In any given year there are bound to be a few critical darlings that you don’t quite agree with, but seemingly never more than this year. So before posting My Favorite Films of 2011, I thought I should acknowledge some movies that won’t be making an appearance on my list. These films have been so critically adored - making appearances on virtually every Top 10 except, well, my own - that I feel like I have to address their absence. Yes, I’ve seen them and though they all had admirable qualities, in one way or another, all fell short for me. That’s not to say that these are the worst films by any means, (those are coming soon), I actually liked most of these but didn’t feel any quite deserved the praise heaped upon it. The following films have been ranked according to the disparity between the critical consensus and my own, or to put it simply, most to least overrated.
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick) The most ambitious studio release of the year is regrettably also the most overrated. For the most part, “The Tree of Life” is a brilliant act of misdirection: admire the stunning photography and sweeping ambition but try to ignore the overbearing New Age narration and overreaching finale. No film this year has received more praise while being so seemingly unloved by anyone. (Have you heard anyone ramble on about this film the same way they did about “Drive”? Or “The Muppets” even?) It’s like every critic and film snob collectively agreed to give it a pass simply because they felt obligated to. I know I’ve said it before but this is one case where the Emperor is no longer wearing any clothes.
2. Hugo (Martin Scorsese) Look, I admired the 3D too and absolutely loved the George Melies section that has so many reviewers breathlessly declaring the film “a love letter to cinema.” But dear God, how could no one else acknowledge how lifeless and awkward the first hour of the film was? Or how dull Hugo himself was? As far as I can tell, the central character in this film has not been singled out by a single review as being anything resembling “interesting.” And those aren’t the kinds of things you can just overlook, no matter how much I love Scorsese or his storybook concoction of Paris.
3. The Descendants (Alexander Payne) As a big fan of Payne’s work (“About Schmidt” is a personal favorite), it pains me to admit that this is his weakest film to date, which makes it absolutely mystifying that it’s receiving so much praise. Adapted from a novel by other screenwriters (then rewritten by Payne), the film is missing the bite of his earlier work, neither as funny or heartfelt as many would have you believe. Even Clooney has been better in Payne disciple Jason Reitman’s “Up In The Air.” The relaxed Hawaiian setting has had an effect on the film and not in a good way. This is what it looks like when a director shifts into neutral.
4. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin) Having seen this at Sundance earlier this year, at the very birth of the buzz, I’ve spent nearly a year in the vocal minority for this film. This film suffers from Sundance Syndrome, it’s all atmopshere and no development. Flashback-present day-repeat without the central character (Elizabeth Olsen, deserving of the praise) ever doing anything proactive. Isn’t that what a protagonist is for? I began intrigued but left frustrated. Olsen and Durkin may be talents to watch but ‘Martha’ will likely be remembered more as a launching pad than a singular achievement.
5. A Separation(Asghar Farhadi) Every film geek has a blind spot and I’m not sure anyone would be surprised to find out that World Cinema is definitely mine. That said, regardless of the country of origin there are certain things I look for in a film - to move me in some way, make me feel something for the characters, or at a base level, just entertain me - and “A Separation,” the leisurely paced Iranian melodrama, did not do those things. There are people out there who love this film and I absolutely cannot relate to those people.
6. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) I get it, film critics. The film deserved better than its unceremonious dumping by Fox Searchlight a half decade after it was filmed. But let’s not get carried away here, folks. There are as many good scenes here as bad ones and adding another 30 minutes isn’t going to fix the film’s issues any more than pretending that this was one of the 10 best films to be released this year. (It isn’t.) While “Margaret” undoubtedly has its charms, its champions have gone more than a little overboard in extolling its virtues partially to prove their own influence.
7. Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (Tomas Alfredson) As I said in my review, “never has a film I was so looking forward to made so little of an impression on me.” From the opening frames through the end credits, Alfredson’s admittedly gorgeous looking but hermetically sealed spy un-thriller never gave me a reason to care about what was going on. The cast is fantastic and cinematography is some of the finest I’ve seen all year but an emotional connection? Nothing. Confused I can deal with but excluded is a deal breaker.
8. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier) I’ve never been a fan of Von Trier’s films, (to me he’s always seemed like a juvenile Michael Haneke), but I have to admit I did enjoy “Melancholia.” The audacious opening alone ranks as one of the cinematic highlights of the year which is, I suspect, in part why people have fallen for the film. While it was probably my favorite of the provocateur’s work to date, it’s lopsided and occasionally silly. The first half is exponentially more interesting than the second, though that too, contains its fair share of ridiculous moments. “Justine, I need that tagline!”
9. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols) Like Sundance brethren ‘Martha Marcy,’ “Take Shelter” is another case of a great premise with nowhere to go. Certain critics have complained about the ending which took away the film’s ambiguity but my problem was that it took so long to get there. With a two hour running time, the film is deadly repetitive, drawing out familiar scenes without illuminating or expanding what you already know. Essentially a mood piece (and that mood is very effective) it would have been much more successful had they trimmed 20 minutes and not given the audience (me) a chance to realize the filmmakers were treading water.
10. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay) Impeccably shot and acted, this is the third film on this list (along with ‘Martha Marcy’ and “Take Shelter”) that is tediously repetitive. Though I liked ‘Kevin’ quite a bit, it’s one of those films you could check out after the first 15 minutes and tune back in during the last 5 without missing a single beat of essential character or story. Which, quite frankly, when it’s all over feels like a waste of my time. Unlike the frustrating ‘MMMM,’ the central character here at least tries to do something about her situation. I admire Ramsay’s style but wish she had pushed it further.
I’ve been attending the New York Film Festival since I moved to NYC in 2005 and have had a somewhat tumultuous (one-sided) relationship with it. Their lineup, culled mainly from Cannes, is usually light on American films and sometimes the inclusions (“Hereafter”? “The Tempest”?) are just as puzzling as the ommisions (No “There Will Be Blood”? No “Black Swan”?) But this year I have to give them credit, the lineup was damn good. I had seen quite a few films before the fest even started (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel at Sundance, Shame, The Descendants, The Skin I Live In at TIFF and Melancholia in Paris) and still managed to see 8 films over the 2+ weeks of the festival. I have ranked them here from most to least favorite.
1. The Artist(Michel Hazanavicius) My favorite film of the fest is also one of my favorite films of the year. Charming, hilarious and surprisingly moving, this ode to silent film will be making a lot of noise during awards season. Read My Full Review
2. George Harrison: Living In A Material World(dir: Martin Scorsese) Scorsese’s epic 3 1/2 hour documentary about the life of George Harrison has all the punch of the directors fiction work and should more than satisfy any Beatles fanatic. Read My Full Review
3. Miss Bala(dir: Gerardo Naranjo) This sparse, gripping thriller about Mexican beauty pageant contestant who gets kidnapped by a drug cartel avoids cliches and utter bleakness by being thrilling cinematically. Read My Full Review
4. Hugo(dir: Martin Scorsese) Scorsese is still putting the finishing touches on this childhood fantasia but he may not be able to solve the films fundamental problem: it’s narratively leaden for the first hour until the actual story kicks in. Read My Full Review
5. Carnage(dir: Roman Polanski) Adaptation of the popular play has a great cast (Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz) but is too stagey for film. Occasionally funny but mildly grating at times. Read My Full Review
6. A Dangerous Method(dir: David Cronenberg) Disappointingly tame pairing of great actors (Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley )+ director (David Cronenberg) in static material. Nicely shot but forgettable. Read My Full Review
7. My Week With Marilyn(dir: Simon Curtis) Made-for-TV movie about a 23 year old Brit who spent a few days with Monroe. Williams is miscast but does her best. All Oscar talk is completely puzzling. Read My Full Review
n/a. The Royal Tenenbaums(dir: Wes Anderson) The 10th Anniversary screening of one of my all time favorites isn’t really eligible to be ranked but was still one of the highlights of the fest. Read My Q&A Recap
Last night the New York Film Festival did something (they took great pains to remind us) they’d only done once in their 49 year history: screen an unfinished film during the festival. The first film to receive this honor was Disney’s “Beauty In The Beast” in 1991, which went on to make a bajillion dollars, become the first animated feature to be nominated for Best Picture (back when there were only 5 slots) and is now rightly considered a classic. The second film to receive this distinction was last night revealed to be the upcoming Martin Scorsese directed adaptation of Brian Selznick’s book “The Invention Of Hugo Cabret” titled simply “Hugo.” And from what I saw it’s fate remains highly uncertain. We were shown a work-in-progress cut of the film with no color correction, unfinished sfx in a few spots, a temp score (to be rerecorded with full orchestra), a few stray green screens but for the most part the film was mostly there, otherwise they wouldn’t have shown it to us in the first place.
The film follows young Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an orphan living in a Paris train station after his father passes away who spends his days windings the clocks in the station, stealing enough food to live on and avoiding the Station Inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen, doing a riff on a Peter Sellers character). At the opening of the film Hugo has a run in with Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley), who catches the young thief attempting to lift a wind-up mouse from his toy shop. in order to use the gears inside to build some things of his own. Georges is initially cruel to the boy, stealing his notebook filled with detailed renderings of various mechanical objects but after forming a friendship with his young goddaughter Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), eventually offers Hugo a job in his shop fixing toys. The train station is a beautifully rendered environment and occupied by a number of bustling inhabitants that especially in its Parisian setting will remind many of the work of Jean Pierre Jeunet (“Amelie”).
Hugo and Isabelle cavort around Paris and end up sneaking into a film, her first, and are completely transfixed. If you’re wondering when the story starts to kick in, so was most of the audience because it takes 90 minutes before it has any direction at all. You’re just about to give up on it when it takes a startling left turn and becomes something joyous and majestic. (Without giving anything away I’ll say that seeing the film is just the tip of the iceberg for what the two are about to uncover but it just takes too damn long to get there.) This is all the more crushing considering the impressive work Scorsese has done with the 3D but for the first half, “Hugo” is directionless and patchy. There’s still some work to be done to the film but it’s problems seem to be rooted in the script and with a little over a month to go before release I’m not sure there’ll be any way to fix it. Too narratively leaden for either children or adults the film will likely go down as another admirable curio (with a few classic sequences late in the film) in the director’s filmography.
Normally I’ll just post a trailer for a film that looks good and let it speak for itself because how many different ways can you say “this looks great!” and “I can’t wait to see this!” But certain films are a bit more complicated than that so let’s take a look at a few trailers that I’m not quite sold on. From most worrisome to most promising…
Hugo (Directed by Martin Scorsese) Formerly “Hugo Cabret,” formerly formerly “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” this (unfortunately titled) effort is Martin Scorsese’s first foray into both a children’s film and 3D. At the beginning of the year this was enough to provoke some excitement because it sounded so crazy it just might work. Watching the (terribly edited) trailer it seems so obvious what a bad idea this was I’m shocked how I didn’t see it sooner. Paramount is probably having the same freakout right now, “Who the hell did we make this for, anyway?” (November 23)
John Carter (Directed by Andrew Stanton) Formerly “John Carter of Mars” (another unfortunate title change), this film, based on a series of 100 year old Edgar Rice Burroughs books, have been pillaged by filmmakers for everything from “Star Wars” to “Avatar.” But the reason I was really looking forward to it is because it’s the first live action film from “Wall·E” director Andrew Stanton. The thought of Stanton bringing the Pixar sensibility to a sci-fi fantasy epic sounded like a great one but (despite the inspired soundtrack choice) this one also looks like it’s just not going to work. (March 9, 2012)
The Thing (Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.) This one I hadn’t really been looking forward to but the trailer really did the best job of selling the film. I mean, I should hate it because it’s a remake of one of the best horror films of all time (John Carpenter + Kurt Russell = this is never not the best) but that film was in itself, a remake so what are you going to do? But that was the exception, not the rule and we all know that chances of lightning striking twice is probably not going to happen. But the poster is still badass. (October 14)
1. Moonrise Kingdom dir: Wes Anderson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore) Anderson’s 7th film is set in the 1960’s as 2 twelve year olds fall in love and run away from their New England town. Cast includes Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and 2 yet-to-be-named pre-teens. As much as I’ve been disappointed by his recent films I’m still hoping he’s got another classic in him. This could be it.
2. The Tree Of Life dir: Terrence Malick (The New World, Days Of Heaven, Badlands) This was in the same spot last year but now we’ve got a trailer and an actual release date. The film features Brad Pitt and Sean Penn as father and son, (in the 1950’s and present day), and will probably be beautiful (as long as it’s not boring.) I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs are out, though.
3. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo dir: David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club, Se7en) Fresh off his Best Picture win for The Social Network, (you know it’s going to happen), Fincher has turned his attention to an adaptation of the first installment in the incredibly popular Millenium Trilogy. I saw the Swedish original and had a hard time picturing anyone turning it into something interesting but if anyone can do it, Fincher can. (Benjamin Button notwithstanding.)
4. Hugo Cabret dir: Martin Scorsese (Kundun, The King Of Comedy, Boxcar Bertha) Martin Scorsese ditches Leonardo DiCaprio for the first time in a decade to adapt this book about an orphan living inside a train station in 1930’s Paris. The film stars “Hit Girl” Chloe Moretz along with Christopher Lee, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jude Law among others and will be filmed entirely in 3D. (Not kidding.)
5. Super 8 dir: JJ Abrams (Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III) I’m not sure exactly what this is about and I like it that way. I do know it stars Kyle “Coach Taylor” Chandler, Elle Fanning (who was amazing in Somewhere) and appears to evoke an 80’s era Spielberg. JJ Abrams loves “mystery boxes” and next summer I’m going to open one with Super 8 inside. Watch the teaser.
6. Contagion dir: Steven Soderbergh (Che, Traffic, Erin Brockovich) In case anyone thought Soderbergh was taking it easy this year, (after releasing 4 films in 2009), he’s already got 2 films ready to go for 2011. The 2nd of which is Contagion, a CDC centered action-thriller with a huge cast including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cottiard, Gweneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Bryan Cranston, etc. etc. He doesn’t need to retire, he just needs to slow down!
7. Haywire dir: Steven Soderbergh (The Informant!, Solaris, Out Of Sight) That other Soderbergh film, which will be released first, is Haywire. A gritty spy thriller described as “if Alfred Hitchock made a Pam Grier movie”, this one stars mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano backed by another sizeable cast including Ewan McGregor, Michael’s Douglas & Fassbender, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas. I almost got to see it last month but apparently that was impossible.
8. Submarine dir: Richard Ayoade (TV’s ‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’) This one came out of nowhere at the Toronto Film Festival where it got ecstatic reviews and I decided I had to see it as soon as possible. The quote that got me was: “A coming of age story which is equal parts Rushmore, Election and Squid and the Whale.” and if everything works out that will hopefully be in about 4 weeks at Sundance. Please let everything work out.
9. The Descendants dir: Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt, Election) Somehow it’s been almost 7 years since Payne’s last film hit theatres. In that time there’s been a lot of Payne-lite, (The Weather Man, Up In The Air, etc.) but there’s no substitute for the real thing. George Clooney stars as a man trying to reconnect with his 2 daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident. He will probably find himself in painfully awkward/funny humiliating situations.
10. The Skin That I Inhabit dir: Pedro Almodovar (Broken Embraces, Volver, Talk To Her) This one is going to be dark. Antonio Banderas reteams with director Almodovar for the first time in 2 decades starring as a plastic surgeon hunting for the men who raped his daughter. Yikes! But I’m sure it will still have the directors trademark color palette, a beautiful score and a tone that switches from melodrama to comedy and back again. I hope.
11. Drive(Nicolas Winding Refn) Ryan Gosling is a stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver. From the (insane) director of Bronson and also starring Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston.
12. Hanna(Joe Wright) It looks like a remake of The Professional from the director of Pride & Prejudice. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana. Watch the trailer.
13. Your Highness(David Gordon Green) Unofficial Pineapple Express sequel, set in medieval times, swaps Seth Rogen for Natalie Portman AND Zooey Deschanel. Sounds like an upgrade. (Sorry Seth.) Watch the trailer.
15. Cowboys & Aliens(Jon Favreau) I’m still not sure how much I trust Jon Favreau to direct action, but I do trust Daniel Craig to be a badass. And it would be great for Harrison Ford to have a role that wasn’t terrible. Watch the teaser.
16. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy(Tomas Alfredsen) A Cold War espionage film starring Thomas Hardy, Gary Oldman and Colin Firth would be exciting. But that film directed by the guy who did Let The Right One In is a must-see.
17. This Must Be The Place(Paolo Sorrentino) The insane director of Il Divo brings you Sean Penn, (dressed as Robert Smith from The Cure) stars as an aging rock star who sets out to find his fathers executioner, an ex-Nazi war criminal.
18. X-Men: First Class(Matthew Vaughn) I had about zero interest in an X-Men reboot until I saw Kick-Ass and they set the film in the 60’s. Now I have a lot of interest. They even hired January Jones so I keep picturing Mad Men-era X-Men and I can’t not love that.
19. Sucker Punch(Zach Snyder) While it looks way too CGI heavy for my liking, it also looks insane. And once every 2 years I kinda look forward to a Zach Snyder film. Watch the trailer.
20. The Muppets(James Bobin) A brand new Muppets film, from the writers of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the director of Flight Of The Conchords. It might actually work.
Also released: While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach), Young Adult (Jason Reitman), Source Code (Duncan Jones), Beginners (Mike Mills), War Horse (Steven Spielberg), Paul (Greg Mottola), 30 Minutes Or Less (Ruben Fleischer), The Sitter (David Gordon Green), Wanderlust (David Wain), Bridesmaids (Paul Feig), The Hangover Part II (Todd Phillips), Twixt Now and Sunrise (Francis Ford Coppola), The Cabin In The Woods (Drew Goddard), One Day (Lone Scherfig), We Bought A Zoo (Cameron Crowe), The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg), Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird), Cars 2 (John Lassetter), The Green Hornet (Michel Gondry)
