Paste's Massive Guide To The 50 Summer 2011 Movies That Matter

Illustrations by Laura Medina

Page 3 of 5

21. Larry Crowne

Release Date: July 1
Director: Tom Hanks
Stars: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Bryan Cranston, Taraji P. Henson
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts team up in a romantic comedy about a downsized worker who goes back to college and gets hot for teacher.

22. Terri

Release Date: July 1
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Stars: John C. Reilly, Jacob Wysocki, Creed Bratton
A story about an overweight high schooler who lives with his inattentive uncle (The Office’s Creed) and his fear of adulthood. John C. Reilly plays the principal who takes Terri under his wings.

23. Project Nim

Release Date: July 8
Director: James Marsh
Stars: A chimpanzee
Man on Wire director James Marsh finds another historical event to retell—an early experiment with raising a chimpanzee as a human child in the 1970s. I could tell you that I’m fascinated by the echoes of the myths of Icarus and Prometheus in this story, and that would be true. I could tell you that explorations of the Uncanny Valley make me squirm, in a good way, and that would also be true. I could even tell you that I’m curiously drawn to footage of chimpanzees. But this movie had me at the words “from the Oscar-winning team behind Man on Wire.”—Michael Dunaway

24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

Release Date: July 15
Director: David Yates
Stars: Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
The final chapter (sniff!).

25. Ironclad

Release Date: July 15
Director: Jonathan English
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Richard Attenborough, Angus MacFadyen, Odette Yustman
Set in 1215, a humiliated King John (Paul Giamatti) hires Danish mercenaries to lay siege to Rochester Castle and those who forced him to sign the Magna Carta. If you’re missing the brutal fights and royal infighting of Game of Thrones come July, this might be just what you needed.

26. Life, Above All

Release Date: July 15
Director: Oliver Schmitz
Stars: Khomotso Manyaka, Keaobaka Makanyane, Harriet Lenabe
The South African submission for Best Foreign Film is a harsh look at life among that country’s poor—and the specter of AIDS that hangs over the community. American audiences will most likely have only been introduced to director Oliver Schmitz via a segment of Paris Je T’Aime.

27. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Release Date: July 15
Director: Wayne Wang
Stars: Bingbing Li, Gianna Jun and Vivian Wu
Two stories of childhood friendship, in both 19th-century and modern-day China are intertwined.

28. Winnie The Pooh

Release Date: July 15
Director: Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall
Stars: Jim Cummings, Craig Ferguson, Peter Cullen
Disney goes old-school as five actual stories from A.A. Milne are getting the hand-drawn treatment.

29. Another Earth

Release Date: July 22
Director: Mark Cahill
Stars: Brit Marling, William Mapother, Jordan Baker
The synopsis of Another Earth sounds misleadingly sci-fi heavy: Scientists suddenly discover a second Earth whose unusual orbit has hidden it from view behind the sun all this time, and soon learn that there are strange parallels between that Earth and our own, including the possibility of alternate selves for each one of us. Sounds like an episode of The Twilight Zone, right? In fact, all that is just a setup for a deeply personal and philosophical exploration of identity, remorse, loss and reconciliation. The particulars of the story are best left to the film itself, but Mike Cahill’s direction is spot-on, and Brit Marling’s tour de force as producer, co-writer and actor is stunning.—Michael Dunaway

30. Bellflower

Release Date: July 22
Director: Evan Glodell
Stars: Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson, Rebekah Brandes, Vincent Grashaw
Someone at Sundance gave me the perfect description of Bellflower. “It’s like 500 Days of Summer,” she said, “except if, once the girl leaves the guy, instead of getting sad and mopey, he starts burning and blowing stuff up and the movie turns into an acid trip.” That’s pretty much it. The film experiments with timelines, unreliable narrators, and with different film stock and filters. Plus it has flamethrowers and a home-customized muscle car that shoots fire from a pair of elevated exhaust valves. And an opening quote from Lord Humungous.—Michael Dunaway