Overlooked Movies

Scott Mendelson posted an interesting list of overlooked 2010 movies at his blog. Mendelson is a capable, opinionated writer that I have mixed feelings about, because, like many of the other capable movie writers out there, from Manohla Dargis to Mike D'Angelo, from Glenn Kenny to Jeffrey Wells, he seems to lack any frame of reference whatsoever outside film and pop culture. But this is still a pretty good piece.

http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-in-review-good-movies-you-missed.html

Follow-up point: In my observation, not that this is surprising, book bloggers are a much more intellectually engaging lot than movie bloggers. The good book bloggers tend to be aware and informed about movies, all kinds of music, the visual arts, history, philosophy. It bothers me that movie writers are more closed-off. It could be that, for book bloggers, books function as a window onto the world; while for many movie writers, movies function as a mirror, reflecting their pre-existent enthusiasms back at them. This is not the fault of the movies themselves, of course, but it is an unfortunate tendency in discourse about the movies.