2011 in Film.

Ten days into the new year, it’s past time to knock out GitM’s best-of-2011 list. To be honest, last year’s movie crop was somewhat underwhelming, and as always, there are a few more gaps I’d love to have plugged first — Cedar Rapids, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Take Shelter, Warrior — but, for what I saw last year, here’s the best of ’em…

Top 20 Films of 2011
[2000/2001/2002/2003/2004/2005/2006/2007/2008/2009/2010/The Oughts]

1. Midnight in Paris: Its wry take on the perils of nostalgia notwithstanding, my favorite film of 2011 didn’t aspire to be much more than a fun, low-key time at the movies. And that it was. One of the most carefree films in Woody Allen’s long and storied career, and featuring one of the best Woodster stand-ins in recent decades with Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris was an amiable lark that entertained with a light touch and without resorting to the occasionally frantic enthusiasm of The Artist. In short, an unmitigated pleasure: In a so-so year for film, we’ll always have Paris.

2. Attack the Block: While this dubstep-fueled blend of sci-fi horror, Occupy London social commentary, and stoner humor may not be to everyone’s taste, Joe Cornish’s impressive debut was also a surprisingly fun movie and perhaps the purest adrenaline ride of the summer. In a year of big budget and often-suspect alien invasions, it was this lo-rent Block that best delivered the goods, bruv. Believe.

3. The Descendants: With carefully modulated performances from everyone involved, this well-observed dramedy about grief, infidelity, and family in Hawaii was Alexander Payne’s most humanistic film yet. And unlike, say, The King’s Speech or Shame, The Descendants for some reason never set off my usual annoyance with “poor little rich guy” tales — a testament to its emotional resonance.

4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The Circus has been compromised: With great actors all over the place, Tomas Alfredson’s dark, circuitous and densely plotted adaptation of John Le Carre’s cloak-and-dagger novel, redolent of cigarettes, desperation, and Cold War paranoia, is the 2011 movie I’m most looking forward to revisiting in the future. Give Gary Oldman the Oscar already.

5. X-Men: First Class: In a better year, this movie would probably be hovering around the ten spot. But, in 2011 — a year that saw no shortage of superheroics at the multiplex — Matthew Vaughn’s Mad Men-era reboot of the X-Men universe was one of the more entertaining and successful-on-its-own-terms films to come down the pike, with James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon, and especially Michael Fassbender adding ballast to the proceedings. To me once again, my X-Men.

6. Contagion: Ahem…sorry to cough a fine spray of phlegm all over the keyboard and mouse you’re currently using. Where was I? Ah yes, Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s highly creepy medical disaster movie, which carries all the more punch for being so grounded in daily reality. With Haywire and Magic Mike heading to theaters this year, hopefully Soderbergh will continue to postpone his much-publicized retirement, at least until the plague comes through.

7. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: Utilizing techniques honed at Pixar’s impressive animation stable, Brad Bird moved to the forefront of contemporary action directors and managed to revive both Tom Cruise’s waning career and a moribund franchise with this visceral and engaging thrill ride. This was easily the best pure action film of the year, or of the past several years, for that matter.

8. The Muppets: Overburdened with anachronistic 80’s nostalgia, yet leavened by a blissful infusion of Conchords — and, really, isn’t everything better with more Conchords? — Segal, Stoller, and Bobin’s heartfelt reintroduction of the Muppets was another very enjoyable evening out. I wasn’t much for the Walter framing device, but it was definitely grand to see Kermit, Fozzie, and the gang once more.

9. War Horse: Granted, putting animals in wartime peril is an easy way to get an audience emotionally invested. Still, Spielberg’s War Horse eventually overcame its early schmaltziness to become unexpectedly moving. And, if he’s up for more wartime shenanigans, perhaps Joey the wonder steed can get a cameo in Lincoln.

10. Hanna: When first putting this list together, I almost forgot this kinetic fairy tale, which, like Attack the Block, enjoys the benefit of a propulsive 21st-century score (here furnished by the Chemical Brothers.) One of the hidden gems of the spring.

11. Drive: I liked this Lynchian escapade less than a lot of critics. Its great opening scene aside, I found Drive to be all sleek surfaces and very little depth, and unfortunately the gorefest second-half never lives up to the meditative-samurai promise of the first hour. Still, the film looked great, and I look forward to seeing what director Nicholas Winding Refn comes up with next.

12. The Artist: There may not be much there there, and I wouldn’t pick it for Best Picture — but The Artist is a hard film to hate on. This is a movie that works overtime — and without the benefit of sound — to show you a good time.

13. Source Code: While it’s not nearly as layered or as satisfying as his first film, Moon, Duncan Jones’ Source Code is still a small, well-made Twilight Zone episode of a movie. And it shows Jones has the chops to stage more than one compelling science fiction tale — Hopefully, his next, as-yet-untitled sci-fi film will make it a trifecta.

14. Captain America and Thor: I have a sneaking suspicion Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (from which the pic above is taken) isn’t really going to work. Still, veteran hands Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh managed to conjure up surprisingly engaging films out of Cap and Thor respectively. In both cases, I had a better time than I had originally expected.

15. Jane Eyre: The first film on the list I didn’t actually see in the theater, Cary Fukunaga’s worthy retelling of the oft-filmed Charlotte Bronte novel succeeds mainly by playing up the Gothic horror elements of the story. It also enjoys some of the most lavish cinematography of the year (this side of The Tree of Life.)

16. Young Adult: Thanks in no small part to Charlize Theron’s praiseworthy turn as “that girl” from high school all thirty-something and curdled, Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman’s darkly funny tale of When Rom-Com Values Go Bad represents a career highlight for them both.

17. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn: Granted, I have a childhood fondness for Herge’s world that predisposed me to enjoy myself at this film — I have no idea how this flick plays for folks who’ve never heard of Captain Haddock or the Thompson Twins. But speaking for myself, I had a grand old time, and was glad to see that mo-cap is starting to move past the dead-eyed trough of the Uncanny Valley.

18. Crazy, Stupid, Love: A smart and tightly-written romantic comedy that I just caught on Netflix this past weekend. Crazy, Stupid, Love doesn’t break any new ground per se, but it’s still quite good for what it is — and given how terrible 21st century rom-coms can be, that is no small thing.

19. 50/50: Here’s another small-bore film that won’t light the world on fire. Still, Jonathan Levine’s cancer dramedy, thanks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt and work in the margins from Angelica Huston and Matt Frewer, works surprisingly well at straddling a delicate balance in tone between Apatowish bro-humor and Lifetime movie-of-the-week.

20. Bridesmaids: For better or worse, 2011 was a year in film that almost relentlessly looked backwards: From Midnight to Muppets to Hugo to The Artist, this was a year that wallowed in nostalgia for days gone by. (The future, it seems, brings either aliens or humanity-destroying plagues.) So, while Beginners, Win Win, The Trip, Hugo, or The Ides of March could’ve gone here, last spot goes to Paul Feig, Kristen Wiig, and Annie Mumolo’s funny, feminist reconception of the gross-out comedy. Let’s hope more mainstream films in years to come, comedies or otherwise, actually manage to pass the Bechdel test.

Most Disappointing: Had I more faith in Zack Snyder beforehand, this would go to his thoroughly terrible Sucker Punch, and, alas, the unfortunately botched Green Lantern came close to taking this spot as well. In the end, though, this goes to Jon Favreau’s misfire Cowboys and Aliens. Cowboys! Aliens! Daniel Craig! Harrison Ford! And yet, this one came out duller than dirt.

Worth Netflixing: The Adjustment Bureau, Beginners, The Conspirator, A Dangerous Method, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2, Hugo, The Ides of March, J. Edgar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Tree of Life, The Trip, Win Win

Don’t Bother: Battle: Los Angeles, Blue Valentine (2010), Friends with Benefits, Limitless, Meek’s Cutoff, Shame, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, Somewhere (2010), Super 8, Water for Elephants

Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; George Clooney, The Descendants; Michael Fassbender, Shame
Best Actress: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Charlize Theron, Young Adult; Mia Wasikowska, Jane Eyre
Best Supporting Actor: Uggie, The Artist; Christopher Plummer, Beginners, Eric Bana, Hanna; Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants; Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids, Cate Blanchett, Hanna

Unseen: 30 Minutes or Less, Albert Nobbs, Anonymous, Another Earth, Apollo 18, Arthur, Arthur Christmas, Atlas Shrugged, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, Bad Teacher, Barney’s Version, Beastly, The Beaver, Bellflower, Biutiful, Carnage, Cars 2, Cedar Rapids, The Change-Up, Colombiana, Conan the Barbarian, Coriolanus, The Darkest Hour, The Debt, The Devil’s Double, The Dilemma, Dolphin Tale, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Dream House, Drive Angry, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Everything Must Go, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Fast Five, Footloose, Fright Night, The Guard, The Hangover Pt 2, Happy Feet 2,The Help, Hesher, Horrible Bosses, I Am Number Four, Immortals, Incendies, In the Land of Blood and Honey, In Time, The Iron Lady, I Saw the Devil, Jack and Jill, Killer Elite, Kung Fu Panda 2, Larry Crowne, The Last Circus, Like Crazy, The Lincoln Lawyer, Margaret, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Mechanic, Melancholia, Moneyball, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, My Week with Marilyn, New Year’s Eve, Our Idiot Brother, Paranormal Activity 3, Pariah, Paul, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Priest, Puss in Boots, Rango, Real Steel, Red State, Rio, The Rum Diary, Sanctum, Scream 4, Sleeping Beauty, The Smurfs, Something Borrowed, Straw Dogs, Take Me Home Tonight, Take Shelter, The Thing, The Three Musketeers, Tower Heist, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, The Way Back, Warrior, We Bought a Zoo, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Winnie the Pooh, Your Highness, Zookeeper

A Good Year For

Jessica Chastain (Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, Take Shelter, Tree of Life)
Electronica Soundtracks (Attack the Block, Drive, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hanna)
Film History Buffs (The Artist, Hugo)
Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid, Love, Drive, Ides of March)
Marvel (Captain America, Thor, X-Men: First Class)
Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, A Dangerous Method, Shame, X-Men: First Class)
Tom Hiddleston (Midnight in Paris, Thor, War Horse)
Parisian Nostalgia (Midnight in Paris, Hugo)
Scene-Stealing Dogs (The Artist, Beginners, Tintin)
The Sex Lives of Depressed People (Shame, Somewhere (2010))
Emma Stone (Crazy, Stupid, Love, Friends with Benefits, The Help)

A Bad Year For

Gimmicks to Fill the Seats (3D, Reserve Seating)
Tom Hanks (Larry Crowne, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)
Missions in Budapest (MI: Ghost Protocol, Tinker Tailor)
Movies starting with S (Shame, Sherlock 2, Sucker Punch, Super 8)

2012: 21 Jump Street, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Amazing Spiderman, American Reunion, Argo, The Avengers, Battleship, The Bourne Legacy, Brave, Bullet to the Head, Butter, Cabin in the Woods, Casa de mi Padre, Chronicle, Cloud Atlas, Cogan’s Trade, The Cold Light of Day, Contraband, Cosmopolis, Damsels in Distress, The Dictator, Dog Fight, The Dark Knight Rises, Dark Shadows, The Dictator, Django Unchained, Dredd, The Expendables 2, The Five-Year Engagement, Frankenweenie, Gambit, Gangster Squad, GI Joe: Retaliation, The Grandmasters, Gravity, The Great Gatsby, Great Hope Springs, The Grey, I Hate You Dad, Haywire, The Hunger Games, Hyde Park on Hudson, Inside Llewyn Davis, Jack the Giant-Killer, John Carter, John Dies at the End, Lay the Favorite, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Lock-Out, Looper, Magic Mike, The Master, Men in Black 3, Mirror Mirror, Moonrise Kingdom, Neighborhood Watch, Nero Fiddled, Only God Forgives, Outrun, Paranorman, The Pirates: Band of Misfits, Premium Rush, Prometheus, The Raid, Rampart, The Raven, Red Dawn, Red Hook Summer, Red Tails, Rock of Ages, Savages, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Silver-Linings Playbook, Sinister, Skyfall, Snow White and the Huntsman, Take This Waltz, This is Forty, The Three Stooges, Total Recall, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2, Warm Bodies, The Wettest County, The Wicker Tree, The Woman in Black, World War Z, Wrath of the Titans, and…

No hat, no stick, no pipe, not even a pocket handkerchief! How can one survive?

Corner Boys and Aliens.

Y’know, after being underwhelmed by both Super 8 and Cowboys and Aliens these past few months (not to mention completely taking a flier on the presumably terrible Transformers 3), I was starting to wonder if maybe i had just gotten too old and cynical to enjoy a good alien invasion flick these days. But then, last night, I saw Joe Cornish’s thrilling debut Attack the Block, and I realized that that’s just succumbing to the soft bigotry of low expectations. Now this is an alien invasion done right, bruv. Believe it.

In short, Attack the Block is a hoot from start to finish, and it puts those well-heeled Hollywood competitors to shame. At turns funny and frightening, it has the freewheeling, energetic pulse of a Kick-Ass, the unintrusive but real layer of smart sci-fi social commentary that marked District 9, and, in no small part to the sleek Basement Jaxx score, a trip-hop and dub-step cool rivaling that of Hanna or Run Lola Run. Midnight in Paris is probably still my favorite film of 2011 so far, but if there’s any justice, this will be the sleeper hit of the late summer and early fall.

Attack the Block takes place in South London on the evening of Guy Fawkes Day, when fireworks are lighting up the sky and troublemakers are out on the prowl. Trying to get home on this dark night without being harrassed is Sam (Jodie Whittaker), a young nurse new to the high-rise project she now calls home. She doesn’t make it. But before the hooded collection of street toughs who rob her can get away clear, a meteor of some kind suddenly totals a nearby vehicle. (Cue Sio Bibble: This can mean only one thing: Invasion.) While Sam makes a run for it, the gang — really, just a bunch of kids — move to check out what’s left of the car. The obvious ringleader sticks his head deep into the wreckage…

And, a la Harold and Kumar, we now meet our “real” protagonists. Moses (a charismatic John Boyega), the fellow who just entered the car, is not actually Evil Victim #1. Instead, he gets slashed across the face by some kind of space varmint, and so he and the rest of the crew — Pest (Alex Esmail), Jerome (Leeon Davis), Biggz (Simon Howard), and Dennis (Franz Drameh) — hunt down and kill the offending alien. Since nobody knows what it is, they decide to take the corpse to the pad of the local weed dealer (Nick Frost), who’s been known to enjoy stoning out over the National Geographic channel. Problem is, the rest of the very new arrivals to the block don’t take kindly to one of their number being murdered…and they all come a little bit bigger.

That’s basically the set-up, although there are few other characters running around to make things fun: Say, Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter), the Avon Barksdale of this hi-rise, who has atrocious taste in hip-hop. Or Brewis (Luke Treadaway), the loserish grad student who’s just on the block for a resupply. (His funny intro is borrowed from Michael Bolton, except this time it’s to KRS-1’s “Sound of da Police“) Or Probs (Sammy Williams) and Mayhem (Michael Ajao), two gangsta-wannabe nine-year-olds who look up to the older crew. (Memo to Cowboys and Aliens: This is how you do little kids in an alien invasion story. See also: Newt.)

Attack the Block has some very funny moments — “Right now, I feel like going home, locking my door, and playing FIFA!” — and a good bit of stoner humor. But don’t get the wrong impression: This film as a whole is rather dark, and even ruthless at times. (At one point, on his dad’s orders, Dennis takes his cute little dog outdoors to join the team. Spoiler: It lasts about five minutes.) Not knowing much about Attack the Block other than that Nick Frost and the producers of Shaun of the Dead were involved, I expected the film to be jauntier. But it has an edge, alright, and a body count. The monsters here — basically furry gorillas with glow-in-the-dark fangs (or, for those of you in the know, grues) — may be low-fi compared to what we’re used to in these sorts of movies, but they can do some damage, and some rather grisly damage at that.

Which, of course, is part of the fun. As a horror movie, a comedy, and a smart, tightly-plotted thrill ride, Attack the Block succeeds on all fronts. If space aliens and dubstep aren’t your bag, then I guess there’s a chance you might find it all lo-rent and bewildering. Otherwise, this is the purest and most visceral roller-coaster ride of the summer so far, and, barring an absurdly good fall, one of the best films of 2011. Respect.

The Village Green Preservation Society.

Move over, Grindhouse, ’cause, lo, here comes the fuzz! (We will say goodbye to flesh and blood.) When Hot Fuzz began by packing no less than five funny cameos of very likable people in its first five minutes, I figured I was in for another good time with the Shaun of the Dead crew. And happily, they didn’t disappoint — this action flick homage-parody by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost is as smart, witty, rousing, and enjoyable as its zombie-laden predecessor. Moreover, unlike Tarantino and Rodriguez’s recent foray into film nostalgia (and, for that matter, Team America: World Police, also an action-parody), Hot Fuzz works at both levels — it’s both a clever send-up of action movie tropes and not a half-bad actioner itself (particularly in its last half-hour.) The proceedings here are all frightfully British, of course — in fact, that’s most of the joke. Hot Fuzz is Die Hard in a Wee Country Village, a bunch of quintessentially American Bruckheimerisms cross-bred with quintessentially droll English understatement. But if that wry sense of humor is your cup of tea (as it is mine), the result is probably the goofiest fun you’ll have had at a movie theater since Borat.

This time around, Simon Pegg is Sergeant Nicholas Angel, the most accomplished and dedicated peace officer on the London police force. (uh, police department, that is — the new protocols state you shouldn’t say force. Sorry about that.) He’s so accomplished, in fact, that he’s making everyone else look bad, and thus his superiors ship him off to the remote country idyll of Sandford, which proudly wears the title of the safest village in England. 9-1-1 is a joke in this town, and it soon seems Angel will spend the remainder of his days busting underage drinkers, chasing wayward swans, and fielding dumb questions from his new partner (Nick Frost), a second-generation lousy cop with an inordinate love for Point Break and Bad Boys II. Of course, if you’ve ever read an Agatha Christie novel, watched an episode of Doctor Who, rented The Prisoner or The Wicker Man, or basically taken in any contemporary tale ever set in a remote English village this side of All Creatures Great and Small, you can guess that things may not be all that they seem. And sure enough, it soon becomes clear that there’s a killer loose in this sleepy little haven, and that Sandford may need Angel’s finely honed police skills after all… (Particularly given that the town elders include Bond, Belloq, Boss Tweed, Jimmy Price, and the Equalizer, among others, so there are more than a few possible prime suspects to go around.)

A lot of the fun of Hot Fuzz comes not only from its smart writing and satiric edge (some of which I can’t discuss without giving away the game, sadly — but you’ll see what I mean) but also from its affectionate spoofing of American action tropes throughout. We have the two partnered cops, of course: the wide-eyed rookie learning the ropes and the grizzled veteran who can’t leave the job at home. But Hot Fuzz also features the ubiquitous Tony Scott quick-edits, the not-very-oblique homoerotic male-bonding subtext, the Michael Bay circular pans, the bad detective mustaches, and, of course, the big guns and bigger explosions. (I don’t remember a shot through the windshield of Pegg and Frost simultaneously screaming, as per the buddy-movie-standard, but I’m guessing it might have been in there too.) What separates Fuzz from the similarly knowing Planet Terror, a movie that was basically all inside-jokiness, is that this film never seems derisive toward its target, really. It lampoons the genre, sure, but it also delivers as a genre exercise. (As did Shaun, now that I think about it…hopefully Edgar Wright will bring a similar balance and panache to the superhero movie with his forthcoming take on Ant-Man.)

The Buzz on Fuzz.

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright of the “hugely successful romzomcom” Shaun of the Dead announce the cast and details of their next project, the buddy-cop movie Hot Fuzz. Pegg will play a London cop who gets sent out to the sticks (Somerset), where he’s teamed up with new partner Nick Frost (also of Shaun.) Around to stir up trouble for this dynamic duo are a murderer’s row of British hams, including Jim Broadbent, Steve Coogan, Martin Freeman, and Timothy Dalton.