The Weekend Warrior's Top 25 of 2011 (Part 2)
Source:
Edward Douglas
December 21, 2011
The Top 7 on the list:
7. Rango (Paramount) - Every year, at least one animated movie is able to sneak onto this list, but other than George Miller's Happy Feet,
this is the first time a movie not from Pixar or DreamWorks Animation
made my Top 10 and in my opinion, "Pirates of the Caribbean" helmer Gore
Verbinski's first foray into animated films is one of the most
entertaining films I've seen all year. With a great script by John Logan
and a hilarious performance by Johnny Depp and the rest of the voice
cast, this was the type of Western I was hoping to get from the Coen
Brothers with last year's True Grit, and the guys at Industrial Light & Magic really stepped up their game for their first full-animated film.
Interview with Gore Verbinski
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sony) - As much as I enjoyed the Swedish movie based on Stieg Larsson's novel that came out last year, the first movie seemed very much like a film influenced by David Fincher's Se7en that only got good about an hour into it when the two main characters were finally brought together. For his take on the material, Fincher has a far better cast (beyond the two leads) and a far better first act set-up so that it makes the whole thing that much more enjoyable. While this isn't quite up there with the #1 placement for The Social Network last year or #2 placement of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008, it's still not bad for Fincher's fourth appearance in the Top 25 with his last four films.
Interview with David Fincher
5. In the Land of Blood and Honey
(FilmDistrict) - Angelina's non-doc directorial debut takes a look at
the Bosnian War through the eyes of a Serb soldier and the Muslim woman
he loves and saves from a horrible fate as the war around them tears
apart families. At its core, it's a fairly simple "Romeo and Juliet"
story but the way the horrors of this war are depicted, from the rape
and degradation of women, to the wanton murder of Muslims by the
military, makes it a shocking film. This would have been one of the best
movies of the year if it was made by a director with 20 previous movies
under their belt, and it's more impressive to think that someone best
known for their acting like Jolie could write and direct something so
powerful, mostly with unknown Bosnian actors speaking in their native
language.
4. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox Searchlight) - One of the nicest surprises out of Sundance was this subdued thriller from first-time director Sean Durkin starring a brand-new face on the scene, Elizabeth Olsen, who is indeed the sister of the famous twins, but apparently, the one who got all the acting talent. She plays the title(s) character, a young woman who has escaped from a cult-like community led by John Hawke's Patrick who seems to have control over everyone there. As she hides out with her sister and her husband, memories come back from her time in Patrick's community who she fears may try to find her. The film has such a different tone and look from anything out there, punctuated by a fantastic ambient score that keeps you on edge. Durkin has quickly established himself as a filmmaker on par with some of the greats and we can't see what he does next!
Interview with Sean Durkin
Interview with Elizabeth Olsen & John Hawkes
And here's where it gets fun... our Top 3 movies of the year!
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Warner Bros.) - That's right! After ten years of "Harry Potter" movies, many of them being quite good, director David Yates and the entire cast and creative team created what I thought was about as perfect a finale as you can ever hope for. More than that, it was just a very well-executed film which had everything I came to expect from great filmmaking, and considering how disappointed I was with Part 1, this finale just made me absolutely ecstatic. In a perfect world, there wouldn't even be a question that this is worthy of a Best Picture nomination, because everyone involved did some of their best work and to keep a franchise like this going for so long is quite an achievement by producer David Heyman, who probably can retire on the money made from these movies. But we hope he doesn't.
Interview with David Yates
2. Blackthorn (Magnolia) - To think that I almost missed this film at the Tribeca Film Festival and only ended up catching it due to having a couple of hours of time to kill. Directed by Mateo Gil, writer of such Spanish classics as Open Your Eyes and The Sea Inside, it stars Sam Shepard as James Blackthorn, the bandit formerly known as Butch Cassidy, now living in Bolivia and about to return home to the United States before getting involved in a huckster, played by Eduardo Noriega, who gets him chased by a group of miners whom he stole money from. In an unprecedented spin-off from the classic Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Gil's film filled in a lot of the blanks with flashbacks to the younger Butch and Sundance, making for one of the best Westerns I've seen in some time which sadly never got the type of high-profile release I felt it deserved.
Interview with Mateo Gil
Interview with Sam Shepard
1a. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey - While normally I give docs their own list (which you can read below), I had to call special attention to this movie from Constance Marks that tells the heartwarming story of Kevin Clash, a young man from the inner city of Baltimore who escapes from his tough reality by getting into puppetry, ends up joining Jim Henson's crew and creates one of the most beloved puppet characters of the last couple of decades with the lovable kid monster, Elmo. Clash's story is joyously entertaining and incredibly moving, and being the only doc of the year that warranted a 10/10 rating--possibly the first since Man on Wire?--it seemed deserving of a mention on our Top 25 as well.
Interview with Constance Marks and Kevin Clash
1. Incendies
(Sony Pictures Classics) - Oddly, the very first movie I saw this year
was also the very best as Denis Villeneuve's drama really blew me away,
becoming the only other movie besides "Elmo" to get a perfect score of
10 out of 10. Canadians reading this will probably say "This movie came
out last year!" (and yes, it was nominated for an Oscar in the Foreign
Language category) but like Zhang Yimou's Hero, which was my #1 movie a couple of years back, as well as The Twilight Samurai,
Villeneuve's film wasn't screened for American critics until the
beginning of the year before it premiered at Sundance, and being the
only non-doc with a perfect score, there's no way I could possibly
ignore it.
Based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, the film starts as a simple drama about a twin brother and sister whose mother has died, but to get their inheritance, they're each sent on a mission, one to find their long-lost brother, the other to find the father they never knew. This sends them off to their mother's Middle Eastern home, and as we follow them trying to find clues to the whereabouts of the missing men, we flashback to their mother's journey as her country is rocked by Civil War. It's a beautifully filmed and told story that will leave you shaken to your core even if you think you've figured things out. Although there have been many movies based on plays this year--Clooney's The Ides of March, Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method--you could never tell by watching this one, since Villeneuve broke out of the theatricality of the play by capturing the beauty and the horrors of war in the Middle East.
Interview with Denis Villeneuve
So there we are. If you haven't seen Incendies or Blackthorn or Martha Marcy May Marlene, I hope you'll seek them out. (The first two should be on DVD by now, and the latter should still be playing in theaters.)
There are some really good movies I hoped would make this list but just fell short, so here are the...
Interview with Gore Verbinski
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sony) - As much as I enjoyed the Swedish movie based on Stieg Larsson's novel that came out last year, the first movie seemed very much like a film influenced by David Fincher's Se7en that only got good about an hour into it when the two main characters were finally brought together. For his take on the material, Fincher has a far better cast (beyond the two leads) and a far better first act set-up so that it makes the whole thing that much more enjoyable. While this isn't quite up there with the #1 placement for The Social Network last year or #2 placement of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008, it's still not bad for Fincher's fourth appearance in the Top 25 with his last four films.
Interview with David Fincher
5. In the Land of Blood and Honey
(FilmDistrict) - Angelina's non-doc directorial debut takes a look at
the Bosnian War through the eyes of a Serb soldier and the Muslim woman
he loves and saves from a horrible fate as the war around them tears
apart families. At its core, it's a fairly simple "Romeo and Juliet"
story but the way the horrors of this war are depicted, from the rape
and degradation of women, to the wanton murder of Muslims by the
military, makes it a shocking film. This would have been one of the best
movies of the year if it was made by a director with 20 previous movies
under their belt, and it's more impressive to think that someone best
known for their acting like Jolie could write and direct something so
powerful, mostly with unknown Bosnian actors speaking in their native
language.4. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox Searchlight) - One of the nicest surprises out of Sundance was this subdued thriller from first-time director Sean Durkin starring a brand-new face on the scene, Elizabeth Olsen, who is indeed the sister of the famous twins, but apparently, the one who got all the acting talent. She plays the title(s) character, a young woman who has escaped from a cult-like community led by John Hawke's Patrick who seems to have control over everyone there. As she hides out with her sister and her husband, memories come back from her time in Patrick's community who she fears may try to find her. The film has such a different tone and look from anything out there, punctuated by a fantastic ambient score that keeps you on edge. Durkin has quickly established himself as a filmmaker on par with some of the greats and we can't see what he does next!
Interview with Sean Durkin
Interview with Elizabeth Olsen & John Hawkes
And here's where it gets fun... our Top 3 movies of the year!
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Warner Bros.) - That's right! After ten years of "Harry Potter" movies, many of them being quite good, director David Yates and the entire cast and creative team created what I thought was about as perfect a finale as you can ever hope for. More than that, it was just a very well-executed film which had everything I came to expect from great filmmaking, and considering how disappointed I was with Part 1, this finale just made me absolutely ecstatic. In a perfect world, there wouldn't even be a question that this is worthy of a Best Picture nomination, because everyone involved did some of their best work and to keep a franchise like this going for so long is quite an achievement by producer David Heyman, who probably can retire on the money made from these movies. But we hope he doesn't.
Interview with David Yates
2. Blackthorn (Magnolia) - To think that I almost missed this film at the Tribeca Film Festival and only ended up catching it due to having a couple of hours of time to kill. Directed by Mateo Gil, writer of such Spanish classics as Open Your Eyes and The Sea Inside, it stars Sam Shepard as James Blackthorn, the bandit formerly known as Butch Cassidy, now living in Bolivia and about to return home to the United States before getting involved in a huckster, played by Eduardo Noriega, who gets him chased by a group of miners whom he stole money from. In an unprecedented spin-off from the classic Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Gil's film filled in a lot of the blanks with flashbacks to the younger Butch and Sundance, making for one of the best Westerns I've seen in some time which sadly never got the type of high-profile release I felt it deserved.
Interview with Mateo Gil
Interview with Sam Shepard
1a. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey - While normally I give docs their own list (which you can read below), I had to call special attention to this movie from Constance Marks that tells the heartwarming story of Kevin Clash, a young man from the inner city of Baltimore who escapes from his tough reality by getting into puppetry, ends up joining Jim Henson's crew and creates one of the most beloved puppet characters of the last couple of decades with the lovable kid monster, Elmo. Clash's story is joyously entertaining and incredibly moving, and being the only doc of the year that warranted a 10/10 rating--possibly the first since Man on Wire?--it seemed deserving of a mention on our Top 25 as well.
Interview with Constance Marks and Kevin Clash
1. Incendies
(Sony Pictures Classics) - Oddly, the very first movie I saw this year
was also the very best as Denis Villeneuve's drama really blew me away,
becoming the only other movie besides "Elmo" to get a perfect score of
10 out of 10. Canadians reading this will probably say "This movie came
out last year!" (and yes, it was nominated for an Oscar in the Foreign
Language category) but like Zhang Yimou's Hero, which was my #1 movie a couple of years back, as well as The Twilight Samurai,
Villeneuve's film wasn't screened for American critics until the
beginning of the year before it premiered at Sundance, and being the
only non-doc with a perfect score, there's no way I could possibly
ignore it. Based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, the film starts as a simple drama about a twin brother and sister whose mother has died, but to get their inheritance, they're each sent on a mission, one to find their long-lost brother, the other to find the father they never knew. This sends them off to their mother's Middle Eastern home, and as we follow them trying to find clues to the whereabouts of the missing men, we flashback to their mother's journey as her country is rocked by Civil War. It's a beautifully filmed and told story that will leave you shaken to your core even if you think you've figured things out. Although there have been many movies based on plays this year--Clooney's The Ides of March, Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method--you could never tell by watching this one, since Villeneuve broke out of the theatricality of the play by capturing the beauty and the horrors of war in the Middle East.
Interview with Denis Villeneuve
So there we are. If you haven't seen Incendies or Blackthorn or Martha Marcy May Marlene, I hope you'll seek them out. (The first two should be on DVD by now, and the latter should still be playing in theaters.)
There are some really good movies I hoped would make this list but just fell short, so here are the...
* One particularly disturbing scene and how the actors recreated things they experienced