1) Drive
2) The Tree of Life
3) Midnight in Paris
4) The Interrupters
5) I Saw the Devil
6) Moneyball
7) Another Earth
8) Certified Copy
9) Buck
10) Hanna
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(1 - 4) Drive, The Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, The Interrupters - See the previous posts for my expanded thoughts on these movies.
5) I Saw The Devil - I know of at least one film critic who has said recently that the most exciting movies of late are consistently coming out of Korea. While I can't make that generalization, I can say with certainty that this movie has great style and deep substance. It's a gripping revenge plot in which a young federal agent is making his fiance's killer pay for what he has done. This, however, is not your typical revenge narrative. The agent's name is Kim Soo-hyeon, played by Byung-hun Lee, and he uses his seemingly-unlimited occupational resources not only to locate his wife's killer but to harass, stalk and torture him over and over again. Kim finds the man, beats him unconscious then lets him go free so he could track him down with the tracking device he forced down his throat and do it all again. He clearly wants to give the killer a taste of his own medicine - to know what it feels like to be pursued by a relentless savage. I found the age-old plot outline new and exciting. Kim is looking for a kind of revenge that I've never seen before. He does the unthinkable to the monster that took everything from him. In the end, I wondered if Kim is just as sick and evil as the man he was after. (currently streaming on Netflix instant)
6) Moneyball - When I saw this in the theater a few months back, I didn't think that it would end up on my top-ten list at the end of the year but it turned out to be one of those movies that I just couldn't shake. I felt that the on-screen chemistry between Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill was great. Aaron Sorkin's razor-sharp, machine-gun dialogue fits Hill's humor perfectly. I do, however, think Philip Seymour-Hoffman was horribly miscast as A's manager Art Howe. I have a few reasons for this opinion, but most simply, he looks absolutely nothing like Art Howe. Hoffman looks more like a bowling coach than a baseball coach. He was totally unbelievable in a baseball uniform. This was a movie that served its source material quite well - the book by Michael Lewis is a must read for anyone remotely interested in business efficiency, baseball or anything in between. (Moneyball is out on DVD/Blu-Ray as of the first week of January)
7) Another Earth - This film is riveting and suspenseful tale of redemption with a science-fiction underlay. A combination I have rarely seen in the movies. Brit Marling plays Rhoda, an ambitious high school girl who has just been accepted into MIT's engineering program when the movie opens. After a night of celebration, Rhoda makes a horrible decision to get behind the wheel of her car and drive home. She barrels into a car, killing a pregnant mother, her young son and leaving the father in a coma. Adding to her intoxication was the fact that she was staring out the window at a new planet that was just discovered remarkably close to Earth. Scientists have said that the conditions are perfect to sustain human life. Fast forward four years to a scene of Rhoda getting out of prison, a shell of the vibrant girl she once was. She quickly takes a job as a janitor and hears on the radio that the United States is finally sending people to this new planet (four years later...what took us so long?). To repent for what she has done, she decides to seek out the man who survived the car crash and formally apologize. When she gets to his house, she is unable to say anything about the accident and instead poses as a sales representative for a house cleaning service. The man does not know that Rhoda is the one who was driving the car that fateful night and allows her to come in and clean his house. This is where the suspense sets in because as an audience member, we know the secret but what we don't know is if or, more interestingly, how Rhoda is going to eventually tell the man who she is and what she has done. Another Earth offers this dramatic storyline against the backdrop of a few bigger questions. We find out that this new planet is not merely suitable to sustain human life, but it is actually inhabited by us - in other words, there is another you out there with the same name, same face, same body, etc. So the first question is: what would the conversation be like if you were to meet a different version of yourself? Secondly, and more interestingly, would the other you have turned out differently if she hadn't made such a life-altering mistake? I was completely and fully invested in this movie from start to finish. Marling pulls off devastation like few can. I also loved how rookie filmmaker Mike Cahill didn't give us too much scientific exposition - he reeled out just enough for it to fit together without bogging us down, because this isn't a story of science, it is a story of a sorrowful young woman who is desperate to make things right again. Looking back on it, by writing about it, I think I may have just convinced myself to move this higher up on my list. If it weren't for a pretty poor performance by William Mapother (who played Ethan in Lost), I would definitely have this in my top 5.
8) Certified Copy (Copie Conforme) - Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel play either a married couple, or two former lovers or two strangers having coffee for the first time - we really don't know. This foreign film bobs and weaves its twisted and mysterious story in and out of at least three different languages. It takes place over the course of an afternoon in and around Tuscany, where Shimmel's character James Miller meets up with Elle (played by Binoche) after a press conference to promote his new book called Copie Conforme. The book is about how there really shouldn't be that big of a difference in value between an original work of art and a reproduction. The film contains nothing more than two hours of spinning dialogue that is as confusing as it is mesmerizing. You never really know if these two are unhappily married or merely putting on an elaborately sick play for people whom they encounter at museums, cafes and restaurants. While James steps out to take a call on his cell phone, there is a fantastic conversation between Elle and a wise, old woman who runs a coffee shop. She gives Elle a lifetime's worth of relationship advice in about five minutes. If they are actually married, then this story is a depressing one indeed. If they are strangers who just met a few hours earlier, then this story is an odd one indeed. There are clues that would support both different scenarios and trying to unravel the mystery is a heck of a lot of fun (actually, there are at least three possible scenarios). I liked this movie a lot, but with nothing but conversations for two hours, it is not for the impatient film-goer. (streaming now on Netflix instant)
9) Buck - The second documentary to appear on my Top Ten, Buck is the story of the real-life horse whisperer who inspired the movie that starred Robert Redford. Buck Brannaman travels the nation putting on horse training clinics for horse owners who are struggling with their horses, much the same way that parents go to therapists or professionals for help with their unruly children. Buck grew up with an extremely abusive father and he uses his past emotional scars to connect with every horse that he is called in to train. I am not a horse guy by any means, in fact, I think they're terrifying animals (yet majestically beautiful at the same time) but this documentary absolutely floored me. Buck doesn't believe in breaking horses, he believes in communicating with horses in order to get them to be the best animals they can be. There is one segment in the film in which Buck is unable to help a woman with her violently dangerous horse. After the worst is over, Buck has an impromptu therapy session with the woman about how she needs to get herself right before she can expect to get her horses right. This is where the film really made an impression on me. As we follow Buck to more and more horse clinics, we see how he bridges the gap between the way our horses behave and the way we view ourselves. The parallels that he makes between humans and animals bring clarity to a lot of peoples' lives. Being a teacher, it is clear to me on a day to day basis that 99% of how a child carries him/herself is a product of the quality of parenting that has taken place. Evidently, this is true of horses and their owners too. Brannaman's opening line boils it all down, "Instead of helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems." (currently streaming on Netflix instant)
10) Hanna - This one sort of took me off guard. It came out way back in April and I didn't see it until just after Christmas. It is the story of a young girl named Hanna, played by Saoirse Ronan, who has spent her entire life being trained to be a spy by her father (Eric Bana) in the isolation of a snowy wilderness. These first moments in the film are pretty spectacular. Hanna knows several different languages, has memorized world geography, knows how to hunt, fight and hide. She is a machine built to take on the world, mentally and physically. Soon she is called to action and has to manage on her own, which, due to new stimuli like television, phones, electricity, can get very overwhelming. In her travels, she tries to become more normal by befriending a girl her own age. This movie has a driving score by The Chemical Brothers, which lent itself well to the slick storytelling. Even with a so-so performance by Cate Blanchett, I found this film to be exciting and different. To be honest, it could have been replaced on this list by a number of movies (which I will list below).
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Honorable Mentions (in this order): 50-50, The Descendants, Warrior, Pearl Jam 20, The Arbor, Win Win, Super 8, The Ides of March
Movies from 2011 that I want to see ASAP: Into The Abyss, Melancholia, Take Shelter, A Separation, Warhorse, The Skin I Live In, Martha Marcy May Marlene, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Attack The Block, Shame, Contagion, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Rise of The Planet of The Apes, Project Nim
Biggest Disappointments: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Paranormal Activity 3
Movie that I acknowledge is very well made but wasn't engaging enough for me to become invested in the story or its characters: Meek's Cutoff (maybe I need to watch it again)
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