jess kroll
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Haywire
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Haywire, 2011
2.5 / 5
Steven Soderbergh has always been a risk taker, from complete genre reconstruction to wild casting choices, however only one of these works in Haywire. Although limited, Gina Carano's debut is a striking success. She's gorgeous, moves with astonishing speed and fluidity, and the film works best when it simply follows her running, jumping, climbing and, most of all, fighting. Unlike so many female "action" stars when Carano throws a punch, you know it hurts. She's smartly surrounded by a hefty group of actors, with the exception of Channing Tatum, remaining as interesting onscreen as a chunk of wood, whom she can kick the teeth out of. Yet instead of a Jason Bourne-style bareknuckle action bruiser, Soderbergh's arthouse sensibility leads to long stretches of nothing, setpieces muted for cool jazz and a story so minimal it doesn't have an ending. For a character as skilled and efficient as Mallory, finishing should be the priority.
The Avengers
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The Avengers, 2012
4.5 / 5
Superhero movies - those not directed by Christopher Nolan - need only deliver on two things: character and action. For character, few screenwriters deliver quick and sharp dialogue like Joss Whedon and he clearly has a natural affinity for Downey Jr.'s Ironman, who carries the movie during downtimes. Others character feel flat at the start but eventually come around, particularly Hulk, treated as the film's Jaws and redeemed after two previous cinematic disasters. For action, Avengers is one of the few superhero flicks which truly delivers on its epic premise. Battles are huge but remain clear and fun. Even the merely human heroes (Black Widow and Hawkeye) are given purpose, as flimsy as they may be. Instead of trying to reinvent the genre, Whedon wisely embraces it, clichés, obligatory scenes and all. The story may fail in its brief attempts at transcendence and relevance leaving only a paint-by-numbers story, but those numbers display some exceptionally gorgeous paint.
Hunger Games
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Hunger Games, 2012
4 / 5
Hunger Games has great things going for it: a strong lead character (Jennifer Lawrence is already one of her generation's best actresses), well staged and at times intense action (even knowing it's the first of three books) and powerful promised implications. However, it also has many flaws all stemming from one major issue: pacing. The dystopian setting and sanitized, PG-13 violence are glossed into an dull sheen; a polish which makes the film disappointingly safe. Little time spent with characters gives only one death any weight. The individual parts of the movie feel rushed while the whole feels long. And the computer effects are bad. Like 1990's bad. These flaws are particularly glaring because there is so much to otherwise love. Its aforementioned strengths are mighty enough to create a highly entertaining and enjoyable movie. A strong foundation for the next two (or three) which will, hopefully, bring power and not just polish.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - 2011
3 / 5 stars
Condensing a novel, later adapted to six-part mini-series, into a two-hour movie means a lot of material gets removed. This minimal form of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy leaves little left to question, losing characterization, lowering the tension and making the eventual resolution feel somewhat blasé. What remains is a very well-made film with an unremarkable story and absolutely stellar lead performances. Gary Oldman is almost every reason the film works, the supporting cast being the remaining reason. His stoicism and clarity of purpose perfectly suit the Cold War setting, muted color palette and slow-burn pacing to create a detached, emotionless atmosphere. However where the restraint performance works the same austere delivery makes the story feel dull. There's never any sense of danger or dread. The film may be more realistic to espionage than the Bond or Bourne franchises, but in the end it feels like nothing really happened. Much with actual spy work, the general public moves on, completely unconcerned.
Best Films (that I saw) of 2011
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10. Moneyball
In many ways Moneyball is sabermetrics of the sports movie, breaking down the story and characters into the most basic statistical elements and then fulfilling those demands as best as possible to create an effective movie. Doesn't always mean it's the most compelling or resonant film, but it does enough very well to go pretty far. The fact that Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin were able to create a script from Michael Lewis's fundamental decontruction of baseball management is quite remarkable. Add in an ace performance by Pitt, solid support including Hill and Seymour Hoffman and serviceable although not entirely remarkable direction, and you have a winning team. While it may not hit on every scene, it comes through when needed.
9. Hugo
After a first half that more closely resembles editing pieces of film into the necessary shape than compelling narrative, Hugo develops into a wondrous and heartfelt experience. Scorsese's interplay of 3D technology and dawn-of-cinema recreations create a relationship where substance and style are symbiotic, contradictory yet complementary, in unison with one another. The child-friendly format can at times be a slog for adults, the greatest offender being Baron Cohen's hammy slapstick, but the sense of child-like wonder which accompanies Melies' work makes early and forgotten film feel vital. These are the feelings film, at its highest function, are supposed to provoke. For a cinema archivist like Scorsese, Hugo is the perfect vehicle to deliver his message: a kids movie about the importance of cinema. Hook'em while they're young, just like cigarettes.
8. Source Code
In 2009 Duncan Jones directed one of the year's best films that no one saw (Moon), then in 2011 he directed one of the year's films that no one remembered. Source Code adds big explosions and effects, a bigger cast and more stars, but instead of being a typical blockbuster it retains Moon's contemplation on identity and near-future technology. The film is equally enjoyable as pure entertainment (it's fun to see Jake Gyllenhaal repeatedly blown into little bits, less so Michelle Monaghan, who's extremely pretty and whose character is so sweet) and as a piece of speculative science fiction. The film may end a few minutes too late, attaching a more Hollywood-style ending instead of what could have been a beautifully, frustrating ambiguous one, but the emotional and physical closure, along with an intellectual opening, complete the cycle nicely.
While the story and direction is effective, the real pull belongs to Elizabeth Olsen, immediately surpassing anything her billionaire (yes, billionaire, with a "b") sisters have done. Martha Marcy May Marlene's entire approach to the subject of cults only works by displaying the psychology of someone who would choose that lifestyle. While the conversion process is a little shaky, with Martha being renamed, and then ritually, shall we say, entered, into the family, Olsen portrays a character that is as uncomfortable in mass society as she grows in her contained one. Flashes of violence enforce the danger but it's the paranoia of her internal world that lends stakes to the external. Beyond being just more sensationalist cinema about organizations no one tries to defend, the film looks at who may decide to join them and why.
6. Margin Call
Not quite to the level of Twelve Angry Men but Margin Call effectively packs a large and vital story into a handful of locations with a small but stacked cast turning in remarkable performances. While at times a little too obvious, many of the lengthy monologues are brilliantly written, capturing both the individual character's thoughts and those which lead to the biggest depression since the Great one (which, it bears repeating, happened because of the lost Bush decade). Most importantly, Margin Call effectively captures the loose soil on which the American financial industry was built and how easily and inevitably it toppled. In the winter (and hopefully coming year) of Occupy Wall Street, the film should serve as a reminder of how we got under this rumble and how we should dig our way out.
Leave it to someone who was raised there to create a Hawai'i story, adapted for this film, authentic to the place and the specific people within it. The Descendants may not be an all-encompassing Hawai'i experience but it captures this limited and isolated population extremely well. Little details, the way the characters dress and speak, their inseparable connection to the islands but tangential relationship to its people, all ring remarkably true. Even the entirely Hawaiian soundtrack, music usually listened to by native Hawaiians and wealthy Hawaiian-born haoles, provides character. Clooney looks and feels perfectly suited to his role and plays it well enough that it's hard to imagine anyone else in the part. As with previous Alexander Payne films, Descendants occasionally overplays on sentiment, but its parts humor and emotion befit the Pacific melting pot.
Allen's characteristic romanticism, nostalgia and obsession with beautiful things finds a perfect outlet in the Lost Generation and Paris' nightscapes. In addition to being some of Allen's finest writing, emmulating the character and dialog patterns of several historical artistic figures, he manages the feat of making Hemingway enjoyable, something even Ernest himself was incapable of. Some of the elegance of implication is lost when Wilson (a solid for Allen proxy) and Cotillard (who is both one of the best and most stunning actresses today) decide to explain the entire meaning of the film, just in case anyone watching hasn't figured it out by the last ten minutes, but Midnight in Paris is still a wonderful, beautiful and thoroughly entertaining film where romanticism and modern dissatisfaction are given their proper context.
3. 50/50
Cancer is often a cancer to storytelling; easily manipulating pathos toward cloying material, using a detestable disease to bludgeon sympathy onto banal characters, challenging the audience to either care or be a horrible, horrible person. Although there is still some sentiment shoehorned into 50/50 the film largely ignores cancerous clichés for the real experience of living with, not just dying from, this plague. Gordon-Levitt's measured and distant performance makes his flashes of emotion much more powerful, and his climatic fear is more authentic than the sum total of a dozen other cancer films. Rogen, playing his usual character, is finally provided and a heart and mind behind the crude humor. Although the end is never in question, and predictably Hollywood, 50/50 is the most realistic depiction yet often of dealing with this disease.
2. Contagion
In the past, virus movies have veered between dull, white walls and lab coats science procedurals and sensationalized, overhyped action movies with coughing heroes, Contagion packs every element of a viral pandemic into a single, surprisingly tense and entertaining package. From the middle class and poor only counted as bodies, to the paranoid conspiracy theorist and the scientists they demonize, every side is examined with an equally objective lens. The exact style of film depends on the placement of the story, with the most startling material coming at ground level, where a trip to the supermarket resembles a zombie invasion. As with a virus itself, the film doesn't discriminate between its stars and its peons, nobody is safe and no place isn't suspect.
1. Tree of Life
Long, pretentious, mostly plotless and even Sean Penn doesn't know what his character was doing but also the most ambitious and evocative film of the year and likely the most beautiful ever made, Tree of Life is wholly unlike anything else. Such things as characterization are minimal yet the scope and form of the film, partially served by its ambiguity, is so magnificent that the sheer confluence of events which lead to its creation is a wonder in itself. While the latter half drops considerably from the earlier, and the ending is surprisingly dull, the entire creation of life sequence is an amazing visual display, even moreso when considering that none of the developing galaxies were created with computers. Like life, it's the flaws, wandering, wondering and beauty that make it interesting. It may seem overlong, at times boring and painful, but in the end, it's worth it.
Most Overrated:
A cool soundtrack, nifty throwback style and one surprisingly intense and shamefully snubbed performance (by Albert Brooks) don't make a good movie. Yet, for some reason, Drive became a favorite of movie critics and hipsters, except Quentin Tarantino, who is probably jealous that it's still better than anything he's done in almost 20 years. Grindhouse movies and thrillers work best when there is a sense that no one is safe, but after a half hour it's obvious who will ride into the sunset and who will be stuck in the dirt. Not that it matters anyway since there isn't a single developed character in the whole cast.
Even more than repressed British aristocracy and sentimental real world dramas, Hollywood loves movies about itself, its dead stars (see the twenty-something movies about Marilyn Monroe produced in as many years) and how amazing its "golden age" was. In many ways The Artist is a companion/contrast piece to Hugo, except unlike Scorsese's use of modern technology to renew interest in historical cinema Hazanavicius does very little to advance beyond antiquated methods, making his homage nothing but parody. Worst of all, the artist himself is so obtuse and selfish that he becomes unlikeable. Personally, I wouldn't care if he put a bullet through his skull. In fact, the movie would have been better: at least that would have been unexpected. It's a good picture, but far from the best.
Most Overlooked (other than those in the top 10):
Let's face it, Dark Knight came along and wiped every other comic book movie from memory. X-Men: First Class may not be equal to Nolan's master's thesis on chaos but it's a fast-paced, intelligent, entertaining reboot to a franchise that had fallen into an excess of cameos and an absence of care. Aside from Angel and White Queen, who are poorly acted, the characters are excellent, particularly Professor Xavier and Magneto, finally capturing the best friendship in comicdom. As well, Jennifer Lawrence makes Mystique a more compelling character on screen than ever on page. Sadly, X-Men doesn't quite live up to the impossible standards of Dark Knight, but hopefully, like Batman Begins, it paves the way for future brilliance. As is, it's just the best comic book and one of the most fun films of the year.
Movies I have yet to see which may have the potential to change this list: We Need to Talk About Kevin, Win-Win, Warrior, Take Shelter, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, A Separation
Movies I've heard great things about and could be amazing but have no interest in: Meek's Cutoff, Margaret, Certified Copy, Melancholia (when I want to see a film where Lars Von Trier tortures a pixie, I'll finally watch Dancer in the Dark)
The Shining
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The Shining, 1980
4.5 / 5
From the opening shots of the highway leading, inescapably toward the Outlook, to the lingering shots of each character wondering alone through its expense, Kubrick makes pacing, expectation and space as frightening as an axe-wielding maniac. The entire set, open yet claustrophobic, takes on not only a life of just its own but also those of its present, past and future inhabitants. Although likely one of Kubrick's most mainstream works his detached perfectionism comes through in the precision with which the story is established and filmed, where the quiet calm maximizes the momentary brutality and sudden shocks. Unfortunately some of the horror is blunted by Duvall's odd appearance and Nicholson's hammy performance; as terrifying as he is it's hard not to imagine how much fun he was having. Nonetheless, try turning a narrow corner after seeing this movie without envisioning the Grady girls standing before you, staring with dead eyes.
Martha Marcy May Marlene
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Martha Marcy May Marlene, 2011
4 / 5
Whereas most films examining cults focusing on the paranoid, horrific sensationalism of their practices and beliefs, few delve into the lives of those who wish to join them. In Martha Marcy MayMarlene, Sean Durkin movies beyond the surface shock and into the psyche of anescaped cultist. In a performance that is equal parts placid and paranoid, Elizabeth Olsen establishes herself as easily the star of her famous family. Instead of following the usual over-the-top, manipulative thread of cult stories, the film allows the action to unfold without judgment, providing equal footing to both Martha's family and Marcy's "family." Although one is considerably more vile than the other, neither offer perfectly logical approaches to existence, especially for those who don't fit into the rigid roles each requires. Although the climax is rather a letdown, the film adds tension nicely, with an ambiguity which allows the audience to be as paranoid as it chooses.
The Artist
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The Artist, 2011
3 / 5
Silent films work in two ways: being broad enough to understand without words and having stars so likeable they don't need to speak. While this homage to the pre-sound era is charming, well crafted, and often very lovely, once its initial pleasantness fades The Artist feels like a missed opportunity to do something innovative within an antiquated cinematic form (a sort of reversal of Hugo, which used current and emerging technology to embrace an earlier era). The moments when the movie plays with the form, particularly at the start of the second act, are easily the film's best. Often, however, its limitations dictate heavy-handed symbolism and self-awareness. Although Dujardin is excellent (and Bejo is wonderful) the character of Valentin, as our focal point, becomes increasingly foolish and unlikeable. Once the pathos, like the charm, is gone, The Artist is just an obvious story with actors mugging for the camera.
Gangs of New York
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Gangs of New York, 2002
4.5 / 5
Daniel Day Lewis took ten years off before returning to film, and Butcher Bill makes the entire wait worth it. From his first moment on screen, in one of the most epic opening battles since Saving Private Ryan, Bill is a character you can't take your eyes off (if you have both). As with all of Martin Scorsese's most personally devoted projects there are tremendous flaws in Gangs of New York. It's frequently slow pace and uncharacteristic continuity errors can at times be distancing or distracting, but as a treatise on vengeance and violence in society and an extended metaphor on the birth of New York City and America, the labor and continued growing pains which shape the nation, the film ranks among the most ambitious and passionate works of an auteur often identified with both. The fact Gangs of New York and Scorsese didn't win Oscars is a crime worthy of Boss Tweed.
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
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Crazy, Stupid Love, 2011
2.5 / 5
It's easy to see why women would love Ryan Gosling in this role; the wealthy, stylish smooth talker who they want to believe they alone can reform. Gosling's mentorship of Carrell at the start of Crazy, Stupid, Love., as well as the seemingly unconnected story of Emma Stone's predictably successful will-be lawyer, makes for entertaining viewing. However at the halfway point the film takes a dramatic and entirely too contrived turn into the less interesting, finally culminating in a closing presentation that, while offering a different situation than most, is so far beyond realistic that it borders on both crazy and stupid. The various pieces come together as though every person in Los Angeles lives within a five mile radius. Like so many romantic comedies, Crazy, Stupid, Love. begins with something original to say, but gradually boils down to the same, tried and trite story told a million times before.
