Top 6 Favorite Films of 2011

Screw what that other guy said yesterday – I’m going to put up my TOP 6 favorite films of the year because I feel like it! Why should it be just 5? I can stretch it out to be 10 if I wanted to add in a few other titles – but I want to just put down my absolute favorites of the year – not just the movies I liked. I liked X-Men: First Class, I liked The Ides of March, I liked The Muppets, I liked Super 8 – if you feel the need to make it a full round 10 – but below are the movies that I give a solid 5 outta 5 – not an iffy 5 outta 5 – or a hesitant 5 outta 5 – or a drunk 5 outta 5 – below are my only real 5 outta 5 films of 2011.

#6. Super – what I really liked about Super was that it didn’t let down at what it was advertised as – it was a dark comedy involving topics and situations that you wondered if you should laugh at – disturbing and graphic – tragic and funny – the heart ultimately is to save himself he must save the girl – there’s something wonderful about that to me

#5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes – great performances – solid effects – and a truly believable story of the scientist who sets in motion the end of the world at the hands of the apes – Andy Serkis was outstanding as Caesar blending in a mind boggling way the differences between what is ape and what is human in the performance

#4. Win-Win – Thomas McCarthy’s knack for turning what could be a depressing topic and finding the human spirit that lifting out the optimism without forcing it – this time with a displaced kid who’s looking for the home he never had and the coach/lawyer who was looking for inner strength but not knowing where to find it

#3. Source Code – what stuck with me about Source Code ever since I made it the first film I saw in the theater this year – was the optimism – science fiction tends to lean toward the loss of humanity and the hopeless struggle of it all – but with Source Code the idea of the hopeless struggle and pulling victory out of the jaws of defeat was so wonderfully conceived and executed
#2. 50/50 – a pleasant surprise – figuring I was in for a raunchy stoner comedy (thanks to Seth Rogen) but turned out to be a true comedy with some heart – laughing at the face of tragedy – no cheese – just great performances – the strength of the script – the fact that it never discounted the situation but never used it to drag the viewer down – it wasn’t just a “cancer comedy” – it was more of a true to life cancer story #1. Drive – intense, atmospheric, mesmerizing action, pitch perfect acting – Drive kept my excitement up well after I saw it – thinking about scenes – thinking about the execution – thinking about so many aspects – it’s the mark of a great film the resonance of it well after watching it – still feeling that atmosphere lost in questions and memories of it

Quick Picks - Sept 4, 2011 Edition

Peep World [2010]

A bunch of adult kids have taken divergent – yet miserable - paths in life after they left the nest – and it’s all their asshole daddy’s fault.

I didn’t like this movie. All the characters were fairly weak caricatures and that made them boring. One son is aloof (Rainn Wilson) – the other is struggling architect (Michael C. Hall) – the daughter is a bitch (Sarah Silverman) – and the youngest son is profiting off their misery in his thinly veiled novel about the family (Ben Schwartz) – and they all hate their father with good reason. I felt the writer of this movie has some daddy issues – and made a movie – not that there’s not potential in it but you got to do better than this. I wanted to shake each and every one of them and tell them to grow up and make your own decisions – live your own life – grow up!

I hated the penis joke – so fucking dumb – I almost turned off the movie at that point – make a dark comedy and have fun – but a penis joke? Why not make some poop and fart jokes? I didn’t hate the movie – I really hated parts of it – I kind of liked other parts – but it’s not funny in a way that I would recommend.

Rango [2011]

A pet lizard finds himself lost in the desert and wanders into a town of desert creatures – where he saves the day and takes over as the town sheriff.

I really enjoyed this fun little spaghetti western homage. I loved the two “cameos” in both a nod to Depp and a nod to the genre – and because I was pleasantly surprised the cameos will go nameless in my blurb. The animation was beautifully done – though it’s animated it’s not a film made for kids – kid friendly most certainly – but too much over the head dialogue. I liked how the town animals were modeled after Leone’s town folk characters – even the snake was a nice nod to Lee Van Cleef. Overall, there’s not much to say – it appealed to some of my likes – but it was a good enough movie – never really grabbing me and pulling me in – but also not disappointing me.

Super [2011]

Frank’s wife leaves him – eliminating one of the two perfect moments in his life. The other perfect moment? Well, that was helping a cop stop a bad guy. Since, the person his wife left him for is an actual bad guy – Frank knows what he has to do... He becomes the Crimson Avenger and starts fighting crime!

This movie was so much better than I expected it to be. Grounded in some real emotional issues – and mourning for the loss of his wife – Frank as a character was wonderfully well written. As portrayed by Rainn Wilson – and already having a familiarity of him as Dwight on the US version of The Office – Frank is only a short leap from Dwight. Less arrogant – but with that equal and unwavering allegiance to what he believes is right and wrong. He carries the depressing parts without taking us too far down with him and has a way with the humor of the story that allows it to be present but not distracting from the story.

The other characters were strictly secondary – I’m trying to pin point scenes that Frank wasn’t in – and there’s not many. It’s the story of Frank – and though they got top notch actors to fill in the remaining roles – Rainn really carried the film.

Ellen Page as the comic book nerd girl, Libby – was portrayed with a ton of enthusiasm – a great performance by Ellen one of her best. Kevin Bacon as the bad guy – was fun, grimy and menacing. Liv Tyler always seems half asleep to me – and continued her tradition – but I didn’t care. The cast was rounded out with James Gunn’s buddies Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker from SLITHER – they both pulled a little scene stealing in their roles – which was fun.

James Gunn as a director is pretty good – I get the feeling that he gets story structure enough that you could give him what’s essentially an effects film and we can get a pretty grounded story out of it. SUPER was done on a low budget – so the effect shots were mostly done on screen – the good old fashioned way with pyrotechnics and exploding mannequins and models. Yes, there’s some CGI – but according to the ‘making of’ – those were added to sculpted models to base everything in reality – and it works great.

It’s too easy to compare this film to KICK-ASS – but that’s not really fair. KICK-ASS even though it’s the same concept (why hasn’t anyone slapped on a costume and started fighting crime) – is NOT based in reality. It’s a fantasy version of reality – the lead character in KICK-ASS starts out getting beaten up to the point he has major nerve damage – thus his “powers” are to take a beating – not eating out of a straw (like it should be). In SUPER, Frank has no “powers” – just a wrench which he beats people in the head with – that’s probably enough in reality.

I love the leaps this movie takes - all of which I won’t mention – because I recommend this movie – it’s got an ‘all in’ attitude. It’s grounded in reality – with real emotions, real motivations and the reality of these people’s choices. I find it hard to believe that I hadn’t mentioned it until now – but this movie is a comedy – and it’s damn funny! I laughed out loud several times – which is a compliment – as I generally smirk through comedies.

I blind purchased this one on Blu-Ray because it was only $13 brand new on release date – and it’s one of the best blind purchases I’ve made of a movie. The extras were okay – a standard couple of “machining of’s” and a 5-minute featurette of Rainn and Ellen at a film festival dressed as their heroes running around acting silly. For as much as you can pack onto a Blu-Ray – I wanted more – but it doesn’t matter – the movie is what I bought it for. And it was a great movie!