Best of 2011: My Top 10 Movies of 2011

The list below is of my favorite movies of 2011. I wrote the other day how determining the best movies in a given year can be tough because you can’t always tell whether or not a film will age well. Some movies get better and better the more you watch them. Others make a great first impression but might not hold up to multiple viewings. This list is a collection of first impressions. These are all movies that left a mark on me the first time I saw them. I’ll check back with them a few years down the road and see how they hold up.

In the meantime, most are on DVD or will be soon (and The Descendants is still in theaters now). So use the on demand/online streaming/DVD-in-the-mail service of your choice and check them out. (I’ll also share with you a well-kept secret of where to rent movies that I use all the time: the library. Most local libraries have large movie collections and get all the new DVDs. You might have to fight with the woman down the block who has a crush on Ryan Gosling in order to get your hands on a copy of The Ides of March but, hey, it’s free.)

Before we get to the Top 10, here are five films I admire that didn’t make the list: Another Earth, The Future, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Moneyball, Terri

10) Midnight in Paris (Original review)

Woody Allen’s globetrotting continues with Midnight in Paris, a breezy, time-traveling comedy starring Owen Wilson who, in a fine performance, splits the difference between his own comic persona and the neuroses of Mr. Allen. Those familiar with the major figures of art and literature in 1920s Paris (Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Salvador Dali, to name a few that appear here) will be delighted but you don’t have to get all the references to enjoy the film. Mr. Allen’s own love of these artists shines through every scene and Mr. Wilson is great fun to watch as he marvels at being transported to the bygone era he adores. A love letter to the city and a bittersweet (though mostly sweet) study of how nostalgia afflicts us all.

9) Take Shelter

Take Shelter is an absorbing psychological thriller about a blue collar Midwesterner, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon), on the cusp of a schizophrenic breakdown. Or is he? He begins having horribly realistic nightmares of an apocalyptic storm but are the dreams premonitions of some rapture to come, or is his mind descending into madness? Neither option bodes well for him and his family. The film, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, is engrossing because Curtis’s supernatural fears have real world consequences. When he becomes obsessed with renovating an old tornado shelter in the backyard, the expenditure puts a significant financial burden on his family. This is a beautifully shot, gradually paced and absolutely gripping movie.

8) A Dangerous Method (Original review) 

A Dangerous Method follows the professional and personal relationship of psychologists Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) but this is not a typical historical biopic. This is an exceptionally talky film; Jung and Freud’s discussions on the subtleties of psychoanalysis are only occasionally broken up by scenes of kinky sex between Jung and his patient-turned-student-turned-lover, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). Despite the dry nature of the material though, there is a current of excitement running through A Dangerous Method. These were intellectual innovators on the verge of changing the way the world thought about the human mind and director David Cronenberg elegantly captures that moment in this fascinating film.

7) The Descendants (Original review)

Alexander Payne’s films tell wonderful, human stories. Like previous Payne features Sideways and About Schmidt, The Descendants depicts a man facing a personal crisis, and does so with compassion and humor. After a boating accident puts his wife in a permanent coma, Matt King (George Clooney) is left alone to father his two daughters. Meanwhile, as the lone trustee to a huge estate, he faces pressure from the other side of his family to find a buyer for the property. The movie, set against a gorgeous, Hawaiian backdrop, has a keen sense of culture and history. It also ends on what might be my favorite final shot in a movie this year.

6) Attack the Block

The definition of what is cool is always changing and often we can look back and identify what sparked certain trends in coolness. Attack the Block is the sort of movie we’ll look back on and say, “Oh, yeah. That’s cool because Attack the Block did it first.” The movie follows a teen gang in inner city London who unwittingly find themselves fighting off an alien invasion. What’s kind of brilliant about it is that they react to this extraterrestrial contact precisely how you’d expect a bunch of fifteen-year-old boys to. When they kill their first alien, what do they do? They drag its carcass through the streets and show it off to a few girls before bringing it to the guy they buy weed from. Fast-paced, funny, sometimes gory, and featuring impressive creature effects. A promising debut from writer/director Joe Cornish.

5) Margin Call

An analyst for a powerful financial investment firm is laid off but before he leaves the building he hands a flash drive to one of his employees. “I think you should take a look at this,” he says. “Be careful.” That’s the set-up of Margin Call, which mostly takes place over one night as the gravity of the information on that drive sinks in – it contains calculations that predict the firm’s doom – and news travels up the ranks to the CEO. This is a tense film inspired by the 2008 financial crisis and successfully makes complex concepts accessible without dumbing them down. Writer/director J.C. Chandor seeks to do nothing less than question the morality of capitalism but never demonizes his characters. Instead, he invites us to ask ourselves: What would I do in this situation? Is jumping ship and saving myself the right thing to do? Characters in the film are always asking this but the notion of what is “right” turns out to be a very murky concept indeed.

4) Warrior

This is a powerful story about two estranged brothers – tormented Iraq War veteran Tommy (Tom Hardy) and Brendan (Joel Edgarton), a physics teacher and father of two – who return to their roots as mixed martial arts fighters. Tommy enlists the help of his father (Nick Nolte), a reformed alcoholic and Tommy’s former trainer, to prepare for an upcoming tournament. Brendan, meanwhile, starts participating in pickup matches to make quick cash and stall foreclosure on his house. You might be able to guess where this is going but Warrior is impressive in the way it does not simplify its characters’ complex relationships while still adhering to the crowd-pleasing formula of the fight genre. Audiences largely dismissed Warrior because of seeming similarities to The Fighter, an unfair fate considering it is even better than that film. This one blew me away.

3) Higher Ground

Higher Ground chronicles one southern woman’s relationship with religion, from her tenuous beginnings with evangelicalism and following her as she is born again and subsequently questions her faith. Though it features a fair amount of preaching, the movie itself never preaches. It approaches its characters with a critical eye and its subject matter with an open mind. Vera Farmiga, who stars in the film and makes her directorial debut, is careful not to condescend. Some members of the congregation are naive and old-fashioned but all of them are complex individuals, not stereotypes. The film shoulders big topics – sex, marriage, family, church and the role women play in all of those – but does so gracefully and without passing judgment. This is a quiet movie about the process of self-discovery; there are few grand, dramatic moments in it. Yet, in its subtle way, the film uncovers something true and leaves a lasting impression.

2) Beginners

Tone can be a delicate thing. Mike Mills’s Beginners finds just the right one though; it has an emotional frankness that does not soften its more tragic moments but also has a certain whimsy and love for life that is infectious. We meet Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the start of a new relationship with Anna (Mélanie Laurent), a French actress he meets at a party. This is intercut with remembrances of his late father (Christopher Plummer) who, in the last years of his life, was diagnosed with cancer and came out of the closet, living as an openly gay man for the first time. The tender relationship between father and son is at the heart of the film but its best moments are in the embellishments Mr. Mills adds. Oliver has conversations with his father’s dog (who talks back through subtitles), recalls childhood memories of his mother (­­­­­Mary Page Keller) and reflects on the differences between his father’s time and the present. A loose, almost free associative structure helps to avoid melodrama. The film opens with the father’s death and moves backward, retracing the end of his life while also moving forward with Oliver’s developing romance and ending on a thoroughly optimistic note. This is a film with style and wit that left on me an imprint of its uniquely pleasant mood.

1) The Tree of Life (Original review)

Terrence Malick is one of the few filmmakers today making great literary art. His latest, The Tree of Life, has a poetic style, chasing moods, emotions and ideas rather than following a straightforward, linear narrative. The film is a major achievement, which is also to say it is not the most accessible or traditionally entertaining of films but here’s my advice if you are interested: Brace yourself for the abstractions of the extended cosmic prologue, which dramatizes the beginnings of the Universe. Know that the domestic scenes set in 1950s Texas suburbia that follow are rich in emotion and feature compassionate performances from Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and newcomer Hunter McCracken. Let the mosaic of imagery and music wash over you. Don’t expect a conventional plot but look instead at the small, familial moments Mr. Malick creates and find parallels in your own life. The Tree of Life can be a profoundly moving experience if you’re in the right frame of mind for it. Terrence Malick has crafted a landmark in contemporary American cinema and, for my money, the year’s best film.

- Steve Avigliano, 2/25/12 

REVIEW: A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (2011): Dir. David Cronenberg. Written by: Christopher Hampton, based on his play The Talking Cure, based on the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr. Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Vincent Cassel. Rated R (Some kinky sex). Running time: 94 minutes. 

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were masters of the human psyche so it should come as no surprise that their own unconscious minds were as subject to analysis as any of their patients’. The revolutionary field of psychoanalysis, referred to at the turn of the century as “the talking cure,” brought in a new era of self-awareness and its founders were perhaps more prone than anyone to scrutinize their every thought and desire.

A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg and adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own stage play, introduces Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) as he tests his “talking cure” on a newly admitted patient named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly), a ravenous young Russian woman prone to fits and spasms. In a single whirlwind session, he gets her to discuss her childhood experience being spanked by her father. The spankings, she confesses to Jung, excited her.

Enter Freud, played with dignified stoicism by Viggo Mortensen and rarely seen not smoking a classically phallic cigar. Jung visits Freud’s Vienna home to discuss their research and is thrilled to find an intellectual advisor with whom he can discuss his radical ideas. Freud takes him on as a mentor or rather, as Jung more explicitly describes their relationship, Jung takes Freud on as a “father figure.” Their friendship begins to wane, however, when Jung takes interest in subjects Freud dismisses as mysticism. Freud fears interest in a field such as telepathy will only fuel skeptics’ criticism of their work.

On these topics and others Freud and Jung engage one another and the film is loosely structured around a series of conversations between them and between Jung and Spielrein. Sometimes they discuss their ideas in speculative theoretical terms; sometimes they apply their theories to their own dreams and feelings.

The fun of these conversations is watching these historical characters influence one another, not only in their academic work but in their personal lives. A wonderfully slimy Vincent Cassel appears in a brief supporting role as Otto Gross, a psychiatrist Freud recommends stay with Jung for treatment. Gross is a married man and proud polygamist who sees no harm in sleeping with his patients. These so-called deviances, he explains to Jung, are simply part of the natural order of things. Why deprive yourself what you want? What your mind and body need? These persuasive ideas get Jung into trouble when Spielrein expresses interest in expanding their current physician-patient relationship.

Mr. Cassel also gets one of the film’s more audacious lines (and I paraphrase): “Perhaps the reason Freud is so obsessed with sex is because he isn’t getting any.” There are a number of moments like this in the film – a jolt of humor or an unexpectedly frank remark that reminds us of the unpredictable alchemy that occurs when two people interact. Too often historical dramas and biopics present their characters the way their public personas made them seem rather than allowing them to be vibrant, complex human beings as they are here.

The performances reinforce this. Mr. Fassbender’s Jung is a man of impeccable reserve but watch how a boyish excitement creeps into his voice when talking with Freud, or how emotionally vulnerable he becomes in Spielrein’s company. Ms. Knightley’s performance is a risky one; her facial tics and stuttering speech in the opening scenes are pronounced to an almost distracting degree but she pulls it off. Her choices are bold but consistent. In later scenes, after Spielrein has been treated, she still speaks with the cautious pace of someone who has no less than a dozen thoughts running through her mind and must sift through them to select the words that will reveal her true emotions the least.

Viggo Mortensen commands an austere presence as Freud, enunciating his words with the clarity and confidence of a man who does not think he is right but, rather, knows he is. This is Mr. Mortensen’s third consecutive collaboration with David Cronenberg (A History of Violence and Eastern Promises are the other two) and the pairing has thus far resulted in some of the best work of either’s career.

A Dangerous Method is rich with period detail and beautifully shot by Mr. Cronenberg’s longtime cinematographer collaborator, Peter Suschitzky. Mr. Cronenberg and Mr. Hampton also stay true to the period in more subtle ways. The film does not hesitate to explore sexual taboos of the era and makes reference to rising tensions between Aryans and Jews, including an odd premonition from Jung late in the film that seems to predict the coming World Wars. These unexpected wrinkles are what make the film so enticing. This is a succinct and relatively brief film (most of Mr. Cronenberg’s movies are) but leaves room for strange and pleasantly perplexing inclusions.

The ending feels anticlimactic at first but the movie never makes many major dramatic moves prior to this so a low-key finish is appropriate. The film is a study of relationships and the nuances and details of its characters’ interactions are what my mind continues to turn over days after seeing it.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/30/11

BEST OF THE DECADE - #6: A History of Violence

A History of Violence (2006): Dir. David Cronenberg. Written by Josh Olson, based on the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke. Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt. Rated R (strong brutal violence, graphic sexuality, nudity, language and some drug use). Running time: 95 min.

**NOTE: This review freely discusses elements of the film’s plot, and if you have not yet seen the film or are unfamiliar with the plot, I would recommend watching it first.

The crime genre has been around since The Great Train Robbery captivated audiences in 1903. There is something thrilling about watching a life of crime unfold onscreen, almost as if we’re hardwired as humans to be entertained by such exploits. More than one hundred years after that first cinematic heist, the crime genre still dominates film and audiences continue to be entertained by the violent acts of robbers, drug dealers and gangsters. David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, adapted by Josh Olson from the graphic novel of the same name, is a compulsively entertaining film that capitalizes on this ingrained fascination with crime while also exploring the moral and psychological implications of violence. The film invites us to enjoy the action onscreen, but then questions that very instinctual pleasure.

A History of Violence is genre film populated by larger-than-life gangsters and quaint Midwesterners. A seemingly innocent family man, Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), runs a diner in Millbrook, Indiana with his loving wife, Edie (Maria Bello). They have a son in high school and a daughter still young enough to be afraid of monsters under the bed. They know the sheriff on a first name basis and do nothing to invite trouble into Millbrook. This changes when a pair of professional killers passes through town, tries to rob the diner and murder everyone in it. Tom suddenly takes action by killing the two men with unusual efficiency for a small town man. Tom becomes a local hero and the media attention attracts a few “bad men” from out of town, most notably the menacing Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), who recognizes Tom as an unfavorable acquaintance from years ago named Joey. The film is economically edited to a lean 95 minutes, yet David Cronenberg evokes more authentic emotion in those 95 minutes than most directors could in three hours. Every scene does its share of work, from subtleties at the breakfast table that establish the Stall family dynamics, to an earnest sex scene that shows Tom and Edie are still very much in love after years of marriage. Once the action starts, the film rockets along with a series of increasingly tense and revealing scenes.

Though the film functions as prime entertainment, it is also deeply layered with ideas regarding the nature of human violence. We see the teenaged Jack Stall possibly filling his father’s old shoes as he stands up to a bully in what turns out to be a more brutal fight that the typical hallway scuffle. Issues of identity make up the film’s main drama – are Tom and Joey really different identities, or two halves living within the same man? After Edie witnesses this other side of her husband come out, she confronts him in the hospital. Has their marriage been an act? Where is the line between lies and true emotion? Without ever betraying the moments that precede it, this scene pushes the film beyond the expectations we hold for a conventional crime drama.

A History of Violence is like a sequel we would never expect to see to a gangster film. Colorful characters like Ed Harris’s Carl Fogarty, or William Hurt as Joey’s brother are compelling enough to steal an entire film, but only make appearances here. William Hurt even received an Oscar nomination for his brief but charismatic 20 minutes of screen time. It’s as if the world of gangster films has seeped into the real world, and it’s from this interaction that A History of Violence creates its drama. Joey comes out of Tom in one violent moment, and that momentary transformation allows the past to commingle with the present.

David Cronenberg, who made a name for himself as an auteur of the bizarre with a string of cult-classic sci-fi and horror films, proves himself to be a masterful director here. Watch, for example, the final scene, when Viggo Mortensen comes home after a final visit with his brother and finds his family eating a meatloaf dinner in silence. As he stands outside his home, we see Joey and Tom at once in his face, and he wonders how the two identities can be reconciled. Without speaking a word, Edie looks up as he enters the room and Maria Bello’s expressive face asks him who he is, Tom or Joey? By cutting between close-ups of the two actors, a speechless conversation unfolds between them. Accompanied by Howard Shore’s musical score, this quiet moment of domesticity turns into the height of drama. The scene cuts to black and the film ends on a moment of uncertainty, but not ambiguity. The film has very clearly introduced big questions that do not have easy answers, if they have them at all. Cronenberg crafts a hugely entertaining film, but delves deeper than most filmmakers would by exploring the consequences of the characters’ violence. By reeling us in early and then turning the film on its head, he leaves us as devastated as the Stall family sitting at the dinner table.

- Steve Avigliano, 2/5/10