best of 2011 | the m0vie blog

My Best of 2011: Drive & Neon Noir…

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Darren

It’s that time of the year. To celebrate 2011, and the countdown to 2012, I’m going to count down my own twelve favourite films of the year, one a day until New Year’s Eve. I’m also going to talk a bit about how or why I chose them, and perhaps what makes this list “my” best of 2011, rather than any list claiming to be objective.

Drive is number one. Check out my original review here.

If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I’m yours no matter what. I don’t sit in while you’re running it down; I don’t carry a gun… I drive.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive isn’t a revolutionary film. It isn’t bold or original or highly inventive. Instead, it’s just a wonderfully effective neo-noir with its vibrant colours and synth soundtrack calling back to crime films of the eighties, featuring a confident performance from Ryan Gosling as the archetypical male crime lead. Gosling is strong, stoic, silent, yet strangely sensitive as the eponymous stunt driver, who moonlights with various illegal extra curricular activities. Here, Refn manages to out-Mann Michael Mann, producing a film that seems more like the spiritual successor to Miami Vice than Mann’s own film of the same name. It’s a brutal, brilliant and stunning film. And, while it faced stiff competition from the second and third films on this list, it’s with some confidence that I recommend it as my favourite film of the past year.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: best film of 2011, best of 2011, Bryan Cranston, Carey Mulligan, Drive, miami vice, michael mann, my best fo 2011, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, Nicolas Winding Refn, Ryan Gosling, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | 8 Comments »

My Best of 2011: Midnight in Paris & “Diet” Woody Allen…

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Darren

Midnight in Paris is number four. Check out my original review here.

I’ve been mulling this over since I had the chance to see the film back in August. I think that Midnight in Paris might (just might) be my own favourite Woody Allen film, without any of the usual qualifiers attached. It is my favourite Woody Allen film of the decade, and my favourite one set in Europe, but I’m growing increasingly comfortable just stating that as an absolute. I, personally, prefer it to Manhattan or Annie Hall. I can’t explain it. As I noted in my piece covering True Grit as my eighth favourite film of year, perhaps it’s just that my internal “quality Woody Allen film detector” is broken. After all, I liked – rather than loved – Vicky Christina Barcelona, so what do I know of Woody Allen?

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: Allen, best films of 2011, best of 2011, F. Scott Fitzgerald, favourite films of 2011, Gil, Midnight in Paris, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, Owen Wilson, paris, wilson, Woody Allen | 2 Comments »

My Best of 2011: Thor, Daddy Issues & The Triumph of Optimism…

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Darren

Thor is number five. Check out my original review here.

This is perhaps one of my “what the…?” picks, one of my choices that will seem especially random, and a blockbuster highly unlikely to show up in any other critic or commentator’s “best of 2011” of “end of year” countdown lists. However, I think there’s a lot to like about Branagh’s adaptation of Marvel’s faux-Shakespearean hammer-wielding Norse God, and I think it works so well because Branagh seems to acknowledge the same sentiment that Stan Lee tapped into when creating The Mighty Thor: the idea that superheroes are a modern American mythology, a vehicle with which to explore the hopes and fears of the modern world through a fantastical prism, something that can be traced back to the pantheon of old. While the best superhero films explore this sense of relevance, I admired the way that Thor managed to embrace it in the most abstract manner, tracing it back to that earliest and most basic type of story: the story of fathers and sons.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: anthony hopkins, best of 2011, Christopher Nolan, film, kenneth branagh, marlon brando, Martha Wayne, Movie, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, stan lee, thomas wayne, thor | 2 Comments »

My Best of 2011: Rise of the Planet of the Apes & Hailing Caesar…

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Darren

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is number seven. Check out my original review here.

If you had told me last year that one of the best summer blockbusters would be a prequel to The Planet of the Apes, I would have laughed at you. Hell, I’m still chuckling a bit now, trying to get over how such a strange concept on paper managed to work so well. After all, a movie about a bunch of damn dirty CGI apes taking their share of the planet from us humans, led by a chimpanzee on Alzheimer’s medication, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. And yet, for some reason, it works incredibly well. I’ll concede that the plot is a bit ropey, and the human characters are quite underdeveloped, but I think Rise of the Planet of the Apes managed to grab its audience so well purely because it creates a fascinating and compelling three-dimensional lead character who we completely understand to and relate to.

Did I mention that the lead character is a CGI ape?

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: andy serkis, best of 2011, Caesar, Caesar (monkey), Christopher Nolan, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, david fincher, James Franco, Julius Caesar, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, planet of the apes, rise of the planet of the apes, Special effect | Leave a comment »

My Best of 2011: True Grit & The Art of Modesty…

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Darren

True Grit is number eight. Check out my original review here.

Collective consensus is a funny thing. It pops up quite quickly and quietly, in the strangest sorts of places and the strangest sort of way. The Coen Brothers are respected filmmakers, to say the least. Even when a project of their doesn’t quite come off as smoothly as one might expect, it’s still compelling viewing. However, as with any other directors, there are greater films and there are lesser films. And there are those that sit in the middle. True Grit, for most critics, seems to sit firmly in the middle.

But not for me.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: Academy Award, best of 2011, Big Lebowski, Coen, coen brothers, Hailee Steinfeld, jeff bridges, matt damon, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, true grit | 3 Comments »

My Best of 2011: The Adjustment Bureau & True Romance

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Darren

The Adjustment Bureau is number nine. Check out my original review here.

I think this is probably the first truly surprising choice of my own personal countdown. After all, the film debuted to generally positive reviews, but hardly the most exceptional critical feedback. It wasn’t loved and it wasn’t hated, but it was fairly quickly forgotten. I suspect that I will be one of very few people to include the title in my end-of-year best-of list. Still, I loved The Adjustment Bureau. And I think that’s strangely appropriate, because I’d argue that The Adjustment Bureau is perhaps the purest cinematic love story that we’ve seen in quite some time.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: Adjustment Bureau, best films of 2011, best of 2011, Damon, David Norris, Days of Summer, Emily Blunt, kevin smith, matt damon, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, New Year, The Adjustment Bureau | 1 Comment »

My Best of 2011: Super 8 & Understanding as a Child…

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Darren

Super 8 is number ten. Check out my original review here.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

– Corinthians 13:11

It seems easy to lambast modern mainstream cinema as devoid of originality or of new ideas. It seems that every other film is a sequel or a prequel or a remake of another film, with Hollywood seemingly eager to cannibalise itself. I’ll concede that there are more franchises than before, but I also think that indie and original cinema is thriving in its own environment. I’d make the case that there’s room for all sorts of film, and that originality and quality don’t necessarily equate. Still, I doubt that will appease too many of the people who are sick of “the same old nonsense”, and I imagine that those people will cynically pick apart Super 8 as exactly the sort of copycat movie that demonstrates everything that’s wrong with modern cinema.

Naturally, I take a different approach, even if I can concede it’s hardly the most original of films. Then again, I’d make the case that this is precisely the appeal.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: Abrams, best films of 2011, best of 2011, cinema, films, J. J. Abrams, Joe Lamb, jurassic park, Movies, my best of 2011, my favourite films of 2011, spielberg, steven spielberg, super 8, Super 8 mm film | Leave a comment »

My Best of 2011: The Guard & Loving Irish Film…

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Darren

The Guard is number eleven. Check out my original review here.

I imagine anybody who lives a country about the same size of Ireland has that same essential insecurity about their national cinema. Unless you live in a major market, it seems that home-produced films are generally relegated to the less mainstream cinemas and subject to less promotion or publicity, unless they happen to star one (or more) of your home-grown talents who happens to have been successful overseas. And, as you discuss or review your own cinema, you start to question yourself: are you harder or softer on a particular film because it came from your country? or should you be harder or softer on those films? Do you hold the films produced by your own country to a higher or a lower standard than those produced in major markets? When I recommend a film produced in Ireland, I catch myself, asking “if this weren’t produced here, would it be notable?”

I think there are far more films that are notable than most might imagine, and I also think The Guard is almost definitely one of them. It’s a distinctly Irish film, but one that doesn’t exclude the outsiders looking in.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: best films of 2011, best of 2011, irish film, Movies, my favourite films of 2011, the guard | 2 Comments »

My Best of 2011: Rango & Justifying Personal Choices…

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Darren

Rango is number twelve. Check out my original review here.

It’s December, so that means it’s list time. Critics and pundits will be ranking their “top ten” of everything, and I suppose that I should defer to tradition and offer my own opinion on the “top ten” films of the year. I don’t want to make just another list, though, lost in a sea of opinions of individuals far my experienced and qualified than myself to advise you on the current state of cinema. So I decided that I’d list my own personal choices, by talk about why I chose them and bit and why they appealed to me. I have, after all, already reviewed them all, so I’m not going to try to convince you of their quality (or even my opinion of their quality). Instead, I’m going to talk a bit about why they appealed to me. My list will undoubtedly look very different to yours and – I suspect – to the vast majority of opinions, but the fun in making lists like this lies in defending, debating and justifying your choices.

So, let’s talk about the bottom entry on the list, and the one I feel will be toughest to justify: Rango.