Topic: 2011 at the Movies

[goodguy]

4.5/5:
Hobo with a Shotgun

I haven't seen it, but there were a couple of these this year, for example Dead Hooker in a Trunk, which I really loved (even wrote a review, I think).

[goodguy]

Updated the first post. Some minor reshuffling and about 20 new additions:

Terrific
 5) Brownian Movement  (Nanouk Leopold)  Netherlands
Great
27) Perfect Sense  (David Mackenzie)  UK
28) Xiao shi da kan  (AKA Honey PuPu, Hung-i Chen)  Taiwan
Good
45) Få meg på, for faen  (AKA Turn Me On, Dammit!, Jannicke Systad Jacobsen)  Norway
47) Love  (William Eubank)
Okay
63) Contagion  (Steven Soderbergh)
64) Tag und Nacht  (AKA Day and Night, Sabine Derflinger)  Austria
68) Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe)  (AKA Surviving Life (Theory and Practice), Jan Svankmajer)  Czech Republic
69) Magic Trip  (Alison Ellwood, Alex Gibney)
Mediocre
77) Sound of Noise  (Ola Simonsson, Johannes Stjärne Nilsson)  Sweden
82) Texas Killing Fields  (Ami Canaan Mann)
85) Restless  (Gus Van Sant)
Pretty Bad
93) 3  (Tom Tykwer)  Germany
94) Higher Ground  (Vera Farmiga)
96) Some Guy Who Kills People  (Jack Perez)
97) Crazy, Stupid, Love.  (Glenn Ficarra, John Requa)
99) Earthling  (Clay Liford)
101) 50/50  (Jonathan Levine)
Crap
105) Film socialisme  (Jean-Luc Godard)  France
108) Abduction  (John Singleton)

[Najemikon]

I somehow missed these when you originally posted the list. 50/50 is not "pretty bad". In fact, it's quite brilliant by being simple, but honest. I must post a review for it actually (especially as I got a version of it read out on Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's show! ).

Crazy Stupid Love I wouldn't be so hard on either, but I don't completely disagree. It's a mess. It's just got a couple of good points in the way the relationship between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is handled. I thought the 'seduction' scene was fantastic. The way it was written and cut together, it was like it was a different film.

[goodguy]

I somehow missed these when you originally posted the list.

No, those I quoted are the newly added ones.

50/50 is not "pretty bad". In fact, it's quite brilliant by being simple, but honest. I must post a review for it actually (especially as I got a version of it read out on Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's show! ).

I'm getting more and more tired of these pseudo indies that are just as awful and manufactured as your regular Hollywood movie. Van Sant's Restless had at least a little spark that saved it from being a total waste, but this one was completely on autopilot. Plus: Seth Rogen.
Anyway, if you want to see this done right, watch Beginners.

Crazy Stupid Love I wouldn't be so hard on either, but I don't completely disagree. It's a mess. It's just got a couple of good points in the way the relationship between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is handled. I thought the 'seduction' scene was fantastic. The way it was written and cut together, it was like it was a different film.

Agree on Stone and Gosling. That different movie I would have loved to see.

[Najemikon]

Beginners is on my radar, but I wouldn't have thought that the comparison would be an easy one. While I know what you mean about indie comedies, I wouldn't apply that here. Much of 50/50's success for me comes from it being true. Not the rom-com stuff,  but the way he handles the illness. Knowing that even helped me enjoy Seth Rogen's character. Honestly, I'm so sick of that guy yet he didn't jar at all here.

[Najemikon]

Now, look, I know you aren't Spielberg's biggest fan. I know I haven't see it yet, but... War Horse. Crap? Really? 

Why do you torture yourself? Surely when considering the 'Trinity of Appeal' (Motive versus Method versus Intended Audience), it was never going to be your kind of thing?

Now, for me, my mum read the book and really enjoyed it (usually she favours thrillers), it's got an awesome cast and, on the trailer, there's a horse thundering through No Man's Land with shit getting blowed up all around him. This sort of appeals to me...