2011 is over. Let us reminisce its films.
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 12:37 am
What films did you see from 2011? Which were your favorites? Your least favorites? Of course, many of us probably still have yet to finish watching the 2011 films we had planned on seeing, but yeah...
Films I saw from 2011 included:
13 Assassins (technically 2010, but the US release was 2011, so... yeah)
The Tree of Life
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Attack the Block
Contagion
Martha Marcy May Marlene
The Sorcerer and the White Snake
The Descendants
Young Adult
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Sunny
The Artist
I also saw a Korean film called Ajusshi in late 2010... which was released in the US a few months later as The Man From Nowhere. Not really counting that one. I wasn't very fond of it in the first place, anyway. I also saw an excellent Hong Kong/China co-production, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, on home video in 2010, then in theaters for its American theatrical release in 2011, so I guess that one "sort of" counts, too.
Anyway, I liked most all of the films, though none were without their flaws. The film I feel most ambivalent toward is The Tree of Life. This is the type of film I usually champion as something for people looking for a film a bit different from what they're used to. While the film is visually one of the most impressive I've ever seen, I can't deny the fact that there are certain parts of the film that are much longer than they need to be. This especially applies to the final scene.
If I had to pick favorites, The Descendants and The Artist are the ones at the top of my list, and if I was to include Detective Dee as being a 2011 release (since that's when it was released in the US), that would be up there, too. The Descendants is the best type of film that the "Indiewood" scene has to offer. The balance it strikes between melancholy and humor is phenomenal. There were so many things that could have went wrong that the film that director Alexander Payne successfully avoided. George Clooney can add this to his long list of great performances, equaling his previous career best a few years previous in Up In The Air.
I was a bit skeptical coming in to The Artist. While I didn't doubt it would be a fine film, I wondered how much of the acclaim had to do simply with the fact that it's a black-and-white, silent, 4:3 ratio film getting released long past the era when that was the standard. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised. The film won me over completely with its great sense of humor. While nostalgia for an earlier era was as apparent as one would expect, the film did its homework: everything from the style of the narrative, to the subject matter, to even the blocking and framing of the cinematography perfectly emulates the films of the era it's depicting. I also liked the dog.
Young Adult and Martha Marcy May Marlene will probably go down as the year's most overlooked films. I highly recommend checking them out if you get the chance.
Worst film I saw from 2011? Easily, easily The Sorcerer and the White Snake. The film has a great cast and a director whose work in the late 80's and early 90's I greatly admire. This film was laughable, though. Of all the things I wanted to see this year, Jet Li fighting bad CGI was definitely not one of them. When I say bad, I mean really godawful. These graphics look like something that could have appeared on the original PlayStation or N64. The most redeeming feature of the film was the fun chemistry between Charlene Choi and Wen Zhang, but they were not enough to save this film from itself.
Anyway... enough with my rambling... how's about you guys?
Films I saw from 2011 included:
13 Assassins (technically 2010, but the US release was 2011, so... yeah)
The Tree of Life
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Attack the Block
Contagion
Martha Marcy May Marlene
The Sorcerer and the White Snake
The Descendants
Young Adult
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Sunny
The Artist
I also saw a Korean film called Ajusshi in late 2010... which was released in the US a few months later as The Man From Nowhere. Not really counting that one. I wasn't very fond of it in the first place, anyway. I also saw an excellent Hong Kong/China co-production, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, on home video in 2010, then in theaters for its American theatrical release in 2011, so I guess that one "sort of" counts, too.
Anyway, I liked most all of the films, though none were without their flaws. The film I feel most ambivalent toward is The Tree of Life. This is the type of film I usually champion as something for people looking for a film a bit different from what they're used to. While the film is visually one of the most impressive I've ever seen, I can't deny the fact that there are certain parts of the film that are much longer than they need to be. This especially applies to the final scene.
If I had to pick favorites, The Descendants and The Artist are the ones at the top of my list, and if I was to include Detective Dee as being a 2011 release (since that's when it was released in the US), that would be up there, too. The Descendants is the best type of film that the "Indiewood" scene has to offer. The balance it strikes between melancholy and humor is phenomenal. There were so many things that could have went wrong that the film that director Alexander Payne successfully avoided. George Clooney can add this to his long list of great performances, equaling his previous career best a few years previous in Up In The Air.
I was a bit skeptical coming in to The Artist. While I didn't doubt it would be a fine film, I wondered how much of the acclaim had to do simply with the fact that it's a black-and-white, silent, 4:3 ratio film getting released long past the era when that was the standard. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised. The film won me over completely with its great sense of humor. While nostalgia for an earlier era was as apparent as one would expect, the film did its homework: everything from the style of the narrative, to the subject matter, to even the blocking and framing of the cinematography perfectly emulates the films of the era it's depicting. I also liked the dog.
Young Adult and Martha Marcy May Marlene will probably go down as the year's most overlooked films. I highly recommend checking them out if you get the chance.
Worst film I saw from 2011? Easily, easily The Sorcerer and the White Snake. The film has a great cast and a director whose work in the late 80's and early 90's I greatly admire. This film was laughable, though. Of all the things I wanted to see this year, Jet Li fighting bad CGI was definitely not one of them. When I say bad, I mean really godawful. These graphics look like something that could have appeared on the original PlayStation or N64. The most redeeming feature of the film was the fun chemistry between Charlene Choi and Wen Zhang, but they were not enough to save this film from itself.
Anyway... enough with my rambling... how's about you guys?