Films of 2011 Part 8: 30-21

So I’m winding down the countdown now (or ramping up, I’m not sure which) and we’re starting to get into that territory of separating the truly great and memorable films from the pack. In all honesty, I’ve actually disliked every single movie I’ve reviewed so far, and what follows are my first genuinely positive thoughts. That, by the way, is what is called upping the ante. How an idiot does it.

#30. The Wrestler (2008, Darren Aronofsky)

I realise this is a simple case of a great film that everybody loved when it came out, and I was just late to the party. I also realise this is the third film I’ve put on this list that features some kind of performance fighting, but as anyone who’s seen this will know, this one is quite singularly brilliant. Mickey Rourke puts in a powerhouse performance as the ageing Randy “The Ram” Robinson as he struggles to come to terms with his failing health and tries to fill the voids in his life. This is the second Aronofsky film in the space of five countdown blocks I know, and it’s a coin-toss really to decide which exerted more power over me. Here Aronofsky displays not just visual flair but a genuine intimacy with his subject, and manages to create a masterwork that is touching and emotional at the same time as it is just exhilarating fun.

#29. Sherlock Jr (1924, Buster Keaton)

One of my top 250 catchup and possibly the easiest film to watch at a meagre 63 minutes. I have to admit a secret love of really clever physical comedy, and to me Buster Keaton is in a league of his own. Here he plays a smitten cinema projectionist who daydreams about being a detective, and uses his far-fetched fantasies to try and win back the girl of his dreams. As with all silent comedies, there’s a huge silliness factor here but if you’re willing to forego the sophisticated appreciation of the filmic art for a while this is a really delightful film. It works largely through the physical genius of Keaton, who puts himself through the trials to create laugh after laugh. It’s undeniably a simple story, but when it’s as well told and entertaining as this, one can’t help but wonder why more films don’t attempt the same.

#28. Black Swan (2010, Darren Aronofsky)

Hang on, what is this? Three Aronofsky works in six films? He’s only made five! Okay, Jez’s sorting program, you’re the boss. I guess it shows what I think of Aronofsky as a filmmaker, that on the enjoyment factor (because remember, these films are ranked on my enjoyment rather than idiosyncratic quality) he doesn’t quite reach the pinnacle but they all become clumped around the ‘well above average’ mark. The thing about Black Swan that I saw disappointingly few critics discuss at the start of this year is that the story itself is tired and hackneyed, and there is nothing particularly clever about the script. Where the film succeeds so brilliantly is in the gloomy feel and flurrying pace that Aronofsky sets for it, that sucks you in and puts you comprehensively through the wringer. I personally thought Natalie Portman’s performance was a little overblown and in some ways just going through the melodramatic paces that, again, owe more to Aronofsky than anybody else. Don’t get me wrong, she was good, but I was disappointed when Best Actress went to this more overt and highly charged role than someone else who I might mention in, say, one film’s time? I’m not afraid to say that all the credit for this excellent thriller should go to the director, who weaves a brutal psychological ordeal out of otherwise quite conventional threads. Although actually, part of the credit has to go to that other well-known –ofsky/ovsky whose haunting Swan Lake score pervades most of the drama here.

#27. The Kids Are All Right (2010, Lisa Cholodenko)

Every year, it seems, there is an unconventional but highly socially relevant comedy that kind of becomes everybody’s darling around awards season. I’m speaking of Juno, Little Miss Sunshine and this year I’d say 50/50 at least believes it is. While The Kids Are All Right won a lot of acclaim and kept cropping up in the Oscar nods, I feel it didn’t quite win the love of previous years’ representatives in that category I’ve created. However, I’d have to rank it up as probably my favourite. There’s a simplicity to the way this story is told, with none of the surrealism of scriptwriting that seems to invade comedies these days, exaggerating some characters’ foibles to increase the comic factor. Here the comedy grows organically (ha, because Mark Ruffalo’s character is an organic nursery guy, haha) from the situation and is pulled off masterfully by the wonderfully awkward performances. Ruling the roost, though, is the towering performance of Annette Bening who again missed out on her long-overdue Oscar, I think unfairly this year. Her on-screen persona here is so finely nuanced and subtle that it’s not surprising, albeit disappointing, that Academy voters managed to overlook it while watching Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis make out. I’m just going to put out a challenge: watch the scene at the dinner party, after Bening has visited the bathroom and she returns to the table – shocked, confused, in a whirl, but striving so hard to maintain her customary composure while her world seems to crumble around her – and tell me that there is a microsecond of falsity in her face.

#26. Mary & Max (2009, Adam Elliot)

Reviewing this film reminds me of that line from Black Books – “I was immolated in a firewall of charm and charisma”. If ever a real-life example could merit that review, this is it. Part of my top 250 catch-up, it’s an apparently little-seen claymation from Australia that tells the story of a lonely young girl with an alcoholic mother who picks a random name out of a New York phone book to write to. The name she picks out is Max Horowitz, a similarly lonely old Jew suffering from Asperger’s. The two then strike up a firm friendship via written correspondence as Mary grows up and Max grows old. The film begins with a childish abandon to the world of fancy in a way reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Noel Fielding, but soon begins to navigate the murky and uncertain waters of adult problems, and Mary & Max’s relationship turns complex and interesting. I felt at first that this film was a little too charming, in that it’s almost smugly aware of its own cutesy factor. Looking back though, I recognise the charm as a false flag, and that the story being told here is actually very dark and in some ways disturbing. Yet it somehow manages to achieve the impossible feat of telling this dark fable in an immolatingly charming way.

#25. Hannah & her Sisters (1986, Woody Allen)

For those who are tired of my Woody Allen references, I can assure you that this one tops the heap for this year, and he won’t receive a mention beyond this. Hannah and her Sisters tells the story of Hannah, and her sisters. Okay, let’s start again. More importantly, it tells the story of a year in their life, as they learn and explore themselves, their wants and needs and vices. Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and Diane Wiest all bring a gutsy charisma to each of their flawed sisters. It seems a shame that Woody Allen is being harangued these days for his inability to write women, when you look back at the simplistic beauty of his Chekhovian trio in this film. Admirable support comes from the director himself and of course the ultra-smooth Michael Caine in his first Oscar-winning performance. What makes this film stand out, though, is that in spite of all the problems, the lies and hostility exhibited throughout, it’s turned somehow into a sweet, romantic film with a warm and fuzzy ending. Yet nothing about it seems contrived or insincere; it’s just a cleverly wrought story by a true auteur.

#24. The Ides of March (2011, George Clooney)

Let me just come right out and say it: George Clooney is an excellent director. Yes, he’s charming and silver-haired and deliciously sardonic as well, but to this day he has not only not made a bad film, but he is building himself a very solid oeuvre of sophisticated drama that any filmmaker could envy. This, to my mind, is his best to date. Gripping, clever and brilliantly ambivalent, he avoids all the glittering temptations that might confront someone trying to make a taut political drama. There is no political agenda here, no good guy/bad guy line drawn in the sand; there are just ordinary, imperfect people feeding their ambitions, and confronting the situations they are faced with. The cast here is as good as it gets: to my mind, having P S Hoffman and Paul Giamatti as rival campaign managers is cinematic ecstasy, and add to that the youthful charm and gravitas of Ryan Gosling in the lead role and you have yourself a sure thing. To put it simply, this film is great in a way that all films should aspire to be.

#23. Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)

Again, I have to confess something, friends: this was the first, and remains the only, Spike Lee joint I’ve smoked. But what an intoxicating and addictive first taste this was. Twenty-four hours of the hottest day of the year in a small neighbourhood of Brooklyn where the communal melting pot of African- and Italian-Americans is sitting on an overheating stove ready to blow. There’s a wonderful sense of impending doom to this film, as we watch the pressure build and bubble it’s clear that something bad is about to happen, but we don’t know what. Lee directs with a pow-pow panache that works best here with its large cast of well-drawn characters and vignette structure. While the film is drenched with searing social and political commentary, it also manages to be accessible entertainment, and there is a dark, cynical irony cast over the whole situation that I found irresistible. Fight the power!

#22. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, Elia Kazan)

This is the film that sparked off my top 250 catchup, not being a part of it per se but marking the moment when I realised how many truly great films I’d just never bothered to watch. Another inner-city drama of simmering tensions, the catalyst here is the wounded and self-important character of Blanche, and her intrusion onto a rickety bridge between two people already set to snap. It’s a real marvel to watch a young, sexy Marlon Brando in his prime as Stanley Kowalski, working so well with a melodramatic Vivien Leigh starring role as Blanche. When I watched this, I was given far more bang than I expected (obviously, I had in my mind Ned Flanders singing “Can’t you hear me yell-a, you’re puttin’ me through Hell-a, Stella!”), and the arc of the story is such that the climax is a genuinely crushing blow. This film gave me a new way of defining an idealist: an idealist is someone who hears Stella deliver her final lines, and believes her.

#21. The Thin Blue Line (1988, Errol Morris)

In a year when I tried to catch up with as many documentaries as I could, it’s fitting that I lead into my top twenty with one of the absolute classics. Demonstrating that film, when used correctly, can change the world, Errol Morris’ hard-hitting journalistic documentary confronts us with the story of a hitchhiker who got himself accidentally charged with the murder of a police officer due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. Morris, in his probing style, doesn’t take an obvious position, but simply presents us with the evidence as it wasn’t presented in court – i.e. Through the visual lens of a camera, recreating some of the scenarios as told by eyewitnesses, and exposing the inconsistencies and circumstantial nature of much of the testimony. This film famously managed to get the hitchhiker’s conviction overturned, and blatantly inspired a generation of filmmakers and journalists to seek the uncomfortable truth at all costs. On its own, however, The Thin Blue Line stands as a monument of narrative reportage.

We now stand on the brink of the top 20, and my excitement levels have risen to 'mildly bemused'. Tune in later today as I crack into that barrel of truly outstanding films.