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A Tribute To the People Who Write Excruciatingly Detailed Wikipedia Plot Summaries For Movies That Suck

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

There is a group of individuals whom Movieline would like to salute: The passionate, faceless people who lovingly record, in surprising detail and with confounding care, the full plot summaries for horrible movies on Wikipedia. Wikipedia movie plot historians, your day has come. I first recognized this phenomenon last month. While researching several pivotal roles in Kirsten Dunst’s career for the actresses’s 9 Milestones in the Evolution of… feature, I noticed (and greatly appreciated) that an Internet user had heroically outlined the entire plot of her long-forgotten and laughable 1998 television movie Fifteen and Pregnant . The plot summary is delivered in four straightforward paragraphs which remarkably do not acknowledge the ridiculousness of this poorly-scripted and self-righteous project. Here is just a taste… “The film opens with fourteen year old Tina having sex with Ray. A few days later Tina is sitting in the car with her mother and Tina’s mother asks her if she knows anyone who is sexually active at her age, or if she has ever been sexually active, and Tina nods her head yes, although her mother doesn’t know what she is admitting.” Granted, the person who was so moved by the melodramatic play-by-play of Fifteen and Pregnant that he/she rushed to his/her computer and tapped out a painfully accurate recap, is by no means a scholar. But skill or grasp of the English language is not the point here: The dedication is. For example, do you know how much you’d have to pay me to watch Troll 2 again and compose an entire 11 paragraph summary without a single critical inflection? (The most derogatory statement about the film in its Wikipedia entry is that it is “widely considered to be of poor quality.”) Do you know how severely you would need to threaten me before I typed out 1,000 words on the detestable Rob Reiner film North ? Do you know how many Target gift cards you would have to hire Woody Harrelson to strew onto a hotel bed Indecent Proposal -style before I agreed to not only view New Year’s Eve but to pen an earnest six-paragraph summary of this particular Garry Marshall’s holiday disaster-piece ? (The answers to these three questions are “a ton,” “very severely,” and “like, $10,000 worth.”) The heroic Wikipedia users who composed the above plot summaries may not have saved any lives. But they did save brain cells — brain cells that could have met a similar fate as the millions of those left to be swept up along with the neglected candy and self-respect on the floor of every Jack and Jill -screening multiplex auditorium in America last month. Because hopefully, some smart moviegoers elected to just read the Wikipedia plot summary of the film so that they could appropriately rag on it at the water cooler without paying for a partial Adam Sandler-performed lobotomy. Or maybe a few intelligent viewers decided against seeing the film after its detailed Wiki page informed them that the “comedy” would feature “cameos” from Bruce Jenner, Regis Philbin and Drew Carey. Or maybe that is all just wishful thinking and Wikipedia plot summary movie-going prevention is just a hope for the future. Either way, I am thankful for the bold Wiki user who dared to recount every minor plot twist in Showgirls so that I never have to re-watch the film to rediscover how much Cristal and Zach paid Nomi for a lap dance at the Cheetah ($500). So please, in honor of these Wikipedia movie plot historians, take a moment and scan through a few detailed recaps of your least favorite movies of all time. Recognize the effort, thank the faceless writers in whichever way you deem fit and maybe consider tapping out a few future plot summaries of your own. For without these loving recaps, human beings might actually have to sit through a screening of Gigli to fully recognize the film’s atrociousness. Follow Julie Miller on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Kris Humphries Held to Six Rebounds in Blowout Loss

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Kris Humphries and the New Jersey Nets made their home debut against the Atlanta Hawks last night, and Kim Kardashian’s ex was greeted with loud applause from the sellout crowd. But he and his teammates gave the crowd little to cheer about after the opening buzzer. The Hawks blew the Nets off the floor, winning by a final of 106-70 – quite the contrast for New Jersey from the night before – and holding last year’s fifth-leading NBA rebounder to just six boards. Granted, he sat out most of the second half. Kris Humphries, Nets Crushed by Hawks Through two games, Humphries’ stats look like this:

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Kris Humphries Held to Six Rebounds in Blowout Loss

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Sara Tommasi nude clip

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood

Sara Tommasi is one girl that you would definitely like to be trapped with on a desert island while she looks at you seductively in the nude, like in this photo shoot video Continue reading →

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Tom Cruise ‘Impossible’ To Beat At Box Office

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ easily wins #1 spot over long holiday weekend. By Ryan J. Downey Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol” Photo: Paramount This Christmas, Tom Cruise was “impossible” to beat at the box office. “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” was the #1 movie over the long holiday weekend, easily beating competition from two competing sequels with an additional $46.2 million as it expanded into wide release. The fourth entry in the Tom Cruise franchise, this one directed by Brad Bird (“The Incredibles”), has racked up $78.6 million in domestic receipts since it debuted in limited release 11 days ago. “Ghost Protocol” is the best-reviewed entry in the franchise, which kicked off in 1996 with an inaugural film (based on the popular late ’60s TV series) directed by Brian De Palma (“Scarface”). Action maestro John Woo (“The Killer”) helmed “M:I 2” four years later. The J.J. Abrams-directed “Mission: Impossible III” grossed $134 million during its theatrical run in 2006. Meanwhile, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” was reviewed far less favorably than its 2009 predecessor. The film, which reunites Robert Downey Jr. in the title role with Jude Law as his faithful partner, Watson, was #2 at the box office with $31.8 million for a two-week total of $90.6 million. “Downey may think this interpretation is an insight, or funny, but it pushes what was already a rude rewriting of the classic characters into eye-rolling camp,” wrote the Newark Star Ledger. The first film sits at 70 percent on film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes’ “Tomatometer,” while “Game of Shadows” was at a “rotten” 59 percent at press time. The #3 movie at the box office, itself the third in a series, continues a franchise-long tradition of poor reviews. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” carried a series worst 13 percent score on the “Tomatometer” as it collected $20 million for an 11-day $56.9 million total. Neither “Game of Shadows” nor “Shipwrecked” appear likely to get anywhere near the $200 million grosses of their predecessors. Four of the other five new releases in theaters were from major filmmakers. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” the highly anticipated American adaptation of the popular Swedish book from director David Fincher (“Fight Club”), has made $27.7 million since it opened Tuesday night. Steven Spielberg has two new movies out, “The Adventures of Tintin” and “War Horse,” which landed at #5 and #7 on the box office chart, respectively. “Tintin” has made $24.1 million while “War Horse” has made $15 million. The latest from director Cameron Crowe opened even lower than his last movie, “Elizabethtown.” “We Bought a Zoo,” at #6, earned just $15.6 million despite star power in the form of Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson. Rock journalist turned filmmaker Crowe has worked with box-office topper Tom Cruise twice: first with “Jerry Maguire” in 1996 and later with “Vanilla Sky” in 2001. Finally, alien invasion horror flick “The Darkest Hour” opened at #8 with just $5.5 million. The film was not screened in advance for critics, but The Hollywood Reporter, which reviewed the movie, blamed a “flatlining screenplay and the absence of even a single compelling character.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’

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Help Caption This Photo of Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer and Matthew McConaughey Stripping in ‘Magic Mike’

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

One of the most anticipated titles among circles who enjoy male strippers and movies is the upcoming Steven Soderbergh drama Magic Mike — a movie about male strippers that allegedly lured the filmmaker away from early retirement . At long last, a first image from the project has surfaced featuring Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum striking a pose onstage for what promises to be a very patriotic (and erotic) dance number. You know what this means, fellow Movieliners — grab the nearest captioning pen and stack of singles. Where to even begin? McConaughey appears in classic McConaughey fashion ( shirtless ). Tatum appears in classic G.I. Joe franchise-star fashion (in camouflage). For further captioning reference, the official premise of Magic Mike is as follows: “Veteran male stripper Magic Mike (Tatum) teaches a new male stripper (Pettyfer) about the occupation. They work at the club Xquisite, which is owned by the former male stripper Dallas (McConaughey).” The project is inspired by Tatum’s experiences as a teenage stripper in Florida. Joe Manganiello (also pictured above) co-stars as Big Dick Richie. Magic Mike is scheduled for a June 29, 2012, release. Let the captioning begin! Follow Julie Miller on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Help Caption This Photo of Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer and Matthew McConaughey Stripping in ‘Magic Mike’

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Pariah Writer/Director Dee Rees on Coming Out, Awards Season, and Pitching ‘Dallas Meets The Wire’

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Writer/director Dee Rees has spent six years with Pariah , a film she wrote as a full-length script in 2005, then recalibrated as a short subject in ’07, and finally re-adapted as a feature film that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Pariah concerns a teenager named Alike (Independent Spirit Award nominee Adepero Oduye), an expressive girl who only encounters more identity issues as she tries establishing herself as an out lesbian. Though Rees came out as a lesbian in her 20s, she feels a deep connection to Alike — especially in her resistance to “butch” and “femme” labels. Movieline caught up with Rees to discuss Pariah ‘s wonderful story, the visibility of the LGBT coming out experience in 2011, and Rees’s unexpected connection to Dallas . Since Pariah ’s genesis as a short film years ago, there’s been a lot more visibility about the coming-out experience. Did you find it necessary to tailor the movie to the burgeoning sense of awareness about the topic? When I first wrote the script in ’05, I had a sense of who Alike was and where she was going, so there was no pressure to change it because I wanted to stay true to her and what her experience was. I didn’t want to make Alike’s experience vary from anyone else’s experience or make it topical. I just let it be what it was and just trustd that if we’re honest about the character and honest about the world, that it would be relevant no matter when it came out. It’s funny because some people along the way have said, “Is this an issue anymore? Is being gay cool now?” And it’s like, no. It’s not OK now, and it’s not “cool.” Although people’s experiences of coming out are changing and it’s becoming much more visible, that’s not necessarily everyone’s experience. It was about remaining true to the character and what this story was. I’m glad to see that coming out is relevant and people are aware of it, but I definitely didn’t feel compelled to make it fit anything. You’ve said that you came out in your 20s, but you wrote about the coming-out experience of a teenage girl. How did you find the inspiration for her character? It was just my own coming-out experience sort of transposed onto a 17-year-old. I chose to make her 17 because it’s such a higher-stakes age; figuring stuff out that young, it’s going to be higher because you’re still dependent on your parents and so much is still uncertain about you. You don’t know what you’re going to be. For her to make that discovery at that age, it makes her more interesting. For me, it’s also inspired by being in New York and being among out teenagers, which is something I’d never seen in Nashville, Tennessee. I barely saw out adults. To see out teenagers who were not only out, but out in the streets was inspiring for me. It made me wonder, “Even if I had known at 17, would I have that courage to be the person in the film?” – this woman who was trying to live in two worlds. Do you have particular favorite teenager characters from movies? No, not really! I just like Alike because she’s imperfect. Initially she isn’t courageous. In teen movies, we see characters who get to say exactly what’s on their mind and say what they want and thumb their nose in the face of adult authority. For Alike, I wanted someone who didn’t feel quite comfortable – someone who’s not so self-possessed, not so self-assured, and is figuring things out. Pariah ’s lead actress Adepero Oduye just earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Can you describe watching her on set? What did she bring to the character? Watching her on set was an experience of watching her inner life. Adepero is so expressive and yet so subtle. It was great to watch changes going on in her eyes and going on in her body language and behavior – those unspoken things. I felt like I was watching her internalize the characters’ feelings. She was really in that moment. She was really feeling what Alike was feeling. The feeling like she wanted to cry, feeling like she wanted to laugh – the changes were literally visceral. They were changing her, moving through her body. Getting to watch somebody unfold on camera is like watching a flower open. Amazing. In recent years, we’ve seen more in the media about gay men’s coming out experiences than lesbians’. Do you think Pariah highlights the specificity of a woman’s coming-out? I think Pariah highlights that there’s this gray area within the gay or lesbian community. Sometimes there’s a pressure to check a box, to either be hard and be butch or be feminine and wear heels. Alike’s neither of those things, so there’s a gray area. And her coming-out experience is different because she’s coming into a different space. Alike’s not figuring out if she’s gay – she knows she loves women, that’s not her question. It’s more “How [do I] be in the world?” The first half hour isn’t “Am I gay?” It’s, “Laura’s telling me I should be butch. Mom’s telling me I should be femme.” Versus other coming out experiences, like… when she’s wearing the club clothes, that’s not really her. When she changes into this different thing for Mom, she’s not that either. We don’t see her changing from her true self into another self – she’s neither of things she’s taking on or off. We don’t know who she is. She doesn’t really want to be this butch lesbian. She just wants to be Alike. You’ve been talking about this project everywhere for years and years. You’re the Carmen Sandiego of the indie film circuit. Which was the best kids’ game show ever! Indeed! What have you gained from spending so much time introducing the film to festival audiences? Specifically from being on tour with the film, I’ve gained a huge connection with audiences – an affirmation that we told the story truthfully. To your point, we weren’t writing it based on what people were saying or what was going on in the world. We stayed in a cocoon and wrote this thing. When we finished, we didn’t know how people would respond. But people felt we told a story and were honest with the experience, so we gained a feeling of affirmation. And personally, having gone from a point where when I was coming out and I was not quite sure the world that the world would accept me for who I have, or not quite sure that I could be loved or find love, and going to this press tour and seeing audiences embrace the film and saying, “We love you,” Pariah basically gave me the courage to be who I am. I came out behind the shield of this film. This tour has been this amazing wash of affirmation and love. It makes me feel good about audiences. They’re smart and progressive and open. They’re willing to see stories beyond themselves, images that don’t exactly look like them. It restored my faith in cinemagoers. They are hungering for good stories and are willing to step outside their experience to get them. Lastly, what do you have coming up? I imagine your new projects differ from Pariah because this movie is so emotional. One project coming up is called Large Print , a spec script I did, which is about a 50-something insurance adjuster who is recently divorced and lately incontinent, and has to redefine happiness for herself. Though she’s 56, it’s still a coming-of-age story. It’s going to be an emotional film because she’s played life by the rules and nothing’s turned out the way she’s expected. The other film I’m writing is called Bolo , a thriller set in the south. It’s also about, “What is home?” What if where you grew up changes? How do you accept that? Though it has more of a genre element, it goes back to these human things. I’m working on a TV series with HBO and Viola Davis about corruption in education, which will be cool. I’m working on another TV series called Reveal set in Nashville. It’s Dallas meets The Wire , about a city going through an identity crisis. I continue to be drawn to characters, and characters that are flawed especially. I love exploring flawed people trying to make their way. Did you just say “ Dallas meets The Wire ?” Yeah! Do you know how exciting that is? Ha! We’ll see! Dallas was the soap growing up. All my aunts gathered around the TV. We should not have been the target audience for Dallas . Pariah debuts in limited U.S. release December 28. Follow Louis Virtel on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Happy 110th Birthday to the Inimitable Marlene Dietrich! What’s Her Best Work?

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Marlene Dietrich is one of the most talented, intelligent, and iconic actors of all time, and not just because everyone from Madeline Kahn to Madonna and Suzanne Vega has invoked her image with staggering results. The ferocious screen icon and cabaret star is the very definition of a vision , a cutting and defiant actress with gusto and guts galore. On the occasion of her 110th birthday, let’s commemorate her finest work. Though she garnered an Oscar nod for her turn in 1930′s Morocco , there can be no mistaking Dietrich’s amazing, beguiling work in 1957′s Witness for the Prosecution . As the mysterious wife of an accused murderer (Tyrone Power, in his last role), Dietrich tears up the screen with dramatic testimonies, cryptic declarations, and the icy conviction of a Teutonic high priestess. Here’s the climactic scene, wherein she reveals her entire plans to the dumbfounded Wilfred Robards (Charles Laughton). What’s your favorite Marlene moment? Follow Louis Virtel on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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The 20 Most Anticipated Moviegoing Dates of 2012

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Who’s excited for 2012? I said, Who’s excited for 2012? Oh. Well, it’s coming whether you want it or not, and Mayan doomsday predictions and a U.S. presidential election aside, there is stuff to look forward to. Get your calendars ready and read on for 20 dates worth saving at the movies alone. Jan. 6 : The Devil Inside becomes the millionth exorcist movie to open in theaters, thus netting a $3 million cash prize and earning the producers and 20 of their closest friends a free party and Dave and Buster’s. Jan. 15 : In a craven, ruinous grab for ratings, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association invites a suicide bomber to host the Golden Globe Awards. Jan. 20 : Coriolanus makes its official post-Oscar-qualifying debut in theaters. Take Stephanie and Louis and my words for it: You really should see it. Feb. 10 : Watch a Michael Caine paycheck role come alive as you’ve never seen it before — in the eye-popping 3-D family adventure Journey 2: The Mysterious Island . Feb. 26 : “Ziss ees for you, Uggie”: Jean Dujardin dedicates his Best Actor prize at the 84th Academy Awards to his criminally underrecognized canine co-star . March 2 : Holy shit, they really made Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters ? With Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton and Famke Janssen? Wow. OK. Anyway, this opens today. March 9 : Disney commences counting how much money it lost on the ultra expensive, roundly buzzless John Carter . March 23 : Fangirl civil war erupts as The Hunger Games makes its first incursion against the creaky, sparkly Twilight empire. The rest of us, faced only with the sad counterprogramming spectacle of A Thousand Words , flee to art-house refugee camps nationwide. April 27 : The crackerjack comic duo of Jason Segel and Emily Blunt Alison Brie and Jacki Weaver co-star in The Five-Year Engagement June 22 — Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter winds up a distressing month of predatorily-titled blockbusters including Snow White and the Huntsman , Jack the Giant Killer and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted . Which is fine, because you’re going to be watching the awesome-looking , June 8-opening Prometheus for the fifth time this weekend, anyway. July 20 — The Dark Knight Rises opens! To quote Bane, the film’s excited villain: “ Fghrlkdjhafskdfbldkbsj .” July 27 : Tyler Perry’s The Marriage Counselor reaches theaters, finally exposing audiences everywhere to the subtle dramatic charms of Kim Kardashian. I smell a Verge ! Or maybe it’s just Valtrex. Aug. 17 : Boldly leaping to the front of the Oscar-season line, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association moves up its awards-voting date to Aug. 20 after seeing The Expendables 2 . Sept. 28 : The year of Taylor Kitsch — previously comprising John Carter and Battleship — concludes with the only one of his films any grown-ass adult wants to actually see: The Oliver Stone pot-cartel thriller Savages , co-starring Beinicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Blake Lively and Emile Hirsch. Oct. 12 : From Kevin James and his Zookeeper director Frank Coraci comes the teacher-turned-MMA moonlighter comedy Here Comes the Boom . I only bring it up because Jesus will weep so copiously that you might start filling and stacking sandbags now . Oct. 19 : Ryan Gosling. Emma Stone. Josh Brolin. Sean Penn. Gangster Squad . That is all. Nov. 16 : The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 concludes the billion-dollar franchise, instantly prompting millions of prodigious sobbing binges. But enough about Taylor Lautner’s management team. Nov. 21 : The visionary filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron returns with Gravity , which draws a robust opening-weekend crowd with its promise of showing Sandra Bullock shot into space. Dec. 19 : Kathryn Bigelow’s as-yet-unnamed Osama bin Laden movie — working title: Banned in Pakistan — reaches theaters. Dec. 25 : A very DiCaprio Christmas gets underway with Django Unchained and The Great Gatsby . Enjoy 2012, everyone! Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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The 20 Most Anticipated Moviegoing Dates of 2012

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Margaret, Melancholia and More: Alison’s Top 10 Movies of 2011

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

I found 2011 to be a great, overstuffed year in film, though the sweeping trend of nostalgia that peaked during this awards season left me a little cold. Hugo , War Horse , The Artist , The Adventures of Tintin , The Help , even the self-aware looking back of Midnight in Paris — when it’s been such a turbulent 12 months beyond the movies, the comfort of evoking the past, especially the cinephilic past, is understandable, particularly with attendance down once again. But the features I really loved tended to be more prickly, vital affairs, about tragedy and life messily, stubbornly going on in its aftermath — ones that reminded us that film can not only be a great escape, but can also engage and reflect the outside world. 10. Shame Steve McQueen’s sophomore effort took flack from some who found it moralizing in its portrayal of sex addiction, but it’s not a film about a condition, it’s a film about damage. Michael Fassbender plays a man who’s left a traumatic childhood behind and has shored himself up in the city that never sleeps with an immaculate condo and a high-powered job that almost hide his underlying desperation and his inability to connect or open up to anyone on anything other than a physical level. It’s one of the loneliest portraits of urban living I’ve ever seen. 9. Warrior The neglected blockbuster of our Occupy Wall Street era, Warrior drapes Rocky trappings over characters and settings more immediate than you’d ever expect at a multiplex. Its two brothers, in what should have been star-making turns from Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton, head to the cage after taking beatings elsewhere — one’s left the Marines on less than ideal terms after the death of colleague, the other’s upside down on his mortgage and unable to support his family on a teacher’s salary. Add to that the fact that the tournament in which they both compete was started by a former Wall Street type putting up the money to see “who the toughest man on the planet is,” and you have a rousing, violent fight film with a seriously bittersweet edge. 8. The Arbor Andrea Dunbar grew up in run-down Bradford council estates, drank heavily, had three kids by different fathers, wrote a trio of acclaimed plays about the life she knew and died at age 29. Clio Barnard’s documentary about the playwright brilliantly stages its interviews as their own performance, lip-synched by actors in the settings in which Dunbar and her children grew up and lived, and offering a piercing glimpse of how tragedy is taken up — her second work Rita, Sue and Bob Too was made into a film directed by Alan Clarke — and passed down, to her heroin-addicted eldest Lorraine. 7. Certified Copy It’s never clear which part of Juliette Binoche’s antiques dealer and William Shimell’s writer’s relationship is the pretense — are they strangers who play at being married, or a married couple playing at meeting as strangers? The thesis of Shimell’s book may or may not line up with that of Abbas Kiarostami’s film — the relationship between art and reproduction, original and copy — but the figuring out, and the slippery nature of the connection the pair on screen, is delicious. 6. The Tree of Life It’s a film about a family that stretches from the beginning of the universe to a possible vision of the afterlife — if it may not be wholly lovable, its ambition alone should earn respect. But it’s the evocative immersion on childhood that lingered with me after Terrence Malick’s more grandiose imagery had faded, the tactile sense of that Texas street, the house, the endless possibility, uncertainty and wonder of being young and new to the world, the flashes of memory — the offering of a drink to a prisoner, the caress of a baby’s foot, the goading of a younger sibling to touch a light socket — that break up the more iconic moments with startling specificity. 5. Margaret Messy, vivid and wonderful, Kenneth Lonergan’s difficult production has become a critics’ cause, in part because of how tough it’s been to actually see. It’s worth the trouble, and in some ways better because of the long wait in reaching the few theaters it did — it now looks less like a movie about post-9/11 New York and more one about the city in all of its anonymous, chaotic glory, about a teenage girl’s first horrific brush with mortality and about the strange places that life leads us. 4. Take Shelter Few films have attempted to capture our age of anxiety like Jeff Nichols’s drama, about catastrophic dreams that may be caused by mental illness, but seem just as much to spring from the sense of uncertainty with which we’ve all been infected. Anchored by a stunning performance from Michael Shannon, Take Shelter presents a look at quiet breakdown spurred on by a desire to protect one’s loved ones, and pairs it with frightening scenes of monstrous storms and shadowy attackers that rival any of this year’s horror movies. 3. Into the Abyss Trust Werner Herzog to find stories so strange and moving in a terrible small-town triple murder over an automobile. The Texas of this film is recognizable, but it’s also near-mythic — a place of universally broken families, sudden violence, prison reunions and hard-earned redemption. Taken alone, the interviews with Melyssa Burkett or Jared Tolbert would be enough to make the film. As part of a kaleidoscope of suffering and hope, they’re highlights in something dark, funny and expressly moving about the persistence of human nature in the face of loss. 2. A Separation A marriage falls apart over the decision of whether or not to leave Iran in Asghar Farhadi’s magnificent drama, and encompasses in its disintegration a snapshot of the fractured nation that’s so nuanced, empathetic and complex it quickens the heart. Certainly the smartest film of the year, both as a self-contained work and in the respect it offers the audience, A Separation is unadorned by a score or flashy camera tricks — it doesn’t need them. 1. Melancholia The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference, and in Lars von Trier’s film it’s the awesome force of Kirsten Dunst’s depression-fueled disinterest that exudes a gravitational drag on everyone around here even before the arrival of the destructive planet of the title. Before the breathtaking apocalyptic imagery appears — the object looming closer in the sky, the static sparking from fingertips — Melancholia is already a devastating look at an illness that leaves you unable to connect to what life has to offer, even on an extravagant wedding day that seems to compress half a lifetime into a night. But it’s that the film turns to offer a sympathetic eye to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s anxious sibling in the second half that makes it great, and that gives it a soul. As she struggles to hold everything together in the face of approaching disaster, even Dunst’s depressive is moved to offer her a conciliatory gesture as the world ends. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Margaret, Melancholia and More: Alison’s Top 10 Movies of 2011

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The Ides of March, The Artist and Other Moviegoing Let-Downs of 2011

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The key to a list of moviegoing disappointments is the element of expectation: I am prepared to say I watched more suicidally bad films in 2011 than in any other year in my life; to be merely disappointed suggests a certain relativity. For example, I found The Ides of March to be a tremendous let down, I think partly because my hopes were inflated. George Clooney’s high political tragedy is perfectly cast, and that early, loaded exchange of glances between rival campaign managers Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti goes off like a starter pistol. But The Ides of March is like that — it keeps threatening to start something interesting, right up to the point that it just… ends. I had the same issue with Good Night and Good Luck , another major disappointment and another film that played as if it were perpetually about to begin . The pleasures of Ryan Gosling’s performance as the fledgling spinmeister feel stingy — why tell us that he’s known to rock the microphone when we paid for the show? And Clooney’s Teflon governor is an empty, well-cut overcoat — perhaps the most glaring evidence of both the character and the director’s failure is that his one big scene with his golden boy star is the least exciting one in the movie. Given the improbable, stadium-rolling wave of appreciation that greeted The Artist , I expected much more than the mannered silent that Michel Hazanavicius and co. delivered. A mediocre movie with a couple of bright moments, The Artist also had too little to say about its chosen themes. Given the challenge of holding our attention across a silent film landscape, the music felt either too sparse or too sentimentally obvious, and the droopy patches felt twice as long as they needed to. The story of a silent film star left behind by the transition to sound was unconvincing when it needed to be clear and dolorous when it might have been lyrical. Similarly cranky friends have fixated on the issue of George Valentin’s (Jean Dujardin) refusal to speak on film—was it the accent? A principled stance? The fact that they were at all unsure points out a massive gap in the center of The Artist , one its title sews up too neatly. Any close follower of Werner Herzog’s career should know better than to bring expectations brewed from his last film into the next. Along with an auteurist consistency of preoccupations, Herzog shares with Woody Allen a prodigious output of wildly variable quality. The titles of this year’s Herzogian harvest — the sublime Cave of Forgotten Dreams and the slapdash Into the Abyss — seem interchangeable, but the latter felt to me like Achilles Herzog, a hot check of a documentary passed off as the real thing. Researched and assembled under extreme time constraints, Into the Abyss is an inquiry into the death penalty that gets by on artful narrative juxtapositions and moments of profound, almost invasive intimacy with its interview subjects. The reach for effect often feels more craven than considered, and the crime at the heart of the film is eventually clouded over for convenience. When a topic and a director — and a title! — of this magnitude collide, the viewer wants the Earth to shimmy; instead we had to settle for the Richter equivalent of a quick freehand sketch. I’ve watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy twice now and I still couldn’t give you a basic plot summary. Having felt like a failure after the first viewing, after the second I’m prepared to push the better part of the blame onto director Tomas Alfredson and his Let the Right One In editor Dino Jonsäter. It’s a film that seems designed for le Carré obsessives, which means the rest of us may have to sit through all 57 hours of the 1979 BBC production just to get the facts straight. It’s a shame, because the performances and the production design knocked me out, but of all the ways to sex up a retro-procedural, I’d put mincing it into incomprehensibility second to casting Young Jeezy as George Smiley. With The Iron Lady Meryl Streep re-stamps her all-access passport to human history, and proves once again that the only thing she can’t seem to defy are superlative clichés. There are no words left to describe the kind of work Streep does — even those who dismiss her as a mere impressionist have to admit that her Margaret Thatcher is uncanny in its near-total self-effacement. But the film built around that performance is in some sense designed to disappoint: The biopic is an inefficient delivery system for dramatic tension or even, paradoxically, the human arc of a lifetime. It’s the movie equivalent of a greatest hits package, and while I’m not crazy about the appropriation of the still-living Thatcher’s dementia as a dramatic device, for me the more broadly director Phyllida Lloyd played her hand — ruining every successful visual cue by repeating it three times, leaping from one familiar milestone to the next — the farther we move away from the potential of Streep’s performance and the uneven richness of Thatcher’s story, into the straight flush of political iconography. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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The Ides of March, The Artist and Other Moviegoing Let-Downs of 2011

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