20 from '11
This just gets harder every year. I've reviewed most of these over at Capsule In Space, so head over there if you want more in-depth views. I'll be doing a separate list of genre films over the next week too, hopefully.
My Top 20; based on films released in Cinemas in the UK in 2011:
20. RANGO
(Gore Verbinski)
Pop surrealism in a ludicrously beautiful, utterly bizarre cgi- animated Kids Western. Might be the strangest corporate product released this year, and hurrah for that.
19. THE YELLOW SEA
(Na Hong-Jin)
The grittiest, most exhilarating thriller of the year in a year of great Korean action thrillers. Amazing set pieces, real emotional grip, brilliantly put together: all action films should aspire to this level of impact & quality.
18. DRIVE
(Nicolas Winding Refn)
Sheer style and sensual pleasure over the backing of solidly familiar genre beats, with a movie star front and centre. That this was greeted with such reverential reviews shows just how rare that kind of thing is nowadays.
17. COLD WEATHER
(Aaron Katz)
A lovely little drama-cum-detective comedy, rooted in the real world, beautifully directed.
16. THE GUARD
(John McDonagh)
The funniest film of the year. Also beautifully acted - Brendan Gleeson can seemingly do no wrong - and even quite gripping. Takes a few shots at cliches of rural Ireland along the way.
15. THE EAGLE
(Kevin MacDonald)
An old-fashioned adventure film; full of solid storytelling, action, archetypal characters, derring-do, and incredible landscapes. Give me something like this over Transformers 3 any day.
14. ANIMAL KINGDOM
(David Michod)
Nightmarishly intense crime saga, sharply characterised and directed with a real sense of tone and atmosphere.
13.WUTHERING HEIGHTS
(Andrea Arnold)
Arnold's film captures the wilds of Yorkshire within a 4:3 aspect ratio only to unleash it within Brontes characters and watches, swooning, while they suffer.
12. KILL LIST
(Ben Wheatley)
A wrenching horror, a glimpse of the pagan England beneath the out of town shopping malls and the motorway services, a genre film that isnt, quite. Unforgettable.
11. POST MORTEM
(Pablo Larrain)
The coup in 1970s Chile as personal disaster, the moral decay of a nation mirrored within one sad, lonely individual. Haunting, mesmeric, expertly directed.
10. WARRIOR
(Gavin O'Connor)
Manipulation so well-done it's a pleasure in and of itself. But also a magnificently acted, emotionally brutal study of the recession era, and an astoundingly great formula fight film. Should have been massive.
9. TAKE SHELTER
(Jeff Nichols)
Watch the skies. Michaell Shannon finds a role miraculously suited to his eerie presence, and acts the hell out of it. He's matched by the precision and control of the creeping dread Nichols orchestrates, right unto the awful, Shyamalanesque climax.
8. MEEKS CUTOFF
(Kelly Reichert)
A fine Western which ignores most all the genres rules and settles for a tensely claustrophobic(!) battle of wills between well-drawn characters in an impossible situation. Hypnotic, beautiful, provocative.
7. BEGINNERS
(Mike Mills)
A quirkfest that transcends its own language and assumptions, and approaches profundity with a real gentleness of spirit. Lovely.
6.TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
(Thomas Alfredson)
Forensic study of deceit and decay, of class and intrigue, of England and the Cold War. Stupendously acted, miraculously adapted from complex material.
5. TRUE GRIT
(Coen Brothers)
The American creation myth in a rollicking Western, filled with great passages and performances, visually superb and absolutely entertaining.
4. A SEPARATION
(Asghar Farhadi)
Intricate, gripping drama/thriller of a dispute between two Tehran families. Sympathetic, tonally exact, and absolutely agonising in its precise evocation of a spiralling argument and its wider resonances and casualties.
3. OSLO, AUGUST 31st
(Joachim Trier)
Poetic, sublime study of Nordic depression (that makes Lars Von Trier's beautiful Melancholia look like the confused oddity that it is) without ever becoming depressing itself. Instead it is exhilarating: rapturous, nostalgic, full of longing.
2. MARGARET
(Kenneth Lonergan)
A complex, marvellously intimate epic, part character study, part polyphony, compulsive throughout.
1. TREE OF LIFE
(Terrence Malick)
Malick makes cinema a wondrous tool for exploration, and the resulting film, for all its flaws and missteps, is unlike anything made by anybody else. Vauntingly ambitious, ridiculously beautiful, always personal, this is the work of an artist who makes most directors look like mere photographers.
Bubbling Under:
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
Blue Valentine
The Fighter
Ballast
Armadillo
Senna
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
La Quatro Volte
Treacle Jnr
Contagion
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Hugo
Snowtown
Moneyball
Black Swan
Passenger Side
How I Ended the Summer
Norwegian Wood
Bridesmaids
Melancholia
Archipelago
You Can't See Everything (and I missed these):
Tyrannosaur, Las Acasias, The Artist, Mysteries of Lisbon, The Turin Horse, Poetry, The Future, Pina, Incendies, The Skin I Live In, Miss Bala, Dreams of a Life
My Top 20; based on films released in Cinemas in the UK in 2011:
20. RANGO
(Gore Verbinski)
Pop surrealism in a ludicrously beautiful, utterly bizarre cgi- animated Kids Western. Might be the strangest corporate product released this year, and hurrah for that.
19. THE YELLOW SEA
(Na Hong-Jin)
The grittiest, most exhilarating thriller of the year in a year of great Korean action thrillers. Amazing set pieces, real emotional grip, brilliantly put together: all action films should aspire to this level of impact & quality.
18. DRIVE
(Nicolas Winding Refn)
Sheer style and sensual pleasure over the backing of solidly familiar genre beats, with a movie star front and centre. That this was greeted with such reverential reviews shows just how rare that kind of thing is nowadays.
17. COLD WEATHER
(Aaron Katz)
A lovely little drama-cum-detective comedy, rooted in the real world, beautifully directed.
16. THE GUARD
(John McDonagh)
The funniest film of the year. Also beautifully acted - Brendan Gleeson can seemingly do no wrong - and even quite gripping. Takes a few shots at cliches of rural Ireland along the way.
15. THE EAGLE
(Kevin MacDonald)
An old-fashioned adventure film; full of solid storytelling, action, archetypal characters, derring-do, and incredible landscapes. Give me something like this over Transformers 3 any day.
14. ANIMAL KINGDOM
(David Michod)
Nightmarishly intense crime saga, sharply characterised and directed with a real sense of tone and atmosphere.
13.WUTHERING HEIGHTS
(Andrea Arnold)
Arnold's film captures the wilds of Yorkshire within a 4:3 aspect ratio only to unleash it within Brontes characters and watches, swooning, while they suffer.
12. KILL LIST
(Ben Wheatley)
A wrenching horror, a glimpse of the pagan England beneath the out of town shopping malls and the motorway services, a genre film that isnt, quite. Unforgettable.
11. POST MORTEM
(Pablo Larrain)
The coup in 1970s Chile as personal disaster, the moral decay of a nation mirrored within one sad, lonely individual. Haunting, mesmeric, expertly directed.
10. WARRIOR
(Gavin O'Connor)
Manipulation so well-done it's a pleasure in and of itself. But also a magnificently acted, emotionally brutal study of the recession era, and an astoundingly great formula fight film. Should have been massive.
9. TAKE SHELTER
(Jeff Nichols)
Watch the skies. Michaell Shannon finds a role miraculously suited to his eerie presence, and acts the hell out of it. He's matched by the precision and control of the creeping dread Nichols orchestrates, right unto the awful, Shyamalanesque climax.
8. MEEKS CUTOFF
(Kelly Reichert)
A fine Western which ignores most all the genres rules and settles for a tensely claustrophobic(!) battle of wills between well-drawn characters in an impossible situation. Hypnotic, beautiful, provocative.
7. BEGINNERS
(Mike Mills)
A quirkfest that transcends its own language and assumptions, and approaches profundity with a real gentleness of spirit. Lovely.
6.TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
(Thomas Alfredson)
Forensic study of deceit and decay, of class and intrigue, of England and the Cold War. Stupendously acted, miraculously adapted from complex material.
5. TRUE GRIT
(Coen Brothers)
The American creation myth in a rollicking Western, filled with great passages and performances, visually superb and absolutely entertaining.
4. A SEPARATION
(Asghar Farhadi)
Intricate, gripping drama/thriller of a dispute between two Tehran families. Sympathetic, tonally exact, and absolutely agonising in its precise evocation of a spiralling argument and its wider resonances and casualties.
3. OSLO, AUGUST 31st
(Joachim Trier)
Poetic, sublime study of Nordic depression (that makes Lars Von Trier's beautiful Melancholia look like the confused oddity that it is) without ever becoming depressing itself. Instead it is exhilarating: rapturous, nostalgic, full of longing.
2. MARGARET
(Kenneth Lonergan)
A complex, marvellously intimate epic, part character study, part polyphony, compulsive throughout.
1. TREE OF LIFE
(Terrence Malick)
Malick makes cinema a wondrous tool for exploration, and the resulting film, for all its flaws and missteps, is unlike anything made by anybody else. Vauntingly ambitious, ridiculously beautiful, always personal, this is the work of an artist who makes most directors look like mere photographers.
Bubbling Under:
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
Blue Valentine
The Fighter
Ballast
Armadillo
Senna
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
La Quatro Volte
Treacle Jnr
Contagion
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Hugo
Snowtown
Moneyball
Black Swan
Passenger Side
How I Ended the Summer
Norwegian Wood
Bridesmaids
Melancholia
Archipelago
You Can't See Everything (and I missed these):
Tyrannosaur, Las Acasias, The Artist, Mysteries of Lisbon, The Turin Horse, Poetry, The Future, Pina, Incendies, The Skin I Live In, Miss Bala, Dreams of a Life
posted by David N at 1:38 pm
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