#2011movies

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Artist (2011)

If you haven’t seen The Artist, you’re missing out. While some of the numerous awards it won may be tied to its veneration of old Hollywood, this could easily be your new favorite. Yes it’s in black-and-white, yes it’s silent and features artists you probably haven’t heard of, but this is no vanity project and neither is it artsy for art’s sake. This picture is a glowing example of the way limitations breed creativity. When it comes to its visuals, storyline, acting, and writing, it stuns.

Beginning in 1927, the story follows silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) and his faithful dog Jack. George is on top of the world when suddenly, a new innovation in technology threatens his stardom: sound. As he struggles to adjust to a changing world, a young actress, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) rises through the Hollywood ranks.

I have tremendous admiration for this film. Not only because it’s gutsy to make a silent, black-and-white picture. I respect it for the clever way it shapes its story, how it takes what should be a handicap and makes it a strength. What better way to immerse you in the setting than to make a film that looks and feels authentic to the period?

Director Michel Hazanavicius (who also wrote the film) makes The Artist so much more than the sum of its parts. The picture’s intertitles (the cards that appear with the dialogue being spoken) are a great example. Modern cinematic techniques mean there are very few but what's happening is unmissable due to the performances, uses of music, zooms, the way the shots are framed. What percentage of conversation do experts say is non-verbal again? So it makes sense that you don't really need to hear or read the words said; you just need to see how it impacts the characters. This film is about the performances and the story, not the dialogue.

When we get intertitles, they're cleverly used. Think about any mystery novel. How often does the author deliberately leave information out to enhance the story? You’ll read something akin to “Through the ventilation grate, he heard a voice say ‘Your day has come now Johnny’ and then, a gunshot”. In a movie, that scene wouldn’t work. The killer's voice would give their identity away. In a silent picture, that kind of trick works. The Artist takes full advantage of its medium in a way other films wish they could.

Most importantly, this is a terrific comedy, a poignant drama, and a romance that makes you fall in love with the characters. The actors have so much charisma they don’t need to say anything. As soon as you see Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo together, you know there’s something special there. It may be in black-and-white but there’s a full color wheel of emotions to savor.

It’s a story that gets better upon repeat viewings. After the conclusion, you reconsider a slew of the other scenes before them, giving you a whole new insight into the characters. I remember working at the video store when The Artist was released on home video. I recommended it to everyone looking for a love story, a comedy, or something different. I remember my heart breaking when someone who couldn’t have been more than 10 years my senior said “it’s probably a movie my dad would like, but not me”. It breaks my heart even more, having just re-watched it. There’s not one element of The Artist that makes it for a niche audience. This is a universal film anyone can enjoy. (On Blu-ray, September 23, 2016)

[aidene]

The Help (2011)

“Change begins with a whisper”

Mississippi 1960. An aspiring journalist and the african american maids. A white woman who told the story about the suffering of black women. Their untold stories and experiences. This is a story that argues about racist behaviours and human exploitation, about social rules and the courage of defending righteness. A story that makes us think about fair and unfair. A story that shows us that everyone isn’t the same, white or black, women or men, old or young. You can choose who you want to be. P.s. Movies like these trigger you, they make you think about life and how nice it is to live your free life. The performances of Viola Davis , Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard are magnificent so as the images of the film. It’s worth watching every single time

Genre: Drama

Written by: Tate Taylor

Directed by: Tate Taylor

Based on the novel by : Kathryn Stockett

[mrmossmichael]

It's been 10 years since Monte Carlo 2011 movie came out on July-1-2011 and I have to be honest with y'all: it's the GREAT movie I've ever watched. It's about three young American women including Grace Bennett (@selenagomez22), her stepsister Meg Kelly (@leightonmmeesterdaily) and her best friend Emma Perkins (@katiecassidyicons) vacationing in Paris who find themselves whisked away to Monte Carlo after one of the girls is mistaken for a British heiress named Cordelia Winthrop-Scott. I mean, there are two Selena Gomez' characters in one movie. The late Corey Monteith who plays Emma's boyfriend named Owen Andrews before he passed away on July-13-2013.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Howling: Reborn (2011)

I’ve never read The Howling or its sequels, but they must be some of the greatest werewolf novels of all time. Why else would the eighth film in the franchise be yet another adaptation of the second book? Yup. We have yet another sequel that has nothing to do with any of the previous chapters. What's this one about?

Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron) is just a regular guy, about to graduate from high school. Will pines after the hottest girl in his grade, but Eliana (Lindsey Shaw) doesn’t even know he exists because she’s dating the rich class bully (Niels Schneider as Roland) to whom no rules apply. Things become much more serious and deadly when Will encounters a werewolf at a graduation party.

What we have here is a director who saw Twilight and decided to re-imagine The Howling for a whole new generation of teen girls. Sounds like a bad idea on paper. It’s even worse on film. I accidentally missed VII, but I’m just going to say it anyway. This is easily the worst film in the franchise. We’ve seen were marsupials, Transylvanian werewolves that can only be killed with titanium bullets, mystery plots with comical musical cues, and lycanthropes so bad they looked more like sasquatches but this triumphs over them all.

This film is set in one of these schools where bullies can do whatever they want. Cutting someone in the neck, making death threats, physically assaulting other students, or bringing a gun to school is just business as usual for Eliana’s boyfriend and his cronies. None of their activities are reported to the authorities. Or maybe the teachers do know what's going on and just don’t do anything. Wouldn't be a shock when no one in this story acts like a human being. Our main character doesn’t even know what a werewolf is. How is that even possible?

Treat yourself to some of the worst camera work ever by watching The Howling Reborn. It’s one thing to use jittery camera work to hide your low-budget monster, but this technique is taken to a new level here. Simple scenes that require the tiniest choreography are made completely incoherent by a cameraman playing hot potato with their camera. You'll be made dizzy and nauseous as the camera circles around the simplest of scenes for no reason.

As the film progresses, it becomes more and more Stephenie Meyer-esque. Once our protagonist takes off his glasses, the tormented Edward-lookalike becomes increasingly concerned with the girl of his dreams. Then there’s a bunch of doomed romance stuff that'll make you think “please just get back to the rotten werewolf plot”. Too bad it isn't immune to the creeping infestation of badness. Will proves himself dumber than you thought humanly possible and then we get ludicrous revelations about his past. It makes less sense the more I think about it and the shoddy performances don’t help sell you on it at all.

Would you believe that every flaw I’ve listed is still secondary to the dialogue and soundtrack? Some of my favorite bits of dialogue include:   “He’s outgrown my usefulness to you my boy. Now it’s my turn.” “You don’t understand. Every second I’m with you is about restraint, reining myself in because the more I want you.” “I’ve always been scared of letting anyone in, or maybe I’ve been really scared of letting me out.” “It’s like somewhere along the way we were told that knowing too much about a partner somehow makes love less exciting.. we were led to believe wrong.” “I don’t want to lose you even though I feel like I’ve been seriously damaged by this relationship.”

Now read these lyrics and tell me a movie that features them could be worth anything: “I can take a punch; I don’t mind bleeding; as long as as afterwards you feel bad for me…” “The book of love is long and boring; no one can lift the damn thing; it’s full of charts; And facts and figures; And instructions for dancing; But I love it”

You’ve got to see The Howling: Reborn to believe it. It’s got one head-scratcher after another, like random electrical wires used as a defibrillator and teenagers deciding to have sex in the middle of a werewolf attack. It’s too bad two things preventing it from being truly “so bad it’s good”. Firstly, almost everything noteworthy or ironically amusing comes in the last half hour. For the most part, the picture is dull. The second is that this movie is rated PG-13. If your movie can’t be good, at least make it sleazy. There’s a scene in which two couples are getting ready to have sex… and nobody gets naked! There’s barely any gore. The money shot of any werewolf movie: that first full transformation scene is generated by the same special effects they used in the Animorphs TV show. It's pathetic.

Despite my low rating. I would recommend The Howling Reborn IF you meet the following criteria: you have seen at least half of the previous films in the series, you can get the movie for free/the price of a subscription, and you’re a werewolf enthusiast that also enjoys bad movies. While it’s often so bad I wanted to give it a zero star rating but when it starts getting funny bad, I was laughing out loud and continuously. The Howling Reborn is one crappy movie but the problems are so numerous and so inexplicable it kind of becomes a fascinating mess. (On DVD, October 23, 2015)

[wesgibbinsed-blog]

six favorite movies of 2011 » asked by karathraceanders and christinechapel

#4 (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER) | SUPER 8

[duchessofawesomeness]

Any movies?

Deym! I really want to watch movies! Most probably a heartbreaking one. LOL. =))

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Mommas Like Father Like Son (2011)

Did I really see Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son twice in one month? What kind of monster have I become? This is one bad movie, but as far as an installment of the cross-dressing comedy trilogy, it might be the best of the bunch by being so undeniably atrocious. It’s ridiculous, contrived, poorly written, not particularly funny, and frequently puzzling. At least it’s never boring.

FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) and his son Trent (Brandon T. Jackson) witness a murder at the hands of Russian mobster Chirkoff (Tony Curran). While they look for a flash drive that contains evidence to put him away, they are forced to go undercover as women at the Georgia Girls School for the Arts.

It's almost admirable the way this movie has to be seen to be believed. It’s like an essay on a historical figure done without any research and written on the morning it was due. Not only is the paper oriented in landscape instead of portrait, but the copy is centered, the font is 16 points in size and there’s a large photo taken straight from Wikipedia at the top. It’s almost better than something that tries and fails.

The biggest disappointment with Big Mommas House 2 was that with our protagonist married and happily anticipating a kid (the pregnancy isn't mentioned but I could've sworn that was a thing...) there weren’t as many cross-dressing shenanigans. Here, we get ALL OF THEM. It’s a double bill of men dressed as women. You get Big Momma being hit on by an extremely clingy horny guy while Trent as Charmaine constantly slips and yells “Damn!” at the hot co-eds at this... high school? College? It's unclear. On the one hand, they have dorms and nude models in art class. On the other, Trent is clearly described as underage (Despite the actor playing him being 26 at the time) and they offer beginner’s driving lessons. This film is already starting to fall apart and we haven’t even started examining it!

Like Father, Like Son is utter desperation. it's padded out with several musical numbers that come out of nowhere. I’m not talking about brief numbers either. We hear close to the entirety of Ke$ha’s Tick Tock, complete with impromptu choreographed dancing from the students. The plot with the Russian Mob? an afterthought. It’s simply an excuse for our two heroes to go undercover. Some plot points in that story never even get resolved. The supposed leak in the FBI for example. We never find out what that mole was. Did director John Whiteshell think we wouldn't pay attention? I’ve scrutinized this film to infinity; no detail has escaped me.

I don’t think anyone sitting down with this film expected it to be good (and if you did, I hope some day they manage to surgically remove that pick-ax from your skull). Nonetheless, it takes a lot of bravery to suck this much, and in public. I laughed frequently at Big Mommas House 3. Never in the way that it was intended for me to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. You can’t make a travesty like Big Mommas Like Father, Like Son on purpose, and that makes it fascinating. (Extended Version on DVD, June 3, 2016)

[janibravo]

Looking forward to see these Upcoming Movies :>

Friends with Benefits

Julia's Eyes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll

Final Destination 5

Fright Night

One Day

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Shark Night

Contagion

Johnny English Reborn

Abduction

Killer Elite

The Rebound

Real Steel

The Thing

Footloose

The Three Musketeers

11-11-11

Puss in Boots

Jack and Jill

Breaking Dawn

Happy Feet 2

The Muppets

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

[adamwatchesmovies]

Sucker Punch (2011)

If you’re a 13 years old boy, Sucker Punch will blow your mind. You’ll think this is is as good as movies get, that it's a powerful story about strong female characters shredding the chains of oppression cast upon them by evil men. You’d be wrong. This movie wants to be a feminist statement so bad it becomes misogynist. Writer/director Zack Snyder gets so hopelessly tangled up in his own ideas and boyhood fantasies his pet project becomes incoherent.

Orphaned Babydoll (Emily Browning) is sold to a brothel (or maybe it's a mental asylum) owned by the cruel Blue (Oscar Isaac). Desperate to escape before she is sold to the mysterious “High Roller”, Babydoll and “entertainers” Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone), and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), concoct an escape plan. In this hellish prison, obtaining their liberation requires them to delve deep into a world of fantasy.

I won't say it's impossible for a story about a bunch of barely-legal strippers shooting at steam-powered WWI German zombies to also be empowering, but this wasn’t the way to do it. The protagonist may be named Babydoll, she may be dressed like a schoolgirl, but don't worry. She's 20. That makes it ok to have upskirt shots! Before you can raise your hand in protest, bere come the giant demonic samurai, time-displaced Gatling guns, mechas, dragons, orcs, bullet-deflecting katanas, and more stuff that would fit right at home in the margins of your notepad during history class.

Maybe you think a "strong character" means someone who can throw a lot of punches. That a good villain is a one-dimensional sleaze who cackles while twirling his mustache. You say it doesn’t matter if both the heroes and their foes are flat, that you don’t know them at all and that they’re completely interchangeable? I’d fight you on that one, but I won’t need to. Even if you just want something to watch with your brain left at the door, this won't please you. I'll concede that the action fantasy settings representing Babydoll and her friends’ heists are creative. They don’t actually fight a dragon; they steal a lighter with a picture of a dragon on it. Thing is, no matter how explosive, the action scenes become boring because you know what it's showing is actually taking like 30 seconds in the real world.

The characters often act illogically (writing down their awesome plan where it would be easy for someone to find) or devolve into cartoons. The special effects look good and the actors do an ok job for the material they’ve been given, but that’s not enough. This script must've been sitting in the director’s scrapbook for 20 years and before committing to the shoot, no one bothered to take a second look at it. Zack Snyder was just so excited about bringing his teenage dream to life he just assumed it would be the greatest thing ever, that we'd all understand what he was trying to say.

Sucker Punch is a bunch of video game cut scenes strung together with a weak plot. There are spectacular action sequences, cool special effects, the movie is well shot, but it's all in the service of nothing. The film undermines its own characters and if you really scrutinize that conclusion, the questions pile up so fast you’ll miss the truly out-of-place performance of Love Is the Drug by Oscar Isaac and Carla Gugino. Then, it gets all sorts of icky at the end. If you just want to see hot ladies in skirts jumping around kicking butt, watch Heavy Metal instead of Sucker Punch. (Theatrical Cut on DVD, April 1, 2016)