Here are my favorite movies of 2011, in no particular order:
– My favorites –
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
For me, this was this year’s (500) Days of Summer, but not quite as awesome. I originally became interested in it when one night I was flipping through channels on the TV (which I rarely do), and I saw Steve Carell being interviewed about it. (It was one of those half-hour dedicated-to-one-person shows, not a late night talk show.) His description and the way he talked about the movie sold me on it (but not enough to go to the theater, of course). So during Black Friday week I blind bought it from Amazon and both my wife and I really enjoyed it. As a bonus, it has Emma Stone, who I love to watch (though, sadly, even she could not save Zombieland for me). Also, as events in the film unfolded, I kept thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming!” even though all the clues were there for me. That’s a good thing in this case. As a bonus, this plus Steve Carell’s other film roles that I’ve really liked, e.g. Dan in Real Life, Date Night, Get Smart, Anchorman, finally got me to start watching The Office last month. How did I never watch that show before?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
This and Deathly Hallows Part 1 are my favorites in the Harry Potter series of films (and I think Deathly Hallows is probably my favorite of the books, too). As I mentioned before, the first and last films are the only ones I saw theatrically. For this one we took our 9-month-old baby with us and stood in the aisle for most of the show. It was good enough that we didn’t mind.
Phineas and Ferb: Across the Second Dimension
While this was really a made-for-TV movie, it is still awesome. My friend Ben got us watching Phineas and Ferb sometime in the summer and our whole family loves it (and it’s something that I can feel good about my whole family watching without worrying about what we’re watching).
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Robert Downey, Jr. never ceases to amaze me. Also, people kept telling me the villain wasn’t as good in this installment as the first. I think it’s the quiet ones you always have to watch out for.
Winnie the Pooh
This is one we took our kids to see and it was just the right length for them to sit in a theater–about an hour. Plus it was the best Pooh movie, I think, since the original The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
X-Men: First Class
I was really surprised by how good this movie was, and I really don’t have that high of an expectation for X-Men movies (I even liked The Last Stand and Wolverine just fine). I can’t really think of anything I didn’t enjoy about his movie. Kevin Bacon played a great villain, and the good guys were fun, too. I was also delighted by the fact that Beast was played by a grown-up Nicholas Hoult, the kid from About a Boy, which I just watched again a couple of weeks ago and loved again just as the other times I’ve seen it.
– Other movies I enjoyed –
Batman: Year One
This was one of DC’s direct-to-video releases for the year. I find it hard not to enjoy Batman (except you, Batman and Robin, you crime against humanity).
Captain America: The First Avenger
I didn’t know what to expect from this movie, or Chris Evans, but I wound up really enjoying it. As a bonus, my 3-year-old and I have recently been watching The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes cartoon and for some reason he has really taken a liking to Captain America.
Cars 2
This is the other movie we took the kids to see in the theater in 2010. I am apparently in the minority in that I liked it more than the first one (but then, the first one is my least favorite Pixar film).
Everything Must Go
This was a “dramedy” starring Will Ferrell as a man living on his lawn because his wife kicked him out. While not in the same league as his “serious” role in Stranger Than Fiction, I still liked this movie a lot.
Thor
I really had no idea what to expect from this movie. My only previous exposure to Thor was in the animated movie Hulk Vs., of which I watched the Hulk Vs. Wolverine segment but only part of Hulk Vs. Thor. I was pleasantly surprised, and the cast was great. I liked Chris Hemsworth in his brief role in Star Trek (which I watched again recently) and I was impressed by his ability to play the two very different characters so well.
– Movies that made me say “meh” –
Green Lantern
I went into this movie with no hope of liking it, really, except that I like Ryan Reynolds. I don’t really like Green Lantern at all, but my wife does, so we watched it. I didn’t hate the movie, but I didn’t really like it either.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
This was a blind buy because we have the other three Pirates movies, and it wasn’t really bad, but it didn’t really grab me.
– 2011 movies I haven’t seen yet that I hope are good, because I already bought at least one of them, and I want to like the others –
Kung Fu Panda 2
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
The Muppets
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Puss in Boots
– Movies that made me say “Why on earth did I watch this?” –
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
I should have known. I really should have. It wasn’t anywhere near as stab-your-eyes-out bad as the second movie, but it was so boring. The building the cast was trapped in was collapsing for, what, 45 minutes? I fell asleep for a while, and when I woke up it was still collapsing. Also, Shia LeBeouf’s character was a complete a-hole. And boring.
Tron: Legacy
Holy cow, was this movie boring. Visually interesting, sure, but so boring.