What a weird year for movies. Lots and lots of R-rated comedies. A buttload of indies and mostly sequels and comic book movies for the big budget things this year. I kept putting off this list thinking of other flicks from this year I want to see but then the same thing hit me that hits me every year...I am not a friggin movie reviewer. I don't get paid for my opinions and I certainly don't have access to a ton of free screenings (although I did see a few movies for free this year).
I saw 31 movies this year. On the purely entertaining side of things, I have to give honorable mentions to Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Hobo With a Shotgun for just bringing to life things I didn't know I always wanted to see and things I have been dreaming of since I was a kid (that would be Thor). These were really fun, exciting movies that each had at least one stand out sequence. However, my top 10 is going to be movies that achieved entertainment and made me think a bit.
Movies I have not seen that I would like to: Cedar Rapids, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Hall Pass, The Descendents, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Shame, Hanna, Hugo, Tintin and the Ides of March. Any of these (except probably Hall Pass) could end up retroactively in my top 10.
10. Super 8- (Alien causes havoc in small town in the 1980s). This will go down as the year of smart sci-fi for me. Not even counting draggy goodness like Melancholia (probably my number 11), Hollywood attempted to churn out some thoughtful genre work this year. Super 8 pissed a lot of people off because it starts like Cloverfield and ends like E.T. I really enjoyed and was moved by this homage to Spielberg's 80s output. It had some thrills and heart. Way more so than the Muppets, this movie appealed to the nostalgic part of me.
9. Source Code-(Soldier is sent into the last 8 minutes of a dead man's life to solve the mystery of who bombed a commuter train). I wrestled with this one for awhile but, honestly, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Duncan Jones proved he can work just as creatively with a bigger budget as he did on Moon. Michelle Monaghan is my current actress crush (see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Gone Baby Gone to understand why) and she is the real draw in this movie for me. If you don't believe that Jake Gyllenhaal would immediately fall for her, the story really doesn't work but she really brings the goods without being "sexy." The premise was strong and Jeffrey Wright is a hoot. Not for all tastes but I enjoyed it.
8. Moneyball- (Struggling baseball manager decides to use a new form of player selection with fascinating results). My Social Network award for "topic I didn't think I gave a shit about" goes to this awesome little flick. Although Jonah Hill was in a bunch of comedy this year, I really liked his work here. Brad Pitt turned in one of two pretty cool performances this year as the bedeviled manager of the Oakland A's. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a real prick here but Bennett Miller seems to only hire Hoffman for those roles. Putting a human face on the statistical analysis of baseball players is really difficult but this one pulled it off.
7. Submarine- (Boy growing up in England has his first love affair and tries to keep his parents from splitting). I'm not sure this movie would be in my 10 if you ask me a month from now but, having just seen it, it is one of the few movies I saw this year I could recommend to almost any of my friends with a taste for quirk. Young star Craig Roberts looks a lot like X-Men: First Class's James McAvoy. All of the character beats ring true to me in that way where, as an adult, I can see the guy is making a huge mistake but I can also remember justifying such crap when I was his age. People compare it to Wes Anderson but the more apt comparison is Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. If you liked that, you should really check this out.
6. The Future- (A couple decide their lives are pretty much over when they choose to adopt a sickly cat). This was my first foray into Miranda July's body of work and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I said when I first saw it that I could see people who have their shit together really disliking this movie. The early 30 somethings portrayed here are the kind of directionless people who are imagined to be the core of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Their self-involvement and lack of ambition would be annoying if I didn't so readily understand it. Plus, there are really nice little surreal touches like the cat narrator and the boyfriend's ability to stop time (but only for himself). Your enjoyment of this is most likely directly proportional to how discontented you are with your life.
5. Tree of Life- (The eldest of three brothers growing up in 1950s Texas deals with coming of age). The description I just gave isn't really the whole movie, but it is the part of the movie I like. My contrary nature made me consider not including this movie at all but that would be a mistake on my part. The first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes are super pretentious and ponderous. They consist of images and dialogue fragments that lay out the themes of the film over and over again. If you have any eye for art or storytelling, you get what Malick is trying to say pretty quickly. Unfortunately, he kind of insults you by willfully avoiding a linear narrative until about 20 minutes in. At that point, a really amazing, well-observed, deftly acted story plays out in a powerful way until it all devolves again. I, personally, think it is worth it to slog through the beautiful but disjointed beginning to get to the middle. But I am not sure staying until the end is needed. Brad Pitt's second great performance made me feel like I was watching a home movie of my father's life (although I don't think my grandmother has ever been painted in such saintly strokes as the mother here). The movie has a lot to say about how we get to be who we are, it just sometimes takes awhile to say it.
4) I Saw the Devil- (A Korean secret service agent hunts down the serial killer who murdered his wife and decides to play a deadly game with him). As much as I liked Paranormal Activity 3, the scares it gave me were the kind I had seen before (twice). This movie just plain disturbed me. It is graphically violent and would almost qualify as torture porn if the man being tortured wasn't a rapist and serial killer. Byung-hun Lee walks a fine line by having to remain the protagonist while absolutely destroying another human being. The weird asides and periphery characters in this make it a kind of odyssey of evil that keeps the viewer a little disoriented. I also don't think I have been more frightened than when the hero looses control of the situation and things start coming apart. Really brutal but worth watching if you like foreign horror. It also goes well with...
3) Drive- (Getaway driver/stuntman/mechanic gets mixed up with the wrong woman and enters a pretty scary world). Although I don't see all his movies, Ryan Gosling has never failed to impress me. In this flick, he has very little to say but has to come across as honorable, intimidating and likable. The supporting cast is pretty great with Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman making something out of relatively small roles. The choice of Nicolas Refn to make the movie as if it were one of the 80s "European Action films" produced by Albert Brooks' character is kind of genius. Like my favorite rock songs, this movie builds slowly until it just explodes. From the nearly silent, sedate first hour, it would be impossible to guess how violent and horrific this movie gets. If you want Fast and Furious driving, look elsewhere. If you want a literally stunning crime drama, you must see this.
2) Another Earth- (When a world just like ours is discovered on the other side of the sun, a woman with a troubled past must confront her guilt). Yet another sci-fi piece that really has nothing to do with sci-fi. The high concept premise is just an excuse for Mike Cahill to examine how we affect each other on this planet and the decisions we make. The ending left me kind of reeling as I thought through all that it implied. William Mapother (Tom Cruise's cousin and Ethan from Lost) does a great job as a man who has lost his family. Brit Marling could give Gosling a run for his money in the quiet intensity genre of acting. This movie probably didn't even need the hook of the other Earth but with it, it elevates a tense, heated drama into something a little more heady.
1) Young Adult- (Truly horrible woman returns to her hometown to steal her ex boyfriend from his wife). Again, ask me in a month if this is still in my top 10 and I may deny it. For now, it is a movie I can't get out of my head. Charlize Theron makes herself even uglier than in Monster, not physically, but just emotionally. She is dealing poorly with the fact that she grew up being told she was a beautiful, special snowflake only to find that her life is kind of empty and unfulfilling. Reitman and Diablo Cody are really careful to show us hints of how she turned out this way. There is just a small moment with Theron at the table with her parents where she makes a bold confession only to have it ignored and laughed off because it doesn't fit the way they see her. I like this screenplay so, so much more than Juno. It has the same keenly realized characterizations but it doesn't lean on gimmicky language. Patton Oswalt does a fine job as the physically crippled man who holds onto his bitterness like a shield. The flow of the whole story and Theron's anti-arc is kind of beautiful to see. I felt like this movie shows in a fairly realistic manner how real people would behave in such situations but I could never really guess the next step. Not for everyone but it worked incredibly well for me.
