Pwaters' Top Ten Films of 2011

2012 is here and it's time to look back at the past...unfortunately if you look at 2011's movies you'll reach a bit of a dry spell.  I picked these ten flicks out and put them in order because that's just what is expected out of a movie review blog, but besides the top few movies, none of the films on my list came to me as "obvious" choices.  Unlike the past few years I didn't have "the one" jump right out at me.  But anyway, here it is, my favorite films of 2011 (and I emphasize my because I'm betting some people will cry about the exclusion of Hugo and Drive, both of which I find fine and dandy, but also to be highly overrated). And keep in mind I'm not perfect and I haven't seen every single movie that came out this year (who knows, maybe Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star could have been a brilliant piece of artistry).  So without further bullshitting, here's #10:

10.  Hanna
(Dir. Joe Wright)

Atonement director Joe Wright reunites with Saoirse Ronan (aka The Lovely Bones' rape victim) for this action thriller framed as a kind of modern fairy tale.  Ronan plays the titular character, who, trained by her father (Eric Bana) in isolation for years in the wilderness of Finland, is now being sought after by the government.  What results is more or less an hour-and-a-half cat and mouse chase filled with some great action and a perfectly electric soundtrack from The Chemical Brothers.  Told from the perspective of this sheltered little girl (granted, a little girl with the killer instincts of an assassin), Wright does a solid job conveying her naivety and how she is experiencing the outside world for the first time.

9.  Contagion
(Dir. Steven Soderbergh)

Any germophobes out there will want to stay far away from this clinically-told doomsday story.  We've seen so many end of the world movies that are either really flashy or are extremely grungy and depressing, but Contagion is not super cinematic in that way: it's an almost textbook depiction of how a deadly global virus would spread and how that would affect us.  Through an ensemble cast and a stylish (or in this case almost anti-stylish) vision from Steven Soderbergh, this is an unsettling portrait of an epidemic that seems all too real.

8.  Source Code
(Dir. Duncan Jones)

Ok, so I've re-watched this film a few times, and after many attempts to logically work through the plot I found that there's no way the film can possibly make sense with the details we are given - that being said it's still a great movie considering I cared enough to go through all that trouble just to figure that out (please debate me if you "found" the formula that makes it work).  Much in the same vein as last year's Inception, Source Code is somewhat of a thinking man's action/sci-fi flick starring Jake Gyllenhaal, aka Heath Ledger's butt buddy from Brokeback Mountain.  Essentially, Donnie Darko wakes up in this metal contraption and being a soldier, must follow orders and repeatedly go back in time in an attempt to stop a train from blowing up.  I found this movie to be very Hitchcock-ian and seemed heavily influenced by The Twilight Zone, having a simple "hook" but with complex results.

7.  Moneyball
(Dir.  Bennett Miller)

I would have never thought that this would be on my list, but Moneyball resonated with me and somehow managed to make baseball nerdy (in a cool way).  Written by Aaron Sorkin, the film definitely has a "Social Network" vibe going on, with plenty of smart dialogue.  Brad Pitt co-stars with Jonah Hill, who surprisingly turns out a performance on par with the Award Winning super-hunk.  This movie is really about how Pitt's character, Billy Bean, changed the game of baseball forever and I, someone who typically finds sports to be uninteresting, was completely fascinated by this story.

6.  The Muppets
(Dir. James Bobin)

This is a film made for Muppets fans everywhere.  Harking back to the glorious moments of the past while creating new Muppets memories for a future generation: I think the difficult balancing act was pulled off by all involved and I hope this paves the way for future Muppet projects.  Don't know what else to say about this film - it's got it all: great music, humor, and Chris Cooper rapping like a jackass.

5.  50/50

(Dir. Jonathan Levine)

Loosely based upon the real life story of 50/50's screenwriter Will Reiser, the film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young twenty-something who is suddenly diagnosed with cancer.  With the help of his best friend and his inexperienced therapist (played by Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick), he has to learn to cope with the shit hand life has dealt him.  This film stands out to me because I've never seen a picture like this told from the perspective of young adults.  The movie is touching, funny, and heartfelt in all the right places and was probably the closest I came to crying at a movie this year.  Based on box office dollar signs this movie did pretty poorly, so for whatever reason you decided not to check it out, do yourself a favor and scout out this flick.

4.  Young Adult
(Dir. Jason Reitman)

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody's second team-up is my favorite of either of their works so far.  Charlize Theron's character in Young Adult, Mavis Gary, is one of the most fascinating of the year, and Patton Oswalt acts as a mirror image to her in another strong performance I never saw coming.  Mavis is the ghost-writer of a popular young adult series that is nearing its end.  She returns home in an effort to win back her high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson), even though he is married with a baby.  Theron is playing a real sociopath here, and the way the script slowly reveals her "scars" is thoughtful and very true-to-life.  The film may not be the flashiest on my list and might be a tough sell to a mass audience, but in terms of character-driven storytelling, I found this to be a fantastic film.

3.  Rango
(Dir. Gore Verbinski)

Not only is Rango a great animated film, but it's also a solid western, live-action or otherwise.  The story follows a nameless chameleon who incidentally claims the role of sheriff in a dusty, critter-laden western town.  Taking odes from Chinatown and old cowboy flicks a la Leone and Ford, Rango is exciting in all the right ways.  The characters are not the smiling, happy animals found in Dreamworks or Pixar pictures - these are unusual looking, butt-ugly creatures.  The story is typical but with the combination of a unique setting, a fine performance by Johnny Depp (who "acted out" the entirety of the movie on a set, for animators to animate later), cool characters, and an action scene involving bats with gatling guns, this is a kids film you can leave the kids at home to see.

2.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes
(Dir. Rupert Wyatt)

I, along with many others, was excepting this film to be the biggest bomb of the summer.  The Planet of the Apes was not exactly the franchise we all were hoping to be reinvigorated, but surprisingly this prequel/re-invention of the Apes mythos was genuinely one of the best sci-fi/action experiences this summer season had to offer.  Currently Andy Serkis's motion-captured performance of Caesar is garnering whispers of a possible Oscar-nod, and I seriously think he should be recognized; the man makes a good monkey.  The movie limits most of the humans to "side character" status, which places the apes front and center.  Because of this, "Rise" is a very visual film relying on Caesar and the other monkeys' body language to communicate.  Also, the final action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge might be my favorite action scene of the year (with a close second being the Burj Khalifa scene in Ghost Protocol).

1.  The Skin I Live In

(Dir. Pedro Almodovar)

There were next to no good horror films in 2011, but The Skin I Live In is probably as close as it gets (besides maybe Contagion).  The film can be squeamish at times, but it's told with great style and direction by Pedro Almodovar, and is probably the best work Antonio Banderas has been involved in recently (besides voicing the Nasonex bee of course).  To delve into the plot would be a disservice to the film so I'll spare you the details; it's really best to go in fresh and be shocked and appalled at the twists and turns.  Just know going in that if you can't appreciate fucked up psycho-sexual quasi-horror stories stay away, but otherwise this is a must-see for all film fans.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

I hope you enjoyed reading this top ten at least a little bit -- and please feel free to chime in with your thoughts and opinions!  Is there a movie that I criminally didn't check out this year, or is there a pick of mine that you are completely disgusted with?  I welcome any comments and/or debates to be had!  Have a happy new year - we can all only hope 2012 doesn't suck as hard (I think I'm gonna stick around John Cusack in the latter portion of the year).

And here's a quick list of the films that I repeatedly keep seeing on "top" lists but I was not able to check out (* at my house via Netflix):  Shame, The Guard, Win Win*, Another Earth*, Beginners, A Separation, Melancholia, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, We Need to Talk About Kevin, War Horse, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo...and probably many others.