AFI released its Top Ten films of the year- A fucking awesome list for everyone!

2010 was a REALLY good year of movies. The mainstream produced entertaining, though provoking movies about human beings. They weren’t art house elitist films or “the Shakespeare in Love” kind.

AFI produces some of the great filmmakers and cinematic thinkers in the United States and is considered the focal point for critical American analysis of cinema in the United States and are well respected abroad.

They’re greatest films of all time list is a lighting rod of debate and over and over I have to convince people it is indeed an important list.

I always tell my brother, “they’re the most IMPORTANT films, not the best.” Citizen Kane is certainly not the best film ever made. It is not the most entertaing or unique, but without it the progress of film as an art form would not have progressed the same way.

I could go on about this, but let’s get to the point…

The AFI lists remain a bit arbitrary and ethnocentric, but here is their greatest films (and shows) of 2010:

If you’re anything like me, you found the music kind of ridiculous…this isn’t Universal Studios Theme Park. But the list is quite accurate. I have not seen True Grit or Black Swan, but imagine they deserve the positions they have. What I was surprised about was that the films were actually really fucking mainstream, but in a good way.

Yes – it is indicative of the Academy Awards in some algorithm drawn up by aliens in outer-space that is then executed by highly intelligent canines – but really who cares abut the Academy Awards? Ever since they they went to ten nominees instead of five, I stopped caring as much. Social Network will win be tee dubs, it is the best film of the year.

I’m not going to mention movies missing from the list because frankly I haven’t seen two of the movies, so how would I know? What I WILL say is the list is more or less a masturbatory aid for the mainstream, which in my opinion, is awesome.

Mainstream movies NEED to be good. They need to prove to studios that the 10 to 40 million dollar Award-bait films are still a viable contender instead of ten comic book movies or the other side of the coin which is recognizing ten films no one has ever heard of before.

Or maybe I’ve becoming out of touch with what IS and ISN’T mainstream. Winter’s Bone seems the one most unassuming, but everything else seems pretty popular. Who knows?

Critics with huge audiences have the power to make films famous and get to a bigger audience. Winter’s Bone, a great movie, will finally get the credit it deserve. This is the magic of lists like this.

I think the list is pretty fucking perfect. Cool.

-Collin