I didn't post the 2011 end-of-year film list did I?
Well, now I did. And anyway, a couple years distance is a great way to make sure that the love is still on.
First Class is obviously the best movie of the current franchise. McAvoy - who you should love because he is Leto Atreides II - and Fassbender - who you should love because he's Fassbender - roll through the emotional punches of X and M with precision and lots of charm. The mindf*&@ comes when you see a young Xavier/McAvoy/Patrick Stewart/Picard actually hitting on a fine bird at a bar, quite convincingly I might add, till he is summarily cockblocked by a petulant Jennifer Lawrence/Mystique - who has more personality in First Class than all the other films combined.
Billing this film as the best samurai movie ever is far from hyperbolic. Takashi Mike pares down the plot and simultaneously amps up the action. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, but in the case of 13 Assassins, makes for compelling, suspenseful drama that plays out slow and minimally, then turns into a vengeful bloodbath. I'm not sure why we should be rooting for the assassins except that the vaguely historical bad guy is kind of fey and inbred, but I don't think that it matters in the end. A side-by-side with the 1963 original film is in order.
I have nothing thrilling to add to all the positive reviews available on the web.
If there is one reason to use 360 degree cams and 3D technology, documenting our rapidly diminishing natural and cultural resources for posterity is IT. This is the closest we have right now to going into a holodeck and experiencing/studying a physical location that is extinct or on its way to be. Funnel money into these projects for public edification, please.
Below are other films that were contenders, but above were the films that stood out in retrospect:
Submarine
Moneyball
The Trip
Win Win
The Tree of Life
Melancholia
Nostalgia for the Light
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