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2011 in Cinema.Jan 15 '12 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line - (This shall be moved once Epinions adds the proper category). I won't lie here. From a cinematic standpoint, 2011 is a year that I'll likely remember ambivalently. There weren't an inordinate number of flat out disasters. But there was only a small number of movies I'll remember a few years from now and only a handful I liked enough to consider owning on DVD/Blu-Ray. Basically there was an overabundance of product and not enough stuff made with real thought or intelligence. Anyway on to what actually worked in 2011. First off, let's get the year's weakest links out of the way. The Crap Shoots This list only includes movies I actually saw. Thus the absence of Jack and Jill, the Justin Bieber movie, New Years Eve, the latest Transformers, the latest Twilight, The Smurfs, Bucky Larsonand other obvious pieces of cinematic excrement. Abduction This Bourne rip-off was obviously designed to draw in Taylor Lautner fans. But ultimately it failed at the box office and deservedly so. Based on this, Lautner has a way to go before he can be considered a real thespian. Undone even moreso by a ridiculous script, this film sadly marks the talented John Singleton's transition from being possibly the next Scorsese to being the next Renny Harlin. Bad Teacher Has some amusing moments. But is overall a too little too late rip-off of Bad Santa that's undone by a one-joke premise and the fact that it's too smug for its own good. Larry Crowne Cheerful to the point of being obnoxious, this lightweight Tom Hanks co-written/directed/starring vehicle isn't quite awful. It's lightweight and forgettable. Yet I might have liked it more if it wasn't the cinematic equivalent of a work supervisor telling you to "put a little PEP in your step!". Some Honorable Mentions Horrible Bosses Better than Bad Teacher Or Larry Crowne among the summer comedies. In some ways, it's the hard R version of the latter. I include it here for being legitimately funny, even as it offers definitive proof that the gross-out comedy genre is on its last legs. The Help Good yet not great. The best things about The Help are the performances by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Those deserve any praise that come their way. The movie itself isn't quite as strong. The screenplay detours into soap opera territory at times. I suspect that the reason for all the acclaim is that adults were getting desperate for a character-driven dramatic film that had some real depth and this one was like an oasis in the desert. The Help is decent enough. Yet I strongly suspect that it will be largely forgotten in about 10 years, aside from the aforementioned performances. J Edgar Good yet not quite one of Clint Eastwood's better directorial efforts. Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is good yet the movie is burdened by uneven pacing. The screenplay, while neither lionizing nor demonizing Hoover, glosses over his racism. J Edgar is a good movie overall. Yet in trying to be good, it turns its back on being great. Cowboys and Aliens One of the more undeserving box office bombs of the year, this one works as an entertaining popcorn picture. Not one I'll be buying and watching again and again. But it's one of the more memorable pics of a year full of lightweight forgettable fluff. Now on to the top 8. 8: Mission Impossible. Ghost Protocol. Easily the best of the Mission Impossible quadrilogyas well as the best blockbuster action movie of the year. An improvement on the ridiculous original Mission: Impossible, the good yet too Cruise-centric Mi:2 and the overblown Mi:3, Brad Bird's movie focuses more attention on the team than previous efforts and compensates for being overly long by offering some of the better action sequences I've seen in a while. 7: Contagion. Far better than the similar Outbreak, Steven Soderbergh's medical thriller effectively criss-crosses the globe and develops characters enough for us to care about them yet offers up science that's frighteningly plausible. 6: Super 8. Ironic that a director trying to emulate Steven Spielberg makes the best Spielbergian movie in a year in which the master released two movies. JJ Abrams ode to 70s and 80s blockbusters manages to pay tribute while not slavishly copying them. Definitely the best pure popcorn movie of the year. 5: The Ides Of March. Not quite Clooney's all-around best turn behind the camera, this one still works well. Clooney doesn't tell us anything most of us don't already know. Yet he manages to make his rage against the dying of the political light film entertaining. Great performances by Ryan Gosling, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Clooney himself. Yet Clooney's most memorable performance this year is in... 4: The Descendants. Alexander Payne may be the only working director who reliably makes dramatic films for adults (I wonder what he could have done with The Help). His fourth effort could easily be the definition of character-driven dramedy. Clooney gives a fantastic performance as Matt King, a Hawaiian real estate mogul and husband/father trying to keep the family together after mom is seriously injured in a boating accident. The darkly comedic element is introduced when his oldest daughter reveals that mom was screwing a rival real estate mogul. Plenty of laughs that don't throw off the dramatic flow of the film. 3: Drive. Treads on Walter Hill and Michael Mann territory. Yet it manages to be the best dramatic thriller we've had in a while. Ryan Gosling gives what's probably his best performance yet as the nameless Driver yet he doesn't slip into easy Clint Eastwood/Kurt Russell imitations. Albert Brooks is fantastic as the main villain. I've seen many reviews that call this an existenialist thriller. If so, this is easily the best one since the aforementioned Mann gave us Collateral in 2004. 2: Hugo. Martin Scorsese takes on a family film and proves that he can do family fun as well as he does gritty mean streets. In some ways, Hugo was undone by being too ambitious for a family film market that prefers easygoing stuff like Puss In Boots. Their loss. Like all the best family films Hugo offers as much for the adults as it does for the children. In fact, adults will likely appreciate this one even more because it has depth that the youngest won't get right away. Plus, the 3-D adds to the experience unlike in Avatar where it more or less covered up the lack of substance. 1: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. When it was decided to do an American film version of the bestselling Swedish novel, one couldn't think of a better director for the job than David Fincher. The auteur behind Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac and The Social Network delivers a character-driven thriller with great visuals, real drama and suspense, pacing that gives us room to breathe and some memorable acting. Daniel Craig is quite good. But the real standout is Rooney Mara. After her small role in the aforementioned Network, she proves herself with her titular role. This film cements Fincher's status as a great director and is easily the film of 2011.  |
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by George_Chabot by Stephen_Murray
by marksam91
