It’s that time of year again! I honestly haven’t seen a good majority of the big films released this year, but it’s already mid-February so I figure I should get this up before nobody cares. Below is my list of the 2011 films that have left an impact on me, either good or bad.
My usual end-of-year list disclaimer: I have a serious complex about trying to categorize and list my top movies of the year, therefore I refuse to do so. Lists are arbitrary and mean next to nothing to anyone but the one who makes them, so if the list means nothing to me, then it becomes worthless. I’ve tried to figure out a good way to do this so that films I truly enjoyed could get a year-end nod without me having to break anything down and decide any sort of order. The list is completely subjective and I purposefully called this “Favorite Films” so that the focus is on my enjoyment and not simply filmmaking quality. So with that said, here’s a quick glance at my favorite and least favorite films of 2011. This is by no means definitive.
2011 Movies I still plan to see that might be good: Season of the Witch (Hahaha, yeah I know…)
I Saw the Devil
Another Earth
The Guard
Straw Dogs
Red State
The Rum Diary
The Descendants
Hugo
The Muppets
Shame
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate
The Sorcerer and the White Snake
Wu Xia
From Up on Poppy Hill
Think I got it wrong? Wondering why a certain favorite film isn’t on the list? Drop a comment below!
Starring Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, Sanaa Lathan, Elliott Gould, Anna Jacoby-Heron
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Expectations: High, I have a good feeling about this one.
I’m not a huge Steven Soderbergh fan, but I respect him immensely. Where most Oscar-winning directors are happy to stay sheltered within the studio system once they receive their acclaim, Soderbergh is not one to be shackled to any one genre or tied to any specific type of film. He consistently makes the films he wants to make, casting unknown actors in one film and then following it up with a slickly produced Ocean’s Eleven film. If there’s one style that has become synonymous with his name though, it’s the ensemble cast drama, even if he hasn’t really made too many of them. Traffic was clearly his defining film for most people (and me as well), so going into Contagion I had an idea that it would be “Traffic with germs”.
That’s pretty much what I got, but that’s far too simple of a way to put it. It both sells the film short and fails to convey the triumph that Soderbergh has achieved with Contagion. There have been lots of viral epidemic movies throughout the years, but never have they been as hyper-realistic as this. Contagion methodically moves from day-to-day, tracking the course of the outbreak across the world. It focuses on a number of people in various locations around the world, and together their stories weave into an overall picture of the epidemic story that is Contagion. It’s like a disease procedural, so if you zoned out or got bored during this paragraph, then perhaps this film is not for you. If, on the other hand, this sounds interesting and up your alley, then definitely give Contagion a shot.
Starring Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Bryan Greenberg, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson, Nolan Gould
Directed by Will Gluck
Expectations: None, I just hope it’s not too painful.
Just to keep everyone guessing, I have to review a straight-up mainstream movie like this once in a while. Most of the time I have such an indifferent response to these films that I can’t muster the mental power needed to write a full review. Friends With Benefits is pretty much in the same category, but I do have a few thoughts to share. It’s better than No Strings Attached, let’s just get that out of the way. No Ashton Kutcher is a huge plus, but it’s really the R Rating that helps a lot here, allowing the characters freedom to curse as they naturally would and making the sex scenes adequately steamy.
Both Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis do a great job with the material they are given, giving us a believable on-screen relationship with a minimum of groan-worthy scenes. The supporting cast is also filled out with lots of good actors such as Woody Harrelson, Jenna Elfman and Patricia Clarkson (playing virtually the same character she played in Easy A). While I enjoyed Harrelson as the cock-obsessed gay man, I can’t help but wonder how intelligent gay men reacted to this character. They deserve better than to have broad stereotypes reinforced. And if we’re going down that rabbit hole, where were the people of color in this film? I think almost every one in the movie is white.
As a piece of art, it fails miserably. Director Will Gluck creates a textbook mainstream film with more ugly close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots than I care to think back on. I’m sure the paycheck was great though. He previously made Easy A, another poorly-shot mainstream comedy and one that I just couldn’t understand the hype for. It’s hard for me to watch these ugly, lazy films without losing my shit, but the charm of both Kunis and Timberlake surprisingly went a long way.
As a comedy, it fails less so, but it still contains far too little laughs. I especially enjoyed the fake romantic comedy they watch throughout the film, which features some incredibly funny lines within it, perfectly lampooning the tired genre. What’s unfortunate is that to make a romantic comedy, the story kind of has to follow that general path that they all follow and Friends With Benefits is no different. Oh, and the Barnes and Noble joke was my biggest laugh of the movie. Perhaps not the most clever line in the world, but seriously, buying full prices books really is dumb shit.
Friends With Benefits does a lot wrong, but it does just enough right to make it not as painful as it could have been. It’s way too fuckin’ long though, coming in at almost two hours. I’d only recommend it if you like the leads enough to see them get jiggy wit it.
World Premiere 2009 in London, US Theatrical Release 2011
Starring Bill Hicks, Kevin Booth, John Farneti, Lynn Hicks, Mary Hicks, Steve Hicks, Andy Huggins, David Johndrow, James Ladmirault, Dwight Slade
Directed by Matt Harlock & Paul Thomas
Expectations: High, I love Bill Hicks.
Bill Hicks is fucking awesome and if you dig stand-up comedy in any meaningful way, you should already know the name and be familiar with his work. If not, he’s one of the best there ever was. Hicks elevated stand-up to levels previously undreamt about by mainstream comics, pushing boundaries way past the bleeding edge. At his core, he was a thoughtful, logical man who threw everything he had up on that stage and American: The Bill Hicks Story seeks to let you in on how he came to be that man. Mostly it succeeds, but as much as I love Hicks and the experience of watching this movie, I can’t let my feelings override the glaring problems I had with the film at a structural level.
There’s an odd choice made by the documentarians to focus on audio-only interviews of his family and friends, instead of traditional video interviews. While they’re talking, still photographs are animated into whatever scene the interviewee is describing. It took a while for me to come around to this style, and while I eventually was OK with it, I never really liked it. It creates an odd disconnect from the person speaking and unless you’re extremely good with placing a voice to a name, you’re going to lose track of who’s who. Bill Hicks, via these animated pictures and live video footage, is always front and center and the film takes on something of a video shrine to him instead of a true documentary. Then in the final few minutes of the film, the filmmakers break character and finally show the people who’ve been narrating our experience. The only problem is that besides Hicks’ mother, I have very little idea who everyone else is, unless their current look unmistakably resembles all the photographs we were shown from the 70s and 80s. They also never flash the person’s name on the screen when they’re talking, so we literally have no help in this regard.
Despite this, the film succeeds as a document of the legacy and power of Bill Hicks’ stand-up act. It follows a very linear path from Bill’s childhood to his death, so you do get a great sense of the overall arc of his life, and some of the twists and turns it took along the way. I greatly enjoyed the film, but a lot of that enjoyment is just discovering bits and pieces of what made a guy I greatly respect who he was. Hicks was the man, and this documentary only seals that fact deeper in my mind. If you’re unfamiliar with him, I’d definitely watch a couple of his stand-up sets before hitting this doc up. I highly recommend his HBO One Night Stand set, currently available on Netflix Instant as Episode 1 of the series: Bill Hicks Live: Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-up Comedian.
Starring Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle, Beth Grant, Ed Lauter, Joel Murray
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
Expectations: High hopes, but moderate expectations.
I love film, if I didn’t I wouldn’t bother writing about it. I consider myself something of a film historian, not that I collect and catalog old works, but that I’m concerned with maintaining an understanding of the industry in its many forms throughout the years. Silent films were a huge part of my life about ten years ago, so much so that I was pretty much watching nothing else. It is this foundation that instantly gets excited when talk of a new silent film emerges. Then I happened to see the trailer and I realized that not only was it a silent film, The Artist is a film set in the silent era and its plot revolves around the film industry. Great. As much as I love film, I kinda hate films about Hollywood, so my expectations were instantly cut in half, which is honestly the best thing that could’ve happened.
And now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say that I don’t really understand why it’s getting so much praise. I mean, I get it… if Drive was the movie that lights millennials bulbs in 2011, and The Tree of Life was the one that rang the bell for arthouse fiends, then The Artist is the film that floats the boat of the nostalgic lover of old Hollywood, but shouldn’t a film actually be good beyond the hype, pretense and nostalgia? All three of these critically acclaimed movies fell far short of the mark for me, and as much as I didn’t care for it, I’m tempted to say that The Tree of Life is the best of the bunch, regardless of my star ratings (which I stand by). Didn’t expect to ever say that.
Will Silver, on February 13, 2012, 5:20 am
Starring Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, Sanaa Lathan, Elliott Gould, Anna Jacoby-Heron
Starring Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Bryan Greenberg, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson, Nolan Gould
World Premiere 2009 in London, US Theatrical Release 2011
Starring Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle, Beth Grant, Ed Lauter, Joel Murray
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