A few weeks back I weighed in on 2011 book releases. This week it’s my annual round-up of films.
I saw a lot of movies this year, and I’d have to say it was a pretty even mix of films I loved, films I liked, and films that were disappointments, of varying degrees.
I narrowed it down to my top favorites, and bottom busts.
THE BEST
J.J. Abrams SUPER 8 has a quirky pre-teen cast (a la GOONIES and STAND BY ME), great intrigue and tension, and truly spectacular special effects. Everything worked for me. It was like going back in time and seeing E.T. or Poltergeist as a kid.
Maybe this was the year for good extraterrestrial films. PAUL takes the genre from a totally different point-of-view, and sensibility, than SUPER 8. I thought it was equally entertaining, with many laugh out loud moments and a clever skewering of sentimental films in the genre (while managing some tolerable sentimentality in the end).
I didn’t catch many notable gay films this year, but I thought this quiet, British indie drama was a huge achievement. WEEKEND is about two guys who fall in love at the wrong time. A one night stand turns into an intensely emotional connection, but one partner is leaving in two days to relocate to the U.S.. It’s a modern, honest portrait of gay love, making no apologies for the fast-paced, and at some times, drug-infused progression of the relationship.
In picking my favorite fantasy film of the year, I could have gone with HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HOLLOWS PART II, or RISE OF PLANET OF THE APES. Both were excellent. But I’ll go out on a limb, and declare THOR the winner. Many people I know hated the collision of the fantasy characters and a contemporary setting. I thought it worked just fine, not taking itself too seriously, and the Norse mythology brought something fresh to the superhero genre.
THE WORST
Every time I’ve complained to someone about how bad Scream 4 was, they say: “What did you expect?” I guess I’d be hard pressed to name a movie franchise that held up its entertainment value on its fourth follow-up, but I really had hope for SCREAM 4. The previous versions managed to add something new to the movie-within-the-movie, copycat killer schtick. SCREAM 4 felt flat and gimmicky about five minutes in.
Kind of the antithesis of THOR, PRIEST was way too earnest and cliché-ridden, trodding the very familiar territory of vampire killers. As I said to my partner half-way through, I really didn’t care what happened to any of the characters.
It pains me to pan mythology-based adventures, but unfortunately, they’ve just all been so bad on the silver screen. IMMORTALS tried to be stylish, but ended up being a baffling, and unintentionally comical clash of fantasy perspectives.
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