With the Oscars less than two weeks away, I figured it was time to throw out my top 10 from 2011. This is also my first time using facebook’s group doc feature, so we’ll see how that goes.
While there were plenty of movies I enjoyed last year, it felt like a pretty weak year overall. I heard a couple critics debate this same idea and they came to the conclusion that while Hollywood had a weak year, it was a great year for documentary, foreign, and independent films. So maybe I’ll change my mind once i catch up with everything I’ve missed. Though the only serious omission I feel I have is A Separation, an Iranian movie that is rated 8.6 on IMDb and 99% on rottentomatoes.
Honorable mentions go out the following movies. I definitely recommend them and many are arguably better than movies in my top 10, but obviously my personal tastes were taken into account.
In no particular order: Warrior, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Certified Copy, The Ides of March, Hugo, Crazy Stupid Love, Win Win, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. (For the record I hated Tree of Life).
And here we go…
10. Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Honestly, I didn’t really want or expect this movie to make my top ten. I just didn’t see enough movies I liked better this year. That said, I don’t mean to knock it. The task of winding up a long-running series is a daunting one and they did it very well. I just wonder when everyone is going to realize that Neville was the real hero of the movie.
9. X-Men: First Class
Maybe not a great movie, but it definitely borrows from what Christopher Nolan has done correctly with his Batman movies – focus on character first and everything else works better too. And two words: Michael Fassbender. If you haven’t yet invested your imaginary dollars in this guy’s stock, do so now. He had the best scene in Inglourious Basterds in 2009, he was Golden Globe nominated for 2011’s Shame, and he steals the show here as a younger version of Ian McKellen’s Magneto.
8. 50/50
It does a great job of blending the laughs with the drama and works it out perfectly so that going into the final minutes you don’t know on which side of the 50/50 that the story will fall (i.e. whether or not JGL survives or not). If you don’t know who JGL refers to, you have some serious catching up to do in the movie world (or I just need to get over my JGL man-crush).
7. Moneyball
As the proprietor of a DVD rental store, I will say this seems to be the most universally liked movie of the year. A movie that got both critics and audiences equally behind it. It’s not particularly ambitious (other than being a major motion picture about baseball statistics), but that’s probably why it works. Great, dry sense of humor, no-doubt courtesy of co-writer Aaron Sorkin.
6. Super 8
I will concede that this goes a little too far with the sentimentality, especially at the end, but I really enjoyed it. The best part was just how well defined the kids were as individual characters and how they interacted with each other while unraveling a mystery.
5. The Artist
I’ll save you the suspense – The Artist is going to win best picture, and I can’t say that I have a problem with that at all. It would probably rank higher on my list if it hadn’t already been built up so much. But it does have a lot more going for it than just being a silent film in the 21st century. Don’t shy away from giving it a chance.
4. The Descendants
If I had to be honest (which I don’t), I would say this is probably the movie that most deserves to win best picture. I really think it’s The Artist‘s novelty that will prevent The Descendants from taking home the biggest trophy. A top-notch family drama with plenty of laughs as well from director Alexander Payne. I wish he kicked out movies more often. This was his first feature film since 2004’s Sideways. Shailene Woodley was robbed of a supporting actress nod, in my opinion. Clooney is the favorite to win best actor, but it’s the tightest race in years with Jean Dujardin and Brad Pitt on his heels.
3. Drive
This show is definitely not for everyone, but I really got a kick out of it. Ryan Gosling is a stunt driver who is also on hire as a getaway driver for criminals. He is compulsively efficient. He never makes a false move or wastes a single spoken word. The whole movie has a wonderfully drawn out intensity to it. It also has one of my all-time favorite scenes from any movie ever (#elevator).
2. Source Code
This is a movie that has received very little love this year. I admit that it’s very gimmicky but I enjoyed it just as much the second time around when I knew what was going to happen. As always, I give tons of extra points for originality. So maybe it’s just a guilty pleasure, but Source Code is a fun action-thriller that I highly recommend.
1. Midnight in Paris
Similar to 500 Days of Summer from a couple of years ago in that I saw this earlier in the year and kept waiting for another movie to knock it out of my number one spot, but that never happened. Another very original idea or, at least, a very original twist on what seems at first glance to be a fairly standard romantic comedy. It is a flawed movie, but it just struck the perfect cord with me. My biggest problem with it is also the biggest compliment I can pay it – it was just too darn short; 94 minutes and I wish it had gone on for four hours.
Anyway, let me know what you think. I’m looking forward to a much stronger 2012 with The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit!