I originally posted this on idFilm.

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Firstly, the low point of 2010 was Shane Meadow's television series This Is England '86, not only in itself but in thea way it's been unanimously and unquestioningly championed as something new and daring, as opposed to miserable and vacant.

On a personal note, it was cool to introduce the film I reviewed on the blog to get idFilm started at my local arthouse for their 2nd anniversary celebrations. I didn't mention at the time but my audience consisted of four people other than me: my dad, the usher and two other patrons. LOL!

Anyway, I've seen some great films this year, and yet I've hardly seen any.

I had to wait until April to see my first great films released this year: Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love and Roman Polanski's The Ghost. I'm glad the latter isn't its director's last film, as we all assumed it would be at the time; as for the former, it's an exciting and delirious film that I expect to retroactively re-evaluative once I watch The Leopard, having found this comparison between the two films an interesting analysis.

I had a bit of a double-howler in June when I decided (why!?) to catch both Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me and Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant back-to-back, but the following month I caught several solid and interesting films - Claire Denis's White Material, J Blakeson's The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Christopher Nolan's Inception - but Toy Story 3 was 'film of the month' and until a few weeks ago would have made my top five of the year; perhaps it'll regain a spot if I revisit it. (I didn't cry, but I laughed a lot.)

Scott Pilgrim vs The World surprised me; it's as energetic, exhausting, uneven and original as Edgar Wright's other films, and I enjoyed it very much. In October of course I went to the London Film Festival for three days and caught (only) five films; more on one of them later, but I ought to draw people's attention again to two films newly restored this year: Archie Mayo's The Mayor of Hell and Hal Roach's Turnabout - you can read my further thoughts on the blog. I also saw Raymond Red's Manila Skies, which for all its faults I'd recommend - hopefully more Filipino cinema can acquire international distribution - and José María de Orbe's Father, which will be overlooked in most end-of-year polls (Geoff Andrew gave it a nod in the above Sight & Sound poll) but, as a quiet, reflective piece that's knowingly ambiguous and arthouse, it offers in some way a naturalist's alternative to this year's Palme d'Or winner, which has understandably received wider coverage.

Last month, I saw Matt Reeves's Let Me In and was taken in by its effective genre film-making; I'm not sure how I'll feel about it if I ever get around to seeing Let the Right One In, though - who here's seen both? In any case, not long after that viewing, I caught Juan José Campanello's The Secret in Their Eyes, on the cusp of myself renewing a romance I'd long thought over; the film floored me and I'm still thinking about that sequence in and around the football stadium - it's a fascinating, rich film that I'll see again, hopefully through a more informed framework with regard to Argentina's recent history and politics.

That would leave David Fincher's The Social Network, of course. It's a brilliant film, I think, in terms of pacing, acting and storytelling. I'm not sure on what grounds it's receiving the praise that it is - as something beyond its rather simple, perhaps even unassuming, premise? I would hope not.

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Anyway, all of which brings me to my top five films of this year, listed alphabetically...

Mike Leigh's Another Year is a captivating film about the daily drama of relationships. I'm not sure if the film has anything at all to 'say' about its characters, but it certainly seems to approach them with the reasonable if rare aspiration to understanding, to observing people in their essence; in this respect, the film carries a dramatic charge even when it's not being dramatic. The film feels real.

I saw Gareth Edwards's Monsters last week and found it encouraging in many ways; not only is it an extremely assured and confident directorial debut (and not just in the way it seems to open as a Cloverfield clone only to suggest it's something else entirely), it's a lesson in both budget filmmaking and 'less is more' storytelling. Pretty awesome, and Nick Roddick loves it too.

Patrick Keiller's Robinson in Ruins complicates the ongoing debate of 2010 of whether or not 'Slow Cinema' is becoming a shorthand for empty, vacant works. Keiller's film is a progression from his other Robinson films, not only in the way its hypnotic celluloid textures seem to linger longer and longer as the film itself develops, but also in the hope it invests in non-human life forms as the future of the planet, an absurdly depressing investment if it weren't so irresistibly tongue-in-cheek.

Jorge Michel Grau's We Are What We Are just sneaks into this list above The Secret in Their Eyes because, if it's a less compelling film in the traditional sense, it seems more daring and interesting in its flaws. (The two aren't comparable in any sense other than that I loved them both.) Anyway, this is a great horror film, with sustained allegory about the hardships the nuclear family faces under the current economic crisis; we probably ought to prepare for an American version - I'd be happy for Matt Reeves to handle it, but would like Elias Koteas to feature more heavily than he did in Let Me In.

Last alphabetically and perhaps fittingly given that it's possibly (just possibly, mind) the best of these, Debra Granik's Winter's Bone is my sort of thriller - one that, despite its increasingly grim and dramatic content, develops without sentiment, as if the rather ordinary quest of a young, vulnerable girl to find her missing father is a Maguffin of sorts. I've read Granik's previous feature film, Down to the Bone, is in similar vein...

The year's best cult movie?

Thanks for the list - I respect your opinion more than you think. But:

I saw 1 movie this year (in a theater), and of course it was that popular 3D flick (which I only liked cuz the 3D was actually tasteful - tho the film itself was nothing special).

I need to get out more I guess.

Its bad when you can't even remember which one it was.

You mean It's (meaning it is, as a contraction; as opposed to the possessive case)

I didn't forget the name of the film, Einstein. Maybe reading between the lines is too much for you?

Capo, have to agree with you on the THIS IS ENGLAND 86 tv series. I thought it was pretty poor which was a shame after the film itself which was great!

Yeah Yogi, what's worse is I haven't read a single professional appraisal which hasn't given it two thumbs up.

Geoff, I wrote these thoughts on Avatar back in January 2010, after seeing it in 3D IMAX...

I thought it was visually overwhelming; the Pandora scenes will be remembered, but early on, when the humans are first exiting their cyrogenic tubes (??), the amount of attention paid to everywhere on screen is very impressive. As rewarding to the eyes as my favourite sci-fi film of this century, Solaris.

Late on, the epic fight had me completely immersed. I'll admit to that neck-hair-raising rush of adrenaline when Jakesully realises the entire planet is fighting in solidarity - it's as sweeping as anything in Battleship Potemkin or the 'battle of Carthage' in Gladiator.

This is a problematic romanticisation of "the Other" - and an infiltration of said Other - as a somehow inherently more peaceful race, a better place to live, despite being primitive and fairly hostile. It doesn't excuse or rebut the imperialism, and actually works to enhance it, because the primitive race is not represented honestly - it's got its own petty politics of personal sexual jealousy and male egos on collision courses. It's a product of self-projection, and as such is fairly implausible.

And yeah, the "good scientists vs. evil war-mongerers" aspect is quite generic, since the interrelation between progressive science and aggressive foreign policy is complex to say the least; the chosen line here seems to be a familiar paradox, that man's exploration of his surroundings, as a result of developing scientific methods, must be at the expense of more backward civilisations. I'm not sure how controversial that is.

The post-Bush line about, "We fight terror with terror" had me laughing. How far can we take Jakesully's rousing speech to The People, about how they can use their knowledge of their own land as an advantage to the advanced weaponry of the (pretty one-note) sky people, as a blatant caution thrown to the powers that be who are currently crusading a second illegal escalating failing imperialist war in Afghanistan?

I noticed quite early on, too, how the montages of The People in their world are almost exclusively accompanied by 'world music' - mostly African - and voiced by non-Caucasians (I hadn't seen a credits list before viewing, and I held my breath for "Wes Studi" to pop up at the end). This will be a major part of film and cultural studies courses as soon as the DVD comes out. It's an academic minefield, and there's plenty of ideas and material through which to plough.