BEST MOVIES OF 2011 so far

[Chris Knipp]

BEST MOVIES OF 2011 so far


Movies I've liked so far this year (English language):

Ivan Reitman: No Strings Attached (2011)
Miguel Arteta: Cedar Rapids (2011)
Aaron Katz: Cold Weather (2011)
Tom McCarthy: Win Win (2011)
Terrence Malick: The Tree of Life (2011)
Woody Allen: Midnight in Paris (2011)
Adam Reid: Hello Lonesome
Andrew Rossi: Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)
Richard Ayoade: Submarine (2010)
Michael Winterbottom: The Trip (2011)
Justin Lin: Fast Five (2011)
Matthew Vaughan: X-Men: First Class (2011)
Gavin Wiesen: The Art of Getting By (2011)
Azrael Jacobs: Terri (2011)
Cindy Meehl: Buck (2011)
Bernard Rose: Mr. Nice (2010)
Seth Gordon: Horrible Bosses (2011)
James Marsh: Project Nim (2011)
Richmond Riedel: Target Practice (2010)
Joe Cornish: Attack the Block (2011)

Movies I've liked so far (other languages):

Kiran Rao: Dhobi Ghat: Mumbai Diaries (2010)
Xavier Dolan: Heartbeats (2010)
Denis Villeneuve: Incendies (2010)--ND/NF
Pierre Thoretton: L'Amour Fou (2011)
Kôji Wakamatsu: United Red Army (2007)
André Øvredal: TrollHunter (2011)
Caroline Bottaro: Queen to Play (2009)
Michel Leclerc: The Names of Love (Le nom des gens 2010)

Other movies I liked (unreleased):

Martin Provost: The Long Falling (2011)--R-V
Alain Corneau: Love Crime (2010)--R-V -- release Sept. 2
J.C. Chandor: Margin Call (2011)--ND/NF -- release Oct. 21
Bogdan George Apetri: Outbound (2010--ND/NF
Göran Hugo Olsson: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975-ND/NF -- release Sept. 9
Dee Rees: Pariah (2011)--ND/NF -- I have seen a trailer but release TBA
Paddy Considine: Tyrannosaur (2010)--ND/NF
Agustí Villaronga: Black Bread (2010)--SFIFF
Federico Veiroj : A Useful Life (2010)--SFIFF
Clio Barnard: The Arbor (2010)--SFIFF
Park Jung-bum: The Journals of Musan (2010)--SFIFF
Lech Majewski: The Mill and the Cross (2011)--SFIFF -- release Sept. 14
Dan Geller, Dayna Goldfine: Something Ventured (2011)--SFIFF
Christoph Hochhäusler: The City Below (2010)--SFIFF
Tatiana Huezo: The Tiniest Place (2011)--SFIFF
Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolimowski 2010) Paris
The Kid with the Bike (Dardenes 2011) Paris -- Sundnace Selects will release
Tomboy (Céline Sciamma 2011) Paris -- release Nov. 16
Xavier Durringer: La Conquête (2011) about Sarkozy
Lars Von Trier: Melancholia (2011) -- release Nov. 11

RV=Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, NYC, Feb.
ND/NF=New Directors/New Films, NYC, Mar.
SFIFF=San Francisco International Film Festival, April.

[oscar jubis]

Lots of good movies to look forward to. I haven't seen most of them. Didn't like the Woody Allen and Winterbottom movies enough to list.I liked Win Win and the Malick picture but don't love them. Most of my very favorites so far this year are not on your list. Stuff I've listed or discussed elsewhere. I enjoy finding out how movies hold up a second or third viewing. Nostalgia for the Light comes out on DVD next month. Can't wait!

[Chris Knipp]

oscar jubis
Lots of good movies to look forward to. I haven't seen most of them. Didn't like the Woody Allen and Winterbottom movies enough to list.I liked Win Win and the Malick picture but don't love them.

I didn't say "love" but "liked." "Movies I liked so far this year." By saying "so far" I'm indicating other better ones will come along later and push many of these out. This is a work in progress, an attempt to make sense out of a much longer list. And love and like are pretty gross simplifications anyway, aren't they?

I just added Joe Cornish's Attack the Block to my list of 2011 English language favorites.

[oscar jubis]

From the films distributed this year that I have seen, these are my favorites in rough order of preference (that will probably change as I get a chance to re-watch them during the next 5 months or so). All of them are likely to get into my year-end list.

NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (Chile)
I TRAVEL BECAUSE I HAVE TO, I COME BACK BECAUSE I LOVE YOU (Brasil)
UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (Thailand)
LE QUATTRO VOLTE (Italy)
CERTIFIED COPY (Iran)
BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/) (USA)
THE TREE OF LIFE (USA)
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (USA/UK)
THE TIME THAT REMAINS (Palestine)
CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH (China)
NEDS (Scotland)
OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS (Costa Rica/Colombia)
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (Germany/France/USA)
A USEFUL LIFE (Uruguay)
THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER (Israel)

[Chris Knipp]

Glad you made this list. I have missed
NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (Chile) (which was in the SFIFF)
I TRAVEL BECAUSE I HAVE TO, I COME BACK BECAUSE I LOVE YOU (Brasil) (new to me)
BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/) (USA) (new to me)
THE TIME THAT REMAINS (Palestine) (which was at IFC Center)
THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER (Israel) (sounds familiar, not sure)
NEDS (Scotland) (important director, didn't know, despite April US release)
OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS (Costa Rica/Colombia) (perhaps SFIFF? should see)

Wanted to see the Palestinian one and am curious about the Israeli one. Don't know how I missed NEDS and that is one to look for. realize the high regard UNCLE BOONMEE and LE QUATTRO VOLTE are held but I don't share it. I will hang on to TREE OF LIFE. I like A USEFUL LIFE but am not so wedded to it, probably. The others I shhould see.

[oscar jubis]

Peter Mullan's follow-up to The Magdalene Sisters passed under the radar of most critics, who I think would embrace it.Same goes for my undeniable top two which unlike NEDS have been granted Metacritic pages (85 and 87 score).

[Chris Knipp]

Top twe being
NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (Chile) 85
I TRAVEL BECAUSE I HAVE TO, I COME BACK BECAUSE I LOVE YOU (Brasil) 87
I see you are right. I don't see much sign that Neds had US theatrical viewings. In some festivals. HOw did you see it?

[oscar jubis]

Here's the release schedule for NEDS. It was one of a series of British films touring the country:
http://www.frombritainwithlove.org/v...g-schedule/#NY

[oscar jubis]

The most enjoyable and insightful movies I have seen since my last post are Miranda July's The Future and Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon. The latter may be the best film I have seen all year. It is certainly not a film you watch casually. One has to prepare for it because of its length: 4 and a half hours shown in two parts with a brief intermission in between. Don't go into it tired, moody or hungry. The demands on the viewer who doesn't speak Portuguese (used in about 75% of the film) and French are great because there is a lot of subtitled dialogue and voice-over narration to read.

Mysteries of Lisbon is the penultimate film directed by Raul Ruiz (1941-2011), the obsessively prolific, itinerant filmmaker from Chile. I've seen only about 10 of his 100+ films. I hope that it becomes easier to see more of his fragmented, gargantuan filmography including docs, shorts, and made-for-TV features. MoL is like a new sibling for Manoel de Oliveira's Doomed Love (1979) in that both films are extended-length, fairly faithful adaptations of sprawling 19th century novels by the (also) prodigiously prolific Camilo Castelo Branco (1825-1890).Like in Klimt (2006), and most of his recent work, the camera is highly mobile and fluid in the manner of Ophuls films such as The Earrings of Madame de... and La Ronde. It's quite a pleasure to watch how the camera is constantly reframing and thus changing our sense of space and our point of view. Additionally,the film utilizes split-focus diopters to allow the deepest focus possible so that Ruiz can give us his most characteristic composition: a close-up of character on a side of the frame, usually in profile or near profile, competing for our attention with perfectly clear backgrounds that include doors, mirrors, or halls that extend into the very depths of the frame. Simply gorgeous, complex visuals that use chiaroscuro lighting as befits the period in which the film is set.

The narrative is audacious to say the least in its multiplicity of characters (some of whom have serial identities), temporal jumps, multiple narrative points of view, digressions, plot threads that converge, parallel, juxtapose each other. I find it most remarkable that the film is not "difficult" in that it is easy to follow and makes perfect sense (if one is paying attention). The film is demanding and perhaps challenging because it requires alert attention for 4+ hours. But it's never obscure, confusing, or obfuscating. Like most films by Ruiz that I know, Mysteries of Lisbon is a narrative but it is also about narrative. It has the reflexivity of modernist works while embracing certain may-I say classical elements of the genre of the period drama. This one will stick in the mind for years. A memorable film indeed.

[Johann]

Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a contender for best film of the year.
And not just because I'm a huge fan of the man and his career- this one really is amazing.
If anybody else made a film about the Chauvet caves it wouldn't have the same impact.
I'm certain of it.
Herzog knows how to present a subject. The way he attacks a film subject is unlike any other.


TREE OF LIFE is a special work. Always will be to me.

I haven't seen any of the others you guys list.
I suck.
I wish I had unlimited funds for my movie addiction.

[Chris Knipp]

THE ACADEMY'S DOCUMENTARY SHORT LIST.

I have seen only 5 out of 15 (highlighted), which seems pretty weird. Omitted are Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Morgan Spurlock and Steve James, which indicates this is not as good a list as it ought to be. I would have included INTO THE ABYSS and THE INTERRUPTERS in any 15 best of the year US docs, from what I know. I am not a fan of TABLOID, for my reasons, but Morris deserves very serious consideration, and omission of Herzog, who had a notable doc two years in a row, seems very questionable indeed.

Herzog's "Into the Abyss," Morris' "Tabloid," Spurlock's "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" and James' "The Interrupters" did not make the short list of 15 documentaries eligible for the feature-length prize at the Feb. 26 Oscars.

-- Huffington Post.

THI LIST:

"Battle for Brooklyn" (RUMUR Inc.)
"Bill Cunningham New York" (First Thought Films)
"Buck" (Cedar Creek Productions)
"Hell and Back Again" (Roast Beef Productions Limited)
"If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" (Marshall Curry Productions, LLC)
"Jane's Journey" (NEOS Film GmbH & Co. KG)
"The Loving Story" (Augusta Films)
"Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" (@radical.media)
"Pina" (Neue Road Movies GmbH)
"Project Nim" (Red Box Films)
"Semper Fi: Always Faithful" (Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc.)
"Sing Your Song" (S2BN Belafonte Production, LLC)
"Undefeated" (Spitfire Pictures)
"Under Fire: Journalists in Combat" (JUF Pictures, Inc.)
"We Were Here" (Weissman Projects, LLC)

[Chris Knipp]

Several other admired documentaries that did not make the Oscars list are Clio Barnard's "The Arbor," Patricio Guzmán's "Nostalgia For The Light," Leonard Retel Helmrich's "Position Among The Stars," and Asif Kapadia's "Senna." Oscar brought up Nostalgia for the Light earlier. I reviewed The Arbor, which I saw in the SFIFF, and it is very good.

[oscar jubis]

When I list my favorite documentaries, I don't see the point of leaving out those produced for television. Two of my favorites this year premiered on PBS: Black in Latin America (David Louis Gates, Jr.) and Prohibition (Ken Burns).

I am surprised that a list of presumably the top 15 documentary films of the year would leave out The Interrupters and the two Herzog docs released this year: Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Into the Abyss (saw it last night, recommended).

Looking forward to Paradise Lost III, since I liked the first two so much.

[Chris Knipp]

TV is another category, though certainly fine docs come on the box.

I am surprised too. But you know the Oscars, Oscar...

[oscar jubis]

I guess I could have a separate category for "Documentaries originally produced for television" but, for my own purposes of list-keeping, I include every doc that had a release date during the calendar year whether it premiered on TV or theater.