Best Movies of 2011 - TTLG Forums

Scots Taffer on 27/1/2012 at 08:02

Saw Tintin at the weekend with the kids, it kept my two-year old son and I gloriously enthralled - would watch again! :D

I also saw The Descendents and while it is another solid entry in the Payne canon, it's nothing mind-blowing.

Got a copy of Tinker Tailor, Ides of March and Project Nim to watch soon!

june gloom on 27/1/2012 at 23:59

Let me know your opinion of Ides of March. I've not seen it, but a good chunk of it was filmed here in Cincinnati.

It was also roundly trashed by the dittoheads as "leftist liberal propaganda."

Morte on 7/2/2012 at 13:41

Quote Posted by Scots Taffer

Saw Tintin at the weekend with the kids, it kept my two-year old son and I gloriously enthralled - would watch again! :D

Hum. I thought it was pretty all over the place personally.

This was sort of a shitty year for my movie watching, and what I did get to see was mostly in the stupid action category.

The Good

Drive - My favourite movie of the year by a mile. A nearly perfect tribute to Michael Mann and 80:s thrillers.
Hanna - It's been a pretty good year for slightly arty action thrillers, although it's not quite up there with Drive for me.
The Guard - It does first-time filmmaker feel -- I think it's primarily the editing -- but the performances are sharp and the script is wickedly funny.
Source Code - Likable leads, solid direction, and a decently clever script. Should have ended with the freeze frame, but otherwise I have no complaints.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes - The bland human characters are a bit of a problem, but not one big enough to sink the movie. There's just something immensely satifying about watching the pieces for an epic calamity slowly fall into place, and Serkis is amazing.
Mission Impossible 4 - What the hell is this doing here? Oh yeah, Brad Bird's directing. MI4 is proof positive that an accomplished filmmaker can salvage nearly anything, no matter how daft and brainless.

The Bland

Julia's Eyes - Intriguing opening gives way to all too familiar genre beats. Still decent thriller though, with an excellent lead performance
The Adjustment Bureau - Coasts entirely on Emily Blunt and Matt Damon's chemistry and likability, but sometimes that's enough.
Captain America: The First Avenger - Charming and pulpy, I quite liked it while I watched it, and promptly forgot about it five minutes later.
Tintin - Andy Serkis is in fine form, and there's some neat action sequences, but overall it's kind of flat and hollow. It's mostly due to script problems, although I don't particularly care for the style of animation either.
Drive Angry - Proof positive it doesn't matter how agressively moronic something is, William Fichtner can singlehandledly salvage it if given half a chance.
Sherlock Holmes 2 - I quite liked the first Sherlock Holmes, but this one felt like it was all over the place. I still liked the bickering old couple act though.
Blitz - By the numbers Jason Statham Is A Cop On The Edge potboiler, elevated slightly by Aidan Gillen and Paddy Considine's performances.
Fast Five - The first fast and the furious movie I've ever watched, and it was...there. It made noises of the boom bang vroom variety. It had some likable supporting actors that slightly compensated for how tired and bored Vin Diesel and Paul Walker looked.

The Ugly

The Rite - I can never sleep on airplanes, but this almost managed to put me under. The start seemed promisingly ambiguous, but then it swiftly descended into your standard silly ooga booga possession movie.
Battle: LA - A nonsensical screenplay cobbled together from better alien invasion movies, populated ny non-entities, shat out by a director that can't stage an action sequence to save his life. And that was still better than:
Sucker Punch - This year, it's Zack Snyder that needs to be beaten with a rubber hose until he promises to never do it again. It's amazing how he can render girls in fetish wear fighting dragons, clockwork zombies and giant samurai so soulcrushingly dull.

Al_B on 10/2/2012 at 17:00

Quote Posted by Morte

Source Code - Likable leads, solid direction, and a decently clever script. Should have ended with the freeze frame, but otherwise I have no complaints.

It was a good film - my only complaint was that it kept reminding me of (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167720/) seven days which although not a perfect series was highly entertaining.

Nicker on 12/2/2012 at 14:45

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1629705/) Blackthorn, a what-if western with Sam Shepard out crustying Eastwood. Supposing that Butch Cassidy survived the final showdown with the Bolivian Cavalry and supposing he was ready to come out of hiding to make one last trip home to see what's left of his family and supposing bad things happen along the way...

The DVD includes two short films by the director, Mateo Gil, both gems in their own right.

And a surprise delight, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/) TROLL HUNTER, a "lost documentary" by college students who go missing while pursuing a mysterious poacher implicated in a string of livestock and wild bear killings. The frenetic war-zone videography is dressed up with some impressive and imaginative Norwegian monsters.

Good fun.

mgeorge on 12/2/2012 at 21:41

My favs. in no particular order.

Inception. Fantastic. Second viewing was better than the first.

Hanna. Not at all what I expected in a good way.

Xmen First Class. Almost as good as the second.

The Thing. Not as good as the first but good solid entertainment.

The Help. Hate this kind of flick and only watched because I was given a copy. As drama's go pretty damn good.

Fright Night. Again, not as good as the original but I thought Farrell did a nice job.

Overrated.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Was really looking forward to this but found it a bit bland. Although I did like the references to the earlier flicks and the ending.

Contagion. I'd rather watch paint dry then re-watch this steaming pile of shit. Could be one of most boring flicks I've ever seen.

Don't be afraid of the Dark. Very by the numbers horror flick. I expected a lot more from Del Torro.

Bridesmaids. Not nearly as funny as it should have been and you can add in Horrible Bosses to this as well. The best part of Horrible Bosses were the bosses and they all got what? 10 or 15 min. of screentime each?

heywood on 13/2/2012 at 07:41

So I finally watched Drive. Good flick, but lacking a decent car chase. I got tired of listening to the rumbling brrrap.. brrrrraapp... bbrrrrrrrraapp sounds of a big V8 accelerating through the gears while on film the car is coasting through the shots at ~40 mph. :rolleyes:

I must be feeling masochistic, because now I'm tempted to see The Tree of Life or maybe even The People vs. George Lucas.

Scots Taffer on 13/2/2012 at 10:20

Quote Posted by heywood

Heh. They are somewhat guilty of setting false expectations with a movie called Drive in which there's only 2 real chases, but as for your point I actually liked the stylism of the chases with a less showy and more "in the thick of it" feel. One of the problems I felt was the initial chase was so tense and well done that the follow-up lacked a little bit, but overall I still loved what they did in those scenes and prefer them to any number of Fast/Furious chases.

Continuing on the Gosling kick, I watched Ides of March and really enjoyed it - his character's turn from naive idealist to hardened cynic may be somewhat one note, but in Gosling the transformation was at least sincere (if somewhat rushed, though film media constrains this to a degree) and compelling to watch. George's direction (and acting, though it's a very marginal role) was spot on as well - nice to see him play the villain. And of course, both Hoffman and Giamatti are solid in pitch perfect support.

Morte on 13/2/2012 at 13:52

I thought the opening chase in Drive was fantastic, and pretty much justified the price of entry on its own. I loved how it subverted your expectations for a car chase, and was all about driving smart instead of fast.

The socond was a lot more perfunctory, I agree. I don't think it needed to be more extravagant, but I certainly wouldn't have minded if some more getaway driving tradecraft had found its way in there either.

Scots Taffer on 13/2/2012 at 21:54

Yeah, and when I say "one of the problems" I should really say "one or two of my really minor gripes" because I loved that movie. :D