magicalthinklet

We’re well into February, but here’s a list of my favorite films of the past year anyway. There are a bunch of movies I sadly haven’t seen yet, like Martha Marcy May Marlene, Young Adult, and A Dangerous Method, and ones that are so unbelievably awful I wish I could unsee. Like Midnight in Paris.

Here are the ones that made the cut:

• Drive
  Just watched this one last night. Wish I’d seen it on the big screen. The brutality, the filters, the elevator kiss, the music. Ryan Gosling just keeps getting better and better. Carey Mulligan is so quietly wonderful – she offers one my favorite moments; she lightly touches her lips just after he leaves her apartment for the first time. That subtle, tiny detail says so much. One of the best movies I’ve seen all year.
• Jane Eyre
  Brilliant acting. After seeing this, I could watch Mia Wasikowska in anything. She is amazing.
• Bridesmaids
  I love that Melissa McCarthy is finally being recognized for the hilarious comedian that she is (she was Gilmore Girls‘ Sookie after all), but Kristen Wiig killed it. She had me at penis impersonation. And then she tugged my heart strings.
• Beginners
  Mike Mills + Ewan McGregor + Christopher Plummer + Mélanie Laurent = beautiful, tender and funny. Ewan McGregor totally surprised me.
• The Descendants
  Great story, great characters. I like seeing George Clooney play a regular dude. Bonus points for all the Kauai love.
• Cedar Rapids
  I like Ed Helms, and I like Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
• Melancholia
  I’m going to ignore all the inane crap LVT said. He made a harrowing, breathtaking film. Kinda felt like I was holding a ViewMaster, looking at a tragic, panoramic oil painting, slide by slide. Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg are stunning.
• Crazy, Stupid, Love.
  It was pretty damn funny, I might have cried a little, I can’t help rooting for Steve Carell, and I’m equally smitten with Emma Stone and Gosling’s abs. I really loved this one.
• Shame
  Hands down the most disturbing movie I saw all year, and I wanted to hate it. I couldn’t shake it for days, weeks maybe. But, as difficult as it was to watch – and it’s definitely not for the faint, it became harder and harder to hate.

  Sometimes we forget that humans are animals. If we’re hurting so deeply that there is no way to talk about it, maybe there’s no way to evolve past the pain. Maybe there’s no place for that pain to go but back from where it came.

  Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan gave such haunting performances. The line that stuck with me most is spoken by Mulligan’s character:
  “We’re not bad people, we just come from a bad place.”