Culturebox: My top 10 movies of 2010.

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movies Wow My top 10 movies of 2010. By Dana Stevens Posted Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010, at 10:08 AM ET The end-of-year 10-best list makes sense neither as an objective ranking system nor as a personal aesthetic manifesto. The first option is absurd on its face; the second subordinates the movies themselves to some idealized critical vision, ignoring the way good films sneak in and rearrange our neat shelves of likes and dislikes. I prefer to think of this always-daunting yearly assignment as a polyamorous love letter, sent out to trusted companions and dangerous crushes alike. Here (in touchy-feely, hierarchy-resisting alphabetical order) are some mash notes to the 2010 movies to which, at the end, for a few moments, my only response was "wow." Another Year, Mike Leigh. Leigh, long the chronicler of England's working class, is in his lion-in-winter phase now. With no one to please but himself, he's tackled the uncommon task of making movies about that fragile station of life known as happiness. Another Year takes place over the course of four seasons, as we witness the blossoming and waning of a garden belonging to Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen). This loving older couple is surrounded by a network of younger, less contented single friends--the most difficult of whom is the scattered, melodramatic, perpetually tipsy Mary (an unforgettable Lesley Manville). Leigh's broad, compassionate vision, and the attention he pays to nature and the passage of time, recalls the late Eric Rohmer (who died early this year at 89 and whose 1981 film The Aviator's Wife made for another of my best 2010 viewing experiences). To continue reading, click here. Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic. E-mail her at slatemovies@gmail.com. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Shafer: First Amendment Guru Floyd Abrams' Weird Attack on Julian Assange The 10 Movies That Made Dana Stevens Say, "Wow" What Do Anarchists Really Want From Us?	Advertisement
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