The Usual Choices
The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
But how about...
The Hunter (Daniel Nettheim)
I read this novel on a flight over to Canada and it made me homesick for Australia before I even got off the plane. This film does a good job with the adaptation: while the cinematography was always going to be stunning (the wilds of south-west Tasmania are impossible to make drab), it surprisingly doesn't overwhelm the rather small story components (a mercenary on the hunt for a thylacine; the mysterious disappearance of a conservationist; a distraught mum with a pair of feral kids). I could've done without the evil international multi-conglomerate angle, not to mention the absolute misery of an ending, but it remains an interestingly-different take on man's exploitation of Nature.
...and what about...
The Ides of March (George Clooney)
American politics have always confused the hell out of me. People seem to continually fall for the same platitudes, the same tissue-strength promises, the same bullshit. The campaigns are orchestrated like Busby Berkeley productions with sinister and self-serving machinations going on backstage. But at least American politics have been the impetus for some fascinating movies, of which this is one. Answering the question "How much of a bastard can YOU be?", the film takes no sides (the left-wing guy is as big of a prick as the right-wing guy). Sobering and confronting, its only weakness is that it feels like it lacks a final act: major harm is caused, but the machine just thunders along.
...not to mention...
Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)
My very favourite of all the romantic-gothic novels from the Golden Age of English literature. It was made into a good Hollywood movie in 1943, but this 21st Century version is better. Gorgeously shot and not in as much of a hurry as the earlier version, this is a spot-on match for the novel in setting and emotional feel. While the 1943 model was graced with exemplary child actors Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret O'Brien and the sublime Peggy Ann Garner, this one has an acting upgrade with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender replacing and surpassing Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. Which, let's face it, is a pretty neat trick.
...and one personal unmentionable...
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
Look...I know I'm supposed to think this is a masterpiece...and I do kinda like it...maybe even admire it...but I keep on nodding off. I've always had an aversion to films which brazenly trumpet their claim to being Art, rather than it emerging organically from a well-told & universal story. TToL shares the visual majesty and grand ambition of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but lacks a scene as riveting and affecting as that movie's duel with HAL. So...instead...it just meanders along through its many, many jump-edits and fluid images, dropping clues about the director's version of The Meaning of Life, until we all murmur "yeah...". Ingmar Bergman would love it; Howard Hawks would hate it.
My Top 10 Films of 2011
 |
| Barry could never get the hang of cling-wrap. |
#02 A This Must Be the Place (Sorrentino)
#03 A Another Earth (Cahill)
#04 A The Guard (McDonagh)
#05 A- Hanna (Wright)
#06 A- Win Win (McCarthy)
#07 A- The Ides of March (Clooney)
#08 A- Jane Eyre (Fukunaga)
#09 A- Margin Call (Chandor)
#10 A- Young Adult (Reitman)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 A- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Fincher)
#12 A- Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Bird)
#13 B+ Martha Marcy May Marlene (Durkin)
#14 B+ Source Code (Jones)
#15 B+ Shame (McQueen)
#16 B+ Midnight in Paris (Allen)
#17 B+ My Week With Marilyn (Curtis)
#18 B+ A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg)
#19 B+ Red Dog (Stenders)
#20 B+ The Hunter (Nettheim)
#21 B+ The Descendants (Payne)
#22 B+ The Adjustment Bureau (Nolfi)
#23 B+ Coriolanus (Fiennes)
#24 B+ The Deep Blue Sea (Davies)
#25 B+ Bernie (Linklater)
#26 B+ Take Shelter (Nichols)
#27 B+ Margaret (Lonergan)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Captain America: The First Avenger [I just can't forgive how the death of Bucky was handled]
> B Super 8 [great kids, but it's hysterical & phony & Spielbergian-by-proxy, like Poltergeist]
> B Paul [yep...it's a bit funny...and that's all it is]
> B Albert Nobbs [of no interest to me whatsoever...and I'm a Transamerica fan]
> B Thor [mediocre movie about a superhero that Marvel has never really known what to do with]
> B X-Men: First Class [a fair attempt at a reboot, but strays too far from its source material to suit me]
> B J. Edgar [I dunno...I thought that a film about a crossdressing fascist would be more interesting than this]
> B Snowtown [a truly well-made, horrifying Aussie movie, but I just can't watch it again]
> B Crazy, Stupid Love [how did Hollywood forget how to make a decent rom-com?]
> B Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy [pales in comparison to the BBC TV series...and so does Gary]
> B Rise of the Planet of the Apes [not all sci-fi is franchise-able]
> B We Need to Talk About Kevin [wondrous acting but the world's most unbelievable mother]
> B We Bought a Zoo [cute kids + cute animals + cute movie stars = cute schmaltz]
> B Moneyball [team sports are not my thing...I'm more of a walk-to-get-the-newspaper kinda guy]
> B The Tree of Life [A Personal Unmentionable]
> B- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close [means well, but feels artificial and emotionally forced]
> B- Higher Ground [applaudable effort, but I have no interest whatsoever in Jesus freaks or penis sketchers]
> B- Drive [oh great...yet another "violent criminals are noble & cool" story]
> B- The Iron Lady [aka Meryl Does Another Accent]
> B- The Help [I dry-retched when she dropped the punchline]
> B- 50/50 [aka The Lighter Side of Spinal Cancer]
> B- Bridesmaids [Hey! Women can be gross too! But who gives a sink-shit?]
> B- The Artist [a future inductee into the "What-Was-The-Big-Deal?" Hall of Fame]
> B- Silent House [quite unpleasant but admittedly effective horror with a strong lead performance]
> C Green Lantern [the misery that is the DC Cinematic Universe begins here]
> D Killer Joe [ugly story about repugnant people; only the tethered pitbull-terrier has any morals]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 2011 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Contagion (Soderbergh); Cowboys and Aliens (Favreau); The Grey (Carnahan); The Lincoln Lawyer (Furman); Natural Selection (Pickering); War Horse (Spielberg); Warrior (O’Connor)
Best Performances of 2011
George Clooney in The Descendants
Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Octavia Spencer in The Help
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn
But how about...
Sean Penn in This Must Be the Place
More than any other movie he has made, this is the one where Sean Penn (of the Marlon Brando Heritage of Acting) absolutely proves that he is a GREAT actor. Tough guys / angry arseholes / druggie losers he can do...but a washed up postpunk rock star who wants to track down his father's guard from Auschwitz...nah...I mean, who could play that? But play it he does. The man somehow combines humour, anger (of course), monotonal monotony and man-on-a-mission in an unlikely character who is actually believable and lovable. It is, quite simply, one of the great overlooked performances and one of the greatest of the 21st Century, if not of all time. You have GOT to see this.
...and what about...
Saoirse Ronan in Hanna
A graphic novel of a movie (no, I'm not sure what that means either, but it feels right), Hanna is one of my all-time favourite action films. And 17 year old Saoirse is my very favourite action hero in movies. Raised in survivalist circumstances by her full-on father, our young heroine is calmly formidable (in a James Bond kinda way), tackling and putting away anyone who is stupid enough to threaten her. But somehow, she remains a normal (but naive) teenager...the sort who worries about her hair and the cute boy next door. Loaded with cartoony villains and mysterious organisations, this is an all-action rush, led by a pale-skinned Irish lass who just oozes charisma.
...not to mention...
Paul Giamatti & Alex Shaffer in Win Win
Win Win manages the hardest of all movie feats: it turns a small, normal-people story into something significant (and I have no idea how it does that). Paul slips into his William Bendix / Paul Douglas mode and plays an average middle class guy who wants to do the right thing by everyone...and this ultimately trips him up. And nobody plays "average guy" better than Paul Giamatti...
...and Alex plays an average angry teenager who feels big but talks little. Mumbly, mono-emotional and behaviourally spontaneous, he is the adolescent boy that all us blokes once were and some of us never move on from. It is a convincing performance that is reminiscent of Sean Penn in Bad Boys.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Cate Blanchett in Hanna
Like her performance as the Russian dominatrix in Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Cate proves here that her ability to portray cartoon baddies is surprisingly limited. The woman just can't do it...every gesture, vocal inflection and arched eyebrow reek of pure ham. In Hanna, she nearly scuttles the film, so calamitous are her attempts at fun villainy. The little character touches which were probably forced on her (the dental obsession; the broad Yoo Ess accent) quickly become a viewing irritation. Some actresses should steer away from comedy and comic books, and that's okay...Kate Hepburn would've been dreadful in this role too.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 2011
 |
| Safety in the Home Ep.#14: The Dangers of Drawing Pins |
#02 Saoirse Ronan in Hanna
#03 Mia Wasikowska in Jane Eyre
#04 Charlize Theron in Young Adult
#05 Brit Marling in Another Earth
#06 Ryan Gosling in The Ides of March
#07 Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
#08 Brendan Gleeson & Don Cheadle in The Guard
#09 Viggo Mortensen in A Dangerous Method
#10 Carey Mulligan in Shame
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus
#12 The ensemble cast of Margin Call
#13 Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene
#14 Asa Butterfield in Hugo
#15 John Hawkes in Martha Marcy May Marlene
#16 Rachel Weisz in The Deep Blue Sea
#17 Mark Strong in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
#18 Paul Giamatti in Win Win
#19 Daniel Henshall in Snowtown
#20 Shirley MacLaine in Bernie
#21 Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn
#22 Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin
#23 Alex Shaffer in Win Win
#24 Ezra Miller in We Need to Talk About Kevin
#25 Elizabeth Olsen in Silent House
#26 Anna Paquin in Margaret
#27 Sacha Baron Cohen in Hugo
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Jack Black in Bernie [Jack was born to supply movies with quirky and memorable supporting characters]
> Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy [just like there is only one Scarlett O'Hara, there is only one Smiley]
> George Clooney in The Descendants [as usual, he is merely fine]
> Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady [moviedom's greatest impressionist strikes again]
> Jean Dujardin in The Artist [a one-note performance; thank God he keeps his mouth shut]
> Ryan Gosling in Drive [just what movies need: a terrifying nice guy]
> Albert Brooks in Drive [even with the extra weight & flair for bloodletting, he's still just Albert]
> Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs [some women can be men...and some can't]
> Octavia Spencer in The Help [a twinkling pixie of a performance]
> Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids [is obviously filling in time until the Carry On franchise is rebooted]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 2011 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: Hugo (Martin Scorcese)
SILVER: This Must Be the Place (Paolo Sorrentino)
BRONZE: Another Earth (Mike Cahill)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Sean Penn (This Must Be the Place)
SILVER: Ryan Gosling (The Ides of March)
BRONZE: Paul Giamatti (Win Win)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre)
SILVER: Charlize Theron (Young Adult)
BRONZE: Brit Marling (Another Earth)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Viggo Mortensen (A Dangerous Method)
SILVER: John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene)
BRONZE: Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Carey Mulligan (Shame)
SILVER: Vanessa Redgrave (Coriolanus)
BRONZE: Shirley MacLaine (Bernie)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Brendan Gleeson & Don Cheadle (The Guard)
SILVER: Paul Badgley & Simon Baker & Paul Bettany & Jeremy Irons & Demi Moore & Zachary Quinto & Kevin Spacey & Stanley Tucci (Margin Call)
BRONZE: Jodie Foster & John C. Reilly & Christoph Waltz & Kate Winslet (Carnage)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Saoirse Ronan (Hanna)
SILVER: Asa Butterfield (Hugo)
BRONZE: Alex Shaffer (Win Win)
The Alternate Razzies for 2011 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEARKiller Joe (William Friedkin)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Cate Blanchett (Hanna)
