The Fighter and Blue Valentine, also True Grit and Somewhere

Mark Wahlberg takes quite a beating as he makes amazing comebacks in The Fighter, a film with the momentum of an oncoming train. This movie is clearly one of the top films of 2010. Another one is Blue Valentine, with outstanding performances by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. This is a love story that goes real sour, but the editing keeps the connections between this couple very close in time as you watch the movie, so that a budding love scene might be followed closely by one quite the opposite. The flashbacks seem quirky at first, but once in the rhythm, the film becomes fluid - loving and wrenching, and thoroughly engaging. Another good movie is True Grit. I did not find this movie as gripping or as entertaining as No Country For Old Men, but still found it clearly worth the ticket. Now, I'm not so sure about Somewhere. I had to see it because of Sofia Coppola, but in a few words, not much happens. As my movie mate said after it was over, every place is somewhere, and that sums it up for me.