The 10 Best Pixars - Coinciding with 'Finding Dory' Hitting $1 Billion at the Box Office

"Finding Dory" hit the billion dollar mark last week, a considerable achievement considering it was released in a summer of disappointments at the box-office. This is Pixar's second billion dollar release, the other being "Toy Story 3." It is also the highest-grossing domestic release of 2016 with $485 million in box-office receipts. If you're looking for a review of the film I shared my thoughts HERE, calling it "modest, minor Pixar."

Pixar hasn’t just reinvented animation for the 21st century, they’ve expanded it forward to a space and time where the adult/child line is blurred and the creativity on display is astonishingly rendered. You forget you’re watching a film primarily aimed for kids. You feel like a child again, full of innocence, full of joy, discovering a new world that previously seemed so out of reach. Over the past 20 years, Pixar has given us so much more than 15 timeless movies; they’ve brought us the ability to succumb to a universe full of magic and stories that hit the truest notes possible. It’s hard to imagine a cinematic landscape without Pixar, and the significance they represent cannot be underestimated. Their effect on regular, live-action movies is self-evident. They’ve pushed boundaries and forced other filmmakers to think beyond the box. Here’s to another 20 great years.

1) WALL-E (2008)
Any Pixar list must begin and end with this masterpiece. The first half hour of WALL-E has scarcely any dialogue and plays like a silent Chaplin movie -– that is if he had ever decided to make a post-apocalyptic movie about a lonely garbage-chewing bot who falls in love with an A.I. named Eve. The second half is more conventional but nevertheless visionary. The future that director Andrew Stanton concocts is that of a torn up world, ravaged by an environmental crisis, where the planet’s citizens have been evacuated to live aboard a space cruiser, with only one last possible chance to rebuild.

2) Up (2009)
I don’t know many people who can come out of this film’s first 10 minutes with a dry eye. In 10 hopelessly romantic and surreal minutes, Pixar gave us the quintessential anatomy of life, love, and death in a simple but heartbreaking montage that might just be the crowning achievement of the studio.  Although the rest of the film can’t reach the peak of that montage (and really, which can?), the rest of the film is incredibly great and visually vivid, bursting out with colors. It’s an allegorical film about aging without regret but with dignity.

3) Toy Story 3 (2010)
What more can be said about “Toy Story 3″? It was supposed to be the last hurrah. A sequel was just announced recently, but it will be very hard to top this achievement.  Tackling adult themes, the movie was the darkest, most vicious of the series, with a villain who could scare you more than any live-action baddie. The stakes were dead real, tackling the loss of innocence and the promotion – or is that a demotion? – to adulthood. Near the end of the movie’s wrenching climax, as our heroes are about to get cooked alive in an oven, you can’t help but think the inevitable could actually happen. Never have I feared for the lives of animated characters more than in this movie.

4) Ratatouille (2007)
A Parisian rat named Remy just wants to become a chef. This could have gone wrong on so many levels, but it didn’t.  “Ratatouille” is highly enjoyable, recounting some of the Disney gems from the golden age of animation. When Remy starts cooking up a storm in the Parisian kitchen he has crashed, the moves are like ballet, effortlessly propelling his miniature body all around the kitchen and unequivocally expressing his unadorned passion for cooking.  This again shows just how influenced by Chaplin the great animators at Pixar really are.

5) Inside Out (2015)
“Inside Out” is the brainiest, most trippy movie Pixar has made so far. Coming out of the theater, a buddy of mine, who is coincidentally a psychologist, told me the movie should be mandatory viewing for all psych students. How does Pixar come up with such ambitiously ingenious ideas? I’m guessing this is the movie most have not yet seen from my list, so I won’t say much, but just let your brain have a little workout with this golden nugget of a movie.

6) The Incredibles (2004)
While we get relentlessly pummeled by countless superhero movies every single year, it is a breath of fresh air to see the genre work so triumphantly well. Brad Bird has proven his worth in the past, most notably with the criminally underrated animated movie “The Iron Giant”. Bird gives us another visual treat by tackling the superhero genre and coming out with a classic that can stand alongside “The Dark Knight” and “Spider-Man 2″. The action scenes are breathtakingly staged, with Bird’s incredible eye for detail and pacing coming in handy. Unlike many superhero movies, this is one of the rare cases where a sequel would be welcome and well-deserved.

7) Finding Nemo (2003)
I can think of three times in cinematic history where an actor or actress deserved to get nominated for a voice performance: Robin Williams as the Genie in “Aladdin”, Jeremy Irons as Scar in “The Lion King”, and of course Ellen DeGeneres as Dory in Pixar’s “Finding Nemo”. The work DeGeneres does here is nothing short of brilliant.  She uses a playful innocence to counterbalance Albert Brooks’ sombre, more serious tone as Nemo’s father.  The lighter optimism of Dory shines through and perfectly complements the astonishing visuals of the coral reef in all its glory.

8) Toy Story 2 (1999)
9) Toy Story (1995)
It all started here. The first time I saw “Toy Story” I could scarcely imagine how groundbreaking and important it would become for animation. This movie literally changed the game and practically got rid of all hand drawn animation in Hollywood, which of course is a real shame, because hand drawn is still one of the most beautiful and creative ways to make a movie – just look at any Hayao Miyazaki movie if you don’t believe me. Now almost every single animated movie is CGI and we’ve relied so heavily on it because of how monstrous a success Pixar had with “Toy Story”. The facial expressions, the movements, and the effortless flow that carry characters about was unprecedented. It was goodbye to the classical and welcome to the new age.

We had no right to expect a sequel that would be better than the original, but that’s exactly what “Toy Story 2″ accomplished. This time around we had a better story, improved animation, and an exhilarating sense of adventure. If the original was riding high off of its landmark CGI, this sequel was trying to perfect the glitches that held the story back a little the first time around. With Indiana Jones styled action, “Toy Story 2″ proved there was still room to expand in the Pixar canon, and that these guys were dead serious about blowing us away.

10) Monsters Inc. (2000)
There hasn’t been a cuter, more adorable Pixar creation than Boo. The little girl who called Sully “Kitty” just about made the movie for me. The attention to detail given to Boo was simply amazing, encompassing the smallest, most precious details a baby girl can have.  Every time she spoke you couldn’t help but just want to hug the screen. Kudos must be given to directors Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich and David Silverman who let this kid run loose and cause chaos at Monsters Inc. Billy Crystal and John Goodman’s voice work and chemistry here is tremendous.

10 Best Films of the Half-Decade (2010s)

This decade has so far been a transitional decade for movies. We are living in an exciting, confusing time where superhero movies, sequels and popular book adaptations are becoming the foundation at the box office. If the notion of an original, creative, idea seems to be lost and forgotten, there are still – now more than ever – filmmakers pushing the norms and boundaries of what a movie can be. Filmmakers like these are few and far between, but they need to exist to make movies further progress and evolve just like they have in past 100+ years. To me, the following ten movies represent the most important of the decade thus far. They are the movies have marked my mid-decade, the movies I feel have further advanced the cinematic medium. As always, I write articles such as these to get the readers to chime in with their own picks. Looking forward to reading them.

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1) The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life” is a mosaic of a film that might test the limitations of its audience, but more importantly, the cinematic medium’s limitations. No matter what faults you may have with Malick’s movie, you cannot deny the sheer chutzpah and originality that went into its creation. There has never been anything quite like it and I highly doubt there ever will be. Malick tries to transcend the boundaries of life itself by trying to find a kind of meaning. This is his search for transcendence, in the little moments that make us and shape us. Death, mourning, rebirth, transcendence are just a fraction of the themes being tackled here. The mainstream might not have warmed up to the film’s non-linear narrative; for the rest of us, the symposium of abstract shapes and colors that pop our eyes out on the screen is just what the doctor ordered. This is the greatest cinematic experience of the decade.

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2) The Master

P.T Anderson’s masterpiece is almost unexplainable. A reinvention of the cinematic language with a never better Joaquin Phoenix. The backdrop is scientology, but that’s only the backdrop for a much more complex movie. The surrealistic nature of the film was a hint for things to come in the Anderson cannon – “Inherent Vice”, anybody?- but here was a movie that had the best director of his generation at the peak of his powers, using scientology as only the background for bigger more complicated themes. I was more than riveted. Bold, innovative and infuriating, “The Master” is a landmark movie, but one that will likely divide its audience in half. Too bad, I was hypnotized by almost every single frame of its puzzling, schizophrenic narrative.

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3) Margaret

“Margaret” is an absolute masterpiece. It thematically is going for the tone of a grandiose opera, but in a modern day context, filtered through the emotions of a teenage girl associated with a tragedy she witnessed and felt responsible for. It expresses the emotional teenage mind-set like no other. Every performance is astounding and every character in it so compelling and fully-realized. There’s no doubt in my mind that if this movie hadn’t been tangled up in lawsuits years ago, Anna Paquin surely would have been winning many awards for her performance. It’s such a shame that a movie of this size and scope was overlooked. Director Kenneth Lonergan asked friend Martin Scorsese for some help in the editing room and what you ended up getting was a movie that could not be explained easily and has only gotten better with time.

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4) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Grasping a film such as this one may require some major attention from the viewer, and even when the attention is there, frustration may come about as a result of the film’s abstractedness and non-linear narrative. This is all not too surprising when you consider Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s filmography and his constant acknowledgment of nature and the way it binds to us as human beings. Have I lost you yet? Snoozing? That’s how some folks might react when watching “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”. Coming out of the screening I attended, there was a kind of head scratching vibe in the air. It was as if Weerasethakul’s film had not only confused the general public, but actually angered them in frustration with what they had witnessed. I dug it the its mysterious setting and its dream-like episodes. If you’ve seen “Tropical Maladay” or “Syndromes and a Century” you know just how special this guy is.

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5) A Separation

Filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s indisputably great “A Separation” is the portrait of a country in turmoil. Just like the marriage depicted, it is constantly caught in the politics and restrictions the society offers. In one memorable scene, a man tells his daughter to speak Arabic as opposed to Farsi. In another telling moment, a girl’s school textbook recalls a time in the country’s history when the only two classes that existed were “royalty” and “everybody else”. Every person involved in the trial of “A Separation” has the best intentions and their own honorable values to go by. It is the most truthful and unbiased depiction of Iran I have seen this decade. The characters in Farhadi’s film live their lives according to the same religion and guidelines that are asked for them to obey. Yet, in the end it is only our own personal experiences that can provide us with the moral compass for the story.

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6) Under the Skin

What Glazer has accomplished here is quite remarkable and shouldn’t be forgotten. He’s made a picture that defies all the rules and, just like most films on this list, has reinvented a new kind of language. He showed real promise with his first film “Sexy Beast” back in 2000, a cerebral and intense film that paved the way for Ben Kingsley’s best performance. He followed it up with “Birth”, which was kind of all over the place and not as successful as I wanted it to be, but now he’s really surprised me with this one, an out of left field vision that stuns. More than two years after having seen it I still can’t get the damn thing out of my head. Its originality and absurdity is what I love the most about it, and of course Johansson, who is just perfect for the part of a murderous, seductive alien, was the perfect casting choice.

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7) Holy Motors

Leos Carax. You have to give it to this wildly imaginative filmmaker. He’s allergic to formula and refuses to adhere to the norm. In this thrilling, visionary, frustrating, exhausting and masterful film, he decided to give a poisonous valentine to the cinema, splitting his film into a bunch of different genres. Episodic in nature and more than eye-opening, Carax gave us something we’ve never seen before: a surreal nightmare of the past, present and future of cinema. With unusual acting chameleon Denis Lavant by his side, this was a movie in which anything could happen, in which any image could get juxtaposed with any other. There is no three-act structure built upon a tired, overplayed premise. Carax pushes, pushes and pushes until he finds the existential, surrealistic nirvana he’s been looking for throughout the movie with a simple but awe-inspring final image that is as haunting as it is ridiculous.

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8) Black Swan

Taking a cue from Kanye West’s 2010 album, this is Director Darren Aronofksy’s Beautiful, Dark, twisted fantasy. Natalie Portman gave the performance of the year in a film that was more than just about ballet; it was about the boundaries an artist had in order to push his or herself to the very limits of their art. The same could be said of Aronofsky, who’s never adhered to the conventional or acceptable. A potent, poisonous child of Emeric Pressburger/Michael Powell’s “The Red Shoes” and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive”, this was a campy, visionary, extraordinary mess that turned into the film that confirmed the filmmaker was the real deal.

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9) Inside Llewyn Davis

There was a hint of reflective existentialism in the Coens’ Best Picture winner “No Country For Old Men”. Those kooky brothers were maturing before our very eyes and we had no idea what was to follow. “A Serious Man” was unlike any movie they’ve ever done: autobiographical, philosophical and damn near apocalyptic. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is where the Coens, the thinkers, make the masterpiece they’ve been hinting at this decade. A meditation on failure which just so happens to have as a backdrop the 1960’s Greenwich Village New York folk scene. This is the scene right before Dylan, when Folk was still square and the struggles for the artists were very apparent. Our Llewyn Davis doesn’t want to sell out, sticking to his artistic integrity and preferring a life without money than to sell himself to the devil. If only we had more artists like him today.

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10) The Social Network

A film such as “The Social Network” relies on characters more than plotting. The characters populating the film stay etched in your head way after the film is done, which is in fact the highest quality of the film. There is an almost irresistible vibe created; Fincher uses low lit cinematography to enhance the dreary atmosphere happening throughout. The hallways of Harvard feel cavernous and nightmarish, whereas the look and portrayal of University life is nothing short of condemning. Although the movie can be seen as an entertainment first and foremost, the substance that drives its themes home is very apparent. After a second, third and even fourth viewing of David Fincher’s masterpiece, I discovered new things that might not have seemed as obvious or apparent the first time around. “American Beauty’s” advertising campaign told us to “look closer; the same goes for “The Social Network”.

Pixar's newest treat

Sure, it might not be as good as past Pixar fare and sure, it follows a more traditional narrative structure and yes, it just didn't meet critical expectations BUT don't -and I repeat- DON'T discount Pixar's "Brave" as nothing but filler in the same category as "Cars 2" or "A Bug's Life". The film is too good to be shunned off and relegated to that low-leveled category. Let me explain why. Expectations can really kill the way you view a film. Before "Brave" even came out, the thought of another Pixar film coming to theatres gave critics and movie buffs a reason to smile in what would likely be another dull summer loaded with movie escapism and not too much food for thought. I mean, this is the same company that gave us some of the great animated films of the last decade and single handily brought us into -my opinion of course- the golden age of animation. Just look at the treasure trove of brilliant films this company has released since 1999; Toy Story 2", "Monsters Inc.", "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Ratatouille", "WALL-E", "Up" and "Toy Story 3".  An impressive list that is practically impossible to match by anyone else, safe maybe Hayao Miyazaki's brilliant filmography of the past three decades or Disney's brilliant run of films from 1989-1994.

In"Brave" what we have is Pixar's best animation to date. Its eye popping colors bring about dazzling visuals that would make any true film buff water in the mouth. The animation is so well drawn out and compared to earlier Pixar films, "Brave" blows them out of the water in terms of sheer technical achievements -Time's Richard Corliss has echoed my sentiments in saying it is "the most ravishing and complex pixar movie to date". However its narrative is safer, bringing about memories of some of Disney's so called "princess stories" yet infusing it with post 21st century material. This is Pixar's first film featuring a female heroine and not just any heroine; a redhead that has a killer talent for bow and arrow. Merida is her name and she is a headstrong free spirit that wants to "change her fate" (of being betrothed against her will) at nearly any cost. Merida will not be held back. The story comes with twists and turns that I didn't see coming, outstanding visuals and wait until you see Merida's three younger brothers,  redheaded baby triplets that just want to cause chaos everytime they're on screen.

This film doesn't have the dark, underlying adult themes of "Up" but it sure is a great time at the movies. Its scenes go from wacky, to dramatic to downright scary. Will it win the Best Animated Feature Oscar? It's too hard to tell but something tells me we shouldn't discount its chances. I mean, after all a "good" rather than "great" Pixar movie is still better than 99% of animated movies released in any given year. This is just a case of high expectations not being met. "Brave" isn't a film that vies for greatness - instead it is a lovely film that is intentionally Pixar's first foray into the "Fairytale" genre. However, It doesn't necessarily follow the rules of the genre; Merida would rather use her bow and arrow than chase boys or find her prince charming. The movie isn't about being in love or living happily ever after. It is more about one girl's quest to find self-fulfillment and identity in a world empowered by men. Don't listen to the naysayers or those who's expectations were too high to reach, let yourself get swept up into "Brave" and its magnificent colors.

When looking at the Best Animated Feature of 2012, one cannot discount Tim Burton's imaginative "Frankenweenie" which has enough critics backing it up and will likely get a well-deserved nomination. Burton's Gothic treat is his animated follow-up to "The Corpse Bride", which still is his ONLY Oscar nomination to date. Yes, it's very hard to believe especially with a filmography that includes "Ed Wood", "Sweeney Todd" and "Edward Scissorhands". "Frankenweenie" is Burton being Burton (You could see that as a good thing or a bad thing). Based on his 1984 short about a young boy named victor that loses his dog, Sparky, and uses the power of science to resurrect it "Frankenweenie" is a labor of love for Burton through and through. Shot in beautiful Black and White and laced with enough dark Gothic humor to satisfy his many legions of fans, the film will likely garner Burton a well deserved second nomination and maybe -just maybe- his first ever win.  Other contenders this year include well received fare such as "Paranorman", "Pirates: Bands Of Misfits" and the recently released "Wreck It Ralph".

http://www.awardsdaily.com/blog/2012/11/03/the-contenders-brave/#comment-1122849

The Ten Best Movies Of 2011

1. The Tree Of Life

It isn't always for me to call a movie a "masterpiece" or "great" but Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life is just that - a mosaic of a film that tests an audiences limitations but more importantly the cinematic medium's limitations. No matter what faults you may have with Malick's movie, you cannot deny the sheer chutzpah and originality that went into its creation. There has never really been anything quite like it and I highly doubt there ever will be. Malick tries to transcend the boundaries of life itself by trying to find a kind of meaning that can possibly bind us with a higher power. His search is for transcendence, in the little moments that make and shape us. Death, morning, rebirth, transcendence are just a fraction of the themes being tackled here, suffice to say I don't think the Transformers 3 crowd will very warm up to the film's non linear narrative and constant use of abstract shapes and colors representing a kind of big bang.



2. Drive

Drive is not a perfect movie but it has all the traits and reasons that had us watch movies in the first place. Or at least the majority of us. It's a violently artsy action picture that doesn't meander to a particular audience. It has a way of being unique and uncompromising in its visionary dreaming. It knows what it wants to be from the get go and goes along with it. Its 100 minutes zip by like a bursting fuel drag-racing at night & Gosling -along with an incredibly villainous Albert Brooks and a heartbreaking Bryan Cranston- brings a kind of coolness that lacks in most pictures these days. By the time The Driver puts on his stunt mask and makes all hell breaks loose in the film's over the top but scattering finale, it is clear that Drive is a movie that can haunt your dreams.




3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Grasping a film such as this one may require some major attention from the viewer himself and even when the attention is there, frustration may come about as a result of the film's abstractedness and non-linear narrative. This is all not so surprising when you consider Apichatpong Weerasethakul's filmography and his constant acknowledgment of nature and the way it binds to us as human beings. Have I lost you yet? snoozing? That's how some folks might react when watching Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Coming out of the screening I attended earlier last year, there was a kind of head scratching vibe in the air. It was as if Weerasethakul's film had not only confused to the general public as to its overall praise but actually angered them in frustration with what they had witnessed. After all, a word of caution is always necessary before going into any of his films, because this is really the definition of an art film, capital A in art of course. I dug it for the its mystery and its dream like tendencies.

4. Melancholia

Melancholia isn't a film for everyone but it is a thinker's movie. Love it or hate it, there is something that is being said here. Von Trier might be a madman but he's not an idiot. He is an auteur first and foremost and attention does need to be paid. In fact this would be a very interesting companion piece to 2011's best movie, Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life - two totally different works of art but both statements about human nature and creation itself. The second half is incredibly hypnotic. The apocalypse is here and yet Justine's sister Christine is told by her oblivious husband -a playful Kiefer Sutherland- that she need not worry, nothing is coming and the mysterious planet Melancholia will just bypass earth. Dunst -knowing death is near- starts coming off her depression and Christine knowing death is near starts going into depression. It's a brilliant switcheroo that proves to us Von Trier has not lost his ability to be a real thinker. He knows how to manipulate then hit his audience hard. His images are memorable and his film a complete work of art.



5. Incendies

Canada's official entry for this year's Best Foreign Picture Oscar is a masterwork of visual and narrative storytelling. It is about family, tradition and the new world order. Directed by Quebec's Denis Villeneuve, here's a film that transcends its ambitions and becomes an incredible experience for the viewer. Featuring one of the better twist endings of the past 10 years of movies.



6. Bellflower

A general theme of my top ten list this year is explaining the unexplainable. Some of these films are too hard to explain yet resonate deeply. In Bellflower director Evan Glodell has made a shamelessly relentless pop masterpiece. As Two friends spend all their free time building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for their imaginary gang "Mother Medusa". Yet one of them falls in love and then the girl breaks his heart, what he feels afterwards is the definition of the apocalypse. Glodell wants to show us just how apocalyptic a broken heart can be and just how our hero loses track of himself in the process . The images don't always make sense and the ambiguous ending only adds to the frustration, yet Bellflower is a beauty for that very reason. it stands alone in a sea of Hollywood muck as a true visionary work that will get more fans as the years go along.



7. The Skin I Live In

Disappointment was met with Pedro Almodvar's latest yet there were a few - like Glenn Kenny and myself included- that felt like this was prime Almodovar. No kidding. The Skin I Live In was a hell of a ride that had more twists per minute than any other movie last year. Yes it was trashy but it was trash made with resonance, feeling and -above all else- real elegance. Antonio Banderas' plastic surgeon, haunted by past tragedies, creates a woman that pleases his fantasies and urges. His guinea pig: a mysterious and dangerous patient that has secrets we the audience do not know about and are scared to find out. The eventa that binds both of these tortured souls are the true heart of the picture. Featuring one of the best twist endings I've seen in a good, long while. A film that would make one hell of a great double feature with Chan-Wook's Park's Oldboy, Almodovar dares us to go along for the ride like a true master of his craft. Go with it.



8. Source Code

In Duncan Jones' followup to Moon -a great 2009 movie- Jake Gyllenhall is a dead American Soldier who's brain is used to go back in time and find clues as to where a terrorist might be. It doesn't help he has to repeat the same 8 minutes throughout the whole film in a train, which has the said terrorist as a passenger. Have you lost me yet? Don't worry. Jones infuses his movie with enough smarts and entertainment to justify its mediocre third act. Here's a film that not only trusts its audience but rewards it with some extra high octane action in the process. Gyllenhall's Captain Colter Stevens does not really know where he is yet he keeps getting transported back in time to the same event. Think Groundhog Day meets Minority Report and you might see what Jones is aiming for here. I doubt there was a smarter, more visually appealing big studio action film out there. Source Code is the kind of layered science fiction I like best; brainy and entertaining.



9) Margaret 

 Margaret" is an absolute masterpiece. It's thematically going for the tone of a grandiose opera, but in a modern day context, filtered through the emotions of a teenage girl in association with a tragedy. It expresses the emotional teenage mind-set like no other. Every performance is astounding and every character it so compelling and fully-realized. I would compare it to the likes of "Requiem for a Dream," "Magnolia," "There Will Be Blood," "Synecdoche, New York," "The Tree of Life," and other movies that tell sprawling emotional melodramas that just hook you in and don't let you go. If you're into that kind of thing, this is for you. There's no doubt in my mind that if this movie hadn't been tangled up in lawsuits years ago, it would have been a huge Oscar contender and Anna Paquin surely would be winning tons of awards for her performance. It's such a shame that a movie of this size and scope was overlooked.


 

10. Bridesmaids 

Bridesmaids tried to bring humane femininity to a multiplex lacking in it. Of course there's pussy jokes and a hilarious, disgusting wedding dress sequence but what The Hangover 2 lacked in human emotions Bridesmaids more than makes up for it in its witty, keenly written script by Wiig and Annie Mumolo. Bridesmaids has a contemporary freshness that brings it all the way home. No wonder it made more than 100 million dollars at the box office and has become a critical darling. Enough with the artificial numbers. Feig's film was a competition between the maid of honor and the bridesmaid, a roaringly funny rivalry that made me laugh more than anything else in 2011. Movies like these are far and few but when they do show up they really feel like one thing and one thing only; a breath of fresh.


11. The Lincoln Lawyer, Brad Furman

12. Limitless, Neil Burger

13. A Better Life, Chris Weitz

14. Pariah, Dee Rees

15. Hugo, Martin Scorsese

16. Like Crazy, Drake Doremus

17. Terri, Azazel Jacobs

18. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher

19. Policeman, Nadav Lapid

20. Cafe De Flore, Jean-Marc Vallee

21. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, Rupert Wyatt

22. War Horse, Steven Spielberg

23. Certified Copy, Abbas Kiarostami

Better late than never ...

My 20 or so favorites of 2011. I know it's coming a bit too late but I really tried to watch everything that was worthwhile. Commentary should be included very soon and so will other neat stuff. In the meantime, this is a rough sketch of how it looks like.

01. The Tree Of Life (Terrence Malick)
02. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
03. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)
04. Uncle Boonmee (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
05. Bellflower (Glodell/Dawson)
06. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar)
07. Source Code (Duncan Jones)
08. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
09. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig)
10. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher)
11. A Better Life (Chris Weitz)
12. Limitless (Neil Burger)
13. Policeman (Nadav Lapid)
14. The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman)
15. Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
16. Terri (Azazel Jacobs)
17. Cafe De Flore (Jean Marc Vallee)
18. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (Ruper Wyatt)
19. War Horse (Steven Spielberg)
20. Moneyball (Benneth Miller)

1999

✭✭✭ 1/2

American Beauty
Being John Malkovich
The Blair Witch Project
Boy's Don't Cry
Bringing Out The Dead
Election
Eyes Wide Shut
Fight Club
The Insider
The Limey
Magnolia
The Sixth Sense
Summer Of Sam
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Toy Story 2

✭✭✭

Go
Office Space
American Pie
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Bowfinger
Dick
The Green Mile
The Iron Giant
Man On The Moon
The Matrix
Payback
Romance
The Dreamlife Of Angels
South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut
Three Kings
The Hurricane
All About My Mother
Rosetta
Arlington Road

✭✭ 1/2

Analyze This
Blast From the Past
Blue Streak
Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo
Galaxy Quest
Double Jeopardy
Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai
Holy Smoke
Mystery Men
Run Lola Run
Never Been Kissed
True Crime

✭✭

Bicentennial Man
Big Daddy
Dogma
End Of Days
The Mummy
The Ninth Gate
Sleepy Hollow
Star Wars: Episode I
The Straight Story
The Out-Of-Towners
The Winslow Boy
Stir of Echoes
Following
The Boondock Saints

✭

Any Given Sunday
The Deep End Of The Ocean
The Story Of Us
Detroit Rock City
The World is Not Enough
She's All That

Grading the 9 Best Picture nominees

The Descendants B-
Hugo B+
War Horse B
The Help C-
Moneyball B+
Midnight In Paris B-
The Tree Of Life A
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Loud C-
The Artist N/A

Meh, one of those years where they really didn't pick the right ones. Extremely Loud? Really? Where's Drive? That practically made every top ten list and was as visionary piece of work as almost anything else in 2011. At least they had the guts to vote for Tree Of Life, which I'm sure will get many of the wrong people (we know who they are) renting it and having a WHAT THE FUCK reaction to it - now that's something I'm looking forward to more than the awards show itself. ps promise promise promise to watch The Artist very soon.