2011 The Year in movies
By Matt Goldberg
Between festivals and theatrical releases, I saw over 100 new films this year. Some were awful, some were good, and some were mediocre. And then there were the movies that stayed with me, and more importantly, held up on repeat viewings. This year, I got to attend major festivals and received “For Your Consideration” screeners, which made it easier to double-check movies I enjoyed. The movies on my Top Ten list became better on repeat viewings, and I look forward to watching them again and again.
10. HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
Hobo with a Shotgun felt like it was made to appeal directly to my sick sense of humor. The movie is nothing but sheer, unadulterated madness, but director Jason Eisener brings a method to it. There’s a surprising level of creativity in how tasteless it can be, and there’s an art to making a good bad movie. Eisener also had the sense to provide some semblance of sanity to the picture by casting Rutger Hauer as the hobo. Hauer brought a melancholy, angry justice to the story, and while it didn’t make Hobo a serious drama, it kept the balance required to make the movie a delightfully twisted and unhinged schlockfest.
9. HORRIBLE BOSSES
This year saw more than its fair share of R-rated comedies, but Horrible Bosses was the champion. The movie held-up on repeat viewings because it has the off-handed one-liners that sneak through on the first go-round. Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis had tremendous chemistry and watching them bounce lines off each other as their characters argued added so much to the movie. The flick also gave Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston a chance to play against type and both delivered in spades. A great comedy.
8. ATTACK THE BLOCK
2011 also saw far too many alien-invasion flicks. The best one didn’t have the big-name stars, a bloated special effects budget, or a fetish about hiding the design of its alien. Instead, Attack the Block gave a bunch of teenage hoodlums a chance not to save the world, but to save their apartment building and do so with whatever non-age-restricted weapons they had in their closets. While other alien invasion flicks built up to a whole lot of nothing with their alien designs, director Joe Cornish came up with a simple, iconic monster that audiences won’t soon forget. Throw in a killer score, thrilling action and a willingness to off major characters, and Attack the Block is one of the best sci-fi action flicks in years.
7. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2
Harry Potter really is one major story with one central hero destined to battle with a single arch-nemesis. The question with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was whether or not director David Yates would stick the landing, and the answer turned out to be, “Hell, yes!” The movie is action-packed, but it still finds time for the beautiful character moments that have put the series far above all imitators. The final installment didn’t coast on what had come before. Deathly Hallows – Part 2 expertly delivered excitement, joy, and heartbreak. It’s a grand finale that’s truly grand.
6. HANNA
At first glance, Hanna seemed like it was a bit outside the wheelhouse of director Joe Wright, whose previous efforts were the Oscar-baiting dramas Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist. But Wright proved his brilliant and inventive direction could just as easily turn out a kick-ass action flick. He used his long-take technique and created a brilliant set piece of Eric Bana taking down CIA agents. His energetic editing and use of sound were right at home when applied to pulse-pounding fights scenes. But the masterstroke was casting the story as a dystopian fairy tale, which turned Hanna into a strange, offbeat, and unforgettable flick that’s so much more than a simple action movie.
5. BEGINNERS
I didn’t much care for acclaimed relationship dramas like Bellflower and Like Crazy. Beginners blew these films away by drawing distinct characters going through complex emotions that translate into something every audience member can appreciate. It earns the emotional payoff rather than stealing it from the viewer. You don’t have to be a 75-year-old man who has just come out of the closet to relate to the character. We can relate not only because of Christopher Plummer‘s tremendous performance, but because writer-director Mike Mills understood that love isn’t contained simply to resentment or longing. Beginners goes far beyond by jumping around time, memories, tangents, relationships and the result is a movie that understands and appreciates love for the beautiful mess it is.
4. RAMPART
Writer-director Oren Moverman proves that he’s not only an amazing visual storyteller, but his stories shatter our expectations. Just as The Messenger wasn’t the same tired “PTSD Soldier” story, Rampart turns the corrupt cop film inside out. Officer Dave “Date Rape” Brown is a dirty cop, but he knows it and he believes his place in the universe is to soak up mankind’s sins and deal out the retribution we secretly want. Rampart holds a deeply cynical social critique and wraps it in a fascinating character study. Woody Harrelson’s captivating performance works hand-in-glove with Moverman’s thoughtful direction, and then the glove balls up into a fist and punches you in the solar plexus.
3. PROJECT NIM
Chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky was taught sign language so he could “speak” with humans. James Marsh‘s documentary about Nim speaks to our humanity. It shows our selfishness and selflessness, our ignorance and intelligence, our indifference and compassion. Nim was taught how to sign so we could get inside his head and gain a greater understanding of language. Project Nim ingeniously bounces the experiment back onto Nim’s caretakers, and sends the audience on an emotional roller coaster. The film knows when to add stylistic flourishes, when to use a dramatization and most importantly, when the file footage or interview doesn’t need any embellishment. Nim’s story could have made for an interesting magazine feature, but Marsh transformed it into an emotionally devastating and thought-provoking powerhouse.
2. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
In his remarkable debut feature, writer-director Sean Durkin doesn’t miss a beat in trapping his audience in a razorblade cage that cuts beneath the skin with every creepy, horrifying, and all-too-real moment. Martha Marcy May Marlene convincingly terrifies us by showing the fragility of our sanity and how our minds can become warped not through brute force, but by pulling at the threads of our identity. Elizabeth Olsen fearlessly shows us a psyche that has been ripped to shreds, John Hawkes quietly shows us the disturbing power to destroy that psyche, and both actors do it with unwavering honesty. I saw Martha Marcy May Marlene back in January. It’s still under my skin.
1. DRIVE
Drive is a movie you could analyze frame-by-frame and find something new every time, but you can still enjoy gliding across the slick, cool surface. Every single moment holds our full attention. Director Nicolas Winding Refn provides a master class in how to say everything with an actor’s glance, a well-placed shot, an inspired music cue, and a perfectly-timed cut. There’s not a wasted frame, and not once does it feel like Refn is showing off. Rather than celebrate his own cleverness, Refn allows the audience to revel in a taut car chase, the coolness of the ‘80s vibe, the shockingly gruesome violence, but none of it is shallow or overblown. Drive reminds us that it’s not enough to simply be cool or detached or heroic. There’s a price. There’s a sacrifice. There is no bonus, no pat on the head, no riding off into the sunset with the girl. The best film noir present a character with a simple choice that will test their souls, and through his or her actions we question our own limits when faced against people with less virtue and more power. It’s the choice between what is easy and what is right. Drive is film noir at its best, and it’s the best film of 2011.
* * * *
THE YEAR IN MOVIES: A SECOND OPINION
by Steve Warren
Blame it on the economy, but Death is a common thread in my top ten favorite films of 2011. Oh, some are genre films, and you expect a body count in westerns (Rango) and crime movies (Drive, The Guard); but terminal illnesses drive the plots of The Descendants and 50/50, an accidental death sets Cedar Rapids in motion, and Poetry and Into the Abyss explore the justice (or lack of it) meted out to young men who caused deaths. The hero of Midnight in Paris travels back in time and sees people who are now dead, and The Artist is about the death of silent films and one actor’s career.
Happy New Year! Note however that at least half those films are comedies, however dark.
2011 will be remembered for the emergence of Jessica Chastain, who came out of nowhere to appear in five major films, often in leading roles. Her five performances are no match, however, for this year’s three by Ryan Gosling, whose body of work, to paraphrase one of his films, looks like it’s been Photoshopped.
The award for the worst way to follow an Oscar win goes to Natalie Portman, whose career took a Black Swan dive within weeks of the ceremony with Thor, Your Highness and No Strings Attached.
It’s too soon to call it a trend (twice is a coincidence, three times a trend) but I wonder if we’ll see more masturbatus interruptus scenes of family members walking in on bathroom monkey-spanking like in Shame and We Need to Talk about Kevin.
Missing from my list are arty films like The Tree of Life and Melancholia that critics are supposed to pretend to like, while praying no one asks them to explain them; and Martin Scorsese’s overblown, underconnected Hugo.
If that doesn’t cement my lowbrow status, I consider 2011 notable for the low-budget sci-fi/horror films it gave us. Attack the Block, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and TrollHunter brought back memories of Roger Corman’s heyday, while Another Earth is a classier marvel (though not as classy as Melancholia, with which it shares a key visual effect).
I can’t say I was sorry to see the Harry Potter series end, but I’ll be happier next year to get Twilight over with. After a promising beginning, it’s gone steadily and rapidly downhill.
It was a year for May-December casting. By the time Glenn Close got to do her dream project, Albert Nobbs, she was half again the age of the character she was playing, which makes it creepy when “he” woos a woman half his age – or one third Close’s age. Michelle Pfeiffer only had to knock off five years to tell Zac Efron, “I’m twice your age!” when he kissed her in New Year’s Eve. And Johnny Depp is twice as old as the representation of Hunter S. Thompson he plays in The Rum Diary.
Although I consider it a weaselly copout when someone else does it, I’m alphabetizing my Top Ten this year. There just isn’t one that stands out for me as the year’s best picture
TOP TEN (alphabetical)
The Artist
Cedar Rapids
The Descendants
Drive
50/50
The Guard
Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life
Midnight in Paris
Poetry
Rango
HONORABLE MENTION (alphabetical)
Another Earth
Attack the Block
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hanna
Horrible Bosses
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
War Horse
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