There will be no sandbox Detrius 2011 thread.

we saw it for jew christmas, and my mom who is a decades-long veg/animal rights freak (who would possibly disown me if she ever learned i eat meat) was seriously traumatized for at least an hour afterward. she said "i didn't care about the fucking horse, it was everything else." a movie about WW1 shouldn't seek to inspire anything less than that sentiment.

I'm irritated when ppl get weepy about a fucking horse when there are scores of human corpses onscreen

YES, this. I keep saying this to people and they think it's strange.

im not sure they're mutually exclusive. besides, though i haven't seen this, the whole point of an animal protagonist is to basically elicit the pathetic fallacy. it's like a stand in human, who can feel pain and fear and not have any larger understanding as to why. it's certainly a perfect representation of what happened to people in world war 1.

Excepting that I bet most people knew "why."

sure, though there are varying levels of "why" i guess. anyway, i'll shut up until i see it.

the whole point of an animal protagonist is to basically elicit the pathetic fallacy. it's like a stand in human

yes -- but it didn't work here.

Still better than pretty much everything else that's gonna get a BP nod.

not convinced that it will or that The Tree of Life won't.

just watched My Snooze with Marilyn. Estimated % of its viewers who will ever see The Prince and the Showgirl?

hey Branagh, yer way more lumpyfaced than Olivier.

Branaugh was the only thing that got me through that movie. Aside from the gofer's pillowy lips.

AMPAS likes war movies (e.g. the only Malick movie to get a BP nod so far).

wd pay to see Branagh-as-Larry gay movie, but who wd play Danny Kaye?

Larry the Cable Guy

Branagh was awful.

Estimated % of its viewers who will ever see The Prince and the Showgirl?

Bless them!

The Prince and the Showgirl is as tin-eared as this thing, at least.

I guess there will be a wave of I-spooned-with-a-legend-during-a-forgettable-movie-shoot memoirs now.

are you trying to cast the Michelle Williams-Heath Ledger biopic now?

The Artist was cute

like a dead kitten.

naw it was kinda charming, but Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a much more engaging champion for the cause of vocal chords.

TTSS is not the best movie to watch with a buzz. I don't know what the hell just happened in that one.

Let's hope Trollhunter is more my speed.

got my hands on UK horror-thriller Kill List; a little too familiar in some ways (the climax splits the difference between a couple of genre touchstones), but damn if that last 20 minutes didn't give me heart palpitations.

― Simon H., Thursday, 29 December 2011 04:01 (2 days ago) Bookmark

Cannot understand the praise this is getting. I thought it completely incoherent. Obviously everything wasn't meant to spelled out but the various twists and tonal shifts just didn't add up to anything, and for all the shocking content i never once felt scared or engaged beyond a sort of mild curiosity as to how (and why) this thing got made.

i loved TTSS despite being lost myself (especially in the last 10 minutes or so) but when i read the wikipedia description of the plot it all seemed pretty straightforward. this leads me to think that part of the brilliance of the movie is that it's able to so strongly suggest that something else is happening other than the explicit plot. im not exactly putting that right, but there's definitely a sense that there's some hidden depth to it.

anyway, i really liked it a lot. reminded me of Zodiac in that it's a kind of 70s style movie with little to no action that feels very lived in. i cant wait to watch it again.

My feeling regarding TTSS is that Alfredson gives you roughly the minimum visual information needed to piece together the plot specifics, but not much more. I appreciate that very much,

re: Kill List; it basically winds up as a 21st. cent. Wicker Man rehash, but that's still one more idea than most movies of its ilk, and I found the climax well-rendered.

TTSS felt like it was throwing information (exposition, maybe) at you early on, but it all came together really clearly for me. I love that the moment at the end with Strong and Firth had a lot of heft to it because of seeing a polaroid earlier.

Heh, Shame in stark contrast to TTSS in that nothing is left unclear at all. What a rotten movie. One and a half pretty great performances totally wasted.

And bear in mind, I hate sex a whole lot.

A Separation was pretty tremendous. I guess that disqualifies it from winning the Oscar then.

And now I've just realized that it was Ebert's #1 movie of the year, so it'll probably be roundly despised around here.

More ire will and should be directed at his #2.

I was planning to see it tomorrow, though I'm not looking forward to it.

fuck this TTSS, and Alfredson come to think of it. He's been both outremade and pulled off a superfluous rehash.

some people seem to think A Separation is the first really good Iranian film ever (ie, troglodyte blogger Jeff Wells).

yeah, i'm happy enough to see it as a safe, memorable, efficient & worthy #1 for this year, to see it praised, &c; but it doesn't actually stand out for me as a new or unusual film, against the backdrop of other social iranian drama - i think to some degree i'm reminded of panahi just bc it's iran, the urban scenes, &c, but it's v much in that tradition i think, getting under the surface of things in this roaming, weary loop. it is an excellent film & so masterfully woven & paced - like i think someone mentioned hitchcock - but so are a bunch of things, going back ten years

Its probably my favourite foreign nu-release since 4 weeks, 3 months... and a really great melodrama (they don't come round often so treasure them).

Wd be weird for anyone to say its the first great Iranian film since there's one or two of them knocking about every year; and then there are guys like Kiarostami around.

i sorta assume it's people assuming it's the first great iranian film from a position of ignorance, i can't imagine anyone repping for it over the canon. i think about 4 months sometimes, i guess i will get back around to catching some of the new czech/related stuff this year - aurora, if it ever opens, & once upon a time in antolia - but it did seem like a really balanced wave. 4 months got the aesthetics of depicting a place without veering into pure appealing optics totally right - a v beautiful looking film but very restrained, in the right register.

I prefer all the Panahi I've seen to A Separation. By a fair amount.

I think its one of the best Iranian films I've seen, then again I can't say I've seen more than 20. What would the canon be? xp = interesting, love to see more by him.

Austin Film Critics Association:

Best Film:
Hugo
Best Director:
Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
Best Actor:
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
Best Actress:
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Best Supporting Actor:
Albert Brooks, Drive
Best Supporting Actress:
Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter
Best Original Screenplay:
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Drive, Hossein Amini
Best Cinematography:
The Tree of Life, Emmanuel Lubezki
Best Original Score:
Attack the Block, Steven Price
Best Foreign Language Film:
I Saw the Devil, South Korea [dir: Jee-woon Kim]
Best Documentary:
Senna [dir: Asif Kapadia]
Best Animated Feature:
Rango [dir: Gore Verbinski]
Robert R. "Bobby" McCurdy Memorial Breakthrough Artist Award:
Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter/The Tree of Life/The Help/The Debt/Coriolanus/Texas Killing Fields
Best First Film:
Attack the Block [dir: Joe Cornish]
Austin Film Award:
Take Shelter [dir: Jeff Nichols]

Top 10 Films:
1. Hugo
2. Drive
3. Take Shelter
4. Midnight in Paris
5. Attack the Block
6. The Artist
7. Martha Marcy May Marlene
8. I Saw the Devil
9. 13 Assassins
10. Melancholia

Best Original Screenplay:
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen

Best Original Screenplay:
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen

Best Original Screenplay:
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen

Best Original Screenplay:
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen

ugh that top ten.

at least #8-10 can be defended

picking Rango over Tintin = trying too hard

A couple dozen folks give their best moments of '11:

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/moments-of-2011-part-1-20111230

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/moments-of-2011-part-2-20111230

I would co-endorse The Trip DVD as having the best deleted scenes of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGqj3WbHDvA&feature=player_embedded

You should watch the tv version. Three hours worth

I believe all the footage excised for the theater version is on the DVD extras.

I watched Weekend: was disappointed by the poignant ending and a couple of the conversational riffs but otherwise a terrific film, precise in depicting the ways in which gays feel most uncomfortable when our straight friends are being most accommodating, and photographing these men in their flats in twilight.