I very much enjoyed writer/director/performance artist Miranda July's smart 2005 film Me and You and Everyone We Know. I also very much enjoy cats, and rarely a day passes when I don't narrate something as my own kitty. So don't think The Future gained its place on this list simply because it features cloying feline narration (voiced by July), although it did confirm my hunch that imagining cat conversation, like clipping one's nails, is best not done in public. The film's two youngish Angelenos, Jason (Hamish Linklater), who does tech support on the phone, and dance teacher Sophie (July), are so aimless that their decision to adopt Paw Paw, a stray recovering from an accident, is a huge event, a life changer. In the month before they are to take the cat home, Sophie debases herself with a lover outside her hipster class, while Jason quits his job and makes friends with an eccentric elderly man. Presumably we're meant to find this infantile couple representative of a generation adrift, because otherwise, what's the point? Yet July holds them at such an ironic remove that they seem like cardboard cutouts. July positions herself as a provocateur, but she's more of a scab picker, and the wounds she's toying with here are minor.
The Top 10 Everything of 2011
- Top 10 Albums
- Top 10 Animal Stories
- Top 10 Apologies
- Top 10 Business Blunders
- Top 10 Buzzwords
- Top 10 Comebacks
- Top 10 Consumer-Spending Trends
- Top 10 Crime Stories
- Top 10 Campaign-Debate Moments
- Top 10 Best Fashion Moments
- Top 10 Worst Fashion Moments
- Top 10 Feuds
- Top 10 Fiction Books
- Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
- Top 10 Food Trends
- Top 10 Gadgets
- Top 10 Green Trends
- Top 10 Marriage Stories
- Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
- Top 10 Memes
- Top 10 Movie Performances
- Top 10 Worst Movies
- Top 10 Best Movies
- Top 10 New Findings in Parenting
- Top 10 New Species
- Top 10 Nonfiction Books
- Top 10 Numbers
- Top 10 Oddball-News Stories
- Top 10 Overreported Stories
- Top 10 People Not Running for President
- Top 10 Plays and Musicals
- Top 10 Political Gaffes
- Top 10 Protest Signs
- Top 10 Quotes
- Top 10 Religion Stories
- Top 10 Ridiculously Obvious Study Findings
- Top 10 Scandals
- Top 10 Smart-Phone Apps
- Top 10 Songs
- Top 10 Space Moments
- Top 10 Sports Moments
- Top 10 Toys
- Top 10 TV Ads
- Top 10 TV Episodes
- Top 10 TV Series
- Top 10 Best Tweets
- Top 10 Worst Tweets
- Top 10 U.S.-News Stories
- Top 10 Underreported Stories
- Top 10 Video Games
- Top 10 Creative Videos
- Top 10 Viral Videos
- Top 10 World-News Stories
- Top 10 Photos of the Year
In 54 wide-ranging lists, TIME surveys the highs and lows, the good and the bad, of the past 12 months