10 Things I Learned Thanks to 2011 Films

Now we're into 2012, it is time to make those new year's resolutions. To do that, we usually try to draw on the experiences and lessons we learned in the previous year in order to see what we can do better this year. So if you need a little help, here are some things that I learned thanks to watching films released in 2011. They're valuable lessons, indeed...(there might be some spoilers here, especially for #1)

10. It is possible to be a walking photoshopped figure.
Film: Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Teacher: Ryan Gosling
2011 was undoubtedly the year of Ryan Gosling. He had a couple of star turns in Drive and The Ides of March, but what we will all remember him for is his unreal physique in Crazy, Stupid, Love. It was so unreal that it caused Emma Stone to exclaim "seriously?! It's like you're photoshopped!" Only the Gos could be a walking photoshopped figure.

9. Apparently, Kate Hudson can do whatever the hell she likes and you can still be friends with her.
Film: Something Borrowed
Teacher: Kate Hudson
Something Borrowed taught me a lot of things: like people still make crappy rom-coms and films comprised of completely detestable characters. The most detestable of those characters was Darcy, played by Kate Hudson, who was just plain horrible. She stole her best friend's 'best friend', even though it was obvious that they didn't have a connection. She slept around. She didn't even care about her husband-to-be...just the wedding. And yet, everyone still liked her. Rachel (her best friend) still stuck around, even though I would have cut off the friendship once school finished. Dex (her fiancée) didn't connect with her spirited nature, and yet he was still determined to marry her. So if you wanna be able to do whatever the hell you like and have people still stick by you, you just have to be Kate Hudson.

8. Don't piss off an Olsen twin.
Film: Beastly
Teacher: Mary-Kate Olsen, Alex Pettyfer
She may look a bit questionable, but if you piss her off, she'll make you look even more questionable. I'm not kidding. Alex Pettyfer had to learn that the hard way. But the Olsen means well: what she is really trying to do is teach Pettyfer the valuable life lesson that looks aren't everything. Apparently.

7. Wear slutty clothing and BAM! Female empowerment.
Film: Sucker Punch
Teacher: Zack Snyder, several young actress hotties
According to Zack Snyder, Sucker Punch was supposed to be an epic fantasy film which promotes female empowerment. So if we were to take his message literally, this is what we'd have to do to feel empowered: kill a baby dragon, fight large ninjas, fighting robots, fighting soldiers...all while wearing revealing clothing. Yeah, that would make me feel empowered. Sorry, Zack, you really tried, but your little rape-fantasy movie did not make me feel great about being a girl at all. All you did was make a movie for teenage boys.

6. Can't afford to take part in an exercise boot camp? Hide behind a tree and join it for free...and if you get caught, pretend you're dancing in the park.
Film: Bridesmaids
Teacher: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph
There's something that I never thought of: it is really easy to join in on exercise boot camps that happen in the park. Though I'm not sure why they couldn't just go for a run or something. I also never thought that dancing in the park would be a good cover for it...in fact, I don't think pretending to dance in the park would be a good cover for anything. But that won't stop me from attempting it, someday.

5. You may think that you're watching a nice little drama starring Brad Pitt, but BAM! Dinosaurs!
Film: The Tree of Life
Teacher: Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick really proved that everything is possible with The Tree of Life. That's because he did everything in that movie. Including putting dinosaurs in there to show that nature and grace existed back in the dino-days. Well, that was my interpretation of it. I think most people will interpret it as "WTF ARE DINOSAURS DOING IN THIS MOVIE?!" Don't act so surprised, guys, Sean Penn was top-billed on the poster.

4. Never make your own medicines. They'll leave you feeling a little blue.
Film: X-Men: First Class
Teacher: Nicholas Hoult
Once, Hank McCoy was a lovely looking boy who had big feet, but he couldn't handle that mutation. So he decided he'd put an end to it all, as he was quite skilled with his science. His medicine made a change, that's for sure. As the NZ saying goes, just a normal-ish looking mutant who makes his own medicine, nek minnit, he turns into a big, blue, furry beast. Moral of the story: big feet aren't all that bad.

3. Everyone who presumably can't speak English is from Sri Lanka, just like M.I.A.
Film: Hanna
Teacher: Jessica Barden
One of my favourite parts of Hanna was the family that she came across, who were as funny as anything. Especially the daughter, played by Jessica Barden, who greets Hanna with a story about rapper M.I.A who was from Sri Lanka and couldn't speak English but now she's mega-famous. This was meant to make Hanna feel better because she presumed she couldn't speak English. When her brother asked where this lost Hanna was from, Sophie replies, "Sri Lanka". Because that is where everyone who can't speak English is from, obviously.

2. When the world is about to end, build a teepee with sticks.
Film: Melancholia
Teacher: Kirsten Dunst
This one feels particularly relevant since, you know, the world is supposed to end this year (LOL). While it is really supposed to be a 'magic cave', it just looks like a teepee made with sticks. Which, I imagine, is the best that one could do with an apocalypse just around the corner. What Kirsten Dunst's Justine is really trying to tell us, though, is that her sister Claire's idea of getting some wine and music to celebrate the end of the world is pretty dumb. It's the end of the world, you have to get creative. And if you also hate the world, you may as well steal some of it's resources to do so.

1. Don't eat pork. 
Film: Contagion
Teacher: Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow ate some pork. After doing that, she touched a few people. Then she went home, and she got sick. She touched some more people. She died. Those people got sick. Then people who got touched by those people got sick. Next thing you know, the whole world got sick. A whole lot of people died. All because of Gwyneth Paltrow's pork dinner. Moral of the story: don't eat pork. Or meat. Stick to the veges, that you grow yourself. Eat healthy, stay healthy!

There are the lessons I learned from 2011 movies. What did you learn from them?

The X-Men Trilogy - X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand

Yes, I was one of the ones who watched X-Men: First Class before seeing the rest. But you know how much I love Nicholas Hoult. In fact, I actually watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine before I watched the rest. This was like two years ago, and I can't offer an explanation as to why I chose that one first. So I finally decided that I'd pick up the actually trilogy (which we only just got at the shop...useless or what?), and give them a mini-review each.

X-Men

I'm a big fan of finding out how people came to be who they are. Sure, this was done, to a degree, in X-Men: First Class. In fact, when this began with the exact same concentration camp scene, I thought I was in for something similar. But no, instead of that stylish 60's theme, we have a movie that comes to the start of the big mutant/human fiasco, and we have one of those typical comic book movie themes. It's shiny, filled with lots of action and basically everything I hoped to see from a movie made in 2000 (I'm uneasy about this year...I have no idea why). Here, the audience, along with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Rogue (Anna Paquin), is introduced to the school that Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) has created for mutants with special powers. And through this, we are introduced to the disagreement between Magneto (Ian McKellen), who thinks that humans and mutants could never co-exist, and Xavier, who believes they can. Now this is the kind of story that begs for a sequel, in order to fully understand this war and get the rather large cast all sorted out. This film does really well at introducing the several characters without allowing them to become two-dimensional. It requires a bit of work to do this, but I didn't really mind at all. To back this up there were some good visual effects that never became too cheesy, and it was frequently funny as it was thrilling. All in all, it was a solid start to the series - probably my favourite in the trilogy. That's probably because I'm big on having character dynamics actually working.

What I got:

X2: X-Men United

A lot of people like this entry the most, and I don't blame them. The mutants come back, and they're bigger and meaner. Plus, now the characters are all set-up nicely, they can just have an all out action flick with nothing else to worry about. However, one of the reasons why I didn't like this movie as much is because I felt it was too long. And with that came the unnecessary amount of loudness. That's not all that bad, though, because in it's longness and loudness, there are some great action sequences, a really good story and some really good acting - which is sometimes a rarity in such big action ensembles like this. The climax was exceptional and definitely rewarding, which makes you think that the series probably would have been right without a sequel. But in the last few moments, the film begs for a sequel, with a question that really can't go unanswered. This could be perceived as one of the film's biggest downfalls. Despite that, X2 is mammoth entertainment, with many layers providing enough to have a fully enriching time with a superhero movie. Even if the idea of trying to exterminate all mutants is really just a stupid idea to begin with.

What I got:

X-Men: The Last Stand

Well, everyone pretty much hates this one. Me? I didn't see what was so wrong with it. I actually enjoyed it just as much as any of the other ones, and thought it was a fitting end to the trilogy. However, the flaws are as plain as the nose on Owen Wilson's face. Brett Ratner replaced Matthew Vaughn who replaced Brian Singer in the directing job. First of all, had Singer continued, he would have had a really great trilogy. Matthew Vaughn did phenomenally well with X-Men: First Class. Ratner? He got a bit trigger happy. Instead of having the heart and emotion of the last two, this film is angry and through that anger comes lots of action...that pretty much doesn't mean anything. It wasn't done with the love that Singer had for the project. The story was very simple compared to the other two at well, further pushing it's status as a brainless blockbuster. Another thing that the film did wrong was having Olivia Williams play Moira MacTaggert for all of a minute. You don't just have Olivia Williams in a film for a minute...because that becomes both the highlight and the great disappointment of this film. However, with all it's flaws, I still enjoyed it enough. It was cool being introduced to some more characters, even if they were severely underdone (like Beast, whose makeup was simply atrocious). I can't decide whether I liked the way Jean Grey was changed from such a good person to that evil force...it seemed really strange and misplaced, but Famke Janssen was really good in her bad side. So yeah, I didn't love this entry like I did the others, but I didn't hate it, as everyone else did.

What I got:

And here's my ranking of all the X-Men movies:
1) X-Men: First Class
2) X-Men
3) X2: X-Men United
4) X-Men: The Last Stand
5) X-Men Origins: The Last Stand

What do you think of the X-Men trilogy? What's your favourite out of the lot?

Cinema - X Men: First Class

This is one of those movies that I wanted to see because there were a bunch of hot guys in it. Okay, I know that sounds really vain and teenage-girly, but my goodness, seeing my #2 favourite hot guy Nicholas Hoult on the big screen? It was too great of an opportunity just to turn down. But seriously, I was one of the ones who went nuts over the first trailer that came out. And then I basically just ignored the rest of the advertising that came after that. Because, really, I felt so guilty only wanting to see this movie because I'm in love with Nicholas Hoult (yeah, he's like my Justin Bieber) and I have a mad girl-crush on Jennifer Lawrence. I haven't even seen any of the other X-Men movies, but I will next week. And no, I didn't have much trouble understanding this movie, because the background knowledge I gathered from Wikipedia really helped.

Anyway, since every man and his dog has reviewed this movie, I won't go into plot details that much. As you probably know, this is the movie that tells us all about the mutants before they became the 'X-Men', as such. There's Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), a telepath, who has a sort-of adoptive sister Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), who can change her form. Then he crosses paths with a CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), who is eager to find out more about what mutants Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), Emma Frost (January Jones) and Azazel (Jason Flemyng) really are, and what they are doing. Through Moira and an unnamed 'Man in a Black Suit' (Oliver Platt), Xavier first meets Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), who wants to kills Shaw, using his magnetic powers; and a young genius called Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult), who is later revealed to have big feet and desperately wants to change his appearance, like Raven does. Hank sends Xavier and Erik on a scientific journey which brings them a lot of other mutants, like Angel (Zoe Kravitz), Darwin (Edi Gathegi), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones) and Havok (Lucas Till).

First of all, there are a lot of characters in this movie. I know why there are lots of characters, and I thought it would bother me that there were so many, who were around all of the time, but it surprisingly didn't. Sure, you could say that some of the characters were really two-dimensional, but those were only the ones who kinda faded into the background, like Darwin. Otherwise, I was really impressed with how real they made the mutants. I especially loved how Raven and Hank struggled to deal with the way they were, and how because of their appearance they will never be accepted into society. Which is when the audience can almost feel guilt-tripped into thinking that it really doesn't matter what's on the outside. Even though mutants don't exist, and if they did, we'd all fear them because we don't know exactly what they are capable of. But really, some of them are just big, insecure teddy-bears inside who just want to be normal in their way.

With X-Men: First Class, director Matthew Vaughn is again trying some new stuff out and this is far from similar to his other works. Here he really puts humanity on show through the mutants, which is great, and while he gets the audience thinking about all of these morals, he has also created some grand entertainment. Sure, he did well with his Brit drug flick Layer Cake, tried his luck with family entertainment in Stardust, and created a bright and colourful action/comedy called Kick-Ass, but Vaughn has truly solidified his place as one of the better modern movie directors around here. You can see that he was trying to go for more of a The Dark Knight sort of feel instead of swaying towards mindless action, and it really works. The first scenes are really the only major letdown, as they bugged me to no end...it was such a sombre way to start off a fun film. However, Vaughn has made a solid superhero flick, which has it's fair share of exciting action sequences, but most of all, it has a different style to many: that brilliant 60's Bond flair. Now that was why this movie was so kick-ass, because being set in the 60's just made everything cooler.

While Vaughn's direction is a major highlight of this film, most of the epic entertainment comes from our stars. Sure, everyone was great. Jennifer Lawrence provided some much-needed sympathy for her character, and it was great when she finally accepted that she was "mutant and proud". Nicholas Hoult was hot really interesting in his role, as most of his power didn't come from being a mutant, he was just really smart but unable to deal with normal social situations well. Kravitz, Till and Jones rounded out a nice lot of mutants. Rose Byrne was nice enough as one of the only humans. Kevin Bacon was superb as the villain...I swear, I could see the ice forming on that guy. The only one that really annoyed me was January Jones. She looked bored out of her brains in this. It was like she was forced to wear slutty white clothes and turn into diamonds. She should have been great, but she just looked like a marketing ploy.

When you have an ensemble cast like that, though, the leads have really gotta step up their game. Was this a problem for James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender? No. These two pretty much made the film, with their undeniable man-chemistry and genuine awesomeness. McAvoy was really good, as he usually is, and it's his charm and wit which gets him through the movie. He's smart, he's jovial, he means business, but he also has a good heart. McAvoy plays that out perfectly. Hey, he may be awesome, but Michael Fassbender completely steals the show here. Can I just point out that I've found my true love now? Fassy was bad-ass in this movie, turtleneck and all. His performance, I have to say, was one of the best I have ever seen in a superhero movie. He just played the angry guy so well, that it's hard not to fall in love with him. Even if you're a guy, because I have heard of a few men who confess to man-crushing on Fassy after seeing this one. He is just brilliant. So brilliant that I have to use italics just to stress my point.

Anyway, X-Men: First Class is grand entertainment. The running time is a little too long for my liking, and the ending is a little strange, but I had a good time watching it. It's a fantastic addition to the league of superhero flicks taking over Hollywood at the moment, and certainly one of the most stylish around.

THE VERDICT: From it's 60's styling to it's fantastic direction to it's brilliant performances, X-Men: First Class proves that it is a superhero movie to beat. It's not perfect, but it's a good time.

What I hoped for:

What I got: