AARP The Magazine - February/March 2012

gang and a new audience
just discovering them.
WE ALSO LOVED: Dolphin Tale,
Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows: Part 2, and Hugo.
COMEDY
The Artist
WRI TTEN AND DIREC TED BY
MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS
INTERGENERATIONAL
MOVIE
Win Win
Set in the era when silent
pictures gave way to sound,
The Artist is positively
Chaplinesque: It serves up
slapstick, sentiment, and a
happy ending snatched from
the jaws of tragedy. We dare
you to name another com-
edy that so patiently builds
its entire narrative toward a

As if the impending failure of
his law practice isn’t enough,
attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul
Giamatti) also coaches a
wretched high school wres-
tling team. Enter a
new kid (Alex
single last-second joke.
The Artist
WE ALSO LOVED:
Shaffer), escap-
ing an awful
home life, who
just happens
to be an awe-
somely talented
wrestler. The story
of their budding
relationship, where each
finds the ingredients for
success in the other, makes
50/50, Bridesmaids,
Midnight in Paris,
and Tower Heist.
TIME CAPSULE
J. Edgar
DIREC TED BY CLIN T
EASTWOOD
Win Win a winner for all ages.
WE ALSO LOVED: The First
When we first meet J. Edgar
Hoover, Bolshevik terrorists
are bombing U.S. cities. By
film’s end, Richard Nixon is
beginning his presidency.
Grader, Hugo, and The Music
Never Stopped.
MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Alexandre Desplat
THE TREE OF LIFE
It was a sonically sensational
year for Desplat, who also
scored A Better Life, Carnage,
and Extremely Loud and
In between, Eastwood and
company starkly portray not
only how the world changes
in the span of a lifetime but
how a single life can define
those changes. WE ALSO
LOVED: The Help, The Iron Lady,
and Midnight in Paris.
Incredibly Close. For Terrence
Malick’s big-budget art film,
which explores nothing less
than the meaning of life and
the origin of the universe,
Desplat’s haunting orches-
tral score—accompanying
images of young love, family
tragedies, and interstellar
explosions—soars, rumbles,
sings and grumbles.
WE ALSO LOVED: John Williams,
War Horse. His majestic score
bears his trademark swelling
strings and fanfares, this
time infused with cleverly
applied folk tunes.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Names of Love
(France)
“Okay, we’re half-breeds,”
the Arab-French woman tells
her French–Greek-Jewish
lover. “We should go forth
and multiply. The day there’s
nothing but half-breeds,
there’ll be peace.” Writer-
director Michel Leclerc’s tale
of unlikely love between a
50-something conservative
man and a young liberal
woman does not merely
address the bridging of
generational and cultural
divides; it also envisions the
BESTMOVIES
FOR GROWNUPS®
The Iron Lady

They toddle about the
quiet house after dark,
playfully jabbing each
other’s hot buttons,
recalling fond memo-
ries, fretting about the
future. As Margaret Thatcher and her husband, Denis,
Streep and Broadbent embody our hopes for old love:
comfortable, affectionate, and undying—even beyond
death. WE ALSO LOVED: Emily Watson and Peter Mullan,
War Horse; Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson, The Beaver; and
Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer, J. Edgar.
GROWNUP LOVE STORY
Meryl Streep &
Jim Broadbent
THE IRON LADY

likely future face of Europe—
and, possibly, the world.
WE ALSO LOVED: 80 Days,
In Darkness, Queen to Play,
and The Skin I Live In.
DOCUMENTARY
Bill Cunningham
New York
DIRECTED BY RICHARD PRESS
When Press told the 82-year-
old Cunningham he’d make
the perfect subject for a
documentary, Press recalls,
“Bill thought it was the most
ridiculous idea imaginable.”
Thank goodness Press pre-
vailed—this portrait of a
genius, living alone in a clut-
tered Manhattan apartment
and photographing street
fashions for The New York
TImes from his bicycle, is a
tribute not only to a man but
to individualists of every age.
WE ALSO LOVED: Hot Coffee,
The Interrupters, Project Nim,
and Undefeated.
BREAKTHROUGH
ACHIEVEMENT
Martin Scorsese
HUGO
He gunned us down in Good-
fellas and led us through cor-
ridors of madness in Shutter
Island. But nothing prepared
us for the marvels of Hugo,
the director’s magical fan-
tasy about an orphan who
lives in the walls of a 1930s-
era Paris train station. Sel-
dom has a child’s-eye view
of life’s wonders and worries
been so lushly, lovingly ren-
dered. Scorsese’s first-time
use of 3-D technology trans-
forms the screen into the
most spectacular pop-up
book you’ve ever seen. ;
The Help
THE HELP THE DESCENDANTS MIDNIGHT IN PARIS HUGO
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE THE ARTIST
MARGIN CALL MONE YBALL WAR HORSE WE BOUGHT A ZOO
See trailers and our Readers’ Choice winner at aarp.org/moviesforgrownups.
FEBRUAR Y / MARCH 2012 41

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