The past year at the multiplex was average at best, with medicore films far outnumbering the great ones. But no matter what the overall quality of the release slate, there are always 10 moments of pure cinema magic in any given year that remind us why we love the movies. Here are those moments from 2011 (in no particular order).
The girls go dress shopping in Bridesmaids. We almost went with the carful of puppies or the plane flight to Vegas, but the dress shop scene outshone them all. As Catherine Durkin Robinson said, “It was the most insane piece of cinema this year.”
Ronald Wilkes to the rescue in Cedar Rapids. After Ed Helms’ innocent man-child Tim Lippe ventures out to a danger-filled house party, his straitlaced cohorts must rescue him. Thank god for Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), who bails out Lippe by spouting out-of-character dialogue like “I’m straight-up gangster” and “I always keep one in the chamber.”
A train derails in Super 8. J.J. Abrams’ homage to Steven Spielberg sputtered in its second half, but Super 8’s first hour contained some of the best storytelling of 2011. The highlight: A theater-rattling train wreck that nearly kills our pint-sized protagonists and releases a monster on a mission. If you didn’t duck the flying container cars, you may not have a pulse.
Dealing for free agents in Moneyball. Brad Pitt seems a Best Actor lock for his portrayal of Billy Beane — and he’s every bit as great as they say — but he owes something to Jonah Hill. In all of Pitt’s best scenes he has Hill to bounce off of, and the chemistry is off-kilter and wonderful. Check any scene where Pitt and Hill work the phones and plunder players from other clubs. The dialogue crackles.
Clooney runs for it in The Descendants. Holley Sinn, Studio 10’s resident critic, really dug George Clooney’s work in The Descendants, especially his “middle-aged man run” and the moment his character realizes that the reason his daughter is so attached to her goofball boyfriend is that they’ve both lost a parent.
Gosling knocks heads in Drive. Hey girl, do you like it when Ryan Gosling leans in for a slow kiss in the elevator, just before mashing the bad guy’s skull to bits? Yeah, us too.
The world begins in Tree of Life… Before settling down in 1950s America, Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life gave us his vision of the birth of life in the universe and the spawning of Earth (including the dinosaurs!).
…and ends in Melancholia. Moody Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier destroyed the planet and all life on it in Melancholia. These two sequences represent the best use of special effects in the service of a story this year.
Captain America’s got moves. How many superhero movies have a catchy 1940s-inspired musical number? This one did, and “The Star Spangled Man” made a cool movie even better.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows nails the big cliffhanger. Lots of ’splosions, punches and guns a-blazin’. But nothing topped the sight of Sherlock tumbling into the falls below — and taking Moriarty with him.
Joe Bardi, Julie Garisto and Anthony Salveggi contributed to this story.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.