The Best and Worst Films of 2011

Well, 2011 is over and all I can think to do is make a blog post about the best movies of the year…shut up, I do have a life!

Keep in mind that these are just my personal opinions, the films I enjoyed the most – not necessarily the most technically adept or profound, but the ones that touched me the most, and which I found to be the most entertaining.

Best

1. Super 8

This was just the most enjoyable film of the year – it might not have been the most artful, the most thought provoking or anything, but it was the most enjoyable, and if there’s one thing I love it’s a film that I can just watch and dig the hell out of everything it’s doing. Super 8 is just a killer homage to the Spielberg canon of old, with wonderful characters, a lot of energy and great visual hooks. It’s just a great all around story, and for me, that makes it the best of the year.

2. Hugo

What a wonderfully detailed film. This is so good it’s scary – it puts other kids’ films to shame with its attention to shading and lights and just all around details, in the story as well as in the scenery and CGI. This is masterful cinema and proves that Scorsese is the man. A lovely, sentimental story that speaks out to anyone who’s ever loved art, with layered characters, nuanced, believable performances and a stunning outcome overall. To childrens’ films, this is the equivalent of fine dining. Kids need to see this, but so does everyone else too.

3. The Adjustment Bureau

I love this movie because it is uplifting, life affirming and glorious – it takes a simple premise of ‘boy meets girl’ and does it up with a huge, epic backdrop and some awesome sci-fi leanings that make for one of the best, most original stories of the year. The film is visually stunning as well as wonderfully acted. Matt Damon continues to get more and more awesome, as he delivers a great performance in this one. This is a very complex film that tackles issues of human fate versus free will as well as the idea of a God, all handled subtly and without taking any one side in particular. It will make you think, that’s for sure. The Adjustment Bureau might have a cheesy ending, but the way it reaches that ending is so good that you won’t care.

4. The Descendants

In the wake of a family tragedy, Matt King (George Clooney) and his two daughters are thrust into a web that will make you laugh, cry and ponder all at different times, and it is that variety that gives The Descendants a place on this list. This movie is just excellently done, and I’m surprised at how much fun I had watching this despite its grave subject matter. But I think that was the point – this is a film about family, and its honest approach yields a cornucopia of emotions and interactions just like real life. The snappy writing and clever dialogue, though, elevates it above a simple ‘slice of life’ movie and turn it into a statement – we are all people and we deal with tragedy differently, and we can’t judge others solely based on one side of his or her personality. It’s a movie about loving your family and accepting those around you for who they are. Great acting and cinematography are only icing on the cake.

5. Kill the Irishman

Bad ass, man. This is a hard-hitting mob story based on true life events of Danny Greene, a sort of jack of all trades who nonetheless fell into a bloody, explosive other life with the mob despite his efforts to do good. This is a quick-paced, jam-packed film with something happening every second, and if you like any of the old Scorsese movies or the Godfather series or anything, this should be up your alley too. I don't know how accurate it is to the true events, but what it is is a great, gripping epic that keeps you interested all the way to the end. Ray Stevenson is fucking awesome in this as Greene, and he booms out commanding dialogue like he was damn well born to do it. Great performance, maybe my favorite of the year. Christopher Walken is cool, and the rest of the cast, made up of big names like Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Darrow and more, is just icing on the cake. This is an awesome movie and you need to see it, end of story.

6. The Ides of March

Politics are a hungry game, a cut-throat sport in which one loses his soul, so to speak, and that is illustrated brilliantly in The Ides of March. Ryan Gosling, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and others are just the icing on the cake of this quite cold, brutal and calculating story that shows how politics work in a clear but not at all flattering light. This is a dramatic film that escapes the trap of being too sappy or too melodramatic – it’s a serious film for people who are serious about movies. Respectable, iconoclastic and well written.

7. The Debt

A tale that transcends a thirty-year period, The Debt is great because it keeps the thrills coming at a steady pace. I could never predict where this movie was going, and I found its dark, mature textures and unwinding tension to be arresting. This is a pretty gritty, hard-assed movie, and it takes no prisoners in telling its sometimes hard-to-tell story the best way it knows how – with conviction and weight. This is, again, a serious movie for serious people, and if you like historical films or dramas, The Debt will be up your alley.

8. Source Code

In the same mode as Adjustment Bureau, this is a kick ass sci fi story done up with romantic touches and epic storytelling to make for a real thrill ride, and pulled together with sweep and grace to make sure you’re hooked every minute. I loved this movie for its sleek, action packed nature and its abundance of heart and honesty. Just a hugely entertaining, well-written romp, and one that anyone can enjoy.

9. Insidious

A lot of people disliked this one, but then, a lot of people are idiots – Insidious is awesome, and while it lacks the subtlety or originality of the greatest horror movies, it makes up for that with Nightmare on Elm Street-styled flashiness and bombast, and really works due to its energy and bounce. This is an energetic film that doesn’t try too hard to be serious or pose itself as anything it’s not, and I like that about it. Add to that the fact that it’s tons of fun and packs some excellent, creative scares and homages to horror’s distant past, and you have a winner of a movie. Just a great flick.

10. Captain America

Easily the best Marvel superhero movie ever. This is just an overflowingly awesome, passionate flick that rocks out with some great dialogue, good character development, snappy action and a well-told story. It’s a meat-and-potatoes movie, one that ticks off all the boxes and does them well, and for that I will watch this any time I see it on.

But with every year also comes some pretty horrible crap, too. I didn’t pay money to see a lot of really bad movies in theaters this year, but there were a few that slipped through the cracks…

Worst/Disappointments

Priest

This ass-fest is one of the most creatively bereft films I’ve ever seen. It is amazing how many clichés there were in this, and how much tension they managed to suck out of the whole. An awfully soulless, toothless, ball less film that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.

Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch is not a movie, it is a convention of Monty Python wannabes trading stale dialog in stilted accents on sets that look like they were made from stuff you can get at the Dollar Store. The plot is a ludicrously, woefully under-developed and half-assed debacle that you have to see to belief. So stupid it’s almost smart again. Key word – almost.

Pirates IV

A series that has long, long since worn out its welcome. Please never make another one of these movies.

30 Minutes or Less

Despicable garbage that tries for funny and comes off offensive to any kind of good taste. I hate these characters, I hate the situations they get into and I hate the implication that we’re supposed to find any of it funny. This is cancer in cinematic form.

J. Edgar

Eastwood finally bites off more than he can chew with this bloated and dull biopic about J. Edgar Hoover. Lacking the power and grace necessary to carry such a long, spacious film, J. Edgar is mostly just tiresome.

So that's 2011, and I hope you all enjoyed reading this list. You may disagree with me on any number of these films, and there are plenty I haven't even seen that very well could have made it on here. I hope to see even more great movies in 2012.

All images copyright of their original owners.

The Debt (2011)

Starring: Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain

Director: John Madden

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226753/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Debt_(2011_film)

Well, the summer has come to an end, and with it, the summer blockbuster season. So everyone is either sad (it brought us "Super 8") or breathing a sigh of relief (it also brought us "The Smurfs"). But if you are a film buff such as myself, it is simply a changing of the seasons as we head into the fall and see the "serious" movies (i.e. "the ones you are supposed to like"). One of the first ones up is tiled "The Debt." Here is the original trailer for it:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Apparently the film was expected to come out in early August, but there was a lot of behind the scenes tension between the producers so they struggled to make the deadline. As a result, the final product ended up being an ill-conceived compromise that no one liked.

So it was completely revamped and this was made instead...

Based upon the Israeli film of the same name, its about three members of Mossad who are put in charge of capturing Dieter Vogel, a Nazi war criminal who is living in 1960s Berlin. However, they soon find out that capturing a Nazi war criminal is not as easy as it sounds. Events go awry and it comes back to haunt them more than 30 years later.

This film is very well done. A mixture between a political and psychological thriller, it follows three people as they come face to face with a monster and it becomes questionable as to who is the real hostage in the situation. The Mossad agents cannot simply kill the guy and then go about their merry way; they have to capture him, get him out of Soviet-controlled East Berlin and then send him to Israel where he will face justice. In order to do this, they have to get up close and personal with him. That job comes down to the only female agent, Rachel Singer, (played in her younger year by Jessica Chastain). Since Vogel is now working as an OB/GYN, she poses as a woman who claims to have fertility problems and needs his help. That's right: she has to get inspected by a Nazi gynecologist, who during the war was known as "The Surgeon of Birkenau," and was responsible for experimenting on millions of children in ways that lead to their horrible, agonizing deaths. Awkward...

The highlight of the movie is Vogel, played by Jesper Christensen. He is...well, evil. Very, very evil. He is not one of those people who is simply misunderstood and turns out to be a flesh and blood human being when you meet him. He is just downright despicable, has no redeeming quality, and deserves everything he gets and more. However, the Mossad has to be professional about the whole situation. When their get-away plan falls apart, they hide out in an apartment building where they keep him tied up, taking turns feeding him, shaving him, etc. He repays their diligence by being as difficult as possible, behaving like a fussy five year old. He also makes a number of highly disturbing comments about how weak and selfish the Jews were during the Holocaust and remain the same today. Did I mention that Singer lost her mother during the war and fellow agent David Peretz (played in his younger years by Sam Worthington) lost his entire family because of the Final Solution? Yeah, try dealing with this guy when you have that kind of tragic personal history! I do not think that Christensen will win an Oscar for his role since the Academy might be reluctant, for the second time in three years, to give the Best Supporting Actor award to a guy who played a sadistic Nazi, but he at least deserves to be nominated.

The focus of the film is basically about unfinished business. While the three are cheered in the present day, it becomes clear that something happened three decades ago that they are not proud of. As the mystery unravels, it shows what it is like to hide the truth for the greater good but also what kind of problems it can cause for those who bear it. The fact that these people are already saddled with the burden of living in the shadow of one of the worst events in human history only adds to the emotional pull of the story.

The film is very solid. The acting by Chastain, Mirren, and everyone else is strong (I have never been much of a fan of Worthington, but even he manages a convincing performance), the transitions between the two time periods is handled very smoothly, and it even has a few good actions scenes. It is just good all around. Okay, fine, the ending was kind of dumb. Not from a story-telling perspective or anything, but the way it is executed. I cannot go into too much detail without spoiling it, but let's just say that it is supposed to be this big dramatic scene that will draw a conclusion to the misery that has haunted the main characters, but it ends up looking unrealistic and kind of silly. But as I said, it does not ruin the story itself, so I can forgive the movie for this relatively minor error. Oh, and the scene with Mirren in the newsroom at night also dragged on a bit, but that is not worth complaining about that much.

Overall, I enjoyed it. For those who are wondering, it is not as quite as good as "Munich" but that is a little unfair since, despite the fact that they have a similar subject matter (and Ciaran Hinds happens to be in both of them), they are different movies in terms of their focus. Either way, it is a good way to start off the Oscar season and a good film to watch at any point, period. I recommend it.

I do not own the image or links above. They are copyrighted by their respective owners and are for being used for entertainment purposes only. Please do not sue me.