There will be no sandbox Detrius 2011 thread.

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