Best / Worst / Etc. Movies of 2011...

Jcomp

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Year end review time, folks, you know the drill. Make up your own categories and lists and whatnot.

Best Movie I Saw: Tied between Drive and A Dangerous Method. Fassenbender and Gosling are the co-actors of the year, in my opinion.

Best Blockbuster Flick: Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Holy hell, I had very low expectations for this one and I ended up loving it. Runner up: Super 8 -- which almost lived up to my unrealistically high expectations, so I can't really knock it at all.

Forgivably Fun But Flawed: Limitless and Midnight in Paris. The former gets immediate demerits for being based on that ridiculous 10% brain myth, and the resolution is a bit too neat, but it was still better than expected and fun. Midnight works great when it's appealing to the cheap but lovable nostalgia fantasy, and the guy playing Hemingway is fantastic, but the "real world" stuff is sluggish. Still, considering I'm not really a Woody Allen fan, I found myself smiling through most of the flick. Made me want to move to Paris...

Worst Movie I Saw: New Year's Eve. Entirely awful. Top to bottom, just absolutely terrible. One of the worst movies I've ever paid money to see, along with Batman & Robin and Volcano. The things I'll endure for a young lady, I tell ya...

Most Disappointing: Green Lantern. A movie about a superhero whose power is literally fueled by imagination turns out to be uninspired and unimaginative.

Flicks I Still Need to See: 13 Assassins, I Saw the Devil, 50/50, Ides of March, The Adventures of Tintin, My Week With Marilyn, Hugo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
 
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gothicangel

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Best 'film' I saw was Kevin MacDonald's documentary Life in a Day.

I stopped watching blockbusters a long time ago.

Everyone seems to call Your Highness the worst film of 2011, but I would rather nominate Ron Howard's Dilemma.
 

CrastersBabies

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Man, I just don't see movies anymore like I used to.

Will return to this thread to see what people are seeing. I did hear Green Lantern was full of epic fail, though. Sad! Very sad.

The only good that came from it is that it took the "suck" spotlight off Green Hornet. Set Rogen has to be happy about that.
 

Flicka

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Best film I saw was from 2010 - Shanghai by Mikael Håfström starring John Cusack among others. Beautiful noir. The sort of movie I didn't think they made anymore. I have high hopes for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but it premiered here less than a week ago so I haven't seen it yet. I saw several good documentaries too, but I can't remember the titles.

Last Harry Potter flick was a major let-down. So anti-climatic (but then the book was too).

I think I must be getting old because most of the blockbusters just don't interest me. And while I used to be a die-hard Marvel fan, it's enough with the super-heroes. Really.
 

childeroland

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Best Movie I Saw: The Tree of Life. Pitt's best performance since Assassination of Jesse James (and yes, I saw Moneyball) in a deeply philosophical work that embraces and interrogates spirituality and transcends religion without the puerility of rejecting any faith.

Best Blockbuster Flick: Rise of the Planet of the Apes. A beautifully emotional story and the best in the series since the first one. Maybe better.

Runner up: Certified Copy -- Kiarostami's Western debut is as mysterious and existential in its own way as the Malick film--all his films are, really--but in a more earthly register.

Forgivably Fun But Flawed: Hesher. Also, the most underrated film of this year. Works a little too hard to be quirky but heartbreaking nonetheless and it overturns its moments of schmaltz with the title character's unpleasant behavior--just the thing that seems to turn people off from this film.

Worst Movie I Saw: Green Lantern. Not technically as bad as Breaking Dawn Part 1, but at least the vampire-werewolf's flat-out awfulness can stir some sort of outrage in the viewer, just like Meyer's book--what the hell was she thinking when she wrote that?--which is its own entertainment. Green Lantern is even worse, though--a complete frackin' bore. Someone called Sherlock Holmes 2 the most boring exciting movie of the year, meaning it throws a lot of "action" at the screen without moving the viewer, but this film narrowly edges out Transformers 3 for just that honor. Just like the OP said, uninspired and unimaginative.

Flicks I Still Need to See: My Week With Marilyn, Poetry
 
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Killgore

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Very very good year for movies.

1. Super 8 -- The only other theater going experience that was as fun was watching ET at the Palace Theatre. So go figure.

2. Drive -- No other movie stuck with me as much.

3. Source Code -- I read the screenplay back in 2009 when it was on the Black List and have been eagerly waiting ever since. And it was much better than the script.

4. The Muppets -- No other movie was as joyful. Rainbow Connection was devastating. I'm sure it is my daughter's favorite movie of the year. She's been all about the muppets ever since.

5. War Horse -- Beautiful, unabashedly sentimental movie. But what I loved seeing the most was the slow progression of World War 1 from the calvary to the digging in to the trenches. Every other depiction of WW1 Iv'e ever seen goes straight into the trenches, which glosses over the slow, demoralizing build of it. And the scene where both sides stop killing each other to save the horse was one of the best scenes of the year. Don't know if that really happened, but they did do that on Christmas one year.

6. Hugo -- The most cinematically sumptuous film of the year, followed closely by --

7. Tintin -- This year marked a return to form for Spielberg, and I am so grateful for it. Cant wait for Abe Lincoln

8. Moneyball -- Made saber-metrics (and baseball) interesting

9. Take Shelter -- The kind of movie I'd aspire to make

10. 13 Assassins -- The Apocalypse Now of Samurai movies.

Just missing the list -- Beginners, Ides of March, Tree of Life, Attack the Block, and Midnight in Paris
Biggest disappointments were Martha Marcy Mae Marlene, I Saw The Devil, and Green Lantern

I need to see A Separation, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Descendants, The Artist, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Shame, Margin Call, and Mission Impossible (doubt it'll break my top 10 tho, since I really didn't like any of the others)
 

Pacze Moj

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I liked

The Help: Impressive how the film juggles storylines and characters so efficiently.

Contagion: Had me washing my hands and trying not to touch my face. I liked the lack of human drama, the peek into politics and the treatment of the contagion itself as a character.

Midnight in Paris: Romantic and fun, best Woody Allen film in years. Enjoyed being in old Paris. The happiest movie of the year (even though it is about a relationship in breakdown.)

A Separation: Tense shades of grey: a film about empathy. If you ever want to see a group of characters none-bad, none-saintly in heated conflict with one another, look no further.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives: Maybe this is 2010, but I saw it in 2011. Apichatpong Weerasethakul is in a weird and wonderful world of his own.

Elite Squad 2: Best action movie I saw this year. Perhaps a bit too much narration, but the story moves so quickly and there's so much of it that that's inevitable (if we're to know what's going on.) Politicians are scum.

Win Win: The one about wrestling with Paul Giamatti.

Senna: My favourite documentary of 2011. A riveting film with a natural progression, told and edited with great skill.


I was disappointed by

The Tree of Life: I didn't get it (or through the whole movie.) Maybe it improved after the dinosaurs.

The Skin I Live In: Not bad, but I always have high, high hopes for Almodóvar. I did enjoy—not for the first time—how thoroughly he can take source material and make it his melodramatic-humanist own.

Warrior: The kind of movie my grandmother grew up watching, except about fighting and not starring Barbara Stanwyck. By the time Nick Nolte was dancing around the hotel room telling Ahab to turn the ship around...

Drive: After the first scene, I was bored. In a nutshell: my reaction to every Nicolas Winding Refn film I've seen.


I still look forward to

A lot!
 

dolores haze

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Watching Super 8 with my sons was one of the best experiences of my year. It was an entertaining movie, but also a thoughtful film. Loved it. And those kid actors were terrific.
 

Perks

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I had patchy luck with films this year.

My favorites? (in no particular order)

Fright Night (possibly the best remake I've ever seen)
The Adjustment Bureau
Source Code
Super 8
Paul
X-Men: First Class
Horrible Bosses


My worst of list? (again, in no particular order, except for the first one, because I hated it so much I turned it off after 40 minutes)

Bridesmaids
Limitless
The Rite

And 2011 films I haven't yet got around to watching, but will (aka: what the heck have I been watching this year that I didn't get to any of these?)

Drive
Moneyball
Dream House
Rise of The Planet of the Apes
Everything Must Go
The Tree of Life
Beautiful Boy
Cowboys & Aliens
Crazy, Stupid Love
Life in a Day
Real Steel
Our Idiot Brother
Take Shelter
The Debt
Contagion
The Ides of March
Paranormal Activity 3
Margin Call
Melancholia
Mission Impossible
Warhorse
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
 

robeiae

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Best Blockbuster Flick: Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Holy hell, I had very low expectations for this one and I ended up loving it. Runner up: Super 8 -- which almost lived up to my unrealistically high expectations, so I can't really knock it at all.
Agree.

But the fact that you actually saw New Year's Eve disappoints me greatly. I hope the payoff was worth it...
 

Jcomp

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Agree.

But the fact that you actually saw New Year's Eve disappoints me greatly. I hope the payoff was worth it...

No, it wasn't. Which is entirely a reflection on how bad that movie was. Literally being paid off to see it wouldn't be worth the payoff unless you were desperate for cash... and even then... donate plasma or something instead.
 

nighttimer

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I haven't seen enough movies to have a proper Best and Worst Of list. I really liked Captain America: The First Avenger (I'm not a snob) and James Franco is right about one thing, Andy Serkis deserves a Best Supporting Actor nod for playing a chimp in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

I did catch a small flick in 2011 I can't say it was the Best thing I saw and it wasn't the Worst, but it definitely was the most outrageous.

SUPER starring Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon: directed by James Gunn

Budget: $2.5 million Gross: $324,138

Verdict: Two and a half pipe wrenches out of five

Super qualifies as a super hero movie in the same way Kick-Ass qualifies as one: Just barely It’s just as violent and even more graphic as anything in Kick-Ass. But unlike Matthew Vaughn, James Gunn doesn’t want anyone to laugh at the sad sack Crimson Bolt because Rainn Wilson plays him as a disturbed psychopath who is no better than the criminals he’s beating up.

I’m no fan of Wilson. Never watched The Office, but if he’s as big a creep there as he is here that was the right call. Wilson plays Frank, a schlub fry cook whose wife (Liv Tyler) is seduced and strung out on heroin by the nefarious Jacques (Kevin Bacon). Unable to free her by conventional means since the police are always useless in these kind of films, he gets divine inspiration to become a costumed vigilante.

No super powers? No problem. As the Crimson Bolt, Frank hunkers down by a dumpster and waits to brain drug dealers and cretins who jump the line at movies with a big honkin’ pipe wrench while screaming his motto, “SHUT UP CRIME!”

It’s not exactly going for realism.

Along the way he picks up an unwanted sidekick, Libby, a comic book geek girl, (Ellen Page) who turns out even more of a hard core crazy than Frank is as she creates her own costume and anoints herself “Boltie.” Soon she’s sitting next to Frank behind dumpsters waiting to commit acts of ultra-violence and extremely discomforting sexuality.

How extreme? Let’s just say if you ever wondered what it would look like if a horny Robin raped Batman, you won’t have to wonder again. This is quite a rape-y movie. Wilson’s inspiration to try super-heroing comes via tentacle rape. Bacon rapes Tyler. Page rapes Wilson. Rape. Murder. More rape. James Gunn likes rape.

This was a difficult movie to figure out. Is it supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek send-up of superheroes, a graphically violent and profane put down of the genre, a gross-out black comedy or none of those things? It’s hard to tell. Wilson has limited range as an leading man and Gunn’s script is too muddled to make his point. Even at 96 minutes, Super feels long.

Boltie/Libby is twisted as a pretzel and Page has a lot of fun with the role. It’s as far as she can get from Inception or Juno which is what probably appealed to her. That, and the chance to moan, “It’s all gooshy.”

I only wish I could have had as much fun with Super. It’s got a nasty streak mixed in with the humorous aspects, but even though I like strange cinema as much as the next freak, I can’t totally recommend this one. It’s worth watching once to judge for yourself, but it’s numerous flaws and scattered story ultimately don’t engage.
 

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Gotta give BEST to THE MUPPETS. There were other better made films, but THE MUPPETS was everything I needed in a film at this time, warmth, songs, heart and Kermit. And I thought it was truly hilarious (I've seen it three times now and still laugh out loud at the jokes).

WORST definitely to the latest in the PIRATES franchise. Terrible script, terribly filmed, and TERRIBLE 3D. I couldn't see half the movie it was so dark.
 

willietheshakes

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No, it wasn't. Which is entirely a reflection on how bad that movie was. Literally being paid off to see it wouldn't be worth the payoff unless you were desperate for cash... and even then... donate plasma or something instead.

I think by "pay-off", he was referring to the date, not the movie.
 

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Now that I think about it, I didn't watch a lot of films in 2011. But I saw Mission Impossible by accident, I've never watched any of these films but I loved this one. It was fun.
 

rhymegirl

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Best Movie I Saw: The Help


And the rest of the flicks I saw aren't really worth mentioning.
 
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CChampeau

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There are simply too many terrible movies out there. Mentioning them is more than they deserve.