2011 poll

[wba]

not enthusiastic about 21st century cinema, and though I've seen some 80+ 2011 films, it seems most were the "wrong" ones.

Anyway, I'm indifferent towards or even can't stand some of the most acclaimed films of that year (e.g. Tree of Life, Let's Talk About Kevin, A Separation) and haven't seen most (like 90% of what everyone was - or still is - talking about), so take that with a grain of salt.

Still, there were some great films in the mix.


Final List

01. Etwas Besseres als den Tod "Beats Being Dead" (Christian Petzold, Germany)
02. Cassandras Warnung (Dominik Graf, Germany)
03. American Translation (Pascal Arnold/Jean-Marc Barr, France)
04. Whore's Glory (Michael Glawogger, Germany/Austria/Thailand)
05. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, USA)
06. The Hunter (Daniel Nettheim, Australia)
07. Mai bakku peji "My Back Page" (Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan)
08. Hindi sa atin ang buwan "The Moon Is Not Ours" (Jon Lazam, Philippines)
09. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France/USA/Belgium)
10. Kokuriko-zaka kara "From Up on Poppy Hill" (Goro Miyazaki, Japan)
11. Ask ve devrim "Love and Revolution" (Serkan Acar, Turkey/Germany)
12. Fuhrung (Rene Frolke, Germany)

[nrh]

saheb biwi aur gangster

this is on youtube edit: it's pretty goofy but also fun

if i remember correctly they were waiting for financing for paan singh tomar and knew a guy with a mansion, and just decided to throw the movie together on a shoestring budget and the actors working for free. and it became a huge hit and has two sequels.

writer director is the guy who plays the main villain in gangs of wasseypur.

[Lencho of the Apes]

mysteries of Lisbon tv cut

There's another Ruiz for the year, called Ballet Aquatique; it's very slight, but delightful, like the alt-scientific essays Alfred Jarry published in Mercure De France for pocket-money.

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[rischka]

LOL thx lencho i will obvs have to look for this

[pabs]

Deadline for 2011 lists will be Monday, May 3 at approximately 1 PM Pacific Time. May 1st falls on Saturday, and I imagine a number of people may use weekends as movie-watching leisure-time, so I've postponed it. If there's a public outcry, I'll change it back. The following year will be announced on Sat/May 1st.

Very logical and reasonable decisions, as we've come to expect from you. Perfect.

I enjoyed Bernie and laughed at the end when I realised it was a true story. I want to collect all those hilarious, folksy southern expressions, like "She holds her nose so high she'd drown in a rainstorm". "A lot of people would shoot her in the street for $5".

Saw Weekend, too. The illusion of being a fly-on-the wall. Like I was intruding on a real couple's privacy, and I almost felt uncomfortable about it a few times. Brilliant acting. I had the opposite reaction to Bernie: this seemed like real-life people saying real-life stuff, not fictional. Top script!

[bipolarvision]

1. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Sonchidi
Aadukalam
Twixt
The Turin Horse
Katho Upanishad
Haywire
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

[Lencho of the Apes]

The Whisperer In Darkness - Sean Branney, USA

The pastiche-y, imitative qualities of this one are done with pretty marvelous skill, though I don't know how much value a "triumph of retro costume design" will have for anybody. Digital black-n-white photography though, that's a thing I delight in. Might eeven end up watching The Artist, in spite of my resistance.

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[augusto]

1. anhe ghorey da daan / alms for a blind horse (gurvinder singh)

life without principle
don't go breaking my heart
the deep blue sea
the day he arrives
the anabasis of may and fusako shigenobu, masao adachi, and 27 years without images
it may be that beauty has strengthened our resolve -- masao adachi
deool
jai bhim comrade
this is not a film
le havre
mysteries of lisbon (tv mini-series)
sonchidi
once upon a time in anatolia
bernie
a separation
rockstar

[St. Gloede]

1. Keyhole (2011, Guy Maddin)

The Artist (2011, Michel Hazanavicius)
Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier)
The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick)
Shame (2011, Steve McQueen)
The Sunset Limited (2011, Tommy Lee Jones)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011, Sean Durkin)
La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In (2011, Pedro Almodóvar)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011, Lynne Ramsay)
Young Adult (2011, Jason Reitman)
Killer Joe (2011, William Friedkin)
Jodaeiye Nader az Simin / A Separation (2011, Asghar Farhadi)
Arirang (2011, Ki-duk Kim)
Alpeis (2011, Giorgos Lanthimos)
Alois Nebel (2011, Tomás Lunák)
Koi no tsumi / Guilty of Romance (2011, Shion Sono)
Oslo, 31. august (2011, Joachim Trier)
One Day (2011, Lone Scherfig)
A torinói ló / The Turin Horse (2011, Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky)
Hoshi o ou kodomo / Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011, Makoto Shinkai)

[pabs]

I didn't know there was a 2011 Maddin film! Hooray!

[St. Gloede]

I didn't know there was a 2011 Maddin film! Hooray!

Cheers, hope you like it! It is one of his most ignored, but visually spectacular and as absurd as ever. It was also his very last solo effort (in terms of features).

[rischka]

watching the raid: redemption, which i remember being some big deal at the time. it's pure copaganda but i have to finish it now if only for ICM. it somehow appears on a list of the 21st century's most acclaimed films! and i'm 3 away from an award :ugeek: anyway it's not good...



too late

[Lencho of the Apes]

It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi - Philippe Grandrieux

Somewhere I've gotten the idea that "we" collectively don't like Grandrieux much, but Adachi sure is an interesting interview subject.

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[mesnalty]

I love Grandrieux! Though not his most recent film, admittedly.

[wba]

Never seen anything by Grandrieux, but his stuff looks/looked interesting (from what friends told me some 20 years ago, and from that cool interactive website for UN LAC, which was one of the greatest things on the internet, ever).

Wanted to watch that Adachi doc (obviously) since it came out as well. There are so many Adachi docs out there, it seems, and by interesting filmmakers to boot. A friend of mine has probably seen more documentaries on Adachi than films by Adachi (and he's seen like half a dozen of Adachi's films as director).

[nrh]

the raid seems like a bigger deal in hindsight - the first time the midnight movie bro/alamo drafthouse thing seemed to really get pitched at a mainstream multiplex audience (the fact that they got a guy from linkin park to redo the score for the american release is also incredible).

also remember seeing it in theaters with a friend, and both of us leaving the film miserable and tired. most of the great martial arts directors have no real interest in violence as violence, and an outlier like cheh chang's interest is erotic and abstract. raid just fetishizes impact and pain, in numbing repetition, and really offers nothing else...

[...]

Yeah, but that is sorta what makes The Raid interesting, to whatever extent. That it cuts out all the other elements that are as often used as excuse to show the violence as they are anything that adds meaning to it. The Raid dumps almost all the pretext and just tells a story of violence as its own justification, both as a movie and within it. That doesn't make it "good" in any sort of automatic reward for the choice, but it does have a logic to it from its extrapolation of convention towards a more totalitizing end.

[nrh]

yes but don't you already have "totalizing action experience" like versus or sogo ishii's dead end run and electric dragon already? and of course the crank films which are genuinely pretty interesting...

and the raid 2, of course, somewhat sheepishly adds in overcomplicated genre plotting to justify the set pieces, but i don't think i ever managed to finish that one.

[...]

Haven't seen Dead End Run, so I can't say anything about it, but the Crank films and Electric Dragon are a bit different for relying on exaggeration of effect, as much a meta-comment on action films as anything, where The Raid holds more to a straight up take but strips it down to almost the base minimum while still maintaining a viable overall structure to the story. That structure is relying almost entirely through movement alone, the act of ascending the tower story by story takes the place of expository narrative information. The only additional necessary suggestions of meaning coming from the prayer at the opening and the relationships given during the climb and retreats. It's remarkably self-contained. Dredd, which borrowed heavily from the movie, added additional motivating factors and explanation and thus better suited the more usual action format, so to some was more satisfying, but that as much shows how pared down The Raid was even in comparison to a near copy.


It is, however, something of an end state, an experiment that really only works once for providing its effect, so any sequel could either only duplicate it by playing a near variation on the idea or would have to go a different, more opened up route. The Blair Witch Project and its sequel also showed something of a like limitation in that regard, though in that case, "in-movie" camera as movie, Cloverfield was able to work a variation that may have worked as well for each movie's reliance on the outside events driving the story and the alleged filming more acting as buffer to what can be known or seen rather than the whole of the spectacle itself. How much that matters to anyone is of course up to them, but I'll give 'em credit for pushing the idea towards an end state as an experiment.

[rischka]

la folie almayer is gorgeous.





damned colonizers

[rischka]

Deadline for 2011 lists will be Monday, May 3 at approximately 1 PM Pacific Time. May 1st falls on Saturday, and I imagine a number of people may use weekends as movie-watching leisure-time, so I've postponed it. If there's a public outcry, I'll change it back. The following year will be announced on Sat/May 1st.

june 3rd surely. seems good to me. been busy

[augusto]

It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi - Philippe Grandrieux

Somewhere I've gotten the idea that "we" collectively don't like Grandrieux much, but Adachi sure is an interesting interview subject.

i'm not familiar with much of grandrieux's work, but i do remember liking this a fair bit. i also remember watching the other film on adachi that came out this same year, by eric baudelaire, the anabasis of may and fusako shigenobu, masao adachi, and 27 years without images, and that one was very interesting too. adding both to my list.

[Lencho of the Apes]

surely

August 3.


[/kidding]

[Angel]

Let's see if any of these makes the cut

Las acacias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7v2pQ-uWLc

50/50
Adaminte Makan Abu (Abu, Son of Adam)
Attack the Block
Blackthorn
Elena
Eva
Hysteria
In the Family
Jin ling shi san chai (The Flowers of War)
La guerre est déclarée (Declaration of War)
Les Lyonnais (A Gang Story)
Les neiges du Kilimandjaro (The Snows of Kilimanjaro)
Margin Call
Mientras duermes (Sleep Tight)
Super 8
The Descendants
Tyrannosaur
Un cuento chino (Chinese Take-Away)
War Horse

Deliberately excluded (IMDb/TSPDT/S6S top 500)
A Torinói ló
Bir zamanlar Anadolu'da
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Intouchables
Jodaeiye Nader az Simin
Melancholia
The Artist
The Help
The Tree of Life
Warrior
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

To see before the deadline
Go-ji-jeon
Halt auf freier Strecke
Sleeping Beauty
Sur la planche
Terraferma
Terri
Yôkame no semi

[Roscoe]

THE TURIN HORSE
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
WEEKEND
KILLER JOE
A SEPARATION

I rather enjoyed THE ARTIST, but can't put it on this list. Saw a lot more this year, and there's no room at all for way too much of it.

[thoxans]

To see before the deadline

i didn't see deool on that list!

[Angel]

To see before the deadline

i didn't see deool on that list!

Already watched, but I'm an atheist, thank God.

[Lencho of the Apes]

This Is Not A Movie - Olallo Rubio, Mex

Could also be called Dorm Room 420 Deep Thoughts: The Movie -- it's a loving compilation of every "wow, man..." stoner cliché ever, like some high school kids that just saw Tribulation 99 and got all fired up (and, yes, they name-check Jodorowsky in the credits). So earnest... and so banal... I think it's kinda lovable just for trying so damn hard, but obviously, other people won't all feel so generously toward it. Some good jokes, though, like the fake movie-trailer with a narrator talking about the 'evil men of history" over stock-footage clips of Stalin, Manson, Saddam Hussein, and Gene Simmons.

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[kanafani]

Let the record show that I watched a movie for this poll. J Edgar... Did not really like it. Kind of a lumbering bio-epic. At its core there is a pretty affecting love story, with echoes to what Clint did in bridges of Madison county. But the rest is a tad tedious. I have seen more than twenty movies from 2011 that i’ve Enjoyed more.

[Zulawski]

1. The Golden Bird (Dutta)
2. The Turin Horse (Tarr)
3. Century of Birthing (Diaz)
4. Saudade (Rousseau)
5. A Woman's Revenge (Azevedo)
6. Trypps #7 (badlands) (Russell)
7. The Tree of Life (Malick)