My Best Movies of 2011

I lost my file that had all my blog post ideas and countless blog posts that I'd started.

To me, losing a file is like losing a small child. A really really small child. Like a child that's thin enough to be 2D and can fit on my desktop.

It takes me longer than it should to recover from losing a file. Like, if I am playing a video game and the file doesn't save after working on it for an hour or two, that's it. I'm done. I quit the game and stop playing it entirely. It's bad enough that I'm spending my time doing something that's entirely unproductive, but it's a billion times worse when I have to spend time doing non-productive things that I've already done. The lack of productivity multiplies itself in an exponential fashion and results in a complete implosion of unproductive regression. It's not pretty.

It got to the point where if ever I would want to stop playing a video game I would just intentionally not save a game, even after like 10 minutes of game play, and I would not return to it.

I think this is also what sparked my terrible email response time. One time I wrote a huge, heartfelt email and the whole thing deleted right before I sent it. We've all been there. That realization that you've lost all of your heart-infused work makes you want to curl up in a corner and never got near technology again. It took me four months before I re-wrote that email because it was so hard to come to terms with all of those lost words. This is why I now save as much as I blink and write all of my emails out on Word before sending them.

So, that is all to say, I lost my file and that's what sparked a month of not blogging. Let's move on.

Tomorrow's the 24th and we all know what that means!! It's the day we've had marked on our calendars all year!! Why? The Academy Award nominations come out tomorrow!! How excited are WE!?! But before we celebrate all those movies that other people tell us we're supposed to celebrate, I gave myself two tasks: 1) To name my top ten from 2011 and 2) To name the movies I'm most excited for next year.

For my list of Memorable Movies of 2011, I'm cheating a little because a lot of the movies I saw in 2011 weren't necessarily released in 2011, but I made a list and I'm going to share it with you regardless.

10. Citizen Kane – I finally got around to watching what a lot of people say is the best movie ever made and, shock and amazement, it was actually pretty good. At first I didn’t entirely get it, but once I read a lot more about it I began to understand why it was so amazing for its time. A lot of the things that made it huge have been insanely overused since then, making it seem less impressive. But once you realize that this was the pioneer for a lot of those things, you can’t help but applaud.

9. Rabbit Hole – A lot of these movies are on here because they made me think after the movie was finished. This is one of those. It’s really haunting and not optimistic in really any way. But it’s good. Really good.

8. A Serious Man – Oh, Coen brothers, I have a man crush on your brains. This movie ended and I said “What the heck??” and then I read up all about it and then I said, “WHAT THE HECK??” I like a movie that makes me say what the heck. Also, I was really proud that my Jewish class had prepared me for a lot of the dialogue. Go Goldie Morgentaler!

7.It’s Kind of a Funny Story – This movie gets props for re-watchability. It’s based off of a great novel, and it’s simple, easy, and nice. Not mind-blowing, not revolutionary, but fun.

6. The Tree of Life – Another one that made me think of it after the fact. Perhaps it was because I watched it alone, but all I wanted to do for a month after was find someone to talk about it with. It still intrigues me and I applaud the originality. It stuck with me and therefore I liked it. Teaser: the first half-hour is basically pictures of the Earth. So, there's that. Also, there's a dinosaur.

5. No Impact Man – This one’s a documentary. It’s not the best documentary ever I’m sure, but I found it really interesting and the content exciting. I love the idea of challenges and I feel like I can relate to a man who would put his family through some ridiculous experiment for the sake of his own experience. It’s pretty short and I would definitely recommend it to other people; it certainly got me thinking.

4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – I feel like I would never recommend this to anyone for fear of immediate judgment, but I really really loved this movie. It’s so ridiculously clever and creative and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. If you haven’t seen it yet, you probably won’t like it, because anyone who would want to see it knew exactly when it came out.

3. Limitless – I don’t know if it was because it was about an author, or because it gets me really excited to be productive, or because just watching the one scene where the camera “falls” off the edge of the building gave me butterflies, but this was another of my favourites. I could have done without all of the gore at the end, but I still enjoyed it enough to re-watch it more than once.

2. 50/50 – Oh boy. I watched this movie by myself, in my room, on my floor. I had just been biking so I had taken off my shirt and was just wearing shorts (yes, this pertains, don’t worry). As the movie progressed, I began bawling my eyes out. The closest thing within my grasp was my backpack, so naturally I grabbed it and clung to it as I collapsed in my puddle of tears.

I tell you this because if ever there is a time when I become too proud, or where you’re angry at me for something you deserve to be angry about, or if you are jealous of me in any way, shape or form, I need you to conjure up this image. I need you to think of me, lying on my floor, wearing nothing but shorts, cradling my backpack, rocking back and forth, and bawling my eyes out like a newborn baby (like fresh-out-of-the-womb baby—it adds to the grotesqueness), like a sobbing, sweaty, leaking, snotty ball of mess. There, now we’re even.

Sooo, yeah, it’s a good movie. Check it out. You’ve been warned.

1. Synedoche, New York! – All right, so I know this is kind of anticlimactic, but this one does come with a disclaimer. I saw this movie at the VERY beginning of 2011 and to be entirely honest, I really don’t remember it that much. I just remember being completely blown away by it. The parts I do remember were brilliant and I’ve been intentionally forgetting it so I can watch it again and be blown away again. I’m 82% sure that I would recommend it to anyone, but let me watch it again before I fully confirm that.

Also, as a side note I should probably put a disclaimer on all of these movies by saying that they’re not all squeaky clean. Let your own standards be a stronger guide than my opinion.

So here’s to 2011! I know a lot of the movies that are going to be nominated aren’t on that list, so I’m looking forward to making a whole new list tomorrow. AREN’T LISTS THE GREATEST!? I'll save my top ten anticipated movies for tomorrow.

Also, a bit of housekeeping. I cleaned up a couple things on the site and updated my life list. I also added a search feature so you can scan through everything I've written (which is scary, considering I've had this blog since 2007), and I added a feature where you can add yourself to an email list if you want to be notified whenever I post. I'm not that narcissistic; it's mostly for my anti-Facebook father. Enjoy!