10 Memorable Movie Scenes From 2011

ROB BRYDON (LEFT) AND STEVE COOGAN IN THE TRIP

1. Drive:
The Elevator

In three minutes and about 6 square feet, Ryan Gosling's nameless protagonist delivers two swift actions that define the year's best film and cement director Nicolas Winding Refn in the master class: an act of tenderness and an act of protective brutality. It's serene in its beauty and jarring in its ugliness.

2.
The Interrupters:
Duke’s Funeral

Former gang leader Ameena Matthews—one of three "violence interrupters" profiled in documentarian Steve James' searing chronicle of Chicago gang violence—stands beside the casket of a slain teenager, his mother wailing in a funeral parlor full of gangbangers frothing for revenge. She delivers an impassioned, simple plea: "Cease the fire. Call a truce."

3.
Take Shelter: The Lions Club Dinner

Fear, love and faith converge during an average Midwestern feeding frenzy in which Michael Shannon's mental illness becomes public knowledge. It might as well be a witch trial. Eyes belt Shannon like stones in a scene of stark vulnerability.

4. The Muppets:
“Pictures in My Head”
“The Rainbow Connection” provides nostalgic tear gas, but as Kermit strolls through a lonely mansion, singing about past glories as portraits of his Muppet pals come to life, we’re reminded that we missed Fozzie, the Swedish Chef and company as much as the frog did.
5.
The Trip: Dueling Michael Caines

Sometimes you just need to point a camera at funny people to make a great comedy. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon bickering at a quaint bed and breakfast—as each uncannily traces the evolution of Michael Caine's voice from

Get Carter

to

Batman Begins

—is simple bliss.

6.
13 Assassins:
The Final Battle

Japanese provocateur Takeshi Miike follows an hour of uncharacteristically subdued and nuanced samurai drama with an eye-popping, 45-minute, 13-on-200 battle full of flaming oxen, clanging swords and endless mini-melees. Kurosawa would have approved.

7.
Armadillo:
Shell Shock

Afghanistan doc

Armadillo

is filmed so fluidly it could be mistaken for a

Hurt Locker

clone. Then the world slows, and the camera hits the ground. Cinematographer Lars Skree has been shot in battle.

8.
Attack the Block:
Moses’ Hero’s Run

With a dead alien and a katana in tow, teen hoodrat Moses (John Boyega) rolls through a claustrophobic high rise in glorious slow motion, fireworks blazing all around him. Those rockets aren't just the demise of the "big gorilla-wolf motherfucker" aliens. They herald the arrival of a slick new talent in director Joe Cornish.

9. Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol:
Burj Khalifa

Tom Cruise's vertigo-inducing ascent of Dubai's Burj Khalifa tower is magnificent on its own, but it's just the beginning of a riveting sequence that also includes a catfight and a car chase through a sandstorm. Hear that knocking, Mr. Cameron? It's Brad Bird raising the stakes.

10. I Saw the Devil:
Knives in the Car
South Korean wunderkind Kim Jee-Woon’s serial-killer opus was too twisted even for my fucked-up tastes, but the gruesome three-way knife fight filmed with breathless, 360-degree precision in the blood-soaked interior of a speeding car is a technical marvel.

WWeek 2015

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