Top ELEVEN Films of 2011

01  /  The Skin I Live In  /  directed by Pedro Almodovar (above)
02  /  The Help  /  directed by Tate Taylor
03  /  Moneyball  /  directed by Bennett Miller
04  /  The Lincoln Lawyer  /  directed by Brad Furman
05  /  Limitless  /  directed by Neil Burger
06  /  The Artist  /  directed by Michel Hazanavicius
07  /  Midnight in Paris  /  directed by Woody Allen
08  /  Crazy, Stupid, Love  /  directed by Glenn Ficarra
09  /  My Week With Marilyn  /  directed by Simon Curtis
10  /  The Descendants  /  directed by Alexander Payne
11  /  Untouchable  /  directed by Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano  (below)

Films of 2011: Five List Hero Recommendations

The Help

Directed by Tate Taylor

Unashamedly pushes all of the right buttons to create a superbly emotional movie.  It has a strong plot with an even stronger cast.

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Moneyball

Directed by Bennett Miller

Brad Pitt has an uncanny knack of choosing great films to star in and this is no exception.  Thankfully, you don't need to know anything about baseball to enjoy this movie as it will have you cheering until the end.  Pitt is accompanied by an excellent cast with great turns from Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffmann.

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The Skin I Live In

Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Spanish veteran Pedro Almodovar serves up possibly the most insane film of 2011 with The Skin I Live In.  As the film jumps back-and-forth from past to present, Almodovar gradually allows us to discover the shocking details of what's been occurring at the home of surgeon Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas) until we reach what, in my opinion, is one of the most memorable endings of recent times.  The movie won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language.

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The Lincoln Lawyer

Directed by Brad Furman

Cocky, arrogant, but ultimately excellent at his job.  Brad Furman's film adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer takes us into the ultra-confident world of criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller (played here by Matthew McConaughey).  The film has sharp directing and a smooth soundtrack, leaving the overall effect of a movie almost as slick as the lawyer himself.  The story, originally written by author Michael Connelly, sees Haller take on a case involving spoilt rich boy Louis Roulet (played by spoilt rich boy Ryan Phillipe).  Haller believes that Roulet is innocent but there are a few twists along the way that prove the case to be his biggest test yet.


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Limitless

Directed by Neil Burger

My pleasant surprise of 2011 was a movie that can be considered a Jekyll and Hyde of the 21st Century.  I expected little from Limitless, mainly due to its cock-sure advertising and the fact that I wasn't particularly a fan of Bradley Cooper (following The Hangover and All About Steve).  However, this movie changed my opinion of the actor - from the early scenes when he's an unmotivated writer, to his awakening through drugs, and then when the inevitable problems occur - Cooper is excellent.  He transforms through different emotions and a variety of personalities.  Neil Burger (whose previous work includes 2006's The Illusionist) directs the film with enough flair to keep it interesting and believable throughout, and, come the end, the film leaves you pondering on the question: what would I have done in his shoes?

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Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - The List Hero Review

The sequel to James Whale's 1931 film is superior to its predecessor in many ways.  The key ingredient for me here is the development of characters (which I will get onto later).  I began watching the film with a degree of doubt after believing the monster to be dead at the end of the first movie... however, the way that this is dealt with in the opening sequence of the movie is a credit to its makers.  Onto the plot and we have a major conflict of interests as Henry Frankenstein, again played by Colin Clive, is approached by the wonderfully evil Doctor Septimus Pretorius, portrayed brilliantly by Ernest Thesiger, in order to create a mate for his monster and toasts to a new world "of Gods and Monsters!"  Frankenstein does not want a repeat of his previous mistake and we finally get a sense of how this central character (who we know so little about from the original film) is actually feeling.

Meanwhile, the monster is making its way through the woods when it stumbles upon a friendly blind man.  Here, we see more character development and feel that the monster doesn't really want to hurt anyone but doesn't know how to communicate his feelings.  Again, the movie is giving me an understanding of the character and now I can begin to feel for him... something that was severely lacking in the first film.  As a result, the blind man teaches him how to speak.  The plot then takes a few more twists and turns, making it a much more interesting flick than the previous film.

However, despite its major improvements, the film still has problems;  the monster goes from being to say "drink" and "good" in one scene, to being able to hold a full conversation in the following scene...  highly unlikely!  There is the annoying cockney "comedy" servant who is intended (I'm assuming) to offer some light relief but just comes across as silly.  Plus, there is still a major lack of creepy horror that modern cinema-goers would expect - the scene when the monster kidnaps Elizabeth is a great chance to build a bit of haunting tension... but never does so.

On the whole, a major improvement from the first but modern audiences will still find it lacking in some areas.

Rating: a respectable 3 out of 5.