Recently, I managed to find a theater that was showing The King’s Speech, which I’ve wanted to see for quite a long time. In short, one of my favorite films of 2010, and in many years.
TDIT briefly killed Steve Martin. But he Twain’d his way back into existence. You really had me worried there for a second, TDIT. 
It was recently revealed that a number of abandoned and forgotten movie sites are still up and running, practically untouched since being coded over a decade ago. Chief among them was the Space Jam site which still features very terrible interactive games. This prompted a group of people that I know to livestream the film for nostalgic purposes and some good old fashioned MST3K-style riffing. And as it turns out the movie’s bad rep is greatly over exaggerated.
The live action players put in more than serviceable work. More established folks like Wayne Knight and Bill Murray seem to be having fun with their roles. We see a lot more life from Murray here than we hear in his voice work from Garfield, leading one to believe that this movie took place before the heavy cynicism set in for the actor/comedian. The basketball players, including Jordan himself, pull out better performances than whatever the heck the athletes were trying to achieve in the average episode of DC’s The Jersey. They seem to be having more fun with their roles than even the people who see it as their day job and that makes the movie that much more enjoyable.
As for the animated players, well, this is where the movie falls apart. One wouldn’t be too off the mark for thinking that if they had put in original creations instead of beloved favorites the movie would be held in higher esteem (though not much more) although a bit less popular and financially successful. The Looney Tunes just aren’t themselves. The voice work feels like pale imitations of the Tunes themselves. I still don’t care much for Billy West as Bugs Bunny as I can hear a bit too much Fry from Futurama in his performance and Dee Bradley Baker turns in the poorest version of Daffy Duck I’ve ever had someone try to pass off on me. It doesn’t take a genius to realize why Joe Alaskey is the current heir to the throne in that regard, and it still remains to be seen how Bergman will pull off the voice. Other voice actors have since grown more comfortable with their roles as the Tunes or have been swapped for better ones. So it seems like I’m not the only one who thinks they didn’t pass muster.
The Tunes never felt all that funny. The jokes seemed a bit forced. The addition of Lola Bunny was nice, because the Tunes were long overdue for a more active female role, but since she doesn’t do anything funny and never progresses past infallible chick love interest she’s pretty much a waste. I’d rather have no females than a bland one. The riffs on pop culture seemed more Seltzer-Friebergian than Jones/Clampettian.
The gaping holes in logic felt more lazy than cartoonish and were actually more unintentionally funny than straight out funny. How did the Tunes get wrapped up in some arbitrary deal over freedom through a basketball game in the first place? And why did they agree to it? And why do the rules keep changing? It reminds me of the classic Futurama episode “Time Keeps On Slippin’” which was more than likely inspired by the incredible absurdity that is the premise to Space Jam right down to trash-talking aliens challenging Earth to unprovoked b-ball contest and a race of mutated super-ringers who rise to the call.
The gaps in logic continue when in the third act when Jordan realizes that things operate by cartoon physics in the Looney Tunes world. Why it happens when it happens and not earlier in the film when it was plainly apparent to even a child is baffling to a large degree and another mark against the film. It’s a deus ex machina that couldn’t even be bothered to be a real deus. Might as well just call it a dude ex machina for its pure laziness.
As for the combination of LA/animation, it had been several years since the development of Roger Rabbit and the effects here seem like they’re just barely a step past Cool World. I often had a hard time believing that the live-action elements and animated elements occupied the same space. This is really a minor issue though because the animated elements work really well by themselves, something I can’t say for Cool World.
When a joke works, it really works, like the odd innuendo between Patrick Ewing and a Freudian knock-off psychiatrist, or Barkley getting his butt handed to him by a group of ten year-olds, or pretty much anything with Murray, especially his final line “LET’S GO BULLS!”
Sure, the inspiration for this film was a bit anemic to be sure, a series of Looney Tunes/Michael Jordan ads for Nike. But Tim Burton was able to pull out something kind of wonderful from a pack of bubblegum cards, so I don’t think source material is an excuse.
All in all, the movie doesn’t quite reach the festering depths of Cool World. It’s more entertaining than Back in Action, which had a more promising cast and crew and more comfortable Tunes but was a disappointment because of that very thing. Come on, Dante, you’re better than that. So I think much of the negative hype this thing gets is much undeserved.
Special mention goes to the music by James Newton Howard. While not as classic or memorable as the Silver Age Warner Bros. television series running at the same time, he captured the spirit of Stalling quite well.
Space Jam get a C-. Congrats, kid, you passed phys ed. But just barely.
The King’s Speech: A-
Though it feels deliberately Oscar bait-ish at times, it’s an excellent, funny, engaging, and relatable film with excellent acting.
And now for my 2010 movie rankings…
- Toy Story 3
- The Social Network
- Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
- The King’s Speech
- Inception
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Tron: Legacy
- Despicable Me
I wish I could make a top 10 list now, but there are a few films of 2010 I have yet to see, namely True Grit, Winter’s Bone, The Kids Are All Right, The Social Network, Black Swan, The Illusionist, Shutter Island and 127 Hours. I’m lucky for living in a major city, but I’m sort of wasting my resources! Heh. Then there’s the foreign films that won’t be available for a little while. I JUST found out that one of my favorite Korean directors released another movie.
Anyway, here’s my short list as it stands now:
- Toy Story 3
- Exit Through the Gift Shop
- Mother (I think this is generally regarded as a 2010 film for Americans)
- Inception
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Waking Sleeping Beauty
- Tangled
- Furry Vengeance (okay… this one’s a joke)
I didn’t see a lot of non-animated movies in 2010, but here’s my list
- Toy Story 3
- Tangled
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Kick-Ass
- Yogi Bear
- Despicable Me
Gah, I must have been thinking of Leslie Nielsen. Don’t know how I confused the two.
What does the term ‘Twain’ed’ mean and where did it come from, aerostarmonk?
Anyway, I still have a few movies from 2010 to watch before I make my Top Ten. Maybe I’ll do an audio/written summary before the Oscars. 
I’m hoping to see Black Swan, 127 Hours, and The Fighter eventually, but for now my top 10 is:
- Inception (Christopher Nolan)
- The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper)
- Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (David Yates)
- How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders)
- Easy A (Will Gluck)
- Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn)
- True Grit (Ethan and Joel Coen)
- The Social Network (David Fincher)
- Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud)
That would be great!
I think you might have actually meant John Candy who also appeared in the film and died almost 2 decades ago. So the confusion is understood if that’s the case.
‘Twain’ed’ is in reference to this quote by Samuel Clemens, “The report of my death has been an exaggeration.”
As stated in the wikipedia article on premature obituaries:
I’d love to hear that top ten podcast. I’d do one myself but I’m much too shy and I tend to bungle my words when I speak aloud.
Here’s my list of 2010’s top films (Tangled will be in there somewhere, but I have not yet seen it):
1.How to Train Your Dragon
2.Inception
3. Toy Story 3
4.My Name Is Khan
5.Despicable Me
6.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Here’s my list:
-
Toy Story 3
2- Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Inception
- The Social Network
- Black Swan
- Kick-Ass
- Shutter Island
- Tangled
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Piranha 3-D
- The Crazies (2010)
…and my least favorites:
- The Last Airbender
- When in Rome (trust me, I’m from Rome, so I know)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
- Furry Vengeance
- Nanny McPhee Returns
-
Alice in Wonderland (2010) (yet it’s nominated for Golden Globes’ Best Picture
) - Clash of the Titans (2010)
- Camp Rock 2
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- Shrek Forever After
Honorable mentions:
Devil didn’t make my worst list because it’s so hillariously bad that it’s super entertaining. I haven’t seen 127 Hours or Black Swan yet, the latter I would kill to see…I mean it (one day, Black Swan, I will watch you).
EDIT: I saw Black Swan, and it was awesome. 
The Lion King A+
Timon and Pumbaa drove me crazy, but overall an excellent movie.
K9Girl: Aww, you didn’t like Timon?
Actually, he wasn’t really that bad. Pumbaa was the one that really drove me crazy. 
I’ll be honst, I didn’t like him much, either! I hate fart jokes.
Amen, sister! I could do without fart/burp/general flatulence jokes in animated films. The only one I found hilarious was the pelican in Finding Nemo, but that had class for a fart joke.
Chuckles, I thought Diary of a Wimpy Kid was pretty cute for what it was.
I still don’t get the love for Kick-Ass. All my friends are crazy about it. Sure, it was an entertaining film. But frankly it wimped out on its premise 30 minutes into the plot and became rather toothless by the end.
There should never be a day where a Mark Millar comic is more realistic than the film based off of it.
It went from, “Hey, what would superheroes be like in the real world?” to “Hey, forget what I asked. Here’s a low-budget spoof of Spider-Man”.
I still don’t have a top ten list. But when I do come up with one, feel free to blast it full of holes. I mean, I have some seriously terrible taste in films.
I enjoyed Rise of Cobra and 2012 more than I did Up or District 9 last year. And I still think that Inglourious Basterds and Coraline were robbed at the Globes and Oscars.
So, my opinion is kinda worthless.
I nod my head in agreement at the second sentence but cringe that you liked Rise of Cobra (haven’t seen 2012), especially more so than the other two films mentioned. But I’m not big on the action genre, so…
I have yet to see Megamind, Tangled, Inception, or anything else. But here’s what I did see.
1.) How to Train Your Dragon <3
2.) Toy Story 3
3.) Despicable Me
4.) HP7: Part 1 
Rise is pure cheese that has JGL and Christopher Eccleston as villains. They seemed to be having fun doing what they did instead of just phoning in performances for paychecks. And the movie didn’t ask much of me and never pretended to be anything other than what it was.
2012 was just ridiculous. The disaster movie to end all disaster movies. It’s just becomes hilarious if you think of it as a indirect sequel to Grosse Pointe Blank where Cusack’s character has went into Witness Protection but somehow gained the unfortunate ability to kill anyone who ticks him off and can’t control it. And if you’ve seen the latter film, you know pretty much everyone ticks him off. Pretty much avoid Cusack next year if you want to live past Dec. 21.
I found Up entertaining but overly emotionally manipulative. I was baffled as I sat stone-faced through “Married Life” while everyone in the world was proclaiming it the most emotional sequence of the new Millenium thus far. I also think Giacchino put in better work with his duties on Star Trek.
D9 was a movie that didn’t know what it wanted to be. It had a muddled message and confusing transitions in tone and cinematography and plot holes aplenty. The only thing that really saved it for me was its special effects and the great performance by Copley who was also robbed of at the the big awards shows. The movie was far from deserving best of the year and even further from being really deep hard science-fiction.
’
Don’t get me wrong. I liked these films a lot. I just enjoyed the other two more. There were no expectations, no hype and they didn’t seem to be full of themselves.
The films that I think actually tried to push the boundaries of mainstream cinema were all but left in the dust. Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Inglourious Basterds
And I swear, if Inception wins the Academy I’m going to scream. Give Nolan an Oscar when he can put together a decent third act.
Geez. I think I’ve just become the Armond White of Pixar Planet.
Guys, the Herzogian influence of Up is hampered by its fall back on Lucasian formula.