Thursday, January 5, 2012

The best and worst films of 2011



Before I start, here's a list of all the films from 2011 I watched during the year (with IMDB links):


There are many movies I could not get to see and really wanted to like The Artist, The Descendants, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, Winnie the Pooh and Shame. Perhaps the following list would've been way more different had I seen them. But either way, let's begin:




With the exception of Twilight, I mostly tried to stay away from bad films as much as possible this year (I did not watch Transformers 3 or any Adam Sandler films for example), but this one really caught me by surprise. Nana to Kaoru tells the story of two young childhood friends who find themselves connected by their S&M fetish.

Don’t get me wrong, I think sexual exploration of teenagers is a somewhat interesting subject, and many great films have been made about it. But this film gives absolutely no reason or depth to the characters so we end up not caring about their relationship at all, which is not helped by the one-note, cardboard cut-out acting. There’s barely any story to speak of, just being mostly a series of stupid moments after stupid moments.

It’s a movie that has absolutely no redeeming qualities;, it’s not sexy, it’s not emotionally interesting and it’s not funny enough to  justify itself as a comedy. It’s also really boring, even with its relatively short running time. It doesn’t qualify as anything but garbage. 




Maybe I’m being unfair because Taylor Lautner had so little to do in this movie, but the fact that even if he barely appeared he’s the most notable of the actors (not in a good way)speaks volumes of how truly terrible his performance is. His whole performance consists of being an ass-face and worrying about Bella, and Taylor Lautner pretending to be angry is just laughable.

And then there’s the imprinting scene, my lord, the fact that he’s so terrible in trying to be serious during the whole thing makes an already ludicrous scene even more stupid. In a movie full of terrible acting you have to be especially bad to be the worst, and Taylor Lautner is just that terrible.



After hearing so many things about how great and funny Attack the Block was it became one of the movies I was most looking forward to. When I finally got to see it I couldn’t help but being very disappointed. It’s not a bad movie; it does have some pretty fantastic action sequences. I just didn’t think it was funny, and considering most of the stuff was played for the laughs, it took away from the few things I thought were great.  The weed-based humor was pretty bad, most of the witty remarks don’t work and Nick Frost is absolutely terrible is his bit part, but that might be more attributed to the fact that I just don’t really like him as an actor.

I also think the filmmakers took a wrong approach with the characters. Not that I think that every alien invasion movie needs to have soldiers as its main characters but how am I supposed to root for or care about characters that totally deserve to die?  That kind of thing makes the great alien design and the well-done subtle moments of terror go to waste. Overall, I just didn’t think it was funny, exciting or entertaining.



The Fast and the Furious franchise has had a couple of terrible films and a couple of mediocre ones that are somewhat enjoyable the first time you see them, so naturally, there wasn’t much to expect from the fifth installment of the tired franchise. But holy cow did this one deliver. Director Justin Lin took the best elements from the four previous films, mixed them up and added The Rock and the result is an amazingly entertaining movie.

Don’t get me wrong, this movie is stupid, very stupid. But it knows it, and by not taking itself as seriously as the previous films did, it allows it to be incredibly fun. The cast is at its best, with The Rock being the stand-out and the action set pieces are incredibly well done. This movie entertained me more than I would ever suspect it would.





Joseph Gordon-Levitt is my favorite actor right now. Not only does he seem like a genuinely nice guy but he is also incredibly talented. In 50/50 he plays Adam Learner, a young man who finds out he has a rare type of cancer. Levitt anchors the film and takes us through an emotional roller coaster by showing his amazing range and giving us both funny and heart-breaking moments. With the exception of Ryan Gosling in Drive (my second favorite performance of the year), no other performance felt so true to life. 





My top 11 films of 2011


Ok, before I begin, I just want to say that 2011 was an amazing year for movies and it was incredibly hard to decide just 11 films as my favorites. So honorable mentions go to Thor, The Skin I Live In, Fast Five, Bridesmaids, The ides of March and Reverón. All fantastic films that sadly, did not make the list. 

So without further ado, my top 11 films of 2011:




At first sight, Drive seems more like a regular Hollywood action flick, but there’s so much more to it than what one could ever imagine from watching the trailer or reading a synopsis.  It’s an action movie whose focus is not the action, but the characters. The fantastic performances from every cast member makes them feel more real and charismatic and since it takes its sweet time carefully developing them makes us care much more about them.

There aren’t many action scenes and there aren’t many conversations. The many silent, kind of awkward moments, combined with the incredible soundtrack and beautiful photography gives it an almost hypnotic quality. It’s a very subtle film, with a great story that grabbed me and never really let me go, which is why it is my favorite film of 2011 and one that I feel I’ll be able to watch years from now and still be captivated by . 



Cancer is not an easy thing to portray in film. Most films that try to be funny end up being downright disrespectful and the ones that try to be emotional end up being melodramatic. 50/50 strikes a balance between comedy and drama in a way that no other film since has. Writer Will Reiser based the film on his own experiences, which makes for a film that feels real in both the good and the bad moments.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s tour-de-force performance drives the story and connects the bits and pieces to make a complete beautiful experience filled with hope, sadness and memorable moments.



Woody Allen’s latest film is like the city it takes place in: magical. It has what one usually expects from an Allen film: A love triangle, lots of talk about mortality, many funny dialogues, eccentric characters and more. But the added sci-fi elements (which are cleverly left unexplained) make it his funniest and more original work since The Purple Rose of Cairo.

The story takes our daydreams about meeting and becoming friends with our idols (be it literary, musical, cinematic, etc) and falling in love with beautiful women in beautiful cities and makes them true. It’s absolutely enchanting.




Life, what is it? That’s the question Terrence Malick attempts to answer through the eyes of a man reminiscing his childhood and everything in between. It’s a movie about creation, evolution, death and existence; it shows us how time and space define us and how life is so full of beauty and ugliness.  


But what the hell do I know? I can’t really say what the message of this movie is because it’s so incredibly baffling. Like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, Malick leaves everything open to interpretation; we get what we want to get from this film. There’s not an absolute truth about its story, just like there’s not an absolute truth about life.

It’s also, without a doubt, the most beautiful film that I’ve ever seen. Every frame, every scene, every shot is crafted with such care and attention that I just couldn’t take my eyes off of it. The cinematography is quite simply sublime.



This bold and remarkable Iranian film is the best of 2011, obviously not my favorite, but without a doubt the best. Divorce stories have been done many times in cinema, but this is the first one that I’ve seen that explores the consequences in such a way.  As it moves it goes from being a family drama to a criminal procedure of Rashomon-like proportions. Along the way, we get more involved with the characters and we can almost feel their emotional baggage.


It’s a very powerful, deeply human story that will resonate with its viewers regardless of their nationality or social background.  It’s one of those films that will be looked years from now as one of the great classics of cinema.



I don’t really enjoy romantic comedies all that much. With a few exceptions they tend to be cliché-filled, predictable and unreal. They’re also mostly made in such way that completely alienates men. Crazy, Stupid Love has a lot of that, but it plays around with romantic comedy conventions and adds more variety and the result is a refreshing, hilarious film.

Steve Carell leads the cast as a man trying to move on after his divorce. His ex-wife (Juliane Moore) divorced him after cheating on him with a co-worker (Kevin Bacon) who she’s now seeing. The great Ryan Gosling plays a young womanizer who teaches Carell to get his manhood back by picking up women and Emma Stone plays Gosling’s love interest. There’s also a side story with the former couple’s young son who is in love with his babysitter. The film has better acting that what we could ever expect from the genre and manages to balance all the stories well and in the end they all converge into a hilariously absurd third act that has some of the funniest moments put on the screen last year. 





Melancholia is a tale about the end of the world, but it quickly makes us forget about that after showing us the destruction of our planet in the first five minutes. It works because by having us know that everyone is going to die we stop wondering if the characters are going to make it out alive and instead we focus our attention to what’s important: how these characters cope with their impending death.

Kirsten Dunts and Charlotte Gainsburg star as two sisters. Dunts is getting married, but she’s depressed, she knows the whole thing is going to be a disaster, Gainsburg knows it too but she wants to throw her a big party anyway. When Gainsburg finds out planet Melancholia is going to collide with earth she freaks out, she knows she can’t save herself or her family but tries to however way she can anyway. Like her sister, Dunt’s character knows she and everyone is going to die, but she accepts it, embraces it even. It’s both ends of the human spectrum and the beautiful story makes us wonder how we would react in such event. 



How far can a cult go to control every aspect of your life? This movie explores those ideas through the eyes of Martha, a young woman who escapes from a cult she was part of where she was known as Marcy May and tries to restore her relationship with her sister but fears the cult might be after her.

Elizabeth Olsen gives a fantastic debut performance, giving her character depth. Martha is depressed, she’s paranoid, she doesn’t know what’s good or bad anymore and we can see it in her eyes. Though the ending is rather disappointing, it’s still a haunting film.  




Sex, violence, Kafka. That’s Guilty of Romance in a nutshell. Avant garde director Sion Sono’s latest film is a story about repression, both sexual and social. As expected from him the story is bizarre and filled with social criticism that you can’t get with just one viewing.

This film is not pretty; in fact, it’s very, very ugly. It’s filled with sadistic, disgusting moments and there’s not a single redeemable character in it, but it’s oh so fascinating. 




Like Crazy, Stupid Love, Friends with Benefits is a movie with a lot of clichés but it is self aware so it barely even matters, plus the chemistry between Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake (both of whom do a fantastic job) more than makes up for it. It’s raunchy, hilarious and sexy. It’s a movie that will become part of my go-to films whenever I need a good laugh.

On a side note, this is the third movie on the list, after 50/50 and A Separation where the protagonist’s father suffers from Alzheimer’s.




Originally, this was going to be a top 10 list. But I just couldn’t keep this film out, it’s too good not to be mentioned.

Usually, when we watch or read news about school shootouts and see how many people get killed we think “poor guys, they had their whole life ahead of them” or in rare cases “I feel sorry for their parents, having to deal with that”. But we hardly ever think about the parents of the killer, after all, they also lost a child that fateful day. This is what We Need to Talk About Kevin explores.

Tilda Swinton is amazing as Kevin mother’s as she tries to deal with the pressure of knowing she raised a killer and the anger of the parents of the teenagers Kevin killed. We also get to see her memories of raising her hostile child through flashbacks,  we know there’s something wrong, she knows it too, but nothing is done until it all ends in disaster.

This film is scarier that all of the recent “demon child” films, perhaps because it’s grounded on reality. There’s a weight to it that is hard to explain, it’s a magnificent piece of filmmaking.


So there they are, my favorite films of 2011. Feel free to comment on my list or of posting your own and thanks for reading. 
   





Posted by Andrés Rosales at 12:02 AM 0 comments
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