The Best Films of 2011

2011 has been the Year best described as “Different”, to some it’s better than last year and according to the NY post it’s a bad year because “I haven’t given more than two movies 4 stars”. Well nor have I, and with the evidence shown below to you the Jury, it can be safely asserted that his hypothesis is incorrect. 2011 has given us the return of modern visionaries, the auteurs of their craft, the founding fathers of the weird and the wonderful. Terrence Malick returned after, a presumably shorter hiatus than usual, and expanded our knowledge of the universe, from its beginnings right the way through to its reconciling ending. It was an epic tone poem in the most personal of ways, one that touched even though it contained those dinosaurs. It’s flawed, with an almost fan boy like appreciation taken over the many who have lauded it as the best film of the year, but it will leave with a distinct impression on you afterwards, whether you take that as positive aspect or not is up to you. 

Lynne Ramsey returned for the first time in 7 years with her adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s celebrated book “We need to talk about Kevin” a film that has unusually, since seeing the film in October, has garnered as much acclaim and aggressive criticism as any other this year. It’s an unflinchingly fearless film with Tilda Swinton at her usual best. However, new comer Ezra Miller almost steals the show as a rampaging teen with a heart as black as death itself. Whatever you take from Kevin, it is a dizzying, poisonous and gripping experience. The return of others has been met with a final “hurrah, you have made a good one”. Martin Scorsese returned with the fun and delightful “Hugo” all about the indescribable feeling that one gets from cinema. Pedro Almodovar gave us an intoxicating mix of melodrama and body shock horror in “The Skin I live in” with Elena Anaya as Antonia Banderas human guinea pig. 

The genre that has dominated this year, however, has been the presence that something isn’t right and that the world may just end. Greg Akari gave us the not so serious “Kaboom”,a raunchy teen sex end-of-the world comedy, where the world ends at the push of a button. Soderbergh returned, as you can almost guarantee he will, with “Contagion” , a revamp of the disaster film played through a modern setting where Gwyneth Paltrow sets the world into chaos (it’s either that or “Country Strong”). Lars Von Trier became infamous in 2011 for this years most overblown controversy where he was issued a Persona Non Grata for being a bit of a Nazi. His vision of the world ending was played through the eyes of Kirsten Dunst where she brings the world to its end with the planet“Melancholia” . David Mackenzie may have given us the best however with the flawed but fascinating “Perfect Sense”, where the world begins to lose all there senses and have to learn to adapt. Maybe this is, as depressing it is to be writing on a Sunday morning, a message for our times. Cinema, with its screens being clogged up with countless 3D film’s, is stopping the amount of other, smaller more original films to be shown in your city and with the end of the UK film council what is the hope for us the continuing growth of original British films. Will this year be the last “Hoorah” for British cinema?

Why be depressive, its Sunday, it’s a week before Christmas and this is the crowning achievements of 2011 as listed below to the shock and awe of some that there is no Superhero films listed below.



10. Le Quattro Volte/ Love like Poison


I am cheating, I know, but it is a testament to the amount of films shown this year, in my eye’s, which are worthy of these positions. Number 10 represents the best in Arthouse even though they both deserve equal acclaim in their own right. Le Quattro Volte (or “The Four Times”) has been described by Mark Kermode as the “Silent goat farming film”. The film is almost indescribable, it’s wordless almost listless tone at time’s gives the film an almost meditative feel, while a man, a goat, a tree and coal symbolise the four stages of life. It sounds all so “Tree of life” but this would be doing the film an injustice. It’s moving, profound and has a beguiling sense of humour which will charm even the most hardened of “Arthouse” cynics.

Love like Poison is a French film, which premièred in the 2010 Cannes film festival, however it has only just got its release in the UK. Poison represents the best dysfunctional family film of the year, with it tackling different strands from teenage love, death, family breakdowns, intruding on a young girl’s sense of innocence and pulls it off effortlessly. Wanting to see the film again and prying deeper into the film is something that has to be done

9. Meeks Cutoff 


Not for everyone, so the warning goes out to you all before attempting to watch Kelly Reichardts contemplative and ravishing western. As much a survival film as it is a Western, the “Meek” of the title is Bruce Greenwoods almost unrecognisable appearance as Stephen Meek take families across the Oregon Trail. Its use of the 4:3 aspect ration gives the film the refreshing look of something old. It flips all the conventions, showing precisely the painful journey to find civilisation. Instead of Men as the hunters they become the hunted at the hands of Michelle Williams Emily Teethrow, examining there look at why they are doing what they are doing and what the ensuing capture of a slave does to them. Unusually centred around, it continued the work of the likes of Winters Bone in getting rid of the final taboo of women no being a fierce presence in modern cinema. It’s barren, expansive and open to the possibility of danger at any moment, isn’t that the essence of a true Western?

8. Rango/Arriety
Rango is Gore verbinskis best film, having gone through the sludge of Pirates of the Caribbean and the witless and dull Nicholas Cage vehicle The Weather Man, with Johnny Depp playing a lost chameleon on the search for his purpose. It’s an inventive, funny and bonkers tale, with the added bonus of not being in 3D. If Rango doesn’t suit your tastes then Studio Ghiblis magical Arriety, based around a tale adapted from the Borrowers, is thrilling in different way. It’s even a different fair from classic Ghibli, moving away from the childish, but still brilliant, fare of the previous films such as Ponyo. It’s an unashamedly simple love story about two people in two different worlds fighting to be friends. The film can be described in one word-Lovely.

7.127 hours 
Danny Boyles thrilling take on Aron Ralston's experience of being stuck between a boulder and a hard place-the world. Through his ordeal he begins to contemplate about, not just what has happened to him but the person he is. It’s a thrilling adventure film even though the setting is largely one man, an arm, a boulder and a knife. It’s survival of the fittest and 127 hours turns out to be one of the year’s best most uplifting stories, even with the whole “cutting the arm, I’m looking away” sequence.



6. Tinker Tailor Solider Spy


After the flawless Let the right one in Tomas Alfredson makes the decision to do another adaptation, this time John Le Carre’s famous and windingly complex novel. Gary Oldman is George Smiley, a retirement agent hunting a mole in the secret service in this cold war set spy thriller. It’s a spy film without the antics of bond and is instead interested on a character level. Seeing it twice reveals all of its little clues, making the payoff even more intense the second tie. It’s a film that compromises nothing for its audience, and as the story takes a back step, we have Alfredson knack for creating atmosphere to knife cutting levels. It’s a film about trust and keeping that time honoured tradition of keeping your friends close and enemies even closer.



5. Benda Bilili/ Pina 


“Life Love Music” is the tagline for Benda Bilili but it could easily sum up both these films.Benda Bilili is this year’s best unseen film. It’s delightful and inspiring without seeping into a TV like sentimentality of there impoverished conditions. Five filmmakers went on a trip to make a film about ethnic music and instead came back with Benda Bilili, a tale of triumph over adversity in the best sense with one the most joyous celebrations of humanity you bound to witness all year. Pinais a different beast all together, Wim Wenders pushes 3D (or so I am told, sorry saw it n 2D) to a level in which we can credibly see why we have 3D in the first place. As the Times states, it’s an experience which goes beyond live performance, becoming a swoon of colours and performances which in capitulates the highest form of human emotion all the way down to the darkest of all emotions. Surreal and moving and like all Documentaries it get’s you interested in a subject which you may never of thought could grab you but yet in it entrances you instead.










4. Blue Valentine

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams make a perfect pair bringing unhappiness upon each other in Derek Cinafrance’s perfectly realised Blue
Valentine. A love story with a more realistic edge, showing the high points and the low points of a relationship at the hands of a destructive husband who cares too much and a wife who cares to little. Through the performances we are given a perfectly realised version of relationships, from the highs and the lows, turned all the way up to an extreme, at time cathartic level. Apparently with the writer had made over 60 drafts of the script and we can’t thank him enough for doing so.



3-Submarine/Animal Kingdom/Ture Grit

All three are unique in their own way.Submarine is the “romantic comedy” that wasn’t a romantic comedy which was way ahead of all other this year, with it having a funny, wise tone and hmmm the one thing that very few others have, an original voice and something to say. Animal Kingdom became 2011's most destructive family drama, examining, almost in the same as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the race to gain all the power and people who a fearful of their own kind, especially a vicious Jackie Weaver as the little old lady with all the power. True Grit is the Coen Brothers retelling or “adaptation” of John Waynes infamous Oscar Vehicle, this time having the Dude replace the Duke.

2. A Separation 
Described as Hitchcockian whodunit, this Drama set in the midst of Iranian culture continues the trend of increasingly important and vital films from Iran, leading the trend with the likes of No one knows about Persian cat’s. After an accident causes a rift in the household between the father, an award worthy Peyman Moaadi, and their maid to watch over his sickly father, we are increasingly drawn into a moral maze, where we judge everyone and no one at the same time. With tension and pacing as flawlessly executed as this you want every drama to be as gripping and involving as this.



1. Weekend/13 Assassins 
If you can find a similarity between these two films then please let me know.Weekend is here because it’s a film which as enticed me in a way that no other film has this year. It’s the story of two men who quickly begin to fall for each other over one weekend. What seems typical as a one night stand for Glen and Russell, quickly turns into something that they didn’t expect. To put “I” Into the equation I believe you be entranced by the sheer effortless nature of the script in portraying a modern relationship which is both traditional and modern, while also being emotionally resonant, and searching for, between these two characters, answers to questions which are deeply personal to everyone when in a relationship. The performances are so seamless that you would think the film had turned into a documentary. It may be one of the best pieces of filmmaking, seeming to be in comparison to the look of Joe Lawlor and Christine Molly’s Helen, you are likely to see. For craftsmanship and sheer (I hate to use this word) epicness, Takashi Miike’s bloodthirsty epic grabbed m attention and didn’t let go for over two hours. It’s Miike’s version of Seven Samurai which adds something that Seven Samurai really needs-Flaming Bulls.


If I had to pick, for conformist’s sake (even though this year it can’t be done), an official top 10 then it would be …..

10. le Quattro Volte
9. Meeks Cutoff
8. Arriety 
7. 127 hours
6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
5. Benda Bilili
4. Blue Valentine 
3. True Grit
2. A Separation 
1. Weekend 

Plenty that have been missed like Peter Mullan’s NED’S, Documentaries (which have been the crowning achievements as always throughout 2011) such as Senna, Project Nim, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Even Horror made a comeback in the shape of Kill List, part revenge thriller, part kitchen sink drama and part the Wicker Man; this was a confounding and unsettling horror film, which I hope continues a new wave in “extreme but smart” horror films. And there were quite few more, in this healthy year of film, that I would mention and those are listed in a video attached below


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mutst4AooX4

The Manhattan International Film Festival 2011

It's first time goings for most at the Manhattan international film festival, which includes the film makers as much as the audience. Indeed the festival is new and fresh and coming together as an occasion which is refreshingly un-marketed-there are few famous faces and even fewer press coverage’s. It makes a refreshing change, at times, from the overpopulation of modern film festivals, allowing you to sit back and enjoy in traditional New York cinemas, the best in unreleased independent cinema.

It would have made a nice change of pace in New York, stepping into an air conditioned theatre, being able to escape from the scorching heat of New York's unusual heat wave. On show at the festival you have range in quality and genre-from the Professional looking to the down right armature, from comedy all the way to horror. Yes, they weren't anything to shout about but there was, well a film, which was worth shouting about.



Run to the East an inspiring and professional looking 2009 production which has been circling the festival circuits throughout 2011 and was part of the official selection for the program. The documentary follows three senior high school cross country runners, who all have the chance to be the odds of their towns-they live in communities which are over run with violence, poverty and drugs. The film introduces you to three characters (all with different levels of compelling narrative) who go on their own journey’s, moving form the ups and downs, with hopefully the final goal of landing a scholarship.

We are introduced to Tails who early on tells us that she never thought of this as something she would ever get into when she was younger but now finds running as a way of escaping her poverty ridden community of Navaho to hopefully a better life. Closely afterwards we are introduced to Thomas Martinez who goes through a striking array of hairstyles all with different levels of success. He comes from a similar background-father addicted to drugs and trying to cope with the death of his mother-he finds the perseverance needed in running as a way of coping with issues and inevitable pain. Lastly Dillon Shije, who is seen as having a certain advantage compared to the other two’s seen as the fastest of the bunch-quick and determined with a loving and supportive family.

Throughout the film it becomes less about the running and more about the characters. We see where each of them lives-with them telling a little bit about there up bringing which seems a bit like tailored made questions which the director has asked them to answer. It moves through their lives for one year showing their homes (their homes are bare minimum and afford few luxuries) and it shows the depravity associated with the area in a respectful manner, and then we are back to running following who will get scholarships and who will get into the prestigious Wings of America running team. Henry Lu serves an inspired if by the numbers documentary, essentially about a story of hope. A little bit of middle class guilt sentimentality works itself through the film and it drags through spaces but nowhere near the same amount as Jig. It’s a modest documentary which ultimately succeeds in it's convictions, it’s pulpy, lively soundtrack with the like of the Phoenix's keeps the film moving at a good pace and the film has done it's trick on the community. It was good to see a film which ultimately was able to inspire some and uplift others from the communities in which these characters came from.




As it came to its end the Australian comedy The wedding party, directed and written by Amanda Jane, ultimately came to be a partly amusing farce which is almost entirely forgettable. The story is hard one. If I were to cut it short I would summarises it as a film about sex. The thing about sex is it shouldn't work but it is known for being so damn pleasurable. Your heart rate increases, your blood flow increases and your pupils dilate, you’re in an inch of your life and then it is all over. An exciting whirlwind is what I hoped early on with The Wedding party-with some funny riffs about marriage and keeping your love life inventive. Ultimately we get a shallow piece of work with same amount of well observed humour as a Dennis Dugan film-Just go with it for example. It’s relies too heavily on clichéd tropes which are never really played with and are more or less just played out in a straight manner. It’s obvious, overstuffed and slightly sexist towards both genders.





Did I forget to say that I absolutely love The Wedding party compared to the festivals next offering, a completely vapid, amateurish and laughable history drama based around a game of chess. It’s called Under Jakob's Ladder and if it were actually released on a nationwide scale it would surely be somewhere on every ones worst of the year list. As for just now however, you can just take my word for it that Under Jakob's ladder is one of the worst films to be screened in a cinema for all that 2011 will have to offer. The story is centred on a personal vendetta that one person has for another over a game of chess. When Jakob Seel defeats a Russian grandmaster of chess, Jakob hands the winning chess piece to the grandmasters son Nikoli, who doesn't take the chess piece as a compilation price but as an offence and vows to take revenge on Jakob somehow, somewhere, someday fade of into background. That sentence seems to fit the entire misjudged tone for the film. It takes it self seriously right the way through to its biter end, dragging the audience behind with it.


The film has an important issue at hand, in the same tone as films made by Rachid Bouchareb, in that it is trying to show a forgotten and powerful part of forgotten history. The story is set around an incident where people were kidnapped by a soviet regime during World War Two. The subject is never given any respect and hopefully you can think of this story being told in a better fashion by a director like Bouchareb,but the director here Mann Munoz, is more in tone with what I would presume Uwe Bolls Auschwitz would be like watching. As it stands it's a laughable mess, a jaw dropping, wrist-cuttingly awful experience of a film. It’s sporadically hysterical, over dramatic and overacted with the feeling of a film which you would watch as a treat in a history class from a very mean teacher. Thinking back I think I have seen better films in a history class, but at least it was funny, if unintentionally and for that reason it was better as a comedy than The Hangover part 2.

The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black, based upon the “most chilling ghost story of our time’s”-if you believe the trailers-by Susan Hill and written by Britain’s correspondent to Hollywood Jane Goldman (Wossies Wife, writer of the Brilliant Kick Ass, the rather rubbish Stardust and, as of late, comic book cinemas shining voice with the not so incredible X-men- First Class), feels like a post potter vehicle for the young talent at the centre Daniel Radcliffe but also allows for us to see the actor, and indeed the writer, in a new light. Or, more importantly, with no light. It’s the creaky boom of the chair, the darkness of a corridor and the unshakeable feeling of an entity lurking in the shadows that gives the film it’s insidious atmosphere, along with the traditional use of the industry favourite fog.

With the Hammer seal sewed into it’s credit sequence (ironically the title sequence has the feel of Marvel Studio’s) you’d be mistaken to think that Hammer, once the self titled King of Horror, had ever left us. It’s business as usual for Arthur Kipps, father and widower, who is assigned, as the experienced young lawyer that he is, to close the deal on old Eel Marsh house. However, with all his baggage it would be wise for him to stay away from the quaint village all together as the Women in Black is terrorising the village, on a personal vendetta, hunting all the kids until there ain’t no more in the village. As Kipps becomes intricately involved in the selling of the mansion, ploughing through letter’s, he see’ s the women’s goal; If I can’t have my child then you can’t have yours. Saddly, as the film is set in 1888, Scooby Doo hadn’t been invented and the Ghostbusters hadn’t really caught on back then.

The Woman in Black is the cinematic equivalent of a ghost train ride: Fun, constantly amusing and enough scares to make the punters feel shocked, sweating and scrambling for the nearest exit, that’s if your 10 and haven’t seen a hammer horror film before which, by the shrieks and wails of the audience, they hadn’t. It’s also a vehicle film, one which has had boosted success (it took $21 million in it’s opening weekend) down to the presence of Mr Potter himself. It’s an ironic move to see the actor, after the big budget franchise busting Potter films, try to carve a name for himself in the likes of an old creaky Haunted house story by Hammer, when many famous faces start out in schlock (some good, most bad) which will hopefully lead them to better roles. And to his credit, he is convincing as an “1888 Everyman”. He convincingly plays out the role of a man who slowly begins to believe in the other world (but with no religious implications) and doesn’t see it as just a trick of the mind. He tread’s a fine line between showing the state of the mind that may believe in the ghost and the part that thinks it is all just an illusion, a role any lead actor should play in convincing the audience that what is on the screen is real.

To more credit the director, James Watkins, who turned heads (not just Michael Fassbenders) in Eden Lake, understands what Hammer was all about not what it should be in the modern age of Horror, one where 3D is just slapped onto the latest Texas chainsaw Massacre reboot or where some clever people think it is clever to remake REC and Let the right one in (Which will always have the distained past of carrying Hammer in it’s title). The minute we enter the House, everything skilfully comes together handsomely and, most importantly, correctly to give a jolt to the system with old-fashioned mechanics, which is part of the studios tradition, while infusing it’s tricks with some new invention. It’s essentially 90 minutes of Hammer at it’s best, creating Jump out moments which haven’t been as inventive (not saying as effective) as the under appreciated The Strangers. Half way through there is a virtuoso sequence that seems endless. Infused with tension, it’ starts with the sound of rocking chair but with thudding boom. As we walk towards the door, which skilfully creates the effects of a dolly zoom without its use, get’s even tenser. As he slowly opens the door, the chair is rocking back and forwards, clearly having no one there, but, with the background out of focus, we see a quick glimpse of the women sitting in the chair to an unexpected Kipps. The audience shrieks, some even shout. 

The Woman in Black is probably the best Haunted House film your young one has ever seen, if all they have been brought up on is Eddie Murphy’s Disney themed The Haunted Mansion. It’s skilfully handled, with effective, even memorable jump scares, but it doesn’t match the league of truly great horror films, old or new. The idea of Psychology in Horror isn’t new and, be it the work of the script or Radcliffe’s performance, we never seen the psychological implication’s of the series of events which take place, which could have propelled the film into a different league of it’s own. Radcliffe is good mostly when he doesn’t talk and when it is just down to expressions, allowing for Watkins to guide him through to even more shriek inducing scenarios. Radcliffe looks the part (in 1888 it isn’t unusual to see a young married man at 21 with a son), however, he still has a young man’s voice, which gives him away as 14 year old school boy who just happens to have an extraordinary amount of 5 O’clock shadow. However, this refreshing horror film is the type of horror film that has been missing from the mainstream with the influx of Eli Roth and James Wan. It’s entertainment with scares; in the same way as say Nightmare on Elm Street Dream Warriors or Friday the Thirteenth part three 3D. The Woman in Black is infusing its story with the skill of a young Sam Rami before The Evil Dead, which doesn’t sound like a bad thing at all.