OSCAR 2011 PREDICTIONS: Foreign Language Film

I have as little an understanding of the Foreign Language race this year as just about anybody could. I know that I absolutely love "A Separation", and it's everyone's favorite to win. I also know that the best choice is so rarely the one that's chosen. People don't really know what goes on in the minds of the people who vote in that category. I hold as testament: "In A Better World", "The Secret in Their Eyes", "Departures", "The Counterfeiters", and many others in the past. This is ultimately nothing more than a crap shoot, and it's often total crap. I can only find myself swinging sympathy under one fighter, and that's "A Separation". If things go as they should, it'll happen. I just have a sinking feeling it will go to something random and pointless that nobody is even going to try to see.

OSCAR 2011: If I Chose the Nominees

I've been fuming ever since the Oscar Nominations were announced just yesterday. I think we all have been, as we knew we'd be disappointed, but we had no idea exactly how disappointed we eventually would be. That's been the tone of the entire season, with very few things truly certain about the eventual endgame of the Oscars, the ceremony included. It is currently looking to be a dull and absolutely unmotivating affair, so why care? The films we loved all still exist, so why not celebrate them as they still lay. I had arrayed this list as my dream ballot for release before the nominations announcement, but it is just as appropriate now as it was then. So here are my nominations for 2011.

BEST PICTURE

• "Certified Copy"
• "Drive"
• "Martha Marcy May Marlene"
• "Meek's Cutoff"
• "A Separation"
• "Shame"
• "Sleeping Beauty"
• "Tomboy"
• "Weekend"
• "We Need to Talk About Kevin" 

Second Tier: "The Artist", "Cold Weather", "Melancholia", "Midnight in Paris", "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol", "The Muppets", "Rango","Senna", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "Tyrannosaur"

Further Thoughts: I dispatched with the Foreign Language Film and Animated Feature races for two reasons. One is that there aren't enough good toons out there this past year to warrant the latter, and secondly because there are three films that could be deemed Foreign Language in my Best Picture list. There is no way in hell any of my ten were going to be reciprocated by the Academy. "Martha Marcy May Marlene", "Meek's Cutoff", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Weekend" all skew too low key. "Shame", "Drive", and "We Need to Talk About Kevin" are all too hard edge for them. They'll constantly make excuses for why they don't belong, but none of them really hold up.

My 2011 Top 20 in Posters

I gave a kind of allusion to the year's great poster work in my "Nitrate Awards" post, but then I saw one of my friends post this fantastic writeup, and it got me to think about which posters I'd most go for. And then I left that notion behind and got to thinking about my own top 20 and how their posters really live up, if they do at all. If found that some of them were positive, and others were just very sad and typical. So what is not worth posting something for you guys? Here are my top 20 films of 2011, but with their posters.

20. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

I opted for this one instead of the one with Rooney Mara's tits, though they were very much appreciated in the film. This poster seems to know what the film is better than the opening titles do, and though it doesn't hold a candle to the impact, it does remind one of the film's own merits, of which there are plenty to partake in on revisiting. I will however mention the fact that part of the concept is taken from the poster for "Jane Eyre", though it's not much of a distraction. Also, it's a lot more transparently interesting than the poster for the Swedish version

2012 Nitrate Awards

Consider this my personal superlatives list, but I need to nail the coffin on 2011 beyond any reasonable doubt before moving on to the task at hand of Oscar coverage. It's been a long first week of this year, and that's not been hastened by any piece of news. I don't quite feel the progression of this year yet, but that may be what happens when a film like "The Devil Inside" premieres at the start of the year. So I have no hesitation in going back to more pleasant times as the end of last year.

BEST PICTURE: "Meek's Cutoff"

BEST DIRECTOR: Nicolas Winding Refn ("Drive")

Further Thoughts: I think there's little debating the directorial power that Refn had over this vehicle, having been given the keys to the kingdom by Ryan Gosling. This could have easily turned out any number of ways, and if it weren't for Nicolas Winding Refn at the lead, it wouldn't have become the beautiful, creative, shocking being it is now. You can't chock that up to any other director this year.

BEST ACTOR: Tom Cullen & Chris New ("Weekend")

Further Thoughts: Even if some miracle were to occur that put both these actors in this Oscar category this year, it'd be damn near impossible for either of them to win, because it's impossible to choose between either one of them. Both display copious amounts pent up vigor and expressiveness, despite being as new to the circuit as they are, and I couldn't hand that to any one actor in this category. The only one that comes close is Gary Oldman, who takes shotgun this time around.

BEST ACTRESS: Juliette Binoche ("Certified Copy")

Further Thoughts: I'm not sure what I could say for Binoche at this point. She's already won an Oscar, be it for a performance that was cuter than it was fascinating. Indeed she still has all that cuteness here, but she is working well overtime on the layers and specificities in this character as enigmatic as Ryan Gosling's similarly nameless protagonist this year. It's a role anybody would kill for, and Binoche both strives to understand and manages to have fun with it.

Dance on our Graves: Duncan's Top 20 Films of 2011

I have said, and will continue to say for some time, I'm certain, that I was not too happy in 2011. Of course the fact that I could not make a proper list of just ten films this year seems to dispute that, and there were even some films that I felt pretty good about that nonetheless got shoved off by the time I finalized it. So why the persistent attitude? It's mostly that I had my eye set on presents that I did not get, even though what I received was more than fine. Of course when we get around to Oscar time, it's more likely than not that nobody will notice the best there is to notice. There are precious few on this list that will gain such attention.

As per usual, the first several months of the year were as despairing as you'd expect them to be. It was a poor reminder of how little most people care about cinema, and it's a pathetic dropoff from where we left off at the end of the year. The only real comfort was the mild entertainments of films like "Source Code" and "Hanna", as well as the festival films from the previous year beginning to trickle out. And it's a just portrait of the times that when we did get to the summer, so much of what we found was as unsavory as could be predicted, for me anyway. For some reason, I just didn't get the excitement people felt behind "Super 8", "Harry Potter", and "X-Men: First Class".

Even "The Tree of Life", a recurring figure in the top ten lists of this year, left me cold outside of the performances of Hunter McCracken and Brad Pitt. Truth is, most of the films out this year were good, but few really reached the potential that they had set for themselves, and that's a lot of where I came off ill. The year didn't really kick in until the last trimester, as it usually does. But I'm obviously not speaking of most of the Oscar heavyweights this year. Films like "The Help" and "Moneyball", while not terrible, were severely lacking in spark or spunk. I fail to see the passion invested behind "Hugo", a soulless automaton in itself. And I could so easily live without ever seeing "The Descendants" and "War Horse", though I'm inevitably doomed to sit down to them eventually.

Carpet-Bagging: On the Eve of Venice

Things are about to get really interesting very quickly. The 2011 awards season is basically less than one day from being set into motion, with Venice kicking off their festivities with the premiere of "The Ides of March". This is one that many will be talking about, although I must admit that I'm still unconvinced. Some of the moments in the trailer didn't seem to quite congeal, and the intense thriller push from the marketing team seems to be working counter-productively. It ultimately gets me to the point of wondering exactly what the point is in this film. What are the stakes, if any? Nothing seems clear, which may just be the marketing. We'll have to wait until reviews surface, but I get the feeling I won't get what everyone loves about it.

What "The Ides of March" has on its side is that it's right up the Academy's alley. I haven't a doubt that they'll embrace this one, at least as far as a nomination. There are several films this year, however excellent they may be, that just don't fall in line with the Academy bias. I expect others to debate this claim, but I think "Carnage" is one of those films. Roman Polanski has had a prosperous history with the Academy, but his bad press in recent years has probably dispelled any possibilities of future Oscar success. I'd say Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz are both potent acting nominees, at least from the trailer. I still get the sense that this film was largely miscast, and by that I mean by 50%. That's a sizable problem.

Midpoint 2011: What's worth remembering?

To get yet another pet peeve out of the way, it is never appropriate to write in a review of any film, no matter how great it is, that it's the best film of the year thus far. After a time, it becomes far too redundant and honestly irritating. I don't like revealing my cards before they're played, and for that reason it seem ridiculous to remark on the best films of the year thus far. We're six months in and we haven't really gotten much to show for it. The first three months were a depressing slog through the gutters, and April was only refreshing in the most carnal of fashion.

How do I believe that? Well, you look at the standouts of the month, such as Hanna and Source Code, and while they are entertaining mainstream efforts, they offer little more than basic thrills and stylish conceits. Then May came along and the onslaught of fire, explosions, and death began, but not without a few small achievements. Thor proved to be a solid fantasy blockbuster adventure, Bridesmaids was a fascinating introspective comedy that succeeded where most failed, and Kung Fu Panda 2 is commendable for bringing us another fantastic performance from Gary Oldman.

June is where things got decidedly dicey, with anticipated films like X-Men: First Class, Super 8, and Cars 2 leaving this viewers infinitely disappointed. Even Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a film I was honestly ready to enjoy for what it was, managed to fail on a few levels that Revenge of the Fallen just didn't. I know! I really need to stop being so dead inside. I'll get my review for the film up by tomorrow, but the fact of the matter is that this year has thus far been largely a disappointment. I'd write it off as irrelevant when it comes to what I remember at the close of the year, but there are things worthy of mention.

Film Review: Certified Copy (****)

I tell you, I've wanted nothing more than to honestly type out those four stars. It figures that it would come from a film that many saw last year, most saw before me, and has been in theaters for a few months. Spending such a long time away from intelligent cinema can be supremely alienating in a way, with nothing really to base reviews of other films off of. It's great practice in terms of forming your own identity as a film critic, away from the cattle of viewers who have no individual opinions because they try to think the way they believe they're supposed to think. Peer pressure and nonsense like that.

Wonderfully enough, the topic of impression and interpretation is entirely fitting for Certified Copy, a film whose plot can be read a multitude of ways. To give a bare bones plot description based on what trailers and such lead incoming viewers to believe, it all transpires across a lovely afternoon in Tuscany. A writer named James Miller, played by William Shimell, spends the day with a female French antiques dealer, played by Juliette Binoche. That's as empty and bare a plot as you can get, but Miller's latest book, which shares the same title as the film, speaks of how a copy of a work of art holds as much value as the original.

The film could just be these two individuals speaking on the topics of originality in art and within life, as well as other philosophical musings, and it still would've been a great film. However, writer-director Abbas Kiarostami does us one better, and has the two main characters play a game of sorts. As they travel throughout the day, people on the street begin to mistake them for a married couple, and as they play along with the insinuations, they seem to create a history and a dynamic between each other. This is where things become a bit tricky and far more captivating.