Alexis Hauk: Top 10 Movies of 2011
December 31, 2011 12:00 AM
For someone who gets paid to write about the arts, there are actually very few categories in which I feel comfortable declaring, hands down, the top ten of the year.
My music taste is haphazard at best.
I bought Panda Bear's "Tomboy" back in April, mostly under the influence of an ex-boyfriend who worships the ground that Noah Lennox walks on. I saw Bright Eyes in concert twice — once in New Hampshire and once in Rhode Island — and he put on a good show, and I recommend that anyone pick up "The People's Key," but really, there are better experts.
Where my knowledge comes in handy is on movies — a full-blown obsession since childhood, one that fuels my life and imagination. With that in mind, I must issue apologies to recently released limited engagements like "The Artist" and "Carnage," which did not make my list because I haven't had a chance to drive to where they're playing yet.
1. Drive
This Ryan Gosling vehicle (see what I did there?) actually involves very little of the verb in its title. Instead, you have a striking visual love letter to the City of Angels, punctuated by a killer soundtrack and a surprisingly vicious performance by Albert Brooks, as his same witty self only as a cold-blooded kingpin. It's no wonder this has made almost everyone's top 10 list and is favored by hipsters. It's the just the most original movie of the year.
2. The Muppets
I was skeptical at first. My last experience with Miss Piggy, Kermit and crew was the unremarkable 1996 "Muppet Treasure Island" (Tim Curry, how the mighty hath fallen). After Jim Henson died in 1990, it seemed like a franchise destined for mothballs. But fortunately Jason Segel had the ingenious idea not to ignore the fact that the Muppets had faded from popularity, but to imagine them as once-revered Hollywood stars trying to find relevancy in the 21st Century (battling with everyone from evil corporate executives to a hilarious imitation band, "the Moopets").
3. Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
You either hate or love Stieg Larssen's Millenium Trilogy (the title of the book in Sweden is "Men Who Hate Women" — not as catchy as the American translation, but more descriptive). I was on the adoring end. And while I enjoyed the Swedish film version with Noomi Rapace, this was always destined for the hands of David Fincher. He sticks closer to the book, icing this very frosty cake with a score by Trent Reznor and pitch-perfect characterizations by Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Christopher Plummer.
4. Bridesmaids
R.I.P., Christopher Hitchens. A funny movie made by genuinely funny women, running contrary to his famous assertion in Vanity Fair that the ladies aren't funny. You've probably seen it a few times already, haven't you?
5. Moneyball
Loved the book by Michael Lewis, about Billy Beane and the advent of stats in baseball, and the movie holds its own.
6. "Shame"
Let's just call this a love letter to Michael Fassbender, who had one hell of a year. There was also his turn as Mr. Rochester in the top notch "Jane Eyre." But it might be dangerous to include too much Fassbender on one list. "Shame" is about a sex addict living in New York, whose carefully constructed world of denial is interrupted by the arrival of his equally but oppositely messed up sister (a vulnerable Carey Mulligan). Lots of male nudity and — surprise! — some pretty excessive sex scenes earned this an NC-17 rating, yet it's one of the least sexy movies you'll see. Steve McQueen's carefully controlled direction and Fassbender's isolated, tormented performance crawl under your skin and linger there for hours.
7. "Martha Marcy May Marlene"
You probably never heard of this movie — about a young woman recently escaped from a cult and trying to readjust to the real world as her paranoia increases. The only way that I caught it was because a friend dragged me to it in Washington D.C. But it's well worth catching via the gods of Netflix. First for the revelation there is a member of the Olsen family who can truly act: Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of tabloid darlings Mary-Kate and Ashley, as the lead. With the always-good John Hawkes as the creepy, manipulative cult leader, an ambiguous ending and gorgeous but disquieting cinematography of the Catskills and Hudson Valley.
8. "The Descendents"
You wouldn't know from the trailers, but this George Clooney flick — about a father and his daughters coping with the slow, drawn out death of his wife and their mother — defies a lot of expectations. First, it's set in Hawaii, whose lush environment, as Clooney's character mentions at the beginning of the movie, sometimes deceives people into thinking that residents of the islands don't actually go through the same kind of awful grief as everywhere else. Alexander Payne's first full-length film since 2004, all the characters are real and surprising, as they struggle with issues around land ownership and family history and betrayal. And this one's actually playing locally now. Huzzah!
9. "Poetry"
Another obscurity, but thank goodness for dumb luck, because this is one of the loveliest movies I've ever seen, and it was only out for like a week in Boston. A South Korean piece about a 60-something woman in the early stages of Alzheimers who takes a poetry class while dealing with the aftermath of a nasty crime committed by a family member. Lead actress Jeong-hie Yun grounds the story in heartbreaking, subtle ways, as she tries to find beauty even in the most baffling, painful circumstances.
10. "Contagion"
As an addict of all things zombie-related (my top television shows for this last year would one entry: "The Walking Dead"), it was refreshing to see a movie which reeked of zombie apocalypse but which avoided actual reanimation. Scary and seemingly very plausible, under Steven Soderbergh's direction, a little cough develops into a worldwide pandemic. Bonus: you get to see Gwyneth Paltrow die a pretty gruesome death.
Honorable mention: "The Ides of March" and "Hanna."
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