Wild Lines

As 2011 comes to a close, so too does my participation in the year's various listmaking and best-of activities. Here's a year-in-review roundup:

For Time Out Chicago, my top ten movies of 2011.

I also wrote the introduction and 150 words on Takashi Miike's nonstop awesome 13 Assassins for InRo's Top 15 Films of 2011. Additionally, I wrote a capsule on Tune-Yards's whokill for their music list.

Finally, check out my ballots for indiewire and The Village Voice polls.

See you in 2012!

Interview: Michel Hazanavicius

2011-12-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

"Maybe I’ve seen more Hollywood movies than French movies."

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (2011)

2011-12-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

Show us a film featuring the majestic melodies of Sigur Ros, and we'll show you a filmmaker who's farming out his dramatic responsibilities.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011)

2011-12-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

This franchise hopeful feels as hollow and impersonal as anything Spielberg has ever directed.

Year in Review: The Best of VOD in 2011

2011-12-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Many of this year’s most interesting movies bypassed Chicago theaters entirely.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011)

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Cloaked in the golden glow of nostalgia, Midnight in Paris shamelessly strokes the collective ego of its audience. No wonder it’s the biggest hit of the Woodman’s career.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011)

2011-12-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

Leave it to Hollywood to take one of literature’s great thinkers and turn him into a Victorian-era action hero.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)

2011-12-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

Smiley is played by the great Gary Oldman, graying and bespectacled, in a performance of compelling drabness.

WE WERE HERE (2011)

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is a people’s history of the crisis.

PASSIONE (2010)

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

Buena Vista Social Club this is not.

TYRANNOSAUR (2011)

2011-12-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

There’s a new master of miserablism, and his name is Paddy Considine.

Interview: Steve McQueen

2011-12-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

"We didn’t know anything about sexual addiction.”

THE SITTER (2011)

2011-12-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

Is Green contractually obligated to revive every dead comedic subgenre of the ’80s?

SILENT SOULS (2010)

2011-12-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

It’s the road movie as funeral march, headlined by two stone-faced models of Eastern European stoicism.

YOUNG ADULT (2011)

2011-12-10T09:54:00.000-08:00

Theron buries herself in the ugliness of the part, albeit without Monster-style makeup.

THE HEIR APPARENT: LARGO WINCH (2008)

2011-11-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

That’s quite the clunky title for such a nimble genre exercise.

THE MUPPETS (2011)

2011-11-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

Jason Segel, a lifelong Muppet aficionado, cowrote the screenplay, and his affection for the characters lends the film a jolt of nostalgic sweetness.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

2011-11-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

It still plays like the platonic ideal of the popcorn movie.

THE DESCENDANTS (2011)

2011-11-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

As with everything the writer-director has made in the wake of 1999’s Election, the film defaults to broad comedy any time things promise to get too heavy or real.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN—PART 1 (2011)

2011-11-17T15:26:00.000-08:00

Edward Cullen is a real beast in the sack.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (2011)

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

You don’t have to be as spiteful as a Slytherin alum to recognize what’s missing from David Yates’s handsome, action-packed but strangely perfunctory swan song.

INTO THE ABYSS (2011)

2011-11-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

Even without the editorializing, this is undeniably a Herzogian enterprise.

LE HAVRE (2011)

2011-11-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Le Havre doesn’t push your emotional buttons—but then, it doesn’t push much of anything.

THE DOUBLE (2011)

2011-11-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

The waves of unintentional laughter roll in early.

PUSS IN BOOTS (2011)

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

If the mere sight of a cat with leather footwear puts you in stitches, boy does Puss in Boots have your number.

BEGINNERS (2011)

2011-10-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Excepting maybe The Tree of Life, it’s as close to memoir as any American film released this year.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)

2011-10-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

A film that understands both the methodology of cults and the psychological fallout that occurs when someone tries to break free from one.

The problem with Marvel movies

2011-10-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Comic-book movies, once a reliable source of breezy, stand-alone entertainment, have become extended, glorified previews for other comic-book movies.

TEXAS KILLING FIELDS (2011)

2011-10-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

There’s more Law & Order than Miami Vice in this TV-trained filmmaker’s bloodstream.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011)

2011-10-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

What other fright franchise inspires Pavlovian shudders of dread simply by returning, like clockwork, to the same stationary camera setups?

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2: FULL SEQUENCE (2011)

2011-10-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Even the most jaded of gorehounds may find themselves fighting the urge to flee from this vile sequel.

SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE (2011)

2011-10-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

If the Jerky Boys were the prankster all-stars of ’90s audio vérité, Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman were the movement’s odd couple.

THE BIG YEAR (2011)

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Like 2005’s Fever Pitch, it’s a comedy that explores nerdish devotion as both a uniting and an alienating force.

THE THING (2011)

2011-10-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

The flesh-splitting transmutations look like common CGI parlor tricks.

FOOTLOOSE (2011)

2011-10-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

Scene for scene, it’s the same wholesome crowd-pleaser, down to the ubiquitous Kenny Loggins theme that bookends the festivities.

THE TREE OF LIFE (2011) on VOD

2011-10-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

Scenes that once seemed conventional when stacked up against the first half’s flood of poetic abstraction now pull you in closer.

THE WAY (2011)

2011-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Grieve Pray Love would have been a better title.

TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL (2011)

2011-10-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

A sly critique of the class condescension that fuels most hillbilly horror flicks.

REAL STEEL (2011)

2011-10-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

If you go into Real Steel expecting nonstop droid-on-droid action, you’ll leave wondering who let the weepy meatsacks hog the spotlight.

Chicago International Film Festival 2011

2011-10-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

We review 70 titles in a definitive guide to the festival's first week.

TRIBULATION 99: ALIEN ABDUCTIONS IN AMERICA (1992)

2011-10-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

A delirious black-comic satire that savages both sides of the political divide.

SCREAM 4 (2011)

2011-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Scream franchise has officially climbed up its own ass.

MACHINE GUN PREACHER (2011)

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

What, was Ed Zwick unavailable?

PEARL JAM TWENTY (2011)

2011-10-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Crowe has made friends with the rock stars.

WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER? (2011)

2011-10-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

The rare romantic comedy that challenges Cosmopolitan-approved gender politics.

50/50 (2011)

2011-10-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

Like Harvey Pekar’s Our Cancer Year and Tom Green’s surprisingly moving 2001 Cancer Special, 50/50 is a comedy that searches for humor and pathos in the long uphill battle against a deadly disease.

KILLER ELITE (2011)

2011-09-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Save one good set piece—a car chase that screeches into a gnarly fistfight—the action feels as perfunctory as the price-of-murder hand wringing.

HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29 (2008)

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

A sports movie that reaches out and pulls you onto the sidelines.

SUMMER (1986) and FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE (1987)

2011-09-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Both films come alive whenever their characters are wining, dining and talking away the daylight hours.

STRAW DOGS (2011)

2011-09-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

There are few doubts as to which side of the Mason-Dixon Line we’re expected to be standing on.

LITTLEROCK (2010)

2011-09-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Like an inverted Lost in Translation.

BELLFLOWER (2011)

2011-09-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

What did Chekhov write about a flamethrower introduced in the first act?

MYSTERIES OF LISBON (2010)

2011-09-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

They might well have called it Histories of Lisbon.

DRIVE (2011)

2011-09-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

Think In the Mood for Love remade by a young Michael Mann.

SHARK NIGHT 3D (2011)

2011-09-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

We spend more time with the food than the fish.

LIFE, ABOVE ALL (2010)

2011-09-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Life, Above All lays out an insurmountable gauntlet of suffering.

HIGHER GROUND (2011)

2011-09-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Praise be to the actress who can sell a crisis of faith as its own kind of spiritual awakening.

RAPT (2009)

2011-09-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Less a thriller than a kind of cross-cutting procedural.

Interview: Vera Farmiga

2011-09-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

“I wanted someone else to direct it."

OUR IDIOT BROTHER (2011)

2011-08-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

Like a one-joke Jack Black vehicle directed by Nicole Holofcener.

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (2011)

2011-08-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

del Toro never met an adorable tyke he didn’t want to put in mortal danger.

VIVA RIVA (2010)

2011-08-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

This place isn’t far removed from the outback war zone of Mad Max.

ONE DAY (2011)

2011-08-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

The poor man’s James McAvoy, Sturgess undergoes a transformation that might best be described as cad to sad.

POINT BLANK (2010)

2011-08-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

If you can put Lee Marvin’s Walker out of your mind for an evening, this imposter is plenty of fun in its own right.

THE WHISTLEBLOWER (2010)

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Back in virtuous Constant Gardener mode, Weisz makes her real-life whistle-blower a bland pillar of unyielding moral rectitude.

SLEEP FURIOUSLY (2008)

2011-08-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Director Gideon Koppel has an expert eye—every shot here is a stunner.

THE INTERRUPTERS (2011)

2011-08-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Interrupters lacks the sheer scope of Hoop Dreams, but its sense of novelistic density and characterization is comparable.

FINAL DESTINATION 5 (2011)

2011-08-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

Just try to guess how the pretty young gymnast gets it.

YOUR HIGHNESS (2011)

2011-08-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

What happened to David Gordon Green?

WENT THE DAY WELL? (1942)

2011-08-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

A paranoid wartime treatise on the difficulty of recognizing evil, even when it’s right under your nose.

THE GUARD (2011)

2011-08-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

He’s like a lazier Bad Lieutenant—corrupt, but very casually so.

The 2011 Black Harvest Film Festival

2011-08-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Showbiz success stories dominate the 17th annual festival.

LIFE IN A DAY (2011)

2011-08-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

One day, when all people watch are webcam monologues and videos of cats, will Kevin Macdonald be remembered as the traitor who opened the multiplex gates to the barbarian hordes?

ANOTHER EARTH (2011)

2011-08-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

On some alternate Earth out there, there’s a really cool version of this movie.

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)

2011-08-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

A better Amblin imitation than Super 8.

COWBOYS & ALIENS (2011)

2011-08-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

Jon Favreau’s transformation from indie swinger to Hollywood hack is now complete.

UNCLE BOONMEE and InRo's Halftime Films of 2011

2011-07-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

If saintly Mother Grace of this year's Palme winner got lost in the tangled foliage of last year's winner, she'd see divinity much closer than the sky above her. "God lives here and there and everywhere," she might whisper, among simian specters and translucent relatives. Then she'd discover the unique talents of Thai catfish and wonder why nobody told her about that way of nature. Once you go Weerasethakul, you never go back.

See the rest of InRo's list of the best of 2011 (so far) here. It's shaping up to be a hell of a year for movies.

AUTOEROTIC (2011)

2011-07-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Yup, we’re back in the hands of Joe Swanberg, mumblecore’s most masturbatory mainstay.

INCREDIBLY SMALL (2010)

2011-07-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

Incredibly Small still gets a lot of comedic mileage out of the epic failings of a toxically bad boyfriend.

Interview: Louis C.K.

2011-07-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

“To me, jokes are comedy stoppers.”

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)

2011-07-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

The First Avenger takes us back to the ’40s, which is about the last era when one could take seriously a righteous and pure-hearted symbol of American military might.

Guilty Pleasure: LIMITLESS (2011)

2011-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Limitless is so proudly, shamelessly stupid that it’s kind of infectious.

A LOVE AFFAIR OF SORTS (2011)

2011-07-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

Did David Guy Levy kill the Flip camera?

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976)

2011-07-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Have the movies ever really gotten Bowie?

PUBLIC SPEAKING (2011)

2011-07-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

You don’t have to know a thing about Fran Lebowitz to get a kick out of Public Speaking. You do, however, have to be a fan of caustic wit and sharp, opinionated monologue. A perennial Manhattanite and revered essayist—her two major collections are Metropolitan Life and Social Studies—Lebowitz certainly possesses the gift of gab. Which is fortunate, because Martin Scorsese’s HBO-produced documentary is basically nothing but chatter, with Marty toggling seamlessly between a long-form interview with the the 61-year-old Jewish writer and an onstage Q&A between her and Toni Morrison. Throughout, Lebowitz sounds off on everything from city living to the role of the media to slightly touchier subjects like the changing nature of the civil rights movement. (“There’s a difference between being marginalized and being oppressed,” she offers, when asked about where gay rights figure into the discussion.)

Scorsese echoes the author’s sentiments with complementary film clips, setting a scene from his own Taxi Driver to her screed against the touristification of NYC. (Later, in one of the film’s few overtly stylized gestures, he recreates the same footage, with Fran now sitting in for Robert DeNiro.) By her own admission, Lebowitz prefers lecture to conversation. As such, Public Speaking offers little in the way of back-and-forth dialogue—it’s basically a one-woman show. Thankfully, this one woman is a totally engaging subject, though you can’t help but wish that Scorsese had prodded his New York contemporary into a little healthy debate. Would the famously verbose filmmaker have gotten a word in edgewise? With Lebowitz, he seems to have met his motormouthed match.

BEATS RHYMES AND LIFE: THE TRAVELS OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST (2011)

2011-07-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

Rapaport, a longtime hip-hop aficionado, directs the movie like a gushing superfan given an all-access pass.