2011 Films
THE 84TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS 2012 Oscar Picks and Predictions
I hear you: the Oscars are too long, utterly predictable, scandalously commercial, culturally insignificant, and almost guaranteed to be—as they are every year—a gigantic disappointment.
But you know what, Sachean Littlefeather? I could give a rat’s ass: I still like ‘em. Continue reading
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ALBERT NOBBS (2011)
Directed by Rodrigo García Warning: Contains mild spoilers. I must confess that I went into Albert Nobbs with the lowest of expectations. It is a film that is served terribly by its publicity campaign—the woeful trailer, with its sappy theme … Continue reading
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EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE (2011)
Exceedingly phony and insufferably cloying, Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close begs the question: ten years after the events of September 11, 2001, are we ready as a nation to turn our collective trauma into simpering schmaltz? Continue reading
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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2011)
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a harrowing and disquieting story to experience, but it is an artistic work to celebrate, one that trusts its medium, trusts its audience, and provides no easy answers. Continue reading
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THE IRON LADY (2011)
The Iron Lady is a film that’s unlikely to change anyone’s opinion of Thatcher, as it has no opinions of its own: as such, it is unlikely to either offend or please a single member of its audience. Continue reading
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THE HELP (2011)
The Unenthusiastic Critic #8
My girlfriend and I sit down to watch The Help, and learn that there were no problems in Jim Crow America that couldn’t be solved with some fried chicken and a good old-fashioned shit-pie. Continue reading
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THE BEST FILMS OF 2011
Let’s agree to call this list what it is: a highly subjective, necessarily limited, soon-to-be-revised list of what have been, to date, my 15 best film experiences of 2011. Continue reading
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WAR HORSE (2011)
Epic, humane, and admirably unafraid of sentiment, War Horse is pure old-school storytelling. If you’ll surrender your own cynicism long enough to forgive an unavoidable movie-review cliché, it’s the kind of movie they just don’t make any more. Continue reading
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THE DESCENDANTS (2011)
Some movies are bad because they are badly made, while others—like this one—are bad the way people are bad: they are bad because their souls are faulty. They are bad because they are empty, or shallow, or smug, or disingenuous, or downright evil in intent or effect. The Descendants is not evil, but it’s all the other adjectives and more: a faux-indy, annoyingly “quirky,” middle-aged White guy angst-fest of the most manipulative and masturbatory kind. Continue reading
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THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011)
The Adventures of Tintin—though an undeniably impressive technical achievement—is never quite as much fun as it should be…The result is a gorgeous, frenetic adventure that children might enjoy, and animation aficionados might admire, but which no one will ever really love. Continue reading
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THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a stylish, cookie-cutter crime drama, but Lisbeth Salander—at least as portrayed by Rooney Mara—is something immeasurably more: fascinating, undefinable, and unforgettable, she’s one of the first great film characters of the 21st century. Continue reading
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MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (2011)
My Week with Marilyn is competently made, but it has the feel of a superficial TV biopic blown up large. It is notable only for its lead performance from Michelle Williams, but that one performance is well worth the price of admission. Continue reading
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TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is best approached as a study of mood, period, and character: it captures—brilliantly—a peculiar era in history and a way of life that is almost unimaginable to most of us. Continue reading
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HUGO (2011)
In the church of cinema, Scorsese is both a god and a high-priest, and he’s brought both roles to bear on this magnificent, magical film. I don’t know yet if I’ll call Hugo the “best” film of the year—but that’s an intellectual judgement, not an emotional one. In purely emotional terms, I doubt I’ll see another film this decade that I love as much as Hugo. Continue reading
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MELANCHOLIA (2011)
Gorgeously shot, and featuring amazing performances from Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melancholia is a romantic, elegiac film that works both as a metaphor for personal depression and as a lovely, lyrical fable about the end of the world. A powerful and effective work of art, Melancholia is easily one of the best films of the year. Continue reading
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J. EDGAR (2011)
Featuring a ridiculously miscast Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, a shallow, subtlety-deaf screenplay that wants to be Brokeback Bureau, and a clunking directorial style that feels like a color-blind Douglas Sirk helming an episode of Dragnet, J. Edgar is just laughably, appallingly bad. Continue reading
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THE IDES OF MARCH (2011)
There’s nothing wrong with The Ides of March but its screenplay—and, unfortunately, the screenplay is everything. Continue reading
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DRIVE (2011)
Beautifully directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, with a fascinatingly impenetrable performance by Ryan Gosling at its center, “Drive” has the feel of a dark fairy tale, a minimalist fable so simple that it achieves the romance and ambiguity of myth. Continue reading
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CONTAGION (2011)
A good director and a great cast can fool you for a while—and there are brief moments when “Contagion” rises above its mediocre script—but all the talent in the world can’t rescue a film that ultimately has no heart, no insight, and no point. Continue reading
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CONAN THE BARBARIAN (2011)
True to its pulp roots, Conan the Barbarian has no pretensions of being anything more than an R-rated movie for pubescent boys who are supposed to be too young to get into R-rated movies. There are copious amounts of blood, there are witty and exciting (if exhausting) fight scenes, and there are naked boobies in the background and one carefully lit, slow-motion music-video sex scene. It is, indeed shit, but it’s kind of fun shit. Continue reading
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ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)
By dropping its monsters down in a South London council estate, and by finding its unlikely heroes in a multi-racial group of teen-age delinquents, “Attack the Block” achieves something remarkable: it makes what could have been a formulaic, low-budget monster movie feel like a story we’ve never seen before. Continue reading
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COWBOYS AND ALIENS (2011)
Mr. Favreau, Mr. Spielberg: I’m sorry to say it, but the publicity for your movie more or less spoiled my enjoyment of your movie. Continue reading
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CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)
I went into my midnight showing of Captain America: The First Avenger feeling not just exhausted but over-saturated, and feeling that if I had to endure one more superhero origin story I was going to shove a radioactive spider up my butt and let it munch me into an early, cancer-riddled grave. But then Captain America started, and I was shocked to realize it was—for the first hour or so at least—the best superhero movie of the summer. Continue reading
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HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2 (2011)
It’s a challenge to review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 on its own merits: not only because it is a continuation of the installment that began in Part 1, but because it is the valedictory lap for the most successful franchise in film history. Continue reading
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GREEN LANTERN (2011)
On this Thursday, Just past midnight, I went to see Green Lantern, right? Let those who’d do the same tonight beware my warning: Green Lantern’s shite. On an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s short-lived television series Studio 60 On the Sunset … Continue reading
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SUBMARINE (2010)
Submarine is a fine enough example of its genre, but it’s a story we’ve seen a hundred times before with a different cast. And all this affected, self-obsessed, WASP-y teen angst is making me want to take a big old Hollywood flamethrower to the next disaffected kid who comes along with bicycle and a bowl cut. Continue reading
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SUPER 8 (2011)
“Super 8″ is both another entry in, and a fabulous tribute to, the long, unbroken legacy of big summer movies. Director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg have made a film that openly celebrates the sheer joy of filmmaking, and the way we never really grow out of the movies—and the movie makers—that we loved as children. Continue reading
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X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011)
Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class is a triumph in many ways. Rescuing the series from the diminishing returns of the previous movies by Bryan Singer (the passable X-Men and X2: United) and Brett Ratner (the muddled X-Men: The Last Stand), Vaughn breathes new life into the franchise by taking it back to its start. Continue reading
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MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011)
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest film, is not really about art, and it’s not even really about Paris (although it will make you want to go there). It’s about the immature longing for the idealized Paris of the 1920s: the fantasy of the expatriate, modernist mecca of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein (all of whom appear in the film). It’s about that feeling that there was once a golden age when people really knew how to live, of which our sad modern age is just a pale imitation. Continue reading
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PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES (2011)
Okay, look—I’m not saying Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is the worst movie I’ve ever seen: it isn’t. I’m not saying it’s the worst movie I’ve seen all year: it isn’t. (Sorry, Hop.) I’m not even saying it’s the worst movie in the Pirates franchise: I haven’t seen the third one, but I am reliably informed that this one is slightly better than that. What I am saying is this: don’t see it. For the love of God, don’t see it. Continue reading
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BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK (2011)
The subject of the new documentary Bill Cunningham New York, directed by Richard Press, doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about, and the director (speaking at the screening I attended in Chicago) reports that Bill hasn’t even seen the film: he’s far too humble, and far too busy. The rest of us can watch Bill Cunningham New York and wish our lives were a little more like his; he’s having too much fun being Bill Cunningham. Continue reading
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THOR
Thor is a crushing mediocrity, a passable but forgettable entry in the Mighty Marvel Movie Franchise. Continue reading
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OF GODS AND MEN
It’s hard to think of a film that better explores the question of what it would mean to truly live a Christian life than Of Gods and Men. Whether you consider yourself a believer or not—and, for the record, I do not—the result is a profoundly beautiful and powerfully gripping drama about faith, conviction, and quiet, humble courage. Continue reading
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ARTHUR
The best that can be said of director Jason Winer’s 2011 remake of Arthur is that it’s harmless. And it is harmless—in the same way, for example, that necrophilia is harmless. Continue reading
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SOURCE CODE
Everything Inception gets wrong, director Duncan Jones’ Source Code gets right. Source Code is undoubtedly a smaller picture, both less impressive and less anxious to impress, but for me it’s the better for it. Continue reading
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HOP (2011)
Before subjecting your children to Hop, ask yourself: Do you hate them? Do you want them to be stupid? Do you want them to suffer? If the answer to all three questions is No, your children probably deserve better than this sugary turd of a film. Continue reading
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