Top 10 Films of 2011

Sometimes as a movie critic I begin to feel like Ralphie’s teacher from A Christmas Story. You remember her, right? She’s the one who – in Ralph’s fantasy sequence – hastily shuffles through an enormous stack of theme papers, becoming increasingly irritated that they all evidence fatal flaws. “You call this a paragraph?” she laments. “Margins!” The paper is stricken with an ‘F’ just like the ones before it. Disgusted with her students’ collective illiteracy, Miss Shields suddenly finds Ralphie’s composition in her hand. She stares spellbound at his exceptional composition. As his glowing descriptions of the perfect Christmas gift (a Red Ryder BB gun – with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time) leap from the page in glorious beams of inspiration, she is overwhelmed with joy. Her entire career in education is validated by having read this magnum opus, this stunning work of art.

 

Oscar Talk: The Raptor Responds to 84th Academy Awards Nominations

Oscar Talk 2012

The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced yesterday morning. As usual, there were some surprises. Perhaps most notably we have a strange number of Best Picture nominees : 9. Here is the alphabetical list:

 

2011 Totals – A Brief Analysis and Plea

The results are in.

No, I’m not talking about awards. Although we’ll soon see the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Directors’ Guild, etc. honoring what they consider to be the highest achievements in film this year, the votes that really matter most – the ones that determine what kinds of movies will be filling our theaters in the next few years – have already been cast. You’ve been voting all year. Every time you walk up to a box office and say “One, please,” the studios listen.

 

7 Scariest Horror Movies

Not my favorite horror movies, necessarily; or the best, or the most classic. No, these are the seven films that, during the course of my life, have made me gasp, gotten under my skin, creeped me out, and just plain scared my ever-loving pants off. Despite being somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to the genre, I really appreciate that rare film that can do more than simply make me jump or gross me out. Any movie can make me jump. A loud noise accompanied by almost any sudden image is enough to accomplish that. Likewise, a movie with decent effects and half-competent actors can gross me out. I’m not a gore-hound, so it doesn’t take that much. You see, I have a pretty good imagination. So when a movie partners with me to stir that imagination, it might be a terrifying ride, but it’s still a ride. That’s why we watch horror films anyway, isn’t it?

These are the movies I don’t want to watch alone, won’t image search after dark, and definitely shouldn’t ever think about after I’ve gone to bed. These are my seven scariest horror movies.

 

Just Go With It

	Just Go With It (2011) Director: Dennis Dugan Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Anison, Brooklyn Decker Running Time: 1 hr. 57 min Rated: PG-13

Review by Brother Reed

Just Go With It, Adam Sandler’s latest comedy, is a big, grating sitcom cliche dragged out for two seemingly endless hours. It’s replete with lowest-common-denominator gags, it contains not a single honest or believable emotion, and the deception that drives the entire plot could easily have been avoided if every last one of its characters was not a brainless schmuck. Honestly, you should know better than to go see this movie without having to read any reviews; but since you’re here, be warned. It’s worse than you think.

 

Top 10 Films of 2010

For someone who writes reviews in his spare time, I think I’ve done a pretty decent job of keeping up with film this year. This list is coming to you in January rather than December because it’s much more complete this way; it’s amazing how different the top 10 looked just 30 days ago. So far I’ve seen 36 2010 releases, including 8 of the 10 best picture nominees, and not including a few whose status as a 2010 film is debatable: usually foreign films that didn’t see a US theatrical release. Surely the most glaring omissions are Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours and David O. Russell’s The Fighter. The latter I simply didn’t find time to get out and see and the former hasn’t opened in my area yet. There aren’t a lot of other movies I was interested in that I didn’t get around to, so I feel like this list is pretty accurate in cataloging my favorite movie experiences this past year.

That’s what this list is. You’ll notice I titled it “Top films” rather than “Best” by some imaginary standard. While of course I think that many if not all of these movies are artistic and technical achievements, I am a man of simple taste. The final arbiter of whether or not a movie ended up here is how much I enjoyed it. So consider these recommendations from one movie buff to another. I’ll save the rest of my comments for the end. Here are my picks.

 

The Social Network

	The Social Network (2010) Director: David Fincher Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake Running Time: 2 hrs. 1 min Rated: PG-13

Review by Brother Reed

Mark Zuckerberg is an a**hole. At least that’s what his girlfriend tells him when she breaks up with him in The Social Network, a compelling new drama from director David Fincher. Though I suppose girlfriends are likely to say such things following a break-up.

He’s not, really.

Now, at this point you may be asking what I mean. He’s not really an a**hole? Or he’s not really Mark Zuckerberg? If so, you’ve tapped into one of the major devices screenwriter Aaron Sorkin uses for the dialog in this film. Characters are constantly responding to statements in a conversation where the other character has already moved on. I guess it’d be ex-girlfriends, actually; and, both.

 

Red

	Red (2010) Director: Robert Schwentke Starring: Bruce Willis, Mary Louise-Parker, Morgan Freeman Running Time: 1 hr, 51 min Rated: PG-13

Review by Brother Reed

Remember a few years back in Live Free or Die Hard when Bruce Willis was old? Well in Red he’s still old, and this time so are all his friends. If you think that sounds depressing, you could hardly be more wrong. It’s like if the gang of retirees who occasionally meet for breakfast at Hardee’s had at one point been highly-trained government operatives and are just biding their time until something exciting comes along. The over-the-hill cast of this over-the-top thrill ride are quite obviously having a blast, and their contagious energy is what makes the movie so much fun. Red is a movie that you can’t take seriously because you were never meant to. You were meant to laugh at one-liners and cheer when the good guys win.

 

Horror-Thon 2010

Frankenstein | Bride of Frankenstein | The Wicker Man | Children of the Corn | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre | Deep Red | Orphan | The Vanishing | An American Werewolf in London | The Return of the Living Dead | The Innocents | Dead Alive | In the Mouth of Madness | The Blair Witch Project | Audition | Session 9 | Let the Right One In | The Verdict

“Last week I sawr a film. As I recall it was a horror film.”

 

Dinner for Schmucks

	Dinner for Schmucks (2010) Director: Jay Roach Starring: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Jemaine Clement Running Time: 1 hr, 54 min Rated: PG-13

Review by Brother Reed

If you laughed at the trailer for Dinner for Schmucks, you’re probably a fan of Steve Carell. And who isn’t? The man is one of the most gifted comedians working in film or television today. The American version of The Office, a fixture of TV these days, got off the ground almost entirely due to his involvement. He’s given a boost to other comedy bigwigs like Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, and Judd Apatow. You know you can expect a completely committed (not to mention totally bonkers) performance from him every time. The good news about his new starring vehicle, Dinner for Schmucks, is that Carell delivers on those expectations once again. The bad news is that the movie is much less consistent. In fact, it’s downright bipolar. I can’t remember the last time I sat in a theater going from chuckles to sighs and frowns so quickly or so often.