2011 In Review

I don't really have a top ten list of films for 2011 because I don't feel like I saw a complete sample of things that came out - I missed A LOT of movies that I wanted to see.  But several things did come out that, if I had a top ten list, would most likely have made the cut:

X-Men: First Class and Captain America, both two of the finest super hero movies the genre has turned out since, well, ever.

Drive, which won't get nearly as much awards press as I want it to.

Hugo, which I liked a whole lot more than I expected to, due to an unfortunately misleading trailer.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a movie which manages to be more exciting than both the original source material and the first adaptation.

Margin Call, which I tried to write about but had difficulties I can't really articulate; it's a wonderfully sharp piece of writing and acting that I maybe didn't really understand completely?  There's a lot of financial business that I didn't get, but it's a testament to the power of the actors that it didn't matter.  Check it out if you get the chance - I don't understand how it didn't get a wider release, with the surplus of powerhouse names in it (Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey, Bradley Cooper, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany).

Maybe Moneyball?  I didn't write about this one, either, because I have a problematic relationship with it.  I want to recognize the wonderful writing and excellent performances (especially by Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman), but...it didn't resonate with me the same way it seems to have with the rest of the world.  I just didn't feel like there was enough of a story to fill the whole time slot - all the bits about Pitt's family life felt like padding to me, and didn't really add anything in terms of emotional development.  I wish it had been a really tightly-focused 60 minute film, concentrating on the baseball aspects of Pitt's character's life rather than a weakly-written relationship with a daughter I didn't care about.  The fascinating moments of this movie are the negotiations and the game itself, not the private lives of the characters.

If I get the chance to see more 2011 films before the end of January, I'll do a list for you guys.  Otherwise, what's above is pretty much my greatest hits of things I actually saw.

My biggest hope for 2012 in terms of film is simple: MORE.  ANIMATED.  MOVIES.  Is it just me, or was 2011 COMPLETELY LACKING in good animation?  I'm not sure I realized it until I watched the Golden Globes on Sunday, but to follow 2010, a year which gave us Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, and Tangled with a spat of sequels and poorly reviewed items that disappeared almost as soon as they hit theaters seems...sad.  I hope Pixar delivers with BRAVE, is all I'm saying.

How To Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks doesn't have a very good reputation with moviegoers right now, and I only understand part of that. I skipped Monsters Vs. Aliens, with good reason I think, but the first two Shrek movies where a romping good time and Kung Fu Panda was fun seasoned with the right amounts of comedy, sweetness, and old-fashioned ass kicking. So I wasn't as skeptical going in to How To Train Your Dragon as some people may have been, and I feel like my open-mindedness was justly rewarded.

Every part of this movie is good. Dreamworks has definitely stepped up their game in terms of animation, and Dragon is visually their best work by miles. Sweeping skies and pounding waves make up the backdrop of this Viking story, with a few idyllic forest scenes and a waterfall tucked away for emphasis. One of Dreamworks' flaws in the past has been over-filling their scenes, so that you get overwhelmed by the amount of STUFF in the frame (that isn't rendered nearly as well as, oh, Pixar) but here wide spaces are used to dramatic effect. Watching the little black dragon sweep through a backdrop of mounded clouds is breath-taking.

Speaking of that little black dragon, Toothless and his lizardy friends are the absolute show stealers here. Jay Baruchel's Hiccup doesn't compete with them for the attention they command; instead, he seems to spend most of the time presenting them for appreciation. Toothless, his sleek, black adopted friend, is somewhere between a housecat, a leopard, and a really big snake - he's intelligent, and fierce, but inclined to roll in the grass to scratch an itch, or prepare a pounce from a rocky ledge. I was fascinated by the other varieties of dragon that are also in play; a two-headed beast, a long and pointy one that sets itself on fire, a stubby fat one that resembles a junebug. They're unique, and exceptional, and they're not pretty - these dragons are not romanticized, and I appreciated that.

The Vikings are, for the most part, not nearly as interesting, but they fill their story roles well. The voice cast helps enormously with that: Baruchel is funny, self-deprecating, with perfect vocal inflection for the max amount of comedic timing possible. Gerard Butler is gruff and awkward (and doesn't hide his Scottish accent, THANK GOD) and the perfect duo with Craig Ferguson, who plays a blacksmith missing several limbs. The Vikings are funny but never clownish, which went a long way to keeping the tension in necessary places; even though, intellectually, I KNEW everything would turn out ok in the end, the film kept enough gravity that I was at the edge of my seat as it neared its climax.

Even if you don't like fantasy, even if animation isn't your thing, see this one. It's touching, poignant, silly, and will cause you to gasp in excitement. (As a side note, I did not see it in 3D and I didn't feel like I was missing anything.)