Monday, January 9, 2012

Our Favorite Movies of 2011, Part Two (Mike & Erika)


Two more 'Best of 2011' lists, this time from Mike Pomaro and Erika Bromley. We're almost done. We promise.

Mike: In an effort to sounds like a real film critic for 2012, I'm adopting some critic-speak for my top 5 list.

5) Midnight in Paris: A love letter to the past

4) I Saw The Devil: A love letter to revenge

3) War Horse: A love letter to old-fashioned filmmaking

2) Attack the Block: A love letter to John Carpenter

1) Drive: A love letter to style


Erika: I know Top 10 lists are supposed to be in order, but how could I put Attack the Block ahead of Drive ahead of The Descendants when I loved all of them? So here are my favorite movies of the year, presented alphabetically instead of ranked.

Attack the Block
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Descendants
Drive
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Midnight in Paris
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Super 8
Winnie the Pooh
Young Adult

Honorable Mentions: Hugo,  Margin Call, War Horse

Up next: Our 2011 wrap-up finally concludes with Patrick, Doug and JB counting down their favorites on the Best of the Year podcast.

3 comments:

  1. I love that Erika hates ranking things.

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  2. Erika has the most movies (seven) that match my Top 15; Mark Ahn has three and Alex has four (including one of my two #1 picks for Best of 2011, "Melancholia"). Guess I should get around watching that Wes Anderson movie Erika mentioned she really, really likes that I've owned on Criterion DVD but haven't watched yet.

    And what's with the sudden love for "War Horse" in this site? It's an OK movie (the last shots are suitable-for-framing pretty and some of the most gorgeous photography Janusz Kaminski has ever shot for Spielberg) and some scenes (the horse running through the WWI trenches/battlefied; the charge of the British horse brigade against the German front, etc.) were really cool. But then there are the times Spielberg zooms on Joey's eye (or his CG/animatronic substitute) so we can feel the emotion and pain the horse is feeling... a freaking horse! "Au hasard Balthazar" people... that's all I have to say, although both movies feature humans whose plights and actors portraying them are the definition of mannequin-like (which is par for the course with Bresson but in a 2011 Spielberg movie is kind-of sad). Good for Mike and Erika if they liked "War Horse" though, it's just their opinions. :-)

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  3. HI J.M.!!! I am glad our lists match up so closely (even if we disagree on WAR HORSE... although I could only name it as an honorable mention - I thought it had honorable intentions!). Thanks for reading!!

    Every year I rank my list, but this year was too hard - not because I thought the movies were better than years past... I thought my pickings were slimmer this year, and I just could not choose an order! Maybe I'll figure it out eventually... :)

    -Erika

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