By Steve Persall
c. St. Petersburg Times
It seems somehow appropriate that 2010 in movies began with "Avatar's" 3-D dazzle and ends with the 3-D fizzle of "Yogi Bear."
All year we've watched the movie industry through rose-colored 3-D glasses, expecting the next spectacle that never came. Moviegoers are slowly catching on; while 3-D and Imax surcharges push box-office receipts over $10 billion again, the number of tickets sold in 2010 will actually decrease for the second time in three years.
Yet through the gloom of a so-so movie year, a few releases shone brightly. Many of them earned a spot on my top 10 list.
1. "Inside Job" -- Dissecting the causes of global economic meltdown an unholy alliance of Wall Street and Washington interests could become a rant or a bore. Charles Ferguson's refreshingly bipartisan approach makes you feel smarter (and angrier) for watching.
2. "Rabbit Hole" -- The accidental death of their young son leads a couple (Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart) on different paths of grieving. Rather than jerking tears, this finely tuned acting showcase focuses on the anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance of letting go. (Opens in January.)
3. "Alice in Wonderland" -- Director Tim Burton found a kindred, twisted spirit in Lewis Carroll, whose classic novel was never visualized so ingeniously before. Not only did this Alice (Mia Wasikowska) grow and shrink, she also matured into a Jane Austen-style heroine, adding layers to the fantasy that Carroll never dreamed.
4. "I Love You Phillip Morris" -- The year's best comedy, with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor boldly yet sweetly portraying lovers meeting in prison. The situations that result are a jaw-dropping mosh of "Catch Me If You Can" and "Brokeback Mountain," with Carrey's character doing anything illegal to keep his man, and each scam really happened.
5. "127 Hours" -- The true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), who was trapped under a boulder in a canyon for five days before amputating his arm to escape. Director Danny Boyle turned Ralston's isolation and dehydration into pulse-pounding drama, using flashbacks and hallucinations to explain Ralston's will to survive. Franco's performance is among the year's best.
6. "Blue Valentine" -- Love blooms quickly and wilts painfully in director Derek Cianfrance's autopsy of a relationship that never had a chance. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling deliver raw performances reminiscent of early John Cassavetes, with the tiniest gestures and pregnant pauses revealing the inevitable. (Opens in January.)
7. "Toy Story 3" -- A glorious farewell to the most consistently superb trilogy in movie history. Woody and Buzz cope with life after playtime, banished to a toy retirement home run with a fuzzy fist by 2010's top villain, Lotso the teddy bear. Surprises kept coming 15 years after the original.
8. "The Social Network" -- The creation of Facebook and the erosion of a soul. Whether or not David Fincher's movie gets either story straight, he created the most topical feature film in years. Jesse Eisenberg is a motor-mouthed revelation as whiz kid Mark Zuckerberg, whose financial triumph comes at the expense of love and friends, like a 21st-century Citizen Kane.
9. "Winter's Bone" -- The best fiction in theaters this year, an Ozarks gothic mystery set among backwoods meth labs and rattling family skeletons. Jennifer Lawrence delivered a breakout performance as Ree Dolly, a plucky teenager searching for her derelict father in a no-tell culture. Director Debra Granik creates a unique hick noir, with a story Stephen King may wish he wrote.
10. "The King's Speech" -- Impeccably written and performed, this movie leaves me like its stammering hero nearly at a loss for words. You won't find a better performance than Colin Firth's exquisitely measured role as a British monarch with a debilitating stammer, or a wittier turn than Geoffrey Rush's as his unorthodox therapist. Neither stuffy nor fluffy, "The King's Speech" has dimensions that don't require special glasses to see.