Movies of the year
just missed the cut
Rise of the Planet of the Apes | Beginners | Another Earth | 50/50 | X-Men First Class | Hanna | Win Win | Martha Marcy May Marlene | The Skin I Live In
Instead of talking about each film separately, which would just go on forever, I'll just mention a few things here about the year in general. What I liked about 2011 was the mix of serious and light-hearted films. A lot of the time, happy/fun movies are relegated to comedies or cliched fluff. But this year, for all the movies about depression and sex addiction, there were also lighter films that were equally effective. I also appreciated several films that broke free from the cliches of their genres. Drive is far from a typical car chase movie, Moneyball avoids all the sentimental trappings of your average sports drama, Young Adult defies audience expectations with its approach, Hugo is a children's movie that probably doesn't play well with kids and Tinker Tailor is not what you'd expect of a spy thriller. There's also the theme of nostalgia being explored in different ways. Several characters in this year's films were mentally and emotionally stuck in the past, whether it was a writer wanting to escape to 1920's Paris or a grown woman unable to move beyond her high school days or an aging filmmaker whose career has declined. Finally, this is the first year quite some time in which no animated or blockbuster film has made it into my end of the year list. I actually found several of them to be quite fun, including Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Kung Fu Panda 2, but it just wasn't enough to get on the list.
15. drive (refn) - TIE
15. tabloid (morris) - TIE
14. tinker, tailor, soldier, spy (alfredson)
13. moneyball (miller)
12. the artist (hazanavicius)
11. certified copy (kiarostami)
10. the tree of life (malick)
9. young adult (reitman)
8. jane eyre (fukunaga)
7. melancholia (von trier)
6. midnight in paris (allen)
5. hugo (scorsese)
4. incendies (villeneuve)
3. we need to talk about kevin (ramsay)
2. shame (mcqueen)
1. a separation (farhadi)
bonus - favorite tv shows
3. luther
2. downton abbey
1. game of thrones
notes.
there's still some stuff i haven't seen yet so don't be alarmed if there is a glaring omission.
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comments are appreciated!