This is our pick of the films screened in SA cinemas during 2011. The list excludes 2011 films such as Hugo, The Descendants and The Artist that have yet to be released in SA. By Lance Harris.
10. Moneyball
You don’t need to be a fan of baseball to enjoy Moneyball, an underdog story about a struggling major-league baseball team that uses the voodoo of statistical analysis to compete more effectively against better funded rivals. The Brad Pitt vehicle is a mostly factual story about the battle between technology and tradition in big-league sports with a witty script and a great cast. It avoids most of the sports film clichés by focusing on the boardroom battles rather than the heroics on the field.
9. Horrible Bosses
Who would have thought the film that best captures the zeitgeist of recession-battered late capitalism would be a lewd comedy starring Jason Bateman? Unable to quit their jobs in a down economy, a trio of wage slaves with uncertain career prospects decide to do the next best thing and bump off their awful superiors.
Somehow, the cast and their chemistry make this dubious set-up work perfectly. Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Anniston and Colin Farrell have hilarious turns as the bosses from hell.
8. Never Let Me Go
Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go captures perfectly the pathos and the philosophical complexity of Kazuo Ishiguro’s celebrated dystopian novel. Like the book, the film used the idea of human cloning as a launch pad for an exploration of heavy themes such as regret, fate, social repression and mortality. With moving performances, beautiful photography and haunting ideas, it is a masterful adaptation of a difficult novel.
7. Hanna
A sort of mash-up of Run Lola Run and Leon (The Professional), Hanna is a stylish fable about a 16-year-old girl (played by Saoirse Ronan) raised to become an assassin. Director Joe Wright, who also worked with Ronan in Atonement, makes a compelling film from an odd mix of espionage action and fairy tale whimsy. This is an offbeat, hypnotic thriller with expertly choreographed action sequences that feels unlike anything else we saw this year.
6. Rango
Rango reunited Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski with Johnny Depp for a surreal animated feature equally inspired by the dark Wild West of Django and El Topo and the neo-noir of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. Bold and hallucinatory, Rango is clearly meant more for parents than the children accompanying them to the cinema. With an inventive visual style, witty pop references and wonderful voice acting from a range of character actors, it is the best animated film of the year.
5. Contagion
Contagion, from director Steven Soderbergh, is a thoughtful and realistic look at what might happen to humanity if a deadly virus were to sweep across the planet, killing one in every four of the people it infects. With low-key acting performances and filmed to feel much like a documentary, Contagion is all the more frightening for the detached manner in which it tracks the breakout of the disease over a few hundred days. It is as pacey and exciting as any other blockbuster this year, but also takes an intelligent look at themes that are resonant in the wake of a range of recent natural disasters, the swine and bird flu scares, and the WikiLeaks scandals.
4. Winter’s Bone
The award-winning country noir Winter’s Bone is one of the most haunting films of the year. It has a low-key feel, thanks to its naturalistic camerawork, careful pacing and understated performances. But beneath its surface, the indie film about a Missouri teenager’s search for her missing father blazes with white-hot intensity. Jennifer Lawrence’s subtle performance in the film turned her into a star and rightly so.
3. Super 8
Super 8, from Star Trek and Cloverfield director JJ Abrams, is a charming, nostalgic tribute to 1980s blockbusters such as The Goonies, ET — The Extra Terrestrial, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Just like Steven Spielberg, JJ Abrams shows an intuitive feel for the terrors and wonders of late childhood in his film about military conspiracy and mysterious happenings. With its likeably gawky heroes, Super 8 shows how much better a summer blockbuster is when as much attention is paid to the characters as to the special effects.
2. Drive
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn uses Drive’s hackneyed bungled heist plot to fashion a moody crime thriller with a distinctly European sensibility. Ryan Gosling’s mesmerising performance as the brooding, laconic driver is sure to turn him into an A-list star.
By turns brutal and lyrical, Drive is a sleek, classy neo-noir with a dry wit and some superbly filmed car chases. It is as masterfully put together as the William Friedkin and Michael Mann films that it emulates.
1. True Grit
Perhaps the most straightforward film Joel and Ethan Coen have made, True Grit is a testimony to their artistry and craftsmanship. A new version of a novel that also inspired an earlier John Wayne film, True Grit is a warm celebration of the Western genre. This is a film that goes back to the fundamentals of good moviemaking: strong characters played by great actors, good pacing and plotting, and skilful cinematography. It is a film with an elegant classicalism that ranks alongside The Searchers or Unforgiven as a genre great. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
Honourable mentions
Attack the Block: A quick-witted London council estate answer to District 9 that delivers the low-budget monster thrills.
Black Swan: Darren Aronofsky’s outré psychodrama featuring Natalie Portman as a ballerina on the verge of a nervous breakdown is one of the most audacious films of the year.
Captain America: A breezy retro-futuristic fantasy, Captain America is the best of Marvel’s three major superhero films of the year.
Fright Night: A remake of the 1980s vampire flick of the same name, Fright Night strikes a perfect balance between campiness and chills.
Jane Eyre: A passionate but tasteful reading of Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic romance from director Cary Joji Fukunaga.
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