John Michael Decker's Top Ten Films of 2011

It's time for my biased list of favorite films from the past twelve months. Even though attendance at movie theatres was down in 2011, it was actually a pretty good year at the movies. I found that I enjoyed far more films than I disliked. In fact, there were so many outstanding movies that it was harder than usual to narrow it down to the top ten.

Honorable Mentions

Before I get to the main event, I'll mention a few films that didn't quite make it into my top ten this year. These films are fun and worth seeing, but there were at least ten other films I liked better.

The critics may have maligned Green Lantern, but I think that this is a well-told superhero origin story with lots of action and great characters.

Thor is another cool comic book film that works largely because it focuses on the dysfunctional relationship between the God of Thunder (Thor) and his misunderstood step-brother (Loki).

Midnight in Paris is a fantastic Woody Allen movie with romance, comedy, and time travel. What more could you want? Allen has always been an expert at turning his backdrops into characters, and this movie certainly brings the "city of light" to life.

Source Code, the second film by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), is a trippy action thriller about a soldier who keeps waking up in the body of a stranger on a Chicago commuter train. Lots of twists and turns keep the audience guessing. This film has a great mix of action and interesting character development.

Super, is a film about a guy who decides to become a costumed vigilante after his wife leaves him for a drug dealer. Although he has the best intentions, he has absolutely no discernible skills other than an insane will to stop crime, and a lot of dumb luck. For a comedy, this movie delves into some incredibly dark territory, and you'll often end up feeling guilty for laughing at some of the material.

Bellflower is billed as an apocalyptic romance, and that's a pretty good description. The story is about Woodrow and Aiden, two friends who spend their free time building flame-throwers and muscle cars in the hopes that a global cataclysm will occur and thrust them into a post-apocalyptic world ala Mad Max. But when Woodrow falls for the unpredictable Milly, he experiences his own personal apocalypse.

Attack the Block is an awesome low-budget British sci-fi flick about a gang of south London punks protecting their neighborhood against an alien invasion. It's directed by Joe Cornish, who worked as a producer on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and has a fantastic sense of kinetic energy. This film also features one of the most unique alien species I have seen on the big screen in years.

Speaking of fantastic kinetic energy, I would be remiss if I didn't mention The Adventures of Tintin, an animated film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson. The film is based on a popular European comic book and has a kind of young Indiana Jones vibe to it. It's a hell of a lot of fun and well worth your time.

I love The Muppets, which stars and was co-written by Jason Segal. Although it takes a little while for it to get going, watching Kermit, Gonzo, Piggy and the gang on the big screen is like welcoming back old friends. Hearing the Muppets sing "Rainbow Connection" again brought tears to my eyes.

Anyone who has a love for classic films should do themselves a favor and catch Martin Scorsese's Hugo. This starts out as an adventure/mystery about a scrappy orphan living in a train station in France, and morphs into a love letter to history's earliest movies and the pioneers who made them.

In any other year, many of the above films would have made my top ten, but this year there were just too many great movies to choose from.

Top 10 films of 2011

Here are my choices for the best of the past year, presented without spoilers:

#10: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

After the abysmal Tim Burton remake of Planet of the Apes in 2001, I didn't expect to ever see a decent "Apes" film again. That's why it comes as such as shock that Rise of the Planet of the Apes is as good as it is.

At its core, Rise is the heartbreaking story of a scientist who, with the best of intentions, sets in motion the events that will bring down the human race. Andy Sirkis' truly brilliant motion capture work as Caesar the ape is the heart and soul of the film. This is science fiction as I love it, with fantastic action sequences, a lot of humanity, and big moral and ethical conundrums.

#9: Captain America: the First Avenger

This is a good old-fashioned superhero flick set in the early days of World War II. Unlike many of the grim and gritty anti-heroes we tend to see a lot of, Cap has always been about fighting for the little guy. In the film, Cap's alter ego, Steve Rogers, makes it clear that he doesn't relish the thought of killing Nazis, he just doesn't like bullies.

I like that Steve Rogers isn't an over-muscled Adonis through the first half of the movie; instead, he starts as a scrawny 98-pound weakling who just wants to do the right thing. When he finally gets his super abilities, he retains the humility of a little guy from Brooklyn who's been bullied all his life. Chris Evans makes a fantastic Captain America/Steve Rogers and Hugo Weaving is an excellent foil to the hero as the evil Nazi super criminal, The Red Skull.

Director Joe Johnston, who also helmed another great period superhero film, The Rocketeer, had the right sensibilities to bring these characters and this time period to life.

#8: Drive

Drive reminds me of a modern-day Clint Eastwood "spaghetti western." Like Eastwood's iconic "Man with No Name," the protagonist in this film (played by Ryan Gosling) is a taciturn loner with a mysterious past who is only referred to as "the Driver."

The Driver is a Hollywood stunt man who leads a double life as a wheel man for local criminals. When the Driver gets involved with the wrong criminal (played brilliantly by Albert Brooks) and a beautiful woman from his apartment complex (played by Carey Mulligan), his solitary and ordered life starts to spin out of control.

I like how stripped-down this movie is. I enjoy the growing sense of menace as the main character is drawn into situations that it doesn't look like he can get out of. I especially like the stellar ensemble cast including Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, and Oscar Isaac.

#7: Warrior

Warrior is a lot like the original Rocky film, only with two protagonists. Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy play Brendan and Tommy Conlon, two brothers who are involved in the brutal sport of mixed martial arts (MMA). Although at the start of the film the brothers have become estranged, the one thing they do have in common is a hatred for their abusive, ex-alcoholic father, Paddy (in a heartbreaking performance by the great Nick Nolte).

For different reasons, both brothers enter an MMA tournament with the highest-ever purse in the history of the sport. Both are underdogs and not expected to make in through, but end up on a collision course which forces them not only to face each other in the ring, but the personal issues they have from their horribly dysfunctional family.

Both brothers' stories are equally compelling, and by the end of the film, knowing that only one can win the tournament, as an audience member I didn't know which brother to root for.

#6: Another Earth

Another Earth is a quiet little indie sci-fi film where the science fiction is largely the backdrop for the human drama. When a duplicate planet Earth appears in the sky, events are set in motion that cause the lives of a student and a composer to intersect both tragically and beautifully.

I like how the themes of grief, guilt and redemption are played out in this movie, with the second planet Earth constantly hovering in the background, reminding us of other possibilities on other worlds. Brit Marling, the star and co-writer of this film, is a talent to watch. William Mapother (perhaps best known as Ethan Rom from the popular television series Lost) also gives a powerful, gut-wrenching performance. It is the chemistry between these two actors that holds this picture together.

#5: X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class is my second-favorite "X-Men" film after the excellent X2: X-Men United. It is not a perfect movie, but what really makes me forget the film's shortcomings are the incredible performances of James McAvoy as young professor Charles Xavier, and Michael Fassbender as young Erik Lehnsherr (AKA Magneto). As any comic book fan knows, Xavier and Magneto are destined to become enemies, but the story of how these two men met and became friends has never been told on the big screen.

I love that this movie is set in the swinging 60s, with the Cuban missile crisis playing out in the background. The earliest X-Men comics were written during this era, so it struck me as appropriate. I also enjoy seeing young Xavier as a womanizing intellectual hipster, and young Magneto as an obsessed Nazi-hunter.

Although not all of the characters in this movie are very well drawn out, I have to give honorable mention to the performances of Jennifer Lawrence as the young Mystique, and Nicholas Hoult as the young Hank McCoy. Seeing the different characters interact and work together at the beginning of the movie, and then being forced to pick different sides of the mutant conflict at the end is a big part of the drama.

#4: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

The "Mission Impossible" film franchise is unlike most others; instead of the quality of the movies getting worse as more sequels are released, it gets better. No one is more surprised than I am that this movie is so high on my top ten list this year, but it was really that good. Perhaps the increasing quality is due to the fact that every MI movie has a different director. In this case it's Brad Bird, who until now has only directed animated films (such as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles). Bird is fantastic with action, and this movie has, hands down, some of the best action set pieces that I've seen in the last few years. I know it's cliché, but I can literally say that I spent most of the movie on the edge of my seat.

Another departure from the earlier Mission Impossible films is that this one focuses more on the whole IMF team, not just Tom Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt. Sure, this is still a Tom Cruise movie, but for the first time, his supporting players (portrayed by Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and Jeremy Renner) play a major part in both story and action.

Most of the movies on my top ten list this year are rather deep. They delve into characters, ideas, and themes in a way that elevates them above typical action films. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is not deep; it's just a hell of a lot of fun and an epic popcorn movie.

#3: Rango

Rango may be the most unique western I've ever seen. This animated feature, directed by Gore Verbinski, tells the story of a chameleon who, through a series bizarre circumstances, exaggerations, and downright lies, becomes the sheriff of the water-deprived town of Dirt.

Not only does this movie understand the heart of the west, but it has a real trippy vibe that just makes it unique. Rango (voiced by Johnny Depp) is an incredible "hero on a journey" character, and is surrounded by other iconic personalities like Rattlesnake Jake, the classic western villain who lives by his own code. The character designs are the most original I've seen since Toy Story. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Rango is on par with Pixar's finest computer-generated films.

#2: Hanna

Hanna reminds me of Luc Besson's The Professional, in that it is a perfect fusion of foreign art film and American action thriller. The movie opens with the title character, Hanna (played by Irish actress Saoirse Ronan) living with her CIA-trained father (Eric Bana) in the wilds of Finland. Her isolated life is forced to change when dangerous forces come looking for her, led by a ruthless intelligence agent (played by Cate Blanchett).

On the one hand, this is a pretty straightforward action picture with the heroine traveling through Europe avoiding bad guys; but on the other, this is a modern-day Brothers Grimm fairy tale with Hanna as the lost princess, her father as the huntsman and Blanchett as the wicked witch.

The action sequences are poetically filmed and never slow down, the metaphors are drawn well, and the characters are multi-layered and continuously fascinating.

And now, my favorite movie of 2011...

#1: Super 8

Super 8, directed by JJ Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg, is a throwback to some beloved classic films like Stand By Me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Perhaps "throwback" is the wrong word, because this movie is its own unique entity, paying homage to these films without copying them.

Super 8 takes place in a small Ohio town in 1979, where a group of 13- to 14-year-old kids are filming a zombie movie with a super 8 camera. During a night of filming, the children witness a catastrophic train crash, and accidentally record something alien escaping from wreckage. The science fiction part of this story is exciting and well-told, but it is really just the backdrop to the real human story of these kids and their families.

It's not easy to find actors this young who are good, but all of the kids that were cast in Super 8 are terrific, especially Joel Courtney as the sensitive Joe Lamb; and Elle Fanning as Alice, the girl he is interested in.

Perhaps one of the reasons I feel so connected with this film was because in 1979 I was a 13-year-old kid running around with my friends in a small town in upstate NY. We were always working on some kind of wacky artistic project and getting into crazy adventures (although we never encountered an alien as far as I know). It's this sense of nostalgia, coupled with great storytelling and compelling characters that makes Super 8 my favorite movie of last year.

Summary

And there you have it -- my top picks for last year at the movies. Feel free to get in touch and tell me what you think, or tell me about a great film I may have left off the list. Once again I would like to thank Jem Matzan for his stalwart friendship and excellent editing skills.

John Michael Decker is an actor who loves to go to the movies. This list is just his way of showing appreciation for all the entertainment he's enjoyed over the past year.