Tags

,

The following is a list of my favorite films that had theatrical release in the US sometime in 2011. The ratings given for the films are what I decided upon at the time of viewing, and I have stuck to their original independent scores, not relative to one another. I value the ratings categories of artistic merit, entertainment value and worthiness of time in that order, therefore I have ranked films based on their cumulative score through all three categories, and used that ordered hierarchy as a tie breaker. Scores used a scale of -1 to 5, with 6 being superlative and 7 being of unique prestige. Films with identical scores are tied and listed alphabetically. As usual, there are a number of films released this year that I would have wanted to see, but couldn’t because of bad timing or poor distribution. This should only be seen as a list of recommendation.

————————————————–

1. The Tree of Life

Art 7 Ent 5 Worth 7
director: Terrence Malick
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Malick’s ambitious and unapologetic experimentation produced a film that confounded many people. The Tree of Life is a metaphysical poetic film that pays allusion to infinity and the cosmos in order to render the suffering of a nuclear family in 1950s Texas to be in a relative sense insignificant, but part and parcel with the method of existence all the same. How the literary structure of poetry differs greatly with that of prose, The Tree of Life differs greatly with the prosaic filmmaking that audiences are used to. Exposition of subtext is allegorically told through the stream of conscious inner monologue of characters, instead of the usual plain dialogues. The narrative shifts in time and place, from the core story and light years away, hundreds of millions of years before. The theme pits grace against worldliness, holding strong at that core, but with the story’s elements shifting around it from Texas to the big bang to the formation of the earth and growth of the dinosaurs. It’s a theistic film that uses Biblical language, because of the mode of expression for a family in midcentury Texas, a place in time and space with which Malick is very familiar, but this story speaks from a universally metaphysical pan-cultural voice. The Tree of Life is my kind of movie, and in my opinion one the best pieces of filmmaking in this generation.

————————————————–

2a. A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)

Art 4 Ent 5 Worth 6
director: Asghar Farhadi
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

An Iranian drama that follows the flowering of a tragedy from the chaotic soil in an unjust society. A Separation is about people whom we come to find are of more or less unimpeachable character, and are thrust against one another in bitter conflict over a supposed ‘murder’ of an in utero infant, because of circumstances largely beyond their control that they cannot admit the truth of, fearing the social and legal implications. The mixed cast of professional and unprofessional screen actors, young and old, is as outstanding as any assembly of Shakespearian company or method actors you’d find in Anglo cinema. The story is a bittersweet, powerful social critique, and the film is shot with an accessible intimacy. The writing is of a rare quality, presenting the themes of justice and integrity as well as in Judgment at Nuremberg or 12 Angry Men.

————————————————–

2b. Incendies

Art 4 Ent 5 Worth 6
director: Denis Villeneuve
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Women in war and tragedy. Perhaps peerless as a film about the Lebanese Civil War, I find Incendies to be strongly apropos in the era of sectarian warfare, democratic revolution and Jihad that is spreading throughout the Middle East and North Africa, particularly for the role that women are playing in this tumultuous change. Seeking to discover the roots of their family after their mother passes away, two Lebanese Quebecois siblings trace the steps of their mother in one of the nastiest civil wars of the 20th century. The narrative is a vile tragedy, and certainly a punch to the gut. When Denis Villeneuve began making this film, I doubt he had any idea that in one year’s time, a revolution would thrust Arab women into the spotlight for the first time in history, but this film carries a lot of significant cultural history with it, and the timing for its release couldn’t have been better.

————————————————–

2c. Senna

Art 4 Ent 5 Worth 6
director: Asif Kapadia
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

This documentary is the only movie in a great many years to have caused any sadness in me. Set in a very real story of cultural heroism, overcoming one’s lot in life to achieve great things, and defying a system bent against your success, Senna follows the rise and demise of Brazil’s greatest export to date, Ayrton Senna, one of the best Formula 1 drivers in history, if not the best. As a source of uplifting pride for his country, who had so little to be proud of at the time, when he smashed his car into a wall for the final time, so too went an entire nation’s joy. The man himself was an almost saintly figure, and the people he faced were a former Waffen SS stooge and an opportunist French driver with the moral bearing of a lizard. Senna was a figure who inspired people, and transcended politics, language and nationality. This documentary unveils some powerful footage following his last moments on earth, his triumphs that shot an electric current into his fans, and moments that toy with your emotion. Senna is a documentary not to be missed, even if you don’t care about racing.

————————————————–

5. The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito)

Art 5 Ent 4 Worth 5
director: Pedro Almodóvar
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Pedro Almodóvar’s comeback picture after a decade of drifting, The Skin I Live In is a major change-up for the director as he launches into a sexualized horror-tragedy. His first collaboration with Antonio Banderas in over two decades pays off for an awesome performance as an obsessive surgeon with a severe god complex, and his continuing collaboration with Elena Anaya provides her with a breakout role that gained her an international stage. Banderas is a doctor holding hostage a woman whom he’s been continually performing experiments upon, and as the twisted chronology unfolds, we discover perhaps more than we wanted to know. The movie sounds more disturbing than it actually is, but many moments are not for the faint of heart. One of the most disturbing scenes only becomes more disturbing later in the film as the moment’s significance takes on new meaning. Almodóvar is definitely back.

————————————————–

6. Midnight in Paris

Art 4 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: Woody Allen
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Although Midnight in Paris isn’t by any means hallmark Woody, causing its charm to whither for those age-old fans of his, it is his most successful film to date for a very simple reason. He compromised his New York elegy of self-deprecating nervous social commentary and narrative play that usually only appeals to people from the Upper East Side and the UES’s of the world for a saccharine comedic fantasy that appeals to everyone who’s ever read Fitzgerald, Hemingway or seen a Picasso painting, or been to Paris. Although Vicki Cristina Barcelona shares more with ‘Paris’ than Woody’s older work, ‘Paris’ is already a quick departure into a more palatable area that sheds pessimism for an ounce of optimism. The old Woody wouldn’t be caught dead doing something so happy as this. ‘Paris’ is an uplifting sneer at his own body of work. The typical Woody narrative of a chaotic relationship suffering the entropic pains of time and then giving way to rebirth takes a back seat to an optimistic nonchalance with life’s troubles as characters discover things about themselves by going back in time to visit their ideal Golden Age when the clock strikes midnight. I really appreciate most of Allen’s work, but this fits my likes far better.

————————————————–

7. Biutiful

Art 5 Ent 3 Worth 5
director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu returns with another impressive showing in Biutiful, a film about a dying man whose morality erodes as his own mortality hangs over his conscience. Javier Bardem, in one of his finest performances as an opportunist father of two dying from cancer, wants to protect his children’s future, but finds his sentimental indecision overwhelming. He’s oscillating between accepting a future where the kids’ mentally fragile mother plays a role in their lives, and between an amoral or ethical approach to his illegal business dealing with migrant workers. The theme is one of morality, the plot provides more questions than answers, and the film is a presentation of a man’s conscience as it blends into infinity. Maricel Álvarez as the bipolar unfaithful wife is a real find. Biutiful is a well-titled film.

————————————————–

8a. The Artist

Art 4 Ent 4 Worth 5
director: Michel Hazanavicius
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Braving the abhorrence of studios and audiences alike to strike rich territory for accessible self-reflective cinema, Michel Hazanavicius took two of his previous actors – Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo – and made a big gamble that his idea to make a silent film that was itself about the dying days of silent films would win praise and bank. With Oscar buzz swirling around The Artist, I have to say that the gamble paid dividends. Dujardin gives an outstanding performance, breathing life into a very light melodrama with wonderfully expressive acting, while Hazanavicius does a proper-enough pastiche of silent-era Hollywood films. Garnished with plenty of cuteness, the film wins with a very original and uncomplicated narrative.

————————————————–

8b. Confessions (Kokuhaku)

Art 4 Ent 4 Worth 5
director: Tetsuya Nakashima
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Although Confessions shares an overdone-in-East Asia theme of revenge, this stylish and sardonic explosion of childhood ego and id is reminiscent of Where the Wild Things Are, except for the scary fact that in Confessions, the monsters are real. Like another film on this list, We Need to Talk about Kevin, this film looks at school yard murderers, and young sociopaths. However much it remains indistinctive in its overall narrative, unlike ‘Kevin’, Confessions handles the evil and twisted youths in a far less gaudy and cliched way, making their depravity more realistic – again, despite the overall believability suffering on account of the ‘cinematic’ qualities that are exacerbated for the sake of entertainment.

————————————————–

8c. Shame

Art 4 Ent 4 Worth 5
director: Steve McQueen
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

It’s hard not to call Shame, a drama about a solitary, narcissistic and compulsive sex addict, a tour de force performance by Michael Fassbender. It is a performance for the ages that truly makes the film. British director McQueen, after his film Hunger, once again turns his lens on compulsion and how it can erode one’s soul, this time looking at a deep desensitization of what most of the audience considers stimulating. Certain scenes in this film confirm your suspicion that Fassbender’s character is functioning for little more than the friction, and though some visuals run contrary to this initially, eventually you get the sense and can finally see just how little the friction is registering as any sensation whatsoever in his mind. A rotten soul has overtaken a hollow body, and you leave the theater thinking puritanism ain’t all that bad.

————————————————–

8d. Submarine

Art 4 Ent 4 Worth 5
director: Richard Ayoade
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

When Woody Allen’s done fucked off into a new, more crowd-pleasing path, leave it to one of his fans to pick up his mantle of pessimistic self-doubt and faulty egotism. Submarine is part pre-Annie Hall Woody Allen, part Amelie, and a significant remainder belongs to the gifted and funny debut director Ayoade. Submarine isn’t only a great debut; it’s a great film period. Lead Craig Roberts plays the perfect teen with the overinflated ego and wild imagination, Sally Hawkins the perfect flighty yet doting mother, Yasmin Paige the perfect pretentious hipster trying to evade life’s cliches. Some comedies were funnier this year (The Inbetweeners Movie, to be sure), but no comedies are as smart, by a country mile.

————————————————–

12. The Yellow Sea (Hwanghae)

Art 2 Ent 6 Worth 5
director: Hong-jin Na
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Now here’s a novel crisis of identity from South Korea, where director Hong-jin Na and two of his leads from his previous horror-serial killer film The Chaser carry a lot of that film’s grisly brutality and unglamorous murder over into a gangster flick. The Yellow Sea plays up a lot of social realism in the plight of downtrodden Korean refugees from the North and bordering Chinese provinces, an almost forgotten people, especially by those in South Korea who wished they could forget these scrubs. Hero Jung-woo Ha and villain Yun-seok Kim both give stunning performances in roles that are built up by the writer to make one expect a sense of inevitability, yet they toy with us as each person fails to achieve the cliched sparks you expect in finales. The Yellow Sea is a hardcore film, and maybe the most unpretentiously brutal of the year.

————————————————–

13. Another Year

Art 4 Ent 2 Worth 6
director: Mike Leigh
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Mike Leigh’s study in the deterioration and escalating alienation of a woman (Lesley Manville) seen from the point of view of her friends, a persistently amiable and humble couple (Jim Broadbent & Ruth Sheen), is a steady heartbreaker that manipulates the audience along the way by tempting you to laugh at her, and then Leigh makes you feel bad about it later. His method of building a loose, almost non-existent script from the concept down by collaborating with actors once again works out amazingly as highly trained intuitive actors like Manville can deliver mesmerizing performances for him over and over again.

————————————————–

14. TrollHunter (Trolljegeren)

Art 3 Ent 5 Worth 4
director: André Øvredal
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

From the land of heavy metal and lutefisk, a highly imaginative fantasy-action film takes the shaky-cam found-footage cliche of The Blair Witch Project and Quarantine and runs with it in an eminently fun and lush atmospheric direction. Though held to a low-budget, ugly and massive trolls continually threaten the ‘guide’ (comedian Otto Jespersen) in dark bridges and caves as he tries to put them down for getting out of their designated areas, with the cheap CGI not dragging down the film in the least, as is usually the case. Although the form is relatively unimaginative and easy, the substance is definitely worth the price of admission.

————————————————–

15. Tyrannosaur

Art 3 Ent 3 Worth 6
director: Paddy Considine
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Initially fearing a schmaltzy hallmark gift card of a movie in the deceptively simplistic opening act, with a grumbling and violent drunkard contrasted by a tolerant Christian woman taking pity on him, Tyrannosaur quickly took a more enigmatic and unforced narrative hesitant to press concise moral judgments. British actor Paddy Considine’s debut as a director was an overwhelming success in this drama about coarse working-class existence in the Midlands. Scottish actor Peter Mullan pulls his character, a redemptive ogre, from the audience’s utter contempt into being a species of hero, while Olivia Colman matches Mullan in her own right as a ‘damaged goods’ victim of spousal abuse seeking refuge with Mullan. The story isn’t outrageously original, nor is the filmic style going against any grain enough to merit distinction, but the acting and a particular kind of symbolic animal sacrifice propel Tyrannosaur to be one of the best films of the year.

————————————————–

16a. Black Death

Art 2 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: Christopher Smith
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Black Death is a medieval action epic that reminds me of Kingdom of Heaven in a few ways, especially because the theatrical cut leaves you wanting, expecting more from a flawed masterpiece. The unsentimental and brutal narrative reflect an historic reality that uncompromisingly presents a breath of refreshingly plagued air, if you’ll forgive the contradictory expression. In this movie, we see a casualness in a raw and nasty but historically-accurate mentality that would horrify us today. Director Christopher Smith struggled to get this one through the gate, and it shows. The final act just beams with a credible feeling that the film will go on for longer than the abrupt ending suffers us to accept. Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne are spectacular in subdued ‘heroic’ roles (the notion of heroism takes an awesomely bizarre relativity in Black Death), while Dutch actress Carice van Houten is brilliant as a charismatic leader, or as they said in the time, a “witch”. Religion of course plays a central role in this film, and is tested in the arena of the arts where the narrative leaves space for an open interpretation, where everyone is sinister, everyone untrustworthy. Black Death could be better, but for what it is, it’s still an outstanding thought-provoking light epic.

————————————————–

16b. Carnage

Art 2 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: Roman Polanski
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

The opening and closing distant shots aside, little about this film makes it a genuine Polanski work – it’s almost completely loyal to the stage drama by French playwright Yasmina Reza. Over the course of an afternoon, two couples brought together by a fight between their sons start from a pretentious sense of “community” and “politeness” and slowly veer further into the zones of chaos and cathartic, brutal honesty, then right off the deep end into pure unhinged meanness as the tapestry of civilization fades away, then disappears altogether. The film belongs completely to the actors Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, and Jodie Foster, and good god do they not disappoint. The two European actors of course play the snotty bourgeois couple, whose frosty relationship is the first to combust, and then all four begin to have a round robin tournament of one-on-one roasting. A rough comedy of exquisite awkwardness and impropriety, Carnage seriously delivers.

————————————————–

16c. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Art 2 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: Eli Craig
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Tucker and Dale is a superb parody of the overwrought horror films usually made by sneering urbane folks from California or New York who look down their nose at people in the “flyover states” (especially in the South). It turns the cliche of backwards suspicious rednecks on its head, instead creating a comedy of continual errors where the “college kids” from the city are for the most part the very cause of their own demise, of course instigated by their deep fear of that very cliche of killer rednecks they’ve been saturated with from an early age. Although the film is too unbelievable by half, and finishes with a cliche the rest of the movie is begging to spoof, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a real winner, and deserves more attention for the kick in the teeth it gives the unimaginative horror schlock that studios continue to pump out like turds from a cow’s ass.

————————————————–

16d. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Art 2 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: Zoya Akhtar
trailer (Hindi)
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

Despite the fact that Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara comes with all of the baggage of a Bollywood film (overly long, way too ‘perfect’ and formulaic), it far exceeds the limits set by other Bollywood pictures, and is part of a greater trend in Indian cinema of departing the mindless rip-off factory we’ve come to know from Mumbai’s cinematic contributions. Films like 3 Idiots, Udaan, and Delhi Belly are cause for great optimism in a more professional Indian cinema, and “ZNMD” may be the most flashy, fun and thoughtful example. Directed by Farhan Akhtar’s sister Zoya, ZNMD is in spirit the sequel to Dil Chahta Hai (Farhan Akhtar’s ground-breaking 2001 rom-com that was instantly better, younger and fresher than all its peers). It’s a road movie that looks at the brotherhood of three formerly close friends flung into a vacation through Spain under the pretense of owing it to the soon-to-be groom in their rank, ZNMD takes a refreshing look at the rom-com formula that’s filmed beautifully enough to double as a Spanish vacation commercial. Luckily, Hrithik Roshan doesn’t take his shirt off as much as he usually does. It isn’t Crime and Punishment, but goodness is it fun.

————————————————–

20. We Need to Talk about Kevin

Art 4 Ent 2 Worth 5
director: Lynne Ramsay
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

We Need to Talk about Kevin is guilty of profiling a developing sociopath school shooter with hammy unadulterated evil in every movement from the time he was in diapers, without relenting, which makes for more than a little redundancy and cheese. But this movie can also be accused of having Tilda Swinton give one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, as a selfish egocentric and callous but vulnerable Mommy Dearest who is as much the nature as the nurture in the creation of this monster. Despite the film’s flaws, and how it drags, it pulls off a darkly interesting narrative without the explosive sensationalism of Gus Van Sant’s ode to Columbine in Elephant.

————————————————–

21a. Attack the Block

Art 2 Ent 5 Worth 4
director: Joe Cornish
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

An alien invasion in the council estates of South London, where a teenage street gang of mostly ethnic youths is all that’s standing between us and intergalactic hairy dog-gorilla monsters? Sign me the fuck up, bruv! The themes of urban decay and racial prejudice are given proper attention as a group of kids have to atone for mugging a woman by teaming up with her to escape both space monsters and a drug dealer out to get them. Some of the movie is slightly pointless filler, the presence of Nick Frost seemingly a box office gimmick, but Attack the Block is still a powerfully funny and thrilling action flick, and one of the most unique concepts in some time.

————————————————–

21b. Delhi Belly

Art 2 Ent 5 Worth 4
director: Abhinay Deo
trailer (Hindi-English)
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

One of the first films by Bollywood megastar Aamir Khan’s production company, Delhi Belly has an awesomely wide appeal and feels like righteous amusing deliverance from the average Indian lackluster comedy aimed to sell to grandmas and the pious. Delightfully for me, because I’m a Westerner, Delhi Belly is ominously Western in tone, with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch both as significant influences. It isn’t intolerably long, like so many other Indian films, and its song and dance numbers are kept to fantasy and the finale, which is much appreciated. But Delhi Belly goes straight for the frank and disgusting humor that just makes my day. The film seems night and day with most of its competition coming out of India. Aamir’s nephew Imran Khan is a decent next wave Bollywood star in his own right. God bless you Aamir Khan, make more movies like this please!

————————————————–

23a. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (Tropa de Elite 2 – O Inimigo Agora É Outro)

Art 1 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: José Padilha
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

The frenetic punk pacing, amoral depiction of state brutality and unflinching glorification of quasi-fascist ethos in the first Elite Squad was cause for heavy blowback from audiences and critics, so the filmmakers had to go back to the drawing board for the sequel. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within has distanced itself from the raw non-tempered catharsis at the expense of favela thugs and drug dealers in the first movie, and developed a polish with a grander and more encompassing political narrative reminiscent of various American gangster movies, and the writers have found a moral conscience that makes it relatively inferior to the first Elite Squad, but still one hell of a political-crime film. As a gangster movie, few compare this year, but the move to qualify the fascistic ethos of the first movie is a disappointing move – like a blues artist getting off the heroin.

————————————————–

23b. Hobo With a Shotgun

Art 1 Ent 5 Worth 5
director: Jason Eisener
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

If you aim to make a B-movie, with very few resources, you can do worse than patterning your film after Hobo With a Shotgun. Where last year’s visually brilliant Amer sought to pastiche Italian giallo slasher flicks of the ’60s and ’70s, ‘Hobo’ seeks lower hanging fruit: the cheesy violent exploitation films of the ’70s and ’80s that propel Quentin Tarantino’s imagination (the pastiche extends to the film poster). ‘Hobo’ is incredibly funny in an intentionally bad kind of way, self-aware of its own ridiculousness. But how can it not be when it knows exactly what it’s making fun of? Some of the one-liners in ‘Hobo’ make it a winner alone, but the blistering, explosive, over-the-top gore makes it wholesomely endearing fun, for the entire family. The best part is that Rutger Hauer has taken the same trajectory as Leslie Nielsen: saying the same lines as he did in serious films, only in old age they became comedy.

————————————————–

25. Melancholia

Art 4 Ent 2 Worth 4
director: Lars von Trier
trailer
original review
imdb
rotten tomatoes

After causing a stink at Cannes this year by joking that he has “Nazi” heritage, Lars von Trier diverted attention from his actual work. Melancholia is a deeply interesting apocalypse movie (I’m not giving anything away, it happens in the opening scene), examining characters as they flounder, flip out and reach existential serenity with a massive celestial object ready to slam into them. Kirsten Dunst won best actress at Cannes for her performance in this movie, but without taking anything away from her acting, I suspect it was mostly because she got gorgeously naked. Melancholia is not as good as von Trier’s stinging 2009 masterpiece Antichrist, but it’s worth seeing on its own merits, and is filmed with an acute sense of light beauty in contrast to Antichrist’s evocative darkness.