In Rotation 16 | Art of the State 17 | Foodfinds 18 | Fi¬m 20 Left: Channing Tatum earns some cool points for this funny remake of 21 Jump Street with Jonah Hill.
Right: Awestruck, as you’ll be when you see Moonrise Kingdom. Middle: Liam Neeson is just a badass in The Grey. I mean, look at him. Below: The Pirates! A Band of Misfits, and no Johnny Depp in sight. Right: Project X. One of the worst.
Half FAST This movie year is not plodding along as slowly as last year. Here are the 10 best and worst. by Bob Grimm |
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B G R I M M @ N E W SR E V I E W . C O M
hile this hasn’t been an overly exciting movie year so far, it’s shaping up to be a better one than last year. At the midyear point of 2011, I was already calling it one of the worst movie years imaginable, a fact that stuck when the year changed over. Here’s this year’s midyear report card. I was able to find 10 films I liked, so that’s an improvement. The “found footage” phenomenon continues, though, so that’s a blight on any year.
The Best So Far 1. Moonrise Kingdom: Wes Anderson returns to live action after Fantastic Mr. Fox with a very Wes Anderson movie. Great cast, awesome cinematography, and shot-for-shot genius. Any year where Anderson makes a movie is a happier movie year for me. 2. The Grey: Liam Neeson should be an Oscar contender for his work as a man battling harsh snowy wilderness and wolves after a plane crash. Joe Carnahan’s movie is a great survival flick, and an excellent monster movie to boot. There are a lot of people out there whining about the ending. To these people I say: “AAAAHHHH SHUDDUPPP!!! 3. The Avengers: A rousing, funny, overall exciting meeting of the Marvel superheroes that has made a huge impact on the box office but, most importantly, depicts the Incredible Hulk in a
way that most everybody seems to be happy with. Well, perhaps Edward Norton isn’t a fan. And maybe Eric Bana, but everybody else is stoked. 4. Prometheus: Ridley Scott’s return to the Alien universe is a mind bending and somewhat perplexing movie that qualifies as one of the year’s most beautifully shot films. Scott has used 3-D technology much to his advantage. Oh, sure, the film’s logic is all over the place, but I don’t really care. Bring on more Prometheus movies, please. 5. Bernie: Jack Black gives one of the year’s best performances thus far as Bernie, the real life murderer of an elderly widow (played by Shirley MacLaine) in Carthage, Texas. Richard Linklater, reteaming with his The School of Rock star, knows how to handle Black better than anybody.
BIG HE ADERS GIZA 25pt 25k SMALL HEADERS GIZA 15pt 55k (60% OF BIG HE AD)
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6. The Pirates! Band of Misfits: There’s an oddball sense of humor at the heart of this stop-motion gem from the creators of Wallace & Gromit. It’s extremely entertaining, and should stand as one of the year’s best animated efforts. 7. Last Days Here: This documentary catches up with Bobby Liebling, lead singer of heavy metal group Pentagram, living in his mom’s house and whacked out on drugs. A fan finds him, and works hard to get his frazzled ass back on stage. It’s highly absorbing stuff. 8. 21 Jump Street: Channing Tatum is, surprisingly, a laugh riot in this R-rated comedy very loosely based on the Johnny Depp TV show. Features what will surely stand as the year’s best cameos and Ice Cube doing what may be his best screen work to date. Jonah Hill helped come up with the idea for this reboot, and he fashioned quite the funny vehicle for himself and Tatum.
