This year was difficult to address. In 2010 I was able to have an unmatched favorite. This year I have a lot of favorites, but none that rise to the number one spot. Not like last year when I had a sure winner with The Social Network.
I compiled my grades for 2009 – 2011. Averaged each year’s grades and got a clear indication of how awesome that year’s films were based on my perfect opinion. The numbers within the parentheses show how many films I saw that year. Then there’s the A+ and F. The numbers after them show how many films I gave that grade during that year.
2008 – B.2 (110) A+ = 7 F = 0
2009 – B.1 (98) A+ = 9 F = 1
2010 – B.4 (95) A+ = 8 F = 0
2011 – B -.7 (79) A+ = 1 F = 1
This shows how good 2008 and 2009 were, how awesome 2010 was and how terrible movies in 2011 was. I saw 16 films less in 2011 than in 2010 and 31 less than 2008. Proving how SUCKY this year has been for films. Look at the films nominated for Golden Globes. BORING.
This is my list of TOP 10 FILMS IN 2011.
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2
JJ Rating: A
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have been the Trinity of Harry Potter since the beginning. With each film, they’ve enhanced their characters that were once just words on a page. They put the final touches on the characters they’ve embodied for a decade, and it was a magical, final touch.
9. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
JJ Rating: A
There’s so many fight scenes and every single one is AWEsome. This is the action movie of the year, not that crappy stupid Fast and Furious Infinity. And my opinion counts a thousand more than any whacked out duchebrain that liked that film as a great action film.
8. Warrior
JJ Rating: A-
The film is a male oriented. This isn’t a feminized male film with faux emotions. This is how the male mind works. Very within. Less talking, more physical. The way the brothers talked, the way the father-son conversations went…it made sense to me. It worked so well. It didn’t water it down like many films do.
7. Super 8
JJ Rating: B+
It created a time machine in my mind and brought my childhood back. Uber awesome.
6. The Muppets/Winnie the Pooh
JJ Rating: A
Without meaning too, Winnie the Pooh might be one of the funniest films this year. Not the funniest, but one of them. Its wit plays off well thought out events and lines. Some films this year are gross funny, haha for a moment. They’re forgetting that films are created for entertainment for years to come, more than just that moment.
JJ Rating: A+
Hearing and seeing the theme from “The Muppet Show” brought me back to when I was younger. It’s a feeling of warmth (not the same as peeing on oneself) that not many things can bestow. It’s a wholesome feeling. Very rare to feel that for any film that’s out right now.
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love
JJ Rating: A
Whoever did the trailer did a phenomenal job. It gave NOTHING away but the bare bones. So much goes on in this film that if any of it was given away in the trailer, then the film would have not been as great.
4. Captain America: The First Avenger
JJ Rating: A
Captain America welded together humor, action and drama as well as any superhero film, especially The Dark Knight , I say that because I never recalled feeling a tinge of sadness watching Batman, ever.
3. X-Men: First Class
JJ Rating: A
The story. Fantastic. I had doubts about this film from the onset because it’s FIRST CLASS and there’s no Cyclops or Jean Grey. But they impressed me a lot. It was also impressive how they retold certain areas of X-Men lore that any X-Fan knows. I’m hardcore and still found the retelling as great as the original in the comics.
2. Thor
JJ Rating: A
Thor is everything that a summer movie should be as well as a superhero movie should be. A standard that Marvel has created with Iron Man only to step it up with Thor the mighty Marvel movie that jumpstarts Summer with a fresh bolt of refreshing lightning. The God of Thunder trumps the silver screen. One can only imagine how great Captain America will be when it arrives. I use to think that Captain America was the one to watch out for, and I still do, but now it has to outdo Thor . And the only way it can do that is by inviting me to the premiere of Captain America. So not joking.
1. 50/50
JJ Rating: A
It has a lot of humanity in it. If I were to offer up films to aliens who didn’t know about humans films to bring them up to speed, I’d pick this one.
Honorable Mentions
The Help
Atlas Shrugged
Cars 2
Limitless
Rise of thePlanet of the Apes
Source Code
Bridesmaids
In a year that had a plethora of crap released week after week, it was hard to compile the worst without including 80% of the films I reviewed. I narrowed it down to ten. Most (if not all) were rated from D+ down to F.
10 WORST FILMS OF 2011
10. Cowboys & Aliens
JJ Rating: D+
4. The idea was better in conception than birth.
7. I almost fell asleep…many times.
9. Unknown
JJ Rating: D+
Unknown should have not only stayed that way, but I shouldn’t have ever sat there and watch it.
8. Ides of March
JJ Rating: D+
Two white men running in the Democratic Primary? Really? How the hell is that creative? Movies are fantasy. They are not really reality and if you’re bound by what is real, you will get nowhere fast. I cannot believe a party of HOPE AND CHANGE would go for just two white men. Just a tad bit of creativity. A woman. A black woman. An Asian woman. A gay man. Two white men…is so every President since before Obama.
7. In Time
JJ Rating: D+
Cruddy writing. I cannot believe someone read this and went OMG I’s gotta do this. Morons. It was so boring. The lines were cruddy. They lines were cliché. The lines stunk of uncreative mind.
6. Beastly
JJ Rating: D+
It’s worse (and I know some people think that’s not possible) than The Last Airbender .
5. Red Riding Hood
JJ Rating: D
Red Riding Hood is boring and not thrilling and I wouldn’t ever want to see it again. The script is bland and I can’t remember a single line from it. I don’t even want to remember a single line from it.
4. Paul
JJ Rating: D
I watched. I waited. I watched. I waited. However, the humor never really came. A few chuckles here and there, but nothing worth remembering. It lacked anything original and had everything an angry atheist could dream of. They poked fun at rednecks. Oh wait, I’ve never seen that before. In. My. Life. Wow. So new. So creative. So funny—if this were the 90’s.
3. Sucker Punch
JJ Rating: D
I bought the storyline. As in, I didn’t find it silly or cheesy. The problem was that the story I watched bored me to tears. TEARS….of pain and sorrow. I wanted to sleep. I did.
2. Your Highness
JJ Rating: D-
The only reason Your Highness didn’t get a F is because I’m nice. And that’s rare. Thank James Franco and Natalie Portman.
1. Breaking Dawn Pt. 1
JJ Rating: F-
OMG, the back and forth with the I love you, no I love you, NO I LOVE YOU a lot…was disgusting. Every time they kissed I wanted to not throw up. I tried really hard not to throw up. This film literally made me sick to my stomach. It should be illegal that so many cliches were able to congregate in one film. And the person that allows it should be shot, a lot…in the face.
2011 was mainly forgettable. The terrible movies will be forgotten. My Top 10 are awesome, but it’s unfair that they were released in such a dismal and boring year for film.
On to 2012.
On to the Golden Globes were I’ll whine about the crappy nominees and how Thor, Captain America and X-Men First Class were ignored for the talents that made them great. Not to mention the blatant ignoring of Winnie the Pooh. It was far better than at least one of the nominees in Best Animated Film. Not to mention these dumb people’s need to nominate crap that no one sees. If you want to do that, take it off the air. And what’s up with not nominating Tom Hiddleston for best Supporting Actor? Stupid.
Then on to the Oscars, only, I’m sure, to be disappointed by their lack of nominating the best and only nominating the films that strive too hard to get the nods.
At least there’s the new Star Trek film, The Avengers and the new Spider-Man. Slightly hopeful for 2012, even though we’re all going to die. Dumb Mayans.