The Film Babble Blog Top 10 Movies Of 2011

2011 was a pretty unremarkable year for movies.

I saw over 130 films on the big screen and the vast majority of them sucked. Few films caught on at the art houses, and the multiplexes were dominated by super hero movies and sequels - 9 out of the top 10 grossing films were sequels, and the only one that wasn't was THE SMURFS which should really tell you something about how sucky the year was.

However, there were a handful of excellent films, so here's my top 10 favorites:

1. THE TREE OF LIFE (Dir. Terrence Malick)
 

The reaction to this film has been extremely divisive (my wife hated it for example), but no other film this last year made a bigger dent into my cinematic pysche. In my review last summer, I wrote that “the visual thrust is stupefying; it’s like Malick is actually trying to capture God on film.” Read my review here.

2. HUGO (Dir. Martin Scorsese)

Scorsese's first film in 3D is very personal tribute to the magic of filmmaking, focusing on a young French boy (Asa Butterfield) who discovers the toy shop owner at the train station is the legendary Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), who has been called the world's first Cinemagician. It's a stunning and touching piece of work that is an amazing addition to Scorsese's incredible canon. Read my review here.

3. DRIVE (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver in this moody, stylish thriller that has a '80s retro feel. Winding Refn brings out standout performances from Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, and especially Albert Brooks, who should really get an Academy Award nomination for his turn as a murderous mobster.

4. THE ARTIST (Dir. Michel Hazanavicius)

When "talkies" start taking over cinema in the late '20s, a silent film star (Jean Dujardin) finds his fame fading while an actress dancer (Bérénice Bejo) he helped get into show business becomes a big star. It's a beautifully shot black and white (and actually silent) homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and I savored every second of it. Read my review here.

5. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Dir. Woody Allen)

This charming comedy, which features Owen Wilson as a writer who is somehow transported to Paris in the '20s, is Woody Allen's highest grossing film ever, and it's his best film since VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA. Read my review here.

For my full reviews of the rest – please click on the highlighted titles:

6. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Dir. Sean Durkin)

7. PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES (Dir. Andrew Rossi)

8. 50/50 (Dir. Jonathan Levine)

9. BRIDESMAIDS (Dir. Paul Feig)

10. RED STATE (Dir. Kevin Smith)

Man, I hope 2012 is a better year for movies.

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Gina Carano owns Steven Soderbergh's HAYWIRE

HAYWIRE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2012)



Although I had not seen a trailer or read anything about it going in, I caught on quickly that this film is simply an excuse to string together a series of acrobatic fight scenes showcasing the mixed martial arts skills of Gina Carano.

Thing is, it’s a pretty good excuse.

The plot, something about the CIA trained Carano getting set up and betrayed on a mission, really doesn’t matter, because this movie is all about the kinetic, extremely well choreographed, and superbly shot fight scenes.

Surrounding Carano is a cast of familiar faces: Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, and Michael Fassbender, but I believe had those same roles been played by a bunch of unknowns, it would have the same effect, because, again, it’s all about Carano’s game.

On the run from an international manhunt, Carano hijacks the car of the scruffy Michael Angarano in upstate New York, and she tells him (and us) how she got there, so we get flashbacks of set pieces in opulent settings.

For instance, a hotel suite in Dublin in which Carano and Fassbender have a brutal scuffle; it’s polished violence with class as the couple is outfitted in expensive evening wear.

With its snazzy jazzy soundtrack by frequent Soderberg collaborator David Holmes, HAYWIRE bops along enjoyably from brawl to brawl. It’s a durable diversion especially compared to its competition (*cough* CONTRABAND) in this January dumping ground.

From 1989’s SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE to last year’s CONTAGION, Soderbergh has dabbled in just about every genre (can’t wait for him to tackle Westerns), so why not an espionage revenge thriller with a kick ass hottie, who actually can kick ass in real life?

Here Soderbergh throws his new heroine into the ring with Laura Croft, “The Bride” from KILL BILL, and Lisbeth Salander (either Noomi Rapace or Rooney Mara - it doesn't matter), and by the end of it you’ll be convinced that Carano would be the last one standing.

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THE ARTIST Is Chock Full Of Charm

THE ARTIST (Dir. Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

There were a few times during this film that I forgot I was watching a modern movie.

So beautifully and affectionately does Hazanavicius and co. recreate the era and the aura of the Golden Age of Hollywood in this black and white wonder, that I felt like I was in an old revival movie house instead of the bland big box multiplex where I attended the screening.

For the first silent movie since Mel Brooks took on the genre in SILENT MOVIE in 1976, we get the story of a silent film star whose time in the spotlight may soon be over because the talkies are the wave of the future. Despite that arc, this film doesn’t have any spoken dialogue - except for a single scene that still has no talking but some sound effects – it’s silent from start to finish with white-on-black title cards to boot.

Jean Dujardin suitably plays George Valentin, who we first meet at a lavish film premiere of his latest movie in 1927, basking in the love of his audience. One of his fans, a wide-eyed wannabe starlet named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), through some cute circumstances, breaks into showbiz and her talking pictures take off, while Dujardin’s lose favor.

With only his Jack Russell terrier named Jack (Uggie in real life – who actually has a IMDb page) Dujardin loses his fame and fortune, and spirals down into squalor.

Of course it’s up to Bejo to be Dujardin’s saving angel.

As for the supporting players - John Goodman, as a cantankerous studio boss, is great as always, but he really only seems to be there to help this French film crossover to us Yanks. The also always great James Cromwell plays Dujardin’s valet, Penelope Ann Miller plays Dujardin’s long suffering wife, and Malcolm McDowell has a cameo as a butler. And, as a thousand other critics have already written, Uggie the dog often steals the movie out from under everyone.

Despite a fairly shallow storyline, THE ARTIST is chock full of charm. It’s also full of gorgeous cinematography by Guillaume Schiffman, who shot Hazanavicius’s hilarious retro spy satires OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF THIEVES (also starring Dujardin and Bejo) and its almost as funny sequel OSS 117: LOST IN RIO.

This clever and amusing old fashioned flick pays tribute to so many films over its 100 minute running time that it would be pointless to try to list them (I’m sure there’s a site out there that does), but I’ll just note the dining room scene nod to Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE, the homage to Billy Wilder’s SUNSET BOULEVARD in Dujardin’s washed up re-watching of his old films over and over, and the use of a bit of Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller VERTIGO at a crucial emotional moment.

That last one I mentioned because of VERTIGO star Kim Novak’s recent claim in the magazine Variety that the use of bits of Herrmann’s score (which they paid for and credited) equates “rape.” I think that’s ridiculously extreme – lots of music from classic movies has been reused over the years, and the idea that this Award winning crowd pleaser tarnishes the famous Hitchcock thriller at all is ludicrous. 

I felt that composer Ludovic Bource, who otherwise fills the film with appropriate piano backing, and Hazanavicius were incredibly sincere in this execellent tribute.

But, hey, one man’s homage is another man’s rip-off, amirite?

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