There will be no sandbox Detrius 2011 thread.

Why? Because I hate that the 2006 thread is lost to the sandbox.

Tintin is funny, so you will hate it?

No, but odds are I will find War Horse funnier.

both figure to be funnier than Crazy Stupid Mush.

btw there is a big hunk of a Tintin book Crab with the Golden Claws shoehorned into this one, so you nerd-purists can start bitching.

Didn't laugh more than once or twice during CSL that I can remember, but that didn't diminish the things I liked about it.

it was aiming to be something besides funny? that is, aside from its horrific reinforcement of heteronormative monogamy?

I don't hate heterosexuals as much as you do, I guess.

Either that, or I missed all those scenes where characters said how awesome it was that they were married and straight and everyone should try it sometime.

Plenty of worse reinforcements of heteronormative monogamy, starting with the new Clooney film that Morbz likes.

I gleaned the themes by why ppl are smiling in the last scene, EH. (And c'mon, I generally hate gays much more, myself included. And Sl4nt's pan was written by a het along those lines.)

I did not "like" Descendants very much, goddamn you, I said it was "not bad."

...btw Stuart Klawans raved in The Nation about the Marxian themes of the new Timberlake thriller. Obv Soto should go!

Your self-pity doesn't absolve you, Morbs.

then I will have to say 50 Acts of Contrition.

(but making a dirty-sitcom Parenthood is nuch the greater sin)

True. Parenthood was perfect (and occasionally dirty) as it was.

tsk

in some ways Tintin reminded me of the good elements of 1941

My favorite scene: a nude Keanu Reeves fondling Dianne Wiest.

Or is that another Parenthood?

.btw Stuart Klawans raved in The Nation about the Marxian themes of the new Timberlake thriller. Obv Soto should go!

I have Cuban blood and am hence immunized against that menace. Marxism too.

against Timbo?

http://moviecitynews.com/2011/11/20w2o-special-new-york-first-film-critics-circle-get-tattooed/

For Immediate Release, please:

New York Film Critics Circle
to Announce Awards via Twitter Tomorrow

November 28, 2011 -- The New York Film Critics Circle will be announcing their awards during their annual vote via twitter, please follow the handle @NYFCC2011. The vote will take place at 9:30am EST tomorrow, Tuesday, November 29th, at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center. The awards will be handed out at a ceremony on Monday, January 9, 2012.

Says chairman John Anderson, “We were looking forward to voting on Monday, November 28th, but due to conflicting schedules, we have made the decision to move back a day to ensure all of our voters have the opportunity to see all of the eligible films.”

Not actually all that perturbed that they're going to miss Steven Daldry's newest because of this.

Tree of Life and Beginners deemed equally great.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/11/gotham-film-awards-best-movie.html

Saw War Horse this morning. Kinda loathed it.

Were you expecting not to?

I try not to expect anything! Which helped make Hugo a nice surprise.

I'll take that as a sign that I may like War Horse.

I was going to post this on the *J. Edgar* thread last week, but I'll put it here. David Thomson's review perfectly captures my own feelings about how dreary Eastwood's film is:

http://www.tnr.com/article/film/97434/j-edgar-eastwood-decaprio-fbi-drag

And he makes note of something I was thinking about too, why Stone's *Nixon* is the much better film: "Oliver Stone’s *Nixon* has many faults, but it is charged with unbridled psychotic energy such as was needed here."

ha, have fun spotting / guessing the (ill-conceived) Basterds reference in War Horse, Morbs.

I won't, but I'm guessing it could be a reference to something ripped off by Tarantella.

S & S sneak peek:

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/in-contention/posts/tree-of-life-easily-tops-sight-sounds-best-of-2011-poll

Oh, and this is going on now: https://twitter.com/#!/NYFCC2011

Margin Call won for best first feature.

I am looking fwd to House of Pleasures, which just opened here:

http://www.artforum.com/film/id=29607

wrong Herzog film for Best Doc

(But I'd put at least 3 others ahead of either WH. It helps to be a brand.)

Yeah, pretty tepid pick.

@ArmondWhite is enjoying the moment.

NYFC awards announced today, no?

too early to follow the thread, eh?

Too old to follow Twitter.

i caught margin call & take shelter recently & didn't really like either (the latter was intermittently affecting but sorta frustratingly linear, & overscored to shit, for me), having sorta expected to on account of the way they've been talked about since coming out (like almost as a 'wave'). does anyone here rep for them?

also thought shannon's performance in TS was even MORE remarkable & transformative if you thought he was actually joshua jackson

& yeah into the abyss creams COFD

I kind of liked J. Edgar. I guess it would have been more melodramatic if he was more of an evil madman and less of a consummate bureaucrat, but I'm not sure if it would have been more historically accurate. It seems like a lot of the criticism of the film is that it's too evenhanded. People wanted a movie that would expose the rotten heart at the core of the American state security apparatus, but they got something which kind of justifies the existence of such apparatus. I guess I went into the movie with low expectations, but it kept my interest up for 2+ hours, and I didn't feel like my intelligence was being insulted.

I thought Margin Call was okay, but kind of overrated.

I guess I don't consider Margin Call overrated cuz the critics I read didn't think much of it.

35 mins since last tweet (Sarris bathroom joke here)

Take Shelter is an intense experience thx largely to Shannon, but I didn't care for all the Nightmare on Elm St frissons, and esp the ending(s) (the storm shelter AND the beach).

Jessica Chastain wins the Tracy Flick award for most involvement.

Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain for Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter

OK, I had no idea she was in The Help! Woulda picked Redgrave maybe, for Coriolanus -- which Chastain is also in! -- if not Jeannie Berlin or Edie Falco.

Apparently it's now a yearly tradition for the NYFCC to give Meryl Streep an award.

Margin Call is a decent film overrated by Gleiberman-Ebert types who miss English-language "adult films."

Freudian!

NYFCC2011 NYFCC2011
Correction: for "The Iron Lady"
57 seconds ago

NYFCC2011 NYFCC2011
Best Actress: Meryl Streep for "The Lady"

I guess I don't consider Margin Call overrated cuz the critics I read didn't think much of it.

I was mainly thinking of the A.O. Scott review. I mean I thought it was a crisply efficient thriller, and it struck the right mood - the mixture of cynicism, fear, and greed seemed authentic - but the plot was a bit thin overall, and was there any point to the sick dog other than to make us sympathize with the head trader?

aint seen it

did Streep win something last year? I have no memory of it.

Scott's lookit-George-Clooney-in-boat shoes graf was his jump the shark moment.

this is Streep's second win in 3 years, but the 3 she had before that were '79-88.

I don't know what boat shoes look like, and I understand Clooney was barefoot for much of the film. (The kind of details I miss regularly.)

Albert Brooks takes Best Table Manners

oh c'mon, Morbs.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41TWBHF24WL._SL500_SX190_CR0,0,190,246_.jpg

some of us are landlubbers

now I hafta see fucking Drive

so far the winners are classic NYFC picks.

beloved Iron Lady, crusty but benign much-loved actor for supporting, crusty but benign director of documentary winner.

what nonclassic picks would you expect?

I was mainly thinking of the A.O. Scott review. I mean I thought it was a crisply efficient thriller, and it struck the right

i thought there was a lot of tell, a lot of bluster. the intro jeremy irons gets before we meet him - he's sharper than you, quicker than you, will blow up like that - kinda running counter to the guy we actually got, the kinda thinness that pervaded the rest of the thing. i see why it was important to have those guys & that story put up on screen but it felt perfunctory to me.

take shelter was intense, sure. just a little clunky to me, too direct, and then sorta freewheeling at the end

meryl woulda nailed the lady fwiw

wonder with what manner of death Armond is threatening Clooney and Dujardin voters.

Wonder if he stumped for Sandler for best actress.

if he was still chair he could have Sandler MC the dinner

xp!

OK, I am done complaining about how uninteresting Brad Pitt is in Moneyball.

(I say that because I suspect I won't be actually doing the Oscar articles on THND this year.)

at least TOL got mentioned.

In this case, tho, it was smuggled in.

Byron couldn't have said it more graciously.

Killer to killer.

You're too short for that gesture.

p sure Pitt in ToL is best American male perf I've seen this year. They got one right!

I believe they are pushing him as Supporting for Oscars, hoping he will get 2 nominations.

yeah Pitt is really really great in TOL, v. evocative of my own ex-Navy dad.

I don't think we've heard the last of ToL today, unless they pull The Artist out of their ass.

my dad was in the Navy. Not remotely Pittlike.

Anyone seen A Separation?

We had this discussion in the regular ILX thread: no big star has bored me more in the last twenty years than Pitt, so two performances of this caliber in one year is an achievement of something or other.

I guess I skipped his megaboring work.

yes, A Separation, v fine.

When we get gay married, Alfred, I predict a happy 50 years of just reciting you know what.

Really loved Pitt in TOL, for the record. Wish he was in the running for lead actor in that to head off his boring "I'm Brad Pitt" perf in dor dumbedownball.

btw, minor awards are for such as the writer and director, since their function is merely to construct a tower so that the world can applaud a light which flashes on top of it.

Pitt is not uninteresting in Moneyball, just much less interesting than Billy Beane.

Oh, somehow the Indie Spirit nominations snubbed Clooney in Descendants and Midnight in Paris for almost everything.

well done, Indies!

ditto

When we get gay married, Alfred, I predict a happy 50 years of just reciting you know what.

There should be a new word for happiness!

clearing a spot at the piano bar here for you two.

Some snowy night, in front of the fire.

Never thought I'd be typing this, but:

Clooney acting > Pitt not acting

For Payne, Clooney close-ups are like fellatio.

NYFCC goes with Hazanavicius.

I saw plenty of emoting about on-base percentage. xxp

I fully approve of John C Reilly's Spirit nomination for Cedar Rapids, probably the funniest performance of the year. Their doc category also had room for The Interrupters and General Butt Naked:

http://www.spiritawards.com/nominee_category/best-documentary/

I fully approve of John C Reilly's Spirit nomination for Cedar Rapids, probably the funniest performance of the year.

Word? I saw his name on the list and initially assumed the nomination was for Terri.

I fully approve of John C Reilly's Spirit nomination for Cedar Rapids, probably the funniest performance of the year.

This is detrius thread's "blue moon" moment between you and me.

you exaggerate!

we also agree on Pitt in ToL, for starters

Reilly was also the best thing in Terri and Carnage.

And Tim and Eric.

Can't make up my mind which one I'm going to hate more between The Artist or The Iron Lady.

Oh wait, I'll hate A Dangerous Method more than either.

that last is a weird addition. Pissed at Cronenberg for picking real horror over the funhouse kind?

re The Artist, I wonder how many Guy Maddin films Rex Reed has seen.

Pissed at Cronenberg for making boring movies instead of ones worth watching.

And NYFCC just served you up some karma for that one, bitch.

Pissed at no tongue action between Fassbender and Viggo.

Movie critics not knowing shit about baseball shockah. Also, what's your problem lately? xp

They have Animated and Cinematography yet to do...

Shortest pause ever in the Twitter feed to announced Lubezki for cinematography.

That they're going to try to give something w/ Sorkin's name on it a screenplay award whenever possible is a sign of devolution from the Ben Hecht era.

special cemetery award to Raul Ruiz, highlight of the day

Best Picture to The Artist

Yep, it's official. I'm going to hate that one.

me too, bitch

Well heil Hitler, bitch.

Harvey Weinstein's cache of NYFCC members' horsefucking photos have carried the day again!

Actually, the movie looks kinda cute for real.

If it was between that and Moneyball, I'm guessing they chose correctly.

It's no more special than the OSS movies, really.

And who paid attention to them?

Indie Spirits (glad to see In the Family up for First Film... but UGH Bellflower, maybe the year's most repulsive):

Best Feature

50/50
Beginners
Drive
Take Shelter
The Artist
The Descendants

Best Director

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Mike Mills, Beginners
Jeff Nichols, Take Shelter
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive

Best Screenplay

Joseph Cedar, Footnote
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Tom McCarthy, Win Win
Mike Mills, Beginners
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants

Best First Feature

Another Earth
In the Family
Margin Call
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Natural Selection Director

Best First Screenplay

Mike Cahill, Brit Marling, Another Earth
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Patrick deWitt, Terri
Phil Johnston, Cedar Rapids
Will Reiser, 50/50

John Cassavetes Award – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000

Bellflower
Circumstance
Hello Lonesome
Pariah
The Dynamiter

Best Female Lead

Lauren Ambrose, Think of Me
Rachael Harris, Natural Selection
Adepero Oduye, Pariah
Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Male Lead

Demián Bichir, A Better Life
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Ryan Gosling, Drive
Woody Harrelson, Rampart
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

Best Supporting Female

Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter
Anjelica Huston, 50/50
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Harmony Santana, Gun Hill Road
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Best Supporting Male

Albert Brooks, Drive
John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
John C. Reilly, Cedar Rapids
Corey Stoll, Midnight in Paris

Best Cinematography

Joel Hodge, Bellflower
Benjamin Kasulke, The Off Hours
Darius Khondji, Midnight in Paris
Guillaume Schiffman, The Artist
Jeffrey Waldron, The Dynamiter

Best Documentary

An African Election
Bill Cunningham New York
The Interrupters
The Redemption of General Butt Naked
We Were Here

Best International Film

A Separation
Melancholia
Shame
The Kid With a Bike
Tyrannosaur

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film’s director, casting director, and its ensemble cast)

Margin Call

UGH Bellflower, maybe the year's most repulsive

So you really do hate anything that excites 20- and 30-something straight male movie fans, huh.

or, as Glenn Kenny called the star-director, misogynist closet cases.

Better just skip Drive imo.

If we still lived in a Roger Corman world, Bellflower would play drive-ins under the title Fuckin' Bitches, Man.

I'll never understand how people watch Bellflower and take the woman-hating at face value.

This was Armond's five for the S&S poll apparently:

Incendies
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Attack The Block
Paul
Film socialisme

Attack The Block tied for twelfth in the overall list

planning to see Incendies and Paul in the next 10 days...

I'll never understand how people watch Bellflower and take the woman-hating at face value.

It's arguably the kind of face value that's a secret to the filmmaker, like Tarantino's racism.

Had no idea Armond was so big on Incendies.

well he doesn't like Georges Melies!

http://cityarts.info/2011/11/25/how-unique-got-ordinary-hugo-is-scorsese%e2%80%99s-fantasy-autobiography/

There's a little truth in:

Scorsese seems to be imitating the pixilated world of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a vision of Paris’s cultural heart that was authentically marvelous in Amelie, City of Forgotten Children and last year’s wondrous, underappreciated Micmacs.

Aside from the implication that Amelie is anything other than excrement souffle.

or that Micmacs was any good at all

authentically marvelous

more confirmation that I loathe adverbs.

Or that "pixilated" is a word choice.

not a fan of Mr Deeds Goes to Town?

To the extent it matters, Melancholia and Hugo were runners up at the NYFCC.

http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/movies/oscar_watch_nyfcc_artist_streep_cgtEJaBqTH0iqr9hhEmzpN

Not The Tree of Life.

Authentically marvelous?

has anyone warmed up to these Russian art movies Silent Souls, My Joy, etc? They're morbid as hell and yet I still can't get into em.

Huh...watched Attack the Block last night and I thought it was ok, but not great or anything.

I agree. I much preferred "Submarine" in terms of film debuts from British comedians

what is the guy who did Submarine known for? I have been putting that one off since the US reviews were "minor league Rushmore."

He's a very mannered comedic actor who's appeared in a couple of fairly well known UK sitcoms (The IT Crowd being the most prominent). It is very Wes Anderson but it's a little bit nastier than he normally is. The shots of a perpetually gloomy Swansea are quite lovely

I think The IT Crowd has run on US cable, but I've never seen it.

Probably blowing off J Edgar screening (they sent a disc) so I can see A Dangerous Method tonight.

It is very Wes Anderson but it's a little bit nastier than he normally is. The shots of a perpetually gloomy Swansea are quite lovely

Submarine reminded me of what the Youth In Revolt movie should have been. I wish they'd been able to have a genuine 80s soundtrack instead of all the Alex Turner stuff. Noah Taylor & Sally Hawkins both superb as well-drawn parents.

Also features a Pink Floyd reference on a custom van, so it rules.

They actually made a pilot for a US version of The IT Crowd with Ayoade playing the same character. It pretty much sank without trace though

I liked the Alex Turner songs too. I think having a load of period pop songs would have been an Andersonism too far

Perhaps. I imagine that--along with budget restrictions--was part of the reasoning. Though it still bugs me that the dad gives the kid his mix tapes from his own youth to listen to and we hear Alex Turner pretending to be Nick Drake/Cat Stevens/James Taylor etc. instead of the real deal.

submarine was the most generic indie movie possible

for something with absolutely no trace of originality in story, concept, or style, it wasn't that bad - the teen actors were good

http://www.change.org/petitions/fox-searchlight-make-margaret-available-to-us-critics-and-other-pertinent-voting-bodies

that'd be nice, but a lost battle

The best kind.

It's arguably the kind of face value that's a secret to the filmmaker, like Tarantino's racism.

Hmm. I think Mike D'Angelo (who I don't often agree with) has the take that most closely aligns with my own:

Glodell clearly knows these guys are pathetic, in my opinion; that a certain amount of genuine adolescent wish-fulfillment creeps in only lends the film a fascinating tension. Journey from dorky sweetness to epic misogynistic self-pity is abrupt and bracing, beautifully aided by the sulfurous color scheme, ultra-shallow focus and grime-caked lens. Woodrow will now turn into Death Proof's Stuntman Mike.

I did not find the visuals anything beyond "cool" in rather familiar ways.

Liked the Croney! No classic, but worked almost all the way for me. Mortensen a surprisingly menacing daddy Freud. Fassbender's best of the 3 big turns this year.

Don't quite understand all the critical potshots at the twitches/ grimaces of Knightley (who has the toughest role). Maybe disturbed masochists don't squeal and bug out precisely that way, but baseball GMs don't fly to other cities to talk trade, either, and that drew no objections in Moneyball.

Yeah I thought she was really strong, and every single person I saw it with in Colorado thinks I'm nuts.

More Mark Harris spec:

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/37585/oscarmetrics-do-george-clooney-leonardo-dicaprio-and-brad-pitt-need-an-oscar

pretty much "nobody" likes J. Edgar, am I wrong?

just dropping into say fuck submarine, carry on. it was fine & funny & not even really insulted by 'minor-league rushmore', & the perfs were good. but yeah the soundtrack was awful & an awful idea, & its stylisms are good ambassadors for what's wrong with so much of that kind of gimmicky contemporary storytelling style, cf beginners, also; it all blunted the emotional affect of seeing any of the people in the film actually interact.

amy taubin <3d j edgar, fwiw - was almost enticed to go see on her rec

see I even thought most of the screwball-comedy aspects of Beginners played reasonably well, including the dog subtitles. It's not going to make my Top 20, but it probably would have in any of the last three lousy years.

what I meant re the Harris thing was DiCaprio ain't winning awards, is he? xp

Beginners is the equivalent of a drone rocket aimed at an American citizen.

^^ have no idea what this mean but agree 100% emotionally

I just can't even go there, the thing that sorta embodied what was wrong with it to me was the 'dramatic montage' scene of them arguing, either breaking up or reconciling, in the bedroom of a house, cut together w/shots of furrowed brows, angular stances, handed-hips, all set to piano music instead of actual dialogue, an emotional cinema born of sam mendes rather than john cassavetes. like that's what the film was meant to be about, & yet how they would function or communicate or miscommunicate in a relationship was so much less important than just the various compositions of them as pairing, propped in different modes and costumes, meaningful glances that i guess we're expected to just tether to our own and extrapolate outwards from.

there was a lot else about it that was awful: the didactic, bold & exclamatory 'THIS MAN IS THE PRESIDENT' kinda thing - like maybe I just misunderstand it & it wasn't meant to be an emotional film, but these just seemed like attractive, contemporarily appealing irrelevancies to me - as well as just the awful laziness of its dressing; the guy is a graphic designer, who doesn't even manage to be a graphic designer but who we're meant to feel for as he rejects the path of terrible conformity in fulfilling a commission as required.

i don't know i was on a plane recently and someone an aisle away was watching this, & seeing it peripherally & silently kinda renewed my bile for it. the parts w/the father were affecting. but even that kinda just felt like autopilot. i rewatched annie hall not so long ago & i feel like they're probably interesting touchstones for each other - there's such a deep dynamic analysis of the couple in AH, in addition to it being a funny, v varied film. beginners just seemed so slack and unambitious, an attractive-people-sad-romance film.

& in the interests of full disclosure i thought the future kind of a small masterpiece, so there's that

re: Beginners, the Plummer/MacGregor stuff is great, the MacGregor/Laurent stuff is spotty.

The Future didn't make me want to kill everyone around me. Small victories.

Haven't seen Beginners but The Future did make me want to kill everyone around me

it was so good
it was about "how we live now" (i know there is baggage to 'we' as white middle class college educated professionals &c&c&c&c&c&c&c but i still think it spoke for a lot of ppl)
it was so well rooted in routines & behaviours & flaws that i just haven't really seen in any other films

I'm with you, schlump. The movie was phony, mawkish, and hysterical (my review, if you're interested)

I don't agree with your Mendes-Cassavetes binary – Cassa made some hysterical, meretricious movies too!

Soto, just imagine that Beginners stars Cary Grant, Charles Coburn and Michele Morgan.

The Future, is that Miranda July?

Yes, she's married to Beginners guy. Oh to be a fly on the wall

http://0.tqn.com/d/movies/1/0/0/L/X/beginners-photo-goran-visnjic-christopher-plummer.jpg

remember reading & loving yr review when i was pedalling this cynicism on ilx, alfred, i enjoyed yr hostility

i guess i'm just lazily using cassavetes as a byword for that kind of confrontational tracking of conflict approach, of following an arc of tension the way we do seeing a woman under the influence. & invoking sam mendes because the guy could make a link wray biopic & score it with meandering piano slow jams. mills just didn't seem interested in anything other than weary or challenged seeming characters, pictured in various moods.

future is July yeah, & if it offers additional encouragement I wasn't crazy about her prev film, though amusing.

Plummer w/ gay Scout neckerchief. I didn't realize that was Goran Whatshisname til the credits -- I liked that the film didn't hate him even though he's kind of a pinhead.

I believe my current top 3 films of the year ran a total of 6 weeks in NYC. (And two of them I first saw before 2011.)

i am not a great listmaker but was paralysed earlier flicking through s&s & remembering that the portuguese nun was 2011, which makes my top 5, more for effort & singularity than for being solid, but which i enjoyed a lot.

six weeks in nyc doesn't seem terrible tbh ...

Will finally get to Incendies this weekend.

never heard of the portuguese nun , which even sounds like it will never open in NYC. Skolimowski's Essential Killing would be my #1 if VOD-only films were eligible.

Alfred, it seemed real obv to me that Beginners was set in LA, I think even before the "I went to Akbar" line. And do you know many men who came out age 50 or later? CP's performance seemed a fair representation of them to me (notice I did not say "real/istic" cuz fuck that).

The premise didn't offend me – it's slinking away from a situation of real dramatic interest by inserting a chickenshit hetero love story.

Plus, Plummer's been playing post-fifty closeted gay men for decades now; he's the least convincing of good hetero actors.

I also think Goran Visnjhvgc was a fair representation of aesthetically appalling gays, who are everywhere.

Mike Wallace is gay??

I'll be totally cool with Certified Copy running the table like Azealia Banks.

you mean in Indiewire / FC?

I'm not at all sure it will beat out the cosmos and flying Chastain.

I'll be fine with that too.

feeling guilty for skipping out of Incendies & essential killing, now, the latter bc i couldn't quite motivate myself to see something i thought was just gonna be a great performance - hadn't really heard anyone speak of it so highly.

portuguese nun is a v ""bressonian"", ie static, solemn film by french-new-yorker eugene green, who made a few other pics i haven't seen & a third of a film that i maybe even recall you mentioning on ilx morbs?, w/farocki & costa, 'correspondences', which section i liked a lot too (it was about email).

i should maybe try to catch our beloved month of august before the end of the year, also

speaking of clergy, Of Gods and Men would make my list.

yes, likely to at least make my Hon Ments. Too "middlebrow" for some people (ie it's about monks).

ah, I'm not real wild about Eugene Green.

I saw To Die Like a Man at NYFF 2010 but really wasn't impressed tho I like the director.

oh damn yeah that also, i did like it a lot (xp re OG&M) - i guess the argument against it/the competition would be that it feels like there have been v 'wide ranging' films of a similar feel this year, but yeah. there's actually a lil reverent spiritual run of pre-holiday screenings at the cinema, here, feat of gods & men (re: which, btw, has anyone seen the guy's other film?), as well as into great silence, which sounds interesting. still to catch mysteries of lisbon & a couple of other things this year, so maybe this will all get more complicated soon. (i wish this our still life was playing locally).

my top five, vaguely, fwiw, in no order is: the portuguese nun, the future, la quattro volte, archipelago & a separation. of gods & men bubbling under, & i also hope to see something like tron 3d to take the feeling of insularity from my top five. into the abyss, the tree of life, some others bubbling under.

No idea where this will show up (low low budget/promotion), but it's the best gay-themed American film I've seen in a long while:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-02/film/in-the-family/

this still leads all documentaries for me:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/petition/5236

you guys liked Weekend?

a lot of the press for it here seems to have been jubilant & appreciative at it not being too distinctly, in content or pitch, a ""gay movie"", but tbh i think it could have gone even further in that direction, that its state-of-the-union wasted discussion of marriage &c was kinda a distraction from what it was achieving just as a portrait. but yeah it was good. maybe a lil tidy.

Artforum lists from John Waters and Ed Halter:

http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=29547

haha, Woody Allen has his biggest hit in years so of course JW snubs him this time.

I did sign the Margaret petition. Eric, did it show up in Mpls?

also I'm sicking of ppl bitching about actors' accents. As long as it's better than Mandy Patinkin's in The Princess Bride, stfu and tell me what you thought about the shit that matters.

9 We Were Here (David Weissman) Half my friends died of AIDS, so this simple and painfully told doc on the disastrous epidemic’s effect on San Francisco is personal. If you don’t sob watching, maybe you should be dead too.

<3 JW

NBR names Hugo best film

Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay: Will Reiser, 50/50

*rubs hands together*

Oh, this is gonna be a fun Oscar year.

ugh, you knew some group would take fucking Hugo up as a "cause."
I'm to see We Need to Talk About Kevin next week.

I think Waters is unique even among Almodovar fans in ranking this one.

I'm really hoping Plummer doesn't die before voters send ballots.

pajama-wearing NBR.

Their dismissal of Moneyball is enough to offset their ongoing Eastwood/Clooney lovefest.

Spotlight Award: Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, X-Men: First Class)

IOW "Best Actor if we didn't have such a hard on for Clooney"

That's a more estimable body of work than Clooney's the last three years (barring Fantastic Mr. Fox).

btw Jane Eyre is quite good.

WIll probably watch Shame first. I think it might appeal to me since everyone who hates it actually enjoys sex.

like a nylon lemon peel

Don't worry. You can always put that detrius where Michael Fassbender's dick ought to be.

NBR actually awarded Finding Neverland in '04, that was a kneeslapper.

(shining from their list is Empire of the Sun in '87)

Also, I'm sure, a better movie in your estimation than Hugo.

Neversawland

other NBR awards:

Best Foreign Language Film: "A Separation"

Best Documentary: "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory"

Special Achievement in Filmmaking: The Harry Potter Franchise -- A Distinguished Translation from Book to Film

you can almost see the souvenir plastic cup in honoring a "franchise"

Huh, I didn't realize until today that Steve McQueen isn't white.

not this one, no

lol

my annual single post to these threads: the john waters list is kind of whatever this year (surprised 'kevin's not on it), and i really wish it were easier to see all the stuff on halter's list (i got to see some of luther price's earlier super 8 films a few weeks ago, they're fantastic).

anyway, carry on

McQueen is getting 20x the attention for his crap second film than his brilliant debut.

Eric, Ke1th and D4n seem to somewhat not hate Shame, so I'm not sure that pattern holds up...

i have to know who you are bc your dn choice brings so much joy, silvana

donna rouge, la donna più bella d'italia

ah, awes, hello &c
yeah year end lists are always fascinating & frustrating in equal measure, triply so if you live outsida new york

this thread always makes me feel better abt my own top ten list

McQueen is getting 20x the attention for his crap second film than his brilliant debut.

Do you find this surprising in some way?

I was thinking 10x

Just watched Tinker Tailor. Quite enjoyable, I thought. (Having not yet seen the '79 version.)

Just watched Beginners and then read Lord Soto's review which I thought was absolutely spot on. I laughed a lot at the bit about Goran Visnjic's character

Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Best Original Screenplay: Will Reiser, 50/50
Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Breakthrough Performance: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Debut Director: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Best Ensemble: The Help

UGH, I wouldn't rank a single one of these. (Well, maybe Chandor did an okay job directing, but the script was a big 'feh')

Have you seen Dragon Tattoo remy?

Yah, unfortu. P.S. I haven't seen We Need to Talk About Kevin, I just can't stand Tilda Swinton in anything people have ever, ever given as an example of a good performance.

Not good then? Didn't have high hopes tbh

I don't like the conceit, the book, or the Swedish movie, so I don't really know why I'd like the remake. But I'm perpetually unimpressed with David Fincher's technical gimcrackery; I kind of feel he missed his calling as film school survey f/x course professor.

I've never had any interest in the DragTat thing, so if they don't make it easy for me to see it I won't be troubled.

Woody Harrelson is fine as usual in Rampart, but there's not much to the film besides the not-so-tragic James Ellroy tale of the fall of a dirty LA cop in the late '90s.

also saw a beautifully lensed doc-neorealist mix of Thai sharecroppers, Agrarian Utopia.

I just can't stand Tilda Swinton in anything people have ever, ever given as an example of a good performance.

I'm pretty unreasonable on Tilda too. I can't remember seeing anything she's been in and not thinking she's given the best performance ever.

i guess margaret is out in the uk? peter bradshaw gave it 5 stars~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/dec/01/margaret-film-review

didn't like the Italian family thing last year, but she did save Julia from being unredeemably bad. Since I like Lynne Ramsay's miserabilism I have some hopes for Kevin. xp

It looks like Jaime's petition worked or had good timing, bcz Margaret is going to get some critic screenings.

if I haven't mentioned yet, Vanessa R, Brian Cox, and R Fiennes are all stellar in Coriolanus (roughly in that order).

margaret on one (1) screen in the uk fwiw
i would be psyched to catch it on dvd if i didn't suspect it may only be released on import laserdisc

wld think itd be ripe for ondemand, etc like Melancholia but who knows

also i didnt know scott rudin was a producer of it. sorta shocked he cant get more distro but mb he doesnt want to

there's a piece in the new sight & sound on its spiteful distro setup, w/bizarre details about contractual limits to running time, etc (w/the edit coming in twelve seconds under the 2 1/2 hr ceiling); does just seem like an act of reprimand to release it so unenthusiastically. i hope the dvd w/the three hour cut comes out, anyway

If I were a writer-director I'd create roles just for Vanessa R.

if it's true that Scorsese and Schoonmaker edited this cut of Margaret, it's Marty's best work in years.

How was Coriolanus? I'm waiting on a screener...

Since I like Lynne Ramsay's miserabilism I have some hopes for Kevin.

I've enjoyed all of her work too, although Morvern Callar a little less than the rest. MC was a little trés dreamy and elliptical for me, and I felt like it suffered a little from story-lack. But the source material for Kevin is pretty dense and phenom, and if it doesn't fall to sentimentality I think it will be a fantastic – difficult - film.

I went in not knowing it was gonna be contemporary, shot partly in the Balkans with Hurt Locker-style shooting (same DP), lotsa cable news tableaus etc, and was pleasantly surprised. Can't think of a Shakespeare film I've liked since the Hawke/Almereyda Hamlet.

xp

Have you guys read the play? That charater's so difficult to render.

I haven't, and I bet cutting half the text was a good move here. RF has played it on stage before.

I was actually planning on reading it this weekend prior to watching – a co-teacher recommended it as "Hamlet, but for grown-ups."

Sounds minor.

re: Scorsese and Margaret, according to Lonergan, he worked on a "fuller" cut that no one's seen yet.

I don't really like the tragedies that much, except for Othello.

I'm not sure this comes across as a tragedy! Caius Martius is such a prick. There should be more parts for 75ish actresses in butch military drag, tho.

Eric, how can something with world-class classical acting be considered mino... oh, you.

I didn't recognize Vincent Cassel in his meaty, brief A Dangerous Methodrole after being left with the caricature he drew in the ballet potboiler last winter.

Morbs, you're getting me awfully psyched to see the Cronenberg -- too bad the nearest it will come to this location is at least a 2 hour drive, and possibly more like 3 1/2.

I think it helps w/ ADM to believe psychoanalysis is essentially ridiculous, as I do in my Irish Catholic heart.

RF has played it on stage before.

Apparently the first acting job Gerard Butler ever had was in the ensemble of Coriolanus. History!

much barely sublimated man-pounding btwn Fiennes and Butler here

Detrius '12 all wrapped up.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/12/02/tim-erics-billion-dollar-movie-red-band-trailer

yesssss.

Since I didn't crack a smile, I suppose those guys are big on cable.

Typical NYC award screening attendee on line for The Artist: 80-year-old woman who asks "Is this the one with Meryl Streep?"

Huh, seems I'm the one who likes comedy now.

the unfunny post-1977 kind yah

What does 1977 represent? Annie Hall?

Kentucky Fried Movie?

Star Wars

Annie Hall, Let's Get Small, an extra year of Bicentennial Nigger, the deaths of Chaplin and Groucho

...the last time Jimmy Carter boasted high approval ratings

So it's even then. You don't like unfunny post 1977 comedies, and I don't like unfunny pre-1950 comedies.

LOL, meant to type 1960

What does 1960 represent -- Nixon/Kennedy debate?

The year comedy became funny.

What does 1960 represent -- Nixon/Kennedy debate?

It was three years before It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

There are no unfunny pre-1950 comedies btw.

(also in '77: Mary Tyler Moore Show ends, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett enter their last seasons, SNL permanently shakes off most of the edge it initially had)

The first half-hour of War Horse is dreadfully familiar, some great images here and there after that. I would say it's SS's least interesting film since Jurassic Park 2 if I'd seen that one.

There was a Q&A after with Janusz Kaminski, Michael Kahn, Kathleen Kennedy. At an INDUSTRY GUILD screening in NYC, some woman rose and asked if John Williams was the only guy considered to do the score. It's true, nobody knows anything in showbiz.

(btw she was clearly unaware that JW has done all his scores for 40 years)

Take Shelter was quite good, except for the usual indie film gripe, i.e. the writer-director can't end the film properly.

Chastain's oppressed normality deserves as much props as Shannon and his flop sweat.

house of pleasures, as its being called in the US i guess, is on amazon instant to stream for $7/$8 (HD)

i liked it, its def a bit blunt when it gets around to making its points but i enjoyed the languid time it took getting there

it is a big Sicinski fave, I will see it this week at the IFC Center.

I found the new incarnation of Tinker Tailor a bore, sorry spyfans.

it's just v efficient or i guess slightly more generous deft, i think. surprised to see it in top ten lists

Wow, I actually thought a movie was better than Swinton's performance therein, for once.

Naturally, it's a horror movie.

I found the new incarnation of Tinker Tailor a bore,

The original is too.

^nuts

I had forgotten all the gay/bi stuff in it, unless they left some of it out on TV in deference to Sir Alec.

had you read the book, eric? hated WNTTAK but can't quiet eliminate the possibility that it might not have been so heavy handed & ott had one not known where it was going, as i did

International Documentary Association gives best feature to Nostalgia for the Light (which I found visually ravishing but not as transcendent as others did):

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/ida-awards-and-more-documentary-news

Have you seen Incendies yet, Morbs? The plot calisthenics strained the credulity of the final twist, but the movie's quite good.

I have a library copy that will be watched sometime in the next 167 hours. EH, you're welcome to my spot on this next year.

I won't even be reviewing movies next year, god willing.

pish tosh i say

has anyone warmed up to these Russian art movies Silent Souls, My Joy, etc? They're morbid as hell and yet I still can't get into em.

― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, November 30, 2011 5:47 PM (5 days ago)

Silent Souls is competing with Midnight in Paris for worst of the year

i'm so sad i could knock over a tree with my bare hands

a woman is like a river to drown your sorrows in, excuse me while i have sex with this woman

shot of bird in cage

oh man, if i'd finished another earth, that would end up in the worst-of competition, too.

The Way is at the top of my "Jack and Jill, Zookeeper and the like don't even count" worst-of list.

Cahiers (the no-US-release Skolimowski), Edelstein (Ruiz, Spielberg x 2 and... Beginners!), more:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/daily-briefing-cahiers-du-cinemas-top-ten-of-2011

Lars von Trier has done a masterly job of evoking onscreen his nihilistic worldview. But how can you champion a film that is, in the end, so loathsomely anti-life-­affirming?

Someone hit this man with a dead squirrel.

lol yeah i saw
i can get behind most of bradshaw's, however; the appreciation for kevin mystifies me but even the almodovar i can get behind

cahiers gets point for cover design. will anyone else (here) rep for the new moretti? having trouble working up the enthusiasm to go see
xp
xp lol, melancholia was so vague

Just watched The Future on Amazon-on-demand. I was expecting more of a comedy. It starts out as an amiable quirk-fest a la Me and You and Everyone We Know, but ends in a much darker place.

Brit Indies -- Tyrannosaur, Fassbender, Ramsay, Redgrave:

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/michael-fassbender-and-vanessa-redgrave-win-at-british-independent-film-awards_1270200

btw Tyrannosaur ran one week (I think?) at one theater in NY, and I missed it; the last 4 days were 11a.m. shows only. British miserabilism not traveling well these days.

Not miserable enough?

distrib didn't realize NY is the Miserabilism Capital of the US.

really afraid of this one where Glenn Close looks like old Stan Laurel.

Trailer for that looked pretty hokey.

also saw the French fin de siecle brothel wallow House of Pleasures last night, which has something for everybody: a panther, appalling knife wounds, "Nights in White Satin."

sounds like Julia then.

no, i rather liked it.

everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear rend

Meanwhile Denby pisses off Scott Rubin.

just gonna use this for an all-purpose film thread for a sec; finally caught, it having been on the shelf for forever, maren ade's everyone else, which i remember hearing such good things about but never catching over the last couple of years of EOY lists. so good. & not really because it was appealing at all, i am a sucker for appealing, but just earned excellence. brutal. she made a student film as well that's apparently v interesting, also.

i can't quite get interested in denby-gate, sorta inside baseball to me

I don't care about it (DDenby, that is)

tonight I saw Pina, or Modern Dance Is Rubbish

3D sleepies

I'm more interested in Denby-gate than "everyone is all of the sudden interested in Margaret"-gate.

ppl were interested when/if it played in their city too.

And these were all, I'm sure, people who were huuuuuuge fans of You Can Count On Me, too. Right.

i loved the 'action' bits of pina, the talking heads not so much

is there a problem with people's interest being piqued by hearing about a film they might like? i don't know if anyone has to swear allegiance to YCCOM first (i found that film kinda limited by its trappings but ymmv). margaret is interesting, it's a film w/an unusually visible cast with zero distro if nothing else.

people got to see YCCOM is the point, and yeah, Margaret has two of the best American performances of the year by Paquin and Berlin.

Lonergan's ambition here is far greater here than in the other film, even if his reach exceeds grasp etc.

G Kenny on A Brighter Summer Day, Margaret and 'activist' criticism:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/12/a-brighter-summer-day-margaret-and-film-criticism-as-activism-andor-service-journalism.html

http://whatdoyouthinkmaxvonsydow.tumblr.com/

Again, I don't get it.

beyond to do with his mute role in Incredibly Hanks Unbearably Bullock?

I like this about the Yang film:

In 2006, when I was at Premiere, I put Jean-Pierre Melville's 1968-made Army of Shadows on my year's best list—at the TOP of my year's best list, in fact!—and I quoted Robert Christgau's review of Dylan/The Band's The Basement Tapes, which had been recorded in the latter '60s but not released officially until the mid-'70s: "We needn't bow our heads in shame because this is the best album of 1975. It would have been the best album of 1967 too." That went for Army at the time, I thought, and it goes maybe even double for Yang's film. Still. In 2006 Army of Shadows got a relatively high-profile arthouse rerelease courtesy of Rialto Films. It was highly publicized; an event more or less. A place on a critic's ten best list that motivated new viewers into seeking the film out would not necessarily led to something like a dead end.

I'd say the same about The Killer of Sheep.

I'm not crazy about doing it -- I live in NY so I can achieve cultural superiority by seeing ABSD and Killer of Sheep in the '90s -- but oh well.

Full S&S poll:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/films-of-2011-full.php

The part most people probably care/don't care about:

Incendies
Denis Villeneuve, Canada/France
A moving post-9/11 vision of our utter connectivity that simultaneously recalls Greek tragedy and the epic-intimate miracles of 70s American films.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rupert Wyatt, USA/Hungary/UK/Australia/Canada
A spirited re-think of the 1968 original captures the vengeful madness of our times – confirmation that movies can be pop and still be art.

Attack the Block
Joe Cornish, UK/France
A ghetto action flick yet amazingly prescient about London’s long hot summer and perfect antidote to what Morrissey called “the Royal Dredding”.

Paul
Greg Mottola, USA/UK/Japan
Nick Frost and Simon Pegg come to America and find more fun and depth than ever before in our pop culture/sci-fi heritage.

Film Socialisme
Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/France
Visionary as ever, titled to note the passing of outmoded technology and philosophy.

Reflections:
You’d expect a major publishing boom about a film critic to be a heartening occasion. Think again: this year’s biography of Pauline Kael and a high-toned collection of her writing has, instead, revealed the sorry, fractious state of contemporary film commentary as critics bash her and her legacy. Yes, the Age of Movies has passed, as the title of Godard’s Film Socialisme slyly jests.
Kael’s way of taking movies personally as a part of a humanist tradition is no longer apparent in the current stumbling into nihilism that pervades the festival circuit and passes for contemporary film culture. Movies that sustain humane values are ignored for political fads and negativity. When Cannes crowned Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, it was apparent that aesthetics judgment is over, too. It’s more difficult than ever to defend a personal view of cinema, as Godard surely knows. That’s why Kael’s bio has a Once Upon a Time aspect.

Did anyone here like Incendies? cos I watched it last night and i thought it was kind of terrible? Like it was obviously really well made but in the service of a story so ridiculous and over-wrought that it actually made me angry.

ignore that second question mark

I saw it this weekend too and posted a mixed response.

ok I recognized that "part"

might squeeze in Paul before Sunday, since at least it's only Rogen's voice

I refuse to believe Paul is anything but terrible

^this

it wd be my choice for a stab at ersatz Spielberg over Super 8

also, there's really nothing like getting multiple 3-to-5-hour films in the mail the week before listmaking.

Had no idea Sch3nk3r was in the S&S poll!

it wd be my choice for a stab at ersatz Spielberg over Super 8

Why not just put War Horse in that spot?

bcz I've seen it, smartypants

The woman sitting next to me was cowering and shrieking during the horse's big action scene.

"action" scene

the horse's big action scene.

what is not to love about this, really def gonna catch this film now

The woman sitting next to me was cowering and shrieking during the horse's big action scene.

Dutch porn?

no, barbed wire.

"action" scene

Yeah, it is, let me know if you've seen a better one this year.

The hero horse's name is Joey, and Janusz Kaminski griped at the Q&A "We had 13 Joeys and 12 grips."

but no, this is PG13, no hung-horsing

also the first half hour is, to use a Kael phrase, "dreadfully familiar."

re: better action scenes, gimme any of the literal cliffhangers in the UK thriller A Lonely Place to Die anytime.

but then I found the whole "kiddie-friendly war adventure" vibe of War Horse pretty much revolting so ymmv

how did u feel about Quentin T's "hipster-friendly war adventure"?

better!

well, we have slightly different revulsions.

Travers' Top 10

omfg:

How dare Terrence Malick put the lives of a 1950s Texas family, led by Brad Pitt, on par with the creation of the universe? Because his one-of-a-kind film strives even when it falls short.

How dare Terrence Malick put the lives of a 1950s Texas family, led by Brad Pitt, on par with the creation of the universe?

Because I'm hungry and am about to eat a banana.

most striving ever in a Malick film

list-queen link for the duration:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/awards-and-lists-2011-index

Lot of true-blue detritus showing up in people's top 10s this year. Crix feeling comfortable with the action this year -- Fast Five, Source Code, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

I liked both Source Code and Apes, and neither is close to my top 20 now; fallout from the bounty of foreign/doc stuff that ran in NY this year.

Apes is probably gonna manage my as-of-December-31st top 10.

I watch The Help tonight to see if it's as racist/stupid as our colleagues claim.

"action" scene

Yeah, it is, let me know if you've seen a better one this year.

I was joking along the same lines as ALS there, as I only just now caught it. (It's good, though a lot more ... um, "even" than I've come to expect from Spielberg movies as of late. People probably won't be arguing much over this one.)

I gotcha. Frankly, the ordinariness of the plot bummed me out.

Just hit Eject after 55 minutes of We Need to Talk About Kevin. Egad.

I'm as perplexed by the massive backlash against that one as Mike D'A is over the backlash to (the truly awful) Martha Marcy Mae Marlene.

In other words, isn't the narrator supposed to be somewhat unreliable? The flashbacks all seem, to me, compromised by the fact that they're emanating from a self-blaming person committing active self-harm.

Not that I'd expect people who aren't frequently on the razor's edge of being in that psychological state to understand.

I was in the same boat as most of the backlashers on Kevin until I considered the use of perspective, esp. taking the last scene into consideration. I got to ask Ramsay and Swinton about that at a Q&A and they confirmed yr reading. (I just got my screener for that one and I'm eager for a rewatch.)

I think the key to the whole movie is noting not just the acceptance of damnation that Tilda shows to those Jehovah's Witnesses, but the fact that's she's downright gleeful about it.

I just thought Ed G was otm on the poisonous Alan Ballism of it all. Yechhhh.

Just hit Eject after 55 minutes of We Need to Talk About Kevin. Egad.

word, this was one of those things that i kinda just wanted to leave after five minutes in the cinema.

cool that you got to catch tilda at the cinema, simon, she always comes across v interesting to me. i love that essay she wrote to her child about film.

just as an indulgent aside, regarding that essay, i think i read it in fairly close proximity to catching kevin & felt it served in part as a weirdly apposite noose or lens through which to view/indict it:

How I long for documentary, in resistance - for unpowdered faces and unmeasured tread - for the emotionally undemonstrative family scene - for a struggle for unreachable words, for the open or even unhappy ending? The occasionally dropped shoe off the heel, the jiggle to readjust; the occasionally cracked egg; the mess of milk spilt. The concept of a loss for words. For a State of Cinema - as the state of grace that it affords us - in which nothing much happens but all things are possible, even inarticulacy, even failure, even mess...

how thunderingly linear & pointed & loaded & directional kevin was frustrated me & sorta limited the occasions on which one might have had some kind of emotional link w/the characters, to me. like even the scene in which the kid seemed to display some sort of momentary contrary-to-plot complicated response to TS was inevitably flipped to further contribute to its movement.

I don't care that the reason for the one-dimensional sledgehammer approach was that we were in Mom's head! I WANTED OUT.

Nonfans really beating Kevin with the MJ stick, as in Gleiberman's "Niranda July directs The Omen."

with that, Brody's #1 is The Future:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2011/12/richard-brody-the-best-in-film.html

Oy, now there's a movie I never want to see again.

I thought "it didn't make me want to kill everyone" was a thumbs-up!

No, clearly I like movies that advocate killing everyone.

Got a We Were There screener. Let's see if John Waters thinks maybe I should be dead.

jeez i just saw shame, i can't believe mcqueen made such a bad film! awful. it reminded me of home alone in its depth.,

the tagline should have been HEY IT'S THE NINETIES

I hope they used SWV in all the sex scenes.

sexy wintergreen vaseline?

Man, I am seeing a bunch of mediocrities that aren't coming close to my top 20. The Artist might be entertaining if you've never seen a silent film (IT'S NOT ONE, btw) or Vertigo.

god, 'the future' was so awful and pointless

Ides of March - kind of nothing
Sleeping Beauty - too obscure
Weekend - pretty amazing
Putty Hill - really liked it a lot more than I thought I would
Attack the Block - good fun!

oh yeah, and

The Future - fuck off with this shit

Pretty much on the same page with all 5 that I saw from those 6. (Unless you didn't mean the Catherine Breillat Sleeping Beauty.)

encouraged by this wave of hate for The Future

new Almodovar is minor and kinda fucked up

btw you can find a renegade ILXor in the S&S poll if you look closely.

and now I sit down to Contagion.

(Unless you didn't mean the Catherine Breillat Sleeping Beauty.

I meant the Julia Leigh one, though I guess my opinion of Breillat's would be about the same - maybe less so.

ugh I didn't like the Almodovar, and it seems like people are really overstating how fucked up it is. (this might be a by-product of covering a big genre-film fest every year.) Struck me as really plodding and weirdly boring considering the subject matter.

but then I didn't think too much of the last two either, so, as ever, ymmv.

i thought broken embraces was total trash but liked this one pretty well. because i was engrossed, maybe, & it felt like as good a delivery on his premise as we were promised.

I've never liked Banderas much when he has to kinda act.

geez Contagion was pretty good! cept for the parts that reminded me of Traffic's weak points, like some of what Jude Law was doing.

yeah I liked Contagion. I like that it was basically an elaborate reearch piece disguised as a blockbuster. also, y'know, Paltrow brain.

*research

Bleh -- the new Almodovar.

well, I'm done. For now.

Best thing I saw all day was the 30-minute climactic samurai battle in Miike's 13 Assassins, the busiest, bloodiest, muddiest ever. The rest of it is professional classicism.

The director's cut (2.5 hrs) of that was a fest highlight earlier this year.

Think I'm going to blow off the pile in favor of the first episode of Fanny & Alexander.

13 Assassins was good.

In my one poll I might vote for Brad Pitt and Michelle Williams... for other movies.

http://www.bostonfilmcritics.org/content/current-winners

a music award for The Artist! Cannibalizing Vertigo pays off.

bravura best actress pick from LA critics: Yun Jung-hee, Poetry

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/12/lafca_is_delibe.php

YES!

Poetry is at the moment my film of the year.

ugh on Christopher Plummer, who looks like a shoe-in for a nod now.

racist/xenophobic assholes predictably complaining

xp

The Artist is the ugh of the year; I'd even rather see Hugo win.

I'd rather see The Tree of Life win.

LAFCA have been great at championing lost causes in best actress the last few years.

Yolande Moreau, Séraphine
Kim Hye-ja, Mother
Yoon Jeong-hee, Poetry

Sorry, I meant to say they've been great at championing the best actresses in best actress the last few years.

same thing.

The Sl4nt list is a good one! Coming in a few days...

SF Critics a mix of yay (Certified Copy, Redgrave) dull (Oldman), and ugh (Swinton):

http://sffcc.org/main/

I think now that this weekend's done, we're definitely past the point where "open race" can be used anymore.

Think we reached this point a little later than last year, tho.

if you're assigning Oscar Inevitability to The Artist, well, this is not the Oscar thread.

OK, you can have this thread.

are we going to have to do Sandbox Oscars?

That I've seen better silent-film pastiches than The Artist on network variety shows.... it just.... a different nadir for the AAs.

we're definitely past the point where "open race" can be used anymore.

But all we know is who gets nominated, not who's a lock to win.

also, critics groups not as significant as industry guilds on such things.

I'll keep Oscar chatter to a minimum, but these people look like mortal locks for noms: Clooney, Redgrave, Brooks, Streep, Dujardin, maybe Shannon and Fassbender.

also, I'm not sure how the Best Picture race is still not somewhat "open" when The Descendants won the LA crix award.

AFI top 10 is about what you'd expect:

http://afi-afifest.tumblr.com/post/14082575426

Meh, Oscar's never really embraced Payne up to this point. Unless Hugo can turn it around at the BO, it's The Artist's to lose.

I agree, tho, that we haven't really settled on any acting win frontrunners outside of Christopher Plummer.

I'll keep Oscar chatter to a minimum, but these people look like mortal locks for noms: Clooney, Redgrave, Brooks, Streep, Dujardin, maybe Shannon and Fassbender.

In terms of locks, I'd go with Clooney, Pitt, and Dujardin for actor, Davis and Streep for actress, and Plummer and Brooks for supporting actor. Supporting actress has a few probables but no locks yet, IMO.

Yup -- forgot to include Pitt and Davis, nomination frontrunners for months.

I think Spencer is basically a lock by this point. Redgrave very probable too. That said, they ought to just donate some of those slots to the best actor drag this year; it's too crowded for both Clooney and Pitt to hog up 2/5.

And as for the main contest, I bet Indiana : Oscars :: Missouri : Presidential Elections

Winner: The Artist
Runner-up: The Descendants

Who's Spencer?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0818055/

oh right! In that hateful movie.

That movie had only love in its heart you monster.

It can put that award where its heart should be.

Why do all those maids look like sad little rabbits?

*unhappy* rabbits, oops

Eric, you sly puss.

One good burp and you'll be rid of that Miss Plummer.

should not have expressed fear that this would turn into the Fucking Oscar Thread.

I don't get why you're so opposed to talking about Oscars in this thread. It's all detrius, no?

no. The Oscars are the glittery shart which follows lists/honors -- admittedly fewer of them every year -- that are done by some people with half a clue.

I guess my point is it's the only one ppl handicap months in advance, and it's the Worst. (except maybe the Golden Globs)

Critics awards are pretty idiotic too, for the record.

Critics awards are pretty idiotic too, for the record.

Fixed. (I kid, I kid)

Anyhoo, lets segue into something completely the same:

Sight and Sound Ballot

Armond White
New York Post, USA

Incendies
Denis Villeneuve, Canada/France

A moving post-9/11 vision of our utter connectivity that simultaneously recalls Greek tragedy and the epic-intimate miracles of 70s American films.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rupert Wyatt, USA/Hungary/UK/Australia/Canada

A spirited re-think of the 1968 original captures the vengeful madness of our times – confirmation that movies can be pop and still be art.

Attack the Block
Joe Cornish, UK/France

A ghetto action flick yet amazingly prescient about London’s long hot summer and perfect antidote to what Morrissey called “the Royal Dredding”.

Paul
Greg Mottola, USA/UK/Japan

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg come to America and find more fun and depth than ever before in our pop culture/sci-fi heritage.

Film Socialisme
Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/France

Visionary as ever, titled to note the passing of outmoded technology and philosophy.

Reflections:
You’d expect a major publishing boom about a film critic to be a heartening occasion. Think again: this year’s biography of Pauline Kael and a high-toned collection of her writing has, instead, revealed the sorry, fractious state of contemporary film commentary as critics bash her and her legacy. Yes, the Age of Movies has passed, as the title of Godard’s Film Socialisme slyly jests.

Kael’s way of taking movies personally as a part of a humanist tradition is no longer apparent in the current stumbling into nihilism that pervades the festival circuit and passes for contemporary film culture. Movies that sustain humane values are ignored for political fads and negativity. When Cannes crowned Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, it was apparent that aesthetics judgment is over, too. It’s more difficult than ever to defend a personal view of cinema, as Godard surely knows. That’s why Kael’s bio has a Once Upon a Time aspect.

posted last week

I see now, but the comments weren't.

What the hell is he on about? I'm sure Rex Reed has a Personal View of Cinema.

A spirited re-think of the 1968 original captures the vengeful madness of our times

do you WANT a latter-day prophet inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times?

Yeah, I think I'd like to be an angry prophet inveighing against the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end.

let me show you a picture of my Pride and Joy

Camaraderie once again successfully avoided.

http://uashome.alaska.edu/~dfgriffin/website/KingofComedy.jpg

Don't cry. Just score it as an incomplete forward pass.

you can always put your failed camaraderie where your heart should be.

Our unspoken rule, Morbs, is never use the same line twice.

Next to a tenor, people who quote All About Eve are the touchiest thing in show business.

Inside a tenor, it's too dark to touch.

If the BFCA is any indication, the supporting acting awards are still pretty kinda sorta open, but maybe not as much as I'd hoped...

Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, "My Week with Marilyn"
Albert Brooks, "Drive"
Nick Nolte, "Warrior"
Patton Oswalt, "Young Adult"
Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"
Andy Serkis, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain, "The Help"
Melissa McCarthy, "Bridesmaids"
Carey Mulligan, "Shame"
Octavia Spencer, "The Help"
Shailene Woodley, "The Descendants"

Grady Hendrix recommends 10 unseen films (well, I saw Kaboom, and it wasn't much). Jackie Chan made a good one??

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2011/12/ten_movies_you_didn_t_see_in_2011_but_should_have.html

Stake Land is the only one I saw. Worth a look for the denizens of "let's all shit our pants to something new."

Yeah, Kaboom was kind of a big nothing. Araki should have called it a day after Mysterious Skin

or do adaptations.

I've already repped for A Lonely Place to Die, but Super boasts a hysterical Ellen Page (easily the most notable thing in the movie) and Stake Land has a few nice moments.

Meanwhile, these are all opening about 90 seconds from my house this Friday:

Tuesday, After Christmas
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
The Eye of the Storm

Anyone seen any of 'em?

yes, Tuesday is primo

How's Le Quattro Volte?

Scott and Dargis' lists are out.

Golden Globes:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/golden-globes-nominations-the-artist-bridesmaids-my-week-with-marilyn-hugo-the-descendants

Woody gets a shot in the arm, our tastes get shot in the head.

Clooney, Pitt, Davis, Streep, Brooks, Spencer, Chastain reaffirm their nomination frontrunner status.

I don't know that any of Woody's nominations were unexpected. The real shot in the arm goes to The Ides of March.

The Tree of Life was shut out, but that doesn't surprise me from the GGs, and I don't think it necessarily affects its Oscar chances. I do start to worry for Gary Oldman, Patton Oswalt, Ben Kingsley, and Vanessa Redgrave -- each of whom failed to receive either a SAG or GG nom.

Extremely Loud seems like it's crashing before takeoff, but I imagine the momentum could change once the film is actually released.

reaffirm their nomination frontrunner status.

Frontrunner FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?

I rrrreally prefer to put the Slant list on regular detrius, not sandbox. So I think stet has about 3 hours.

Don't be coy, you sly puss.

I'm not coy; I'd rather talk about Poetry than Oscarshit.

btw Extremely Loud poster looks like Home Alone IV: My Dad Died in 9/11.

The Ides of March love ends with the Globes. If Gosling's getting in at all (and he's not), it'll be for Drive.

still think he should ride the sabermetrics wave and do The Bill James Story next

I haven't seem all of those GG honorees, thank God, but I think my favorite is Viggo as Freud.

Love how not nominating something that's only got huge amounts of pre-release publicity going for it constitutes "snubbing." It's entitled, just like Obama is to liberals' votes.

The Ides of March love ends with the Globes.

Yeah, on reflection, that's probably true.

OK, let me get in on the Osc*r blogging: Eric, did you ever get to A Serbian Tale?

OK, I surrender.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/feature/the-25-best-films-of-2011/295

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2011/12/slant-magazines-top-25-films-of-2011/

Worthwhile list except for the inclusion of Beginners.

Glad to see Of Gods and Men made the cut (good blurb, Morbs).

Frankly, I could've put my top 4 in any order, but decided to go with the one that was most imposing, and had 99% of its verbiage untranslated. (I wonder if the DVD will have full subtitles?)

Most of the staff 25 that I didn't pick would've been in my #21-30 too.

I found Certified Copy deeply irritating

I think that's partly intentional, and I wouldn't argue too violently either way. And I'm glad The Tree of Life is on there even if I was one of 2 holdouts.

Brighter Summer Day is on my list too – saw it for the first time that wasn't on a grainy VHS and respect/love it so, so much more.

I saw it less than 3 weeks ago, but zipped through it on Google Video the other night as a refresher. (not recommended for a first viewing)

props, slant, for your #1 (mine also) and for listing el sicario

the post office did not deliver El Sicario to me in time.

re the GGs, kinda shocked at Foster's one-note Carnage role. Michael Sicinski described her character accurately as "a fascist Amy Goodman."

My beloved H0u$+0n Film Critics Society sent this out today (ceremony in January)

2011 Best Picture - The Descendants
2011 Best Director - Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
2011 Best Actor - Michael Fassbender, Shame
2011 Best Actress - Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
2011 Best Supporting Actor - Albert Brooks, Drive
2011 Best Supporting Actress - Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
2011 Best Screenplay - Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants
2011 Best Animated Film - Rango
2011 Best Cinematography - Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life
2011 Best Documentary - Project Nim
2011 Best Foreign Film - I Saw The Devil
2011 Best Original Score - Ludovic Bource, The Artist
2011 Best Original Song - "Life’s A Happy Song" from
The Muppets, music & lyrics by Bret McKenzie
2011 Technical Achievement – Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2011 Worst Film of the Year – Your Highness

2011 Best Actor - Michael Fassbender, Shame

congrats on looking passive & moody & then at one point emotional

There were flashes of his, ahem, gifts.... the restaurant date w/ the coworker and listening to sis murder 'nyny'.

but it's hard to top that pair as worst films for a best actor/actress. ever. by anyone.

so he's basically in a 110-minute Romanek video

also, I'm starting to hate The Descendants almost as much as Alfred & Armond do.

I didn't get The Descendants love at all. What did I miss?

Take Shelter was pretty A+ though.

B/B+

I recommend the Sl4nt comments for our editor's response to the gadfly who wants us to champion films that have never played in the US.

TS would've drifted into A territory if it weren't for the disastrous (har har) ending.

I wasn't really grading it an A+ but yeah, I see what you mean. The ending didn't bother me though.

Ebert's top 20:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/12/the_best_films_of_2011.html

i feel bad for criticising TS as being heavy handed, given that the signposting (why this job's timely provision of comprehensive insurance coverage is just what I need!) is part of what made it tense, but it was a lil straightforward i thought. & yeah, freewheeling at the end, it coulda/should stopped (vaguely-)ambiguously in the shelter at the end.

There were flashes of his, ahem, gifts.... the restaurant date w/ the coworker and listening to sis murder 'nyny'.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 16 December 2011 01:32 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

ehh maybe. the part of the story following the restaurant scene exemplified so much of what i disliked about it in general - the utterly vapid (but not intentionally, knowingly vapid, afaict) characterisation, with them talking about the 60s/time travel; the preceding actually-a-sincere-'montage-scene' montage scene, in which he THROWS OUT ALL HIS PORN to be a BETTER MAN. i thought CM was v good throughout, too much of MF was just him seeming brooding, and it was hard to read his 'inemote grief face' as anything too complex with mcqueen's weird moralistic perspective attached.

moralistic indeed. empty, compulsive sex so much more fun, at least in my exp