Best Movies of 2011: Honorable Mentions

In case you didn't notice, 2011 was an exceptionally good year for movies.  As usual, some of the best movies were hard to find.  But, surprisingly, there were many good, very good, even great big budget, multiplex-type movies released last year as well.

Now, contrary to what some people think, I'm not a film snob.  I'm not.  I enjoy bloated summer blockbusters and holiday family fare as much as anyone.  But, let's be honest, in recent years, studio tent-pole movies have just tended to get more and more ridiculous.  Fortunately, that wasn't the case in 2011...even the third Transformer's movie was pretty good.

We saw a handful for decent-to-good comic book/super hero movies:
X-Men: First Class (probably the best one), Captain America (much better than I thought it would be), and Thor (should have been terrible...but, somehow, it wasn't).  Super 8 was hugely entertaining homage to the Spielberg movies of the late '70s and early '80s (still probably the best Spielbergian era).  And, like I said Transformers: Dark of the Moon managed to conjure up some intensely thrilling moments, even if it had an incoherent plot and was, as expected, just a little too stupid to enjoy for anything more than a few laughs.  I'm purposefully leaving out some of last summer's great blockbusters.  You'll see why later.  

There was also a more than the usual amount of superb art-house movies as well.  I'll also get to some of those later.

For those that don't know or remember, it's a yearly tradition of mine to post my Top 10 list on whatever blog I happen to be using that year.  Because most of my past blogs are no longer in existence, I can only link to 2010's list, which, as it turns out, was the last time I blogged about any movies whatsoever.  Okay, I was wrong...I also have a link to 2009's list. 

Anyway, this geekiest of geeky traditions continues with this year as I prepare to unveil my top Top 10 movies list for 2011.  Since I didn't write any movie reviews last year, I'm going to make a separate blog post for each entry.  It'll probably take me several days to get through it.  However, before we get to that, I'd like to list just a few honorable mentions, movies I wanted to include in the list but just weren't able to make the cut.

Music Documentaries...or...um...Rockumentaries

Pearl Jam's Ten, Nirvana's Nevermind, and U2's Achtung Baby were all released in 1991, making last year the 20th Anniversary of each seminal album.  It was also the year that Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters (Nirvana's legacy band), and U2 got Oscar-winning filmmakers to produce documentaries about them.  These are three of my very favorite bands, so naturally, I was predisposed to enjoying each film. 

Foo Fighters: Back and Forth was probably the best of the three and also the one that got the least amount of press.  It presented a detailed and intimate portrait of a band that, just seems to get better and better with age.  Trust me, I saw them in concert this past November...incredible. 

Pearl Jam Twenty, Cameron Crowe's love letter to my favorite band, was near and dear to my heart.  I attended a special, one-night-only screening just so I wouldn't have to wait a month to see for free on TV.  I bought it on iTunes, along with the bonus version -- The Kids Are Twenty -- which includes extended concert footage.  So, yeah, it was kind of a big deal for me.  That said, I don't know that anyone who's not already a huge fan of the band would be able to fully appreciate it. 

From the Sky Down was David Guggenheim's attempt to put the recording of Achtung Baby into perspective.  The film is less linear and more esoteric than the two mentioned above.  But, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

War Horse and The Adventures of TinTin

I'm somewhat of a Spielberg apologist.  How can I not be?  The dude made Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. all within a few years of each other.  Any guy that can do that deserves all the slack in the world, which, as luck would have it, still isn't enough to excuse Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  But, I digress.

Two separate Spielberg movies opened at Christmas.  Both seemed to fall right into the director's wheelhouse -- one a historical war epic and the other a chase adventure.  He could have banged either or both of these movies out in his sleep.  Yet, with both, he tried some new things.

War Horse could have simply been a rehash of the brilliant camera and action work of movies like Saving Private Ryan or Empire of the Sun.  The tone of the story and the subject matter certainly lent itself to that kind of work.  Yet, it was clear with this movie that Spielberg was consciously trying to avoid repeating himself.  The result is a film that, even with its narrative short-comings, is feast for the eyes and ears and only bears a passing resemblance to previous entries into his canon.

The Adventures of TinTin takes a pre-existing technology -- motion capture animation -- and pushes it to an entirely new level.  And, even with the new medium, it looks and feels like a Spielberg movie, but in a good way.  It appears to be the most fun Spielberg has had in a decade or so.  It's very much a sort of Indiana Jones for kids.  As with War Horse, the story has some bumps along the way, but there are some truly great moments in the film.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

I'm not sure if this was the best of the Harry Potter movies -- it may have just been the anticipation -- but it sure felt like it.  The story got darker and more exciting and the emotional ante was sufficiently upped, which is saying something, given that it's a movie about wizards and whatnot.  Sure, the Harry Potter movies had their weaker moments, but there's not a bad movie in the bunch.  That's an astounding achievement.  Indeed, it may have just been the relief that they didn't screw it up that made me like this movie so much.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen isn't as reliable as he used to be -- his current hit-miss rate is probably about 1 hit for every three misses.  Still, when he's on, he's on.  Aside from Match Point (2005), this was easily the best movie he's made in about 20 years.  It's the typical Allen story -- insecure writer that resembles Allen himself dealing with his neuroses -- but it takes entirely new turns.  While I'm generally not an Owen Wilson fan, he doesn't get in the way of the movie and he sufficiently makes way for the brilliant supporting performances of people like Kathy Bates and Gertrude Stein, Tom Hiddleston as F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway in an Oscar-worthy performance.

Moneyball

To be honest, when I saw this movie, I thought it was nearly flawless.  I expected it to be right near the top of my list for the year.  And, upon reflection, I guess I still don't have any bones to pick with it.  But, shortly after viewing the film, I learned of its historical inaccuracies.  Most of them didn't bother me too much.  But, as a very, very casual baseball fan, I was unaware of the fact that the 2002 Oakland As had both the American League MVP and Cy Young Award winner on their roster, yet the movie portrays the team as a rag-tag team of misfits and doesn't even acknowledge that there were, in fact, some very big stars on the team.  I know that I should be able to judge the movie on its own artistic merits.  Yet, after learning that information, this movie dropped further and further down for me.  Still, I did enjoy the film immensely and would highly recommend to sports fans and math geeks alike.

Attack the Block

Attack the Block was 2011's Shaun of the Dead.  It is a very fine genre film -- the genre being sci-fi horror -- but it manages to lampoon the genre at the same time, able to be both scary and hilarious simultaneously. It's also a testament to the impact music can have on the film.  Honestly, this had to be a very cheap film to make and would likely have been relegated to permanent B-movie status if not for the first-rate score and soundtrack.  

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Say what you want about Tom Cruise, he can still put a good movie together.  While written off by some, the Mission Impossible franchise has managed to get better with every new entry.  Ghost Protocol is also a testament to the talent at Pixar.  Brad Bird, who directed the film, was previously a Pixar director (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) and delivered superbly in his first live-action movie.  Similarly, Pixar's Andrew Stanton (director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E) is helming this year's John Carter, which looks like a ridiculously bloated and bizarre film.  Yet, I have little doubt that it will be good simply because of Stanton's involvement.

Anyway, I'm on a tangent.  Ghost Protocol rocked.  That's all I need to say here.

Alright...that'll about do it for the Honorable Mentions.  My first entries of my actual Top 10 list will arrive soon.  Stay tuned.