The Best Movies of 2011, Part 1

And now comes the article where I reveal my love of lists. I have lots of lists. I compile useless facts and statistics like nobody’s business, so it make perfect sense to have just dozens of lists of things I like or hate just lying around. OK, the lists change frequently when I consume more media and entertainment, which is all the damn time, but right now I’d just like to take a look back at last year, 2011. Since most movies come out about 4 months after they get released in theaters, I’ve finally seen pretty much every movie from 2011 that I have a real interest in (which is over 150 films). Now, I had to narrow it down to ten I thought were the best. Hell, I’d easily recommend the top 30 percent of movies I saw last year (I thought it a really good year for cinema), so getting just ten is almost impossible. But here it goes.

 10. Tyrannosaur (Dir. Paddy Considine)

Tyrannosaur is not a film about a dinosaur. It’s a bleak British drama about an unemployed alcoholic who finds solace in a kind Christian woman who offers to pray for him and his dying best friend. Yeah, a real picker-upper. But the film takes a unique approach- it doesn’t hide the emotions the characters are feeling. It’s violent and in-your-face, and occasionally feels like it doesn’t al fit together. But as the relationships these characters build gets deeper, it reflects life almost perfectly. It’s foremost an examination on the cruel animal nature of man and the unfairness of life, but it also shows hope, that one can change and overcome.

 9. Win Win (Dir. Thomas McCarthy)

Sports films involving children or high-schoolers are usually lowest-common-denominator fluff or over-stylized excuses to throw around clichés. Not Win Win. In the trend of movies reflecting real life, Win Win chronicles lawyer Mike (Paul Giamatti) who is soon going out of practice and the high-school wrestling team he coaches is downright awful. Yet when a young yet talented teen crosses his path through a client, he decides to take in the boy and make him a star wrestler. The movie really gets deep into the themes of selfishness, honesty, and personal responsibility. It never loses sight of the comedy found naturally in human contact, and feels fresh and alive.





8. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Dir. Rupert Wyatt)

The closest movie I can compare this to is District 9- a smart sci-fi actioner that keeps the heart of what makes us human at the core. It’s fuelled by human drama and takes great pains to make Caesar (Andy Serkis) look real and feel real. The journey Caesar faces, from living with humans (James Franco, John Lithgow, Frieda Pinto) to fighting back against crooked animal controllers (Tom Felton, Bryan Cox), is completely believable, paced properly, and filled with amazing visuals and action. It was hands down the best summer movie from last year.

7. Midnight in Paris (Dir. Woody Allen)

This is a very lighthearted Woody Allen comedy, looking at a writer (Owen Wilson) who visits Paris with his bitch of a fiancé (Rachel McAdams), only to gain great inspiration by traveling back to the 1920s at Midnight. He meets Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody), F. Scott Fitzgerald (pre-Loki Tom Hiddleston), and many more. The cast isn’t the best part of the movie, though. It’s a great movie because the film taps into the creative juices of anyone artistic, and finds a niche between surreal and cute that makes for a romantic comedy that actually feels romantic.







6. 50/50 (Dir. Jonathan Levine)

How can a movie about cancer be funny? Well, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen can make it funny. Gordon-Levitt is getting a bit of Gerard Butler-it is, getting massively overexposed as a leading man after a string of hits. I hope he doesn’t fade- he’s been great in almost anything. The movie is a comedy, but don’t let that fool you into thiking it doesn’t have sad or distressing moments- any truly heartfelt film about cancer would obviously have them. The movie handles it all with grace, though, never being heavy-handed. Oh, and Anna Kendrick is insanely cute.