Best Movies of 2011

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ about the best movies of 2011. This follows this post about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed. Go ahead and click each year and make sure that you've seen them. This follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch!


DebbieSchlussel.com Best Movies of 2011

By Debbie Schlussel



It’s the end of the year, which means that I give you the magical sack of golden nuggets at the movies after a year of spending hours of my life sifting through a lot of dirt–and sitting in a dark movie theater–to find them. For more recent readers, I stopped doing a Worst Movies of the Year list because it’s impossible to narrow down 50-plus equally horrid pieces of garbage to just ten. I’d probably include 75-80% of the movies I saw this year on that list, as is more and more the case in recent years. Some of the top movies on my list did not come out in 2011, but as a movie critic, I screened them this year, so if they’re among the best, they go on the list. Also, there were some movies that didn’t make my top ten but which I enjoyed nonetheless and were the best in their genre, in my view. I’ve linked to my complete original reviews on the title of each movie, and I’ve also provided a brief summary of each movie. (If you buy these movies through the Amazon ads below, it helps support this site. Thanks.)













1)  “Warrior“:  Former alchoholic father (Nick Nolte) finds Christianity, and he and his two estranged sons come together in the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) world.  Rocky for the 2010s.  Uplifting and patriotic.  Fun to watch and heartpounding every step of the way, once it gets going.


2)  “The Artist“: Magnificent movie filled with the style and glamor of old.  Don’t let the fact it’s a silent film keep you away.  It’s fun and charming like no other movie.  Bonus:  no filth or trash involved.




3) “Sarah’s Key“:  Terrific movie that spans multiple generations from the Holocaust to the present and goes from Europe to North America. It’s a thriller and a mystery solved in an interesting way. Sometimes who you think you are isn’t really who you are. You never really know from whence you came.




4)  “Winter in Wartime [Oorlogswinter]“:  Intense thriller depicting good versus evil in Nazi Europe.  Who are actually the spies for Hitler and who is working for the resistance?  A brave, precocious young boy learns for himself with devastating and shocking consequences.




5)“War Horse“:  I never thought I’d like a movie about a horse. But this terrific World War I film about redemption and good brings together several families and individuals touched by the war, in a moving, touching way.



6)“Limitless“:  Fun, exciting sci-fi thriller about a loser who discovers a magic pill (a sort of superfix for ADD) that changes his life for the better.  But will it last.  I was never a Bradley Cooper fan.  But he’s fantastic in this light, escapist movie.



7)  “The Way Back“:    Several men, including an American, escape from the Soviet gulag and survive harsh conditions to flee Communist hackles and make it to freedom. Based on a true story.




8)  “The Double Hour [La Doppia Ora]“:  Terrific thriller that even the most jaded moviegoer probably won’t figure out until the end. A former police officer meets a woman at a speed-dating event and begins seeing her. But as they are at the estate, where he now serves as a security guard, a robbery ensues, and he is killed. Soon strange things begin happening in the woman’s life, and to tell you more would spoil it. So many twists and turns.



9)  “Another Earth“:  Sci-fi drama thriller in which a brilliant high school student, destined for a great life on a college scholarship, kills a man’s family while drunk driving. When she gets out of prison, a new planet has been discovered that is coming close to earth. The new earth and the girl’s interaction with the father of the


10)  “Jane Eyre“:  This is the best film version of the novel that I’ve seen.  It’s well-paced, tight, and masterfully acted by Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.  A chick flick even the guys can enjoy.


* HONORABLE MENTION:



“Hugo“: Wonderful story about an orphan who lives in a French train station, fixing a robot. He soon learns that the bitter shop owner has a magnificent past, which he discovers with the man’s charming granddaughter. Excellent 3D and eye candy. Great for kids and adults alike, once it gets moving.



“The Thing“:  The prequel that is actually sort of a remake of the original is thrilling, well-told, and an enjoyable sci-fi action adventure.


“Love Crime [Crime D'Amour]“:  This French murder mystery is a fun and modern psychological thriller.



* BEST ENIGMA:



“Certified Copy“:  You don’t really know what is going on here until the end, and even then, it’s up to your mind to do the math.  Who are these people, really?  And how do they really know each other?  I think I know, but you have to watch and come to your own conclusions.



* BEST ANIMATION:



“The Illusionist [L'Illusionniste]“:  Terrific animated, charming movie about an older magician who travels around Europe doing his routine and trying to stay financially afloat, while he tries to keep the affection of a much younger girl who is looking to come up in the world.



GET YOURS . . .



* BEST ACTION/BEST SEQUEL:



“Fast Five“:  This is the best of the “Fast and Furious” movies. Lots of action and cool stunts, even if it glorifies car thieves. It’s fun and exciting. You’ll be on the edge of your seat the whole time.


* BEST DOCUMENTARY:



“Candyman:  The David Klein Story“:  Bert Klein, the son of the inventor of Jelly Belly, tells his father’s story.  We see how the delicious gourmet jelly beans were invented and made into a hit by a marketing genius, David Klein, and how he lost it all (multi-millions), after being strong-armed out of it.  A great lesson for entrepreneurs and an interesting piece of Americana you never knew about. And, above all, a story about a mensch.




* BEST COMEDY:



“30 Minutes or Less“:  Normally, this wouldn’t be my pick, but so many other comedies this year were such utter crap.  It’s raunchy and features some nudity, so it’s not for family viewing or kids (and it has its low-class moments).  Still, it’s a funny, semi-thriller about a pizza delivery man who must rob a bank or a bomb strapped to him will be set off by two losers in their get-rick-quick scheme.  If you are prudish or easily offended, this isn’t for you.


* BEST LEGAL THRILLER:



“The Lincoln Lawyer“:  Matthew McConaughey is the lawyer who works out of the back of a chauffeur-driven 1980′s Lincoln Continental and cuts corners. Now, he’s defending a rich kid accused of raping and killing women. Things are not always as they seem.

Wknd Box Office: The Artist, War Horse, We Bought a Zoo

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/  reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and  THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed!  This all  follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!




Wknd Box Office: The Artist, War Horse, We Bought a Zoo

By Debbie Schlussel



It’s a FOUR REAGAN movie two-fer at the box office, this weekend.





* “The Artist“: This is among my top picks for best movie of the year (a list I’ll be posting next week, G-d-willing). It’s absolutely terrific. It’s got glamor. It’s got style. And it harkens back to the olden days of movies when movies were great and class exuded from every frame. It’s a mostly silent movie with music as its dialogue. The only talking is at the very end, in the last scene. Instead, in addition to the music, there are a few frames with subtitles of what the characters are saying. Given that, I thought I’d hate it or fall asleep. But, just the opposite, I was charmed and enjoyed every minute of it. It moves quickly and has a tight, well-told story. Although it’s rated PG-13 (I’m not sure why), you can take even your youngest kids to see it, though younger kids might not understand what is going on (you can explain it to them).



Set in 1927 Hollywood, Jean Dujardin plays silent film star George Valentin. While he is rich and famous and at the height of his career, he bumps into Peppy Miller (played by Berenice Bejo), a pretty young woman who desperately wants to become an actress. She mugs for the cameras and gets on the front page of the newspapers. The next day, she goes to a movie studio (run by John Goodman) for an audition and eventually charms her way to getting hired. Talking films are not just on the horizon, they are the latest technological advancement, and silent film is about to die. Dujardin tells Goodman he refuses to talk and will remain a silent film actor. As his career and fortunes fall, Bejo has signed a multi-picture talking film deal. Her star has risen. She harbors feelings and nostalgia for the fallen silent film star. And the movie shows us their interactions as his career ends and he loses everything, while she becomes rich and famous.


This is a love story, but a not a chick flick. In fact, it’s mostly told from the male actor’s point of view. While it may sound sad, it has a happy ending and is a charming, fun, cute movie, with a cute dog who gets a lot of screentime to boot. Like I said, it’s an absolutely terrific movie and something you really should see on the big screen as opposed to home video. As a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, I voted for Dujardin and Bejo as my respective Best Actor and Best Actress picks. (I plan to tell you more about those picks and how I voted, next week.) Many of you, my smart readers, predicted this was one of my FOUR REAGAN movies, and you know me well.



FOUR REAGANS




* “War Horse“: This opens on Sunday, Christmas Day.  Despite my anger at Steven Spielberg for his “Munich” BS (read my review), I gotta give credit where it is due.  And in this, he directed a fantastic movie. And in this, he directed a fantastic movie. Although it takes place during World War I and there is some killing on the battlefield, it’s not graphic, and I think it’s fine to take kids to see, if you explain to them what is going on. It’s just such a great and touching movie. And it promotes the values of commitment, hard work, and doing what’s right in the face of evil.



I generally hate horse movies. But this is an exception. Spielberg managed to tell you a story using many different people and how they all interact with a spirited horse during the war.  It’s got charm, and it also has heart, even if some of the World War I scenes of the British interacting with the Germans across the battlefield seem kind of ripped off from the terrific “Joyeux Noel” (read my review).



The movie begins with the Narracott Family of England. They are poor farmers and behind on their rent. Yet, Mr. Narracott spends the rent money on a horse, whom their son, Albert, names “Joey.” Albert teaches the horse how to plow their field, and soon enough crops grow to pay the rent, but tragedy strikes and Joey must be sold, against Albert’s wishes. Joey is bought by a young British soldier going off to fight in World War I, and it follows Joey’s journey from an English soldier’s horse to a German Army horse, to the treasure of a French orphan girl and her grandfather. We also see Albert eventually join World War I, fighting for England and how everything comes full circle.



Well told, touching, and enjoyable. I recommend this film highly. It’s the kind of movies we need more of from Hollywood.



FOUR REAGANS



* “We Bought a Zoo“: I absolutely loathed this cheesy movie for kids. It stars Noam Chomsky/Howard Zinn superfan, Matt Damon, as a widower father trying to raise his melodramatic, troubled young son and his way-too-saccharine-sweet-cute daughter on his inheritance. He blows it on a zoo in the country, where they work to get it ready to open to visitors, all while Damon uses up his remaining funds. On the staff of the zoo is a very de-glammed Scarlett Johansson. The predictable, inevitable “romance” between Damon and Johansson is lackluster, boring, and not believable. There’s no chemistry between them.



While this is very distantly-based on a true story (the zoo is in England, I believe), that’s irrelevant. The story was long, boring, and tiresome. I didn’t care about any of these people. The father, Damon, was dull. The son was not believable as a drama queen. While it shows a father who cares about his kids (something rare in Hollywood fare), that’s not enough to make me like this amateurish movie. The daughter was way too cute and precocious to the point of vomit-inducement. She said things a kid that young would never say . . . or shouldn’t. I mean, do you really take your kids to a Christmas weekend movie in which the young girl calls a state zoo inspector, “a dick.” Great if you want your young kids talking like that, too.



The inspector, by the way, is an extreme stickler for regulations who tries to keep the zoo closed, and that was the only other good part of the movie–showing how a statist government worker can ruin your business and your life. But I didn’t need this movie to show me that, nor to you. Aside from the inspector, there are several characters that are ridiculous, but not funny. Just silly and stupid, like a lot of this movie.



The actual zoo in the movie is dull, unimaginative, dated, and not something I or a parent would drive miles and miles and pay a ton of money to see. And yet, in this movie, people line up by the carful, eventually, to see this schlocky place. I didn’t believe it, nor did I believe all the product plugs that this movie seemed to be about. Target, Home Depot, Mayflower (moving company), Coca-Cola, Apple. Those were just a few of the companies constantly in-your-face in this uninteresting movie. Oh, and by the way, in case you forget the title of the movie, the sentence, “We bought a zoo!” is uttered at least three times during this movie. Yaaaawn.



Save your ten bucks and two hours from this waste of time and take your kids to see “The Artist,” “War Horse,” “Hugo” (read my review), or any of the other far superior movies I’ve reviewed on this site in the last month. You’ll thank me. This movie’s a dud.



ONE MARX

Thanksgiving Box Office: Hugo, The Muppets, Arthur Christmas, Melancholia

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/  reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and  THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed!  This all  follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!





Thanksgiving Box Office: Hugo, The Muppets, Arthur Christmas, Melancholia

By Debbie Schlussel



Finally, some great movies at the box office. Three great movies and only one stinker. It figures that the “adult” movie by a Hitler-supporting Jew-hater is the only bomb in the bunch.




* “Hugo“: Finally a 3D movie that should be in 3D. Martin Scorsese directed this visually stunning and terrific story. You’ll love this, and it’s great for families. Kids will love it, but so will adults, as I did.  But you’ll  have to disregard that two of the co-stars are Sacha Baron Cohen and the actively anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Ben Kingsley.



Set in 1930s Paris, Hugo is a young orphan who fixes the clocks at a train station. Unbeknownst to everyone, he lives alone in a hidden apartment inside the station’s clock tower. He and his father used to fix clocks, but his father was killed in a fire. Hugo and his father were trying to fix a mechanical robot, and Hugo continues to fix it, using parts he steals from the train station toy shop of an old man (Kingsley). Soon, though, he gets caught by the man and is forced to fix toys at the store, while he tries to get back his notebook about how to fix the mechanical robot, which the shopkeeper takes from him. But he meets the man’s granddaughter (Chloe Grace Moretz), and she and Hugo become fast friends, sneaking into movies and poring over books at a the train station’s used bookstore because of their shared love of reading classic books.





Hugo and the granddaughter try to figure out what the old man shopkeeper’s connection is to the mechanical toy robot and they soon make an incredible discovery about who this man, the grandfather, is and why he’s so sad.



A tremendous movie that moves slowly at first but is full of charm and magic. The style, color, sets, costumes, and everything else is simply terrific. The special effects and the colorful characters that populate the train station are rich, as is the story.



FOUR REAGANS



* “The Muppets“: I thought I’d hate this movie because 1) I never liked “The Muppet Show” as a kid, and 2) it’s written by and stars  Jason Segel, who is most well known for displaying his penis in multiple scenes on the big screen in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (read my review).  But I was wrong. This movie is terrific, aside from a bad left-wing message against businessmen and oil drillers. It’s very funny, entertaining, and will be enjoyed by kids and adults. In fact, many of the jokes, which make fun of the ’80s, might be a little over kids’ heads. But they will love it. Great for families. And very cute. It is typical Hollywood anti-business, anti-”big oil” stuff, though, as the villain is an evil, rich businessman who wants to drill for oil on Muppets land. So, you have to explain to your kids to ignore that message. It’s sad you have to do that with a kids’ movie. The late Jim Henson, as far as I remember, did not have political messages in his Muppets movies. The movie also has several musical numbers.



Gary (Jason Segel) has a brother, Walter, who looks like a Muppet and never gets older and more mature, unlike the adult Gary, who has grown up. Walter desperately wants to fit in but is constantly made fun of. Soon, he discovers re-runs of the ’80s series, “The Muppet Show,” and loves it, feeling he can identify with the Muppets. Gary has been dating a teacher, Mary (the talented Amy Adams, who has a great singing voice), for ten years, and she wants to get married, but she is upset that Gary takes Walter everywhere. Gary and Mary take Walter on their trip to Los Angeles, where they tour the old, decrepit Muppets studio. While there, Walter overhears the two Muppet lawyers negotiating to sell the Muppets studio to an evil businessman (Chris Cooper) who pretends he will update the Muppets’ land for more tours. But he really wants to tear it down so he can drill for oil. Walter and Gary try to find Kermit through maps of the stars’ homes and plot to take back the Muppets studios with a telethon.



You’ll see all the old Muppets in this movie, a few new ones, and plenty of celebrity cameos, including (sadly) James Carville (why?). The movie has several musical numbers and is overall a great movie, sadly enmeshed with the left-wing messages I note above. Without that, it would have been a FOUR REAGAN movie.



THREE REAGANS




* “Arthur Christmas“: I very much enjoyed this cute, animated movie for kids. I could have done without the cheesy Justin Bieber music video at the beginning, though.



Arthur Christmas is the clumsy, misfit younger brother in Santa Claus’ family. His father is Santa, and his big brother is the high-tech guru who runs computerized operations at the North Pole,where every delivery of Christmas gifts is planned, timed to the second, and coordinated using the latest in technology and intelligence. But a Christmas present of one girl gets misplaced in the computerized commotion. While Santa is willing to forget about it because it’s too late to deliver the gift–and he’s tired–Arthur and his grandfather, Grandsanta (who is upset he’s been involuntary retired) set off into the night to deliver the gift, using an old-fashioned sleigh, rather than the high-tech spaceship sleigh Santa now uses. What could go wrong?



Charming, cute, fast-paced, and great for kids.



THREE REAGANS




* “Melancholia“: This extremely boring, way too long, uber-pretentious piece of crap was directed by Hitler fan, and Jew-hating, anti-Israel fanatic Lars Von Trier.  It figures that a Nazi would make something beautifully and neatly shot with nothing else to offer.  There is barely a story and definitely no plot.  It’s stupid.  And I couldn’t wait for it to be over.  I also struggled to stay awake.  Starring the always dull, highly overrated pothead Kirsten Dunst, the movie begins with Dunst as a new bride in the limo on the way to her disastrous wedding reception at her sister and wealthy brother-in-law’s (Kiefer Sutherland) countryside mansion estate. They are two hours late, and when they get there, the depressed Dunst is constantly sullen and frequently disappears from the event. She finally realizes she doesn’t want to be married to the guy she just married and has random sex on the lawn with some guy from the reception. Then, the earth is about to be destroyed because a planet, Melancholia, is coming closer and closer to colliding with the earth. I’m not sure what else happens other than Dunst pouting and yelling at others, horses roaming, Dunst posing nude, and people shown sitting and looking.



A complete waste of time by a Nazi. Yay. You’ll be beyond melancholy that you wasted at least ten bucks and more than two hours on this high brow crap. Complete garbage.



FOUR MARXES PLUS