Top 10 Films of 2011

Click on each title for my review of that film.

1) Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

2) Submarine (dir. Richard Ayoade)

3) Beginners ¹ (dir. Mike Mills)

4) Hugo (dir. Martin Scorsese)

5) Martha Marcy May Marlene ² (dir. Sean Durkin)

6) Midnight in Paris (dir. Woody Allen)

7) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (dir. David Fincher)

8) Shame (dir. Steve McQueen)

9) Young Adult (dir. Jason Reitman)

10) The Adventures of Tintin (dir. Steven Spielberg)

¹ Beginners is an emotionally honest story about love and family. Writer/director Mike Mills uses inventively creative narrative functions to tell a semi-autobiographical story. Christopher Plummer delivers a powerful performance as Ewan McGregor's dying father, who comes out as gay in his seventies, shortly after the passing of his wife. The father/son relationship is all sorts of tearjerking.

² Elizabeth Olsen delivers an out-of-nowhere, chillingly low-key, breakout performance as a troubled, emotionally damaged young woman running away from her past and struggling to re-assimilate in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Newcomer Sean Durkin's controlled, patient direction sublimates expectations and delivers essentially a terrifying horror film experience without the violence.

You can read all my film reviews here.


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