I’ve seen just about every one of these movies more than once. It’s the multiple viewings that really tell you how a film will hold up, and which movies you can watch again and again. A truly good movie is good on more than just a first viewing. That’s the reason for Bridesmaids rising to the number 2 spot, and for Horrible Bosses making it onto the list at all (in the top 5 of the year, no less.)
Midnight in paris is good, and you can definitely watch it more than once, but Bridesmaids is hilarious, and Win Win is pretty perfect. I love the best friend (Bobby Canavale) in Win Win, who is a major reason for why the movie ends up so great.
X-Men first class is definitely one of the better X-men films, and while I don’t love the whole team atmosphere as much as I like it in X-Men and X-2, the Magneto scenes are terrific. It’s his movie and he really dominates the first half of the film nicely as he goes around hunting Nazis.
Horrible Bosses is one of those repeat viewing movies that gets funnier each time. Charlie Day in particular, really adds a lot to the humor level, and Jason Bateman as the straight man is also pretty great. Kevin Spacey is the weakest boss, but Jennifer Aniston has never been hotter and Colin Farell playing a coke head is a lot of fun.
After those five, the next five movies are good, but not great. The Descendents, for example, by director Alexander Payne, isn’t nearly as good as some of his other movies (Sideways and Election), but it is still entertaining. Especially the whole bit about Clooney deciding what to do with his land. The Ides of March is the better Clooney movie, because it moves faster and has a darker feel. The Descendents is black comedy, only it’s not really all that funny. With the ides of march, it plays no games with letting us know what it really is. The movie is a political thriller involving death and double crossing.
Moneyball is also on the list, and that’s the movie more than any of the others (well, that and Horrible Bosses,) that I didn’t really care for the first time I saw it. The multiple viewings are what got me to really appreciate the film. It is definitely a little slow at times, but the movie is smart and creative, and somehow finds a way to turn what would seem like a boring topic, into an interesting film. The topic is the management of a baseball team, and specifically using a mathematical formula to figure out which players to keep and which to send packing. There is very little actual baseball playing in the movie. It’s all behind the scenes of the organization stuff.
Rounding out the top ten are Attack The Block and The Artist. Those are the two I am most uncertain about, and could see getting kicked off the list at some point. I like The Artist for what it is… funny, light-hearted, and a tribute to silent movies. But the plot is also pretty basic and the movie is slow at times, more than it should be.
Attack The Block is definitely a film I need to see again. I saw it once, and it was pretty funny and creative, but I can’t be sure yet if it holds up under multiple viewings. So far, it seems like it belongs, but it’s definitely a big question mark for the future.
