2011: A Summary of a Year

It's been an unusual year. It feels like most of the year I've been so preoccupied with everything else that there hasn't been as much movie-watching as, say, last year.  Still, there has been some gems and discoveries from both this year and previous years.

I found John Hughes (better late than never, right?) and thus added The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off to the list of my all-time favourites. I watched more documentaries than ever before; I bawled my eyes out at Bowling for Columbine and Nuit et brouillard; I was shocked by The Cove and Food Inc. and swore never to see a dolphin show or eat a fast food burger again; I was entertained by Exit through the Gift Shop and Glee: the Concert Movie. One documentary really stood out, but more on that later.

The year's total is 163 films watched, out of which 52 were rewatches, which makes 111 new films. I went to cinema 23 times. And let me add, twice I saw a film with live orchestra playing the music (The Gold Rush (here at home) and the first Lord of the Rings (in Vegas; guess which one was more expensive...)). Here's the full list of the films, from another Inception rewatch to the Sherlock Holmes sequel.

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Here are some of my favourite people of the year.

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My (more or less succesful) New Year Resolution project was a nice spice to the year's movie-watching experience. Sure, due to being in the US I was behind schedule for part of the year, and in the end got to mark only ten of the twelve movies as 'over and done with'. Because, yes, that's what it was like most of the time: an obligation, something I just HAD to do, whether I enjoyed it a lot or not. This of course is NOT the attitude that movies should be watched with, but since I know myself (and what I know is that unfortunately I just often happen to dislike classics), this techinique is the best way to ensure that I watch what every movie fanatic should watch. Anyway, here's how it turned out:

The films I still need to see in 2012: Scarface, Manhattan

The film that I very strongly disliked: A Clockwork Orange

The films that bored me to death: Mulholland Dr., 8½, Goodfellas

The films I might have liked more had I been able to concentrate on them properly: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blade Runner

The films I kind of liked and properly concentrated on, but that failed to impress me in a way worth mentioning: Sunset Blvd., Citizen Kane

The film that I expected to like the least, but that ended up blowing my mind a little or at least giving me a pretty epic Friday night: 2001: A Space Odyssey

The film that I very much liked and that I will actually see again in the near-future (unlike the previous one): The Deer Hunter

So. Maybe the percentage of the films I actually ended up liking isn't very encouraging, but I will all the same continue this project in 2012. I need to get more classics watched.

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My extremely unofficial TOP FIVE of 2011

My Week with Marilyn

It's Michelle Williams that earned this movie a spot on my list. When I was watching her in My Week with Marilyn, there was a moment when I realized I didn't remember what the real Marilyn looks like. That's how good Ms. Williams is! Other than that, it's a cute, quite harmless little film. A little sad at times, and quite relateble, in some ways, at least for me.

Captain America: The First Avenger

 Haha. Weird? I don't know why I liked this film so much. But I did. I haven't liked a superhero this way since my ridiculous Spiderman phase when I was fifteen. There is something sincerely sweet about Chris Evans's Steven Rogers, and something admirable in the way he develops into a superhero: it's merely a physical transformation, since his mind was the mind of a hero all along.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

Well duh. The conclusion of the adventures of everyone's favourite wizard boy was nothing less than epic, even though the conclusion of that conclusion was disappointingly ridiculous thanks to the poor attempt to make the young cast look nineteen years older. Sigh. Anyway! This was the end of another era. But Harry will live on.

The Artist

 This black-and-white silent strike of genius will be my favorite in the Oscar races next year, and I'm not alone with my opinion. It's charming and fun and tragic and just delicious. I loved the creative ways to use sound they'd come up with, in the midst of the good old Hollywood kind of title cards and wonderfully exaggarated acting. It's a love song to the roots of cinema, with a modern twist and a great sense of humor.

Life in a Day

Well, this is interesting. I never saw this little film coming. One day I read about it somewhere, watched it, and whoa, it just blew me away. The idea is wonderful, really, maybe the best idea any filmmaker ever had. People all over the world documented their lives on film in July 24, 2010. The material came together as what apparently is my favourite film of the year. In summary, I cried at people brushing their teeth. I'm determined to finish my post about this, so this is all I will say now.
If you haven't yet, see the film here.

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Well, I guess that's what we can call a mixed bunch; a Hollywood icon, a superhero, a fantasy blockbuster, a silent film and a documentary. But the list is extremely unofficial because there are many films I haven't yet seen that might've easily made the list. I still need to see at least The Help, Hugo, 50/50, Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... Still, I'm quite confident about number one, at least.

It was a pretty good year, and 2012 will probably be pretty epic. Just saying.

Sucks to be a Kennedy / The Kennedys (2011)

I didn't know JFK was assasinated in Dallas. That is, until I went to Dallas and found myself standing in the very spot where it happened. They say travelling broadens the mind, but it also helps you catch up on your history. I know now that John F. Kennedy was killed in downtown Dallas, on Elm Street, on November 22, 1963, and that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from the sixth floor window of the Book Depository. And that was all without cheating. I hope I got my facts right.

 I had heard of the miniseries before, and was kind of interested in watching it, but didn't make it my priority until I knew I would be going to Washington DC soon. I thought I would get the more out of the visit the more I knew about the history of the place. And luckily in this day and age we don't have to read books to learn history, we can just watch a movie or a miniseries and be just as wise! Oh, wonderful world. So, I watched the eight-part series before and after the trip, and yes, they indeed complemented each other quite nicely. I just get a huge kick out of watching a movie or something and seeing a place where I've personally been. (At times I so wished there'd been someone watching with me, because I wanted to act smart! Like when Jackie visits Jack's grave in the Arlington Cemetary (assuming that the scene was actually shot on location), they use only certain camera angles to hide the tomb stone on JFK's left, saying Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (okay, that I had to cheat).)

I enjoyed the series (and not only for the joy of feeling smart and well-travelled). Sometimes the politics talk might have been a bit too much for me, but I just let it go over my head, waiting for the next scene looking at the family dynamics and relationships. I'm sure the series is not 100% truthful in portraying the members of the Kennedy family, but I trust it to have given more than a clue about what was going on inside the white walls of the President's house. It was quite entertaining, and interesting, the script was quite excellent, and the camerawork and visual side very pleasing to the eye, too. I liked the use of old, actual recordings, mixed with new material.

I first had some serious problems with Greg Kinnear as JFK. Just because I kept associating him with Little Miss Sunshine, and as much as I love that movie it doesn't do much good in taking someone seriously as a president. I got over it soon, however, because Kinnear did quite a solid job, and his presence is totally transformed from the horrible father who tells his 10-year-old daughter not to be a loser. Also, Katie Holmes was a very pleasant surprise! I don't usually enjoy her work too much, and she often lacks depth, but as Jackie she is vulnerable yet strong, and it works beautifully. She had my sympathies.

The one who stole the whole show to me, however, was Barry Pepper's Bobby. For me, Pepper has always stolen the show, in whatever small roles I've seen him in, from The Green Mile to Saving Provate Ryan and Flags of Our Fathers. There's just something so real and authentic and sincere about him. He better get some awards for this role, he's been underrated for too long. He made it official: Bobby is my favorite Kennedy! I don't know why, but I always found Bobby's fate more tragic than Jack's. And I don't know if it's the truth or the portrayal or just me, but Bobby definitely turned out to be the hero of The Kennedys, and series left me with a pretty deep admiration and respect for Robert Kennedy. And Barry Pepper. You can't give any awards to Bobby anymore, so give some to Barry! He made me cry, damn it. Not that that's too unusual.

The villain of the story, for me, was definitely the father, Joe Kennedy. (Along with Marilyn Monroe, just because she was portrayed so poorly. Maybe it's unfair for the actress, Charlotte Sullivan, but after forgetting what the real Marilyn Monroe actually looks like when watching Michelle Williams in the said role, poor Ms. Sullivan's Monroe was kind of a sorry attempt.) Sure, I felt sorry for him at times, but that tyrannical, unhealthy obsession he had about making his son, any son, President, made me loathe him, and frankly point the finger straight at him when we start talking about blame.

"You’re going to be President. Because you’re a Kennedy. And Kennedys never come in second."