My Top 5 Movies of 2011

What Makes A Movie Great?

Well, I'm sure you have your own answer for that. I would, however, like to share with you what it means to me, and my top 5 movies for the year!

A great movie, in my opinion, is something that causes you to be emotional. Not just in a sad way, but not only in a funny or happy way, either. Balance. I think that movies desperately, along with everything else in the Universe, need balance. A great movie also causes you to think. I may forfeit some of the emotion if I feel like my mind is being swept away with cunning and wit, almost or indeed superhuman in nature. Oh, and anything that might threaten my sanity, I welcome. Haha.

My top 5 for the Year are: 50/50, The Help, Drive, Limitless, and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, in no specific order.

If you're interested, please do keep reading!

50/50 is a film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. Gordon-Levitt plays a 27 year old man named Adam who finds out that he has a rare type of cancer affecting his spinal cord. The movie takes you from his diagnosis, through his treatment, everything in between, and as for the ending, well, watch it yourself to find that part out!

Now, you all may probably already know that any movie with Seth Rogen is going to be ridiculously funny and slightly (or extremely) raunchy. The gut wrenching laughter surprises you considering all crying that you do as you can't help but sympathize with Adam. I found myself crying, then laughing nonsensically within the next minute, tears fresh on my cheeks. The writers so brilliantly wrote in the comedy as to not take away from his pain, but to actually make you feel even more connected with him. It is certainly not another predictable movie. Just when you think you know what Adam is really going to do, or what kind of friend Kyle (Rogen) really is, if you pay attention, you'll find yourself being very wrong, indeed.

I recommend anyone who can stomach some raunchy comedy, and doesn't mind keeping kleenex nearby when watching a movie, to watch 50/50. If you do decide to watch it, tell me what you think!

"The Help!" What a great movie! I know, I know, I have to tell you why, but I couldn't help myself!

So, "The Help" is a movie about an outspoken young woman named Skeeter, played by Emma Stone(who is becoming on of my favorite actresses, by the way). It's set in the 1960's, a time where many African American women took up housekeeping as a profession, especially if their mother was one, etc. Many of these housekeepers, i.e., the help, are greatly mistreated, including Ms. Aibileen, played by Viola Davis, and a Ms. Minny, played by Octavia Spencer, who is especially fiesty. Her employer, Hilly, played by the same woman who coincidentally plays Adam's no good girlfriend in 50/50, Ms. Bryce Dallas Howard, is a horribly nasty employer, who actively makes the lives of those that she doesn't like miserable. But she is repaid in the most interesting manner. It's important to the plot though, so I won't tell you. But, if you don't laugh until you cry, there's something wrong with your funny-o-meter! Well, if you gag, this is also understandable! Ha!

Skeeter is a serious journalist, who feels what she feels, and thinks what she thinks quite strongly. After noticing the mistreatment of the help and also how unfair it is for them to constantly look over their white employers children, while not being able to spend time with their own, Skeeter decides to write about the lives of these women, and it leads her to discover something in her own life she would've never imagined.

Expect tears, laughter, and a SERIOUSLY jaw-dropping moment.

First, let me say this. Drive is NOT for the faint of heart. It takes a good grasp on reality to enjoy this movie and maintain your sanity.

Now that I've put that out there, the more I think about it, the more this movie should've been first. Never have I seen a movie that filled me with such disgust and intrigue at the same time. It is gory. But, not for gory's sake. It is reality, with no boundaries, no sugar-coating, no mercy.

Drive is about a no-named man, played by Ryan Gosling, who is quite mysterious, indeed. He has a day job as a professional stunt driver, but by night, he is a driver for hire, who disassociates himself with you after he's made sure the job is done, and/or the time limit is up. He is a man not quite stable, but with a good heart, and a mean will to survive. The level to which he cares for people is so deep, considering his tendency to appear aloof, apathetic, and antisocial. You connect with him, even though you never find out his name.

The love story in this movie is so subtle, slightly inappropriate, and intense. (His love interest is Irene, played by actress Carey Mulligan)The twists and turns of "Drive" will have you sitting at the edge of your seat, covering your mouth from the gore, and sheer terror of the capabilities of man, and wanting to see it out until the end, whatever it may be...

Bradley Cooper, the End.

Ok, I understand that this isn't enough, well it is for me, ladies you understand. But, on a serious note, Limitless was fantastical.

Talk about a movie that excites the brain. Not necessarily because of what you must figure out yourself, but the idea of what possibilities may just lie within the human brain. The thought that maybe we could do such things one day, if there aren't already people out there with similar abilities. You can't help but to watch, interested in what happens next, as writer turned drugee, Eddie (Bradley Cooper), turns his life upside down. His girlfriend, played by Abbie Cornish, and the man who started all of the madness, played by Johnny Whitworth, are caught up in a world of madness, as science has potentially opened a door to a world that's, well, limitless, pun intended.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows was so very, very well done. Robert Downey, Jr. has a tendency to be in quality movies.

For those of you unfamiliar with Downey, Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes, fret not! This sequel was done well enough to have been the first movie. Holmes and Watson(Jude Law), go on an adventure that leads them to being face to face with one of the most cunning and powerful men of their time, a Professor, who, for lack of a better term, had lost his marbles, and was insanely brilliant.

The cinematography was wonderful. The fighting scenes were not only awesome, but unique. If you are unfamiliar with Holmes' approach to fighting, I shan't ruin it for you as it's quite intriguing. Let's just say he's a master strategist, and this very fact compels you to keep watching, a long with a list of other things. The conversations that Holmes' has with his brother, played by Stephen Fry, might have you slightly dazed, but, all the more reason for it to be considered a movie that engages the mind, and tickles the thought that the human mind may indeed be able to work in such a manner if it doesn't already for some.