Favorite Films of 2011

My favorite films of 2011

By Darin Skaggs

The year 2011 was many different things for me. It was a good year, but it was also a hard year. I learned stuff about myself. I learned to do stuff by myself and I learned to do stuff with others. It was a beautiful yet a messy year. This is also reflected the year’s film for me as well. For a while I did not know if it was a good or bad year in film, until one day I looked over my list of films and realized it was a great year in film. This year taught me who I should and shouldn’t be. The year taught me how to laugh and how to love. This year taught me who I was and who I will be. So with that here is my list for the 10 greatest films of 2011.

10. THE MUPPETS

One of my favorite memories as child is when I used to watch my VHS copy of Muppet Treasure Island and man did I watch it a lot. I also remember the first time I watched the 1979 film The Muppet Movie I was totally blown away how funny it was. So with my love for the older Muppet films I was very excited to see the new Muppet film. I was a bit nervous though, as I am about any remake/reboot film, but I was wrong. The film was hilarious. It is the funniest film of the year. The film is also surprisingly touching. It pulls at your heart strings and hits many warm nostalgic beats. I was surprised how much I loved The Muppets and how much I still love it. Waka Waka!

9. 50/50

In 2007 my Grandfather, who I called Poppa, died of cancer, so I have a soft spot for people diagnosed with cancer. I also was diagnosed with diabetes when I was 17, so I have a soft spot for young people who are diagnosed with diseases. So hypothetically 50/50 would work for me. I was a little worried about it because tales about cancer usually seem to be cheesy and try a little too hard to tug on your heart strings, but not 50/50. The film is sincere, touching, funny and relatable for me at least. It shows the struggle, heartache and awkwardness of having a deadly disease. An amazing performance by Joseph Gordon Levitt and Seth Rogan (Who I usually don’t like). The ending of this film, I found myself being surprised at how much I was getting teary eyed. This film works on so many levels and one of the most emotional films I’ve seen this year and still does this without beating you over the head with it.

8. THE FUTURE

I first like to say this film is narrated by a cat that dies half way through the film goes to Heaven and still continues to narrate. This film is weird! I could see someone not liking this film because it is not a normal film. At first it seems normal. A newly married couple takes in a cat that only has a few months to live. That is what the film starts out to be. The couple doing this forces one of them to stay at home all the time. The wife ends up staying and it starts to drive her crazy bored. The film later gets weird and sometimes confusing. There are fantasy and sci-fi elements later that come into play while still telling a story about the struggle of love.

7. KUNG FU PANDA 2

When you listen to the plot of this next film, it does not seem like it would be in any ones top ten. It is a sequel about a clumsy panda that learns kung fu, but it is great. It is even better than the first. It is a very funny movie as well. I might be able to count this is film as one of my favorite films and also one my favorite memories of 2011. I saw this film around a time of transition from a sad place to the happy place I’m at now. If I saw this film two years ago I would not have thought it was funny. I would have just shot this film down and not seen it at all. For me this film represents the change in my heart and the new love I can feel. It let me sit back and just laugh again. It let me have a good time again. Oh, and it also has cool action scenes and has good emotional moments too.

6. THE ARTIST

It’s a silent movie made in 2011. And it’s great! That’s all I need to say, but I won’t. I haven’t seen many silent films, but I do love them. For example, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. This film does a great job at keeping the attention of the audience with a silent, black and white film. Both these things I feel is a hard thing to keep the attention of the modern day audience. It’s almost poison when someone hears the words silent or black and white. I love this film and hope everyone sees it.

5. HUGO

Art can be beautiful. Art can be bad. Art is more than just a painting or a drawing. Art can be almost anything such as paintings, statues, drawings, books, plays and also movies. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a love letter to the art of film (and I feel all art in general). The film is about a boy named Hugo who lives in a clock tower and meets a grumpy old man. The films’ beginning is a tribute to how older films were made and then as the story progresses we learn more about film and the magic of it. I sometimes doubt my love of film, until I see something like this it revamps me to continue to watch and love the art of film.

4. TAKE SHELTER

Some of my favorite movies include Apocalypse Now, Black Swan or Vertigo. In these films, one or more of the characters ends up going crazy. Just like in the next film Take Shelter. The film is about a construction worker with a family that starts having these apocalyptic dreams. Eventually he starts to build an underground shelter and this becomes his focus, he becomes obsessed. This film’s plot is about the storm to come, but in a way it’s really about love and support when it’s hard to give that. This is referring to the struggle of knowing someone with this problem like his wife does, but still being there and showing support. This is a wonderful, deep, emotional film and a great disaster thriller.

3. THE TREE OF LIFE

One thing I like to say about The Tree of Life is that it’s like 2001: A Space Odyssey just less atheist. This is one of those well made films that doesn’t really have a plot or any structure much like 2001. If it’s about anything it’s about a family from the 50’s. The mom is caring, the dad is tough and the kids are kids. It follows the oldest boy as he grows up. The film is somewhat of a flashback to this time in the boy’s life. The flashback is Sean Penn’s. I don’t want to say much more about this film because you have to see it for yourself to have your own opinion about it, which is a reason I love this film.

2. THE DESCENDANTS

The next film on my list is Alexander Paine’s return to directing since 2004’s Sideways. It is a great film and may be his best. It tells the story of a husband that doesn’t have a healthy marriage, and then his wife hits her head and goes into a coma. The movie is him dealing with that and later in the film other information about his wife comes up. It is handled very well. Also like always Paine mixes dramatic and funny very well. This film kept me laughing and a few moments made me tear up. There is also a great performance by George Clooney.

1. YOUNG ADULT

When I saw Young Adult I didn’t know anything about it. If I did I might not have watched it. It is made by the same director/writer team as Juno a movie in which I despise. During the opening of the credits I saw both these names and asked “What did I get myself into?” Then I met one of the most interesting, hard to watch characters I’ve ever watched on film. She is a Young Adult book writing, writing the last book of her series. She has writers block and can’t find any inspiration. Then one day she gets a baby picture from her old High School sweetheart. She ends up becoming so angry she drives to her old town to win him back. She has seen one to many romantic movies and been treated so well her whole life there is no doubt in her mind that he will leave his wife and come with her. Her character is sad, in denial and very spoiled. This film also has an amazing performance by Patton Oswald as a man that was beaten in High School and now permanently paralyzed by it. He holds a grudge for what happen to him ever since. The film has two main characters that can’t let go or grow up. It made me realize how much I’ve grown up this year and how I will continue to grow up.

Honorable Mentions:

MONEYBALL

Great sports film about taking chances and going outside the normal way of doing things.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

It has great action, visual effects and great references to the Planet of the Apes franchise.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2

An amazing franchise with a very good closure too.

ATTACK THE BLOCK

It’s a great alien attack film with great characters.

DRIVE

Love it mostly for the elevator scene…and the great performances of Gosling and Brooks.

WAR HORSE Review

War Horse Review

By Darin Skaggs

“There are big days and there are small days.” This is a quote from Steven Spielberg’s latest film War Horse. And when I saw this film it was in fact a small day.

Steven Spielberg’s War Horse is a movie about a horse that goes to, yes you guessed it, war. The film starts out with the horse being born. Right then you know that this film will be about this horse, if you didn’t get it from the title. A boy named Albert played by Jeremy Irvin sees the horse and they bond. A few years pass and the horse is bought by the boy’s father. The father goes in to buy a horse that can plow the fields for them due to their finical trouble, but instead buys this horse because of its beauty. The horse then continues to bond with Albert and the names the horse Joey. He then trains Joey and they become closer. Unfortunately for Albert the father ends up selling the horse to the army. Joey’s journey leads him on many different adventures where he meets two young boys in the army, a little girl living with her Grandfather and a new young solider. This leads to a messy, oddly structured story that ultimately leads to no real emotional moments.

As always with Spielberg this films looks amazing. It has great sets and great looking battle sequences. One particular scene where Joey is running along on a battle field as explosions are going off around him, and like his other war films there are great war scenes with the humans as well. Another good thing about the film is the score by John Williams. It is soothing and an emotional score.

With such an emotional score you could think that it would be an emotional film, but it’s not. The horse travels along through the country and meets a bunch of different people in the war on both sides. The first one after Albert to get Joey is a new young solider that is ready for war. His story is not long and it is sad, but you do not get to know him and care about his character enough to have a real emotional pull on the reveal of his fate. This happens throughout the film. The characters Joey interacts with are briefly seen and we do not get to know them very well. The movie overall is just kind of sad. It is looking for you to care about the sad things that happen and really feel for them, but it doesn’t do that. Most of the film is just a bummer. There is no emotion pull to it at all.

There are scenes that work on an emotional scale like the bonding with the boy and the horse is well done and a scene where Joey stumbles on a farm owned by an old man and his granddaughter. In this scene the granddaughter attempts to teach Joey how to jump over a stick elevated off the ground. This scene is played for comedy and works very well. Another scene that works very well is when Joey gets wrapped around in barbwire after getting scared and freaking out. The way that scene is resolved is the type of well played emotional scenes that I wish the film had more of.

Near the ending of the film we see the boy again. He has joined the war in search for his horse. Now the scenes where the horse and the boy bond are great and work well, but I did not believe that this relationship was so close that the boy would risk his life by joining the army just to see the horse again. The ending, and most of the film, is filled with coincidences and lucky moments on both the boy and horse’s part. It pans out just right trying to leave you happy with how they resolve the story, but does not work on satisfying level.

War Horse is a sad, emotionless mess. It seemed that Steven Spielberg did not really care about the story so much and only focused on making another war film that looked good. Spielberg is one of my favorite directors but sadly this effort just left me careless, sad and not satisfied with the final product.