2011 Films: #32-31

#32 In Time


In the not-so-distant future, time has replaced money as currency. Every human has this rad-looking green digital clock on their wrists that ticks down as their "accounts" get lower and lower. The human model has been genetically enhanced so that no one will age physically past 25. The scientific advances are one part population control and one part social Darwinism. Will, saving all his time to spend on his mother (Olivia Wilde)'s birthday, is out at the bar with his pal (Big Bang's Johnny Galecki) when a man with over a century left on his clock comes in and starts flashing his time carelessly as if it were a Rolex watch. This garners the attention of the timekeepers (cops) fronted by Raymond (Cilian Murphy) and they give chase but Will and the man escape. After he wakes up in the morning, Will realizes the century has been transferred to him (people can share time by pressing wrists together...that could have been better thought-out by the filmmakers) and the man is dead. You guessed it-Will's accused of killing him and goes on the lam, becoming involved eventually with rich prick Phillipe Weis(Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser) and one of his daughters (Amanda Seyfried). I thought that the concept of In Time put a cool twist on the "clock is ticking" chase/action genre. Things were kind of corny (wrist-sharing, Olivia Wilde as Justin Timberlake's mother, cheesy "that coffee cost me four minutes?" reminders) but also kind of clever (the boomerang sound made when time is passed between people, Kartheiser introducing his wife and daughters who all look exactly the same, the paying out of time to enter wealthier "zones"). Better than you might think.

#31 Attack the Block


You ever notice how every time an alien blockbuster comes out, the CGI aliens always have the same cone-like head, bony composition, E.T. fingers? Not the case in Attack the Block, a strangely fresh and clever take on an alien invasion. First-time director (and British person) Joe Cornish imagines up what an alien attack might look like in East London in a horror/sci-fi/comedy mash-up. We dive right into the action with Moses (John Boyega) and his four teenage friends holding up a nurse (Jodie Whittaker) at knife-point. She gives them her purse and they celebrate in their hybrid cockney Brit ghettospeak ("innit" and "fam" used almost interchangeably) when out of nowhere, a meteor looking thing slams into a car and smashes it to pieces. Out from the wreckage comes a grotesque something or other that looks like a giant white dog with sharp teeth and it slashes Moses across the face. Moses exacts revenge, and he and his cronies carry the thing's carcass around the East End like a giant rotting trophy until they bring it to weed kingpin Ron (Nick Frost) for safekeeping. Before too long, the creature is joined by multiple similar creatures that come careening down to earth, but rather than white, they are covered in black fur and green-glowing sets of fangs. Moses and his crew grab everything they can (samurai sword, knife, bottle rockets and firecrackers) and ready themselves to defend their block. At times a little gory, Attack the Block is more fun than anything else, just as much for trying to decipher the high-wired teenagers and their ghettospeak than it is to watch them in attack mode.