Michelle's Top 10 of '10: Part 2

5. Kites 

Technically, Kites is a Bollywood film, though with its mix of Hindi, Spanish and English, it's not so obvious. And almost by absolute necessity as a Bollywood export, this film is also a love story. But before you start to draw assumptions, let me straighten this out: this is not your typical Bollywood love story. OK, yes, it's overly dramatic and highly unlikely and at times, predictable, but it's really a film about true love to the nth degree in all it's purity and commitment. It's the odd film that comes along every so often to quench the thirst of hopelessly romantic cinefilles. The love between Jay (Hrithik Roshan) and Natasha (Barbara Mori) is so real and palpable that the film goes to surreal extremes to express it. Let me put it this way. This film is depicts true love in the most humanly way: it shows us what really happens when your heart explodes.

4. Splice

Science is frightening. Not just because I'm not very good at it, but because of the outcomes it can yield. In the case of Splice, that's a cross-human hybrid: a creature that loves and learns and feels, just like we do, though is not quite like us. This film is about boundaries and where exactly those boundaries exist. In this, it brings into question what exactly it means to be human - or not. It's an extremely unnerving film. It's disturbing and terrifying, though beautiful in it's ability to prod us with questions: Should this creature exist? Is this an experiment? Or has this become a relationship? Is this a being that needs to be loved? Or should this creature be killed? And where exactly did we cross the point of no return? 

3. Chloe

If you're on the fence about Amanda Seyfried, Chloe can almost surely set you straight (though may do the opposite sexuality-wise). I'm not sure I can describe her role better than I have before:

"Chloe is a spider. She weaves together a strangely sticky, embroidered web between relationships, imagination and suspicions, inviting unsuspecting prey to step foot in her domain, but along the way, gets caught herself. Seyfried is chilling as the closely-shadowing weaver. She's convincing and expressive as Chloe, who we see as old beyond her years but not hardened. She's fragile but brazen."

Working with Seyfried are the also brilliant Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore, tightening dramatic tension throughout the entire film until it's ready to snap.

2. Nowhere Boy

This John Lennon biopic is about the Beatles, despite what you may have heard. Can you honestly say that a film about one-half of possibly the greatest song-writing duo ever, who wrote the majority of The Beatles' songs, making them an international phenomenon, is not a film about the Beatles? But Beatles fans aside, what makes this film engaging is the whirlwind of confusing and dramatic family dynamics in Lennon's (Aaron Johnson) life in the midst of his adolescent, although mature, life. It's not really a film about the music (though there are a few scenes that hint at the brilliance to come), it's a film about the fragments that made the man who made the music. You do not need to be a Beatles fan to love this film (though I admit, it does help), you just need a taste for family secrets, hidden lives and watching loved ones break each others' hearts.

1. Inception

I like to think. And Inception is a film for those who hobby thinking: For those who stay up late at night in bed running through what ifs, hows and whys, this film is just for you. There is so much at work in this film that helps to create such a beautiful masterpiece that maybe I should just spew it all out: talented ensemble cast, gorgeous cinematography, brilliantly layered narrative, stunning visual effects... If you're asking for more, you're insane. While the world we see in this film is like a puzzle, the film itself a set of fragmented shards that fit together perfectly, though welcomes the viewer to pick them apart.

All photos: allmoviephoto.com

DVD: Splice

Photo: amazon.com

Starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. Directed by Vincenzo Natali. 104 minutes. 18A

Hmm. Odd. Interesting. Very interesting. Splice is a strange film. Its very hypothetical, as all sci-fi films are, but also very relevant and chilling in its possibilities.

Splice tells the story of two biochemists who are also a couple. Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) and Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) are experimenting with the DNA of various animals in attempt to develop cures for diseases, including cancer. Along the way, they create two slug-like new lifeforms by mixing animal DNA. They name them Fred and Ginger. While they continue to study their mushy friends, they begin working on a side project, a side project that their company has forbidden them to work on and for obvious reasons. The couple combine the hybrid-animal DNA with human DNA to create yet another new creature. That's when the lines between ethics, legalities and relationships become blurred and the mess begins to snowball.

Should this creature exist? Is this an experiment? Or has this become a relationship? Is this a being that needs to be loved? Or should this creature be killed? And where exactly did they cross the point of no return? These are all questions Splice asks and dances around but is never really meant to answer. It's rather to get the audience thinking these things as Elsa and Clive come to terms with them.

The subject isn't the only quirky part of this film, so are both the lead characters and their relationship. They're obsessive, workaholic scientists with an undying love for each other. They like to eat candy and listen to heavy rock while they work, occasionally sprinkled with some lip action. In their own odd way, they seem like a modern fairytalesque couple.

By far the strangest parts in this film are the sex scenes. Without giving too much away, they are all very awkward and somehow wrong yet hard to turn away from. You want them to happen as much as you don't want them to happen.

This film was also tagged as a horror but it's not exactly. It does have many horror elements but only a very short portion of the film could actually be considered "horror." Instead, the most horrifying thing about the film is the thought that scientists somewhere are creating new organisms. Sometimes they just die but other times they're killed, loved, nurtured, cloned, bred... who really knows. It's strange to think about that world you will probably never have access to.

That's what makes this film so intriguing. It pulls you into a hypothetical world of genetic science and lets you explore, knowing that for now, you don't have to venture into the real horrors of the biochemical world yourself. But it reminds you that they exist and may one day escape. A-

DVD EXTRAS: Featurette with Vincenzo Natali

Michelle's Top 5 of Summer '10

For me, this summer was all about trippy films, be it 3D, mind games or lab experiments gone wrong in every way. Most times it was about being charmed by a beautiful idea, but sometimes it just felt good to be a little girl again. It was like a unconventional summer stay-cation, visiting times and concepts and oddities. Don't forget to pack your thinker!

5) Toy Story 3

Definitely one of the most anticipated films of the summer, led-up to with Toy Story and its sequel and brought back to theatres in 3D. The first two successful films weren't originally done in 3D and it seemed kind of risky to put the third out in 3D given all the major 3D failures lately. It's just that much sweeter when a film rocks it against doubts. But this film couldn't have done it for me without Barbie (Jodi Benson) and Ken (Michael Keaton), cracking jokes about Ken's all too obvious unmanliness and his destined love with Barbie.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

4) Despicable Me

Steve Carell and Jason Segel is more than enough to sell a film but when it comes to kids films, we expect something corny, especially when it's about a two supposed evil masterminds and three chipmunk-cheeked little girls selling cookies. Doesn't leave much room for jokes for the parents but for those of us who are still secretly a five-year-old version of ourselves, this film was just right. I mean, come on, silly faces and sounds are still funny.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

3) Mr. Nobody

This film was all about possibilities. What could have been? What was? They're both meshed in this film. It's an idea so limitless-ly fulfilling that it's depressing, if that even makes sense. Not that it's easy to understand much of the film itself. It's a futuristic utopian/dystopian film set to make us appreciate the way we live our lives right now, but also reminding us of the choices we've had in our own lives. In other words, it's a film for those who hobby thinking.

Photo: teaser-trailer.com

2) Splice

This film's beauty was in its unpredictability. Like Mr. Nobody, the film played with a utopian/dystopian idea: What if we could create animal-human hybrids? The results were repulsive, sweet, terrifying and sexy. This idea was intertwined with the story of a young couple going through their young couple woes but totally shaken up by this new being in their lives. In simplest terms, this film is very, very weird and discomforting. But some of us love that kind of thing.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

1) Inception

How awesome is it when your most anticipated film of the summer actually meets your expectations? Come on. Who doesn't want to a see a film set in imaginations of stunningly unfamiliar worlds where the earth can fold over above or people can die but don't really die or where you can pry through others' thoughts? Just wow. Beautiful idea, great execution and a cast that fits almost seamlessly together. What more could you ask for? And not that I'm an Ellen Page fan but I like to root for my Canadians and this film seemed like a step, albeit a baby step, away from her usual troubled teenager role and into the clever college student role. Who knows, maybe next we'll see her a struggling young adult.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

Splice

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

(Hmm...)

Starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. Directed by Vincenzo Natali. 104 minutes. 18A

Hmm. Odd. Interesting. Very interesting. Splice is a strange film. Its very hypothetical, as all sci-fi films are, but also very relevant and chilling in its possibilities.

Splice tells the story of two biochemists who are also a couple. Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) and Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) are experimenting with the DNA of various animals in attempt to develop cures for diseases, including cancer. Along the way, they create two slug-like new lifeforms by mixing animal DNA. They name them Fred and Ginger. While they continue to study their mushy friends, they begin working on a side project, a side project that their company has forbidden them to work on and for obvious reasons. The couple combine the hybrid-animal DNA with human DNA to create yet another new creature. That's when the lines between ethics, legalities and relationships become blurred and the mess begins to snowball.

Should this creature exist? Is this an experiment? Or has this become a relationship? Is this a being that needs to be loved? Or should this creature be killed? And where exactly did they cross the point of no return? These are all questions Splice asks and dances around but is never really meant to answer. It's rather to get the audience thinking these things as Elsa and Clive come to terms with them.

The subject isn't the only quirky part of this film, so are both the lead characters and their relationship. They're obsessive, workaholic scientists with an undying love for each other. They like to eat candy and listen to heavy rock while they work, occasionally sprinkled with some lip action. In their own odd way, they seem like a modern fairytalesque couple.

By far the strangest parts in this film are the sex scenes. Without giving too much away, they are all very awkward and somehow wrong yet hard to turn away from. You want them to happen as much as you don't want them to happen.

This film was also tagged as a horror but it's not exactly. It does have many horror elements but only a very short portion of the film could actually be considered "horror." Instead, the most horrifying thing about the film is the thought that scientists somewhere are creating new organisms. Sometimes they just die but other times they're killed, loved, nurtured, cloned, bred... who really knows. It's strange to think about that world you will probably never have access to.

That's what makes this film so intriguing. It pulls you into a hypothetical world of genetic science and lets you explore, knowing that for now, you don't have to venture into the real horrors of the biochemical world yourself. But it reminds you that they exist and may one day escape. A-