet approves of this trend.
You can get the idea here from I Am Love‘s trailer. Check out the plate of glazed prawns about 58 seconds into the trailer.
Here’s my list of 10 Food Porn Movies.
2010 in Movies: The Year of the Crime Drama
2010 continued a trend of really good recent crime dramas. This year, most of them came from overseas: The Secrets in Their Eyes (Argentina) won the most recent Best Foreign Language Oscar and A Prophet (France) and Ajami (Palestine/Israel) were nominated.
All three made my list of the year’s best movies and my list of Best Recent Crime Dramas.
We also had other strong imports in this genre: the Mesrine films (France), Animal Kingdom (Australia) and Mother (Korea).
The best American crime drama was The Town, in which the rockin’ first two acts were betrayed by a sappy and implausible climax.
Here’s the trailer for Ajami, an ultra-realistic crime drama set in a scruffy neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel. The story weaves together Arab Christians and Arab Muslims and both religious and non-religious Israeli Jews. Everyone aspires to make a living and live in personal safety, but the circumstances and tribal identities make this very difficult at best. There are two trans-religious romances, but no one is going to live happily ever after. Ajami was co-written and co-directed by Scandar Copti, a Jaffa-born Palestinian, and Yaron Shoni, an Israeli Jew. After seeing the film, I was surprised to learn that it has no trained actors – all of the roles are played by real-life residents who improvised their lines to follow the story line.
2010 in Movies: The Year's Best Movies
Here’s my list of the best films of 2010: 1) Winter’s Bone; 2) Toy Story 3; 3) The Social Network; 4) The Secrets in their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos); 5) Rabbit Hole; 6) Black Swan; 7) A Prophet (Un Prophete); 8 ) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; 9) Mademoiselle Chambon; 10) (tie) Ajami and Inception.
(Note: I’m saving room for some films that I haven’t yet seen, especially Mike Leigh’s Another Year.)
Continuing with my list of 2010’s best films: The Tillman Story, True Grit, The King’s Speech, The Girl on the Train (La Fille du RER), Inside Job, Fish Tank, The Ghost Writer, Carlos, Fair Game, Hereafter, The Fighter, Solitary Man, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Sweetgrass.
You can watch the trailers and see my comments on all these films at Best Movies of 2010.
(Further Note: The Secrets in their Eyes, A Prophet and Ajami were nominated for the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but were widely released in the US in 2010.)
2010 in Movies: Documentaries
As usual several documentaries made my list of Best Movies of 2010: Inside Job, The Tillman Story, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, and Sweetgrass.
And there were still more excellent documentaries. Ken Burns augmented his brilliant Baseball with The Tenth Inning. PBS’s Earth Days told the story of the modern environmental movement through the voices of key players. The Most Dangerous Man in America brought new texture to the story of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The fine PBS series Independent Lens brought us Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas), in which filmmaker Monika Navarro trailed an uncle deported to Mexico and discovered secrets in her own family.
Here’s the trailer for the magical Sweetgrass.
Food Porn
I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on the recent post updating my 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes – the movie food scenes that are the most amusing, shocking, etc. But what about the most tantalizing food movies? They are on a completely different list: 10 Food Porn Movies.
Nobody will be surprised that I’ve included Babette’s Feast or Eat Drink Man Woman. But I also feature four 2010 films. Visit the 10 Food Porn Movies for the other picks, trailers, images and even a link to some recipes.