NEW JACK CITY: Top Movie Picks For 2010

 We shoveled a lot of Tinseltown’s manure earlier this week which made some of you wonder whether I’ve lost that lovin’ feeling and gotten grumpy.

Jaded? Maybe. Grumpy? Not so much. I still know what I like and what stinks.

What’s good and what blows.

To prove my point I proudly submit my top 10 picks of favorite movies during the past year.

This time, the criteria is that I attended the particular screening going in expecting just another movie. Instead I was MORE than just pleasantly surprised by the picture’s all-around entertainment value!

First runner-up at # 11—THE GHOST WRITER—Roman Polanski’s political thriller of sexual intrigue starred Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrell, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton and Eli Wallach.

If you’re among the many who missed this film during its limited release in Kansas City, be sure to check it out on DVD.

# 10: DESPICABLE ME—A terrific good vs. evil animated feature for all ages.

# 9: CONVICTION—Hilary Swank’s best performance since MILLION DOLLAR BABY and Sam Rockwell worthy of a best supporting actor nomination as her wrongly convicted brother.

# 8: IRON MAN 2—Worthy sequel with Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Mickey Rourke delivering above expectations!

# 7: THE KING’S SPEECH—Colin Firth as King George VI with speech malfunction nails it. Meanwhile Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist is great. Both should and WILL be nominated for Oscars!

# 6: THE FIGHTER—Definitely not your typical boxing movie. Way better! Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams and especially Christian Bale were TERRIFIC!

# 5: SECRETARIAT—Diane Lane and John Malkovich in a great story / great movie! It deserved to do a whole lot better than it did at the box office. Excellent DVD rental.

# 4: TOY STORY 3—Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and PIXAR. Brought me to tears at the end while Disney was laughing all the way to the bank.

# 3: THE TOWN—Best police action/bank robber thriller in ages! Ben Affleck on top of his game as both actor and director.

# 2: THE SOCIAL NETWORK—Jesse Eisenberg IS Mark Zuckerberg here! Longest script of the year: 184 pages which translates into a lot of ‘talk’ on the screen—but it’s fascinating talk plus great ensemble casting including Justin Timberlake who’s getting better with each picture in which he appears.

And my favorite movie of 2010?

# 1 in MY book: The Coen brother’s TRUE GRIT starring Jeff Bridges as ‘Rooster Cogburn’ with Hailee Steinfeld terrific as ‘Mattie Ross.’

These 11 movies made up for a whole lot of soul searching of why I’m spending all this time in darkened screening rooms sitting through hours upon hours of mind numbing celluloid.

So how did I do?

Let me know if we’re on the same page when it came to the good movies of 2010.

And thanks for reading me here on KCCONFIDENTIAL.COM and listening to Jack Goes To The Movies on KMBZ, KUDL, KXTR and Time-Warner Cable’s K.C. ON DEMAND.