The 2010 Paulies

Welcome to another edition of The Paulies…slightly delayed, as has been the case the past few years, by some work related issues. It has been almost a decade of the Paulies now, though those first magnificent tones of rabid semi-coherent criticism have been lost to history. In all that time I guess the “big change” has been that the Academy nominates ten films now…and this year I managed to see them all (Yay?). But, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sadly, more nominations does not equal more chances for a small or challenging movie to seizee victory. Before the show went on the air, everyone knew which films actually had a chance of winning (just look at who got the Best Director nominations...but really I didn’t read one analysis that thought anything but The King’s Speech or The Social Network even had a chance.) and which ones would have to content themselves with the joys of having their producers’ plastic smiles broadcast on an unwieldy split screen. At least the ten film format does give some extra exposure to the Winter’s Bones of the world but most of the field was still filled with mediocrities, and sub mediocrities, like The King’s Speech, Toy Story 3, and The Kids are All Right. Ah well, like I said, the more things change…

But fear not! As always, there were plenty of good films released in 2010. So fire up your Netflix queues, get your finger on the VOD button, and read on…