The Beaver (2011)

From warm inception to curious production to maligned release, The Beaver was always a weird prospect. But at the same time- a film made by and starring Jodie Foster, about Mel Gibson talking through a puppet would have been completely different if it had come about in the 90's, when you imagine that. It sorta looks like one of each modern day crappy Jim Carrey kids movies.
Today, it's a Hydrogen bomb of 'Meta' seeing a manic depressive Mel Gibson deride social conventions and push away the people around him with his behaviour, while Jodie Foster (prolific colleagues, if not close friends) tells him "We love you and want you to get better but we can't help if you keep pushing us away..."
The strange thing about the film is that it's neither the horrible saccharine family movie nor the dynamic heartfelt family drama it wants to be - it stays in the middleground. It explores the strong ideas like repeating the failings of your parents and coping with grief when the world around you continues and how you deal with that but then the whole puppet macguffin undoes the thread of the issues in the film. But then if it wasn't really the puppet, why make the effort to watch? I hate that kinda of earnest, worthy kind of social family drama.
The acting across the board is really good but that's to be expected from Gibson playing nutso and Foster playing a concerned mother (they've had practice) but Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence are especially good at playing dysfunctional teenagers (they be playing them for a while !) trying to resolve their own issues. In fact,Gibson is far better at playing The Beaver, a fake Australian anthropomorphic stuffed toy then a middle-aged man suffering with depression.
I kinda felt bored during the first half of the film but as the progressed, i really began to connect with it. It begins to develop good messages about feeling alone and how you counteract them though engaging with the people you care about for not disconnecting from them. Gibson needs to do something completely wild and original and i think he could legitimately come back and return to his previous profile in the movies and i think maybe The Beaver was a step in the right direction but it's not far enough a step, he needs to completely reinventing himself because the best parts of the film are where he's least playing Mel Gibson...

I watched The Beaver (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bringing Up Baby (1950)...

X Men: First Class (2011)

I'm happy to declared, with a certain amount of pleased surprise that this is the best X Men movie. I don't remember the last time people held their breath, curious about whether a movie would be shit or not like they've been with this one. I mean usually we see films in the distance and we can tell if they'll be any good or not. But in the X Men canon - this is a whole new mutant (... I'm not proud of myself...); there was a mixed bag of hope and limitations - it would be made by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, who had ascended to this new level of filmmaking talents and I'm sure this was before KickAss had come out, just on word-of-mouth. But- they were given less than a year to make the film. To put it in perspective - i had seen the full trailer for Thor, a film that would certainly not see the light of day for another year before before frame 1 of this film hadn't been shot. Now obviously, it doesn't necessarily take a year to make a film like this but they probably finished photography on Thor in early 2010, big budget summer offerings take a long time. Also the last 2 XMen films are examples of the most cynical types of that sort shallow filmmaking and X Men 3 was made in similar circumstances of a rushed shoot to terrible effect.
But... Somehow (1/4 of billion $) Vaughn has managed to not only pull off an entertaining blockbuster but probably the best one we'll see this summer. To be fair, he dealt himself a good hand having the cast lead by 2 of best British actors of this generation, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. I love McAvoy's effortless Scottish charm and he lays it on as this young Professor X and Fassbender IS Sean Connery's James Bond for the first 20 he's on screen in this film. He is joy to behold. But speaking of which, Vaughn has made a covert love letter to Terence Young, Guy Hamilton and the early Bond filmsthe, with faux Ken Adam sets and 60's style and sexual mores. Set before and during the Bay of Pigs conflict, the film uses the situation to base the story.
Since these movies obviously have big casts, I can't name everyone but Kevin Bacon is good as the main baddie and Jennifer Lawrence is a really great at play the young Mystique (after slating her less than a week ago).
I really want to say this is Vaughn's best film but hmmm...
And i know with the constraints he was under, it must have been the most challenging film he's ever worked on but he really came through and right now, he could do anything he likes (so long as he promises Fox another X Men and the fans another KickAss)...

I watched X Men: First Class (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with The Thin Blue Line (1987)...

Winter's Bone (2009)

Let me be frank- Winter's Bone? Not for me.
Did I think it was a colossal waste of celluloid? Not at all, but i am struggling to see what caught everyones imagination. It must be the epitome of that cosmic truth, where if you are amongst the first people to see something unique, it'll stay special for you forever but if you're last to see it, then you wonder what all the guff was about? Sister to that cosmic truth is the one that says 'something classic is good whether you're first or last to see or hear it'. At the end of the film, i found it kinda maddening (not totally) that it had been so celebrated across the board. I guess people like a grim tale of want and desolation with a super-happy ending. (I'm not spoiling anything by saying that-trust me).
Like you don't already know, the story is that a teenage girl, who's already struggling to care for her mother, brother and sister, who has to find her sketchy father before the house he put up for bond, will be repossessed but either he doesn't want to be found or these yokel gangsters don't what him to be found...
I'm playing LA Noire at the moment and the protocol of both are very similar-interrogate successfully and you move further. Mis-step and you're back to the start. Apart from that, it like jug-whistle Dickens. It's basically a kidnapping investigation procedural with Hillbillies. It's like Tintin set in meth houses in the Appalachian Mountains.
Predominantly, I just don't get why Jennifer Lawrence got any of that (operative word) hype. She's by no means awful and she carries the film well but it didn't seem particularly awe-inspiring to me. She does a good job but i didn't feel like she was transcending the limits of acting or anything.
Legitimately amazing is John Hawkes as the shady Uncle with the hair-trigger temper. I've liked the guy in stuff for years. He's kinda like a Southern Steve Buscemi but he's almost unrecognisable in this film with his lean figure and meth'ed-out face. It's a significant transformation; add to that, he never has really played someone somewhere mean. It's pleasantly surprising to see and enjoy.
So Winter's Bone - not boring and fairly interesting and entertaining but to me... a big smelly hot bubble of hype...
I watched Winter's Bone (2009) on DVD, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Violent Cop (1989)...