#1- We Need To Talk About Kevin

Directed by Lynne Ramsay

UK

Hell best describes Lynne Ramsay’s latest feature, her first in nine years ever since her brilliant and much overlooked Morvern Callar. Many critics have criticized the film for the characters portrayal, but they seem to be missing the point. One would assume the movie is about its titular character, but the movie really isn’t about Kevin at all. We Need To Talk About Kevin is all about perception – in this case, in how Eva perceives the world, how she regards her son and how she views situations in her past. It’s about Swinton’s Eva, her guilt, regret and loss; therefore the movie largely takes place in her tormented mind.

Ramsay’s direction is confident and composed. Her stylistic touches burn through the dread that is stripped back gradually through the blood-coloured production design. The actual massacre is wisely kept offscreen and instead recalled through a reoccurring motif of the colour red that filters through the pictures veins for its entire running time: from the unforgettable opening at a Spanish festival where a crowd of people drown themselves with tomatoes juice to the red paint splattered on her house by vandals, which Eva spends her days scrubbing away. Red is predominantly everywhere in sight, in food, traffic lights, make up, clothing and much more. The colour design here alluding at the tragedy buried deep in Eva’s soul. Rather than conflicting with its dark subject matter, the film’s visual beauty instead punctuates the horror. Ramsay with the help of editor Bini (best known for his work with Werner Herzog) commit to a time-shifting narrative from start to finish – juxtaposing thematic links between the past and present. To this end, she largely embraces the use of montage, cutting heavily between various shots to capture Eva’s perceptions of evens past. Her Mise en scène is, at the outset, nothing short of exhilarating. Eva is present in every frame of the movie, yet Ramsay shoots in Cinemascope, so no matter how close she gets, Kevin isn’t far behind. Tilda Swinton gives a tour-de-force performance conveying every thought racing through her character’s mind. Its a true work of art; her best yet. Kevin is too special a movie to be embraced by the masses, but from where I sit, it is inarguably Ramsay’s finest achievement so far.

#2- Kill List

Directed by Ben Wheatley

Screenplay by Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump

UKz

Kill List is presented in three distinct but smartly connected tissues: Ben Wheatley and his wife and scriptwriting partner, Amy Jump, have created somewhat of a kitchen-sink gothic horror film that blends black comedy, domestic drama and the whole buddy hit-man movie element into a seamless whole. The film’s off-kilter take on violence can be traced back to movies like The Parallax View, Race with the Devil, Rosemary’s Baby Pulp Fiction and The Wicker Man.

Utterly gripping, deeply unsettling and genuinely terrifying, Kill List is remarkably clever and resourceful filmmaking. This is a brilliantly directed, superbly written British horror film with terrific performances from its skillful cast of actors that will be dissected and argued long after its theatrical run is over.

#3- Haywire

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Screenplay by Lem Dobbs

2012, USA

At it’s roots, Haywire is the sort of low-budget, straight-to-video action thriller that airs on late-night basic cable. Make no mistake about it, Steven Soderbergh purposely keeps the picture true to its low-rent B-movie principles, right down to the strong heroine at its center. On paper, Haywrire sounds like your sort of run of the mill spy thriller, but several things elevate the film to well-above-average. Screenwriter Lem Dobbs who previously penned Dark City, The Limey and Kapka, is an accomplished enough storyteller, but here, he strips down the plot to an old-school, thrill-a-minute, striaghtforward, lean, globetrotting Spy Thriller. Haywire isn’t a by-the-numbers action vehicle, this is a fast, crafty and spare thriller, with a sharp cast, and Steven Soderbergh’s unmistakably sly direction.

Soderbergh has a knack for being inventive without showing off, and Haywire is a prime example. The credit is all on Soderbergh’s shoulders since he acts as cinematographer, director and editor for his film. Haywire’s defining characteristic is its look. The selection of shots are random and varied but he opts for simple images. The fight scenes are music free and the use of ambient sound only heightens the drama and tension. And in between, we are treated to David Gross’s funk cool jazzy score which only helps to enhance the vintage feel. Shooting digitally on the 4K Red One camera, Soderbergh gives Haywire a visually sophisticated look, with tonal palettes color-coded to help make sense of time and place. Although some of the director’s choices seem to be without rhyme or reason, others accomplish a specific goal. Soderbergh picks his angles artfully and allows Gina Carano, the amazonian brunette, to demonstrate her arsenal of acrobatic fighting tricks in extended, no-cheating, cleanly choreographed hand-to-hand fighting. Haywire is a bit like the Bourne movies, only stripped down with a UFC twist.

#4- The Grey

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Screenplay by Joe Carnahan

USA

Writer/director Joe Carnahan adapts the short story Ghost Walkers by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers to deliver his best film yet. The Grey is a welcome surprise – a man vs. nature epic/survivalist thriller that’s quiet, contemplative, and straightforward. There’s an almost poetic quality to the way things develop, with characters becoming increasingly introspective. You don’t expect poetry in what is marketed as an action film, but The Grey delivers it in spades literally and metaphorically. For all its machismo speeches and standoffs, The Grey is at heart a simple moral fable.

At nearly age 60, Liam Neeson lights up the screen as Ottway, proving to be one of the few magnetic action heroes left working in Hollywood. The Grey also offers us three great moments: The initial meeting with the wolves works incredibly well as the director gradually reveals several sets of gleaming eyes peering through the darkness like headlights. The second: one of the most realistic and frightening air crashes ever committed to celluloid and the third: an extraordinary scene early on in which, just after the crash, Neeson’s character encourages a dying man to let go and accept his fate.

The Grey‘s abrupt cut-to-black ending will anger some viewers but in retrospect, it allows us to recognize how things would realistically play out while also giving us some form of hope, the same hope that impels the characters through their journey.

#5- A Dangerous Method

Directed by David Cronenberg

Screenplay by Christopher Hampton

USA

A Dangerous Method is a historical romantic tragedy about the early days of psychoanalysis, bolstered by terrific performances by the exceptionally charismatic Michael Fassbender (as a pent-up Jung), Viggo Mortensen (as the sybaritic, cigar-chomping Freud) and Keira Knightley (who inhabits the hysteria of Spielrein). Since the film’s three principals were pioneers in the field of psychotherapy, it goes without saying there’s a lot of dialogue about their practice – potentially enough to overload most audiences, but for more patient film-goers, it’s a handsome and stimulating film, noteworthy for its terrific acting and provocative ideas. Cronenberg has reached the stage of his career where he doesn’t feel it necessary to pander to expectations. Instead he seeks to engage us, and for the most part he succeeds, even if one can help but think he is just skimming the surface of what could have been more compelling material.

#6- Carnage

Directed by Roman Polanski

Screenplay by Roman Polanski’s

USA

Adapted from the play God of Carnage by director Roman Polanski and Yasmina Reza (who wrote the original stage play), Carnage makes no attempt to “open up.” With the exception of a brief prologue and epilogue, the entire film takes place within the confines of a New York City apartment complex. And when it comes to being stuck in an apartment, nobody quite knows how to entertain us like Polanski. Entirely dialogue-driven with almost no plot to speak of, Carnage is short, razor sharp, lean and hilarious. Much like Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, the film centres on two couples who over the course of an evening, spend the majority of the time bickering. Polanski’s smooth direction and the assured performances by Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet keep things moving at a quick pace, allowing Carnage tor rise above its inherent cinematic limitations.

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The Grey – In media res

Near the end of Joe Carnahan’s admirably ambling survival thriller, the energy begins to re-mount as it becomes clear that Ottway (Liam Neeson) is about to make what may be his final stand against the wilderness that has dogged him and his fellow survivors for the last, oh, 110 minutes or so. Then, a sight familiar to anyone who’s seen promotional materials: Neeson taping broken bottles between his knuckles, with a knife in the other hand. For the last time, visions of his wife return, once again intoning, “don’t be scared,” only this time revealed to have a very different meaning than we might previously have inferred. The alpha emerges, proud and sure-footed. And then…

Simon Howell

Haywire: Car chase

It’s not easy to choose a best scene from one of the better action flicks in recent memory, but the extended car chase that quickly moves onto a snowy off-road, goes in reverse on a narrow path, and ultimately ends with the most unexpected deer collision in cinema history, is likely the most memorable.

Neal Dhand

A Dangerous Method: Otto Gross’s Entrance

As surface-level “un-Cronenberg” as his M. Butterfly, A Dangerous Method is actually truer to the director’s themes than his most recent works. The restraint here masks a bubbling tension, threatening to explode at any moment. One of the finest examples of this restraint is the introduction of Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), who bursts into Carl Jung’s office (Michael Fassbender) as a patient, and leaves as the therapist – not to mention with a few five-finger-discounted items.

Neal Dhand

A Separation: Nader and father

There are several excellent scenes in Asghar Farhadi’s Foreign Language Academy Award best bet, but perhaps the best is one of those that sets everything in motion. Nader (Peyman Moadi) returns home with his daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) to find his father unconscious, on the floor, and tied to the bed. What follows is a lengthy discourse of finger-pointing and subtle clues to a greater mystery.

Neal Dhand

The Grey: First blood

If neither the solemn letter read aloud by Liam Neeson at the start of the film, nor the scene in which his character is a hair away from committing suicide are clear enough indications that director Joe Carnahan means business in The Grey after the utterly forgettable cash grab that was The A-Team, then the moment when the first death of the picture occurs should do just the trick. It happens shortly after their plane crashes somewhere in Alaska’s barren, unwelcoming winter land. A few of the men have survived the event, but one (Ben Gray) is too gravely injured to possibly make it out alive. As everybody hovers over his weak body, only Neeson knows how to approach the situation and ease the condemned man as life itself slowly trickles out of his body. Shock turns to fear, which then turns to an indescribable soothing state as the man is invited by Neeson to think about a family member he loves and let her ‘take’ him away. A jaw dropping early moment in a film the marketing makes look like a throwaway survival thriller.

Edgar Chaput

Présumé coupable: Concluding court hearing

Vincent Garenq’s latest is a testing film. A man (Philippe Terreton) is shamelessly presumed guilty of harrowing crimes and spends many months, even years in custody. His journey sees his mind and heart bullied by despair, frustration and depression. How can it possibly end? What avenues exist to finally provide this poor soul with some tools to finally right the wrongs done to him? A court hearing at the highest level of France’s judicial system of course. Granted, the sequence begins much like the audience expects it to, with both sides pleading their respective cases, but at one point somebody intimately involved with one of the sides begins to fess up, revealing some absolutely stunning material which turns the entire affair on its head. The moment is absolutely infuriating, albeit for all the right reasons since all this time, just like the protagonist, the viewer has been hanging like a thread.

Edgar Chaput

Kill List: The climax

Ben Wheatly’s genre mash-up aptly blends gothic horror, black comedy, domestic drama and the buddy-hit-man movie element into a seamless whole. The film is presented in three distinct but smart connected tissues: Act I is a strange, stressful dinner party between two couples who have far too may skeletons in the closet. Act II is an offbeat thriller that involves the mysterious “kill list,” and follows two hit-man as they go about executing the people named on the list – and the third act is a an effective horror flick that delves into dark twisted themes. Each act has at least one memorable moment but it’s the climax (one perhaps indebted to The Wicker Man), that is heart-stopping. The finale leaves this uniquely cerebral, rich horror movie, to be dissected and appraised long after its theatrical run is over.

Ricky D

Haywire: Carano vs. Fassbender

At it’s roots, Haywire is the kind of low-budget, straight-to-video action thriller that airs on late-night basic cable. Make no mistake about it, Steven Soderbergh purposely keeps the picture true to its low-rent B-movie principles – and while on paper, nothing about Haywire sounds notable, there are several scenes which elevate the film to well above-average: As mentioned above, Soderbergh, manages to spice up a routine car chase (in the snow and in the woods) ending in a shocking sight gag, you won’t see coming. But for my money, the best moment in Haywire is when Gina Carano, the amazonian brunette (in her cocktail dress), takes part in an extended hand-to-hand fight scene with Michael Fassbender (here playing a coldly lethal assassin). As the two tangle, they completely destroy a luxury suite in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel – ending with Fassbender’s head squeezed between her thighs so hard, she knocks him out.

Ricky D

We Need To Talk About Kevin: Opening in bliss

Lynne Ramsay’s direction of We Need To Talk About Kevin is confident and composed. Her stylistic touches burn through the dread that is stripped back gradually through the blood-coloured production design. The colour red that filters through the pictures veins for its entire running time: starting from the unforgettable opening at a Spanish festival where a crowd of people are seen enmeshed and slowly thrashing while drenched in tomatoes. Her mise-en-scène is, at the outset, nothing short of exhilarating. The sound design and score by legendary guitarist and composer Johnny Greenwood are near perfect, evoking unease and active physiological engagement. It becomes clear in that opening scene that Kevin will be an exceptional film.

Ricky D

The news must have had every paid up member of the Conservative Party choking on their breakfast cup of tea. In a thousand Home Counties bungalows, men called Jeremy or Brian must have reached for their writing paper and fountain pens to compose a strongly worded letter to the Telegraph. The reason behind their outrage was the actress Meryl Streep. Or to put it more precisely, not Meryl Streep herself. Jeremy and Brian probably quite like Meryl Streep. What they can’t tolerate is the idea of Meryl Streep, American as crippling medical bills, donning a wig, putting on an accent and playing Margaret Thatcher.

The Iron Lady opens in cinemas this week. Opinion on Thatcher as a person might be divided, but opinion on Streep’s portrayal of the woman who invented Mr Whippy icecream and kicked the Argies out of a sodden little pile of rock called the Falklands, is unanimous. Streep, for all she comes from the wrong side of the pond, has the Iron Lady nailed.

Which all goes to show that portraying a national icon on screen can be difficult: you not only have to look and sound right, you have to get across the essence of a person who epitomizes not only themselves, but also a period in history. It’s a tall order. Here are five who, like Streep, have made that attempt, with varying degrees of success.

Anthony Hopkins as Nixon

If an American playing a Brit sticks in the national throat, how does a Brit fare playing an American President? In Oliver Stone’s 1995 film Nixon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113987/), Welshman Anthony Hopkins essays the role of Tricky Dicky in his final weeks in office, as Watergate thunders towards him like a Chieftain tank with “Crisis” stenciled on its steel plate side. Stone originally wanted Tom Hanks for the role, but he was far too likeable. Hopkins on the other hand, specializes in playing characters whose appear to have a sheet of inch thick glass between them and the world, so he made an obvious candidate for the role of a man whose strongest emotional connection was with a good bottle of bourbon.

Hopkins does a reasonable job even if he looks nothing like Nixon himself. The biggest challenge the actor faced was getting Nixon’s unctuous delivery right: Paul Sorvino (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113987/trivia) – who played Henry Kissinger – took Hopkins aside and offered advice on how to replicate Nixon’s accent, a gesture which backfired when Hopkins promptly quit the production, presumably unconvinced that Nixon should sound like he came from a close knit Italian family located somewhere in New Jersey. Hopkins was coaxed back in front of the camera by Stone,

Simon Ward as Churchill

Cross cultural boundaries aside, here’s an example of a Brit playing a Brit. Actually of a Brit playing one of the most famous British politicians of all time: Winston Churchill.

The Young Winston, made by Richard Attenborough in 1972, tells the story of Churchill’s early life: from being farmed out to a boy’s public school which makes Guantanamo seem like a holiday camp, to his work as a war correspondent in Africa and ending with his first election to Parliament. Fair haired, wide browed Simon Ward was an unknown when Attenborough picked him for the role of Churchill as a young man. It was a wise choice: although Ward is substantially better looking than Churchill (who in later years looked exactly like a large, irascible baby) his resemblance to the real man is much stronger than the others in this list, making it that much easier for the audience to believe in the character. Ward also supplied the voice over for the film, which was based largely on Churchill’s own memoirs, and does an uncannily good job of replicating Churchill’s instantly recognizable growl.

Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln

From probably-the-most-famous British politician to probably-the-most-famous American president, none other than the chinstrap bearded Abe himself and another film which takes the early life of the politician as its subject. While Attenborough’s film came under some fire for idealizing Churchill’s youth, particularly his time as a journalist in Africa, at least it had a hold, if only a weak one, on reality. Young Mr Lincoln – directed by John Ford in 1939 – can’t even lay claim to a toehold on the truth. Even though Lamar Trotti received an Oscar for his screenplay, it wasn’t because the script gave us a better understanding of how Lincoln rose above his humble beginnings to become Leader of the Free World. Young Mr Lincoln is the type of slushy melodrama which went down a treat with wartime audiences: rousing speeches, women in bustles dabbing their eyes, syrupy violins telling us when to get out our hankies – and this from the man who gave us such muscular fare as Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath. I can only imagine that when Ford took this project on, he was suffering from an uncharacteristic and fortunately unrepeated attack of hormones.

As for Fonda’s performance, hampered by a prosthetic nose which gives him an uncanny resemblance to Sam the Eagle from The Muppets, he looks stiff and uncomfortable throughout the film. And his vocal delivery – close your eyes and what you hear is pure John Wayne. Maybe Ford wasn’t being that prissy after all.

Josh Brolin as George W Bush

Oliver Stone seems to have a fancy for taking totally unlikeable Presidents and devoting millions of dollars of good money to confirming our opinion that there wasn’t much to admire about them. He did it for Nixon and in 2008’s W he does it for Dubya, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1175491/ giving us a result which while it isn’t a hatchet job, doesn’t exactly portray it’s subject in what anyone could call a flattering light.

In casting the actor who would capture his vision of Bush, Stone chose Josh Brolin an interesting decision given that Brolin is a card carrying Democrat, but perhaps not all that surprising when you remember that Stone is as well. Like Hopkins and Fonda, Brolin looks nothing like his subject. In an interview he admitted “we had to do a lot with prosthetics” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3562496/Josh-Brolin-on-playing-George-W.-Bush-in-Oliver-Stones-new-film.html, but claimed the Texas accent was a cinch. The result is watchable, but not convincing. The key to Bush’s persona lies in his dull, anxious little eyes and Brolin is way too intelligent to capture the essence of a man who, once out of range of an autocue, had the conversational skills and wit of a Texas swamp rabbit.

Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler

And in the spirit of saving the best until last, the final performance is an untouchable tour de force. In Downfall (Der Untergang) directed by Oliver Hirchbeigel and released in 2004, Bruno Ganz doesn’t so much play Adolf Hitler as become him. Ganz spent months preparing for the role, studying not just the oratory we’re familiar with, but tapes of Hitler in conversation to give his portrayal greater accuracy. The result was so successful that the film came under fire http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6019248/from/RL.1/#.TwrcEYHcCkw for making Der Fuhrer too human. This was the man who was directly responsible for the Holocaust and one of the most violent and murderous conflicts in history and seeing Ganz convey the dictator’s exhaustion and despair as everything he has worked towards falls apart was too much for some critics to stomach. And yet, as others pointed out, it’s Hirchbeigel’s and writer Bernd Eichinger’s refusal to make Hitler one-dimensional which elevates this film to greatness. Even as the screenplay reveals Hitler’s better side, Ganz uses his ruined, corrupt features to never allow us to forget that this was a man whose entire motivation was based on hatred, fear and suspicion. It’s more than well rounded: it’s a compelling, unbeatable piece of work.

With not one but three films about Abraham Lincoln in production, the supply of movies about world leaders shows no sign of drying up. Daniel Day Lewis is sure to do a better job than Fonda in Spielberg’s Lincoln (no one wears a beard with quite the same conviction as Day Lewis) but when it comes to as yet uncovered Presidential subjects, interesting possibilities open up. I’ve always thought Ben Affleck would make a great Ronald Reagan – but looking forward is even better. One day, someone’s going to make a film about Obama and when they do, I’m tipping Will Smith for the part. With Beyonce as Michelle. Don’t forget, you read it here first…

- Cath Murphy

2012 is shaping out to be a banner year for Hollywood blockbusters. Between the amount of buzz that The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises alone are generating over the past year makes one feel that these heavyweights are exhausting their stay. It’s hard to believe that in a year filled with high budgets and wide adaptations, that there is room for anything else. Yet this year is also a frontrunner for many beloved cult filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers and Steven Soderbergh. In a way, one can imagine that this year is turning out to be a David and Goliath type of battle. Who will reign supreme? Will the victors be the fanboys or the mass audience? Shall the conquerors be those who bleed cinema or those who bleed green? You decide by checking out the list below. In no particular order, here are ten films highly anticipated for the forthcoming year:

1- Django Unchained

Coming off a very strong 2009 Inglorious Basterds, 2012 couldn’t get here any quicker for Tarantino fans. With an A-list cast that seemly gets bigger each month, one can expect many surprises to be slated in a B-genre laced film of spaghetti westerns and blaxploitation that made this director’s pantheon a sure-shot watch.

Synopsis: Set in the Deep South during the 1850s, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) is a German bounty hunter/former dentist who buys Django (Jamie Foxx) as a slave so that he can help Schultz identify bounties for him. After successfully helping the good doctor with his bounty hunting, Django is given his freedom papers and is recruited by Schultz to continue being his partner in the bounty hunting business.Django hones his bounty hunting skills until Schultz thinks he is ready to go to Mississippi; in order to free his wife (Broomhilda). When they find her where abouts through slave auction records, they discover she is in the hands of monsieur Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio); a francophile who takes great pleasure in watching Mandingos fight to the death. Django and Schultz cleverly con Candie into selling Django back his Broomhilda. But something goes rotten in the state of Denmark and Django finds himself fighting for his life, his wife, and sweet bloody vengeance.

2- Skyfall

I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked for Skyfall. After a critically slammed Quantum of Solace and financial woes placed on MGM and its franchise, it’ll be quite interesting how the theater director behind Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes) will do after reuniting with a very debonaire Daniel Craig this time around. Top that with cinematography by Roger Deakins (True Grit) and Javier Bardem as the main villain, and someone has to wonder why The Avengers is hogging all the franchise blockbuster buzz this year.

Synopsis: In Skyfall, Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

3- The Dark Knight Rises

By far one of the most spread out and unique marketing campaigns of any upcoming film this year, from generating new photo creatives off of Twitter followers to showing its 12 minute prologue before Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in IMAX, it’s perplexing to think that the ride is almost over. Curtailing off of acclaimed responses from The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger’s over-the-top performance as the Joker, there is no doubt that Tom Hardy is feeling the pressure of seeing audiences’ reaction over his portrayal of the brutish terrorist Bane.

Synopsis: Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, the terrorist leader Bane arrives in Gotham City, pushing it and its police force to their limits, forcing its former hero Batman to resurface after taking the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes.

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4- Haywire

Noted to retire from directing after 2013, the clock is ticking as the Ocean‘s director is encoring audiences with his new government thriller. After Liberace the director will put down the camera for a paint brush, so hopefully audiences’ reaction to Haywire will force him to reconsider. 

Synopsis: Beautiful freelance covert operative Mallory Kane is hired out by her handler to various global entities to perform jobs which governments can’t authorize and heads of state would rather not know about. After a mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona, Mallory is quickly dispatched on another mission to Dublin. When the operation goes awry and Mallory finds she has been double crossed, she needs to use all of her skills, tricks and abilities to escape an international manhunt, make it back to the United States, protect her family, and exact revenge on those that have betrayed her.

5- Gravity

If it’s not for blockbusters, 2012 is definitely the year of directors alike. From the man who brought us Children of Men, I’m quite excited to see what Cuaron will bring to the big screen, especially in 3D. Plus with Clooney headlining, I’m in like Flynn.

Synopsis: Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is a 3D space film about the leader of a team posted at a remote space station. While he and a female colleague are traveling outside the space station, the other team members are decimated by debris from an exploded satellite.

6- Cogan’s Trade

After being on my anticipation list since last year, it’s awesome to see that the reunion of Brad Pitt and Andrew Dominik is coming about in 2012. Being a fan of the lesser loved yet vastly beautiful The Assassination of Jesse James, seeing Cogan’s Trade is pretty much a no-brainer. Plus with the winning streak of films Pitt has been producing lately from Inglorious Basterds to Tree of Life to Moneyball, and on the account that the megastar has also proclaimed retirement from acting soon, it’ll be interesting to see if his streak does in fact hold up. And a grease-haired Pit holding a shotgun looks pretty cool too.

Synopsis: Cogan’s Trade tracks Jackie Cogan’s career in a gangland version of law and order. For Cogan is an enforcer; and when the Mob’s rules get broken, he gets hired to ply his trade — murder. In the gritty, tough-talking pages of Higgins’s 1974 national best-seller, Cogan is called in when a high-stake card game under the protection of the Mob is heisted. Expertly, with a ruthless businessman’s efficiency, a shrewd sense of other people’s weaknesses, and a style as cold as his stare, Cogan moves with reliable precision to restore the status quo as ill-conceived capers and double-dealing shenanigans erupt into high-voltage violence.

7- The Avengers

If by now you haven’t heard that The Avengers is coming, you must be living under a rock. Not being the biggest comic book movie fan myself, I do have to admit that the joining of some of the most mega box office franchises of the past decade sounds pretty epic in my book. No one, not even the high-brow film snobs out there, can denounce the fact that this will be one of the biggest cinematic milestones of the year.

Synopsis: The Avengers will bring together the super hero team of Marvel Comics characters for the first time ever, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk and more, as they are forced to band together to battle the biggest foe they’ve ever faced.

8- Inside Llewyn Davis

Even if you haven’t been living under a rock, Inside Llewyn Davis might have slipped under your radar. Is it a shameless plug to interject the Coen Brothers onto the list? Yes. Does it matter? No. Being on the subject area of 1960s music, it’ll be interesting to see if the brothers will have the same success soundtrack-wise as with O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with pop sensation turned actor Justin Timberlake at the wheel.

Synopsis: The Coen Brothers tackle the beatnik world of the American folk scene in Greenwich Village during the 1960s with this musical drama from StudioCanal. Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan star.

9- Stoker

On the cusps of greatness with such films as Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Oldboy and Thirst, the South Korean based director, Park Chan-wook, marks 2012 with his first ever English based film. Being a huge fan of Asian cinema, specifically with Korean cinema, it’ll be quite the treat to have a talented filmmaker of this magnitude dive into domestic markets.

Synopsis: Just before his demotion to the ranks of minor character actors, Monte Blue starred in an above-average series of programmers for Allied Pictures (one of the many forerunners of Monogram). In The Stoker, Blue plays Dick, a wealthy young man who is betrayed by his faithless wife Vera (Natalie Moorehead). Dropping out of sight, Dick goes on the bum along the waterfront, eventually landing a job as a ship’s stoker on a vessel bound for South America. He ends up on a below-the-border plantation, where he rescues the pretty owner (Dorothy Burgess) from the skullduggery of bandit leader Santono (Noah Beery Sr.) For an actor who was considered a has-been, Monte Blue gives a persuasively virile performance, though he’s a bit thick in the middle to be thoroughly convincing as a young hero.

10- The Grandmasters

I couldn’t leave this list without one pure Asian delight. Not coming down from the high of Ip Man, the legacy is continued as this film tells the story of the man who trained Bruce Lee. Filled with high octane martial artistry, watch the trailer to get juiced up for a promising 2012.

Synopsis: With martial arts getting more popular in the Thirties, more people seek to learn them via the professionals at Foshan in Southern China. Some of the experienced masters like to challenge their counterparts and undergoing battles. To have their whole concentration, it is their practice to lock up the venues and no one is allowed to leave during battles. No food and no rest before reaching any results.Ip Man is a young rich man extremely talented in martial arts, but he chooses to keep a low profile. Yet this doesn’t keep him out of these troubles ahead. One day he is trapped in this battleground so he has to use every means in order to get out of there. The masters are amazed by his abilities. Master Kung and his daughter Kung Yi are amongst, and the latter is attracted to this newcomer.A high warlord is assassinated by his own guard Yi Xian Tian. All masters in Foshan vow to take Tian down no matter what…

Next Ten

Best Movie Poster – Cabin In The Woods

Runner-up: Meek’s Cutoff

Best Sound Design

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

Best Sound Editing

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

Best Editing

Zachary Stuart-Pontier – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Best Art Direction

Carlos Bodelón – The Skin I Live In

Best Score

Chemical Brothers - Hanna

Best Soundtrack

Drive – various artists

Best Canadian Film

Hobo With A Shotgun

Directed by Jason Eisener

First-time feature director Jason Eisener and writer John Davies deliver an entertaining, comically violent throwback to low budget 70′s and 80′s genre movies. The skeleton here is that of an an urban western, in which a drifter with dreams of a better life is caught in a lawless town, pushed a little too far, and as a result delivers justice, one shell at a time. Hobo looks and feels like a long lost relative to exploitation features of the Canadian Tax Shelter films from decades past.

Best Animated Film

The Adventures of Tintin

Directed by Steven Spielberg

The first collaboration between Spielberg and Peter Jackson, two of cinema’s most biggest producer-directors, lives up to the hype – a teaming that brings an ol’ fashioned adventure flick that harkens back to the action-packed, tongue-in-cheek swashbucklers of the 1980s. Blessed with a smart script and the best craftsmanship money can buy, Tintin blends thrilling chases, eccentric characters, sharp humour, detective work and even an incredible animated silhouetted credit sequence with nods to both Saul Bass and Spielberg’s own Catch Me If You Can. Working hand-in-hand with Jackson, the director and his team have deployed both 3D and motion-capture technologies with subtle finesse. Likewise, the motion-capture performances are amazing. The effect is a surprisingly entrancing mix of the real and unreal, a technological achievement that’s more than matched by Spielberg’s talent as the best director of family entertainment.

Runner-up: Rango

Best Action Film

13 Assassins

Directed by Takeshi Miike

Cult director Takeshi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition) delivers a bravado period action film that is both a vivid samurai drama to an absolute work of genius. The visually spectacular, stunning wide-screen cinematography, impressive, full-scale sets and special effects and incredibly immersive action scenes, places 13 Assassins right up there among the finest in the genre.

Runner-up: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Best Sci-Fi Film

Attack The Block

Science-fiction movie buffs looking for a change of pace from Hollywood fare will appreciate this thoroughly entertaining but clever low-budget British action-comedy. On its surface, Attack the Block is about unlikely heroes saving the world from an alien invasion, but it’s really a metaphor for all the obstacles these kids face on a daily basis. Without a doubt the most energetic and fun screening all year.

Runner-up: Super 8

Best Documentary

The Interrupters

Directed by Steve James

Steve James delivers his most ambitious project yet in The Interrupters, a tough and honest documentary that tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who attempt to protect their Chicago neighborhoods from the violence they once employed, and reclaim their streets, one corner at a time, one person at a time. This weighty but auspicious look at how the CeaseFire movement is sweeping through the Windy City makes for a truly inspiring documentary. The Interrupters is impeccably crafted and edited, without the need of any post-production window dressing. Without even narration or talking head interviews, Steve James offers us an intense close view into the ghettos of a big city without overly dramatizing any of his subjects nor the violent situations he encounters. Each case proves emotionally overwhelming but more importantly has the power to inspire change and make you believe that change is possible. The Interrupters is possibly the most necessary film of the year – the most moving, the most tragic, and quite simply one of the best.

Runner-up: We Were Here

Most Overlooked Film

Bullhead

Directed by Michaël Roskam

Writer/director Michaël Roskam delivers an assured directorial debut in Bulhead, a disturbingly visceral art-house drama that ably blends elements from other genres. While punctuated with moments of austere dark humour, Bullhead ranks as one of the most original crime pics in recent memory – one which is light on crime but heavy on drama, blending thriller elements into what amounts to a character study. This emotionally driven tale of revenge, redemption and fate is morally complex and constantly surprising, shattering the myths of brute machismo by way of its central standout performance in actor Matthias Schoenaerts.

Best Actor

Michael Fassbender – Shame

Best Actress

Tilda Swinton – We Need To Talk About Kevin

Best Original Screenplay

Asghar Farhadi – A Seperation

Best Adapated Screenplay

John Logan – Hugo

Best Cinematography

Emmanuel Lubezki – Tree Of Life

Best Director

Steve McQueen - Shame

Best Horror Film

Kill List

Directed by Ben Wheatley

Wheatley follows up his debut Down Terrace with a gripping, deeply disturbing, genuinely terrifying, and genre-bending film that continually catches you by surprise. Kill List is brilliantly directed, superbly written and recalls classics like The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General while boasting the most terrifying and audacious climax in recent memory. If you can stomach the strong violence, this is worth the watch. Part character study, part crime flick, Kill List is simply the best British horror-thriller in over a decade.

Runner-up: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Best Released Film

Shame

Directed by Steve McQueen

Shame, Steve McQueen’s sophomore film and second collaboration with Michael Fassbender, is a compelling and timely examination of sexual compulsion and self-loathing in the modern world. Few filmmakers have probed so deeply into the soul-crushing depths of sexual addiction as bravely as McQueen does here. Fassbender owns the screen fully unselfconscious about the full-frontal nudity and graphic (but simulated) sex required of him. With very little dialogue, the actor peels back layers of self-loathing, dominates every scene and gives the most compelling performance of the year. Meanwhile Steve McQueen’s control of sight and sound solidifies him as the next great director. Simply a masterpiece and sadly misunderstood by so many critics online.

Best Unreleased Film:

Turin Horse

Directed by Bela Tarr

Cinema’s greatest crafter of tone, mood and atmosphere, Bela Tarr, unleashed his final film in 2011. The Turin Horse is an dubious story of Nietzsche, when in 1889, he saw a cabman abusing his horse and decided to intervene. Co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky, The Turin Horse will bore 99% of audiences – but lovers of vivid atmospheric films will find themselves mesmerized. The Turin Horse is essential viewing for the braver, more discerning/patient filmgoer; a remarkable expressive black-and-white film with a haunting score, brilliant sound design, Tarr’s trademark long takes and the longest-most beautiful establishing shot you’ll ever see.

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50 Favorite Films

If you notice some movies missing, it might be because I listed them last year. Some of those include Quatrro Volte, Incendies and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Turin Horse

Shame

Melancholia

Tree Of Life

Bellflower

Drive

Kill List

Martha Marc May Marlene

Take Shelter

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Meek’s Cutoff

Wuthering Heights

The Artist

13 Assassins

Attack The Block

Beyond The Black Rainbow

Hanna

Super 8

Beginners

Submarine

Kid With A Bike

Snowtown

Bullhead

Headhunters

Tyrannosaur

Hugo

Poetry

Certified Copy

A Separation

The Adventures Of Tintin

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

A Lonely Place To Die

Hobo With A Shotgun

Absentia

Skin I Live In

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

The Future

Pina

Descendants

Leap Year

Senna

Rango

The Interrupters

Contagion

Moneyball

Retreat

Arbor

Tomboy

Mildred Pierce

Hadewijch

My top 5 Quebec films:

Disclaimer: Firstly, these are a few films that I did not have the opportunity to see but which have been getting a lot of acclaim. I’m sure at least one of them would have made this list had I had the chance to see them.

Café de flore

Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y., became a huge hit, when it was released just over five years ago, sweeping both the Quebec (Jutra) and Canadian (Genie) film awards. It is considered one of the greatest Quebec films of all time. His newest Café de flore is about two parallel love stories, the first set in present-day Montreal and the second 1960s Paris. Vallée’s imagery is always stunning and the way he uses music is often both clever and filled with emotion. This is one I’ll be seeking out as soon as it gets a DVD release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3HAgq7aQOk

Coteau rouge

Director André Forcier has been a staple of Quebec cinema since the 70s. So much so that his eclectic mix of dark humour and magical realism have somewhat seeped into the new generation of Quebec films. Forcier’s films aren’t always the greatest but they are always some of the most interesting films to come out of their respective years. Coteau rouge has been getting a good reception here in Quebec and based on the trailer it looks like a whole lot of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIrslB19J1k

Le vendeur (The Salesman) & Marécages (Wetlands)

These two films by first time directors have been getting a lot of good press. The first is Wetlands directed by Guy Édoin, a drama set on a farm in Quebec’s western townships. The other is Sébastien Pilote’s The Salesman about an aging car salesman whose life changes as he nears his retirement. I can’t say much more about these films as I of course haven’t seen them. They both received a really good reception at this year’s TIFF and I’m greatly looking forward to checking them out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV4p67-FRL8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hScXCqbyYbk

Honourable Mentions:

Monsieur Lazhar Directed by Phillip Falardeau

I won’t say too much about this film. Lazhar won best Canadian film at TIFF and has been winning all kinds of other awards. It is a good film held back a bit too much by conventions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjNCkxnT-xE

Starbuck Directed by Ken Scott

Starbuck, which I believe is the highest grossing Quebec film of the year, is a light hearted dramedy about a man who finds out he has over 500 children due to donations he gave to a sperm bank when he was younger. The high concept idea is executed quite well and a great performance by Quebec icon Patrick Huard makes this film very enjoyable although occasionally a bit clichéd and cheesy at times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S7nLH-hbH0

Now without further ado, ladies and gentleman, the list:

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#5 –Décharge (Trash)

Directed by Benoît Pilon

Pierre lives with his family in a trashy neighbourhood where drugs and gang fights are rampant. Owner of a garbage disposal company he makes it his job to keep the streets clean in more ways than one; also occasionally moonlighting as a vigilante, he goes out with his team to beat up local thugs and gangbangers. His life changes when he during one of his late night cleaning sessions he finds a young drug addicted girl passed out in dumpster and makes it his goal to help her out. This film is driven on the strength of the performances, Pierre Boutin and Sophie Desmarais are incredible in the two main roles. The film really works on an emotional level as well, although the metaphors here might be a little too on the nose throughout, everything really works. Director Benoît Pilon is, like Denis Villeneuve, able to make films that can appeal to both mainstream audiences and film buffs, that is why Décharge makes the list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqbNkFib5jM

#4 –Jaloux (Suspicions)

Directed by Patrick Demers

A couple on the fritz go up north to a cottage to try and reconcile their relationship. Unexpectedly, someone is already at the cottage a stranger, an unknown acquaintance. After a drunken night in the cabin, the three of them wake up not exactly remembering what happened. The girlfriend flirts with the stranger, the boyfriend gets jealous and slowly both begin to discover that the man might not be exactly who he says he is. Benoît Gouin, who plays the bad guy, is always amazing in these kinds of roles, although he wouldn’t be happy about me saying this; he just looks like an asshole, his smile is always so fake and mischievous he is perfect for this role. The story is told is a peculiar non-linear fashion as the couple try to remember what happened the night before, the tension rises as they get closer to this man who ultimately could be very dangerous. This film is classic movie making. The suspense here would make Alfred Hitchcock very proud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Nx3hASWsI

#3 –En terrains connus (Familiar Grounds)

Directed by Stéphane Lafleur

Inspired in some ways by Forcier ideas of magical realism, Stéphane Lafleur’s latest takes a look at family dysfunction and ideas of inadequacy. When a man from the not too far future (approximately 7 months) comes and tells Benoît that his sister is going to be in a car accident, he is forced to try and reconnect with her and through a series of odd circumstances ends up taking a trip with her up north. This film is filled with dry humour and quiet empty spaces. A fantastical musical track accentuates the dreamlike qualities of the cold winter landscapes and accentuates the odd tonality of the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2n6qfZPM6M

#2 –Jo pour Jonathan (Jo for Jonathan)

Directed by Maxime Giroux

The film opens with Jo, the protagonist, spying on his older brother having sex with his girlfriend, an awkward yet very telling scene. Jo looks up to his brother and although he doesn’t have that much interest in cars he goes along to his brother’s drag races and tries very hard to fit in; all he wants to do is be cool. This is story about adolescence, about growing up; a bored suburban bum trying to find his place in the world. There is something incredibly poetic about the films of Maxime Giroux as he manages to find humanity in some of the lowest kinds of people. I want to call this the Quebec version of Bellflower, although it is completely different tonally, it does deal with similar themes of what it means to be a man rather than a child. Unlike Bellflower however, it is more preoccupied with true character emotions and development rather than trying to look cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dC_dTUsKvc

#1 –Nuit #1

Directed by Anne Émond

Anne Émond’s Nuit #1 is about sex, more accurately the one night stand. The first 20 minutes of the film contain the act itself; sex, in all its realistic awkwardness, this is neither Hollywood romance nor hyper real cautionary tale, this is the reality of sex, complete with bathroom breaks and condom fetching. The second part of the film is a deconstruction of relationships, sexual and emotional; a portrait of this new generation of underachievers, unhappy and unfulfilled, failed artists, intellectuals lost in inertia, dreamers drowning in sweat and alcohol, finding their only cheap thrills in random sexual encounters. As the female, Clara, tries to leave, the male, Nikolai, intercepts her and asks her to stay. Their following conversations take them, although not in the usual order, through all stages of a relationship, from an all out fight, to a simple disagreement, to just getting to know each other, all in one night. Set in a drab apartment on a rainy night and tinged in golden yellow light of hope this film is both endlessly depressing and somewhat wonderful, especially since it will hit close to home for so many people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgTvmXLwV58

-Alex Moffatt

1. Martha Marcy May Marlene

Directed by Sean Durkin

I saw Sean Durkin’s directorial debut in August and knew as soon as the last frame came up that this was the best picture of the year.  In fact, I wanted to see the movie immediately again because I found the film to be so satisfying.  I saw it again in October and my experience was as powerful as the first time.  This is a perfect film: perfectly acted, perfectly directed, perfectly written, and perfectly edited.  Elizabeth Olsen gives a haunting breakthrough performance as Martha, the film’s protagonist who has just escaped from a cult led by the magnetic John Hawkes, and is now living with her sister played by Sarah Paulson.  Hawkes doesn’t chew the scenery, instead going for a much more subtle indoctrination.  Yes he is creepy but he is also charming and manipulative.  The editing is flawless, effortlessly cutting back between Martha’s time at the cult and her time at her sister’s house.  The affect is somewhat disorientating but in an effective way and this helps make the film uncommonly tense.  The ending is pitch perfect, with it’s refusal to wrap up neatly like most psychological thrillers.

2. Like Crazy

Directed by Drake Doremus

For whatever reason, this film has flown completely under the radar during the end of the year hoopla.  Drake Doremus’ drama is easily the best and most authentic relationship film of the year.  No other film has managed to capture the joys of falling in love and the pain of being kept apart, and eventually heartbreak.  Doremus takes a stripped down and naturalistic approach, featuring handheld cameras and a largely improvised script, and because of this, along with Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones, who deliver two of the year’s best performances, there isn’t a false moment.  Every moment of this film feels like it was drawn from real life and it makes it irresistible.

It’s a simple story.  Boy and girl meet cute.  Boy and girl fall in love.  Boy and girl are kept apart.  Yet the story doesn’t go where we expect it to go.  I love the way Doremus uses montages to show the relationship and time passing.  The supporting characters feel real and authentic, especially Jennifer Lawrence as Sam who takes up with Jacob (Yelchin) and Charlie Bewley as Simon who takes up with Anna (Jones), and are not stock archetypes that we usually see in romances.  And the film also avoids any of the potential political grandstanding that could have featured in the a story like this.  The film also features the most memroable final shot of the year, one  that is left up to our interpretation whether it is hopeful or bleak.

3. Tree of Life

Directed by Terrence Malick

What more can be said about this film that hasn’t already been said?  Well, I’ll try.  I’m not putting this film on my list for the gorgeous visuals, the wonderful score, the dinosaurs, and the overall cinematic poetry.  Don’t get me wrong, these things are all fantastic.  Terrence Malick is after all, a cinematic poet.  All of the images in this film could hang in an Art Museum.  The real reason I adore this movie so much is because of this scene, and more specifically this piece of dialogue: “You know, Jack, all I ever wanted for you was to make you strong and grow up and be your own boss”, Mr. O’Brien tells his son.  “Maybe I’ve been tough on you.  I’m not proud of that.”  “I”m more like you than her,” the son Jack replies.  “You boys are about all I done in life,” says the father.  “Otherwise I’ve drawn zilch.  You’re all I have.  You’re all I want to have.”

This scene destroyed me when I initially saw it in the theatres.  It’s so simple and so acutely observed as to have been drawn from real life.  Throughout the film, Jack’s father and young Jack constantly fight.  In this scene, which is meant as a resolution between father and son, it shows that the only thing more universal than sports and food, is fathers and sons not getting along.  This along with the scene where Jack steals a neighbors nightgown and throws it in the river speaks perfectly to the idea of the loss of innocence that is explored in the film.

Roger Ebert put it best when he opened his four star review of the film with the following: “‘The Tree of Life’ is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives.”  It was a pleasure being a guest to Mr. Malick’s humility.  Tree of Life is a cinematic poem about childhood, loss of innocence, and what our purpose is in life.

4. Shame

Directed by Steve McQueen

As Simon Howell so eloquently put it in his review, Steve McQueen’s Shame isn’t a film about sex addiction but about self loathing.  The main character Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a sex addict but he uses this addiction to mask his and deal with his self loathing.  McQueen’s follow-up to Hunger might be the most visceral movie going experience that I have had this year.  In fact it is more visceral and disturbing than Hunger, a film which shows shit on a wall.  What McQueen has done here is explore the consequences of loneliness and our need for human connection.  He does it through a sex addict and it is a quite effective way of presenting this.  We see how hard it is for Fassbender’s Brandon to form any kind of human relationship with someone, like in the scene when he takes a co-worker of his out on a date.  The only relationship he has is to his wayward sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) who reenters his life at the beginning of the movie.  Yet he does his best to alienate her.  McQueen uses the same technique he used in Hunger, employing long unbroken takes that sometimes last up to five or six minutes, refusing to let us break away from this man’s self destruction.  Fassbender and Mulligan both turn in two of the best performances of their careers as troubled siblings who desperately need each other.  New York has never been used as effectively as it has been here as McQueen turns it into the third central character of the film.  This is uncompromising and daring filmmaking at it’s finest.

5. Incendies

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

The first unqualified masterpiece of 2011 and the film that should have won the Best Foreign Language Film Award at this year’s Academy Awards, Denis Villeneuve’s film is an adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s play of the same name.  Villeneuve and his co-writer Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne stripped away an hour out of the play’s running time while still staying faithful to the play’s structure.  What makes the film really work is that it is an intimate family drama set on a global scale that plays out as an engaging and tense thriller.  This is the film that Susanne Bier’s film In a Better World tried so hard and failed to be.

Starting with one of the most haunting opening sequences in any film of recent years, the film’s action hops back and fourth through time in an unnamed country that is a stand-in for Lebanon.  Simon (Maxim Gaudette) and Jeanne Marwan’s (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) mom Nawal (Lubna Azabal) has left them one final final request in her will: to find their brother and their father.  On this search for these two people, the film flashes back to the 1970s when Nawal was a young mother in this country.  Villeneuve isn’t afraid to confuse us once the flashbacks start.  For the first thirty minutes, the film is incredibly disorientating because Nawal and Jeanne look alike.

What makes the film so powerful is the family drama that is at the core of this story.  In fact the film has a very simple but powerful message: we need to forgive no matter how terrible a tragedy we undergo.  This is the message that Nawal ultimately passes on to her kids.

6. Moneyball

Directed by Bennett Miller

Bennett Miller’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’ bestseller is terrific entertainment and it once again proves that the best sports movies come not from the action on the field but from the personalities of the players and coaches.  Lewis’ controversial book of the same name follows Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane as he tries to build a pennant champion with $30 million.  While Lewis might not give enough credit to the A’s phenomenal starting rotation, the book is a phenomenal read for baseball fans and non-baseball fans alike.  And whether you want to acknowledge it or not, Beane did change the game by showing that you can win on a small payroll.  His model was eventually used by the Tampa Bay Rays to climb out of the gutter and become a dominant team in the AL East.  Miller, who previously directed the phenomenal 2005 biopic Capote, and screenwriters Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zailian are able to craft a narrative out of Lewis’ dense and statistic heavy book.  Brad Pitt gives his second great performance of the year as Beane, doing a pitch-perfect imitation while also embodying the man.  Jonah Hill is a marvel as Peter Brandt (a stand-in for former A’s assistant GM Paul Depodesta), finding quiet confidence as the film progresses and is a perfect foil for Beane.  Together, Hill and Pitt make a great team and they compliment each other perfectly.  Neither performance would be as good without the other performer.  The film is funny and moving, and provides that “chills” moment that is required of all baseball films.

7. Attack the Block

Directed by Joe Cornish

This year’s Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block was badly mistreated when it came over from the UK to the United States.  Released in the middle of the summer, it never made it past 66 theatres, which is really unfortunate because this film should have made $100 million.  Joe Cornish’s debut might be the best look at the London council estate youth since Edward Bond’s seminal play Saved.  In thirty years, Attack the Block will be spoken of in the same breath as Saved, in terms of looks at social disenfranchisement in London.  Thanks to the London riots, Attack the Block is now the most relevant film to come out of Britain.  Having said all that, it is also just an incredibly funny and thrilling sci-fi action movie.  John Boyega gives a star-making performance as the leader of this inner city gang who must protect their council estate from aliens.  Jodie Whittaker is also very good as Sam, a victim of the gang at the beginning of the film who eventually befriends and helps Moses (Boyega).  We come to care about all of these characters despite the fact that they are in a gang and unlike many studio friendly films, Cornish isn’t afraid to kill these kids off.  This just adds to the stakes.  Besides being an entertaining action flick, the film is also a poignant coming of age story, one that uses the aliens as a perfect metaphor for Moses becoming a man and learning to take responsibility for his actions.

8. Hanna

Directed by Joe Wright

The year’s best action film, Joe Wright brings his art-house sensibilities to his first genre film and was rewarded for stretching outside his comfort zone by making his best film yet.  This film capitalizes on all the potential that he showed in Atonement and Pride and Prejudice.  Wright pulls a Danny Boyle and reinvents himself from period auteur to genre auteur with this outing.  Wright manages to top himself with each action sequence, the highlights being the unbroken take of Eric Bana in the subway station and the final big action scene between Hanna (Saiorse Ronan) and Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) at the amusement park that is based off of the Grimm Brothers.  Wright seamlessly blends the spy action-thriller genre with fairy tale tropes.  However the story of a teenage assassin sent off into the world would not work without it’s star Ronan.  An already accomplished actress, this is Ronan’s best work to date and is going to make her a star.  Tom Hollander also manages to do memorable supporting work as the pedophile who is sent by Wiegler to catch Hanna.  Add to that, the best score of the year courtesy of The Chemical Brothers and you have the most exhilarating piece of pure cinema of the year.

9. Hugo

Directed by Martin Scorsese

If your Martin Scorsese, how do you go about achieving your secret goal of world cinephile domination?  By pretending to make a  3D “family” film that is secretly designed to turn youngsters into cinephiles.  And that is what Scorsese did.  He made a film that is a plea for the restoration of films while masquerading as a family adventure.  But that film just happens to be one of the most magical films of the year.  Scorsese’s love of film is infectious throughout and, while it probably won’t appeal to the youngest of children, it will warm the heart of any cinephile, as jaded as they might be.  This is also the best use of 3D since Avatar, and it might even top Avatar.  The 3D here is truly groundbreaking and this is one of the few films that must be seen in 3D.  Seeing Ben Kingsley as the legendary director George Mellieres getting his due at the end of the film brought tears to my eyes, as did the arch of the police inspector, played beautifully by Sacha Baron Cohen.  This is terrific entertainment and one that will no doubt succeed in what Scorsese set out to do: recruiting young cinephiles.

10. Melancholia

Directed by Lars Von Trier

This was the last filmmaker I expected to include on an end of the year best of list.  I have a storied history with Lars Von Trier, and while I have always found him to be a talented filmmaker, many of his films have turned me off.  I hated Dogville and Manderlay, I was not a fan of Dancer in the Dark, and was bored by Anti-Christ, performances aside.  I think my problem with him has always been the suffering that he has forced his characters to endure.  I have found it to be over the top and unnecessary.  However Melancholia works and it has stuck with me since my first viewing in September.  I can’t get this film out of my head.

I think what makes this film different from the other films that I listed above is, despite the fact that most people have called this his bleakest and most depressing film, and it’s his first film that explicitly deals with depression, it is actually quite funny.  Especially the first half which follows Justine (Kirsten Dunst, never better than she is here), the character who suffers the most as she is the one dealing with depression.  Despite the fact that Justine is in a deep depression, the supporting characters at her wedding, especially Charlotte Rampling and Keifer Sutherland, are quite funny and the wedding becomes so absurd that we can’t help but laugh.  Von Trier gets all the little details of depression right and I like the fact that Michael (Alexander Skarsgard) knows what Justine is going through and is there for her.  He isn’t a caricature.  The second half of the film follows Justine’s sister Claire as she deals with the end of the world because the planet Melancholia is about to crash into earth.  The metaphor of depression as the apocalypse works perfectly and it is quite accurate.  The imagery is stunning and it demands to be seen on the big screen.  This is bold and daring filmmaking at it’s finest.

11-20

11. Rango

Directed by Gore Verbinski

I am here to tell you that the best stoner film of 2011 is none other than an animated movie that was marketed as a “kids movie”.  Gore Verbinski’s first foray into animation doesn’t even pretend to be anything but a trippy stoner comedy and it works perfectly as that.  It is also a loving send up/tribute to classic films from the 70s including Chinatown and Apocalypse Now, as well as recent westerns like The Proposition.  Easily the funniest comedy of the year.

12. Submarine

Directed by Richard Ayoade

Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut is a wonderfully funny and ultimately touching coming of age comedy that follows Welsh high schooler Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) as he tries to lose his virginity before he turns 16.  The film is based off a popular British book of the same name and it feels true to the spirit of it while also being incredibly cinematic.  This is a perfect coming of age story, a film I wish I had around when I was Oliver’s age.  The storyline involving Oliver’s attempt at saving his parents marriage is both funny and yet filled with truth.  Ayoade found a potential star in Roberts and this is certainly an eye-opening performance.  Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor are both wonderful as his parents who may be headed for divorce.  Paddy Considine is also very good as the goofy next door neighbor.  While the character is definitely funny, the script along with Considine keep the character from being ridiculous.  This is a film that is full of honesty and it’s a remarkable debut.  (Note: This film was given an R rating because there are about 10-12 uses of the word “fuck”.  It’s ridiculous.  This is a movie that 14-15 year olds should be seeing.)

13. Drive

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refin

A consensus pick among critics this year, Nicolas Winding Refin’s Drive is a superior thriller and an improvement on the James Sallis novel of the same name that it is based on.  Like the book, Drive tells the story of Driver, a stunt driver in the movies who also works as a getaway driver on the side.  During the day, he is a mechanic at Shannon’s (Bryan Cranston) autoshop.  Things get complicated for Driver when he meets his next door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) whose husband is due out of prison soon.  Refin takes Sallis’ book and, besides changing some of the characters fates around, also streamlines the book by putting it in chronological order.  Gosling proves that he was it takes to be an action star with his cool and reserved performance as Driver.  He captures the naivety and yet ruthlessness from Sallis original character.  However the real revelation is Albert Brooks as the villain Bernie Rose.  Brooks is terrifying here and deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

14. The Future

Directed by Miranda July

With Miranda July, either you like her sensibility or you don’t.  I love her sensibility and her follow up to my favorite film of 2005 (Me You & Everyone We Know) did not disappoint.  This time, July stretches outside her comfort zone as an actress to play Sophie, a woman in her mid 30s and in a long term relationship with Jason (Hamish Linlater).  As a director, July once again creates a quirky film about relationships and our need for connection.  July’s humanity is on full display and her refusal to pass judgement over any of her characters elevates the film.

15. Fast Five

Directed by Justin Lin

In it’s own way, Justin Lin’s Fast Five is so preposterous and it’s action is so relentless that it’s a work of art.  Dominic Torretto and Brian O’Connor head to Rio de Janeiro and reunite with all the main characters from the first four films.  In Rio, which is used beautifully as a main character, they decide to pull off an outlandish heist even though FBI agent Luke Hobbs (The Rock) is after them.  There is a scene late in the film that features our heroes driving through the streets of Rio de Janeiro at high speeds while carrying a bank vault that weighs god knows how much and being chased by some of Rio’s finest.  Normally one would be watching this scene in complete and utter disbelief yet you have no choice but to watch this scene with respect and amazement.  Lin’s film is a skillfully made example of great trash.  It doesn’t have a brain in it’s big and loud head but it is fast and furious. The heist formula works perfectly for this franchise because of it’s heavy reliance on car chases.  The fact of the matter is that the Fast and Furious saga delivers on exactly what it set out to do: to be fast and furious.  Fast Five is a film that knows exactly what it is and executes it perfectly throughout.  The best popcorn film of the year.

16. Certified Copy

Directed by Abas Kiarostami

Abas Kiarostami’s English language debut is one of the most intriguing and beguiling mind-fucks of the year.  It starts like Before Sunrise, two strangers, Elle (Juliette Binoche) and James (William Shimell), meet randomly in Tuscany and decide to spend the day together.  He is a British writer specializing in Art and she is a single French mother.  However, around the halfway point, a random question allows the movie to make a turn for the unexpected and we begin to realize that we might be watching something far different from what we first perceived.  Binoche and Shimell are well paired, both having terrific chemistry with each other, which is important considering they spend a lot of the film in heated debate.  Shimell, making his acting debut, is very good and allows his character to remain likeable even when he becomes more disagreeable.  Binoche is incredible as usual.  The film asks really important questions about the nature of reality, art, and marriage, but it maintains a light and delicate tone throughout.

17. Coriolanus

Directed by Ralph Fiennes

Ralph Fiennes, along with screenwriter John Logan, have taken one of Shakespeare’s most complex plays and turned it into a kick-ass action film.  Coriolanus is terrific entertainment, a blockbuster film that has strangely gone under the radar during the awards season.  Fiennes, making his directorial debut, takes a thing or two from his Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow’s playbook, employing handheld camera throughout and giving the action sequences a visceral reality.  The film, the first ever of this play, updates the setting to the present day in a place called Rome, even though it was actually shot in Belgrade, Serbia.  Coriolanus (Fiennes, pulling double duty as an actor as well) is a war hero who now resides over the consul of Rome.  Incredibly unpopular among the citizens of Rome, Coriolanus is banished and he teams up with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) to defeat Rome.  Even though it is a kick-ass action flick, the film remains an effective and powerful anti-war story.  The most powerful scene of the film comes when Vanessa Redgrave, deserving of Best Supporting Actress consideration for this scene alone, as his mother Volumnia, pleads with her son not to attack Rome.  I also enjoyed the homo-erotic relationship between Aufidius and Coriolanus, played with seething rage by Fiennes.  Brian Cox gives the film’s standout performance as Menenius, the senator of Rome and Coriolanus’ confidant, taking a potentially boring character on the page and enriching him with humor and depth.  There are echoes of Arab Springs and Tahir Square in it’s use of technology.  Logan and Fiennes wisely stage most of the conversations between politicians and Roman citizens as TV talk show interviews and news segments.  It is a pleasure to see such gifted classically trained actors like Fiennes, Butler, Cox, Redgrave, Lubna Azabal, Jessica Chastain, and James Nesbitt handle Shakespeare’s verse with ease.

18. The Skin I Live In

Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Anyone going into Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar’s latest film because they were big fans of Volver and expect to see a film like that will be sadly disapointed.  The Skin I Live In, is Almodovar’s first foray into the horror genre and it is his torture porn.  It’s gruesome, scary, over the top, and all the things you would come to expect from torture porn.  In a story that pays homage to Frankenstein, Antonio Banderas,  in his best performance in years, plays Robert Ledgard, a plastic surgeon who may be up to no good with one of his patients.  I won’t reveal anymore because there is a twist halfway through the film that will take you by surprise.  If this sounds vaguely Cronenbergian, it is but Almodovar infuses it with his own pet themes including gender identity, melodrama, camp, the body, and mother issues, as well as the numerous references and homages to films that he loves.  The film, despite being so over the top as to be absolutley ridicuous, builds up a kind of power towards the end and it actually becomes quite moving.  With that being said, this is not the gentle and restrained Almodovar of All About My Mother.  This is the giddy movie geek Almodovar giving us a gory treat.  The one who sits next to us in the theatre and high fives us during the good parts.  It’s a gleefully unapologetic genre filmmaking and Almodovar at his most unrestrained.

19. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Directed by David Yates

A satisfying conclusion to the eight film Harry Potter trilogy, Part 2 is a non-stop action film from the first frame till the final frame.  David Yates, who started with the fifth film in the franchise, and still the best, Order of the Phoenix, did a great job capping off the trilogy and it was nice to see everyone from the previous installments back.  The film moves quickly and it is an effective war film that doesn’t skimp on the blood.  Alan Rickman gives the film’s standout performance as Severus Snape, the mysterious double agent whose side we don’t know he is actually on until this film.  The montage sequence with him is devestating.  Ralph Fiennes gives his best performance as Voldemort, adding depth and humanity to the character.  We pity him by the end of the film because of his fear of death.  A strong finale.

20. Win Win

Directed by Tom McCarthy

With The Station Agent, The Visitor, and now Win Win, actor turned director Tom McCarthy has established himself as a national treasure of sorts when it comes to independent cinema.  His films all bear a singular stamp both thematically and tonally.  The theme is family and the tone he uses is low key comedy.  Win Win might be his best work  to date, a comedy about a down and out lawyer Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) who is also a high school wrestling coach.  One day the grandson of a client walks into his life and Mike has no choice but to take him home and adopt him as a surrogate son.  It turns out this grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) is a phenom wrestler and he turns Mike’s team around immediately.  We’ve seen this story before but McCarthy manages to craft a pitch-perfect comedy that doesn’t take a wrong step.  The supporting characters are rich and realized including the hilarious Bobby Cannavale as Mike’s best friend, Amy Ryan as his supportive but concerned wife, and Melanie Lynskey, in one of the best supporting performances of the year, as Kyle’s self-destructive mom.

Here are some films that didn’t make my top 20 but were ones I admired greatly: Another Earth, The Artist, A Better Life, Bridesmaids, The Descendants, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Guard, Jane Eyre, Kaboom, Midnight in Paris, A Screaming Man, Stake Land, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, We Need to Talk About Kevin

]]> http://www.soundonsight.org/2011-a-year-in-review/feed/ 1 http://www.soundonsight.org/staff-list-the-30-best-films-of-2011-part-2/ http://www.soundonsight.org/staff-list-the-30-best-films-of-2011-part-2/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:26:03 +0000 Simon Howell http://www.soundonsight.org/?p=98552 [Read the Rest]]]>

With more movies in limited and general release than ever before, 2011 was a ridiculously crowded year for both casual and discerning moviegoers alike. One by-product of the glut is a refreshing lack of consensus; so many films have been championed in so many corners – while those same films get trashed in others – that our cultural need to rally behind obvious points of praise and awareness have been gloriously undercut. 2011 was the year to see and love films that spoke to you, and to be prepared to argue the case with fellow cinephiles. In other words, 2011 was the year the gloves came off. To say that none of the 30 films on our staff-voted list is universally beloved is putting it mildly; but then, that’s the nature of polls like these.

Every year we’ve run this poll, there’s been a runaway winner; this year, the top 2 films were tied up until the last ballot; three crossed the hundred-point threshold. Only five films earned the support of over a third of the contributors. That’s the sort of year it was. (In the event of a tie, which only occurs when the films get the same number of votes AND points, they share the poll number. Got it?)

Worth noting: Incendies, La Quattro Volte, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives all made it onto our 2010 staff list.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PART ONE (#30-16)

15. Bellflower (5 votes, 32 points)

The Micro-Indie That Could, Bellflower was one of the most fiercely debated movies of the year; part Mad Max, part Blue Valentine. Director-writer-star-editor-engineer Evan Glodell’s movie drew plenty of ire thanks to the film’s relaxed, naturalistic acting style and its rank depiction of a man who grows to despise the woman he fell helplessly in love with, but its roughshod charms helped it to stand out in a year where indies tended to look and feel slicker and less distinct than ever before.

14. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (5 votes, 34 points)

While the great majority of the year’s blockbusters played it safe, Rupert Wyatt’s unexpectedly bold prequel to the iconoclastic 1970s sci-fi series stood out for its clarity, urgency, and heart. That the last part of that equation was mostly delivered through a performance-captured CGI ape (Andy Serkis, in what might be the first such performance ever to nab an Oscar nod) is only one remarkable feat in a movie that produced a number of the most awe-inspiring moments of any film this year.

13. The Interrupters (4 votes, 38 points)

Steve James made what might be the most critically acclaimed doc of all time, Hoop Dreams, back in 1994, but he hasn’t reapsed the rewards of the genre’s subsequent rise to (relative) prominence. Hopefully The Interrupters, which is equal parts inner-city portraiture and social advocacy piece, re-cements him as a household name. Both heart-wrenching and surprisingly empowering, James’s look at inner-city violence and conflict resolution is never less than riveting.

12. A Separation (5 votes, 40 points)

Asghar Farhadi’s critically adored family drama tensely unravels a dense tale of intra-familial conflict, societal forces, and cruel fate, carefully deploying key revelations (both on- and off-screen) for maximum dramatic effectiveness, but never feeling sanctimonious or excessive. The film is further proof of the continued vitality of Iran’s harshly repressed filmmaking culture.

11. Hugo (5 votes, 44 points)

Early looks at Martin Scorsese’s Hugo suggested that maybe he’d finally go the way of so many other directors and cash in on kiddie-friendly material in the name of blank commercial appeal. Instead, Hugo is Scorsese’s best movie in some time, both a dazzling tribute to early cinema and a hopefully appeal for the medium’s future.  That the movie manages to act as both a buttress for Scorsese’s film-presevation efforts and a beguiling family film in its own right is no small feat.

10. Hanna (8 votes, 46 points)

Saiorse Ronan cuts through the screen in Joe Wright’s unexpectedly playful thriller, which juxtaposes innocence and brutality at will. Ronan is one of the most charismatic and distinctive young actors around, and watching Hanna define herself in a strange and unfamiliar world while danger lurks not far behind was one of the earliest film pleasures of 2011.

9. We Need to Talk About Kevin (9 votes, 51 points)

Possibly the most misunderstood movie of the year, Lynne Ramsay’s long-awaited return is a vividly rendered horror film with a keen sense of subjectivity that seemed to go over a few critics’ heads. Tilda Swinton continues a career-long streak of intense, idiosyncratic performances, and Ramsay’s camera lingers on details both over-the-top and seemingly incidental. The result is demented arthouse for manic-depressives.

8. Attack the Block (11 votes, 57 points)

For those not so keen on JJ Abrams’s nostalgic take on preadolescent adventuring, Attack the Block is a buoyant counterattack; a lean, mean, funny, and surprisingly brutal actioner that balances a keen sense of place (set in the North London equivalent of a housing project) with a genuine feel fro universal themes and accessible characters. Genre fans will likely be keeping a close eye on first-time helmer Joe Cornish for some time.

7. The Artist (6 votes, 58 points)

Michael Hazanavicius shifted his loving, lightly parodic gaze away from the spy spoofs of the Oss 117 series long enough to craft what may end up as the most broadly adored movie of 2011, a love letter to the silent-film era and a showcase for returning collaborator Jean Dujardin, whose charismatic turn as the titular, possibly doomed star has already earned him reams of plaudits.

6. Midnight in Paris (tie; 8 votes, 66 points)

Woody Allen’s umpteenth comedy turned out to be his most warmly received in ages – both critically and commercially. If that means Allen is definitely no longer a New York filmmaker, most didn’t seem to mind, embracing Allen’s new role as a Euro-centric comic chronicler of romantic and existential woe.

6. Martha Marcy May Marlene (tie; 8 votes, 66 points)

Like Winter’s Bone last year, Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene emerged from Sundance early in the year to prove that American indies have more to offer than quirky dramedies and misery porn. Elizabeth Olsen’s fractured title figure is the beating heart of this taut, carefully constructed thriller, whose air of menace and mystery is convincingly ever-present.

4. Shame (11 votes, 71 points)

Steve McQueen’s sophomore feature has had a tough go of it, gaining plaudits for Michael Fassbender’s incredible central performance, but generally enduring a whole lot of grief for its central concept and approach. For anyone willing to engage with the film on its own terms, though, Shame is one of the most effectively gruelling emotional gauntlets in recent memory, while also calling into question the cavalier way we portray and consume sex in the age of porn.

3. Melancholia (13 votes, 103 points)

Danish provocateur Lars von Trier had his, well, von Trier-est year ever in 2011, managing to get himself banned from Cannes while actually presenting one of his tamest films ever. Melancholia manages athe neat trick of annihilating the Earth in its opening minutes, then actually turning out to be one of von Trier’s most weirdly optimistic films.

2. The Tree of Life (11 votes, 111 points)

Terrence Malick’s long-in-the-wings, impressionistic dare of a movie kicks off what appears to be a new and more productive era for the famously reclusive director, who apparently has two more new films more or less in the can. Despite his track record for long breaks, this bit of news isn’t necessarily surprising when you’ve seen The Tree of Life, which feels like the cinematic equivalent of a creative dam bursting, in the best way possible.

1. Drive (17 votes, 133 points)

If 2011 was a year of divisive movies, none polarized audiences and critics quite like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, a movie so stylistically brazen it both won Refn a Best Director prize at Cannes and inspired at least one lawsuit. A tightly knit patchwork of film and pop-culture touchstones that also happens to fit within Refn’s small oeuvre of idiosyncratic tough-guy flicks, Drive is a movie both of its time and indebted to several others; it might prove to be ahead of the curve, too.

PREVIOUS

The rest:

31- The Descendants (3 votes, 20 points)

32- Cave of Forgotten Dreams (3 votes, 18 points)

33- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two (3 votes, 18 points)

34- Miss Bala (3 votes, 17 points)

36- The Skin I Live In (tie: 2 votes, 15 points)

36- She Monkeys (tie: 2 votes, 15 points)

37- Young Adult (3 votes, 13 points)

39- Incendies (tie: 2 votes, 13 points)

39- Win Win (tie: 2 votes, 13 points)

41- Submarine (tie: 2 votes, 12 points)

41- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (tie: 2 votes, 12 points)

41- War Horse (2 votes, 11 points)

43- The Turin Horse (tie: 1 vote, 11 points)

43- Salt White (tie: 1 votes, 11 points)

43- Life In A Day (tie: 1 vote, 11 points)

43- Wuthering Heights (1 vote, 11 points)

43- Samsara (tie: 1 vote, 11 points)

44- Headhunters (2 votes, 10 points)

47- Tomboy (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- A Lonely Place To Die (1 vote, 10 points)

47- Way Back (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- Rabies (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- Darwin (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- Policeman (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- Tomboy (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- Mysteries of Lisbon (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

47- Cafe De Flore (tie: 1 vote, 10 points)

50- I Saw The Devil (tie: 2 votes, 9 points)

50- The Adventures of Tin Tin (tie: 2 votes, 9 points)

50- Poetry (tie: 2 votes, 9 points)

CLICK HERE TO SEE PART ONE (#30-16)

Best Movie Trailers of 2011

Best Movie Posters of 2011

Best Movie Moments of 2011

Best Soundtracks of 2011

Best Documentaries of 2011

Best Horror Films / Thrillers of 2011

Best of TV In 2011

I think it’s safe to say that not one person including anyone on our staff will agree with every movie selected on this list. However I do believe that the list reflects well on the scope of movies we”ve covered all year long. Sound On Sight is blessed with over 30 contributors worldwide who all took part in voting. There’s a bit of everything for everyone be it mainstream flicks such as 50/50, obscure foreign titles such as Once Upon A Time In Anatolia and even genre pics like Kill List.

Every year we’ve run this poll, there’s been a runaway winner; this year, the top 2 films were tied up until the last ballot; three crossed the hundred-point threshold. Only five films earned the support of over a third of the contributors. That’s the sort of year it was. (In the event of a tie, which only occurs when the films get the same number of votes AND points, they share the poll number. Got it?)

Worth noting: Incendies, La Quattro Volte, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives all made it onto our 2010 staff list.

30. 50/50 (3 votes, 21 points)

While Jonathan Levine waits for his Amber Heard-starring feminist slasher All the Boys Love Mandy Lane to finally get a theatrical release, he can take some comfort in the fact that his Joseph Gordon-Levitt / Seth Rogen bromantic dramedy 50/50 was the beneficiary of considerable audience warmth, striking a measured tone between pained pathos and broad, familiar swathes of humor. And without a release fiasco of any kind.

29. Into the Abyss (4 votes, 21 points)

Werner Herzog’s cinematic universe is so self-contained that it’s a little shocking when his death-row doc Into the Abyss gives so little of its time over to the director’s meandering philosophical musings, preferring instead to let beleaguered voices behind the glass and the victims of violent crime (to whom the film is dedicated) almost the entirety of his camera’s attention. The result is maybe the most emotionally direct film Herzog has ever created.

28. Beginners (4 votes, 22 points)

Both Mike Mills and his wife, Miranda July, released films this year tackling grief and personal growth that happened to feature some variant on talking animals. Of the two, Mills’s Beginners found wider acceptance, thanks in no small part to sterling performances from Christopher Plummer and Ewan MacGregor, and the film’s refreshingly candid take on mortality, the evolution of sexual mores, and the tangled nature of parent-child dynamics. The dog probably didn’t hurt, either.

27. Super 8 (tie; 4 votes, 23 points)

Super-producer J.J. Abrams’s third feature as a director was deliberately shrouded in mystery for some time, before ultimately being revealed as a wide-eyed sci-fi/adventure homage to the Spielberg films Abrams grew up with. That sense of awe is appropriately replicated by the film’s young cast of mostly first-timers, whose filmmaking efforts charmingly underscore Abrams’s personal connection to the era and the genre.

27. Senna (tie; 4 votes, 23 points)

One of the most stylistically distinct docs in recent memory, Asif Kapadia’s Senna dispenses with the usual talking-heads approach favoured by so many conventional narrative docs, sticking instead exclusively to archival audio and video in its enthralling encapsulation of the life and career of F1 driver Ayrton Senna. The result is a film that is unusually immersive and emotionally enveloping, even for viewers with no knowledge of the sport.

25. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (5 votes, 23 points)

Some doubted whether or not Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter Peter Straughan would be able to finesse John le Carre’s densely plotted spy tale into the shape of a feature film, especially since it already made for a seven-hour miniseries in 1979. They needn’t have worried; Alfredson carries over the chilly charms of Let the Right One In while Straughan manages to axe just enough material to make the transition work, and Gary Oldman heads up a terrific cast, making the almost-mandatory second viewing to sort out some of the plot specifics a deeply pleasurable experience.

24. Meek’s Cutoff (4 votes, 24 points)

Kelly Reichardt might be the testiest and brashest of the recently emergent female directors to have made their mark in the arthouse realm. Reteaming with the always-great Michelle Williams, Reichardt goes from no-budget to low-budget in this stark, bare-bones, subtly revisionist Western, which garnered early raves last year but gradually made itself available throughout 2011. Meek’s Cutoff continues Reichardt’s steady, admirable campaign of destabilisation.

23. Kill List (tie; 4 votes, 25 points)

Ben Wheatley’s sophomore feature, following the no-budget black comedy-thriller Down Terrace, was only seen by UK and film-fest audiences, so its appearance here testifies to the idiosyncratic thriller’s support amongst those who have seen it. It gets a stateside release courtesy of IFC in the new year so everyone can catch up to the hubbub, including the film’s already-notorious final reels.

23. Moneyball (tie; 4 votes, 25 points)

Talk about unlikely success stories. After being passed through multiple directors’ hands, and seeming to be in development hell for ages, Moneyball finally emerged as a sort of adult drama dream come true, with Aaron Sorkin co-writing and Capote‘s Bennett Miller directing a stellar cast. That it managed to wrest drama out of the arcane science of baseball number-crunching is the even bigger surprise, thanks in no small part to the film’s sterling performances from Brad Pitt and, surprisingly, a snark-free Jonah Hill.

21. Margaret (3 votes, 27 points)

Kenneth Longergan’s epic-but-intimate Anna Paquin vehicle finally saw the light of day this past year after a very long stretch in stasis, emerging as one of the most passionately adored of art-house cause celebres when it all but disappeared from the few theatres it screened in within just a few weeks of opening. Thanks to a host of stunning performances (Paquin, Jeannie Berlin, J. Smith-Cameron) and its bracing style and thematic import, Margaret is poised for much wider admiration come its eventual DVD release.

20. Take Shelter (tie; 5 votes, 27 points)

For their second collaboration, writer-director Jeff Nichols and star Michael Shannon dive into potentially dicey waters, and come out with a genuine breakout. Most movies about mental illness are misbegotten or ill-conceived, but Nichols and Shannon succeed by avoiding trite sentimentality and over-simplification, instead crafting a believably lived-in portrait of a family and a community’s response to intimate tragedy.

20. Contagion (tie; 5 votes, 27 points)

Maybe his intimations of retirement are phony, but Steven Soderbergh can’t be faulted for resting on his laurels, if he ever had any. Who else would be able to get an ensemble movie with a serious penchant for killing off its A-list cast and a studious avoidance of over-the-top genre thrills off the ground? Contagion is closer to an honest-to-goodness research piece than a movie like Outbreak, which turned out to be one of its greatest virtues.

18. Bridesmaids (6 votes, 27 points)

Probably the only consensus comedy of the year, Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids saw mega-producer Judd Apatow making a conscious effort to appeal to women in the wake of his many male-centric hits, and the result combined naked commercial ambitions with satisfyingly raucous, nasty humor. But it’s the performances the really stick out, especially Kristen Wiig’s damaged-but-loveable heroine, Melissa McCarthy’s rampaging sidekick, and Jon Hamm’s wonderfully self-deprecating turn as a complete lech.

17. 13 Assassins (tie; 4 votes, 30 points)

After a few years in relative Western critical wilderness, director Takashi Miike came roaring back with the epic, brutal 13 Assassins, an old-fashioned samurai yarn with a classically composed first 90 minutes and an increasingly insane climax, which for many was the year’s first and last word in action sequences. That’s difficult contention to find fault with.

17. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (tie; 4 votes, 30 points)

The march of “slow cinema” continues; if last year most memorably marked the triumph of Uncle Boonmee at Cannes, 2011’s totem of cinematic patience might well be Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, an exacting but rewarding art-movie take on that most traditional of genes, the murder mystery; only here, it takes some time for the body in question to even shore up.

NEXT

It seems like it was only yesterday when I posted the best trailers of 2010 with the trailer for Terrence Malick’s Tree Of Life taking top honours. As we continue our look back at 2011, we’re once again reminded of a few things: Movie trailers have become a medium unto themselves, but you should never pre-judge a movie by its trailer, nor should you ever raise your expectations for a film too high based on the neatly packaged two minutes of footage we get. Remember folks, great expectations only lead to big disappointments. Sometimes we’re so excited to watch the first footage from a movie that we forget they are presenting only a glimpse at what is usually an unfinished project. Case in point: Many fanboys were up and arms over the dodgy effects in the Green Lantern trailers earlier this year, not realizing the effects were not yet fully completed. The job of the editor is to sell the movie, and convince an audience it is worth their time and money, and sometimes the trailer actually ends up being better than the movie itself. Other times the trailers are a little too long, and sometimes they feature too many of the film’s highlights but every now and than, editors along with their marketing team dare to venture into an unconventional route (IE the trailer for A Serious Man). Picking our 10 favourites wasn’t so hard this time around since most of the trailers from 2011 underwhelmed audiences and left them wanting nothing to do with the movie at all. Here are the ten best trailers of 2011.

Some of the criteria judged was an interest in watching the trailer multiple times, peeking our interest in watching the film, as well as leaving the viewer feeling entertained by the trailer alone. Originality, music choice and length also did factor in. We also took into account how much of the movie the trailer may have spoiled. While the trailers for Drive and Tucker And Dale vs. Evil, were both incredibly entertaining, they also showed far too many of the best moments from the films.

Special Mentions: The Hobbit, Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Raid, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Brave, Hanna, The Iron Lady, and Jack The Giant Killer

11- The Muppets – Being Green Parody Teaser

I think it’s safe to say that The Muppets had the best marketing of any film released in 2011. There were several parody teasers but my personal favourite is Being Green. It has the best gag of all the parodies heard towards the end of the trailer, and it also features my favourite line from the movie, delivered by our two favourite critics, Statler and Waldorf. The teaser was such a success that in retrospect, it is far more entertaining than the film it parodies.

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10- Detective Dee and they Mystery of the Phantom Flame Trailer #2

If this trailer doesn’t make you want to see the film, than you’re not a lover of Asian action cinema. While the trailer does kick off with all-too-familiar narration detailing the story, the footage selected from the action packed martial arts sequences will quickly win you over. But what makes this trailer so great is a combination of the quotes assembled from various critics (my personal favourite by the N.Y. Mag), and the badass music, which kicks in halfway through.

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9- Super 8 – Trailer #1

Fans got their first real look at footage from the JJ Abrams-directed ’80s throwback to Steven Spielberg productions during the Super Bowl last January, but it was only a few months later that the studio dropped the first real trailer online – a two-and-a-half minute montage of pure Spielberg nostalgic euphoria, so much so that the trailer even opened with the Amblin logo.

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8- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 6 Minute Trailer

I’m not a big fan of long trailers; the shorter the better, I always say. However David Fincher had one major advantage with marketing The Girl With The Dragon: most cinephiles were already familiar with the story, thanks to the previous film adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s book series.

So there wasn’t much to spoil for fans of both the book and the recent Swedish film adaption. Yet, the trailer’s editors were careful in building anticipation without spoiling a single major plot detail for those unfamiliar. Even after eight minutes, not much is revealed, as the editors wisely keep its secrets safe.

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7- Martha Marcy May Marlene – Trailer #3

Of the three trailers released for Martha Marcy May Marlene, the very best is without a doubt the third, featuring the voice of John Hawkes singing “Martha’s Song.” The trailer mirrors the film’s flashback structure, using random shots to draw comparisons between Martha’s life before, during and after her time in the cult.

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6- Take Shelter Trailer

The trailer for Take Shelter is masterfully crafted, creating an aura of unease and uncertainty of what audience should expect. The images are both harrowing and visually poetic, expressing the anxiety that audiences might experience when watching this film and much like the movie, the trailer continuously teases the audience to question whether Curtis is a paranoid schizophrenic, a prophet, or something in between.

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5- The Dark Knight Rises Teaser

The first teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan’s final installment of the Batman franchise was short but sweet – offering just a glimpse of Bane, and doing precisely what teasers should do: tease. Dark, complex and unforgettable, The Dark Knight Rises teaser succeeds not just as an entertaining montage but by also offering us cryptic images. You got to love the haunting chants we hear from Bane’s followers, the brooding score by Hans Zimmer, and the image of the bat symbol amidst a crumbling Gotham City; an image mirroring the beautiful poster design released a few weeks earlier.

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4- Wicker Tree - Trailer 1

It’s not because Sound On Sight contributor Justine Smith was quoted in the trailer for the Wicker Tree that we decided to include it on this list. In truth, it is because the rest of the SOS gang wouldn’t believe Justine when she tried to convince us that the film was worth watching. So many of us shrugged it to the side after reading some negative press, but the trailer sure as hell makes us regret not seeing the film when we had a chance. Regardless if Justine is right or not, the trailer makes The Wicker Tree seem like essential viewing for any horror cinephile. The sound design is intense, Christopher Lee is frightening, the gospel tune is a nice touch, and the imagery is both beautiful and haunting. Take notice of one specific shot that resembles a scene from the prologue to Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.

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3- The Woman In Black – Trailer #1

Susan Hill’s thriller novel, “The Woman in Black,” has already spawned one adaptation, the 1989 television movie of the same name. While creepy, the book really deserves a big screen vision, and thankfully that problem will be remedied when a new adaptation hits theatres in February 2012. I wasn’t fond of the second trailer released for the film, but the first still stands out as one of the year’s best. That trailer (seen in the video below) perfectly captures the creeping sense of menace from the novel. You got to love the eerie/twisted nursery rhyme, the creepy children, the strange dolls, the images of the shadowy haunted house, it’s foggy surroundings, and especially that one shot revealing someone arising from beneath the muddy ground.

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2- Shame – Trailer #1

In my humble opinion Shame might very well be the very best film of 2011. The trailer does the film justice, presenting a very sullen, austere snapshot of the film’s major themes: emotional disconnection and self-loathing. With the help of Harry Escott’s brooding and intense score, the trailer really had the hairs on my arms standing up.

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Prometheus - Teaser

The teaser trailer for Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus is layered with some of the most increbile new images I’ve seen this year, while mixing in imagery from his 1979 classic sci-fi horror film. The reason why it makes it number one our list , is simply because the trailer is cut in the same style as the trailer for the first Alien film.

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Chances are, at some point during that film, a familiar figure will make an appearance. A red overcoat. A white beard. A gut to rival that of Hugh Rowland on Ice Road Truckers. At this time of year, the schedules are packed with Santas of every size and persuasion and chances are whichever one you happen to come across, he’ll be about as convincing as your Dad used to be in that rayon suit and dead-possum facefur get up he used to try and fool you with when you were six. But which of the many is the least persuasive as the bringer of gifts and good cheer and, more importantly, why? Let’s take a look and see…

Least Convincing Santa #5: “As soon as this is over I’m calling my agent”

At some time in every comedian’s career trajectory, usually somewhere well after the ball has peaked, lies the Christmas film. It’s as though every agent in Hollywood thinks the answer to fading popularity is to stuff their client into a red hat and hand them a sack of toys. You only have to glance at Tim Allen’s face in The Santa Clause to realise what a death blow to an actor’s pride this experience can be. How much worse then, to find yourself in said red hat, but not even be the star of the show? How much worse to find yourself prancing around a workshop full of elves, ho-ho-ho-ing like a rapper stuck on repeat and discover that you are playing second fiddle to a gurning, obnoxious, limelight stealing ham like Vince Vaughn?

Very much worse. In the film Fred Claus, Paul Giamatti plays sensible elder brother Santa to Vaughn’s man-child younger brother Fred. Now Giamatti has an Emmy and not one, but two Golden Globes. He is a proper actor and although he must have been thinking of his paycheck when he signed up for this limping travesty of seasonal cheer, his despair and loathing shines through his large white beard like a set of 240v Christmas lights. As Vaughn grandstands and hollers, it’s all Giamatti can do not to take a candy cane and shove it up Vince’s butt. Any child confronted by this Santa would probably feel more like slipping the poor sad man a couple of Valium from mommy’s medicine cabinet than taking a toy from his sack.

Least Convincing Santa #4: “I’m trying so hard to be jolly it’s creepy”

But at the other end of the jollity scale, things aren’t much better. A Miracle on 34th Street, is a heartwarming, simple little tale of a man who must prove to a disbelieving world that he really is Santa and not just some loony who likes inviting small children to sit on his knee. This concept worked in 1947, but even by 1994 when the film was remade with Richard Attenborough in the starring role, the idea of Father Christmas actually being some kind of madman was becoming uncomfortably possible. Attenborough does his best to overcome this unfortunate slide into mass cynicism by being the only actor playing Santa to actually have a real beard and twinkling away over its white fluffiness for all he is worth. Sadly, although Mara Wilson acts her little socks off as the darling muppet who believes Santa is really true, Attenborough never manages to shake off the impression that lurking beneath the good cheer is a maniac just waiting to whip out a gun and hold some wailing infant hostage.

Least Convincing Santa #3: “Scaring small children is my metier”

So insincerity is a real problem for those attempting the St Nicolas role. For Santa to work, we need to really believe that the man under the costume genuinely wants to hand out toys to children and drink mulled wine until he falls over. How about a Santa who throws in a whole flourishing career as another seasonal myth in order to don the furry mantle of good will to all men?

For Jack Skellington, becoming Santa is a response to midlife crisis. As brilliant as he is at reducing humans to piles of weeping terror, even a master can become weary of his craft. Jack embraces his new calling with the enthusiasm and attention to detail one would expect from a man who has taken Halloween from a dreary pagan festival involving chanting and chicken-beheading to the pumpkin festooned multibillion dollar spending opportunity it has become. Sadly, Jack doesn’t make a very convincing Santa. He has the attitude, but the one thing the previous two had and he lacks is the correct silhouette. The problem with Jack is that he’s just too bony to make a good Santa.

Least Convincing Santa #2: “Sleigh? That’s my getaway car.”

So back to humans. How about a Santa who ends up in a suit for totally pragmatic reasons? In Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton puts his devil may care persona to good use playing an unreconstructed drunk and petty thief who uses his costume to scope out burglary opportunities in the mall where he works. This Santa reeks of whisky and has vomit stains on his boots. No female elf is safe around him and he’s more likely to empty your stocking than fill it with goodies. Yet strangely, this version of Santa is the most convincing. Anyone who has queued up for hours, squalling kids in tow, (or even been one of those squalling kids) waiting for a bored teenager in striped tights and fake ears to direct you into a dingy hut where a fat sweaty guy who hates children is going to hand over a “gift” which cost a tenth of what you paid for the whole experience, will heave an instant sigh of recognition when Billy Bob staggers into view with his suit on back to front. Yes, this Santa is the personification of today’s Spirit of Christmas Present – naked greed, hedonism, instant gratification – and because of that loses this particular award hands down.

Least Convincing Santa # 1: “I love reindeer. Especially roasted.”

The final entry takes us back to the very roots of Christmas. Long ago, before Jesus came along and someone had the bright idea of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all Men, deep in the dark woods of Scandinavia lived the supernatural creatures upon which our kindly version of Father Christmas is based. Hairy, hungry, these pagan spirits would rather eat a child than give it a present and in a welcome example of raw honesty, the film Rare Exports rips aside our comfortable modern platitudes about a jolly Santa to give us the truth: Father Christmas is an antler horned God of the type that scampers about the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch torturing lost souls. Instead of making toys, this Santa’s elves collect naughty children, put them in sacks and place them at the feet of their master, ready as a handy snack for when he wakes up on the 25th. Yes, according to the Finns, Santa is none other than Pan, Old Nick, The Horned God or whatever you care to call him and although we never get to see him in all his goat legged glory because he is encased in a block of ice, we can be sure that once his elves have finally managed to thaw him out, ho-ho-ho! isn’t what he’s going to be bellowing when he emerges.

Which makes him the least convincing Santa. Because although the others have their flaws, at least they look vaguely like something you might find on a Christmas card, rather than the Baby Daddy in Rosemary’s Baby. Or to put it another way, of all the Santas out there, this is the one I definitely wouldn’t want to hear coming down my chimney.

And with that, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all!

(note: Cath originally posted this article over at the F-List Podcast. Check them out)

Most moviegoers can agree on one thing: there were way too many movies this year. If you’re (un)fortunate enough to live in New York, you had the opportunity to see around 600 new features come and go; the rest of us didn’t get that many fewer. That means that anyone who’s been put in a position to make a top 10 (or top 15, or top 20…) had to make some sad cuts. So we thought it appropriate to highlight some of the year’s most memorable individual moments, scenes, and sequences, from movies that may or may not have made our individual year-end lists. Some were from movies we didn’t love; some are from movies we didn’t even like, but all stood out. Which is no small feat considering just how insane the release calendar has become.

We are keeping out credit sequences since we feel it is an artform in itself, but would like to still give a special mention to the opening credits of Young Adult, Super and The Adventures of Tintin.

(RD = Ricky D, SH = Simon Howell, JS = Justine Smith.)

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia – Body placement

It’s strange to describe a film about the incredible dysfunction of the Turkish state as “funny,” but the film is loaded with tragi-comedy. In one of the most telling scenes in the film, after searching day and night for a murdered body, clown cars filled with police officers and bureaucrats chastise and attack the murderer for his lack of “humanity” because he hog-tied his victim before burying him, only to tie him right back up and stuff him into the back of one of their small cars because they forgot to bring body bags. It is uncomfortably hilarious. (JS)

Le Quattro Volte - The fourth time

Michelangelo Frammartino’s second film Le Quattro Volte already made our list of best films back in 2010 when we were fortunate enough to catch an early screening. While the entire film is laden with mysterious but memorable images, Volte’s standout moment comes when the villagers cut down a tree and collectively work together to transport it into town to once again be erected as the focal point of an annual festival. The sequence, referred to as “fourth time,” later continues when the tree is chopped into pieces, its wood sold for use at the local charcoal kiln. (RD)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Evolution at work

2011 was a divisive year; with so many movies that split audiences and critics in half, it’s easy to complain about moments that go unrecognized. If there was one moment in a 2011 movie that united Joe Moviegoer and the most elitist critic alike, however, it’s probably That Moment in Rupert Wyatt’s superlative blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in which Caesar (Andy Serkis, still furthering the art of performance capture), already imbued with superior agility and intelligence, finally and definitively turns the tables on his teenaged tormentor by uttering a simple word central to the entire Apes franchise: “No!” Anyone who saw an early showing of this movie with an audience will tell you that this scene acts to civilize even the most untamed of audiences, invoking the kind of hushed oh-shit reactions usually reserved for Breaking Bad cliffhangers. The fact that Wyatt and company knew just how awesome the moment is, and immediately follow it with several seconds of stony silence and reaction shots, is a sign of some remarkably confident filmmaking. (SH)

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Shame – Glass houses / Carey Mulligan Sings

One scene stands out amongst the many great ones in Shame; Brandon (Michael Fassbender) witnesses a couple fucking in broad daylight against a glass window and in a fit of “inspiration,” he brings an attractive co-worker to recreate this scene. She is vulnerable and sexy, but he just can’t seem to perform. The scene is loaded with ambiguity and emotion, and has a troubling and desperate conclusion. (JS)

Despite the technical wonder of the brilliant camera work in Hunger, the film’s stand out moment was a seventeen minute long static shot. With Shame, McQueen repeats the trick somewhat. Carey Mulligan’s musical turn, a slow jazz rendition of “New York, New York,” filmed almost entirely in a single closeup, is the brightest and most exquisite moment of this very dark pic. In those few minutes, the two actors are able to manifest their lifelong relationship without the use of any dialogue. (RD)

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Super - “Do I look good in my costume?”

James Gunn’s Super is not, by any metric of my own, a great movie. Not unlike the narratively similar Kick-Ass, it tries to have it both ways (albeit in a different way); it tries to present a realistic take on the “real-life superhero” idea, complete with a deranged protagonist, only to cave in and opt for an ending bent on redemption. No, for the real show, come for Ellen Page’s sidekick Boltie; she’s compulsively violent, completely ignorant of even the most basic fundaments of society and behavior, and most importantly, she is immensely sexually frustrated. Her adventuring is ultimately revealed to be part of some wider, seriously demented fantasy she probably devised during her long days working in a comic-book shop. Her inappropriate flirting culminates in one of the year’s creepiest sex scenes, and probably the comic highlight of a movie that would have done well to take a page from Boltie and go a little more insane. (SH)

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Super 8 – The Case

The climax in Super 8, for all its special effects, felt like a second hand garage sale purchase from Spielberg’s most manipulative moments. Regardless if you got dusty-eyed in the cinema or rolled your eyes in disappointment, the last reel was saved with The Case, the no-budget zombie film within the film that plays out in its entirety over the closing credits – a short that is so entertaining you’d wished the multi-million-dollar spectacle matched its charm. (RD)

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Ricki Tarr falls in love

Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carré’s celebrated spy opus is not long on sentiment. It mostly consists of sad spies quietly adrift in a moral morass they’ve grown utterly tired of and defeated by, waiting for their turn to punch out. That’s what makes the flashback sequence in which Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy, with monstrously awful period hair) confesses to his former co-worker, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), just why he went off the grid for so long, while his peers began to assume he has turned on them. In fact, he met a woman “over there,” who turned out to be a Soviet spook quite eager to herself turn against her country and head for greener pastures in the UK. Tarr learning this fact does nothing to diminish the fact that he has grown completely obsessed with her, which winds up as one of the more poignant plot threads in a delightfully chilly film. That the seduction is rendered so evocatively, with echoes of Rear Window in Tarr’s close surveillance of the woman in question, as well as the brief moment of liberation in their daytime joyrides, doesn’t hurt. (SH)

The Tree of Life – Strike him down

Terence Malick’s insanely divisive masterpiece The Tree of Life has a host of moments more frequently discussed by critics and filmgoers – the dinosaur sequence comes to mind – but for my money no individual scene was as powerful as the relatively simple one in the middle of the Texas section of the film, in which one of Brad Pitt’s young sons looks on as he toils away on the family vehicle. The child’s voiceover takes a tone that is never again matched in the film, which generally stays in the realm of the mystical: he’s angry. He as asks God to let the car crush him, to let this man who he’s begun to see as a swaggering hypocrite get struck down while he’s watching. Though it’s fairly fleeting, this scene (along with several others in this portion of the film) fly in the face of Tree of Life as merely a rambling collection of philosophical/religious gobbledygook; at its heart, there’s a very relateable, and simply related, human story of fathers and sons, locked in some measure of both eternal conflict and acceptance. (SH)

The Turin Horse - The opening shot

I am on record several times over as a total non-fan of Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse, which I found to be turgid, pointlessly depressing, and unforgivably long. I’m not afraid to admit, though, that the film’s opening is incredibly striking. Following a brief, voiceover-only anecdote about Nietzche and the abused horse of the film’s title – who may or may not be the horse we spend so much of the film observing. we open with the first of the film’s 30 long takes, in this case focusing squarely on the equine character in motion. With Mihály Víg’s droning score plugging away grimly in the background (as, it turns out, it will wind up doing at various degrees of intensity for most of the next 140-odd minutes), Tarr sets up a compellingly bleak universe that even this frighteningly kinetic beast will never transcend. Shame about the rest of the movie. (SH)

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Twixt – Val Kilmer tries to write

Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt blends kitsch romanticism and vampire fiction in a strange brew, and Val Kilmer stars as a failing writer looking for new inspiration. The film’s best scene comes when, while locked in his hotel room, Kilmer attempts to write a treatment for his new book on vampires. Apparently a lot of it is improvised, but it ranks among the funniest moments of the year, and is a rather tongue-in-cheek look at the creative process. (JS)

We Need to Talk About Kevin – Opening getaway

The opening sequence of Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin evocatively sets the scene for the rest of the film. Tilda Swinton is attending a festival in Spain, and engages in a sensual, strangely prescient ocean of tomatoes. All about textures, feelings and the body, we are immediately submerged into her haunted world. (JS)

Young Adult – “You are better now”

Young Adult is basically one woman’s insane journey to regain what she had lost. Charlize Theron’s character is not only manic-depressive but psychopathic in her quest, which as an audience we seem to believe we are the only ones privy. We only get a glimpse into how the “mighty have fallen,” but in one of the most strangely empathetic scenes of the year, Matt (Patton Oswalt) explains why Theron is at her best now, not back in high school. It doesn’t make up for her violent persistence, but suggests a minor, but crucial change in character. (JS)

CLICK HERE TO SEE PART ONE

Most moviegoers can agree on one thing: there were way too many movies this year. If you’re (un)fortunate enough to live in New York, you had the opportunity to see around 600 new features come and go; the rest of us didn’t get that many fewer. That means that anyone who’s been put in a position to make a top 10 (or top 15, or top 20…) had to make some sad cuts. So we thought it appropriate to highlight some of the year’s most memorable individual moments, scenes, and sequences, from movies that may or may not have made our individual year-end lists. Some were from movies we didn’t love; some are from movies we didn’t even like, but all stood out. Which is no small feat considering just how insane the release calendar has become.

We are keeping out credit sequences since we feel it is an artform in itself, but would like to still give a special mention to the opening credits of Young Adult, Super and The Adventures of Tintin.

(RD = Ricky D, SH = Simon Howell, JS = Justine Smith.)

13 Assassins – The Final Battle

Takashi Miike’s electric remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 film is a a subversive, action-packed spectacle. This beautifully crafted samurai revenge epic climaxes in a prolonged and masterful 40-minute battle inside a desert town, a sequence executed with killer, almost bewildering panache. (RD)

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The Adventures of Tintin – The Chase / Sober Flashback

Taking notes from the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark playbook, Steven Spielberg has crafted another spirited, thrilling adventure. There’s much to admire on-screen, and choosing between our favourite scenes is a tough task. There’s a long astonishing shot, in a flashback involving the 17th century Haddock battling with the villainous Red Rackham. The sequence narrated by Haddock circles from past to present in brilliant matching transitions all in a 420-degree rush of ingenious choreography. The big chase scene through a terraced Middle Eastern city also deserves praise: Sakharine pursues in a car, Tintin flees with Haddock on a motorbike, while Snowy bolts after Sakharine’s falcon, all in hopes of retrieving three pieces of paper blowing in the wind. This tour-de-force action sequence alone lasts 2 min. 38 seconds and was conceived and executed in one single shot. The Adventures of Tintin is just another entry in Spielberg’s canon that proves why he is the master of cinematic escapism suitable for the entire family. (RD)

The Artist – Sonic nightmare

Director Michel Hazanavicius pays homage to the golden age of Hollywood and fully succeeds, creating a silent film true to the spirit of those from the past, long before talkies ever came to existence. The Artist is without a doubt one of the year’s best, and with it comes countless memorable moments, including a gripping and rousing sequence where the dog (Uggie) tries to save his master. But perhaps the standout moment comes in George Valentin’s sound-tinted nightmare sequence of cacophonous foley effects. This is a movie that embraces the building blocks of classic story-telling, creating a clever meta-commentary on the history of film and the movement. A story of adaptation and evolution, set at at a time when silents became overtaken by talkies and the industry advanced from one technology to another, leaving behind those not willing to adapt. The Artist is essential viewing for any cinephile. (RD)

L’Appollonide (House Of Pleasures) – Opening dream

There are many dream sequences in L’Appollonide, a film which drifts effortless between inner and outer worlds. The most striking (perhaps for its genuine shock value), is the film’s opening sequence, which presents to us this “House of Tolerance” and the soul of the film, The Jewess/Laughing Woman. Blending physical and texture eroticism with Lynchian imagery and shocking violence, it is a remarkable scene in one of the more idiosyncratic films released in 2011. (JS)

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Beyond the Black Rainbow – The flashback

Panos Cosmatos‘s feature debut is trippy all the way through, there’s no question; but a key flashback sequence midway through the film cracks the movie’s skull open and lets some of the freest cinema in recent memory slide right out. What’s paradoxical – and awesome – about this sequence is that it serves to further compound he fact that the film really does have a discernible, relatively traditional narrative ticking away inside of it, even as the visuals and lush analog synth score serve to make the film seem very much like it might just be a stylistic exercise. Like a Broken-era Nine Inch Nails video left in the desert sun for a millennium, liquefied, and then shot into your ephemeral artery. In other words, yes, awesome. (SH)

Bridesmaids – First class

It seems in recent weeks, Bridesmaids has been discussed as a possible contender for Best Picture; I don’t think it’s that good, but I can’t deny that it has one of the funniest sequences of the year. Kristen Wiig demonstrates the full extent of her comic abilities as she gets progressively drunker, then is drugged by her contemptuous frenemy (Rose Byrne), and subsequently tries with complete tactlessness to sneak into first class. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. (JS)

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Drive – The Elevator Scene

For every minor flaw in Nicolas Winding Refn’s patient but taut thriller (in which there are very few), there is a standout, memorable moment. The opening getaway – a cat and mouse chase detailing the meticulous planning that goes into such an operation – quickly comes to mind. That eight minute sequence alone could stand on its own as a short film, and we can’t not mention Albert Brooks’ scene stealing face-off with Gosling. But the one sequence that seemed embedded in our memories long after the credits rolled was the elevator scene, featuring a head bashing sequence reminiscent of Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, right after the Driver pauses in an elevator to kiss the ever beautiful Carey Mulligan. Destined to become Drive’s most infamous scene, it’s designed to show how our protagonist, the Driver, struggles with the opposing impulses of his nature. Some have suggested the kiss imaginary but regardless what your take is, it isn’t important. What is important is how the sequence shows how the Driver is torn between the comfort and security of a “normal” life and the thrill and attraction toward danger and violence. As he forms a closer bond with girl next door, the opposing sides begin to collide, until he can no longer deny who he is, and snaps. Drive revels in sensory detail; and Refn has sealed his place as one of the most fascinating contemporary genre filmmakers working today. (RD)

“The best kind of cinema is the one where action is long and dialogue short.” – John Ford

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La Guerre est Declarée – Musical sequence

It is difficult to believe that a film about the real-life experience of a child’s diagnosis with a rare form of brain cancer would have a musical sequence that wasn’t cloying or ridiculous, but somehow La Guerre est Declarée makes it work. The sequence stands out in a film that is desperate in its stylization, as cinema becomes the hope for a cure, the only way of handling the impossible. It is somehow an unsentimental portrait of a young couple’s nightmare. It is a quiet moment, and reflects the inner monologue of the characters in a way that only a musical can. (JS)

The Future – Stopping Time / T-Shirt Dance

Say what you will about The Future, but Miranda July’s sophomore effort features some memorable moments once the surreal aspects crop up. Jason finds himself able to arrest the aimless meandering of his life by stopping time himself. As he moves sideways from the flow of time, a philosophical moon begins to speak to him, offering advice. In what looks like some bizarre animated sequence come to life, Sophie buries herself in an oversized T-shirt, and the shirt, acting as a doppelgänger, begins magically walking about. Once she disappears inside the t-shirt, she dazzles us with the most outlandish payoff of the film and perhaps one of the most memorable scenes of any film this year. The T-shirt acts as a safety blanket, concealing her from the rest of the world. When she is not seen, she is able to let herself go. These anti-literal aspects of The Future might be described as nonsense, but adventurous movie-goers will admire July’s ability as a director to blend odd humour with deep, difficult emotion. July is fearless in her execution, proving that she’s a bona fide filmmaker, with the ability to tackle the absurdities of life in wonderful and inventive new ways. These vignettes in all their strange and funny ways simply illuminate everyday earthbound human emotions we all experience. (RD)

Hanna – The Escape

The highlight of the film comes when Hanna wakes up in a subterranean interrogation room surrounded by surveillance cameras and somehow escapes in a thrilling stroboscopic action chase through an underground secret government base. (RD)

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Hobo With A Shotgun – Disco Inferno / The Plague

First-time feature director Jason Eisener and writer John Davies deliver an entertaining, comically violent throwback to low budget 70′s and 80′s genre movies. Hobo is destined for midnight-movie success but will outrage the mainstream due to its gleeful excess of sex and violence, seen best in the two standout scenes: The first involves a school bus full of children burnt alive to the sounds of “Disco Inferno,” and the second features “The Plague” (two characters similar to the villains in The Road Warrior), who go postal when entering a hospital. (RD)

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Hugo – Méliès watches Méliès

Like many skeptical filmgoers and critics, I was surprisingly affected by Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, a lovingly crafted movie-length tribute to early cinema, and a veritable thesis piece on the narrative-enhancing possibilities of 3D. Though some will point to other key moments (particularly the Keaton-referencing climax), for my money, the undeniable highlight was the living-room screening of A Trip to the Moon, while Georges Méliès himself (Ben Kingsley) looks on the creation he’s shamefully hidden away for so long, only to be wrapped up in the glorious artifice once again. Some found the movie’s conflation of the movies with the power of imagination trite and unconvincing; not only do I disagree, but I may have been more viscerally moved by this scene than any other this year – and if you’d told me back in January I’d be saying that about a Scorsese film in 2011, I’d never have believed you. (SH)

Incendies – The bus fire

It wasn’t until 2011 that those of you dwelling outside of Canada got to catch up with Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, a mosaic mystery-drama-thriller that puts Alejandro González Iñárritu’s collected work to shame, managing to deliver the “we’re all connected” theme while also folding into a Greek tragedy of insane proportion and modern socio-political import. The movie’s centerpiece is a humdinger, placing our wayward protagonist Mawal Narwan (Lubna Azabal) square in the center of a horrific ambush, during which she nimbly switches religious allegiances to save her own skin. What follows is the inciting incident for Mawal’s radicalization, which in turn inspires a whole chain of cruel, unpredictable ramifications. (SH)

The Innkeepers – I love you, I take it back

The Innkeepers doesn’t hold a candle to Ti West’s previous film, The House of the Devil, but it probably has the best scene in any of his films. In a small, intimate scene, our two lonely, jaded main characters discuss saving their doomed hotel and unfortunately for one of them, this moment of intimacy is instantly transformed into a moment of un-acknowledged embarrassment as he confesses his love only to “take it back” moments later. (JS)

I Saw The Devil – The Cab Sequence

As expected, I Saw The Devil shows all the hallmarks of the South Korean filmmaker: gorgeous camera work, whip-smart editorial control, several intriguing set pieces, beautiful cinematography, a brooding atmosphere, a nerve-wracking score set to maximum, some surprising narrative twists, and stunning lead performances. The direction, writing, production, editing, music and acting are all top-notch and this is all present in the film’s best scene, which involves a cab driver and two homicidal maniacs. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I will say that the choreography in this one scene alone is ingenious both in the camera work, and in the execution of the actors spiraling out of control. I’ve embedded the video for anyone who doesn’t mind being spoiled or has already seen it. (RD)

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Margaret – The accident

Probably the year’s most underseen great American movie of this year (despite the recent critical outpouring of support, which likely came a little too late to make a difference for non-NY moviegoers), Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret boasts one hell of an inciting incident: our fiery protagonist Lisa (Anna Paquin) thoughtlessly flirts with an on-duty bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) as she inquires about where he purchased his distinctive cowboy hat. She distracts him for a long enough period that he runs through a red light – a crucial detail that drives many key moments later in the film – and runs over a pedestrian (played by Allison Janney), who’s left gruesomely severed. Lisa runs to the woman’s side and does her best to keep her awake and alive, while the blood comes gushing in every direction, and Janney gradually slips away. There are so many ways Lonergan could have botched the scene, including but hardly limited to trying to apply saccharine uplift (conventionally delivered in musical form through an overbearing score) to a tragic event, but there’s none of that here. It’s just one woman senselessly dying in the arms of the one who, without malice, helped cause it to happen. And it’s every bit as devastating as it should be. (SH)

Martha Marcy May Marlene – Marcy’s Song

Music is integral to the success of Martha Marcy May Marlene, and it should be no surprise that my chosen scene in the film is John Hawkes’s performance of Jackson C. Frank’s “Marcy’s Song.” This begins as merely a beautiful moment, but in context of the film is it perhaps the most disturbing scene of the film. It is in this moment that we understand the draw of the cult, the feeling of belonging that leads all of the members down a dangerous path because as an audience, we are drawn in as well. (JS)

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Melancholia – The Prologue

Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia remains one of the most divisive films of the year between critics and cinephiles alike. Love it or hate it, the opening prologue had everyone’s attention. The visually arresting and emotionally wrenching sequence opens at the end of the world. We know straightaway that Melancholia’s characters are doomed. Unlike other apocalyptic film, Trier turns the genre upside down by right away eliminating any anticipation and dread of knowing what is to come. After all Melancholia isn’t so much a movie about the end of the world as it is Trier’s profound, visceral vision of depression and destruction. The opening shots are astoundingly beautiful and unsettling, set to the Love/Death theme from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde.” Clocking in at just under eight minutes, we see a sequence of gorgeous, almost seemingly ecstatic images of a woman (Kirsten Dunst) in a nighttime forest in her wedding dress running, or floating in a pond, or with her fingertips sparking flames of electricity. The cataclysmic final shot of this prelude shows another planet colliding with Earth. The brilliant prologue essentially defines Melancholia. The youtube clip embedded below hardly does it justice, but the opening of this film is worth the price of admission alone, so I highly recommend catching it on the big screen. (RD)

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Milocrorze: A Love Story – Samurai Battle

Starring Takayuki Yamada (13 Assassins), who plays all three male leads, Milocrorze is the brainchild of Yoshimasa Ishibashi, here making his directorial debut. Jammed tight with a bundle of ingenious visual gags and pop-culture references, from Miyazaki to classical Japanese paintings, strange musical dance numbers and jaw-dropping slow-motion battles, Milocrorze is a plethora of styles and genres, mixed together in three separate stories about love, obsession and heartbreak. The stand out scene here is one incredible long take, which just so happens to also be the best samurai sword-swinging action sequence in quite a while: The continuous shot stands as the pics highlight, constantly shifting gears like Ayrton Senna, moving in regular speed, fast forwarding and jumping to slow motion, before repeating the process over and over again. (RD)

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: Dubai

While I’m not as convinced of Ghost Protocol‘s action gifts on the whole as most of my colleagues, Brad Bird’s live-action debut does feature the five-to-ten or so of the most bracing minutes of film-watching all year, and, if viewed in IMAX as intended, one of the most stomach-turning sequences in movie history. It’s all thanks to the insane self-one-upsmanship of the film’s star, financier, and raison d’être, Tom Cruise, whose utter devotion to convincing every moviegoer, nay, every person on Xenu’s accursed Earth, that he is not only cool, collected, and grounded, but also still the world’s most committed action star. On that last part, it’s hard to argue, as Cruise actually scales the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at over 2,700 feet high. (I got dizzy just typing that sentence.) The sequence ramps up the tension by deploying the film’s favorite returning gag, the fact that all the gadgets are on the fritz, and having Cruise’s high-tech climbing gloves start to malfunction, threatening to plummet him to a very certain death. Not gonna lie: when the shit started to hit the fan, I sort of thought I was going to die myself. (SH)

The Muppets – Man or Muppet?

The Muppets features six new musical numbers and three “classics,” including “The Muppet Show Theme” and the early showstopper “Life’s a Happy Song,” but the most memorable scene is offered up by a self-mocking yet oddly touching duet, “Man or Muppet.” This musical tour de force is a plot-advancing power ballad, in which Gary and Walter ponder their reflections while embracing their respective life paths. (RD)

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20. The Amazing Race

The Amazing Race continues to be arguably the classiest, most reliably entertaining show the genre has yet to produce. It probably helps that it’s one of the few televised competitions that emphasizes teamwork, strength, acuity of mind, and resourcefulness more or less equally, as well as promoting a genial, infectious love of travel and adventure that counters the cynical scheming that characterizes many other competitive programs. In other words, unlike the show’s contestants, you won’t feel the need for a shower once the racing’s over.

19. Beavis and Butt-head

Hardly 2011′s most predictable success story, Mike Judge bounced back from the disastrously received The Goode Family in a somewhat unexpected manner: by resurrecting the show that first made him famous, 14 years after it last aired new episodes. What’s even more surprising is that the show managed to return “gracefully” (at least, as gracefully as a show about two revolting layabouts can be), retaining its carefully cultivated air of stupidity and transplanting it to the Age of Snooki, making room for reality-TV bashing to go with the short-form stories and music video commentaries. Snark just sounds better out of the mouths of babes.

18. Q.I.

AKA Quite Interesting, AKA the show that’s most likely to be a total non-entity to North American readers, QI aired its ninth series this past year, with Britain’s elder statesman of dry wit, Stephen Fry, ever present as its host. “Panel shows” (celebrity-hosted competitions) are a culture unto themselves in the UK, but QI tends to get singled out for the quality of its banter, the calibre of its participants, and the emphasis on wit over factual accuracy, which is in fact the bedrock of the entire program.

17. American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s audacious, divisive, and undeniably popular horror series signaled a sea change of sorts for its network, FX, which will continue to branch out into genre fare next year with the Brian Michael Bendis adaptation Powers. While not everyone cottoned to its singular blend of horror-film tropes, high-concept family drama, and occasional dramatic non sequiturs, the show has nevertheless garnered a devoted fanbase eager to see what batshit development is around the corner.

16. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

It’s easy to take Jon Stewart for granted. After all, we see him four nights a week, most weeks of the year, deconstructing news media and making the noxious current political and media culture bearable through cutting wit and funny voices. After 12 years on the job, Stewart is as much of a TV institution as nearly anyone else who’s ever ventured into the realm of late-night, and a sane substitute for the inane, ideologically driven, or simply incompetent prattle of “real” news-media talking heads. Along with The Colbert Report and the Onion News Network, we are undoubtedly in the midst of the golden age of fake news.

15. South Park

Another long-running Comedy Central series, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s baby turned 15 this year, and given that it immediately followed the Broadway victory lap, it would have been forgivable if they’d slacked off a little bit. Instead, Season 15 produced some of the funniest of recent years, as well as the somewhat startling “You’re Getting Old,” the mid-season finale that had some fans wondering if Parker and Stone had lost their taste for making the show at all. Not likely, since they’re on contract for another few seasons, but it’s nice to see they can still effectively rankle and provoke.

14. The Good Wife

The Good Wife will never be hip. The fact that it’s a legal procedural on CBS and it still made the grade is a testament to just how good it is. Julianna Margulies heads up one of the best ensembles on TV, and the guest roster of judges, attorneys, and roving personalities borders on ludicrously awesome at this point. Was makes the show a keeper, though, is the incessantly smart writing and acting choices, which help to keep it possibly the most consistent pleasure on TV, even if it’s not interested in hairpin plot turns or shock tactics.

13. Boardwalk Empire

Sopranos producer/writer Terence Winter gained a little confidence in its second season, shaking off some of the first-season jitters (the weight of expectation will do that) to generally become a little meaner, a little leaner, and a little more dramatically effective. On that last note, the closing run of episodes got downright ambitious, fleshing out a key character’s background in the most memorably shocking fashion possible. That it built to a ballsy finale bodes well for 2012, even if it hasn’t quite climbed to the levels of acclaim reserved for the series Winter previously toiled on.

12. Friday Night Lights

The only program on this list to air its final series this year (though it previously aired this run of episodes on DirecTV last year), Friday Night Lights went out swinging, delivering the same bold blend of heart and clear-headed storytelling that characterized it from the beginning. Despite the stigma it could never quite shake off thanks to its status as a show ostensibly about teenagers and sports (in rural Texas, no less), the show managed to foreground social issues and realistic interpersonal dynamics like almost nothing else on television, including what may be the most believable marriage in the history of the medium.

11. The Walking Dead

Despite some grumbling over its run so far, AMC’s The Walking Dead remains wildly popular, possibly due to being the only credible TV option for hardcore horror fans. It might also help that the second season’s midseason finale concluded with what may be the series’ best and most powerful sequence to date: the “walker” massacre outside Hershel’s barn. It’s also not a bad showing for a show that suffered a major shift in personnel very early in its run thanks to the departure of Frank Darabont. Whatever 2012 holds for Rick and co., count on it sticking around: it’s far and away AMC’s biggest hit.

10. Homeland

The biggest and nicest surprise of the Fall season, Showtime’s Homeland is its best new series in ages, prizing strong, unpredictable storytelling and superb writing over the shallow “hey, we’re on pay cable!” sex n’ gore tactics sometimes employed by its neighbors. Articulating post-9/11 fears of terrorism while maintaining a suspicious eye towards the government mechanisms designed to combat it (and the individuals therein), Homeland is spy TV done right. (Oh, and in Claire Danes, Damien Lewis, and Mandy Patinkin, it boasted three of the best performances of the year in any medium.)

09. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Most comedies don’t even make it this far, but usually by the time a series gets to its seventh season, you can feel the lethargy setting in. Not so with the Sunny gang, who managed some unqualified successes in what turned out to be another thoroughly enjoyable season. Obvious highlights included the insane “CharDee MacDennis: Game of Games” and the weirdly sweet but still very dark “The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore.” And someone please give Rob McElhenney an award of some kind for his heroic 50-pound weight gain, which was pursued only in the name of comedy. Bless you, sir.

08. Doctor Who

One of the most enduring series in television history, Doctor Who came back this season bigger than ever. Showrunner Steven Moffat kicked things off with a literal bang, ending the premiere with the haunting image of a mysterious astronaut rising out of Lake Silencio, shooting and killing the Doctor, and then disappearing back into the lake. Comprised of serialized and standalone episodes, including the fantastic “The Doctor’s Wife” (written by genre superstar and lifelong fan Neil Gaiman), the season brought laughs, tears, scares, and most importantly for those so-inclined, answers.

07. Archer

Sterling Archer and his co-workers at Isis stumbled into new and more ambitious adventures this year, as Adam Reed’s series took a few bold steps forward in terms of fleshing out its characters and universe. Penning every episode (as well as voicing poor, beleaguered Ray Gillette), Reed took pains to actually make us care about his strange, perverted little creations this year, resulting in a stronger show that might actually be the natural heir to the formerly deceased Arrested Development (now due for a 2013 return) – no other show since can boast a similar number of jokes-per-minute, double entendres, callbacks, and arcane references.

06. Justified

Though it’s probably best known for producing badass hillside crime queen Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale, who nabbed an Emmy for the role), Justified‘s second season also pushed it further into the realm of serialization, with fewer stand-alone episodes. Most importantly, though, it preserved Raylan’s signature blend of bemused wit and old-fashioned asskickery while toning down the slightly over-the-top body count of Season 1. It also boasted some seriously great supporting turns from Jeremy Davies and Brad William Henke as the ne’er-do-well Bennett boys, and the always-welcome presence of shitkicking hillbilly Walton Goggins, who promises to up the ante in Season 3, due to premiere in just a few weeks.

05. Game of Thrones

The highest-ranking new show of the year, HBO’s insanely ambitious fantasy saga, not unlike Peter Jackson’s film versions of the Lord of the Rings saga, was a high-risk, high-reward proposition for both the network and audiences. Combining old-school genre tropes (warring kingdoms, conniving royals, doom-laden prophecies) with the unrestrained possibilities of pay cable, Thrones helped to make 2011 the year of genre TV, and produced some on the year’s most vivid characters and most stunning sequences. Those familiar with George R. R. Martin’s book series (to which the series hems closely so far) say the best is yet to come. Bring it on.

04. Community

Though currently somewhat imperiled, with NBC putting the show on ice for a little while (at least), Dan Harmon’s meta-textually rich sitcom continued to push itself further away from convention this year, either going on wild stylistic tangents, or exploiting standard sitcom tropes only to openly subvert them – while never feeling less than completely reverent to its forebears. Its fate is in question – keep in mind, however, that a fourth season would yield all-important syndication eligibility – but the ratings-strapped show enjoys the most rabid internet fanbase this side of the Whedonverse.

03. Parks and Recreation

Community‘s timeslot neighbor just barely edged out the hipper show, which is surely a testament to its rock-solid writing and its stellar comedis ensemble. After a shaky first season and a drastically improved second, Season 3 (which aired as a midseason replacement at the top of 2011) was its strongest outing yet, folding in Rob Lowe and Adam Scott as full-timers while maintaining a tricky balance: amiable, but with clear stakes, and yet never feeling outright contrived. Time will tell whether the currently-airing Season 4 pans out as confidently, but Michael Schur’s writers and the cast deserve immense credit for crafting the most consistently funny and touching half-hour on broadcast TV.

02. Louie

After a strong freshman season in 2010, Louis CK took his one-man effort to even greater heights in Season 2, pushing himself as an actor, writer and director into new and bolder territory, making TV without parallel or precedent in the process. Tackling parenthood, the entertainment industry, racism, masturbation, war, mortality, family obligation, unrequited love, and a host of other topics while retaining its filthy-but-cogent tone throughout, Louie‘s second season proved once and for all that TV can be an auteur’s medium to the same degree as feature film. (That it did so on the budget of roughly a single episode of our #1 series is just gravy.)

01. Breaking Bad

Some wondered if former X-Files scribe Vince Gilligan and his crack team of writers and directors could pull it off. Breaking Bad‘s third season seemed to perfect the show’s signature blend of high-stakes thrills, brutal pathos, dark humor and relentless story momentum – so where could the show go from here? Season 4 may or may not have been the equal of what came before, but no other series this year was half as pulse-pounding, or played host to as many unforgettable moments. With the announcement that the next season (which may be split in two) will be the show’s last, Gilligan (along with stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul) can take comfort in the fact that his show can already be counted among the greats.