Best movie of 2011

So in your opinion what was the best movie of 2011?

 

I think I only saw about three movies in theaters this year. It's depressing.

 

Drive. I got to the point of obsession with that movie.


Super 8 was great as well. Deathly Hallows part 2 was amazing. And Moneyball is up there too. But Drive is #1 easily for me.

 

Of the ones I've seen this year........War Horse.

 

All-Star Superman.

 

I really liked Reel Steel.

 

For me, this is really tough. There were 3 movies out this year that I really loved.

The Help, Hugo and War Horse. I'd probably give the edge to War Horse, but both Hugo
and The Help are very strong contenders. I would be happy if any of these three won
the Best Picture Oscar. They're all worthy.

 

Definitely, Hugo.

No other movie gave me joy of going to the movies more than this masterpiece.

 

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was immensely fun.

 

Still a few prestige pics to come out here yet (like The Artist, The Descendants, Tinker, Tailor, et cetera) but the best I've seen is War Horse.

I did keep a list... (I need to for my work, it's not nerdy. Not at all)

1. War Horse
2. Tyrannosaur
3. Drive
4. Hugo
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
6. The Adventures of Tintin
7. The Kid with a Bike
8. Hanna
9. Moneyball
10. The Tree of Life
11. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
12. Mission: Impossible ? Ghost Protocol
13. X-Men: First Class
14. The Ides of March
15. Source Code
16. Midnight in Paris
17. We Need to Talk About Kevin
18. Anonymous
19. Captain America: The First Avenger
20. Rango
21. Contagion
22. Young Adult
23. Thor
24. Attack the Block
25. The Lincoln Lawyer
26. Super 8
27. The Green Hornet
28. The Adjustment Bureau
29. Like Crazy
30. We Bought a Zoo
31. The Eye of the Storm
32. Hall Pass
33. Green Lantern
34. The Iron Lady
35. The Dilemma
36. Sanctum
37. Sucker Punch

As you see, a lot of gaps there, purely because I'm in Australia. Y'see.

 

My pick goes to Drive as well. Outstanding movie.

 

Haven't seen a lot of the newer releases, but right now it's "The Tree of Life".

 

Dangit, I forgot On Stranger Tides. How ever did I manage that? It'd come in around #35.

 

I liked Fast Five.

 

I've seen about 70 movies of 2011 so far, of which the top 10% or so (not counting documentaries) might be, in alphabetical order:

Captain America: The First Avenger
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hanna
Rango
Source Code
Warrior

Most of which are probably ***½ (or so) pictures; this is not a list I'm excited about, and what I consider the best of the many merely pretty good pictures I've seen this year keeps changing. I should note, however, that I haven't yet seen most of the movies I'm most curious about from 2011, including but not limited to: Bellflower, Melancholia, Another Earth, Tyrannosaur, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Descendants, A Dangerous Method, The Ides of March, The Deep Blue Sea, Hugo, Miss Bala, Shame, Moneyball, J. Edgar, Take Shelter, A Separation, Margaret, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Artist, My Week with Marilyn, and The Adventures of Tintin. So I suspect this list will look quite different in another few months. Also there are several films (The Help, The Tree of Life, and X-Men: First Class, for instance) that are ambitious and not without some great strengths but are also (in some cases deeply) flawed or that I found personally troubling and therefore didn't make the list.

Also, if we're counting movies that might have come out earlier but only got any kind of wide distribution in 2011 then Beginners absolutely makes the list.

And the bottom 10% (not counting direct-to-video stuff), again in alphabetical order would look like:

Beastly
Conan the Barbarian
Drive Angry
Hobo With a Shotgun
Mars Needs Moms
Priest
Season of the Witch

Red Riding Hood and The Three Musketeers may claim spots on this list once I see them!

 

2ndQuest, what on Earth do you use as a rating system that results in Green Lantern getting a better ranking than Planet of the Apes?

 

I have another chance to catch Hugo wed or thursday

I would highly recommend you see it in 3 D. It's the best use of 3 D I've ever seen.

 

I would disagree. In the first place, I would argue there are no real characters in POTA outside of Caesar and his family. The others are thinly sketched because they're bit players, and I don't think they radically alter things by their relative lack of depth. Even independent of the abuse dealt by one handler, the overall stay in the primate control center was still portrayed as cruel, inhumane, and alienating. It would have been good motivation for Caesar even without being embodied by a particular antagonist.

Likewise, while clearly greedy, the CEO didn't do anything particularly beyond the pale. Yes, he would ultimately override his own objections in pursuit of the almighty dollar. But he was never a villain. While willing to make cold, calculating decisions, he never went out of his way to be cruel or abusive to the apes. He kept Will onboard for a long time after he was clearly past his prime and apparently hung up on a dead end. The views he voices are always justified by the position he holds. You're right, we don't see much of the guy. But every business magnate doesn't get to have a scene where he delivers a Christmas turkey to Tiny Tim's house. I see nothing implausible about the fact that, in his professional life, he was disinterested and results-oriented.

In fact, I'd argue that's part of the real cleverness of the movie. These people are all recognizable. They don't have any particularly egregious flaws. It is the coarseness of our quotidian affairs that drove the outcome. It also drives home the thematic point about the dangers of research. The mistake was not that there were bad people involved, but that there was a critique of a whole system to be made.