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January 30, 2012

The Best of 2011- The Burnies!!!

I have been slacking horribly over the past few months, but this is my favorite time of year... Award season!!! As the Oscar nominations were announced, I was reminded that last year I made a list of my top picks for the year. While I haven't seen all of the heavy hitters for this year yet, I'm going to try to change that, I think I can come up with a pretty good list of my favorites from this year. So far The Golden Globes are the biggest indicator of what the big wigs think and mostly I agree. The Ides of March was a big disappointment for me. It got many noms from Hollywood Foreign Press, but I don't think it quite measured up.I am now glad to see that the Academy agrees with me, almost shafting The Ides completely.  Also, there is no animated film on my list. I think this was a very disappointing year for animated films. My guess was that Adventures of Tintin would pull away with the awards pretty handily (however, I haven't seen it), but the Academy gave it no notice.

 Anyways, here's my list in no specific order, just the top films from 2011, keep in mind these are just the ones I've seen.

Drive
Moneyball
The Help
Bridesmaids
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Super 8
Friends with Benefits


These are the movies I'm still DYING to see!! So please let me know if you want to see any of them!
Most of them are nominated for Academy Awards and from what I've seen they deserve it.

Hugo
Iron Lady
My week with Marilyn
Descendents
Girl with Dragon tatoo
War Horse
J. Edgar
Midnight in Paris
Adventures of Tintin

50/50

50/50 is the story of a 27 year old man who discovers he has cancer. It tells the story of his relationships with pretty much everyone he encounters from his mother to his therapist. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the main character spectacularly. Seth Rogen plays his best friend, and pretty much the same character he has played in every other movie he's been in. While this is a very serious topic, the film gives is a comedic spin but doesn't downplay the severity of the situation.

The biggest highlight of this film is the acting. Joseph Godon-Levitt does an amazing job. He brings the realness that is necessary to breach a tragic topic like cancer while keeping some humor mixed in with his wit. He brings a lot more sarcastic humor than Seth Rogen's character. While Rogen's character is rather shallow, it is so realistic and enlightening to see the bro-mance-type relationship deal with a life-threatening issue.

The film as a whole is very current with this cancer issue. It also has a very indie feel to it. The story line is pretty general, but it develops the relationships of the main character eloquently. It's these relationships that really  make it any story at all, without them it'd be rather boring.

Overall, the story is in line with our current society. The strengths of the film are the development of the relationships throughout  the film and Gordon-Levitt's acting. Generally the independent-type movies do not wow me. They usually just make you feel like nothing actually happened throughout the whole movie. 50/50 is definitely as step up from nothing happening, but it didn't wow me.

I didn't make the effort to see this one in theaters, so I guess I'd say.... it's definitely worth a dollar!

Redbox/Netflix It