SAFER Award Winners

2011

5 winning or notable movies from each SAFER Review category: Summary/Overall • Acting • Film • Edginess • Reality

Original Overall Top 5

Makes you proud

to be an American,

a movie like Buck.

Movies conclude no better

than HP&DH:P2.

The devil gets his due in

The Devil's Double, a

high octane biopic based on the memoirs of Uday Hussein's body-double.

You needn't be a racing fan

to appreciate this cinéma vérité biography of superstar Formula One champion Ayrton Senna.

The whip smart sensibility behind Juno gets extended to the arrested development of post-post-adolescence.

Original Acting Top 5


Dominic Cooper's doppio performance as Uday Hussein and Latif Yahia vaults him to the top rung of movie actors.	Stillness becomes Pitt, whose performance is literally monumental, his blockhead and imposing presence creating a sense of barely harnessed power.	Caesar's expressive face is reminiscent of Bogie's Fred C. Dobbs from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, making his mercurial character understandable and admirable.	Ryan Gosling has reached a level of stardom where a movie is worth watching if he's in it.	Charlize Theron's Mavis Gary is the Taxi Driver of psycho Prom Queen Bitches.

Original Film Top 5


Dramatic intricacy and mildly unctuous narration challenge the film's perfection. Unfair perhaps, since it is apparently rFactor 1.0, completely natural.	Malick delivers Film School perfection. Deeply impressionistic, it rarely stays with a scene or character for more than a moment, glancing in and out of life at its most quotidian and most massive. Wow.	Alexander Payne has become the master of bittersweet American stories. He's the rare satirist who actually seems to like people.	The film captures Ayrton Senna as the apotheosis of Industrial Man. Future historians will view Senna as a perfect lens into late 20th Century civilization.	Spielberg does animation. Actually Spielberg does animation with Peter Jackson directing the 2nd Unit. How's that for a Fellowship of the Reel dream team?

Original 5 Edgy Notables

The edgiest moments spring from a teen daughter's shockingly foul mouth.

The rapes are easier to view than one might assume, especially as one of the victims is hardly an innocent.

J. Edgar reveals Hoover's hidden sexuality. He's ...,
he's ...,
he's ... repressed.

Winter's gruesomely injured tail is shown. This salutary honesty is beneficial for all

but the smallest of children.

Several exploding heads, realistically portrayed.

Beware and be cool.

Original 5 Reality Notables

Hollywood is a liberal town partly because movies naturally favor underdogs put upon by The Man. Warrior plays this card to the hilt.

"The best driver who ever lived," declared legendary driver Niki Lauda about Ayrton Senna.

Who can argue with that.

Yoda says there is no try,

only do,

and what Saddam did was nearly half a Hitler,

with Uday doing his share.

Let me get this straight,

Harry Potter is an all-time great wizard, complete with superpowers, yet

can't seem to lose the glasses.

Obama's Hawaii:
While not a descendant of Hawaii, he's most certainly a product of the Hawaii depicted in The Descendents.