Here is my review of the films I which saw in 2011.  In a change from the past few years, this does NOT include movies released in 2011 which I saw in 2012.  Which is why The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn’t feature prominently on this list.  I know that I am missing some great movies by adopting this strategy.  Furthermore, movies that were on last year’s “Best Of” list should also be included on this year’s list (using the new rules) but I decided to omit them than recognize them twice.

While I wouldn’t say that 2011 was a bad year for movies, it wasn’t particularly special.  Maybe I just chose poorly…  Where in years past I would have to whittle down my list of ‘best’ films, this year it felt like work to simply come up with 10.  It’s not that there is an abundance of lowlights, but there weren’t many highlights.

• Top 10 Films of 2011 (in Alphabetical Order):
  
  • Another Earth
  • Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey
  • El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
  • Incendies
  • Last Days Here
  • Moneyball
  • On The Ice
  • Shame
  • Take Shelter
  • The Guard
• Bottom 5 films of 2011 (in Alphabetical Order):
  • Bridesmaids
  • Hangover: Part II
  • Sucker Punch
  • Thor
  • Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
• Best Director: Constance Marks and Philip Shane for Being Elmo
• Best Actress: Lubna Azabal in Incendies
• Best Actor: Michael Fassbender in Shame
• Best Supporting Actress: Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin in Incendies
• Best Supporting Actor: Shea Whigham in Take Shelter
• Best Inanimate Object: Robert in Rubber
• Best Original Screenplay: Brit Marling and Mike Cahill for Another Earth
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin for Moneyball
• Best Cinematography: El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
• Most Alarming Cinematic Trend: Once again, 3D and Fake IMAX.
• Most Memorable Lines:
  • Moneyball
    • Peter Brand: I wanted you to see these player evaluations that you asked me to do.
    • Billy Beane: I asked you to do three.
    • Peter Brand: Yeah.
    • Billy Beane: To evaluate three players.
    • Peter Brand: Yeah.
    • Billy Beane: How many you’d do?
    • Peter Brand: Forty-seven.
    • Billy Beane: Okay.
    • Peter Brand: Actually, fifty-one. I don’t know why I lied just then.
  • The Guard
    • Sergeant Gerry Boyle: Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, these men are armed and dangerous, and you being an FBI agent you’re more used to shooting at unarmed women and children…
    • FBI agent Wendell Everett: Oh, fuck you, Sergeant!
  • Rubber
    • Man in wheelchair: Excuse me, I hate to be a bother, but… the way I look at it, this scene makes no sense at all. Not that it was great to begin with, but at least I understood it. Now, this is just uh, totally confusing.
• Best Documentary: Last Days Here
• Guilty Pleasures:
  • A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
  • Red State
  • Hobo with a Shotgun
  • Rubber
• Films I feel guilty for missing:
  • 50/50
  • My Week with Marilyn
  • Drive
  • Beginners
  • Martha Marcy May Marlene
• Films I don’t feel guilty for missing:
  • Midnight in Paris
  • War Horse
  • The Help

As regular readers know, I keep a list of all of the movies I see each year.  I saw more movies this year (160) than each of the past two (147)..  I did include a handful of shorts on the list this year, though.  This was also the first year I kept track of the date on which I saw each movie, which will allow me to see trends in years moving forward.

My “Best of 2011” list will hopefully be done in the next few days.  Unlike the past few years, I’ve decided to do the list now instead of waiting until the Oscars.  I found waiting to actually be more stressful, for some reason.  Anyway, all the gory details are after the jump…

• Top 10 Films of 2010 (in Alphabetical Order):
  
  • The Fighter
  • Inception
  • Jackass 3D
  • Kick-ass
  • The King’s Speech
  • Micmacs
  • Perrier’s Bounty
  • The Social Network
  • True Grit
  • Winter’s Bone
• Bottom 6 films of 2010:
  
  • Clash of the Titans
  • The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Predators
  • Salt
  • Splice
• Best Remake/Reworking: The Crazies
  
• Most Unnecessary Remake/Reworking: A Nightmare on Elm Street
  
• Best Director: Christopher Nolan for Inception
  
• Best Actress: Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
  
• Best Actor: Colin Firth in The King’s Speech
  
• Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo in The Fighter
  
• Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale n The Fighter
  • Honorable mention for John Hawkes in Winter’s Bone
• Best Ensemble: Jackass 3D
  
• Best Original Screenplay: Inception
  
• Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
  
• Best Cinematography: Inception
  
• Best Soundtrack: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
  
• Best Score: Inception
• Most Alarming Cinematic Trend: Second Year for both 3D and Fake IMAX
  
• Most Memorable Lines:
  
  • Hot Tub Time Machine
    
    • Lou: Here’s a question. Was it morally wrong for me to exploit my knowledge of the future for personal financial gain? Perhaps. Here’s another question. Do I give a fuck?
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
    • Stacey Pilgrim: I mean, did you really see a future with this girl?
    • Scott Pilgrim: Like… with jetpacks?
  • Kick-Ass
    • Big Daddy: Good job. I’m so proud of you, baby doll. Are you okay?
    • Hit Girl: Mhmm… but getting shot, Daddy… it hurt a lot more than when you did it.
    • Big Daddy: That’s because I used low velocity rounds, child… he… he…
    • Hit Girl: You’re the kindest Daddy in the whole world.
    • Big Daddy: No, I just… I love you…
    • Hit Girl: I love you, too, Daddy… I love you, too, Daddy. Sleep tight.
  • Jackass 3D
    • Steve-O: How many stings do you think we can take?
    • Manny Puig: I think it takes about 100 to kill a man.
    • Dave England: Are you serious? Did you just make that number up? There’s 50,000 bees and it takes 100 to kill a man?
    • Manny Puig: I think it takes 100.
    • Loomis Fall: Then what are we doing here?
    • Manny Puig: Making a hit movie.
• Best Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
  
• Guilty Pleasures:
  • MacGruber
  • Tron: Legacy
• Films I feel guilty for missing:
  
  • OSS 117: Lost in Rio
• Films I don’t feel guilty for missing:
  • Edge of Darkness
  • Repo Men
  • Babies
  • Robin Hood
  • The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Here’s the list of movies I saw in 2010…  I saw 147 movies this year, exactly as many as the year before.  As I have done the past few years, my “Best of 2010” list will probably come closer to the Academy Awards, so I have the opportunity to see some of the well-regarded films of the year that I missed.

As I mentioned last year, in 2010 I gathered more data about the movies I see.  I also decided to no longer split up the list between “Theater” and “Home”, as the distinction doesn’t mean much to me anymore.  I did, however, gather statistics about how I watched a film, which you can view after the split:

• Top 10 Films of 2009 (in Alphabetical Order):
  
  • Avatar
    
  • District 9
    
  • In The Loop
    
  • Inglourious Basterds
    
  • It Might Get Loud
    
  • Star Trek
    
  • The Escapist
    
  • The Hurt Locker
    
  • Where The Wild Things Are
    
  • World’s Greatest Dad
    
• Bottom 4 films of 2009:
  
  • For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
    
  • Pontypool
    
  • Terminator Salvation
    
  • The Burning Plain
    
• Best Remake/Reworking: Star Trek
  
• Most Unnecessary Remake/Reworking: Friday the 13th (2009)
  
• Best Director: James Cameron in Avatar (Not the best movie of the year, but the direction was clearly tops)
  
• Best Actress: Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia
  
• Best Actor: Robin Williams in World’s Greatest Dad
  
• Best Supporting Actress: Mimi Kennedy in In The Loop
  
• Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
  
• Best Ensemble: In The Loop
  
• Best Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker
  
• Best Adapted Screenplay: In The Loop
  
• Best Cinematography: Avatar
  
• Best Soundtrack: Star Trek
  
• Most Alarming Cinematic Trend: 3D and Fake IMAX.
  
• Most Memorable Lines:
  
  • In The Loop
    
    • Malcolm Turner – Fuckity-bye-bye then
      
    • Malcolm Turner – Y’know, I’ve come across a lot of psychos, but none as fucking boring as you. You are a real boring fuck. Sorry, sorry, I knowyou disapprove of swearing so I’ll sort that out. You are a boring F, star, star, CUNT!
      
  • World’s Greatest Dad
    
    • Kyle: Bruce Hornsby’s a fag.
      
    • Lance Clayton: He’s got kids Kyle.
      
    • Kyle: You have a kid. And you’re a fag.
      
  • Star Trek
    
    • McCoy: Yeah. Well, I got nowhere else to go, the ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I got left is my bones.
      
• Best Documentary: It Might Get Loud – I now own a guitar and am taking lessons.
  
• Films I feel guilty for missing:
  
  • An Education
    
  • Up in the Air
    
  • A Single Man
    
  • A Prophet
    
• Films I don’t feel guilty for missing:
  
  • The Blind Side
    
  • The Last Station
    
  • Nine
    
  • Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
    

Here’s the list of movies I saw in 2009…  I saw 147 movies this year, which is just about where I was the year before.  I think the number of films I can see in a year given all of my other interests and responsibilities is right in the neighborhood of 150.  I haven’t really sat down and thought about my "best of" list yet, as I usually take January to try and catch up on acclaimed movies I missed, but my gut tells me it was a pretty good year for movies.   

I think in 2010 I’m going to keep more data about the movies I view, but I also think I may eliminate my distinction between "Theatre" and "Video" in the list I actually publish next year.  We’ll see.

The list is mostly in the order I viewed them, and I tried to italicize any films I had already seen.

Another great year for film..  Trying to pick my favorites this year might have even been harder than in 2007.  

To reinforce my tradition of not placing importance of one film over another in each category, I decided to alphabetize the lists this year.  

Here’s the list of the movies I saw in 2008…  I was a little lazier about keeping this list up to date this year, so it’s possible I missed one or two movies.   I saw 150 movies this year, which is a handful less than last year, but still fairly ridiculous.  This year was very polarized, with some completely amazing movies and some complete stinkers.  I’m going to wait a few weeks (until before the Oscar ceremony) to compile my "Best Of 2008" list, which should hopefully give me some time to catch up on some of the ones I missed this year.

Also, I am coming to the point, with my HDTV and surround sound system, that the distinction between "Theatre" and "Video" viewing is becoming rather academic.  I do still prefer to watch movies in the "art house" theaters in Boston, because the audiences are usually quite respectful.  But the downsides of going to one of the multiplexes easily match (and probably surpass) any downsides of watching a movie in your living room.  So it’s possible in the future I may not keep track of the distinction, but I haven’t decided yet.

The list is mostly in the order I viewed them, and I tried to italicize any films I had already seen.

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2008” →

What a tough year…   There were so many great films, I simply couldn’t find a place for all of them on the list.  What’s crazier is that even having seen 160 pictures in 2007 (and catching up on several early in 2008), there are still so many I feel I missed out on!  I did my best on this list..  The listed films are in no particular order.
• Top 11 Films of 2007:
  
  • There Will Be Blood
  • No Country for Old Men
  • Hot Fuzz
  • Lars and the Real Girl
  • The King of Kong
  • Grindhouse
  • Zodiac
  • Eastern Promises
  • 3:10 to Yuma
    
  • The Bourne Ultimatum
  • The Lookout
• Bottom 4 films of 2007:
  • Transformers
  • Hannibal Rising
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
  • Frownland
• Film which should have been in last year’s top ten: The Queen




• Best Remake/Reworking: 3:10 to Yuma (honorable mention goes to Halloween)




• Most Unnecessary Remake/Reworking: The Invasion (So unnecessary I didn’t need to see it!)




• Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood




• Best Actress: Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose




• Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood




• Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett for I’m Not There




• Best Supporting Actor: Tom Wilkinson for Michael Clayton




• Best Ensemble: Hot Fuzz
  




• Best Original Screenplay: Lars and the Real Girl




• Best Adapted Screenplay: There Will Be Blood




• Best Cinematography: There Will Be Blood




• Best Soundtrack: There Will Be Blood




• Most Alarming Cinematic Trend: Remakes going 3 or 4 levels deep…
  




• Most Memorable Lines:
• Daniel Plainview: Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake!
• Nicholas Angel: Are there any questions?
  Danny Butterman: Is it true that there’s a point on a man’s head where if you shoot it, it will blow up?
• Brian Kuh: If anybody wants to see, there’s a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up.
• Stuntman Mike: Do I frighten you?
  [Arlene nods]
  Stuntman Mike: Is it my scar?
  Arlene: It’s your car.
  Stuntman Mike: Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. It’s my mom’s car.




• Best Documentary: The King of Kong (honorable mention goes to Monster Camp)




• Best use of Special Effects in a lame movie: The Golden Compass




• Best Interviews in a Documentary: The King of Kong




• Films I feel guilty for missing: In the Valley of Elah, Away from Her, The Savages, Gone Baby Gone




• Films I don’t feel guilty for missing: Atonement, The Invasion, Alvin and the Chipmunks

I have no idea how I am going to compile the “best of” list, given how many great movies came through this year.. As you can see, the new TV greatly increased the number of movies I watched at home from the past few years.

Over the next few weeks I’ll try to catch up with some of the movies I missed in 2007 and then post my “best of”.

The list is pretty much in the order I saw the pictures, and I tried to italicize films I had previously viewed.

Theatre:

1. Children of Men
2. Pan’s Labyrinth
3. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
4. Letters from Iwo Jima
5. Smokin’ Aces
6. Hannibal Rising
7. An Unreasonable Man
8. Zodiac
9. 300
10. The Host
11. Hot Fuzz (2x)
12. Les Ordres
13. Grindhouse (2x)
14. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theatres
15. Black Book (Zwartboek)
16. Fay Grim
17. The King of Kong
18. Fido
19. Rabbit
20. Black Sheep
21. Death Trike
22. Monster Camp
23. Spider-man 3
24. 28 Weeks Later
25. Incubo sulla città contaminata (a.k.a. Nightmare City)
26. The Return of the Living Dead
27. Sleuth (1972)
28. Severance
29. Crazy Love
30. 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama
31. Live Free or Die Hard
32. Sicko
33. Transformers
34. Frownland
35. Talk to Me
36. Sunshine
37. Interview
38. The Simpsons Movie
39. The Bourne Ultimatum
40. The Ten
41. Summercamp!
42. Naked Lunch
43. The Omega Man
44. Superbad
45. TRON
46. Halloween (2007)
47. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
48. The Rape of Europa
49. 30 Days of Night
50. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
51. American Gangster
52. No Country for Old Men
53. Blade Runner
54. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
55. I’m Not There
56. In Bruges
57. The Golden Compass
58. Lars and the Real Girl
59. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

1. Clerks.
2. Sssssss
3. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
4. Goodfellas
5. Haiku Tunnel
6. Heavy: The Story of Metal
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
8. Un Chien Andalou
9. Tzameti (13)
10. Cannibal Holocaust
11. Oldboy
12. The Evil Dead
13. Evil Dead II
14. Marjoe
15. The Proposition
16. The U.S. vs. John Lennon
17. Moog
18. Crónicas
19. Marie Antoinette
20. Hostel
21. Getting Away with Murder
22. The Hills Have Eyes
23. Ghosts of the Abyss
24. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
25. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
26. Batman
27. Superman Returns
28. Serenity
29. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
30. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
31. War Dancing (a.k.a. Dance to Win)
32. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
33. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
34. Hustle & Flow
35. Fright Night
36. Batman Begins
37. Lord of War
38. Red Eye
39. The Nomi Song
40. Beerfest
41. All the President’s Men
42. Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out
43. Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream
44. The Bourne Identity
45. Aliens
46. The Omen (2006)
47. Blow Dry
48. Transporter 2
49. Rize
50. Apt Pupil
51. District B13
52. When Stand Up Stood Out
53. Coffy
54. Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
55. Patriot Act: A Jeffrey Ross Home Movie
56. Halloween (1978)
57. Poseidon
58. The Queen
59. Mission: Impossible III
60. The Conversation
61. Cars
62. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
63. The Departed
64. Henry Fool
65. The Call of Cthulhu
66. Damien: Omen II
67. Fast Food Nation
68. For Your Consideration
69. The Iron Wall
70. Volver
71. Click
72. Hard Candy
73. Up for Grabs (2004)
74. Kurtlar vadisi – Irak
75. Slither
76. The Meaning of Life
77. Crash
78. Jesus Camp
79. Times Square
80. This Filthy World
81. Stranger Than Fiction
82. Darkon
83. Word Wars
84. Ronin
85. Redacted
86. Primeval
87. The Illusionist
88. Closing Escrow
89. Idiocracy
90. Beer League
91. Henry Rollins: Uncut from NYC
92. Jackass Number Two
93. The Birds
94. Cocaine Cowboys
95. Krieger und die Kaiserin, Der (The Princess and the Warrior)
96. Children of Men
97. A Smoky Mountain Christmas
98. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
99. La Vie en Rose
100. Amazing Grace