My Top Movies of 2011

I am a man of the people, and when the people make a request I listen and often ignore it and then just go about my day. But if it is a good request then I take it a little more seriously. A suggestion like what did you think were the best movies of the year. That is a hell of a question and actually took some time to think about. While the top movies are easy to pick deciding what to leave off and what to leave on got infuriating so I thought I would make a go of it. Since the Academy gave us nine nominations here are my Top Nine Movies of 2011

9) The Ides of March
Damn what an incredible cast. If it seems like this movie just snuck on you'd be mistaken. This was going to make the list no matter what I just needed to think where to place it. All the acting is incredible and Ryan Gosling is so clearly The Guy right now, and all he had to do was look across the room to find out what it’s like to be The Man and boom there's Clooney. The movie goes at an incredible pace and while it is a short movie it moves even faster. There were so many moving parts, and Clooney as the writer and director puts it all in there efficiently and has you gripped to the edge of your seat all with tons of nods to campaigns of the past.

8) Midnight in Paris
A lot of people had this a lot higher on their list, and to be named one of the best movies of the year by anyone is an accomplishment. This is on everyone's list. And it is Woody being Woody; you have to like his work to really like this one. And I actually really liked the casting of Owen Wilson as a gentile younger Woody. Some of the characters were great like Hemingway and Dali, but this was one of the few times I got annoyed with Marion Cotillard, she really took me out of the film which is odd being that she was one of the few French actresses in the movie. I don't know, it was great and I liked it but it didn't keep me hooked which is why it is lower on the list.

7) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
Say what you will about the book or all the annoying people who read the book, or even worse the people who dress up for the movie. This was a good movie and deserved far more adulation than it got. It is clear J.K Rowling does not know how to write, but man she created a fantastic story with wonderful characters. And in the hands of David Yates who filmed the movie as darkly as the tone demanded the project played perfectly where so many others failed before him. And who would have guessed that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson would grow into such fine actors, even if he was half in the bag during most of the shooting. These two young actors were able to stand out when there were people like Ralph Fiennes and Alan Rickman on set, that is impressive.

6) Bridesmaids
Maybe you saw it after everyone was telling you how funny it was and left this movie unimpressed by all the hype. You know how it got all that hype? By being fuckin hysterical. Kristin Wiig wrote a seriously funny movie and then gave all the best lines to someone else. Not that she wasn't brilliant in the lead role, but Melissa McCarthy stole this movie right out from under her. The story is sweet and doesn't dumb down the entire gender which so many movies in Hollywood do by assuming all they need in life is a good man. Plus poop jokes.

5) The Artist
This is just a feel good movie. Yes it is just a giant hand job to all that Hollywood is and all that it was, but whatever I'm down with it. And I personally love watching the rise of one lead to the fall of another. And while the love story doesn't stick with me so much I do remember falling in hook, line, and sinker when I was originally watching the movie. Plus the music is fantastic and I love the difference in acting styles from when they are on the screen to when they are out on the streets. Plus that dog, god I love simple pandering that a cute animal will bring to a movie

4) 50/50
How was this movie not nominated for anything at all?!?!?!? Seriously the screenplay is brilliant and heart wrenching without being too depressing. The characters are all amazing, but a special shout out to Bryce Dallas Howard for rocking the bitch character, oh and I loved the overbearing mother, oh and the music. God so much of this movie was so good I really need to watch it again. And that is all before mentioning just how great Joseph-Gordon Levitt has become as an actor. Or how fantastic Seth Rogan's character was and how well he portrayed him even though it’s not so much acting as it remembering as this ACTUALLY ALL HAPPENED. Will Reiser who wrote the script was diagnosed with cancer and Rogan convinced him to write a screenplay about it. He was going to make it a lot darker; luckily he didn't as the movie was super enjoyable, well as enjoyable as it can be with the subject being someone dying of cancer.

3) Warrior
I wanted to put this movie higher on the list but I just couldn't do it because the movie was so telegraphed but I don't care. This movie still sticks with me and it came out in frickin September, sometimes the lines and music will just pop in my head and I love to leave them there. That is the sign of a great movie, a movie that sticks with you. Nick Nolte is fantastic as the alcoholic father; a role I assume is easy for him to play. Gavin O'Connor who directed the movie also directed Miracle which has the same feel good-id-ness about it. Oh and Tom Hardy is bad-ass. I cannot wait for the new Batman movie

2) Moneyball
Maybe it is because I'm a sports fan that two of the top three movies are sports movies, or maybe it is because both movies are fantastic, probably the latter. Aaron Sorkin takes what is essentially an unfilmable book about sports statistics and makes it compelling to any viewer even if you are not into baseball. I originally thought only sports fans would enjoy this movie but after speaking with a lot of people I found it transcended sports and I love that. Brad Pitt is pitch perfect as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill is fantastic as his counterpart and has some of the best scenes in the movie. The movie moves fast and the dialogue is even quicker, without question Aaron Sorkin is one of the most talented men in Hollywood.

1) Drive
"You tell me where we start, where we're going, where we're going afterwards. I give you five minutes when we get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything a minute on either side of that and you're on your own. I don't sit in while you're running it down. I don't carry a gun. I drive." Ryan Gosling on the top and bottom of this list, obviously. He was so bad ass in this movie. He was perfect and I loved all the brilliant parts to this movie, from the retro fitting text to the nameless characters to Albert Brooks eating Chinese in an Italian restaurant. I loved it all, but here is the thing, I didn't love it at first. It took me a while, after seeing the movie I didn't really know what I just saw but then I thought about it and kept thinking about it and just how brilliant this movie was. Just ask The Artist, you don't need dialogue to make a character interesting and that is exactly what they do with the driver. And once the movie passes the half way point and the tone changes the movie becomes all the better. This is a movie that could be examined and picked apart by experts and they still may miss bits of brilliance from the movie. This is a movie that will be remembered years to come.

So that was my top 9 movies of the year. What did you think? What were your favorites? Let me know. And here is to 2012 being top notch for movies to look forward to this year. Enjoy it, I know I will.

Oscar Predictions 2012: Part 1

Here is the problem with this year's award ceremony. It was a down year for movies. Last year there were so many good movies to pick from (and they still went with the obvious choice in the King's Speech). After that they showed their age leaving movies like Drive and 50/50 off the ballots. Meanwhile love them or hate them movies like Tree of Life and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close were nominated for best picture because of the way the voting is structured. So with some big snubs and with so few movies to choose from it seems like everything is pretty much locked up but we'll take a look at eight of the biggest categories. Today I'll take a look at the writers and directors

Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Jim Rash, and Nat Faxon, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Beau Willimon, The Ides of March
Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian, and Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Peter Staughan and Bridget O'Connor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

It looked like at one point Hugo could win the award but has since been taken over by the Hawaiian wave that is The Descendants. With a win from the WGA and major last minute surge overall The Descendants have been creeping up the Oscar ballots. Typically the Academy likes to recognize only one writer rather than a team for whatever reason. But Alexander Payne has been receiving much of the adulation for the movie, including this blog, more so than his contributors so that may give it the advantage. Moneyball probably deserves the award though as Sorkin was able to take a book that was completely unfilmable and turn it into an Oscar contender full of quick dialogue and a story that can be enjoyed by the non sports fan. That is talent.

Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Annie Mumolo and Kristin Wiig, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

Wouldn't you love to see Bridesmaids win, well I would but if you had to go with a nostalgic pick that vote would probably be going to Midnight in Paris which seems like a lock for the award. It has the rare quality of being a movie that should win and many experts are predicting to win. If for nothing else you had to enjoy the conversations from Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali. Although with a big night predicted from Michel Hazanavicius don't be surprised if this movie takes this award with all the momentum the movie has gathered.

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

What a group of talented directors this year. Yes Malick is a weird guy, but Badlands is frickin bad ass. Then again he has dinosaurs in his movie so he is probably out of any serious contention. Scorsese made a wonderful movie about movies, and the Academy loves self promotion, plus he ventured far out of his comfort zone. Payne and Allen went the opposite direction and told a story they have told before but both do a really good job telling it. Frankly any of these directors are deserving but all of the momentum seems to be surrounding Hazanavicius and with a win from the DGA and favored to win the big award he seems like a lock to win for best director.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at the acting category.

Money Ball

There is a tendency in Hollywood for their movies to have a deeper meaning. If a movie were just about zombies it may be tough to get a broad audience into the theater. So what people tend to do is add a metaphor like zombies that really stand for consumerism or lack of individuality or some B.S. like that. Or they will put in a handsome lead to attract women who may otherwise not want to see a monster movie. Moneyball has every opportunity to do these things as well and while it may touch upon these ideas this is a baseball movie about baseball stats. If you like baseball, hate the Yankees, or find mathematics interesting you'll probably like the movie. That is what the movie is about and while it has a David and Goliath feel with a charismatic Brad Pitt in the lead this is a baseball movie. And how could you hate America's Pastime?

A big contributing factor to the success of the movie is the writing team behind it. When the source material is a look at stats and analysis you need strong writing to engage the audience and that is what Steve Zallian brought to the original script. Once the script was finished they brought over Steven Soderbergh to make the film and he made several changes to the script including interviews and having the players play themselves despite the age difference, the studio was not a fan. So they took him off the project and instead brought in Bennett Miller who has worked on dry material before and squeezed Oscar juice from it with Capote. Once they found a director who would make a more traditional movie (rather ironic considering what the movie is about) they brought in Aaron Sorkin to complete a fianl draft of the script. Usually with too many chefs in the kitchen you create a mess, here it works out and while it seems scattered at times, especially the end, I believe it works to make a compelling story.

As for the story I found some objection to it and what they left out. For those of you who don't know what Moneyball is about, it is based on the true story of the Oakland A's during the early 2000's while their team was good despite the lack of resources (read: money)that teams like the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Soxs have. Billy Beane the A's GM and a former player who had been highly touted coming out of high school abandoned the old method of scouting based off looks and feel and subscribed to an anaylytical, subermetric approach to forming a team. In other words he wasn't looking at batting average and speed like other organizations he wanted player who could get on base and could hit for power. The formula was basically the need to get people on base and keep your opponent off. In the movie they focus on getting men on base but during their run they had three of the best pitchers in baseball on the mound in Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, and Tim Hudson which is arguably a bigger reason they won then the batters they were able to scrap together after Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon left. I understand why they were left out of the movie as they were already on the team and had nothing to do with Beane's negotiations and front office moves, but to completely dismiss them from a movie about why the A's were winning is a little ridiculous.

Obviously nerding out a little there, but besides that the movie is strong. Sorkin writes a script as you would expect with plenty of great dialogue. Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane perfectly in a mix of a confident businessman with plenty of self doubt. His character refuses to watch the games as he believes he is cursed. The need to win the last game of the season keeps his head churning and his confidence in check. Pitt is able to be a character that can walk into a room with a confident swagger then leave it with nothing but doubts and remorse in his eyes. They also choose to include his daughter in the story, in an attempt to humanize a man who needs to be vicious when cuts need to be made.

Beane's right hand man is Peter Brand who is based on Paul DePodesta and is played by Jonah Hill. Hill does fantastic opposite Pitt, and while known for his comedy is able to slow his performance down as a man who lacks the swagger that Beane has but believes that his system is right for the organization. He nails his deadpan delivery and is able to participate in a great give and take with the lead actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman also makes an appearance in the movie as a manager who still believes in the old way of doing things and often clashed with his GM. That dynamic could have been interesting to explore but I imagine that confrontation ended in real life once the team started winning. Chris Pratt also stars in the movie as former catcher and current first baseman Scott Hatteberg, Pratt is always all kinds of charming and he is no different in this movie.

There isn't a whole lot of baseball action in the movie as it is more about the front office moves but there is enough to wet your whistle. The scenes in which we actually do see baseball are shot in different manners almost every time we see it. But since this story is told from the perspective of the GM who doesn't watch the game we only get slivers of action. We also see different shooting techniques from when he is interacting with people to when he is alone which reflect his two states of mind. When he is with others they use normal shooting techniques but when alone, they show Beane's disjointed thoughts and constant questioning of his moves using quick cuts and close ups that help us to further get in the character's head.

Not everyone is going to like Moneyball, it moves slowly and there is not a lot of action to it. But the writing is compelling, the banter and interactions are funny, and the actors are all charming, plus it is a movie about baseball stuff. For all the reasons above I liked the movie, and even if you are not into baseball maybe you will like the movie as well. Much like the movie the producers were able to get the most talented people to play for their team and create a winning formula. A-

2011 Oscars: Writing

It's my favorite time of year. The time when my true elitism can come out and I can look at some artsy-fartsy movies and debate with fellow film lovers who deserve to win. Through the next week I'm going to look at each category. Let’s start with screenplay.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Besides Best Actor and Actress aside this is the biggest lock of the major awards. The Social Network won the Writer's Guild Award and it will no doubt win the Academy Award. The dialogue is fast paced and quick witted. The story moves fast and engages you the whole way through. All five films are extremely well written and interesting stories but the lightning pace of words that flow off the screen give The Social Network the clear edge. And the fact that Sorkin has never been nominated for an Oscar before, most notably for A Few Good Men is a mistake that the Academy will look to remedy. Count it.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech

When a movie is pegged as a favorite for best picture usually the voters will get swept away and just assume that this movie has the best everything. That is what will likely happen with The King's Speech this year. The story is extremely interesting but would often get looked over because of some of the other larger than life characters that came out of the Second World War But then that was it, no one was talking about it, and people would comment that Colin Firth was amazing but not really comment on the story. And frankly I hate considering movies based on real life events as an original screenplay. It was based on the story of King George VI and while still a slight exaggeration of history it was much more accurate than The Social Network which is in the adapted screenplay category, tell me how that makes sense. The movie that had everyone talking was Inception, the story was interesting, it had everyone engaged and while Nolan may have made it complicated for the sake of making it complicated people could not stop talking about it. And that fucking top. But people in the Academy hate Christopher Nolan and they have not hidden this fact, most notably with his snub as best director. Members of the Academy don't like awarding new comers and believe that there is a process and people need to earn the award through a career of work. Plus Nolan hasn't been campaigning, but rather working on the third Batman. Does Nolan deserve the award, I think so. Will he win, not a chance. The award will go to The King's Speech and later on in life we'll laugh about this.

Hopefully I'll be doing one of these a day until Oscar time. Let me know what you think of the writing category. Tomorrow I'll take a look at the women of the silver screen. Melissa Leo better put up one hell of a fight if she wants the award. Ah I love puns.

The Social Network

When word first came out that there was going to be a Facebook movie that was my first reaction "There is going to be a Facebook movie?!?" It was tough to initially sell it for me, but then the movie gained director David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men). Then the critical reviews started coming out (it currently has a 97 on Rotten Tomatoes). The moment that sealed the deal is when the trailer featuring Kanye's song "Power" hit. I was hooked I needed to see this movie, and by most accounts many of you will probably see it in the near future if you haven't already.

The movie opens in a Cambridge bar that I have frequented on several occasions, and like most great motivators it all starts with a bad break up. Sorkin shows off a fast paced dialogue while Fincher sets the mood with the grungy lighting and turns a casual encounter into an eerie setting, their work really mashes up well together. In fact most of the best scenes happen when the characters are sitting down at a table with quick cuts and quicker dialogue. The sharp wit moves a mile a minute and if you lose focus you may miss an entire conversation.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as the CEO Mark Zuckerburg, many just may consider him Michael Cera lite but don't be mistaken, Cera may be better know but Eisenberg is a much better actor with a quality resume of films with another great addition. This role isn't too far off from his base, a socially inept outcast, but he somehow makes a self-interested asshole likable. You can't help but feel sorry for him at moments, or not depending on your perspective. Sorkin doesn't write the script taking one side or the other. He gets as many sources as he can and allows the audience to play the jury on each character which becomes fitting as the frame story takes you in and out of two lawsuits occurring simultaneously. The one source he is unable to get is Zuckerberg himself, not surprising, but what is stunning is that the lack of participation may have helped the story. By not getting this perspective it's no longer the Facebook/Zuckerburg movie, but rather a book about Zuckerburg adding more ambiguity to the character and more free range for Eisenberg to let loose.

This movie features a very strong ensemble cast and is easy to see why these actor will be the next generation of big names. Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin the C.F.O. and Zuckerburg's only friend in the entire film. I've heard some people say that the nicer the person the worse the businessman. Well Saverin is the nicest player in the whole group and in a group of various shades of gray he may be the lightest shade but still doesn't come out squeaky clean. Rooney Mara plays the heart breaker Erica Albright and her fast tongue and strong performance set the tone for the movie and is probably what landed her the lead role in the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It wouldn't be a David Fincher movie without some tricky computer imaging and that's exactly what he does to have one actor play both Winklevoss brothers. Then there is Justin Timberlake who you may not be able to take seriously due to some of his past endeavors. He really proves himself as the young entrepreneur who co-found Napster Sean Parker. He keeps the character sleek and his work on SNL helped hone in on his delivery skills. Timberlake flirts with the audience the entire movie so one minute you’ll love his enthusiasm next you’ll hate his treachery. He proves to be fantastic which may be why Entertainment Weekly wrote an article about how all three supporting actors could receive nominations come award season. That may not be true but Sorkin definitely will and Fincher should.

The Social Network is a modern day Citizen Kane. Both films feature a young upstart looking to make a name for himself in and both want acceptance from society. Even some of the scenes in the movie bear striking resemblance to some of Orson Welles' masterpiece. And why shouldn't this be a modern day retelling, the Internet has clearly taken the over as our main source of information. While I was writing this review I had Facebook up in the background the entire time, not doing anything with it but merely catching up on the tedium of some of my friends life that their inherent narcissism felt the entire world should know. That's what Facebook is all about, it’s an ego driven way to share the minutia of everyday life and I am right up there with some of the worst offenders. Sorkin is able to capture this feeling and addiction to this program in his script and makes this film an early Oscar contender. A