Very bad year for movies - at least when you’re as movie-jaded as I am.
I think the most fun I had was probably Rise of the Planet of the Apes - though it’s not really that good. Tin Tin was another above average film.
Drive was not bad, but the hype surrounding it made me expect more. To me, it’s style-over-substance more than anything.
Wow, I’ve seen quite a few movies this year! Thanks for the link. I’m still working on my list but will post soon.
Wait, was King’s Speech this year or last year? Because Wikipedia has it listed for this year, but I can’t remember.
Ah, I see. This year was the PG version (re)release with no fucks in it. Ha, ha!
Well, fuck that!
Or should I say, “F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f fuck that.”
You should. It was a cowardly move that can be dismissed as selling out.
I’ve had great difficulty culling a collection of films from 2011. I’m glad jerri didn’t say she had 10 movies in mind, because I don’t have a nice neat list like that.
I do, however, have a clear picture of which two films were my favorites, though I’ll note now that I have not yet seen Hugo, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Queen to Play, My Week With Marilyn, The Artist, Hesher, Mission Impossible, or Young Adult; and I am using 2011 US theatrical release as my criterion for inclusion. For the Tom Chicks among us, even though I’ve avoided anything more than mild spoilers, it would be best only to scan titles if you haven’t seen the movies yet.
Copie Conforme [Certified Copy] - A day’s trilingual conversation, dedicated to M-m-m-m-marie. When a new art house theater opened here in Austin earlier this year, they premiered with this film. I had no clue what it was, & there’s a charm in its reveal quite like that of Midnight in Paris, if not so dramatic, but I won’t say too much about it here because of that. It can be safely compared to Before Sunrise/Sunset, and I can also tell you who he & she are. She is Juliette Binoche, still every bit as lovely as she ever was, and I notice another parallel to Midnight in Paris in the way she & Marion Cotillard embody a very romantic ideal of beauty, charm, & sentimentality. He is William Shimell, a stage actor until this film, who both looks like Richard Dawkins and speaks with the same accent, distinction & charisma.
The Muppets - I am a die-hard Muppet fan (I sang The Muppet Show theme at a karaoke bar a couple nights ago), so needless to say my hopes & expectations were through the roof, and I was still overjoyed with what I saw. It truly is the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational film I’ve seen all year, and I’ve been singing the songs ever since. I’m pretty sure QT3 has already seen it, but if you haven’t, go see it. There hasn’t been a film like this I can wholeheartedly recommend to literally anyone since Toy Story. Oh, and it gave us a new place to put Fox News: on our Moopet list.
I’ll carry on now in no particular order, except the similarity of this next one.
Winnie the Pooh - If the Muppets are the great breakers of the fourth wall, then Winnie-the-Pooh is the only bear I know who can do it equally well. Here is a tale of the Hundred-Acre Wood every bit as charming as the original A.A. Milne stories & the Disney animated classic. We Ursinian scholars rejoiced at this return to form. One friend of mine even went so far as to go see this instead of Harry Potter the day they both debuted. (For those not aware, Winnie-the-Pooh has been the subject of a great deal of literary criticism, about half of it postmodern nonsense, but the rest is lovely satire of the first half.)
Incendies - Another multilingual thriller featuring a [female, even] mathematician as one of its protagonists for no other reason than that it makes for an excellent & plausible background. I hesitate to call it a thriller, partly because it isn’t particularly urgent in its pacing & partly because it might be considered a lesser genre for whatever reason. It’s only a thriller in the sense that Take Shelter is, and it has a truly devastating climax.
The Guard - Where else can you find two baddies discussing whether Bertrand Russell was Welsh? If you loved what Martin McDonagh did with In Bruges in 2008, then you’ll love what his brother Michael McDonagh does here with The Guard. It maybe isn’t edited quite as well as the former, but it’s even funnier, and Brendan Gleeson is used every bit as effectively, maybe more so.
Midnight in Paris - It has such a charm that could be so easily spoiled, so I won’t say anything except that fans of literature really should see it.
Take Shelter - On the podcast, they call it a slow-burn thriller. That’s certainly the case. I liken watching this movie to watching Pale Flower. You probably wouldn’t particularly care for the protagonist if he weren’t so entrancing to watch; you’re probably even bored through long stretches of the movie. But then you come to that scene, and it’s all made worthwhile for the sheer power of what happens, read mostly off faces. It’s even the penultimate scene in both films.
Shame - I don’t ever want to see it again, but it is a perfect depiction of its subject. It’s worth noting that the only two scenes seeming genuinely erotic don’t actually end up involving sex.
A Dangerous Method - I’ve developed the habit in recent years of comparing both Amidalas (Natalie Portman & Keira Knightley) to see who gives the best performance each year. Needless to say, Portman won last year with Black Swan, but here Knightley is the winner with what is a truly mad performance. Portraying madness (in a realistic way, not something surreal like Black Swan) must be at least as hard as comedy, and this is a performance that carefully walks that line, with attention paid to the way all the little behavioral nuances can relapse even years later. Viggo Mortensen’s Freud & Michael Fassbender’s Jung (if Fassbender isn’t nominated for at least one of these, I’ll be very surprised) are quite able to hold their own against Knightley’s Spielrein.
J Edgar - Featuring what has to be the most amusing first date in film history, this is a very caring portrayal of the man. It doesn’t particularly matter whether it’s accurate to him in particular: it captures with great sympathy what must have been a very conflicted way of life. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance may edge out Shame & A Dangerous Method.
Beginners - If J Edgar captures what it must have been like to be unable to love the way you want to, Beginners shows what it’s like to learn how to love after you’re finally free to try. It’s also a film which, despite the fact that some of its characters think it’s a bigger deal, treats being gay as more normal than The Kids Are All Right managed. If these are cultural milestones, then they’re even more charming than they are overdue.
The Hedgehog - A more mundane Amelie, with a feistier little leading lady. It may be the weakest movie on my list, but it was still a delight.
I’ll mention also that I very much enjoyed the final Harry Potter, slightly prefer the new Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and thought The Tree of Life was an event not to miss. And just to get Fassbender mentioned yet another time, I liked the way Mia Wasikowska finally gave us an adaptation of Jane Eyre in which Jane holds her own in terms of acting.
I’d say the most disappointing film [still worth bothering with] this year was Drive. I’m glad I saw it, but it definitely declined as it went along, at least for me.
Here are the internationally known movies from my “Best of 2011” list:
A beautiful, slow-paced movie depicting the harmonous life of French monks in an Algerian monastery. Their peaceful co-existance with the nearby village is about to come to an end as political turmoil and guerilla warfare engulf the region. A powerful experience.
A really fun action thriller based on a novel by the Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø. No dull moments, no extra fat, just a well-executed ride. Stars Jaime Lannister and the guy who played Max Manus.
A beautiful documentary about an boy from an Italian sub-urb who spends his summer at sea with his fisher father.
Completely different from what I expected, which is a good thing!
Fun and humorous with good action scenes.
An art house film in which a group of Anatolian police officers, an attorney, a doctor, and two murder suspects travel in the Turkish countryside where a dead body is supposed to have been hidden. Too long but otherwise good.
Good actors, great scenes.
An unsettling movie with some weird, chilling music to get the viewer to the mood.
Films I didn’t get to see last year but would’ve liked to: Trollhunter, Ides of March, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Guard
Movies I didn’t like: Thor, Captain America, Super 8, Transformers 3 (expected it to be hilariously bad like 2, but it was only bad in a boring way)
Hanna
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Sucker Punch
Red State
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Seconds Apart
Bad Teacher
The Hangover Part II
Scream 4
Super
Best comedy: Cedar Rapids
Best non-comedy: I guess Super 8.
I don’t see many movies in the theater anymore, so I haven’t seen many of the films that came out in the latter half of the year.
I’m always surprised at just how many movies I’ve seen…
Attack the Block may be my favorite movie of the year. So much fun!
I also really enjoyed The Dead and Stake Land which technically released in previous years (2009 and 2010) but I saw in theaters when they finally showed up in my town this year.
The Muppets was also great. Hugo was beautiful. I saw a whole bunch of comedies, but Bridesmaids was far and away the best of them. Hanna was excellent.
I enjoyed, but was still disappointed by, all the remakes… The Thing, Fright Night, Conan the Barbarian. And I’m a sucker for the current run of Marvel superhero movies, so I liked Thor and Captain America. Still haven’t seen Green Lantern.
I also went to see The Way with absolutely no idea what the movie was about at all, and I think it’s the movie that has had the greatest impact on me in that I find myself frequently having my mind just wander back to it all on its own. Which is odd because I usually don’t care for spiritual films.
Nice picks, Arlitt! You’ve definitely listed some things I’d like to see. And great calls on Incendies – I thought that was a 2010 movie. It’s great.
I also really liked Beginners, but here is an interesting story. When I watched the movie, for whatever reason the copy we watched wasn’t showing subtitles. And because I had never seen the trailer, I had no idea that they were supposed to be there. So now I feel like I watched a completely different film than what everyone else saw. On the flip side, it’s interesting to note that the movie works just fine without them, but I imagine it’s much grimmer without that lightening, comedic element. At least, I found it pretty melancholy.
Hmmm… Okay, let’s try and remember what I saw this year.
1. Pariah
No other film came close to this beautiful, intricate and painfully realistic study. Nothing touched this for just how heartfelt and how much of a reality-check it can give. Beguiling debut from a woman I reckon will be a master of the art. I don’t want to give anything else away. I really don’t. Just go find it when you’re in the mood for something a bit more serious.
2. UFO in her Eyes
Udo Kier was in this. But he’s got nothing to do with what is a small-village political/social satire in modern China with some of the most fantastic surreal comedy I’ve seen in a while, and some of the best amateur performances too.
I saw this in the single most uncomfortable theatre I’ve ever been to and I was kept awake and alive by the glorious force present in every part of this film. What a love this director has for the people she worked with and the film she has made is clear throughout. Maybe not for everyone but if you’re at all intrigued I urge you to take a look.
WARNING: there is a small but significant chance that I’m the only person in possibly the world that enjoyed this film so much. This is probably something I enjoyed personally so take that recommendation with a pinch of salt.
3. Tyrannosaur
We all know Paddy Considine’s good at acting. We didn’t know he would be this good at writing or directing. This was a brutal, personal film (it’s, in his words, “haunted” by his mother) and Olivia Coleman turned out to be a star. Eddie Marsan and Peter Mullans already were. There’s a good chance most of you have already seen this, so I’ll shut up now.
4. Kill List
By quite some way the best horror film I have seen in the last few years. By quite some way the best thriller I saw this year.
Quite something. It picks a decent story and in classic film style, just ratchets and ratchets and ratchets the tension to a glorious, hideous climax. This got a really limited release so I implore you to pick up the DVD and promote this film. Myanna Buring is already a name but I want Ben Wheatley’s name spread far and wide. He’s already got some film-circle buzz from Down Terrace (on the list, don’t ask) and Kill List is the sort of film that I hope shows him on everyone’s radar.
5. Drive
I saw Blue Valentine this year, but I haven’t seen My Week with Marilyn so I can’t put in Michelle Williams in good conscience (but they both deserve it). That Drive was a fantastic film, and not as arty a film as most of the above, is just more reason to put Ryan Gosling in here. What a great film, albeit one for those who already like films. A filmy film, with proper heft, weight and characters that don’t do more than they’re asked to because they’re doing all they need to. Superbly executed to the point I’m going to look at Valhalla Rising and the Pusher Trilogy.
6. Burning Man
You know, this is a strange one. It hasn’t got, if you actually look at it, the best story in here. It’s pretty average. The acting is superlative, really, truly top-notch stuff but the story itself, eh, pretty standard.
The way it’s told, the way it unfolds, on the other hand, is beautiful. The way it is written in light across that screen made this film one of the most heart-stopping puzzle-box dramas I saw this past year. Watch for it, take a loved one or date along and revel in it.
7. Generation P
The director claimed this is a post-Nightwatch film, which makes sense. The film doesn’t. A brilliant, mad-cap dash through post-capitalist Russia through the Mesopotamian gods, the ghost of Che Geuvara, a dip into the ancient rituals of the advertising community and a nihilistic slogan written deep into the heart of it. One of the most entertaining and insane satires on modernity that you will see, this may become a Strangelove-level cult film.
8. Killer Joe.
I willingly went to see Bug, and sat through the entirety of it. Well, okay, uncut on TV. This is the same creative brains (Freidkin/Letts) so you know what you’re getting into. A fraught, horrendous and, quite frankly incredibly hard-to-watch film. About a family that hires a man to kill their mother, who asks for their young (early twenties) not-of-this-world daughter as a retainer. Really, really tough from start to finish, a bit sneery about the family in question, it’s nasty, earthy and written in blood. Good but very hard to recommend to anyone.
9. I wish
The single best film about children, and for children, I think I may have ever seen. Not patronising, not condescending, not disappearing into fantasy but just sweet, endearing and willing to follow them, to just live life as a child for the (extended) running length. Too long for young children, possibly. It’s also Japanese, if that makes a difference to you or the children. If you don’t have children (Hi! I went because it got good buzz) you’ll get a massive, feel-good kick out of this film. There’s an air of childish exploration and sheer, pure life of a quality that’s rare to find. One of the leads is a bit over-enthusiastic (I got the feeling he was over-acting for the camera and it makes his scenes feel a bit “this is a film! YAY!” but other than that, the children are all brilliant. Like Himizu, which had better acting but was the single most disappointing film I saw this year). Otherwise, irritant-free and safe for consumption by all.
10 = Oslo, August 31st/Avalon
Two films from Scandinavia. Both about moral qualms, one about normality and the past and how a man cannot change his mistakes, one about a man not wishing to change his mistakes. Both rather bleak and grey, both made watchable by some quite remarkable performances. One about people from the top of society who crashed to the bottom and cannot move from there, the other about people at the top of society who crashed through from the bottom and should have stayed there.
There are some political implications in Avalon that I didn’t get because I’m not Scandinavian (about socialism becoming, of now, pure capitalistic greed). I think Oslo is the better film, better acting, a more personal story and a bastard of an ending.
I might, if people are at all interested, dig up the directors and releases if I can find them.
Special Mention: This is not a film
If you’ve heard about it but not seen it, you must. It’s really very good if you’re interested in films.
If you haven’t heard about it but are interested in films, look it up. I’ll warn you, though, this is a film-snob’s film so you may find it boring and tedious. You may also find it interesting to see into the lives and hearts of the people who live every day to bring you the films you see. You may find it heartwarming. You may find it lacking in action. I thought it was great.
TTSS: I like Le Carre. This was a fantastic adaptation of his work. I shall say nae more.
Films still on the list: The Artist, Tree of Life, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Descendants, Incendies.
From the set of 2011 movies I’ve actually managed to catch last year, and in no particular order:
I Saw the Devil - cheerfully bloody-minded and highly-stylized excess. I approved.
Super - this instantly became my favorite of the recentish string of “ordinary schlubs try to be superheroes” films.
Hanna - especially the sound design. I hadn’t heard comparisons to Run Lola Run prior to seeing it, but to me, they’re spot on.
Attack the Block - best straightforward, nothing-fancy, comfort-fun monsters attack! flick since Tremors.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes - I enjoy things that turn out to be better than they had any realistic right to be.
Drive - if this was in particular order, it’d get #1. I’ve dug Refn’s films since discovering the Pusher trilogy, and this hit me as a synthesis and mastery of the strands that went into his prior movies.
Super was awful. I so so so wanted to like it. Just couldn’t. Far too inconsistent. Was it wacky comedy or serious drama? Was it brutally real or stylized fun? I can take all of one or all of another or even a nice, even mixture of them all but the movie was just a lumpy mess of “haha good time-BE SAD-look at this pathos-FUNNY”. Just a lumpy mess :( If they had evened it out in one direction, ANY direction. It would have been a good movie.
Attack the Block. Is seriously a great movie with fantastic, fanTASTIC art direction. The lighting, camerawork, elevates what is, essentially, a very straightforward run around monster movie to something that’s a joy to watch.
Man, I saw a metric buttload of movies this year, I think because my partner had some work stuff going on and I needed to stay out of her hair on the weekends.
Thanks, & it might have been released in 2010 in your country. The foreign films on my lists are often a year or two past their world premier, but they’ve always had a US theatrical release sometime that year.
Beginners definitely has moments of melancholy, but it’s plenty whimsical when it wants to be. The subtitles I don’t remember being as ubiquitous as the narration, but there are certainly some funny lines in there, especially from his dog. On the whole, I thought Beginners was honest & uplifting in an earnest way.
Kirian, I don’t think I’ve seen anything on your list except Drive, but you’ve definitely given me some titles to track down!
Bellflower, Another Earth, I Saw the Devil, Hanna, Attack the Block, The Man from Nowhere, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
I’m looking forward to Essay from a Debt Welcher, do you think that’ll come out this year, Bob?
Is it necessary to drag P&R wagers into threads where Bob is contributing in good faith? (Though I don’t post so much, I have read enough P&R to understand what you are referencing.)
I’d say Bob’s Bellflower is a good call. I forgot about that when composing my list, but did quite enjoy the film in a Fight Club meets Blue Valentine sort of way.
Yes.5
My favorite movies this year are The Muppets, Trollhunter, and Thor.
Hmm, I saw it on a “movies of 2011” list, but then I double-checked. Apparently it was released around Halloween 2010, but wasn’t released in the U.S. until June 2011. So I say it counts as long as you’re not in Norway.
Like everyone who doesn’t receive SAG screeners, I haven’t seen most movies, but my top 5:
Attack the block. I’m not into monster movies, but everything about this was tight. A cool monster, and well shot.
Bridesmaids. Not much to say besides that it was easily the funniest movie of the year.
Hanna. I loved Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, so I was super-excited about this. A lot of action movies spend a lot of money on special effects and big explosions, but they’re generally boring to look at. Hanna managed to be beautiful via its setting and composition, and I remember its look far more.
Tuesday After Christmas. Like A Separation below, a family drama about parents splitting. The first scene in bed is the most natural nudity I’ve seen.
A Separation. I was kinda disappointed this was on no one else’s list, but I guess it was just released Dec. 30 in the US (edit: and I see it’s on Tom/Dingus’). While it starts as a drama about parents separating, it evolves into much more, touching religion, criminal justice, income inequality… I know that sounds a little heavy, but it was also the most tense movie I’ve seen this year.
From the first scene alone, you can tell it’s a masterpiece. A couple sits before a judge, arguing whether to divorce. Then each character gets up to address the judge, filling half the screen. Just beautiful.
Also, regarding Tree of Life. This was by far the most frustrating movie for me, in that individual scenes were beautiful, but as a whole I thought it was an incoherent mess. So, my question for its supporters (specifically sinnick) is, do you think it was a good movie, or do you think that some of the scenes in it were great? I know that may not be fair, but the movie definitely felt like less than the sum of its parts.