GirlReaction Goes to the Movies: Favorites 2011

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You know when you mention a movie you saw recently and the person you’re talking to says “Oh you saw it in the theater? Really? I haven’t been to a movie in the theater since…” ? Yeah, that happens to me a lot. My dad is a huge movie buff, we’ve been going to them as a family my whole life, I’m never going to stop going to them, and people need to STOP COMMENTING ON IT. 🙂 Heh.

I saw 35 movies [in the theater] in 2011 which is exactly my average over the past 12 years, which means it’s not as many as I wanted to see, but still a fair amount considering what the last year of life has entailed time-commitment wise.

I’ve been thinking about it and thinking about and it turns out my very favorite movie in 2011 was The Guard. I know I said in that review it was probably top 5 or 2 but yeah. I was wrong.

Here’s the list of my favorites with links to Snip reviews and very brief commentary. [Although be warned, a bunch of them got reviewed in the same Snip post so they’re quite succinct. Heh.]

1. The Guard – black humor, yet heartfelt.
2. Tree of Life – throw out that 30-minute visual creation OH HAI dinosaurs in the middle and this would have been #1. The family stuff was super compelling.
3. Red State – Kevin Smith’s masterpiece.
4. The King’s Speech – technically a 2010 movie for many people I’m sure. Quite lovely.
5. Beginners – the previews were so twee, I was leery of it. It was so sweet and really touching.
6. Midnight in Paris – really a movie about the joy of movies and art and connections. quite good.
7. Take Shelter – paranoia. discomfort. anxiety. but good movie making. [email me if you need the password for that review. it’s the same pword that was formerly used to leave comments on Snip.]
8. Haunters – one of the most original movies you could ever possibly see. Spooky but sometimes sooooo funny.
9. True Grit – another one others saw in 2010. Really great. Gritty in the best possible way.
10. Somewhere – a slow (SLOW) but lovely exploration of how celebrity steals away one’s real life.

Unfortunately movies can be a little harder to choose than books and I also saw some real doozies in 2011. The WORST movies I saw were Hanna (the dialogue was horrible, the plot had so many holes), The Green Hornet in 3D (overdone, dumb–heh, sounds like I didn’t quite dislike it as much in my original review as in my memory. I guess it got worse with time!), Bridesmaids (I HATE THAT MOVIE. I’m SO SICK of people talking about how it’s finally the movie that shows how girls are. NO IT IS NOT) and The Company Men a ridiculous movie that misread its possible audience in such a huge way.

Biggest tearjerker: Buck

Most nostalgia creating: Super 8

Cleverest dialogue: Young Adult

Most ridiculous scenario: Cowboys & Aliens

Best house lived in by main character: The Mechanic

Made me feel most voyeuristic and icky: Blue Valentine

Felt most like 89 movies I’d seen before: The Fighter

Made me super mad: Black Swan

Movie I really liked that no one else in the world saw: Somewhere

Possibly the best EVER use of 3D with some of the world’s most annoying voiceovers: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Best action movie: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Best song sung by lead actor: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Also best introduction of a new actor: Martha Marcy May Marlene

And that’s it for 2011. I have my first two flicks of 2012 lined up for today and tomorrow (VERY LATE for me, last year I saw 7 movies in the first 7 days of January) and I can’t wait to see them!

Big Screen: The Guard

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Wow, I really can’t believe I didn’t write this movie up before now. It’s definitely in my top five for the year. Maybe even top two, I have to give that a wee bit more thought. 🙂 I first saw it back in August and I wound up seeing it two or three more times after that. SO GOOD!!

A real black comedy about a down-and-out Irish cop played by Brendan Gleeson–not a bad dude, just a bit jaded and over it–and a visiting FBI agent played by Don Cheedle on the trail of some drug runners. The chemistry between Gleeson and Cheedle is out of this world. Cheedle as the straight man plays against his casting in many roles and he’s just so perfectly straight-backed and stone-cold serious in it. This is movie is really hilarious and not at all politically correct (I thought it was pretty honest about racism, myself). Well acted, well directed, so many nifty twists and turns.

I just loved it to pieces. GO! I’m sure it’s out on DVD by now. Or streaming somewhere.

Big Screen: Young Adult

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I thought the beginning was a little rough–some things take too long to get going, others seem to leap ahead and you wonder if you’ve missed something. There are a few weird continuity errors–i.e., at one point someone appears completely across town a minute later although she drove someone else’s car to their house so how did she get back there? type of things. And there’s some stuff that just feels like it wasn’t quite well though out enough plot-wise.

But once it gets going, a LOT of the dialogue is pretty fantastic. The wacky friendship / alliance between Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt’s characters was so great, there’s a lot of (not romantic) chemistry happening there. Dad kept saying he’d watch an entire show every week just about those two! 🙂 The going back to a small town, trying to define yourself in a different way stuff is all right on.

And the rigid unrepentive, unchangingness of the lead character really is what makes this work. She comes out of this movie the same person she went in. There’s no self reflection happening there…and it’s pretty awesome that there isn’t frankly. If this movie had ended differently, it would’ve shot itself in the foot.

Didn’t blow our minds completely, but definitely well worth seeing.

Big Screen: Martha Marcy May Marlene

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As with Take Shelter, this is a movie of really great acting performances and really crazy paranoia stuff that leaves you with the creepiest ickiest feelings.

And as with Take Shelter, the last scene really (REALLY) messes with your head.

John Hawkes is so fantastic here. He was also fantastic in Winter’s Bone last year. I think I’d go see anything with him in it, even if I hated everything but his scenes.

I think I liked Take Shelter a LITTLE better than this…but mostly because there are things about that character’s paranoia that are a little less icky than the actual things that happen to some of the characters in this movie.

Big Screen: Take Shelter

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This movie is a real mind-fuck honestly. At first you think it’s all paranoia in the husband’s head…then you think it might be paranoia in your head! The ending really twists you up and we all came out of the theater freaking out!

The lead actors in this movie are FANTASTIC. And it’s really so so well done.

Wrapping It Up: Favorite Books 2011

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My top six very favorite books read during 2011 were (not in any order) “Wonderstruck” by Brian Selznick, Love Is the Higher Law, by David Levithan, “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett, “36 Arguments for the Existence of God”, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (that’s fiction, despite its non-fiction-like sounding title), “Mother’s Milk” by Edward St. Aubyn and “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin.

My final list of books read for 2011 is here and a little write-up on some other favorites, beyond the six mentioned in this post, is over here.

Turns out I haven’t done hardly any reviewing of books on Snip this year (I have been busy ya know!) but I still plan to whip through a few here and there until I find a job so I’ll add links to those if/when I post them! 😉

GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2011

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I read 113 books in 2011 which is higher than my 85-book average for the past 6 years (see more stats here) but pretty much par for the course. Also I don’t usually include textbooks and articles on my reading lists but this year I did include all the children’s and YA fiction I read for a class I took this fall because, after all, it was fiction! 🙂 It wasn’t a class that counted toward my degree, just an elective I had been wanting to take. Only crazy people take an extra class during student teaching though; I can’t say I really recommend it!

I read more non-fiction than usual (a lot of memoirs!) but no short stories at all. What? (I did start 2012 off with some though!)

It’s always hard to pin these things down, but…

My top six very favorite books read during 2011 were (not in any order) “Wonderstruck” by Brian Selznick, Love Is the Higher Law, by David Levithan, “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett, “36 Arguments for the Existence of God”, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (that’s fiction, despite its non-fiction-like sounding title), “Mother’s Milk” by Edward St. Aubyn and “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin.

I also really really loved two of the last books I read in December: “A Discovery of Witches” by Deborah Harkness (not at all Twilight for adults, as I keep seeing it called–the quirks of the publishing industry’s advertising could really drive one to madness, couldn’t they?) and “Falling Together” by Marisa de los Santos.

I do read a ton of both adult and YA fantasy/sci fi, as you might know heh, and my favorites in 2011 were “Divergent” by Veronica Roth, “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, “Aftertime” by Sophie Littlefield, “Across the Universe” by Beth Revis and “Hunger” by Jackie Morse Kessler.

Other YA, but not fantasy, or not really, books I loved were “Ninth Ward” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and both “Okay for Now” and “The Wednesday Wars” by Gary D. Schmidt. And I particularly loved a novel in verse “Inside Out & Back Again” by Thanhha Lai.

I enjoyed Rosanne Cash and Keith Richards‘ memoirs, I loved both the fiction and non-fiction I read by David H. Hackworth, widely known as one of America’s most decorated soldiers (now deceased), I would recommend absolutely any and everything (romance and memoir) written by my good friend Rachael Herron and if you want to revisit my favorite fantasy books of all time as I did this year I recommend The Tornor Chronicles by Elizabeth A. Lynn (book 1 is “Watchtower”) and The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander (book 1 is “The Book of Three”).

I read a LOT of stuff I loved this year, a lot of stuff that was good and fun and only a very few things I wish I hadn’t wasted time on and most of those wouldn’t wind up appearing on the read list anyway! 🙂 I grew out of that whole “I HAVE to finish every book I start!” baloney in my late 30s. There just isn’t time for bad books. And there are SO many good ones out there!!

Big Screen: Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

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Loved it. Tom Cruise is showing his age (which I thought maybe he’d be one of those crazy celebrities who gets 97 billion procedures and never has a single wrinkle). Renner / Pegg / Payton all played their bits well. It was 100% completely enjoyable.

EXCEPT… So here’s the thing. With any action movie, but ESPECIALLY the Mission Impossible movies they do a million crazy nutbars out-of-this-world things and as the viewer you accept them as part of this movie’s reality. Fine. BUT if I am going to accept all their crazy masks and daring feats and car acrobatics and such, I insist that this type of movie must do everything else ACCURATELY.

And let me tell you, if you remove the floor to ceiling window from a 100th-floor hotel room? THERE’S GONNA BE A CRAPTON OF WIND BLOWING THROUGH. But no, they stand calmly in front of it, clothes barely aruffle. Sorry, can’t buy into that one. When they replaced the windows in my 4th floor apartment in NYC, things magentized to the refrigerator were blowin’ around the house.

GIVE ME MY REALITY and I’LL GIVE YOU YOUR FANTASY. That is the deal this type of movie is supposed to make with us.

So other than that, it was great. 🙂