Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #1: POETRY

First, here's a rundown of films 10-2 in my best of 2011:

10. Snowtown
09. A Separation
08. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
07. Julia's Eyes
06. 13 Assassins
05. Bridesmaids
04. The Messenger
03. Drive
02. Melancholia

And finally, 01...

Poetry Shi (Lee Chang-dong/South Korea/139mins)

The opening scenes of Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry set up an intriguing premise that the rest of the film delicately, and at times unnervingly, goes all out to provide an answer for. A distant object floats down a wide river; it’s not until it nears the camera (positioned in the water itself) that we realise it’s the body of a murdered girl. Yang Mija (an excellent performance by Yoon Jeong-hee, who came out of retirement to be in the film) is a grandmother in her sixties living in Busan. She’s suffering from the recent onset of Alzheimer’s and the trials of looking after an unruly grandson (who has been implicated in the assault and death of the girl from the opening). She has little money, is on welfare and also looks after an elderly male neighbour. Old age isn’t quiet or content for Mija. Her life is more fraught with tricky decisions than a lady her age deserves. But she’s also fresh to the joys of poetry, having joined a class that she manages to fit into her already hectic existence. Whilst seeking out the answers to the girl’s death, Mija begins to see the world around her in new ways. She slowly begins to fill her notebook up with words and thoughts for her class.

This may all sound overly sentimental, but Poetry is anything but saccharine in its approach to its narrative. Its tone is elegant, simple, frank. The way Chang-dong plays out the central drama of his plot is smartly measured (Poetry is one of the most beautifully paced films I’ve seen in a long time) and, crucially, by the end heart-rending. Everything works to the advantage of the story. We experience in tandem with Mija what she does; we gain insight into her choices, her actions and the particulars of her life. Poetry utilises the tools of filmmaking in beautifully effective ways to achieve this: Hyun Seok Kim’s photography highlights the pleasures and terrors of Mija’s journey with an extraordinary lightness; Hyun Kim’s editing creates sensitive ebb and flow throughout; and Chang-dong’s direction - perhaps the best of any film from last year – contains the right amount of thoughtful, subtle agency. Each and every shot tells us something more, something integral about the story. The whole film is leavened, brought alive most, by Jeong-hee’s bright, delightful performance. Her reaction to the turn of events, and the way she commands attention even with the most minute of gestures, is captivating. Her lilting laugh and delicate manner stayed with me well after I’d left the cinema. Poetry makes good on its title in its final scenes too. It has spent over two hours detailing one woman’s immersion into new ways of seeing the world, but then it shows us its own lessons in poetic perception. This is a sublime film.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #2: MELANCHOLIA

 Melancholia (Lars von Trier/Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany/136mins)

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” says Charlotte Rampling as a wedding-hating mother of the bride in Lars von Trier’s apocalyptic ceremonial-buster Melancholia. It’s a sentiment echoed in the promotional poster’s tagline. As far as doomed marriages go, Justine’s (Kirsten Dunst) is dead in the water. There’s nothing to do about it. The world will end for her and everyone who RSVP’d. In the elegiac, Wagner-scored opening (similar to, but better than, the arty child-safety-ad-like intro that kicked off von Trier’s last one, Antichrist), a deathly-black reverie is aroused; it’s so slowed down that its visual beats match those of a dying pulse. Birds fall from the sky. A mother and child sink into a golf course. Paintings burn. Dunst conducts electricity, or so it seems. The narrative proper picks outs the obscure tidbits of depressive destruction in this prologue and proceeds to play the annihilation out: first on a family scale at Justine’s wedding, then on a total scale, everywhere, for everyone. Two blue planets collide oh so horribly and beautifully. This double image bookends von Trier’s best, most compelling film to date. Melancholia’s two parts (‘Justine’ and ‘Claire’ – Charlotte Gainsbourg plays the latter, the bride’s sister) show the effects of guttural, hopeless depression from Justine’s perspective on the “happiest” day of her life, and then during the fall out some undefined time later. It all occurs at the same mansion location (perhaps in Europe or maybe the US) without any interference from the outside world. That is, apart from that of another world itself. Von Trier is known to be a – perhaps self-regarding – cinematic card, both contentious and goofy. Here he’s the gloomiest of movie japers. A comic thread runs through Melancholia. But a sense of despair, of drowning in air, is the most prominent feeling we’re left with. The film, beginning to end, radiates a suffocating, uncanny aura. It’s calm yet somehow ominous. Wherever we are in their world, it’s evocatively rendered by von Trier’s skittish, searching direction (the best way to track his erratic, wayward bride) and Manuel Alberto Claro’s crepuscular, almost preternatural camerawork. It didn’t shift from my brain for days, weeks even, after seeing it. It’s still there, gnawing away at my empathy and resolve. I want to return to it as soon as I dredge up the requisite strength. It takes horsepower to get through it. But it’s worth every ounce of work put in. I enjoyed the time spent with it while it lasted.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #3: DRIVE

 Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn/USA/100mins)

I wasn’t at all surprised that since its release, and perhaps even before it, Drive inspired a host of pop culture artistic responses — much like what happened with Donnie Darko in 2002 — all mimicking, paying homage or generally interpreting the film’s style. All the minimal posters, retro VHS covers, illustrations, comic book art and animations that it’s already influenced are a;most like playful fan-made extensions of the film’s story and characters; an attempt to acknowledge its universal impact. Drive was very much the result of a European filmmaker’s fascination with various strands of American popular culture. It’s a film commendably put together with references and nods to a whole grab bag of artistic influence: older films (the noirs of Preminger or Lang), relatively recent films (Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. and, of course, Walter Hill’s The Driver); Pop Art painting (Lichtenstein); and fine art photography (Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s twilight city photos). Drive is a kind of ‘Pop’ filmmaking. It brings together a raft of pre-existing elements of mass cultural appeal and enticingly slots them into a familiar story arc. It reconfigures stylistic references and threads them into the bare narrative of a stunt driver (Ryan Gosling), his criminal associates (namely Albert Brooks' terrifying Bernie Rose) and the woman (Carey Mulligan) who he somnambulistically romances and fatalistically helps. And it’s all the more gloriously swooning, full of richly interesting and abrupt bright-dark tonal shifts, for it. It’s guys, girls and gangsters, all in and out of cars and trouble, presented as a series of savvy, abstract pick-n-mix conceits.

It works perfectly as a pop-crime movie; bubblegum chewed with bloodied teeth. The direction is pure comic book: Driver, hammer in hand, shot from below to look like an absurdly-jacketed statue, about to issue a mobster’s comeuppance; Blanche’s (Christina Hendricks) shocked face, framed centrally, in the backseat of a getaway car as, visible through the rear window, another car flips in the air behind her in slow motion; Driver’s rubber-masked face peering into a gangster’s storefront party, lit in blue neon and framed by a red glass window. These moments have the look and feel of panels from a non-existent graphic novel given movement. It’s a close approximation of film as fully fleshed-out storyboard. The lack of sustained dialogue seems to demand speech bubbles in the top corners of the screen. It’s an exciting, demented mish-mash of pop style. All those expressive artistic 'replies' are an encouraging sign that films like Drive can hit a deep nerve and make a certified impact, regardless of whether they reap big awards or attain mammoth box-office. Of course Drive has its admirers and its detractors. It’s divisive and very much open to extreme adoration or disregard: it’s ‘too cool for its own good'; it's a ‘refreshing genre exercise’. But it created a swift tear in the 2011 movie map like few other films. People embraced it and, from it, made their own versions. It's a film that may be long cherished and returned to time and again by its fervent admirers. I’ll gladly say I’m one of them.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #4: THE MESSENGER

The Messenger (Oren Moverman/USA/113mins)

Although The Messenger was filmed in 2008 and received its US release in 2010 (then going on to nab two Oscar nods: Best Supporting Actor for Woody Harrelson and Best Original Screenplay for its director-writer Moverman and co-writer Alessandro Camon), it didn’t arrive on UK screens until July 2011. For a highly praised film concerning timely, contemporary themes, the distributors took their time. But it was worth waiting to see: I was enthralled by it as soon as it finished. Rebellious staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), recently back from a tour of duty in Iraq after an injury, is tasked alongside stern, ex-alcoholic career soldier Capt. Tony Stone (Harrelson), to deliver the news of recently deceased soldiers to their families under the army’s Casualty Notification service. Will starts a tentative affair with one soldier’s spouse, Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), in between learning home-turf survival lessons from Stone. It’s a film acutely attuned to the tread of everyday life – though marked by exceptional, unfortunate circumstances – and how alien it is to people unused to it.

It's a film willing to scrutinise and observe its characters; it’s unafraid to let them merely be, talk, and function in curious or messy ways without a significant amount of obvious baggage tying them to typical or easy traits. (The near-silent ten-minute scene between Olivia and Will in her kitchen is a masterpiece of loaded emotion.) Each of the three central characters has grievances and issues. That we coherently understand them is due to the effective simplicity of Harrelson’s, Foster’s and Morton’s nuanced performances. Foster gave the year’s best male turn; he embodied a familiar role without resorting to cliché and took it in a complicated, fascinating direction. Harrelson dug deep to relay cocksure wisdom flecked with sour regret; together they turned a pair of reluctant grief peddlers into awkwardly engaging people. And Morton believably turned the sorrow inherent in particularly tragic death on its side; she made thoroughly material one woman’s fraught life. Many of us may not have been in these people’s positions, but Moverman and co. convey their experiences in credible ways. Hearing news of a loved one’s death hurts deeply. And taking the brunt of a stranger’s crushing desperation or calm acceptance, having delivered them death on their doorsteps, comes with its own hopeless pain, too. Through this idea Moverman ensures we develop concrete bonds with the people we are watching. He’s a compelling filmmaker and The Messenger is a rich and thoughtful film.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #5: BRIDESMAIDS

Bridesmaids (Paul Feig/USA/125mins)

Whilst it largely follows a set template for many American comedies of recent years, Bridesmaids is much more than a standard comic concoction. It’s more layered and subversively anarchic than it being just a female-centred take on a riotous rom-com. It got lazily labelled as a female The Hangover, or a Knocked Up-style reply from an opposing viewpoint, but these assumptions, while only partially founded anyway, miss what made it so refreshing and actually rather caustic. It’s not an average My Best Friend’s Wedding (or similar) comic-romance affair either. Here, the usually inviolable “girly” movie setting of a bridal boutique is soiled with shit and vomit. Better than simply an instance of scatological folly, it’s evidence that Bridesmaids is staging a distrustful and playful assault on marital etiquette and tradition. (And it’s performed with great sense of timing and care of character.) More than these moments being just a case of the girls out-grossing the boys, it shows the men just how much weak sauce they’ve been dealing in over the years. The plot may have been erratic and episodic – yet formed out of humorous experiment – but it revels in all the pleasures of the improvised set piece with naturally hilarious abandon. In fact, the loosely arranged and comically piecemeal nature of, say, the drunk-on-the-plane sequence or the bridal party ‘speech-off’ set Bridesmaids apart. It followed a pattern, but wasn’t afraid to skip off on a daft path when required. The humour escalates farcically, but through joyful endeavour and the crucial sharpness of a cast of talented women, it feels loopily immersive and wonderfully unlaboured. It’s both a cynical swipe at wedding mores and an affectionate acknowledgement of them; it has its wedding cake – and destroys it. Seemingly deluded yet compassionately drawn characters aren’t often so singularly spotlighted in such films the way Annie Walker is here. (For me, Kristen Wiig gave the performance of last year, though Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper all shine in the main roles.) Annie's behaviour, mostly uncommon in the genre, was realistically awkward and – in my healthily cynical mind – entirely defensible. She was all about the connection over the pomp. And good for her. Director Feig, Wiig and (co-writer) Annie Mumolo play the wedding game beautifully. They champion togetherness, but equally pride daft misanthropy as worthy of comic exploration.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #6: 13 ASSASSINS

13 Assassins Jûsan-nin no shikaku (Takashi Miike/Japan, UK/126mins)

It goes without saying that a Takashi Miike film is always worth watching. I’d gladly spend time in front of any one of his films, whatever the subject, however vast or abrupt the length. His output is variable, sure, but the proliferation of his filmography means that there are some absolute gems and several definite great works. 13 Assassins is certainly one of his finest films. Compelling and unceasingly relentless for two-thirds of its running time, and starkly austere to begin with, it’s a tension-fuelled and kinetically forceful retelling of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 black-and-white original of the same name. It sets the story up: the samurais of 1840s Japan are on the slide. To stop the tyrannical Lord Matsudaira Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki) before he climbs the political ranks, a band of thirteen samurais, lead by Shimada Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho), are gathered together to ambush the Lord. As far as movie ambushes go, this one steal rolls all competition flat. After an intriguing, persuasive and determinedly low-key set-up, two words usher forth a prolonged, all-out assault: TOTAL MASSACRE – a blood red statement of intent scrawled across a taut banner on top of a dividing gate, soon to be blown apart by intense battle. Miike’s direction haemorrhages full-bodied action. Rain, mud and the rapidity of fiercely serious swordplay dominate the remainder of the film; 45 continuous minutes’ worth of swiftly-delivered carnage. It’s engrossing to watch. Miike doesn’t let characterisation diminish, though. Each of the characters is allowed moments and actions in which they rise or fall. It’s enriched by Nobuyasu Kita’s fluid photography and edited with crucial skill Kenji Yamashita. Miike’s direction, needless to say, is first rate.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #7: JULIA'S EYES

Julia's Eyes  Los ojos de Julia (Guillem Morales/Spain/112mins)

A house at night: a basement, a noose, a blind woman; a figure lurking in a dark corner. A street-wide power cut both abruptly halts the action and cranks up the tension. Then, a cut to an observatory elsewhere. Mystery follows – and what mystery. It’s all about looking, not seeing and what is or, possibly, isn’t there. The opening scenes of Julia’s Eyes were a gripping exercise in how to draw an audience in with swiftly orchestrated suspense. Guillem Morales’ stylish, efficient horror-thriller, produced by Guillermo del Toro, succeeded in evocatively adding a shot of pure high drama, amid the ink-dark imagery, to one of 2011's best horror films. The premise (a woman with a degenerative eye disease battles real and/or unreal terrors in the hope that she doesn’t befall the same fate as her twin sister) may have felt slightly shopworn, something from the likes of The Eye (2002) and 1994’s Blink, but instead of strictly following narrow genre patterns Morales crafted his story after themes found in much earlier horrors: ‘70s and ‘80s gialli by Dario Argento, Sergio Martino and Co. (There’s a whiff of Brian De Palma, too – and of course Hitchcock.) The need to discover what’s behind the mystery takes hold incrementally through a series of memorable scenes (a creepy chase in the underbelly of a building, lit only by the glare of a mobile phone; a tense escape attempt in a shower room full of blind women; an archetypal – yet still unnerving – close-up of a knife edging toward an unseeing eye) and rarely lets the tension cease. It played like a film equivalent of an addictive pot boiler: a moody, gripping tale that hinges on one intriguing plot turn after another; each one adding more intensity before veering off down unexpected avenues toward an increasingly wrought and gloriously delerious finale. Belén Rueda gave a strong, fearless performance as Julia. You experience each sting and jolt alongside her every step of the way. And Lluís Homar, Pablo Derqui and Julia Gutiérrez Caba provided fine support. I look forward to more within the horror genre from Morales. He's got the style and the smarts for career longevity.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #8: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt/USA/105mins)

Something rather fine and creatively fortuitous happened within the process of Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ production and release that ensured it looked and played like one of the better summer blockbusters in recent years. It managed to arouse that particularly fulfilling thrill of immediate excitement that happens after you’ve just sat through something vastly, gleefully entertaining. It also managed to be substantially engaging for a long time thereafter – and on further viewing, too. The nimbleness of Wyatt’s direction played a healthy part in its evocation of the beginnings of the end of the human-dominated world. His camera takes in the vast detail of landscape and scrutinises man’s and ape’s eyes for signs of defeat/deceit. He has grand fun with it all, too: an epic ‘jail’ break resulting in the scariest shrewdness of apes trashing the streets of San Francisco and the staging an evolutionary-challenging face-off on the Golden Gate Bridge made for barmy, big-screen-happy ideas. Unnatural selection runs rampant. The effects team make everything look effortless – and deserve to be rewarded handsomely for their creative digital toil. Andy Serkis, as ex-Semper Fi simian Caesar, swings away with the acting honours, of course. But the rest of the cast work around him well enough. The astuteness of Wyatt and co. making a fresh Apes movie – another variant of Pierre Boulle’s source novel – whilst, at the same time, actually resetting a franchise (so that a probable sequel might then be a true remake of the original 1968 film that this Apes is now overhauling) was a move that sat on the right side of savvy. Everything about it was so brilliantly crafty. This was 2011’s best bout of destructive summer fun.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #9: A SEPARATION

 A Separation  Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Asghar Farhadi/Iran123mins)

A rich and remarkable drama about two families – one well-off, the other scraping an existence together – living in contemporary Tehran, A Separation has the structure of a quietly unassuming mystery. Traversing its subtly multifaceted plot was like attempting to solve a perplexing, almost unanswerable puzzle to which we’re only half-shown most of the pieces. The separation of the title – a rift in the familial, religious and class dynamic of a couple, the carer they hire and both their families – was aroused by an initially straightforward yet ultimately devastating act; the narrative that spins off from the film's opening premise was entirely riveting. I could fully understand the widespread acclaim it received at festivals earlier in the year and, more recently, when it started to crop up on many people’s year-end lists. I concurred heartily after I saw it. It’s a fine polemic about social and gender issues within Iranian domestic life; and it’s an emotive, yet never overemotional, tale played with utmost integrity to its characters (check out that last group scene). Peyman Moadi as Nader, the fraught husband, and, in particular, Sareh Bayat as Razieh, the home help whose life is unalterably set off course by her involvement with his family, both gave devastatingly poignant performances. It’s a film about dubious fates and hidden facts – and the desperate people negotiating the often vast, and sometimes narrow, divisions between one another. Farhadi shows us that we should never be complacent about the matters that affect those within our closest quarters.

Top Ten Films of the Year 2011 #10: SNOWTOWN

Snowtown (Justin Kurzel/Australia/119mins)

The eruptions of violence in debut director Justin Kurzel's Snowtown come sporadically, intensively and often with gut-churning abstraction. It’s an expertly crafted drama. A frank, corrosive study of evil’s many rhizomic strands.The bravely headlong approach to the infamous story of Australia’s worst murder case is deftly handled with breathtaking confidence and fluency of image. It’s intelligent filmmaking that questions a full range of unsavoury, hot-button subjects. Suitable post-Xmas dinner viewing this certainly ain’t! Kurzel’s smart, thoughtful directorial approach opens up many complex avenues of enquiry as to how we might ponder and understand the events of the story. With total keen assurance Kurzel utilises a variety of filmmaking techniques that equally dislodge and enthral our sense of grim spectacle as the film progresses. It depicts with convincing authority a whole repugnant mess of issues relating to the real-life case; but it's essentially about the indoctrination of a young man into a life of foul criminality. It’s this, the film’s central, unfalteringly bleak narrative thread that remains fixed in the mind for a long time after the film's last image. Snowtown is harsh, relentless and grips with a despairing force. It's positively caustic filmmaking.

More on Snowtown

Films of the Year 2011: Films 30 - 11

Here are my selections for 30-21 (simply listed in order), followed by films 20-11 (with, by-and-large, double-tweet-length commentary). I've separated this from the top ten purely for brevity: scrolling, scrolling, scrolling - especially at the time of the year when lists are ten-a-penny - can cause havoc with any self-respecting film lover/writer's digits. By-and-large, bite-sized lists in sets of ten are easier to consume. The films were all released between Jan 1st and Dec. 31st 2011, with maybe a few strays or curveballs (such as festival release with no wide-release date or DVD-premiere release and so on) thrown in. Every movie, big or small, major or minor in scale and intent, deserves a fair shot at year-end glory. This is something I've stood by year-in, year-out.

Note: I drew up my top 30 list several weeks ago, but have only now scribbled up some words to go with it. This means that, inevitably, some films I've seen since from the year, and that may have been included (Senna, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol etc), haven't been given a place even if they were entirely worthy. Also, some films may, in time, move up or down according to rewatches or personal opinion. This is always the way and unavoidable. But anyway, here they are (for the forseeable future, at least):

Films 30 - 21:

30. Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston)
29. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
28. Bedevilled Kim Bok-nam salinsageonui jeonmal (Chul-soo Jang)
27. The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman)
26. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey)
25. A Screaming Man Un homme qui crie (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
24. True Grit (JoelCoen/Ethan Coen)
23. Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
22. Pina (Wim Wenders)
21. Pariah (Dee Rees)

Ten just out of shot (no order): Brighton Rock, Thor, Everything Must Go, Early One Morning, Stake Land, The Awakening, Insidious, Animal Kingdom, Win Win, Never Let Me Go.

Five TV movies I liked (no order): Marwencol, Mildred Pierce, Temple Grandin, You Don’t Know Jack and (in particular) Public Speaking.

Films 20 - 11:

20. Last Night (Massy Tadjedin)

Because: the craft of the filmmaking was top-notch (check out the credits for editing, music, cinematography) and it was duly matched by a quartet of fine performances; Knightley was career-best so far; Mendes a minor revelation. It was misjudged time and again for, as far as I could tell, merely featuring the lives of wine-drinking Manhattanites. Well, gosh! Away with you every Woody Allen and Whit Stillman movie! It's a film I feel deserves reassessment.

19. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)

Because: never has Brontë's heroine been so headstrong and captivating on screen. It's commendable for its attention to atmosphere, detail and not being shy of letting the best, key aspects of period filmmaking simply shine. Plus Wasikowska and Fassbender were so terribly, utterly moving in a downpour, so they were.

18. The Interrupters (Steve James)

Because: it was the best documentary of the year. A brilliant and compelling account of people critically and decisively striving to change things; steering others on to better paths and ways of living. It was a cinematic reply, too: filmmaking as an answer to a huge, vast problem. It has to be mentioned and commended for its aims.

17. Another Earth (Mike Cahill)

Because: films that begin in quite commonplace fashion, then turn out to be genuinely surprising, and then gradually turn into something completely heartfelt - albeit charmingly, curiously scrappy - don't always come around too often. It was made with due care and committment, with one eye on a delightfully odd concept, the other on awkward romance. I'm a sucker for a novel sci-fi genre mash.

16. Rango (Gore Verbinski)

Because: it's the best animated film that features a creature with a gleefully mischievous personality at its centre since Ratatouille. And I'm happy to see one of these any year, month, week. Also, it pushes mainstream animation into rarely explored, slightly uglier territory, whilst still retaining a pleasing and becoming charm all its own. Adventure in microcosm is still adventure - and what an adventure!

15. Terri (Azazel Jacobs)

Because: it showed that heartfelt - but never twee or overly sentimental - indie filmmaking still has the ability to be fresh, endearing. It's a skewed, truly left-of-centre take on the high school coming-of-age movie. The characters felt real, drawn from lived experience. The acting was sincerely, joyfully astute. (More on Terri here - scroll down for mini comments from the LFF.)

14. Cold Weather (Aaron Katz)

Because: it was like a welcome and long-overdue chat with a good friend. I was caught off-guard, having not much liked Katz's two previous films (Dance Party USA and Quiet City), but this was a massive step up and away from all the over-indulged 'mumblecore' tedium. A mystery about who we think we know - and with delightful, unaffected performances to boot.

13. Weekend (Andrew Haigh)

Because: it trumps, realigns and amiably ushers gay filmmaking forward - and it looks and feels effortless in doing so. (Yes, it is universal, but it is also certified Gay Cinema - its level of success means it manages a multitude of things to a great many different types of people.) The two well-written, and entirely real, characters at the centre of this big-hearted compact-romance have hardly, if ever, been explored in this way. (More on Weekend here - mini comments, along with some thoughts on Pariah.)

12. Ballast (Lance Hammer)

Because: similarly as with several other recent films (such as, say, Another Earth, Blue Valentine and The Messenger), it heart-breakingly explored the desperate limits of personal loss and how people might look to others for sustenance and/or escape. I was fully with all three main characters every step. Their everyday troubles and dreams were entirely relatable.

11. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)

Because: we need expressions of absurd, Grand Guignol-like hysteria set in the world of mind-haunting ballet. It was inevitable that we'd get another Mulholland Dr., 3 Women or Persona now writ audaciously onto a mainstream marquee. It was a head-trip unlike any others in recent times and a beautiful, tense genre swill that was hard to unpick and get out of my mind. (Read my piece on Black Swan for the official 2011 Bafta brochure via this link.)

Next: Top Ten Films of the Year

Films of the Year 2011: Male Performances

I posted my picks for female performances yesterday, so to go alongside it, as ever, here are the ten male performances of the year that I enjoyed the most. And as with the female list, there's a second-tier list of performances, 20-11, first:

20. Sam Riley Brighton Rock
19. Jean-Pierre Darroussin Early One Morning
18. Albert Brooks Drive
17. Jacob Wysocki Terri
16. Lucas Pittaway Snowtown
15. Benedict Cumberbatch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
14. Youssouf Djaoro A Screaming Man
13. Woody Harrelson The Messenger
12. Will Ferrell Everything Must Go
11. Ryan Gosling Drive / Blue Valentine / Crazy, Stupid, Love.

The Top Ten Male Performances of 2011:

Last year the calibre of the male performances was higher than this year – and I still had trouble selecting twenty, let alone a top ten (but here it is for perusal). At the ten end of the list is Cris Lankenau for his affable role in Cold Weather. I enjoyed how he casually navigated his way around the tenuous mysteries of the film: it was a natural and likeable performance. Paul Rudd stood out of the starry cast of How Do You Know. He always charms easily, but it’s a trait I never take for granted. His exasperation and amiability shone here just as much as it has elsewhere – and the rooftop scene where he frustratingly attempts to barbecue a steak was a favourite 2011 comic moment. Paul Giamatti is always solid in most films, and he was typically assured in Win Win. He can do the kind of put-upon everyman role he does in the film effortlessly, but he added an extra zippiness to complement his character’s crestfallen vibe. John C. Reilly was good in We Need to Talk About Kevin, but even better in Terri; it’s perhaps one of the best things he’s done. If the Academy wants to strike the right note in February, he should be duly nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar. He does wonders with his support role. The very same could be said of Yûsuke Iseya in 13 Assassins. In a film which contains many great physical turns, his was the cheekily ragged standout. His performance was sly, charming and oddly moving - a welcome respite from the massacres depicted over the film's duration.

Just like Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling and Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans had a handful of films out in 2011. In, respectively, Captain America: The First Avenger, Puncture and What’s Your Number? he was heroically sincere, vigorously committed and daft as a ferret and refreshingly breezy. All three were delivered with the requisite pitch-perfect levels of exuberance and skill required for these three entirely different films. He’s shown he can master a varying range of styles and genres: now let’s see more of it. Another actor due just a bit more praise, I’d say, is Matthew McConaughey, who weaves a rakish spell with his best role in years, perhaps ever, in The Lincoln Lawyer. He played it smart, savvy and with just enough of a hint of playboy noir. He was shabbily captivating. Of the two lovely performances - from Tom Cullen and Chris New - in the very becoming love story, Weekend, I was taken with Cullen’s just a bit more. It was his character, Russell’s, story, essentially, and he gave a beautifully measured and affecting turn. He should rightly go on to more great roles as soon as possible. Daniel Henshall’s role as serial killer John Bunting in Snowtown is one that I won’t forget easily. His intricately ghastly mannerisms and actions, both major and minor, were hard to shake from my mind after seeing the film, as they are now; his riveting performance is hard to shake. Depicting real, unfiltered evil as Henshall does takes serious acting chops. Top of the male acting pile, though, is Ben Foster in The Messenger. As soon as the film finished I wondered if I’d see another performance which could surpass it for sheer boldness and conviction. As an ex-U.S. Army Staff Sergeant assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification department, he was both subtly assured and deceptively volatile, depending on the circumstances within the plot. He expertly commanded every scene he was in. It’s a performance on the level of any of the great actors – but from a relatively unheralded character actor. More kudos, and more brilliant roles like this, should be directed Foster’s way.

10.
Cris Lankenau
as Doug
in Cold Weather

09.
Paul Rudd
as George
in How Do You Know

08.
Paul Giamatti
as Mike Flaherty
in Win Win

07.
Yûsuke Iseya
as Koyata
in 13 Assassins
(Jûsan-nin no shikaku)

06.
John C. Reilly
as Mr. Fitzgerald
in Terri

05.
Chris Evans
as Mike Weiss / Captain America/Steve Rogers / Colin Shea
in  Puncture / Captain America: The First Avenger / What’s Your Number?

04.
Matthew McConaughey 
as Mick Haller
in The Lincoln Lawyer

03.
Tom Cullen
as Russell
in Weekend

02.
Daniel Henshall
as John Bunting
in Snowtown

01.
Ben Foster
as Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery
in The Messenger





Next up: Top Ten Films of 2011

Films of the Year 2011: Female Performances

Here are the ten female performances of the last year that I enjoyed the most. But first, here are the second-tier female performances, 20-11:

20. Amy Adams The Fighter
19. Seo Yeong-hee Bedevilled
18. Keira Knightley Last Night
17. Brit Marling Another Earth
16. Melissa McCarthy Bridesmaids
15. Carey Mulligan Never Let Me Go
14. Natalie Portman Black Swan
13. Milla Jovovich Stone
12. Tilda Swinton We Need to Talk About Kevin
11. Adepero Oduye Pariah


The Top Ten Female Performances of 2011:

As with what resulted in my top ten last year, there was an influx of great acting by the women in 2011. My top ten kicks of with Vera Farmiga, always an assured talent, being sharply sarcastic and just ever-so vulnerable as a determined actress in Henry's Crime. Sarek Bayat and Samantha Morton both supported with crucial ease in their roles (in A Separation and The Messenger, respectively); Beyat was the suffering centre of the brilliant Iranian family drama, showing guarded restraint and poignancy; those qualities were also to be found in Morton's performance as a bereaved army wife in the latter film (Morton is generally excellent, whatever the role). Both actresses conveyed a great deal more in support than many actresses did with lead roles. Belén Rueda took me alongside her character every step of the way in Julia's Eyes and was never less than eerily compelling; and the freshness and vigour that Tarra Riggs - in her first film role - showed throughout Ballast was often staggering. I'd like to see her get more key roles in a range of films. As soon as Jane Eyre ended I knew that I had to reserve a spot for Mia Wasikowska on this list. I was bowled over by her moving and headstrong interpretation of the classic role.

Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg were a sure-thing inclusion for their bold, immersive work in Melancholia, too. I wasn't about to include one without the other - each actress traversed their roles with total conviction; in both halves of the film, Dunst and Gainsbourg complement and corrode each other unforgettably. Yoon Jeong-hee was a definite from the first frame of Poetry. It was the role that moved me the most in 2011; she held my attention in every scene, whatever was occurring narratively, and she managed to be beautifully, subtly magnetic in her own unique way. In complete thematic contrast, Kirsten Wiig in Bridesmaids, grabbing the top spot with daft abandon, was an utter ridiculous joy to watch. True, lasting comic ability, whether largely writ or minutely detailed (Wiig's performance embodied both remarkably - compare the plane set-piece with her baking a sole cupcake), can often be tricky to balance in just the right way to convey the exact funny line or amusing gesture. Wiig, through natural talent and snappy timing, managed to surpass every other comedy actress not just this past year, but quite possibly the last five or six (or more). She deserves the highest praise indeed.

10:
Vera Farmiga
as Julie Ivanova
in Henry's Crime

09:
Sareh Bayat
as Razieh
in A Separation
(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)

08:
Samantha Morton
as Olivia Pitterson
in The Messenger

07:
Belén Rueda
as Julia Leven/Sara
in Julia's Eyes
(Los ojos de Julia)

06:
Tarra Riggs
as Marlee
in Ballast

05:
Mia Wasikowska 
as Jane Eyre
in Jane Eyre

04:
Charlotte Gainsbourg
as Claire
in Melancholia

03:
Kirsten Dunst
as Justine
in Melancholia

02:
Yoon Jeong-hee
as Yang Mija
in Poetry
(Shi)

01:
Kristen Wiig
as Annie Walker
in Bridesmaids





Next up: Male performances and Top Ten Films of 2011.

Films of the Year 2011: Worsts (or Come On Folks, You Can Do Better Than That)

With little need for an introduction (the heading says what it is), here are the ten films (plus another, back-up ten listed) which grabbed, thrilled, impressed and entertained me least this year. (As ever, all films were released in the UK between Jan. 1st and Dec. 31st. Or thereabouts.)

01. For Lovers Only (Michael Polish)

For Lovers Only: an in-love couple contemplate whether to be in love on a beach or a bed.

It resembled an overlong Calvin Klein perfume ad that no one asked for. Or an extended segment of Paris je t'aime that no one wanted. If you can imagine a third-rate homage of not just a Jean-Luc Godard film, but – worse than that – the “essence" of a Jean-Luc Godard film, then this is the film for you. I’d have been left comatose by director Michael Polish’s unbearable pastiche had I not been constantly wriggling in my seat desperate for it to end. Lovers in bed. Lovers on a beach. Lovers on mopeds. It was excruciating: one draining scene of internalised longing and woe after another. It’s love story as art-directed hipness: for posers only - so, like most scent ads with a passing knowledge of the French New Wave, then. However, recast it with zombies...

02. The Hangover Part II (Todd Phillips)

Things randomly happening in crass, haphazard succession. Repeat until fade. More of the same, exactly the same, as the first part but only occurring in a slightly shuffled sequence. It’s a money maker. A quality-proof hit-creating concept s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out into a tediously bilious infinity. I’m now fully done with Bradley Cooper & pals’ tiresome escapades after two joyless jaunts. It’s the kind of film which proudly bellows that it doesn’t care about what it promotes or says because it truly believes that it belongs in a state of post-ironic universal acceptance of all things, however questionable. (Men can do what they want anytime, all the time; transsexuals are to be laughed at anytime, all the time, and so on.) That’s just the beginning of what’s so wrong about these godawful films. And another thing: it simply wasn't funny.

03. Your Highness (David Gordon Green)

This and Bad Teacher both made me laugh once. Not each; they shared just the one laugh between them. Although, I’m not sure, it could’ve been a hiccup. Or a long, drawn-out boredom sigh. Natalie Portman proved that Black Swan may very well have been a brilliant fluke; James Franco bizarrely replicated his Pineapple Express persona... but in chainmail, and without the charm; Danny McBride came off least inept, but he misfired eight jokes in every ten. (I loved "No! Not triangle face," however.) David Gordon Green showed refreshing comic chops and did a cheeky about-turn with Pineapple, but now he’s just exposing to us to his rotten comedy cavities. He’s laughing at us, not with us, surely?

04. Fair Game (Doug Liman)

Most Deathly Boring Movie of 2011 goes to... this Sean Penn/Naomi Watts dud. In it, someone, maybe several people, talked about tubes a lot, if I recall correctly. Someone stole some tubes? Someone ate a 'yellow cake'? Naomi Watts definitely said, “I have a critical operation in Baghdad... my contact’s packed and ready to go!” as if her hair straighteners depended on it. And then: “something something covert agent... something something tubes something breaking point... something gimme some of that yellow cake filled with uranium.” Or something. I spent most the time wishing Brooke Smith had been given the lead role instead of one superfluous scene and watching extras mill about as if they had any purpose. Real-life dramas have never felt as inert or as innocuous as they did here.

05. Hereafter (Clint Eastwood)

Hereafter: Matt and Bryce were contemplating chopping some tomatoes. Again.

Clint’s feel-bad tsunami deathfest, Hereafter, a human drama with a supernatural leaning, is out to prove that, yes, he can make a worse film than Gran Torino. It's uninspired filmmaking: lazy, largely pointless and ultimately lacking in any clear meaning. At one point Damon joins a cooking class which solely consists of lengthy bouts of slicing tomatoes with Bryce Dallas Howard. The acting was fair (Damon) to ropey (the McLarens twins), its unceasingly dour pace was a dull, myopic trudge and its take on all things supernatural was both unoriginal (blurry spectral figures, pallid faces everywhere) and selective (all British mediums are hacks; American ones are genuine). Everybody spoke with plaintive reverence as if God was listening and cared what they had to say. But, on a brighter note, it was the only film ever to end on a meet-cute outside an Oddbins. So there's that.

06. Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks)

Do well regarded actors always make good directors? I’m guessing some look maybe look toward, say, Mel Gibson or Clint Eastwood before they arrive at Hanks. Although I care for neither of the above pair’s behind-the-camera escapades (see #5 above), at least their directorial efforts have a sustained impact, personality. Any jobbing director-for-hire could’ve directed That Thing You Do! or Larry Crowne. When I think of Hanks’ persona, his comic persona, it doesn’t translate to what we have here. Roberts lazily smugs it up as someone we’re meant to find caustically, endearingly amusing, but who is actually unbearable (an actress of Michelle Pfeiffer's top-dollar calibre could've made this role sing); Hanks pratfalls to little use; the support cast zone out. And, ultimately, so did I. Watch Everything Must Go instead. It’s a much better treatment of this idea.

07. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger - or Dusk in London, if you want to be glum about it, and I evidently do - was entirely dire. This is coming from someone who generally loves Woody Allen. When well-loved actors (Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin etc) appear to find it hard to articulate their thoughts convincingly, warning lights flash; when they aren’t able to comfortably arrange their own bodies within a film frame, warning beacons flare up. Very little was amusing, let alone actually, technically funny and the plot was a haphazard slog; the construction of each scene – framing, blocking, art direction etc – was too fudged to register as believable. It's a real catastrophe when capable actors flail even when they’re just meant to be opening their gobs and picking up bar snacks. I’m not certain Woody was actually watching what was happening. It’s one of his biggest misfires.

08. Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan)

Heartbeats: three hipsters contemplate their navels. In turn and at length.

I surprised myself by watching another film directed by Xavier Dolan after feeling infuriated by the achingly hip and irritating I Killed My Mother last year. But in the hope that a follow-up might unearth something fresh I gave his second directorial outing a fair pop. I’m not sure which film I disliked more. I find it hard to care about the kind of self-regarding, smug people that populate both films. They were artfully dejected types who bored me senseless, with their transparent woes on lust, love and what was happening only directly at the within their privileged spheres. Dolan’s overly showy directorial tics could be explained by his neophyte position, perhaps, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he throws everything into the frame because anything less would reveal his bare-boned talents as all too empty. Heartbeats contains some of my least liked types of filmmaking: affected, whiny and ponderous.

09. My Soul to Take (Wes Craven)

Or: Wes Craven's Snoozeround. Both Craven and John Carpenter – two bearded titans of the most fondly recalled horror of the past three decades – made returns, of a certain type, to horror-genre filmmaking this year. Carpenter let us onto The Ward; Craven added Scream 4 to complete(?) his success-decreasing series. He supplemented it with My Soul to Take; and I wish he hadn’t. After the opening titles and a bare introduction to what's likely going to happen over the next 90 minutes, it peters out into A Nightmare on Elm Street the junior edition. Something I never thought anyone wanted, needed or even actually ever contemplated. Soul was a sure sign that Craven is, yikes, way beyond his 'best before' date.

10. Hobo with a Shotgun (Jason Eisener)

I didn’t quite understand why people started to think of films like this and, say, Machete as genuine throwbacks to Grindhouse filmmaking; or, more bafflingly, when they were labelled as genuine (albeit contemporary takes on) Grindhouse films. It felt odd. In fact, the films talked about seemed like weak parody more than definite new entries. Especially Hobo, a pastiche of flaky style and misjudged proportions. But I guess if you shoehorn Rutger Hauer into the lead and make him aptly desperate and dishevelled (ditto the grimy sheen of the filmmaking), some folks will buy it. It’s all affect; it’s all appearance. It looks like old 35mm film fucked to the point of abandon, or VHS fuzzed until forever. So therefore it’s authentic enough? I’d rather see the actual films made during the “mucky” period of the late ‘70s-early ‘80s (The Exterminator, Savage Streets, Maniac etc) to see what it was genuinely all about, rather than see a feeble fan-made imprint.

Ten more (in no order): 

The King’s Speech
Bad Teacher
Kaboom
Horrible Bosses
Super
Ward No. 6
Limitless
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Beastly
I Spit on Your Grave

Films of the Year 2011: Cinematography, Music, Male & Female Cameos/Small Roles

Until the Worst films, Best films and Female and Male Performances posts, here are four brief Tens for cinematography, music and best male and female cameos/small roles. As I was making my acting top tens recently, I noticed a a lot more smaller performances - slightly more substantial than your normal cameo appearance, but not necessarily solid enough supporting roles - that I enjoyed this year. (In some cases the actors' contributions made the film for me.) I wanted to, in some small way, acknowledge that I enjoyed the performances on the peripheries of some films. Also, I selected music and cinematography contributions of all the technical/crew achievements as there were many exemplary examples of these filmmaking attributes during the past year.

Best Cinematography (in alphabetical film title order):

Black Swan Matthew Libatique
Drive Newton Thomas Sigel
How I Ended This Summer Pavel Kostomarov

Julia’s Eyes Óscar Faura
Melancholia Manuel Alberto Claro
Midnight in Paris Darius Khondji
Snowtown Adam Arkapaw
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Hoyte Van Hoytema

The Tree of Life Emmanuel Lubezki
True Grit Roger Deakins

Best Music (in alphabetical film title order):

Another Earth Fall on Your Sword
Black Swan Clint Mansell

Brighton Rock Martin Phipps
Cold Weather Keegan DeWitt
Drive Cliff Martinez
Last Night Clint Mansell
Rubber Gaspard Augé/Sébastien Akchoté/Quentin Dupieux
The Skin I Live In Alberto Iglesias

Snowtown Jed Kurzel
Stone Jonny Greenwood/Jon Brion

Male Acting: cameo/small role (in no order):

left-right: David, Stoll, Lee

Christopher Lee The Resident

Colin Farrell Horrible Bosses

William H. Macy The Lincoln Lawyer

James Franco The Green Hornet

Adrien Brody Midnight in Paris

Andy Serkis Brighton Rock

Corey Stoll Midnight in Paris

Jon Hamm Bridesmaids

Keith David Meet Monica Velour

Hugo Weaving Captain America: The First Avenger

Female Acting: cameo/small role (in no order):

left-right: Mendes, Dern, McGillis

Minnie Driver Conviction

Christina Hendricks Drive

Jennifer Ehle Contagion

Lin Shaye Insidious

Kelly McGillis Stake Land

Eva Mendes Last Night

Frances Conroy Stone

Alison Pill Midnight in Paris

Laura Dern Everything Must Go

Charlotte Rampling Melancholia

Next: Worst films, Top Ten Male & Female Acting and Best Films of the Year.

Films of the Year 2011: Surprises

Yesterday I posted up my 2011 Disappointments and today we have The 2011 Surprises of the Year. With this list (here's last year's for extra perusal) I mostly wanted to highlight several titles (15 in total) that I caught throughout the year and that I didn't know much about or were oddly taken with – and as a result surprised me. I thought they deserved a touch more praise than what they may well have got (to my knowledge anyhow) and . This is by no means a list of alternative or secondary best films – I have a top 30 to come – but it can often be good practice to single out the nearly-couldas or the bypassed contenders and give them a helpful shove under the spotlight. These ten films are in no order, they're merely listed randomly:

Mr. Nobody (Jaco van Dormael)

What I enjoyed about Mr. Nobody was what unfortunately, in the end, relegated it to this list instead of seeing it sit pretty on another (30-11): its gleefully harebrained slipperiness. It wants to be a romance, a drama, a sci-fi and everything in between. And it partially succeeds. But after it breaches its second hour (with 30mins still left to play out and nowhere left to go but back in on itself for a third, then fourth, time), it loses much momentum. But still, it’s a thoughtfully individual film; one which looked – and was edited – like little else last year. It engaged in arousing universal themes that some films indulgently fudged (I’m looking at you, The Fountain). If it knew when to call it a day Mr. Nobody could’ve been near sublime. Instead, it was The Truman Show starring Jared Leto in old man makeup, remade by Richard Kelly on laughing gas. Director van Dormael does have some serious style under his belt and I’d willingly submit to more sci-fis from him. However, the biggest drawback outside of the unwieldy running time, I'm sad to say, is a grade-A awful performance from Sarah Polley.

The Reef (Andrew Traucki)

The Reef is essentially just another spin on the stranded-desperate-at-sea (not really a) sub-genre. (See: Open Water etc.) But it works minor wonders by making it feel justly exciting and more than adequately perilous – especially for any selachophobia sufferers out there. A party of however many future shark-attack victims, deserted at sea after their boat snags its underside on a rock, make a slap dash for dry land; risking becoming Great White fodder along the way. It’s all par for the course, but the performances, shark wrangling (real, specially-shot shark footage was used) and nicely maintained tone set it apart. Director Andrew Traucki does a fine job – as good as the one he did for 2007 giant crocodile movie Black Water, showing he’s crucially adept at Dangerous Animal Cinema.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark)

Ridiculously vertiginous towers. Boat rides through mystical caves. Gravity-pooh-poohing fights and swordplay. Deer that morph into human form... only to indulge in gravity-pooh-poohing fights and swordplay. Costumes that would shock and dropkick Lady Gaga’s jaw wide open. Direction with plenty of speed, swoop and gusto. Detective Dee had oodles going for it. It didn’t always successfully play the content off the stunning visuals, but when it worked it was giddily gobsmacking entertainment. Some of the script felt oddly fudged in places and the tone was – sometimes awkwardly, other times charmingly – off kilter, but there aren’t too many barmy adventures like this during most film years. I was mainly enthralled by its sheer devil-may-care inventiveness. It was a CGI world far more evocative than that of Tintin and the like, too.

Puncture (Mark Kassen/Adam Kassen)

Puncture, like Conviction, The Fighter and The Resident, is ostensibly a TV movie dressed in its best theatrical suit. However, unlike those films, it didn’t receive a theatrical release. (Also, see Stone below.) It was bypassed and arrived straight to TV in the UK. This was a huge shame as, although it has an admittedly telly-friendly veneer, let’s say, and a rather tried and tested plot, it was a better film than all three above titles. Chris Evans gave a boldly committed performance as a real-life lawyer, it was handsomely shot and it very rarely squandered a moment of its running time; it was slick and never wasteful. Its essential decency, its social and politically astute mindset, (it’s about a drug-addicted lawyer sticking his neck on the line to save the lives of needle users whoever they might be) stands out as admirable. Come the end, it was all rather moving, too. Really, it’s a man Silkwood. And having one of those in the world doesn't hurt.

Quarantine 2: Terminal (John Pogue)

The things I liked about this very likely fast-tracked and certainly ramshackle follow-on from [Rec] remake Quarantine were almost periphery to everything that occurred directly as a result of its narrative. The incidental exchanges, events and geographical isolation - what might occur in the background - all made an unusually vivid impression. This time a gaggle of disparate characters are isolated within a hastily-landed plane and the adjoining airport terminal baggage area. That’s pretty much the sole setting for 90 minutes. But the filmmakers manage to make an involving enough horror-drama out of a very messy situation (and out of the straggled plot ends of the US remake). It’s pure relegated-to-the-late-spot Horror Channel fare, but not as easily dismissible as may be first apparent. It has a modicum more tension and invention than many cheap horror sequels - and there are numerous titles to choose from. It’s bags of fun and maintains its pace well. And it has some genuinely interesting scare tactics, along with some bizarrely harsh character deaths, to revel in over its snappy running time. It shows that inexpensive, workaday horror can sometimes surprise us if a few ideas or scenario changes are considered from time to time.

Everything Must Go (Dan Rush)

I went into Everything Must Go with some scepticism, as I did a previous Raymond Carver adaptation, Jindabyne. I don’t think either film quite captures the tone of his writing in the same way that Robert Altman managed with benchmark carver adaptation Short Cuts, but both manage joint-second best well enough. (Although whereas Altman adapted multiple short stories and interwove them seamlessly, director Rush takes the essence of one short – ‘Why Don’t You Dance?’ from his 1981 collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – and stretches it out to involve more characters and situations.) Rush, with Will Ferrell as the alcohol-dependent and recently fired husband who makes a sad yet celebratory party out of a lawn full of personal belongings, manages to retain some of the listless, melancholic timbre of Carver’s story whilst also opening it out somewhat. Good work from Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Christopher Jordan Wallace, Michael Peña and, in a brief and beautifully judged cameo, Laura Dern make this unassuming film really rather affecting; it’s often very moving in a plainly sincere fashion. It made similarly-plotted (man loses everything, learns to claw it back with the help of female companionship and close friends) yet infinitely feeble Tom Hanks effort Larry Crowne look like the insipid mess that it was. Oh, if release tactics could be swapped...

Stone (John Curran)

Apart from it being the best thing that Robert DeNiro has appeared in for at least fifteen years, Stone was a moody, pressurised and emotionally hefty four hander, made with some class and plenty of skill. It was largely overlooked and went direct to DVD/Blu-ray here in the UK. The four actors entwined in the plot – which broadly concerns the social and religious aspects of trust and duplicity surrounding an about-to-be-released murderer – play incredibly confidently off one another: DeNiro shows, indeed intently proves, why some still regard him so highly; Edward Norton has never been better; Milla Jovovich gives a career-best turn; and Frances Conroy broke my heart just a little bit. It’s about people and how they can be truly revealed through their words; it places deliberation and the crucial impact of conversation as paramount to the understanding of other people's lives. It’s vigorously intense stuff, sure, but never high-toned or stuffy. The music (a brilliant aural soundscape put together piecemeal by Jon Brion and Johnny Greenwood), cinematography (by the excellent Maryse Alberti) and editing (Alexandre de Franceschi, who did the photography for Bright Star) are all top dollar. The film is composed of across-the-board classy craftsmanship. It’s a shame that it never got the chance to reach a wider audience. Its director John Curran is currently one of the most interesting directors who hasn’t yet snagged a decent break. He makes adult-orientated dramas that are neither old-fashioned nor overly convoluted in the face of an increasingly infantilised Hollywood arena. Maybe he’s just behind or, perhaps, hopefully, just ahead of the curve. But you tell me why Little Fockers got a full release and Stone didn’t.

Henry's Crime (Malcolm Venville)

As with Stone, Henry’s Crime didn’t win much acclaim and was mostly sidelined in favour of bigger, more obvious thrills. But at least it had a theatrical shot in the UK. It’s not a unique concept for a film by any stretch, but it was amiable and perfectly leisurely paced (for a crime/heist film), and not without an element of eccentric charm to it. Keanu Reeves quietly slums it as a blue collar worker all too accepting of his unwitting part in a bank job; in prison he meets real crook James Caan and, when he’s out, figures he should rob the bank for real. Vera Farmiga is excellent in support as a local actress (flagging, with a few small diva-like flourishes, through a local, smallscale production of The Cherry Orchard) that Reeves romances. It’s very slight (its rather unsatisfactory ending knocks it down a peg or two), but was an agreeable watch. It perhaps might give the Coens a run for their money on an off day, if you know what I mean.

Agnosia (Eugeno Mira)

I enjoyed the time I spent watching Agnosia, even when, halfway through, it didn’t entirely manage to recapture or maintain the intriguing and mysterious promise of its early scenes and began seriously dragging somewhat. There were myriad convolutions snaked throughout the plot, and an inconsistent tone overall, but it was a constant visual joy to watch. The inky imagery, as sour and pummelled by time as a month-old aubergine, was the crowning achievement in Eugenio Mira’s box of filmic tricks, and it deserves the highest praise. Some partially superficial similarities to a couple of other 2011 horror releases – Amer and Julia’s Eyes – unfortunately come to mind, but it manages to be acres better than the former, whilst being nowhere near as good as the latter. A tonal tweak here and a plot shift there, and Agnosia could’ve been an absolute gem.

How Do You Know (James L. Brooks)

How do I know that How Do You Know is one of the year’s most casually pleasant surprises? I don’t, really. But neither do many others either, I gather. Hardly anyone saw, or at least commented on in any wide capacity, James L. Brooks’ latest comedy-drama. Those that did speak up didn’t mention how strangely becoming it was, how familiarly, weirdly nice its awkward embrace. Sure, much of the structure and some of the character interaction are skewed to the point of oddball abstraction (it’s hard to get any purchase on the way it shunts itself between people and situations at times), but it works well enough by positioning itself just to the side of the rom-com norm. It’s ever-so-slightly (and charmingly?) outmoded in its approach to matters of the daft heart and bizarre business. Paul Rudd was great (especially when he gets frustrated with a barbequed steak in a moment of inspired comical despair) and Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson were better here than they have been in anything else in the last few years. It’s maybe my favourite Brooks film. Maybe.

Five more half-decent surprises: Red Hill, Elektra Luxx, Drive Angry, The Next Three Days, The Awakening.

Next: some selected technical/crew bests, and it's him 'n' her time with the male and female acting. Then: worst films and films 30-11 followed by the Top Ten.