Best (and Worst) of 2011 So Far
As we pass through July, it’s a good time to take stock of the year as it’s been so far.
It seems safe to say this year is already a bit better than last year. This time last year, we really only had Cyrus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, Kick-Ass, The Kids Are All Right, Mother, Shutter Island, Toy Story 3, and Winter’s Bone that were worth their Salt (another worthwhile flick). That seems like a lot, but that’s roughly 10 really good to great movies in seven months; the rest were decent at best – many of which were somewhat disappointing (Iron Man 2, anyone?). We have a bit more than that to look to this year.
Now, feel free to take this article with a certain grain of salt as I have yet to see the following 20 films of 2011: Another Earth, Attack the Block, Bad Teacher, The Beaver, Beginners, Bridesmaids, Fast Five, Friends with Benefits, Hobo with a Shotgun, Horrible Bosses, Limitless, The Lincoln Lawyer, Meek’s Cutoff, Midnight in Paris, Paul, Project Nim, Rango, The Tree of Life, Unknown, and Winnie the Pooh. While I may not exactly be a complete authority I have seen 20 other films. That means that there were roughly 40 movies so far this year worth seeing compared to last year's 10 or so!
Let's begin with the 5 Worst Films of the Year So Far. These weren’t merely movies that were highly-anticipated and proved the most disappointing as much as just plain awful films that weren’t necessarily expected to be so awful (as opposed to movies like The Zookeeper or Big Momma’s: Like Father, Like Son).
5. Rio
I bet you didn’t realize this year has already had over five animated releases. I challenge you to remember most of them. Well, you can count Rio among the most forgettable. It’s not that Rio is an overtly awful film; it’s fine. But that’s precisely why it is one of the worst films of the year. Despite its brilliantly colored palette, Rio is so conventional in its storytelling and character development that it is boring. I’ve never been so bored at the theater enough to fall asleep until I saw Rio. I managed to fight off the sleep enough to have only missed a couple minutes here and there. However, a film that tries to be so lively and colorful should not ever be boring – and an even bigger failure is if it makes someone fall asleep.
4. Battle: Los Angeles
Terrible dialogue, idiotic writing, predictable scene structure, incredibly derivative plotting. That is Battle: Los Angeles. The action seems engaging enough, the concept slightly unique, and Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez help carry the film. But afterwards, when you think about more than how cool it looked, you realize you were just spoon-fed a cool-looking piece of crap. There are just too many flaws for this film to overcome even as popcorn fun. As I write this, I’m reminded of how many would describe Michael Bay’s films in a similar way. In those terms, Battle: Los Angeles is somewhere between Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers; you won’t be offended by its stink, but you’ve seen better brainless action elsewhere.
3. The Green Hornet
It may be credited as directed by Michel Gondry of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but this is Seth Rogen’s show all the way. Rogen had a pretty good decade with performances in such films as Knocked Up and Superbad that turned him into one of the top comedic talents of the time and earning him a spot among my favorite actors of the digital age. His work in The Green Hornet single-handedly damaged my respect for him. It seems all the attention may have gone to his head as evidenced by reports of clashing with creative directors who tried bringing new ideas to Rogen’s script (Stephen Chow was also the film’s director at one point, but fired over creative differences). All of this apparent arrogance comes across in The Green Hornet, a film with a couple notable moments, but overall far from being as funny or cool as it wants to be. This is the Observe & Report of crime-fighter movies; it wants to be something different and irreverent, but ends up being an unpleasant mess. The film’s biggest crime: wasting the talent of Christoph Waltz, who earned a well-deserved Oscar last year for his performance in Inglorious Basterds.
2. Passion Play
When the star of your film trashes it in interviews prior to its release and the studio gives it a release that makes the term ‘limited’ seem massive a month before the film is sent to DVD, there’s something not right (it grossed $3,669). Such was the case for Passion Play. This was supposed to be Megan Fox’s first crack at dramatic acting. She plays an angelic beauty (literally: she has feathered wings!) who escapes the carnival scene to run off with a down-on-his-luck trumpet player played by Mickey Rourke (who described the film as “terrible”). To be fair, the leads do what they can with the material (Rourke even complimented Fox as one of the best actresses he’d ever worked with). The problem is Passion Play was written and directed by Mitch Glazer, a first-time director and former music journalist. All the film’s problems begin with the writing and end with the directing. It is atrocious – not even worth checking out for the actors since they aren’t given any helpful direction to rise above the material. I sincerely hope Glazer goes away for a while to learn how to write a story or direct… anything. How the hell did Bill Murray, who is famously inaccessible, get talked into appearing in this anyway?
1. Super
Topping Passion Play as the worst film of the year so far is quite a feat. Super accomplishes this without a problem. I can credit Ellen Page’s performance in this film as the single piece of enjoyment that Passion Play lacked – but even that is ruined. Horrifically. Super was directed by James Gunn (Slither), so it actually had a confidence that Passion Play lacked. However, despite those positives, Super is the most unpleasant experience anybody could possibly have watching a movie – Passion of the Christ is a more enjoyable experience since its unpleasantness at least had an artistry one could appreciate. That form of unpleasantness does not figure into Super. This is a film where a completely unsympathetic protagonist cracks heads open with a wrench and repeatedly beats a man’s skull into a fireplace long after that man has died. These acts of brutal violence don’t occur with stylistic flair as in Kill Bill or Kick-Ass, another “real-life superhero” film. The camera either stays on the brutality we’re witnessing or conveys such violence matter-of-factly. Super is a comedy that is not funny (mostly). It is a superhero movie that is not fun. It is not a good time or a thought-provoking deconstruction of heroism. It is the closest to witnessing real-life violence you’ll ever get (if you’re lucky); you are horrified, will want to shower away the filth of the experience ASAP, and contemplate reporting what you’ve witnessed to the proper authorities. I wouldn't recommend this to any kind of audience.
It's that bad.
Since we’re only half-way through the year, I’ll present you with a list only half as long as the norm, a Best 5 of the Year:
5. X-Men: First Class
Back in 2006, after many snags during its production (including director turn-around) and three years’ worth of anticipation, the third X-Men film was released. It grossed $234.3 million domestically, roughly $24 million more than its budget (compare that to X2’s $214.9 million dom. gross and $110 million budget) and was widely regarded as a creative disappointment by fans and critics. It was followed in 2009 by a spin-off / prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which turned out to be even more ridiculous and upsetting to fans than its predecessor (to continue the comparison, its domestic gross was $179.8 million with a $150 million budget). As a result, despite announcements of more projects coming down the pike, confidence in the X-Men franchise had declined. So, when X-Men: First Class was announced as part of this summer’s release schedule, my expectations were middling to poor. Imagine my surprise to discover the film ended up being good enough to land on any ‘Best of’ list of mine! While it introduces many new characters, it only deepens the relationships between more familiar ones – most especially Professor Xavier and Magneto with Michael Fassbender as a young Erik ‘Magneto’ Lensherr providing the film’s most compelling moments. Like a shape-shifter suffering from an identity crisis, the film seems uncertain if it is a prequel or a reboot. But it is by far the biggest surprise and the least-flawed, most character-driven superhero film of the year so far.
4. Super 8
When one hears a film was made by the combined might of such creative visionaries as J. J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg, it’s tough to not get excited (this fall’s Tintin is the only film that one-ups it this year with Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and Edgar Wright all working together). Add to that a concept that plays to their respective successes with the monster movie genre (the Abrams-produced Cloverfield and Spielberg’s Jaws and Jurassic Park) and also their childhood love of filmmaking, with homage by Abrams to the ‘80s Amblin films – you’ve got the perfect recipe for success. Super 8 nearly knocked it out of the park with performances by its young stars that completely over-shadowed the adult cast and a sense of wonder we haven’t seen for nearly 20 years. The film falls short of being a grand-slam, failing to capture an emotional connection to the characters that were so key to the creative successes of films like E.T., which proves mildly disappointing. But there’s enough here to appreciate Super 8 as one of the best original films of the year.
3. Hanna
The next three films are completely different from each other, but their quality is arguably on par with one another. The first is Hanna, the first great film I saw this year. This thriller gave us one of the year’s best characters in Saoirse Ronan’s teenage assassin-on-the-run (Ronan and Super 8’s Elle Fanning outshine every grown-up actress of the year so far). Not only did Hanna provide us with some great action scenes, but was also incredibly character-driven, with what I found to be an existential subtext. Coincidentally, Hanna shares one commonality with every film on this list: it has one of the best scores of the year, in this case by the Chemical Brothers.
2. Kung Fu Panda 2
Who would’ve thought that the year’s DreamWorks animated movie would end up being more successful than this year’s Pixar movie? Believe it or not, it happened. Not only did Kung Fu Panda 2 manage to avoid feeling superfluous, but it was within reach of the Pixar standard of storytelling. There seemed to be minimal anticipation behind KFP2, but it turned out to be the richest and most engaging story of the year so far – and its 3D was incredible proving to actually add to the experience! If you missed this in theaters (for shame!) then be sure to catch it on Blu-ray in a couple months.
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II
The crown jewel to what became one of the greatest and most consistent sagas in film history. The Deathly Hallows is the only film so far this year to fully satisfy expectations with the least amount of flaws. If you are like me and have never really read the books on which the series is based then the Deathly Hallows Part II had a lot of surprises in store for you. Was it a perfect film? No. As part of a film series it failed to include characters from past entries that reason (and the gravity of the film’s events) would dictate should’ve returned and there’s room to quibble about other supporting characters in the film. Given how much of a rousing success this film is at its aims – and how satisfying a conclusion it is to the series – those are all incredibly minor. The Deathly Hallows Part II gave us some of the best character-driven action of the year and served as satisfying a conclusion as we were ever likely to get.
For better or worse, that’s the year 2011 in film so far. What are your takes? Which film do you think is the best or worst? Comment below or ‘like’ the Facebook Page to the right. Also, cast a vote on the poll just above the Facebook badge.
I look forward to hearing your feedback.
It seems safe to say this year is already a bit better than last year. This time last year, we really only had Cyrus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, Kick-Ass, The Kids Are All Right, Mother, Shutter Island, Toy Story 3, and Winter’s Bone that were worth their Salt (another worthwhile flick). That seems like a lot, but that’s roughly 10 really good to great movies in seven months; the rest were decent at best – many of which were somewhat disappointing (Iron Man 2, anyone?). We have a bit more than that to look to this year.
Now, feel free to take this article with a certain grain of salt as I have yet to see the following 20 films of 2011: Another Earth, Attack the Block, Bad Teacher, The Beaver, Beginners, Bridesmaids, Fast Five, Friends with Benefits, Hobo with a Shotgun, Horrible Bosses, Limitless, The Lincoln Lawyer, Meek’s Cutoff, Midnight in Paris, Paul, Project Nim, Rango, The Tree of Life, Unknown, and Winnie the Pooh. While I may not exactly be a complete authority I have seen 20 other films. That means that there were roughly 40 movies so far this year worth seeing compared to last year's 10 or so!
Let's begin with the 5 Worst Films of the Year So Far. These weren’t merely movies that were highly-anticipated and proved the most disappointing as much as just plain awful films that weren’t necessarily expected to be so awful (as opposed to movies like The Zookeeper or Big Momma’s: Like Father, Like Son).
I bet you didn’t realize this year has already had over five animated releases. I challenge you to remember most of them. Well, you can count Rio among the most forgettable. It’s not that Rio is an overtly awful film; it’s fine. But that’s precisely why it is one of the worst films of the year. Despite its brilliantly colored palette, Rio is so conventional in its storytelling and character development that it is boring. I’ve never been so bored at the theater enough to fall asleep until I saw Rio. I managed to fight off the sleep enough to have only missed a couple minutes here and there. However, a film that tries to be so lively and colorful should not ever be boring – and an even bigger failure is if it makes someone fall asleep.
Terrible dialogue, idiotic writing, predictable scene structure, incredibly derivative plotting. That is Battle: Los Angeles. The action seems engaging enough, the concept slightly unique, and Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez help carry the film. But afterwards, when you think about more than how cool it looked, you realize you were just spoon-fed a cool-looking piece of crap. There are just too many flaws for this film to overcome even as popcorn fun. As I write this, I’m reminded of how many would describe Michael Bay’s films in a similar way. In those terms, Battle: Los Angeles is somewhere between Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers; you won’t be offended by its stink, but you’ve seen better brainless action elsewhere.
It may be credited as directed by Michel Gondry of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but this is Seth Rogen’s show all the way. Rogen had a pretty good decade with performances in such films as Knocked Up and Superbad that turned him into one of the top comedic talents of the time and earning him a spot among my favorite actors of the digital age. His work in The Green Hornet single-handedly damaged my respect for him. It seems all the attention may have gone to his head as evidenced by reports of clashing with creative directors who tried bringing new ideas to Rogen’s script (Stephen Chow was also the film’s director at one point, but fired over creative differences). All of this apparent arrogance comes across in The Green Hornet, a film with a couple notable moments, but overall far from being as funny or cool as it wants to be. This is the Observe & Report of crime-fighter movies; it wants to be something different and irreverent, but ends up being an unpleasant mess. The film’s biggest crime: wasting the talent of Christoph Waltz, who earned a well-deserved Oscar last year for his performance in Inglorious Basterds.
When the star of your film trashes it in interviews prior to its release and the studio gives it a release that makes the term ‘limited’ seem massive a month before the film is sent to DVD, there’s something not right (it grossed $3,669). Such was the case for Passion Play. This was supposed to be Megan Fox’s first crack at dramatic acting. She plays an angelic beauty (literally: she has feathered wings!) who escapes the carnival scene to run off with a down-on-his-luck trumpet player played by Mickey Rourke (who described the film as “terrible”). To be fair, the leads do what they can with the material (Rourke even complimented Fox as one of the best actresses he’d ever worked with). The problem is Passion Play was written and directed by Mitch Glazer, a first-time director and former music journalist. All the film’s problems begin with the writing and end with the directing. It is atrocious – not even worth checking out for the actors since they aren’t given any helpful direction to rise above the material. I sincerely hope Glazer goes away for a while to learn how to write a story or direct… anything. How the hell did Bill Murray, who is famously inaccessible, get talked into appearing in this anyway?
Topping Passion Play as the worst film of the year so far is quite a feat. Super accomplishes this without a problem. I can credit Ellen Page’s performance in this film as the single piece of enjoyment that Passion Play lacked – but even that is ruined. Horrifically. Super was directed by James Gunn (Slither), so it actually had a confidence that Passion Play lacked. However, despite those positives, Super is the most unpleasant experience anybody could possibly have watching a movie – Passion of the Christ is a more enjoyable experience since its unpleasantness at least had an artistry one could appreciate. That form of unpleasantness does not figure into Super. This is a film where a completely unsympathetic protagonist cracks heads open with a wrench and repeatedly beats a man’s skull into a fireplace long after that man has died. These acts of brutal violence don’t occur with stylistic flair as in Kill Bill or Kick-Ass, another “real-life superhero” film. The camera either stays on the brutality we’re witnessing or conveys such violence matter-of-factly. Super is a comedy that is not funny (mostly). It is a superhero movie that is not fun. It is not a good time or a thought-provoking deconstruction of heroism. It is the closest to witnessing real-life violence you’ll ever get (if you’re lucky); you are horrified, will want to shower away the filth of the experience ASAP, and contemplate reporting what you’ve witnessed to the proper authorities. I wouldn't recommend this to any kind of audience.
It's that bad.
Since we’re only half-way through the year, I’ll present you with a list only half as long as the norm, a Best 5 of the Year:
Back in 2006, after many snags during its production (including director turn-around) and three years’ worth of anticipation, the third X-Men film was released. It grossed $234.3 million domestically, roughly $24 million more than its budget (compare that to X2’s $214.9 million dom. gross and $110 million budget) and was widely regarded as a creative disappointment by fans and critics. It was followed in 2009 by a spin-off / prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which turned out to be even more ridiculous and upsetting to fans than its predecessor (to continue the comparison, its domestic gross was $179.8 million with a $150 million budget). As a result, despite announcements of more projects coming down the pike, confidence in the X-Men franchise had declined. So, when X-Men: First Class was announced as part of this summer’s release schedule, my expectations were middling to poor. Imagine my surprise to discover the film ended up being good enough to land on any ‘Best of’ list of mine! While it introduces many new characters, it only deepens the relationships between more familiar ones – most especially Professor Xavier and Magneto with Michael Fassbender as a young Erik ‘Magneto’ Lensherr providing the film’s most compelling moments. Like a shape-shifter suffering from an identity crisis, the film seems uncertain if it is a prequel or a reboot. But it is by far the biggest surprise and the least-flawed, most character-driven superhero film of the year so far.
When one hears a film was made by the combined might of such creative visionaries as J. J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg, it’s tough to not get excited (this fall’s Tintin is the only film that one-ups it this year with Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and Edgar Wright all working together). Add to that a concept that plays to their respective successes with the monster movie genre (the Abrams-produced Cloverfield and Spielberg’s Jaws and Jurassic Park) and also their childhood love of filmmaking, with homage by Abrams to the ‘80s Amblin films – you’ve got the perfect recipe for success. Super 8 nearly knocked it out of the park with performances by its young stars that completely over-shadowed the adult cast and a sense of wonder we haven’t seen for nearly 20 years. The film falls short of being a grand-slam, failing to capture an emotional connection to the characters that were so key to the creative successes of films like E.T., which proves mildly disappointing. But there’s enough here to appreciate Super 8 as one of the best original films of the year.
The next three films are completely different from each other, but their quality is arguably on par with one another. The first is Hanna, the first great film I saw this year. This thriller gave us one of the year’s best characters in Saoirse Ronan’s teenage assassin-on-the-run (Ronan and Super 8’s Elle Fanning outshine every grown-up actress of the year so far). Not only did Hanna provide us with some great action scenes, but was also incredibly character-driven, with what I found to be an existential subtext. Coincidentally, Hanna shares one commonality with every film on this list: it has one of the best scores of the year, in this case by the Chemical Brothers.
Who would’ve thought that the year’s DreamWorks animated movie would end up being more successful than this year’s Pixar movie? Believe it or not, it happened. Not only did Kung Fu Panda 2 manage to avoid feeling superfluous, but it was within reach of the Pixar standard of storytelling. There seemed to be minimal anticipation behind KFP2, but it turned out to be the richest and most engaging story of the year so far – and its 3D was incredible proving to actually add to the experience! If you missed this in theaters (for shame!) then be sure to catch it on Blu-ray in a couple months.
The crown jewel to what became one of the greatest and most consistent sagas in film history. The Deathly Hallows is the only film so far this year to fully satisfy expectations with the least amount of flaws. If you are like me and have never really read the books on which the series is based then the Deathly Hallows Part II had a lot of surprises in store for you. Was it a perfect film? No. As part of a film series it failed to include characters from past entries that reason (and the gravity of the film’s events) would dictate should’ve returned and there’s room to quibble about other supporting characters in the film. Given how much of a rousing success this film is at its aims – and how satisfying a conclusion it is to the series – those are all incredibly minor. The Deathly Hallows Part II gave us some of the best character-driven action of the year and served as satisfying a conclusion as we were ever likely to get.
For better or worse, that’s the year 2011 in film so far. What are your takes? Which film do you think is the best or worst? Comment below or ‘like’ the Facebook Page to the right. Also, cast a vote on the poll just above the Facebook badge.
I look forward to hearing your feedback.