Vikings & Beekeepers

Whew, long time no blog. Sometimes I feel like I’m just biting more than I’m willing or have time to chew with this thing, but I like having Vikings and Beekeepers in existence as it gives me the opportunity to write about the things I love. In 2011 I decided to add “film essays” to my blogging resumé and I figured it was worthy of a year-end list as much as the (forthcoming) music list was. Unfortunately, with the rate I watch current cinema, it wasn’t worth it for me to discuss my favorite films of 2011. I’ve seen some, but not enough to put together a comprehensive solid list. What I figured I could do, however, was talk about the films I did see. And some of these are doozies. Here are the 35 best non-2011 films I saw in 2011. Why didn’t I include films from 2011? I didn’t want to, that’s why!

Before I get to the list itself, here are some of the films I saw this year that didn’t crack my list. Some of them are actually very good. Some of them were pretty disappointing. This list is in no order whatsoever.

Little Big Man (dir. Arthur Penn, 1970); Clerks (dir. Kevin Smith, 1994); Where The Wild Things Are (dir. Spike Jonze, 2009); Where The Buffalo Roam (dir. Art Linson, 1980); Encounters At The End Of The World (dir. Werner Herzog, 2007); Bound For Glory (dir. Hal Ashby, 1976); Mother (dir. Albert Brooks, 1996); Machete (dir. Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez, 2010); Revenge Of The Nerds (dir. Jeff Kanew, 1984); The Getaway (dir. Sam Peckinoah, 1972); North By Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1959); Drunken Angel (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1948); The Hit (dir. Stephen Frears, 1984); The Prestige (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2006); Serpico (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1973); Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (dir. David Lynch, 1992); Midnight Cowboy (dir. John Schlesigner, 1969); The Kids Are Alright (dir. Lisa Cholodenko, 2010); Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1950); Fast Times At Ridgemont High (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1982); Burden Of Dreams (dir. Les Blank, 1982); Terms of Endearment (dir. James L. Brooks, 1983); Defending Your Life (dir. Albert Brooks, 1991); The Ballad of Cable Hogue (dir. Sam Peckinpah, 1970); Cyrus (dir. Jay and Mark Duplass, 2010); and, of course, Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call: New Orleans (dir. Werner Herzog, 2009), a film I would have loved to include on this list, but couldn’t quite justify. Anyway, you should check it out in all its ridiculous glory.

Anyway, on to the top 35.

25. Sullivan’s Travels (dir. Preston Sturges, 1941)

Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels tries to be a lot of things at once – a slapstick farce, a Hollywood satire, a nearly maudlin message film about “the plight of the common man,” a romantic comedy and a romantic tragedy among so many other things – and nearly succeeds in all its endeavors. While I would normally gripe over its inconsistency in tone, Sullivan’s Travels is too successful across the board to be written off. OK, that’s not entirely true – the slapstick stuff clunked pretty badly with me (note to all filmmakers past and present – footage of people comically falling into a pool has never been funny ever). That said, the Hollywood satire, highlighted by an opening scene that stands as one of the all-time funniest I’ve ever seen (“With a little sex in it”), is impeccable. My apologies to the people of Pittsburgh.

The film goes in a hundred different directions after this clear highlight, but it’s rarely less than captivating. Hell, it even successfully lands a poignant point about the value of escapism (whether I buy its thesis is another story). While I was generally disappointed by a couple other films I saw this year that attempted to cross genres and tones (Sam Peckinpah’s The Ballad Of Cable Hogue and Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man both seemed pretty muddled – especially the latter), Sullivan adroitly shifted from one tone to the next without being anything less than organic – again, with the exception of the painful slapstick.

This film also wins the award for least representative movie poster in the history of cinema.

24. Some Like It Hot (dir. Billy Wilder, 1959)

Some Like It Hot is the funniest movie of all time like Sgt. Pepper’s is the greatest album of all time – it’s not. A part of the reason Some Like It Hot doesn’t quite live up to its reputation may be due to the fact that drag comedy doesn’t play after being totally subverted by Monty Python and the Kids In The Hall (it also explains my utter bafflement that Tootsie is considered in any way a great or funny movie). Or maybe it’s not as funny because Duck Soup preceded it and Blazing Saddles and Airplane! came after it. But even if Some Like It Hot is not quite the comedy zenith it’s made out to be, it’s a legitimately laugh out loud comedy featuring great dialogue, hysterical scenes and wonderful performances from Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and especially Jack Lemmon who deserves the lion’s share of the credit for this movie’s contagious energy and sense of fun. He’s just a truly marvelous performer and his scene discussing Osgood’s proposal was a perfect reading on what would have been a bad gay joke a few decades later. In fact, the only implied gay joke (and I’m not counting Tony Curtis’ funny Cary Grant impression – zing!) is pretty hysterical. I’ve been holding out on this movie for so long, and while my suspicions were confirmed that it wasn’t what AFI said it was, I remained tickled throughout – it’s certainly an all-timer.

23. Ace In The Hole (dir. Billy Wilder, 1951)

Billy Wilder takes on sensationalist journalism in this acidic 1951 box office bomb and comes away with a prescient satire that throws just as much heat today as it did when an entire nation opted to ignore its existence. Let’s get the semi-unpleastentries out of the way: Kirk Douglas walks away from this film with gigantic chunks of scenery stuck in his teeth, but it’s all in the service of a film that is just nasty fun. Douglas stars as a callous, exceedingly ambitious big city reporter forced to slum it in Albuquerque after all the major publications have sent him packing for his self-destructive, nefarious ways. After a year of small town journalism (“Even for Albuquerque, this is pretty Albuquerque”) Douglas jumps on a major story that turns out would have been a lot less major if it weren’t for Douglas’ ultimate interference. Anyway, things go south for everyone as Douglas holds court over the story of his creation. As a journalist myself, I enjoy the depiction of the small town news editor, begrudgingly putting up with Douglas’ ridiculous antics, but more than that, it’s the crackling film noir dialogue that makes this gleefully nasty film so much fun. The cynicism is palpable with this one.

22. Point Blank (dir. John Boorman, 1967)

Stylish, brutal and starring Lee Marvin as a man hell bent on getting his revenge on Dean Wormer after the dean totally boned him over on a botched robbery. This is a great movie with a cool vibe, but really all you need to know is that Marvin is a total pimp and he’s at his most badass here. Later remade as Payback, which is a dumb movie starring Mel Gibson. Don’t let that deter you, however, Point Blank is bleak, nasty and pretty damn cool.

21. Marathon Man (dir. John Schlesigner, 1976)

Marathon Man does at least one thing very well that is integral to its success as a suspense thriller – it keeps the audience in the dark for as long as possible. Throughout a large part of the film, the audience has no inkling what’s happening, who it’s happening to and why it’s happening. Here’s Dustin Hoffman as some college-age brainiac in New York. Then here’s Roy Scheider as some studly James Bond type in England. We have no idea what the two of them share in common and why we are following their paths simultaneously. There’s also talk of a Nazi war criminal and Scheider has to perform some badass karate chops on some baddies, but at no point is any of this linking back to Hoffman’s character. Eventually – like 45 minutes into the movie – their relationship is explained and some seriously bad shit starts to go down. But even then, both the audience and Hoffman are knee deep in shit that makes no sense. It actually gets to the point (that scene – you know the one I’m talking about) where Hoffman is being brutally tortured in order to provide information he simply doesn’t have the slightest ability to provide. This guy is soooo screwed and neither the character nor the audience has the foggiest idea why he’s there and how he’s going to get out of it. It’s truly exhilarating.

Then William Devane shows up and spouts a torrent of exposition in 30 seconds and the film kind of stumbles through its final act. But man was it a scary, exciting trip getting to that point. Imagine if Boorman had the audacity to leave the audience and Hoffman in the dark the entire film. How awesome would that have been?

20. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (dir. Shane Black, 2005)

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang doesn’t boast the same pedigree that some of the other films on this list do, but it has the one quality that will ensure it will stand the test of time – I could watch this over and over again. The concept of “cleverness” has been given a rough go in recent years, as it has become a dismissive term for something that is self-satisfied and shallow (think the first 15 minutes of Juno where not one character has a real moment because the damn “cleverness” of the writing keeps getting in the way). Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a nice reminder that snappy, self-aware and aggressively clever writing need not be a hindrance, but a wonderful launching off point. The writing speaks life into everything around it. Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer’s dad seem to be having a blast delivering these lines and shouldering the energy of this film’s writing. It makes for a winning combination I look forward to watching on an annual basis.

19. Solaris (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)

One of a pair of ponderously paced, exceedingly heady, pretentious pretentious pretentious Andrei Tarkovsky films I saw this year. When people talk about “art house,” they’re talking about Tarkovsky. But for as slow, philosophical and “difficult” as Solaris and Stalker are (and they are), they are positively interesting. The images that are conjured, the tone that is established, the entire atmosphere – they all add up to something challenging and riveting. Both Solaris and Stalker delve into a sort of solemn, existential sci-fi that I’ll admit I’m not exactly accustomed to, so there were times when my stupid brain got lost and my tired eyes (watched both movies around 11 at night) were challenged, but both movies, and Solaris in particular, contain singular images and ideas that have kind of floated loosely in my psyche ever since. Sometimes movies hit you right away, others just find a way to stick in your brain and not go away. Tarkovsky’s films seem to be of the latter variety. There’s something in these films that simmer.

18. Nosferatu The Vampyre (dir. Werner Herzog, 1979)

2011 was the year I really began sinking my teeth in Werner Herzog’s work and Nosferatu The Vampyre highlights one of the key aspects that attracts me to Herzog’s work: atmosphere. Now that sounds like a no-brainer when it comes to picking out a favorite aspect of a director’s work. Atmosphere is a vague term that could apply to anyone, but I can discern a Herzog film almost immediately: wet, foreboding, gray – essentially, nature is the enemy (a running theme through Herzog’s films that makes Paul F. Tompkins’ impression so funny). Herzog is a most macabre filmmaker, making it a virtual gimme for him to remake F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic, Nosferatu (which, full disclosure, I have not seen). The other reason Herzog is a natural to take on the Dracula story is because he had Klaus Kinski at his disposal; an actor intense, eerie and inherently grotesque enough to embody every intense, eerie and grotesque feature of the famous Count (this Dracula is no Tom Cruise or Count Floyd). In Kinski’s hands, Dracula isn’t a source of horror, but instead a conduit for a kind of weak-willed depravity. If vampires were real, this is who they would be.

Through it all Nosferatu never feels like a horror film. Instead, it’s a film cast under the pall of slow-moving dread, slowly, beautifully seeping into its characters lives. Herzog’s Nosferatu haunts where others screech. It hypnotizes where others splatter.

17. 8 ½ (dir. Frederico Fellini, 1963)

Of all the films on this list, Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ might be the one I’m most eager to return to. A gorgeous, occasionally surreal exploration of a filmmaker’s desire to express something resembling truth in his art and his subsequent failure to harness it in his own life, 8 ½ is far from a “one viewing is all I need to ‘get’ this one” experience. I’ll be returning to this one not just as an attempt to get another crack at tracking the “plot,” but to enjoy some of the stunning, surreal imagery. Also, there are just some terribly lovely women in this film, particularly Anouk Aimee as Marcello Mastroianni’s long-suffering wife. Seriously, how a guy could cheat on a wife like Aimee is insane to me. Than again, Claudia Cardinale ain’t so bad herself.

Anyway, this one was a lot of fun, can’t wait to watch it again.

16. The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (dir. Werner Herzog, 1974)

Do you ever imagine what it would be look to mature into adulthood without developing a point of reference for…anything? What would it be like to be dumped into this world, fully mature physically, but mentally untouched? Well it happened once and Werner Herzog and his star Bruno S do a thought-provoking job of exploring the ramifications of that both on the person it happened to (the titular Kaspar Hauser) and the world and people that subsequently surrounded him. Bruno S, Herzog’s other muse, was never an actor, but his “performance” here is a masterwork – simple, unfussy, sweet, tragic, baffled, scared and occasionally amazed. Bruno S is as unaffected a performer as you’re going to find. His blank expression provides the centre of a film that never makes any attempt to explain away the phenomenon of the man who appeared out of nowhere one morning, mute and clutching a Bible and a letter. Herzog doesn’t get bogged down in the kind of tropes that make the biopic so traditionally insufferable. Hauser is too enigmatic to understand and Herzog simply has no interest in easy answers. Who was Kaspar Hauser? By Herzog’s eye and Bruno S’s performance, he was the kind of mystery that was more fascinating to witness than to actually solve. 

15. Zodiac (dir. David Fincher, 2007)

Possibly David Fincher’s finest showing as he wrings suspense and intrigue out of a real life unsolved murder case that, while containing many compelling elements, kind of leads to nowhere (even if Fincher tries to shoehorn in a little more certainty in his conclusion than reality ever presented). A strong cast, some wonderful filmmaking and detail-oriented storytelling make Zodiac much more than a standard murder mystery, a horror film, a no frills police procedural or the combination of all three. In the end, however, what lingers the most are three specific scenes that I will never forget – one depicting unflinching brutality, another panic-inducing dread and the last a kind of frantic paranoia. If you’ve seen the film, you know what scenes I’m talking about. These are the hallmarks of a great filmmaker.

14. Au Revoir, Les Enfants (dir. Louis Malle, 1987)

Movies that revolve around all boys’ schools always contain this uneasy energy. It must be conditioning from reading Lord Of The Flies so many times – you always know some form of humiliation, emotional and physical brutality, and general mortification are just around the corner. Now take that all boys setting and place it right in the heart of German occupied France and you really have a bad case of uneasy, disconcerting cinema. In the hands of Louis Malle, a filmmaker who was able to turn a two-hour dinner conversation into a compelling feature, there is a degree of artfulness and empathy that advances the film in terms of filmmaking and storytelling. It’s still harrowing in the way all “coming of age” films tend to be and it’s deadly sad like most Holocaust pictures, but it contains a warmth that pictures of a similar ilk rarely have.

 13. Yi Yi (dir. Edward Yang, 2000)

Lovely, profound, sweet, sad and unexpectedly moving, this three-hour family drama by late Taiwanese director Edward Yang is life-affirming without being naive; touching, but not cloying. It hits a truth that is difficult to put into words. I teared up at the end of this one and I’m honestly not entirely sure why. I remember a similar feeling when I teared up at The Barbarian Invasions – it’s a wellspring of emotion, but there are no trigger points really to be found. The only other movie I saw in 2011 that got the tears flowing was Terms Of Endearment (quite good, but not great), but the emotions summoned in that one are fairly one-dimensional (not a critique, just the truth). Yi-Yi seems to show something deeper (I originally wrote “say” instead of “show,” but I can’t presume that the film is “saying” anything other than what it showed) – an imperfect life sprinkled with joy, sadness, the regret and relief of decisions not made, the melancholy confusion of youth, the confused melancholy of age, life, death, up, down, freedom, despair. It feels a lot like life. A one and a two…

12. That Obscure Object of Desire (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1977)

Luis Bunuel loves to dangle the carrot. In 1972’s The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, a group of six middle-class friends frequently meet to enjoy a dinner party that never leads to an actual meal. In 1977’s That Obscure Object Of Desire (Bunuel’s final film and one of his finest), a mature middle class man meets and falls in love with a young working class girl. The express their undying love for one another, but at no point does he ever get to consummate their relationship (even though she is still out and about, consummating several other relationships). Once again, Bunuel is punishing his protagonist to absurd effect. But the thing with Bunuel’s movies is that they’re funny in their absurdity. Whether it’s our main character, Mathieu, telling the tale of his courtship Conchita to a child, a dwarf and a priest, the fact that two totally different actresses play Conchita throughout the movie or the undercurrent of terrorism that abruptly pops into the film from time to time, Obscure can be unsettling, confusing and surprising, but above all it’s surrealism played out for the purposes of legitimate entertainment.

It’s not unlike Bunuel’s first film, 1928’s Un Chien Andalou, another film I first saw in 2011 (I didn’t include it in the list since it’s only 17 minutes long). Although the movie is intent on confusing and even disturbing its audience, they are never boring or dull. They brim with life, energy and an indefinable wit. From his first film to his last, Bunuel had a surrealist vigor with a populist touch. He’s quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites.

11. The Long Good Friday (dir. John Mackenzie, 1980)

Bob Hoskins is a London mob boss on the brink of going legit in a major business transaction with some American land developers. Everything is going wonderfully until all his men start getting capped. Something is going foul and he doesn’t know why (nor do we). This fantastic slab of Britsploitation comes alive thanks to an impossibly rad score, a ferocious performance by Hoskins as the exasperated mob boss and the second best film ending I saw in 2011. Let’s just say that the human face is capable of conveying an infinite amount of emotions and thoughts in mere seconds. Staggering entertainment.

Stay tuned for the top 10…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 10:43 am and is filed under Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.