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@JamesEpplerThis past year may not have been a great one overall for movies, but there were a number of stand-outs. Most of my choices for the best movies of the year were rule breakers and risk-takers. The guy who directed "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" goes for a 3D family movie. A studio stands behind an NC-17-rated movie. Why would you follow last year's "The Fighter" with another fighting movie? And who in the world tries to tell the story of a small Texas family by incorporating God and dinosaurs?
End-of-the-year lists are great because it's just a compilation of movies I'll take with me from this year. These are the ones that impacted me, left their mark.
The list follows, along with some brief explanation:
1. Hugo
2. Drive
3. Shame
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2
5. Warrior
6. (tie) Rango / The Adventures of Tintin
7. Beginners
8. Margin Call
9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
10. The Tree of Life
"The Tree of Life" is the most ambitious movie of the year, to a fault. In making a film about our whispered prayers to God, director Terence Malick works with so many huge ideas that it doesn't all work. In fact, I really didn't like some of it. But what is good here, is actually great. I couldn't shake this movie.
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a tightly-wound mystery with some terrific performances. Its power lies in how understated it is.
"Margin Call" is basically just people talking in boardrooms and cubicles, but writer director J.C. Chandor crafts a suspenseful film that has a lot to say about business ethics and Wall Street immorality. A final scene of a grave being dug speaks volumes.
"Beginners" finds a father and son both starting their lives over. Christopher Plummer is wonderful as a gay man who only comes out after his wife dies, and Ewan McGregor is solid as the son who's only now learning how to love after watching his parents' cold relationship for years.
I'm cheating by calling a tie for number six with two excellent animated movies. "The Adventures of Tintin" is vintage Steven Spielberg, a globe-trotting ride with some terrific character interplay. And "Rango" is an endlessly creative western, that loves paying tribute to its influences, from "High Noon" to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
"Warrior" is the most underrated drama of the year. It's more than just another fighting movie - it's a heart-racing and heart-breaking story about fathers, sons and bothers.
The final installment of the "Harry Potter" series demands to get a Best Picture nomination. It won't, but it ended a remarkable achievement in film perfectly. That Harry goes unrecognized and all of the "Lord of the Rings" films did is a crime.
Any of my top three could be number one. "Shame" is an intense, difficult drama about sex addiction and isolation. Michael Fassbender gives the performance of the year as a man enslaved to his desires. Director Steve McQueen doesn't let us look away, which earned the film an NC-17. It's a scorcher.
So is "Drive," which melds so many flavors that come together for something uniquely delicious. Ryan Gosling kills as a getaway driver who gets roped into a deadly criminal scheme to help a woman and her son. It feels like a John Hughes movie and a Tarantino pic had a baby.
The best movie of the year is "Hugo." Director Martin Scorsese's first journey into family fare turns out to be one of his very best because it comes from such a personal place. This story of an orphan boy who comes face to face with cinematic royalty is beautifully done, especially in 3D. It's a film deliriously in love with the magic of the movies and their ability to transport us and move us. "Hugo" does that like no other movie this year.
