Really personal opinion and there were still a few a movies I wanted to see (My Week with Marylin, Albert Nobbs, A Separation, just to name a few) but I did see around 30 movies that came out this year and I think that's pretty good.
11. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes - I was intrigued. Serkis deserves some sort of honorary Oscar or something. The work he does is borderline brilliance. Franco was bland at times, but I didn't think it hurt the film. And the story line was really accessible to current day with the Alzheimer's storyline. I know that science fiction isn't a very artsy genre but the work done in this movie deserves recognition. While the main actor was a CGI ape, I never lost interest. That has to mean some sort of good work was done, right?
10. Warrior - Granted, it was close to your cliche sports movie, I thought the acting and cinematography of the fighting matches made it a well-above average film. Hardy was his regular brilliant self. Nolte had a great turn as the grizzly estranged father. And placing a distant family against a incredibly violent back drop was an effective juxtaposition. The ultimate redemption of the two protagonists at the end is a fullfilling conclusion to an interesting cinematic journey.
9. The Tree of Life - Malick attempts to paint a picture with a camera. Not many people try to do that. I have to commend him for that and challenging the regular formula of cinema. And considering the scope of his subject matter, he was definitely the most ambitious of directors this year. To begin to attempt to contemplate his overall message would take around 10,000 words. No one wants to read that much and I'm not capable of explaining his intricacies, so we'll just say that he's a genius.
8. Midnight in Paris - Midnight in Paris could have made this list solely based on Ernest Hemingway's dialogue alone. That stuff was so classic. Wilson was the perfect driver for Woody's nostalgic Volkswagon Bus of a movie. And the concepts are very relatable even if the exact situation isn't. After watching this movie I had a smile on my face and a yearning to talk to Salvador Dali.
7. War Horse - I'm not quite sure why this film has been so overlooked. While sappy and over wrought with emotion, I was never bored in a 2 hour, 40 minute time span and that says something. The cinematography was fantastic and Spielberg works his usual technical magic. I know being emotionally attached to a horse is lame but considering the back drop of World War I and the lower class protagonists, I enjoyed the cinematic experience War Horse offered.
6. Drive - Gosling as a brooding knight in white armor (or retro scorpion jacket in this case). The very fitting 80's popish soundtrack. The slowly more shockingly violent actions. I watched this movie in the middle of the day on a weekday with two other people in the theater and it didn't matter at all. It was pretty awesome. Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston were both quite good.
5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Every thing about this movie was subtle. Every facial expression, every plot turn, and every camera shot. It was like the teacher in Ferris Bueller talking in monotone about a mystery and it slowly unraveling in awesome fashion right in front of you. Well constructed cast, great cinematography, and drab colors throughout to match the story's tone really made this a good one.
4. Moneyball - The main reason this is so high is because of the pure impossibility of making the book Moneyball a successful film. The rank is almost solely based on the incredible screenplay adaptation. But I enjoyed the token Sorkinesque dialogue and the understated acting done by the two leads in Pitt and Hill. It also helps that I'm a huge baseball fan. Drama, humor, and sports well-mixed and well-written. Enough said.
3. 50/50 - The reason this ranks so high is the ability to approach such serious and realistic subject matter with a well-crafted mix of humor and familiarity. Joseph Gordon-Levitt turned a very "real" performance. His emotions were true to the character's peril. His steps through the terrifying process of likely fatal cancer were conveyed with such real emotion, it was hard to un-immerse myself from the story. And I really enjoyed the subtle redemption of Seth Rogan's character with the slightest glance of a book.
2. Hugo - I loved watching A Trip to the Moon in my first and only film class I took in college. Watching the very foundations of cinema unroll in such creative and innovative fashion was definitely a reason I go to the movies today. And to see this incorporated in an adventure on the screen again just brought me back to fond memories. Scorsese's love note to cinema was such an entertaining watch for me. I also thought the acting was very good, especially the youngsters Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Moretz and oldster Ben Kingsley.
1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I know that the movie highlights some of humanities more deplorable crimes (rape, murder, black mail, among others). I know the subject matter is bleak. I know the ending is depressing and the storyline is straight forward and rather un-inventive. But when I left the theater, I couldn't stop thinking about this movie. I still can't stop thinking. Rooney Mara was spectacular. Sure, you could claim anyone could seem like a Oscar worthy actress given that script. But the subtle softening of her facial expressions throughout the movie as she becomes closer Mikeal (Daniel Craig) and the continual ability to display the angst and scarred past without over acting was incredibly impressive. To top it all off, the movie was 2 hours and 40 minutes but I wasn't bored a second of it and I didn't check my phone once to see what time it was. To give you a frame of reference, I looked at my phone four times during The Help.
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