2011 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #14)

As a garish cruise ship travels the Mediterranean, Godard embarks on a state of the EU address in a vibrant collage of philosophical quotes, historical revelations and pure cinematographic beauty.

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, seven men and one woman are then arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt, 42, owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks.

Against the ominous back-drop of post-Civil War Washington, newly-minted lawyer, Frederick Aiken, a 28-year-old Union war-hero, reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal. As the trial unfolds, Aiken realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt, her own son.

Set in a luxury hotel in Dublin, "Albert Nobbs" is a Gosford Park-style “below stairs” drama featuring Glenn Close as a woman in Nineteenth Century Ireland who disguises herself as a man in order to survive.

The story centers on a young girl who is abandoned by her drug-addicted, former-groupie mother at a concert and surprises the fading rock singer who’s performing with news that she is his daughter.

Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) awakens after a car accident in Berlin to discover that his wife (January Jones) suddenly doesn’t recognize him and another man (Aidan Quinn) has assumed his identity. Ignored by disbelieving authorities and hunted by mysterious assassins, he finds himself alone, tired and on the run. Aided by an unlikely ally (Diane Kruger), Martin plunges headlong into a deadly mystery that will force him to question his sanity, his identity, and just how far he’s willing to go to uncover the truth.

Two garden gnomes, Gnomeo (voice of James McAvoy) and Juliet (voice of Emily Blunt), try to avoid tragedy and find a happy ending to their star-crossed love affair when they are caught up in a feud between neighbors.

"Hesher" is the story of a twenty-something long-haired tattooed metal-head who one day unexpectedly enters the life of a grieving family. Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the most unlikely person to help 13-year-old TJ (Devin Brochu) cope with the death of his mother, but he proves to be the only one who can truly free TJ from his overwhelming sadness. The charismatic and dangerous Hesher drags TJ out of loss and confusion by sheer force of will and gives the young boy and his grieving father (Rainn Wilson) a chance to be a family again.

The story centers on the inner circle of Suddam Hussein, and the love triangle between Hussein’s son, Uday, his body double Latif Yahia, and the concubine they both loved.

Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) is a well-paid assassin who executes people at the request of the American government. But after assassinating a former close associate, Bishop does something that's unprofessional and out of control: he takes on a apprentice (Ben Foster), the son of the man he just killed.

A married couple is apart for a night while the husband takes a business trip with a colleague to whom he's attracted. While he's resisting temptation, his wife encounters her past love.

Tiring of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local newspaper, The San Juan Star, run by downtrodden editor Lotterman (Richard Jenkins). Adopting the rum-soaked life of the island, Paul soon becomes obsessed with Chenault (Amber Heard), the wildly attractive Connecticut-born fiancée of Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). Sanderson, a businessman involved in shady property development deals, is one of a growing number of American entrepreneurs who are determined to convert Puerto Rico into a capitalist paradise in service of the wealthy. When Kemp is recruited by Sanderson to write favorably about his latest unsavory scheme, the journalist is presented with a choice: to use his words for the corrupt businessmen’s financial benefit, or use them to take the bastards down.