NYC Film Critic

Summing up 2010’s best and worst and everything in between.

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The New York Film Critics Online, of which I am a member, met today to single out the best 2010 had to offer.  To no one’s great surprise, The Social Network took home the big three awards–Screenplay, Director and Picture.  But we did spread the wealth around a little, handing Actor to James Franco for his terrific turn in 127 Hours, Actress to Natalie Portman for her poised work in Black Swan (although, to be honest, I was pulling for Blue Valentine‘s Michelle Williams or Another Year‘s Lesley Manville) and Breakthrough Performer to Noomi Rapace, the best thing about the film versions of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.  The win I was most thrilled about?  Exit Through the Gift Shop‘s squeaker victory in the Documentary category.  The win I was least thrilled about?  John Wells as Debut Director for his solid, but unremarkable drama The Company Men.  Read the full list of winners–as well as NYFCO’s collective Top 10 of 2010 list (not to be confused with my own list, which I hope to post here within the next two weeks)–after the jump.

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I’m Still Here
Directed by Casey Affleck
Starring Joaquin Phoenix
**

I haven’t had a chance to write much about it, but my favorite film of the year so far is Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, a serio-comic documentary chronicling the rise of the street art movement over the past decade or so.  One of the reasons that I love the film so much is that it can be processed in two very different ways; if, on the one hand, you accept that everyone in the movie is on the level, than Gift Shop plays like a livelier version of one of those traditional “history of…” documentaries, giving viewers a detailed account of street art’s evolution from an after-hours activity to a booming business.  But if you, like me, believe that the movie’s central character (a French filmmaker who goes from documenting the exploits of real street artists to staging his own elaborate shows under the moniker Mr. Brainwash) is a creation dreamed up by the director and his cohorts, than the movie becomes a grand stunt that fits squarely into the street art tradition.  Either way you choose to view it—straightforward doc or prankish mock—Exit Through the Gift Shop is funny, insightful and truthful…even if it plays around with the exact definition of “truth.”

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