The Best and Worst Movies of 2011

It’s hard to describe 2011 as anything other than a disappointing year for movies. Most years start out slow, see a few pleasant surprises in spring, the usual mix of mega-budget hits and misses during the summer, followed by the doldrums of fall, and a busy holiday season of Oscar contenders and blockbuster tentpoles.

But 2011 never achieved liftoff. A deserted February through April gave way to a particularly weak summer. And the late-year pickup in quality never materialized – not when the second Friday in December welcomed the fugly one-two punch of “The Sitter” and “New Year’s Eve.”

Still, some fine filmmaking took place, though audiences sometimes had to hunt around for it. Here is my take on Cinema ’11.

The Best

1. The Artist – The only movie to which I gave my top rating, “The Artist” is French, black-and-white and silent to boot, but it’s anything but a snooty art film. It’s a highly enjoyable ode to old-fashioned Hollywood, and the most purely rapturous emotional experience I had at any movie this year.
2. A Better Life – I very much enjoyed this little immigrant story by director Chris Weitz and writer Eric Eason when it first came to theaters – leaving quickly with hardly a trace – and it’s only grown in my estimation since. It’s an homage to “The Bicycle Thief” that leaves aside the politics of illegal immigration for a very human story.
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- A late addition to this list, the adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel about a precocious boy dealing with the death of his father (Tom Hanks) in 9/11 is one of the most emotionally gripping journeys of the year.
4. Moneyball – Another movie I don’t think got its due, this terrific look at the numbers men behind baseball contains what is probably the best performance of Brad Pitt’s career, and the best screenplay of the year. An in-the-park homer.
5. The Skin I Live In – Pedro Almodóvar’s most unique, vibrant film in years, this kinky potboiler about a plastic surgeon and his very special patient is simultaneously disturbing and thrilling. Alfred Hitchcock would be jealous.
6. Rango – A weird, twisted animated film ostensibly for kids, “Rango” was easily one of the most original movies of 2011. Johnny Depp voices a lizard caught up in a Western spoof with a little (OK, lot of) Salvador Dali stirred in.
7. The Descendants – Alexander Payne (“Sideways”) seems to be making films on a Kubrickian time table, but this black comedy starring George Clooney as a father vexed by familial trials was well worth the wait.
8. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes – What looked to be a hammy spin-off of an antiquated film franchise turned out to be the best movie of the summer, a cerebral prequel to a world of damned, dirty apes. With a terrific CGI motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis.
9. Margin Call – Unlike some critics, I don’t relish picking obscure films just to show off my snooty bona fides. But this little-seen drama by rookie director/writer J.C. Chandor, which gives a fictional take on the economic crash that launches the Great Recession, is top-notch. Think “Glengarry Glen Ross” moved up to the executive suite.
10. War Horse – Steven Spielberg returns to form with this sweeping epic about a horse who must suffer through the atrocities and vagaries of World War I, separated from the boy who loves him. I dare you not to shed tears.

The Others

Making lists of favorite things is fun, but it also means leaving off worthy films that didn’t quite make the cut. Here, in alphabetical order, is my lucky 13 of the rest of the year’s best.

“The Adventures of Tintin,” "Anonymous," “Arthur,” “The Beaver,” “Coriolanus,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Drive,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” “The Help, “The Iron Lady,” “Larry Crowne,” “Sarah’s Key,” “Welcome to the Rileys,” “Win Win.”

The Worst

Amid any triumphs, there are always catastrophes. The truth is I don’t see many of the absolutely worst movies of the year, since the studios don’t screen them for critics. And, frankly, I prefer not to take time out of my weekend to catch up on “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.”

But here are 10 of the most inadequate films I saw in 2011.

1. Green Lantern – An abject lesson in how not to make a super-hero movie. Start by trying to wrap decades of comic book mythology around the smirking star persona of Ryan Reynolds.
2. The Smurfs – This cringe-worthy remake of the 1980s TV cartoon follows in the “Garfield” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” mold.
3. Fright Night – A terrible remake of a not-particularly-good ‘80s vampire flick. That’s a whole lot of suck.
4. Red Riding Hood – A sexed-up take on the classic fairy tale. They lost me during the medieval lambada scene
5. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – I’m no tween vampire hater; I actually gave a positive review to the previous “Twilight” flick. But this penultimate film is all exposition with no payoff.
6. Your Highness – Stoner comedy meets sword & sorcery. What an epic downer, man.
7. Friends with Benefits – Am I the only one who thinks Mila Kunis is a horrible actress? Her pairing with Justin Timberlake in this flaccid romcom didn’t bring sexy back.
8.  Kung Fu Panda 2 – I will always remember “Kung Fu Panda 2,” because before I could brag that I never walked out of a movie and never fell a sleep during one. At least I can still say I never walked out.
9. I Am Number Four – This YA sci-fi/romance is like a bad mash-up of “Twilight” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
10. Cowboys and Aliens – Certainly not a bad movie, but tops my list for biggest disappointment. Audiences wanted tongue-in-cheek fun; we got a dreary Western with lasers.

My Top 10 of '10

The year 2010 got off to a slow start cinematically, but picked up steam as we went along. By mid-June I was calling it the worst year for movies in at least a decade, but then late summer smiled on us with "Toy Story 3," "Inception" ... and even a "Twilight" movie that wasn't half bad.

A strong showing of Oscar-contending films in the latter months -- some of which won't hit local theaters until 2011 -- pushed the year into respectable territory.

Here are my picks for the best and worst of 2010.

THE WORST

First, the least.

In selecting the worst movies of the year, I should add the caveat that I haven't seen what are likely the absolute bottom of the barrel. A lot of the flicks that are truly awful, like the relentless annual issuing of a new "Saw" movie, are not screened in advance. It's a little game the studios and critics play: They know their movie stinks, so they don't show it to us, figuring no review is better than a bad review.

So these 10 films are the worst I saw in 2010, or at least that disappointed me the most.

1.   Yogi Bear -- I never thought I'd see a movie that made me look back fondly on "Garfield," but this aggressively awful CG-meets-live action romp sets a new high in low for kiddie fare.

2.    Machete -- Robert Rodriguez made a movie based on one of the fake trailers contained in the "Grindhouse" double feature from a few years ago. It's not nearly as much fun as it seems to think it is.

3.    Legendary -- WWE wrestler John Cena tackles a dramatic role in a movie about real high school wrestling. Tag this one out.

4.    Jonah Hex -- A silly comic adaptation of a bloody comic book, written by the guys who did those awful "Crank" movies.

5.    The Bounty Hunter -- Two likable stars, Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, in a cynical movie that manages to dredge up every cliché of both the romantic comedy and buddy cop genres.

6.   Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time -- This big-budget summer flick from Disney featured a bunch of Caucasian actors pretending to be Persians, and a plot that pretended to be coherent.

7.    Repo Men -- I give it credit for some bold ideas, but this strange movie about thugs who repossess bodily organs out of live people should've been recalled for a rewrite or five.

8.    The Wolfman -- Hollywood hasn't made a werewolf movie in ages. And after this howlingly bad effort, it probably won't again soon.

9.  The Book of Eli -- An admittedly great-looking movie set in a post-apocalyptic world in which everyone is looking for the last copy of the Bible. Audiences needed a lot of faith to make it through this one.

10.  Wild Grass -- This effort from celebrated filmmaker Alain Resnais is like a parody of every stereotype of European art films: Dense, impenetrable and deliberately off-putting.

 

THE BEST

10.  Tangled -- Some have dismissed it as just another Disney princess movie. If the house that Walt built can still make them this good, I have no problem with many, many more.

9.    Biutiful -- This lovely, dreary Spanish-language film from director Alejandro González Iñárritu is notable mostly for its strong performance by Javier Bardem as a street hustler burdened with a soul and a death sentence.

8.   Freedom Riders -- The best documentary I saw this year. Stanley Nelson's film takes what we think is a well-traversed piece of Civil Rights history, and continually surprises and enlightens us.

7.    True Grit -- Joel and Ethan Coen's oater of a Western is not so much a remake of the John Wayne film as an entirely new vision based on the same book. It's darker, more violent, and better.

6.    Blue Valentine -- A tragic romance story about two people falling in love, intermixed with the same couple's marriage dissolving several years later. Two amazing performances from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams -- a Sundance Film Festival favorite, and now we know why.

5.   How to Train Your Dragon -- The best animated film of 2010, and it had some healthy competition. "Toy Story 3" will win the Oscar, but I deem this DreamWorks effort superior because it created a whole new world, and contained a sneaky theme about overcoming disability.

4.    Inception -- Truly the most audacious, original and innovative film of the year. Yes, the settings and world-within-a-world theme are reminiscent of other films ("Blade Runner," "The Matrix"). But Christopher Nolan's intricately-layered storytelling left audiences amazed and gasping.

3.   Winter's Bone -- Cold and sharp, this outstanding drama from co-writer/director Debra Granik is set among the cloistered confines of poor hill people, but never once does it look down upon them or treat them as a zoological exhibit. Terrific performances by Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes.

2.    127 Hours -- The cinematic performance of the year from James Franco, and another bravura directing job by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Forget the grisly details about a trapped mountain climber who cut off his own arm. This is the story of a lost soul who was saved by the boulder that pinned him.

1.    The Social Network -- The "Citizen Kane" for Generation Y. In its portrait of a New Media mogul, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, this film from director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin may have taken as many liberties with the facts as Orson Welles did with William Randolph Hearst. But it's a dizzyingly smart, verbose film that highlights how computer code is rewriting the way we communicate.

 

THE REST

Making lists of your favorite things is fun -- except for the anguish of having to leave deserving films off. Here are 15 more movies (in alphabetical order) that didn't make my Top 10, but vied for a spot:


The American
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Fighter
Get Him to the Greek
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Kick-Ass
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
Morning Glory
Mother and Child
Rabbit Hole
Red Cliff
Salt
Splice
Toy Story 3

Top 10 Films of 2009

To me, 2009 was filled with many very good movies but few great ones.

As I write this on the winter solstice, "Up in the Air" looks to be unstoppable in the Oscar race. It's on my list, and high up, but as I look over the films I don't see many seminal movies people are sure to still be talking about in 20 or 30 years.

Top 10 Lists are by definition arbitrary, and by definition a lot of fun to compose and argue about. If you ask me to make this list next week, it might look a little different. But today, here's my take on the year in film:

10. "Precious." A tough, hard movie to watch, but rewarding for those who do. Gabourey Sidibe stars in a break-out role as an impoverished girl, abused and ignored, who finds reason for hope.

9. "The Damned United." Consider this movie compared to "Invictus." I'm equally indifferent to soccer and rugby, but found this behind-the scenes portrait of Brian Clough's disastrous stint as manager of one of 1970s England's top football teams utterly riveting. With Timothy Spall in a great supporting role that deserves more attention.

8. "Avatar." Give it up for James Cameron; the auteur -- one of the few directors today who deserves that title -- shoots for the moon. This mostly computer-generated epic is blowing away even the most cynical audiences.

7. "The Young Victoria." If all period costume dramas were this full of verve, they'd become box-office darlings. Emily Blunt gives a career-changing performance as Queen Victoria during her ascension and early reign.

6. "The Road." I'm still trying to figure out why this movie based on Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning novel was shelved for a year. It's about a father and son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with cannibals. Yes, it's depressing as hell -- and as uplifting as any film I saw this year.

5. "Moon." This sly, little-seen science fiction drama plays with your expectations, so just when you think you've got it figured out, it surprises you again and again. Sam Rockwell plays a solitary worker manning a lunar station where strange events transpire.

4. "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Based on a children's book, but Wes Anderson's funny/quirky take on a fox who tries to ignore his essential nature is not just one of the best animated films, not just one of the best children's films, but one of the best films of the year. Period.

3. "Up in the Air." The movie that provides the most honest snapshot of our country and our time. George Clooney plays a seemingly soulless executive who flies around firing people for a living, but then faces his own obsolescence. Wry, pitch-perfect, spot-on dialogue, wonderfully acted.

2. "The Hurt Locker." Somewhere in Iraq or Afghanistan right now, an American soldier is attempting to defuse a terrorist bomb. Jeremy Renner gives the performance of the year as a man who is constantly surrounded by insanity, until normal life becomes intolerable. Director Kathryn Bigelow's masterpiece.

1. "Julie & Julia." I think I can safely say I'm the only critic putting this movie at the top of his list. Yeah, I've heard the backlash: Meryl Streep's Julia Child sections are terrific, the modern stuff with Amy Adams a bore. Like cooking, certain flavors just appeal more to some people than others. I think Nora Ephron's combination is a recipe for cinematic bliss.

Best of the rest: Making a list of just 10 movies means there are many others you appreciated and adored, but just couldn't find a spot for them. Here's 13 more films 2009 was blessed to have (alphabetically):

"(500) Days of Summer," "9," "Adventureland," "District 9," "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," "The Princess and the Frog," "Shrink," "Sin Nombre," "A Single Man," "The Soloist," "Up," "Watchmen" and "Where the Wild Things Are."

Top 10 Films of 2008

Here's my list. For now, it's only a list; you'll have to check my published links later this week to see all the whys and wherefores.

One caveat: the only major picture I didn't see was "Frost/Nixon," which for whatever reason the studios declined to screen for the Indianapolis critics (all three of us).

1. Wall·E
   
2. Slumdog Millionaire
   
3. The Reader
   
4. Traitor
   
5. Marley & Me
6. Iron Man
   
7. Frozen River
   
8. Defiance
9. Changeling
10. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas