2011's Best DVDs so far

The year is officially half over so I guess this is a good time to offer this list of the 25 best films reviewed on this journal during the first half of 2011. Repeating the criteria for films to be reviewed here:

• Must be available on DVD
• Must have received only a limited theatrical release or those, for whatever reason, that netted less than $10 million in domestic box office receipts
• Were films I believe were worth a home viewing.

So here are the 25 best ones fitting that criteria for the first half of 2011 (clicking on the title will take you the trailer for each film). If you have not seen a film on this list, I highly recommend you go either here or here and rent yourself a copy.

The best film reviewed on this journal
 so far this year

1. Another Year. Directed by Mike Leigh. Starring Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Leslie Manville. Extracting big drama out of small events is Leigh’s forte, and with this latest little masterpiece, the English director pushes himself to the extreme.

2. Exit Through the Gift Shop. A documentary directed by Bansky. That rarest of art documentaries, one that actually leaves viewers with a better sense of the gifted versus the phony.

3. Blue Valentine. Directed by Derek Cianfrance. Starring Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams. A description of the film would sound depressing, but it is a reminder that well-measured and expertly acted pain is as thrilling to watch as a 3-D spectacle.

4. Dogtooth. Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos. How perfectly perverse: In a season crammed with sequels, remakes, ‘80s nostalgia and the frustrated sense of “What else y’got?” comes the most original nightmare in years.

5. Inside Job. A documentary directed by Charles Ferguson. Narrated by Matt Damon. This is a true-life heist movie, and the thieves not only got away with their billions, they’re still doing business. Pay attention and blow a gasket.

6. Animal Kingdom. Directed by David Michod. Starring Guy Pearce. A remarkable film, a gritty, gut-churning, crime thriller based on a true story. Its greatness lies in its unwavering fidelity to human nature and the unstoppable laws of the wild.

7. Rabbit Hole. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest. Yet another film a description of which would sound depressing, although it isn’t. David Lindsay-Abaire presents a perceptive, subtly dark-humored adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

8. White Material. Directed by Claire Denis. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Lambert. A portrait, by turns chilling, thrilling, mysterious and terrifying, of a woman who refuses to be terrorized.

9. Fish Tank. Directed by Andrea Arnold. Starring Katie Jarvis, Keirston Wareing. With this film, Arnold deserves comparison with a British master director like Ken Loach.

10. Four Lions. Directed by Christopher Morris. While the film is likely to find outright rejection among those who remain jittery with each turn in the War Against Terror, it should find a warm reception with fans of dark, outrageous humor.

11. Somewhere. Directed by Sofia Coppola. Starring Elle Fanning, Stephen Dorff. A fascinating, mature, beautifully crafted work of art, from a director who continues to surprise me. Coppola has absorbed the Italian avant-garde more completely than her father ever did, and has made a film about celebrity in the vein of Antonioni and Bertolucci, a film about Hollywood in which she turns her back on it, possibly forever.

12. Everyone Else. Directed by Maren Ade. The intensity of observation reminded me of Bergman’s "Scenes From a Marriage," though of course played in a much more benign key. For the patient, the deliberate pacing is perfect, as each additional layer is quietly and subtly put in place.

13. Never Let Me Go. Directed by Mark Romanek. Starring Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan, Kiera Knightley. The drama boasts a stellar cast, exquisite performances and a tense atmosphere. It is a film that the fans of the popular novel and lovers of mature, measured storytelling will embrace.

14. Enter the Void. Directed by Gaspar Noe. Suffice to say, unrelenting material like this isn’t for everybody. That it is a gloriously filmic gesture — by turns jaw-dropping, elusive, silly, obnoxious, painful and beautiful — is celebration enough.

15. The Tillman Story. A documentary directed by Amir Bar-Lev. Throughout this taut, true epic, we see a smart, sometimes angry, always loving family find their destiny: to speak truth to power, to call wartime myths what they are and to show how the American character is not about blind obedience.

16. The Illusionist. An animated film directed by Sylvain Chomet. A handcrafted jewel of a movie, it understands the illusions that sustain us in youth and that we have to let slip in the end. It’s the rare work of art that cherishes both the magic and the trick.

17. Lebanon. Directed by Samuel Maoz. Offers a view of war that is anything but epic. Instead of sweeping battles and swooping fighter planes, we are brought into the impossibly claustrophobic world of a lone tank crew.

18. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. Directed by Damien Chazelle. This film is at once self-conscious and breezy, clumsy and deft, diffident and sweet, annoying and ecstatic. It’s amateurish in the best sense, and it radiates cinephilia. Very few movies I’ve seen this year have given me more joy.

19. Get Low. Directed by Aaron Schneider. Starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek. Duvall’s character simply wants to host his own goodbye, maybe have a band, and the reasons why are the reasons this movie is essential viewing. That, and the acting.

20. Down Terrace. Directed by Ben Wheatley. This muted mobster story reminds us that the ties that bind can also gag you, garrote you and slowly deaden your soul.

21. I Love You, Phillip Morris. Directed by Glenn Ficarra. Starring Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Leslie Mann. Think "Catch Me If You Can" mashed up with "Brokeback Mountain" if Mel Brooks directed and you’ll get the idea.

22. Night Catches Us. Directed by Tanya Hamilton. Hamilton’s intellectually ambitious debut drama is all the more notable for setting well-drawn fictional characters in a fraught, real moment in civil rights history.

23. Monsters. Directed by Gareth Edwards. An amazing achievement for a first-time filmmaker, which measures up to the finest indies for performance and character-work, and the biggest blockbusters for jaw-dropping effects. And it has the year’s best sex scene, too.

24. Father of My Children. Directed by Mia Hansen-Love. A tale of cinema, a story about the agonies of trying to work outside the cinematic mainstream (even in France!). Yet what makes the movie so affecting is that it’s also a love story about a family.

25. Nowhere Boy. Directed by Sam Taylor-Wood. Starring Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas. By the end of this film, you’ll feel you know John Lennon better than you ever did.