The 10 best movies of 2011

Time for the year-end wrap up, which -- for most critics -- means a list of the top 10 movies of the year. If 2011 wasn't a banner year for movies, it wasn't bad either. I always figure that if I have a difficult time narrowing my list to 10, it must have been a better-than-average year.
In 2011, even some of the more hyped movies (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II were good. A word about the series, which concluded this year, probably is in order: Aside from keeping a ton of British actors off the unemployment line, the Harry Potter movies turned out to be more consistently involving than anyone initially might have expected.

But among the special pleasures of the year, I rank a few more highly than others, even though I don't necessarily want to burden them with 10-best stature.

-- Screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh turned director for Kill the Irishman, the story of the rise and fall of Cleveland hoodlum Danny Greene. Ray Stevenson gave a fine performance as Greene, and the always enjoyable Christopher Walken had an equally nice turn as Jewish racketeer Shondor Birns. At the time of the movie's release, I wrote that it broke no new ground, but did a hell of a job turning over old soil. If you're partial to gangster movies, you should make it your business to find this one on DVD.

-- Sometimes, a movie arrives with buzz acquired at the Sundance Film Festival. That was the case with Another Earth, a movie in which director Mike Cahill used a sci-fi backdrop (a second Earth hovered mysteriously over this one) to explore the grief-stricken life of a young woman (Brit Marling) whose careless driving resulted in the death of a mother and child. The sci-fi element may sound a bit far-fetched, but the movie's emotions felt absolutely real.

-- I approached Rise of the Planet of the Apes expecting nothing, but found something I'd been missing, a genuine helping of pulp excitement. Who'd have believed anyone could breathe new life into the Planet of the Apes series? Director Rupert Wyatt did.

-- Great performances abounded in 2011. Brendan Gleeson was glorious, profane, rude and strangely endearing as an unorthodox Irish cop in The Guard.

And then there's John C. Reilly. What a year for an actor who usually flies under the radar. Reilly played the raucous Dean Ziegler, an insurance agent who insisted on upholding the cause of ribald fun at a gathering of Christian-oriented insurance agents in Cedar Rapids. In Terri, a movie about an overweight teen-ager, Reilly was wonderfully inappropriate Mr. Fitzgerald, an assistant principal unlike any other we've seen, not that assistant principals are much of a movie staple. Of course, Reilly also appears in We Need to Talk About Kevin and Carnage, both of which have yet to open nationally.

And the year shouldn't pass without mention of Kevin Spacey's work in Margin Call. We're not talking about the flippant Spacey of movies such as Horrible Bosses or Casino Jack, but an actor who carried the full weight of a collapsing financial institution on his shoulders.

And while we're on the subject of Margin Call: I didn't put it on my top-10 list, but it should be acknowledged as one of the best acted movies of the year -- not only by Spacey, but by Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Simon Baker and Paul Bettany.

Throughout this topical drama about a Wall Street firm on the verge of collapse, the actors keep their performances under tight control as they keep an eye on one another during a long night of meetings, personal jockeying, financial analysis and ethical indifference.

When Alfred Nobbs starts playing around the country, watch for the robust performance of Janet McTeer in a role that's best discovered in a theater.

I would, of course, be remiss if I didn't mention a couple of special foreign-language films: Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre takes an encouraging look at people behaving decently toward an "illegal" immigrant, and Korean director Chang-dong Lee's Poetry manages, rather miraculously, to make a successful mix out of a horrific event and the search for self-expression by an aging, Alzheimer's-stricken grandmother.

Whether any of these movies becomes an important part of movie history remains to be seen, but each boasted elements that either moved me or which I enjoyed immensely, and I didn't want to push on without at least giving them a tip of the hat.

So now, for my top 10:
1. THE TREE OF LIFE.

I put this as the top of my list because Brad Pitt, as a stern father, never has been better and because director Terrence Malick took a highly personal look at growing up in Texas during the 1950s. I'm not sure that Tree of Life was totally successful in mixing the intimate and cosmic or that every part of the movie worked equally well, but making a personal movie on this scale requires daring, skill and an artist's view of the world. Malik has plenty of all three.

2. HUGO.

It's difficult to imagine anyone loving movies as much or as intelligently as Martin Scorsese. And in Hugo, an adaptation of a story by Brian Selznick, Scorsese puts every ounce of that love on screen. Hugo is both a boy's adventure and an unashamed ode to the delight movies provided in their infancy. And, yes, it also boasts the best 3-D ever.

3. The ARTIST.

Director Michel Hazanavicius has made a silent movie that's clever, involving and entertaining. He tells the story of a silent movie star (Jean Dujardin) whose career hits the skids when sound arrives. Sounds familiar, but Hazanavicius' movie -- shot in sumptuous black-and-white -- feels as fresh as anything I've seen this year because Hazanavicius seems to believe in the power of cinema to speak directly to the heart.

4. A SEPARATION.

If you don't think Iranian movies have matured beyond the days of beautiful images and simple stories about kids, you haven't seen A Separation, one of the most emotionally complex movies of the year. Director Asghar Farhadi tells the story of a husband and wife who separate and are then caught up in a legal battle involving the woman who takes care of the husband's aging father. A Separation is one of those rare movies that respects everyone's point of view.

5.MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

I debated whether to put this one on my list at all, but finally decided that it belonged there because of Elizabeth Olsen's terrific performance as a young woman who escapes from a cult. Martha Marcy also builds more tension than most of the big-budget movies that try for similar effects. Credit director Sean Durkin with an amazing debut that keeps us involved by never quite allowing us to find our balance.

6. RANGO.

I've long contended that director Gore Verbinski (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) is one of the few directors working today who really understands how to use images to comic effect. For all of his work on Pirates (and, no, I'm not saying those movies were great), Verbinski's most creative effort didn't sail on the high seas. It takes place in the desert, where Verbinski stages a clever animated western that stands as this year's best and most imaginative piece of animation.

7. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.

Director Lynne Ramsey's spare and horrifying adaptation of Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel - ostensibly about a killing rampage at a high school -- is really a stark and often horrifying exploration of the dark side of motherhood. Kevin isn't everyone's cup of tea, nor should it be. But for those who like filmmakers who push things to disturbing extremes, Ramsey's movie is a keeper. It's also one of the most visually arresting movies of the year, and features outstanding work by Tilda Swinton.

8. INTO THE ABYSSS.

Werner Herzog's The Cave of Forgotten Dreams has found its way onto a variety of 10-best lists. But I was more affected by Herzog's Into the Abyss, a documentary about far more than senseless murder -- although it's about that, too. Into the Abyss looks at shattered Texas lives, and stands as a clear-eyed examination of capital punishment, particularly what it does to those charged with carrying out death sentences.

9. THE DESCENDANTS.

Director Alexander Payne's look at a Hawaiian lawyer (George Clooney) trying to cope with terrible loss is both touching and funny. Although it's a few clicks short of a knockout, Payne's movie stands as one of the best and most meaningful mainstream entertainments of the year.

10.MONEYBALL.

Director Bennett Miller (Capote) brings engaging authenticity to the story of Billy Bean (Brad Pitt), the Oakland Athletics' general manager who tried to build a winner by employing a system created by a nerdy statistician (Jonah Hill). Moneyball is smartly written and fun, a baseball movie that dares to wonder whether it's right to romanticize the sport.

Theron conquers in 'Young Adult'

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody reunite, but it's Charlize Theron who saves the day.

Young Adult begins in a high-rise apartment in Minneapolis, a building with the kind of one-bedroom apartments that have small terraces and that frequently are occupied by single people. Or maybe they're the kind of apartments people move into after a divorce.

One of those tenants -- Mavis Gary -- is lying face down in her bed, where she presumably wound up after drinking too much, something she does a lot.

As Young Adult unfolds, we learn that Mavis ghostwrites a once-popular but now fading series of books for young adult readers, the kind of tweens who've probably moved on to the Twilight books. Mavis is supposed to be writing the series' last book, but she's having difficulty because she's beginning to struggle with second thoughts about her life.

And it doesn't help that she's gotten an e-mail from her high-school sweetheart telling her that he and his wife have just had their first baby.

So Mavis packs a few things, and, in one of those rash decisions that could make sense only to her, drives back to her small Minnesota hometown to reclaim that erstwhile boyfriend.

Mavis thinks her task will be simple because she was (and still is) beautiful. Mavis and Minneapolis or dreary married life in Mercury, Minnesota? The choice, Mavis believes, is a no-brainer.

That's the backdrop for Young Adult, the latest collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, the duo that gave us Juno, a comedy about teen pregnancy.

Say this: Reitman and Cody are not shy about taking risks. They've built their movie around a character that’s both deluded and dislikable, but they've managed to hedge their bet because Mavis is played by Charlize Theron, who captures Mavis' haughty insensitivity, her budding alcoholism and her manipulative personality in spectacular, often funny fashion.

It never occurs to Mavis that Buddy might be happily married or that he and his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) might be seriously committed to each other and to their young family.

Only one of the town’s residents – a geek played by Patton Oswalt – seems to see through Mavis’ facade. Having suffered a vicious beating in high school (a group of thuggish jocks thought he was gay), he views himself as damaged goods. Oswalt’s Matt is willing to tell Mavis how appallingly she’s behaving, not that Mavis cares.

Some of Young Adult is funny and some if it is sad, but there's also a slight stuck-in-a-rut feeling about the movie. Reitman's last movie, Up in the Air, was richer and more entertaining, and Cody still hasn't shed all the self-consciously clever tics that were apparent in Juno. On top of all that, the movie's central focus -- Mavis' boundless narcissism -- can make Young Adult feel as narrow as Mavis' worldview.

Now, not all of Young Adult is easy to take. A scene toward the end is so ugly, it’s painful to watch. It’ s supposed to be that way, but it serves as a kind of exclamation point to what we already know: Mavis is a wreck of a woman, so misguided that even some of her best verbal jabs don't earn her much sympathy.

Most movies are about characters who struggle to come of age. This one pushes, maybe a bit too hard, against the grain by introducing us to a woman who hasn't come of age and perhaps never will.

Still, Young Adult remains watchable because Theron makes an amazing Mavis, a woman who's ready to be completely irresponsible with the lives of others. Oswalt also scores as Matt, a decent, self-aware guy who sees the cliff toward which Mavis relentlessly is driving. Not everyone will share Matt's concern for Mavis, and some may even hope that when the she reaches that cliff, someone pushes her off.

This 'Mission' hits an action bull's-eye

A 'Mission Impossible' movie that pushes most of the right buttons.

Look, they don't call it Mission Impossible for nothing.

Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol -- the fourth in a series of Mission Impossible movies -- features action that's either physically impossible, highly unlikely or downright ridiculous.

But that's just what we want in a Mission Impossible movie, and director Brad Bird, best know for animated movies such as The Incredibles and Iron Giant, serves up a Mission edition that delivers the action-packed goods. Along with star Tom Cruise - and a worthy supporting cast - Bird ensures that this Mission flies through some of the year's most compelling action.

The movie's best set piece takes place on the glass wall of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, a 2,700-foot-high skyscraper. I'm squeamish about heights, so this tense bit of business was strictly a white-knuckle experience for me. Still, it's indicative of the kind of a crackerjack action Bird strings around a serviceable story about a lunatic general (Michael Nyqvist) who wants to start a nuclear war.

Joining Cruise's Ethan Hunt on a mission aimed at stopping nuclear Armageddon are Paula Patton (as a highly competent IMF agent); Simon Pegg (as the agent with tech skills) and Jeremy Renner (as an assistant to the IMF secretary played by Tom Wilkinson).

The screenplay wisely affords Renner -- scorchingly good in both The Hurt Locker -- an opportunity to show another side of himself. The rest of the crew is in equally good form.

Watch for Lea Seydoux, as a deadly blonde assassin, who ultimately winds up duking it out with Patton's character. And, hey, the gadgets and high-tech wonders are pretty impressive, too.

Cruise's main function here is to take a variety of beatings and keep on ticking. Whether he's scaling the walls of skyscrapers or leaping onto moving vehicles, Cruise portrays Ethan with old-pro efficiency. It's almost as if he understands that he's playing second fiddle to the action, and has no problem with it.

The screenplay, which tries for a bit of emotion with a backstory involving Ethan's late wife, doesn't skimp on locations, taking us to places as far flung as Moscow and Dubai. It also makes good use of the powerhouse presentation that IMAX offers. (The film will be released at non-IMAX theaters on Dec. 21.)

Despite its near-maniacal commitment to efficiency - cramming as much action into every scene as possible - Ghost Protocol knows it's also supposed to be fun, and it is. (It makes for an interesting contrast with this week's other franchise release, Sherlock Holmes. That movie seems to know its silly; this one is earnest in its approach, refusing to waste time putting tongue into cheek.

There are times when Ghost Protocol , like most action-heavy thrillers, threatens to wear out its welcome, but it never really does. This is one Mission fans should have no trouble accepting.

'Sherlock Holmes,' the Franchise Continues

As a version of Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows doesn't cut it. As a big movie action contraption, it's passable.

Forget the Sherlock Holmes once known as a detective with a keen and unforgiving intelligence. That Holmes -- a creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- has vanished inside a much more contemporary creation: a kick-ass movie franchise.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows -- the second movie starring Robert Downey Jr. (as Holmes) and Jude Law (as Dr. Watson) - seems less interested in celebrating Holmes' legendary powers of deduction than in flexing as much action-movie muscle as possible.

So it should come as no surprise that the plot doesn't much matter, except to say that it pits Holmes against arch rival James Moriarty, played here by a bearded, confidently evil Jared Harris.

In the early going, Holmes frets over Watson's impending marriage. Few other renderings of Sherlock have flirted so openly with Holmes and Watson's infatuation with each another, and this one goes so far as give them an improbable comic scene in which they waltz together. If I remember correctly, Holmes leads.

If you saw the first installment, you pretty much know director Guy Ritchie's game. Ritchie sees Holmes as a disheveled detective who's as quick with his fists as he is with his wits. For his part, Downey lives up to this image of Holmes, seldom looking as if he's not in need of a bath.

The banter between Holmes and Watson doesn't exactly reach Noel Coward levels, and there's no enjoying Game of Shadows if you don't revel in amped-up action, including the firing of some very heavy artillery.

Even taken on its own terms, the movie is not without miscalculation: Noomi Rapace, the brilliant Swedish actress who created the role of Lizbeth Salander in the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is entirely wasted as gypsy woman who's shoehorned into the movie for plot reasons.

Surely, Rapace could have made larger contribution; her role is the dramatic equivalent of a guy who holds another guy's coat during a fistfight.

Stephen Fry fares better in a genuinely amusing role as Holmes' diplomat brother, Mycroft Holmes. Fry's comic talents are used to best effect in a scene in which he appears nude. (No, we don't see enough of Fry to challenge the movie's PG-13 rating.)

When not busy changing costumes, Holmes' tries to get to the bottom of a mystery that has something to do with arms sales and with setting various European countries at one another's throats. But let's be honest: There's nothing much at stake here aside from getting to the next action set piece and maintaining the scaffolding of characters and effects that keeps the series from toppling.

Game of Shadows does that - and so it probably should be regarded as a passable addition to a successful franchise. I didn't love Game of Shadows, but I didn't mind Ritchie's latest action contraption, either. Perhaps because nothing about this helping of Sherlock Holmes needs to be taken seriously - and Ritchie seems to know it.

Into the heart of a soul-destroying obsession

Shame, which has been rated NC-17, explores the depths of one man's sex addiction.

After two exceptionally grueling movies – Hunger and now Shame – it seems fair to wonder whether British director Steve McQueen isn’t trying to test the soul of actor Michael Fassbender.

In Hunger, McQueen cast Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the IRA rebel who in 1981 led a prison hunger strike that resulted in his death. The role, which seemed to blur the line between performance and ordeal, was nothing if not demanding.

In Shame, McQueen puts Fassbender through another wringer. Fassbender plays Brandon, a New York sex addict, whose behavior involves him in a soul-crushing ordeal.

OK, so McQueen isn’t really trying to destroy Fassbender, but he sure knows how to set an arduous physical and emotional pace -- and his actor responds in kind. Shame is a journey to the very bottom of Brandon’s parched soul, and Fassbender holds nothing in reserve.

Shame, which features nudity and explicit sex scenes, has been rated NC-17. But it’s not the nudity or the graphic sex (none of it erotic) that turns the movie into a brutalizing viewing experience; it’s the emotional violence to which Brandon subjects himself and others, as well as the maddening persistence of his compulsions.

This is a guy for whom the office men’s room is a place to masturbate, a man so seized by his sexual urges that he follows women off subway cars, hires hookers and can’t stop watching porn on the Internet.

Brandon is handsome, but also has a kind of ghastly pallor, as if he’s only half alive. When he’s not in the throes of his addiction, he works at keeping his distance from others. When Brandon’s sister (Carey Mulligan) tries to move in with him, his protected world faces a major disruption. Mulligan’s Sissy is a singer whose personal life is in disarray.

At one point, Brandon and his boss visit a nightclub to hear Mulligan’s Sissy sing. She does an agonizingly drawn out version of New York, New York that moves Brandon to tears. It’s not a place he likes to be.

Later, Brandon finds himself attracted to a woman in his office (Nicole Beharie). He takes her to dinner. He loosens up a bit. But when it comes to making love to this woman, he can’t perform. For Brandon, relationships are the enemy of desire. He prefers anonymous sex.

McQueen’s directing style involves holding shots for an exceptionally long time, sometimes photographing conversations from a distance, and using wide-screen spacing to create tension between characters.

Now, you can’t watch a movie such as Shame without taking a walk on the seamy side. If you’re interested in seeing an actor plumb the depths of a powerful addiction, Shame will take you on one of the year’s most disturbing rides.

Whether you emerge from the experience having learned something from Brandon’s torments is another matter. Shame is powerful, but not necessarily profound. It tends to be obvious when it comes to Brandon’s addictive personality and not especially interested in how he might have gotten that way.

Oh well. Shame shows the prolonged agony of being chained to a compulsion. Its unremitting intensity and startling frankness make it stand apart, even if those same qualities do not carry it to greatness.

'The Sitter' is R-rated rot

If you keep up with celebrity news, you know that Jonah Hill no longer fits the roly-poly profile that his fans have come to love in movies such as Superbad and Cyrus. I've read that the newly minted Hill has lost 40 pounds.

Earlier this year, Hill hit a new and encouraging career mark in Moneyball, which probably represents the height his artistic achievement to date. In that movie, Hill played a brainy baseball analyst whose statistical approach to the game helped the general manager of the Oakland Athletics (Brad Pitt) put together a winning season.

Hill's latest - The Sitter - reportedly was filmed prior to Moneyball, but arrives in theaters in the midst of the holiday season. You may want to think of it as a blatant exercise in counter-programming, as well as a step backward for Hill.

Here's the thinking: With family-oriented fare such as Hugo, Arthur Christmas, The Muppets and the upcoming Adventures of Tintin crowding every multiplex, a raunchy comedy just might appeal to every disgruntled guy who dutifully accompanied a date to the latest Twilight movie.

And in a week of buzzless national releases, it's also possible that The Sitter will appease those who hate the idea that Hollywood -- with visions of Oscar dancing in its head -- tends to go prestigious at the end of the year.

I'm not in any of those groups, so for me, The Sitter represents a reminder of the kind of movies Hill may have to shed - along with the excess weight - if he's going to sustain a career.

Director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express and Your Highness) seems to be doing his best to obliterate memories of such early acclaimed work as George Washington and All the Real Girls. Although The Sitter boasts a couple of moments that try to make nice, it's a mostly distasteful romp through a series of implausible and profane gags, many involving kids who are too young for major exposure in this kind of comedy.

A pre-weight loss Hill plays Noah Griffith, a young lives at home with his single mother (Jessica Hecht). The plot contrives to have the reluctant Noah babysit for three difficult kids, an anxiety-ridden 13-year-old (Max Records), a precocious girl who hides behind thick layers of make-up (Landry Bender) and a sullen Latin-American adoptee (Kevin Hernandez).

The screenplay further contrives to have Hill's Noah score some cocaine for his girlfriend (Ari Graynor) -- with the kids in tow, of course. As if to declare its salacious intentions, the movie opens with Noah performing oral sex on Graynor's character, a favor that she won't reciprocate. Hey, I don't like giving away jokes in reviews, but you should know something about the movie's mindset.

Or consider that Hernandez' Rodrigo has a fondness for cherry bombs and frequent urination. I guess someone thought it would be hilarious to watch Rodrigo relieve himself on the dance floor in the middle of a girl's Bat Mitzvah.

Noah's search for cocaine (surely a worn-out substance as far as either comedy or drama is concerned) puts him in contact with Karl (Sam Rockwell), a drug dealer who displays a boundless but obviously false sense of bonhomie.

Rockwell is one of my favorite actors, and he's certainly game for a far-out role, but he's stuck in a movie that tries to temper its foulest impulses with occasional flashes of sensitivity. Case in point: The scene in which Noah informs Records' character that it's OK to be gay or another in which Noah tells off the philandering father of the three unruly charges for whom he ultimately and predictably develops some fondness.

J. B. Smoove, Method Man and other black actors can be found on the movie's fringes, but they're mostly restricted by writing that tends to be too caricatured to be funny.

Hill is likable enough to survive this kind of comedy, but little in The Sitter serves to amuse. Built around car theft, drugs, exploding toilets, profanity, and other forms of inappropriate or illegal behavior, The Sitter is one of those comedies that manages to be more unpleasant than funny.

Decency trumps the law in 'Le Havre'

Director Aki Kaurismaki's movie about a shoeshine man and an illegal immigrant is nothing less than a joy.

I’ve been aware of the work of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki since 1989’s Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Kaurismaki specializes in movies that move deliberately through sparse environments often populated by marginalized members of the working class.

So what would happen if this Finnish director decided to make a film in France? Those who see Kaurismaki’s Le Havre will find out – and you'd do well to be among them.

First off, note that Kaurismaki's movie is named after a city, a port in northwestern France that has known its share of industrial decline. Not surprisingly, Kaurismaki confines his camera to parts of the city that are not likely to enhance its appeal among tourists: a modest home in a back alley, a bar that’s less than commodious and the city’s docks.

Moreover, the movie’s main character is a down-on-his-luck shoeshine man (Andre Wilms), who plies his trade at Le Havre’s railroad station.

Despite its sometimes dreary settings, Le Havre is anything but depressing. In a quiet and undemonstrative way that challenges all the slam-bang notions of commercial cinema, Kaurismaki celebrates the simple decency that brings Wilms’ Marcel into contact with a boy from Gabon (Blondin Miguel).

Miguels’ Idrissa escapes from the police when they open a shipping container that’s being used to smuggle illegal immigrants out of Gabon. Idrissa had been traveling with his grandfather, who was aiming for London, where he hoped to reunite the boy with his mother.

For Marcel, helping Idrissa involves little hesitation; he simply does what he deems necessary, hiding Idrissa and making efforts to help him reach London.

Idrissa becomes Marcel's responsibility, even though the shoeshine man's wife (Kati Outinen) is hospitalized amid dire forecasts about her prospects.

Marcel’s endeavors win the support of many of the neighborhood locals, including the woman who runs the bread store and the guy who sells produce, folks who normally fret over how much money Marcel owes them.

True to the movie’s unembellished spirit, Idrissa is neither unbearably cute nor strikingly handsome. He’s an ordinary kid who sometimes ignores Marcel’s pleas that he not leave the house.

Marcel, of course, knows that there are those who would turn Idrissa in. He also fears that a local detective -- a dour-looking Jean-Pierre Darroussin – won't rest until he finds the kid who eluded the authorities that took Idrissa's fellow travelers into custody.

Le Havre adopts a particularly interesting attitude about illegal immigration. Rather than stoking the fires of lower-class resentment, Kaurismaki shows us characters that favor a relaxed approach to the law, perhaps because they don’t always view it as an ally and perhaps because they simply want to do the right thing.

And, oh yes, Kaurismaki finds a way to include the work of aging French rocker Roberto Piazza -- also known as Little Bob – in the movie. Little Bob brings a strange but invigorating exuberance to the proceedings.

Kaurismaki seems to have decided to reward Marcel’s decency with a near-miraculous end-of-picture twist that would have capsized a more manipulative movie. Le Havre, on the other hand, stays afloat because Kaurismaki seems to think that if a thing is worth stating, it will survive understatement.

If Le Havre is a fantasy, so be it. What could be more pleasing (or quietly instructive) in these wretched times than a fantasy in which people behave decently, going the extra mile for someone in need of help? Without resorting to emotional blackmail, Kaurismaki warms the heart. His movie encourages us to respond to kindness.

Hoping the audience for 'Hugo' grows

CAN ANYTHING STOP TWILIGHT SAGA?
I can't help but be a little depressed that in its second week, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I did more business than any other film. That, of course, includes Martin Scorsese's masterful Hugo, which couldn't outdo the Thanksgiving weekend performances of The Muppets, Happy Feet Two and Arthur Christmas. A Los Angeles Times blog item wondered whether Hugo, which played on only 1,277 screens, might prove more successful in the long run. (Twilight Saga, by comparison, was playing on 4,066 screens.) Speculating about a movie's long-haul box-office prospects seems a bit unusual in these days of opening-weekend mania, but I'm definitely hoping audiences for the artful Hugo grow.

Here's a safe bet for you, though. In a decade, I think more folks will watch Hugo than will see The Muppets, Happy Feet Two or Arthur Christmas combined. That's no knock on those very kid friendly movies, each of which has its supporters. But Hugo qualifies as a classic.

ZOO STORY

There were sneak previews this weekend of Cameron Crowe's We Bought A Zoo, an adaptation of a Benjamin Mee memoir about a family that purchases a rundown zoo in the South West of England. The movie, which stars Matt Damon as Mee and Scarlett Johansson as a zookeeper, moves Mee's story to the U.S. That's probably a wise decision as far as box-office prospects are concerned, but I wonder what will happen when American kids who are enamored by We Bought A Zoo ask their parents to take them for a visit.

I noticed a large display advertisement for Saturday night's sneaks of We Bought A Zoo in The New York Times. I then checked the movie listings in the Denver Post, and discovered that We Bought A Zoo was sneaking at a number of local theaters. If there were any display ads in the local paper, I missed them. Maybe it was a sneaky sneak preview.

Anyway, I went, and will review We Bought A Zoo when it opens next month.

Maybe a week with Marilyn wasn't enough

Michelle Williams does nice work in My Week With Marilyn, but the movie comes up short.

The main reason you might want to see My Week With Marilyn -- which is a bit of an anecdote passing as a feature-length movie -- centers on the work of Michelle Williams. Williams offers a mixture of fully realized performance and unrestrained glamor as Marilyn Monroe, capturing the Hollywood sex goddess during days in England when she was filming The Prince and the Showgirl under the direction of the esteemed Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh).

Here's how we know what went on: An avid film enthusiast named Colin Clark (a real person) worked as a third assistant director (read lackey) on the production. Clark evidently developed a week-long relationship with Monroe in which she both relied on him and toyed with his affections. Clark, who went on to become a documentary filmmaker, wrote a couple of books about his experiences tagging after Monroe.

If Williams makes a convincing Monroe, the same can't be said for Branagh, who suggests Olivier (the cast of the mouth, the delivery of lines), but obviously can't manage to look like him. And, yes, it bothered me because the movie's make-up people went to great lengths to turn Williams into a Monroe look-alike.

Director Simon Curtis, working from a script by Adrian Hodges, brings too little interpretive savvy to the proceedings, and Eddie Redmayne (through no fault of his own) can't make a memorable character out of a star-struck young man who's in love with the movies. On screen, Clark comes off as a bit of a cliche, a wide-eyed kid who has run away to join the show-business circus.

Some of the supporting performances are good. The always impressive Judi Dench gives a nicely shaded performance as the kindly Dame Sybil Thorndike, and it's nice to see Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame) given a chance to do something other than react to special effects. She has a small role as a young woman working in wardrobe. Watson's Lucy clearly would make a more suitable companion for Clark than Monroe, who at the time was married to playwright Arthur Miller, played here by Dougray Scott.

And I particularly enjoyed Zoe Wanamaker as Paula Strasberg, Monroe's Method-oriented acting coach who contributed mightily to Olivier's massive frustration. Olivier didn't want to Monroe to plumb the depths of her character; he simply wanted her to get on with it.

A film about Monroe -- a complicated and often troubled woman who may have been both oppressed and nourished by her status as a sex symbol -- would have been most welcome, and the gifted Williams clearly was up to the task.

But My Week With Marilyn sums up what's interesting about itself in one very incisive line of dialogue: Monroe was a star who wanted to be taken seriously as an actor; and Olivier (who also starred in Prince and the Showgirl) was a revered actor who wanted to be a star. They couldn't help but clash.

That's a revealing observation, but insufficient to sustain an entire movie. My Week With Marilyn simply isn't big enough to accommodate a star of Monroe's magnitude