Washington Examiner movie critic Kelly Jane Torrance shares her thoughts on the year’s best movies.
1. ‘The Artist’ – This is why movies are made. It might be called a love letter to the art form; it’s really a love letter to life. This silent film about the silent film era is all-encompassing: It’s clever, charming, dazzling, funny, touching, radiant, and, most of all, utterly unforgettable.
2. ‘Shame’ – Steve McQueen does effortlessly what David Fincher couldn’t, despite a big budget and big names, in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”: uses shocking sex to reveal character and the kind of deep-seated emotions we all — even those of us with less-active romantic lives — spend a lifetime struggling to comprehend, let alone control.
3. ‘The Guard’ – John Michael McDonagh turns out to be just as darkly talented as his brother, “In Bruges” director Martin McDonagh. “The Guard” is a profane piece of work, but more memorable (and meaningful) than most R-rated dramas were this year.
4. ‘Drive’ – You either embraced this atmospheric mood piece or you didn’t; I did.
5. ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ – Writer-director Sean Durkin handles the sensitive — and sensational — subject of a cult with more delicacy than most vets. Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes are simply superb as (anything but stereotypical) victim and charismatic leader.
6. ‘Circumstance’ – Iran was on the minds of many throughout the year. Watch this film to learn what life there is really like for the young people who have inherited the soul-destroying society their parents never meant to leave them.
7. ‘Attack the Block’ – “Super 8” made $127 million domestically, while this other movie about a group of kids facing down an alien invasion made just over $1 million Stateside. But this British horror-comedy was far more original than the Spielberg homage — and more entertaining.
8. ‘The Skin I Live In’ – The most surprising film of the year — and not just because of the unsettling plot twists. Pedro Almodovar has made his masterpiece, while Antonio Banderas is nothing less than reborn as director and muse reunited in this sinister Spanish flick.
9. ‘The Drummond Will’ – Filmfest DC was the only way to see this gem in District theaters. This modern Ealing Comedy is blacker than that genre could ever have dreamed of being. Two brothers find an unexpectedly large inheritance in their dead father’s rural cottage — and the bodies pile up as they struggle to make off with it.
10. ‘Of Gods and Men’ – The year’s quietest movie — after “The Artist,” of course — introduces us to an extraordinary group of men before making them martyrs. Based on the true story of Trappist monks killed by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group in 1996, this haunting film explores love, faith, beauty and violence, mostly through the sometimes agonized, sometimes astral looks on the faces of the doomed.
