THE LISTS: Duncan's 25 Greatest Films of All Time

Two days ago marked the enormous milestone of Sight and Sound Magazine's poll of the greatest films of all time. It wasn't quite a matter of what was most at the top, and more of what was on the most Top 10 lists. Given that, it's rather unsurprising what landed at the top, given that it's a much more unanimously acclaimed film than "Citizen Kane", which has suffered from a "top dog fatigue" that most associate it with. Being hailed as the end-all-be-all of cinema takes away some of the wonder from it, like you're not coming upon something fresh for you specifically. It becomes a corporatized experience instead of a personal one. For that reason, "Citizen Kane" just didn't figure into my Top 10, or even 25.

But hey, it's a personal list after all. Not everyone operates under the same criteria, and nobody sticks with the same criteria on every approach at a list. Egregious amounts of ranking with years, decades, and trying to meld those two lists together, ultimately fell apart to a rather hollow and uninteresting list. Going film-by-film asking "Is this better than this?", quickly grew rather tiresome and became an overwhelming chore. A list like this shouldn't come across so mechanically, and it should be a pleasant experience in arriving on certain films rising to the front. So I attempted for a much simpler, far less foolproof approach.

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.

AWARDS 2011: Gotham Award Nominations favors "Descendants"

The awards season has finally gotten rolling with the Gotham Independent Film Awards' nomination announcement. Despite my malign of the predictions period, I really do enjoy the awards circuit, seeing what films make the cut, and what films don't. These nominees are the perfect example of such, with "The Descendants" starting its likely undeserving awards run by picking up three nominations here. "Beginners" and "Take Shelter" both doubled up in the Best Feature and Ensemble.

However, the two most surprising developments came from the Best Feature race. Mainly "Martha Marcy May Marlene" being an odd omission and "Meek's Cutoff" instead sneaking in there. Not sure I could have called that. And "The Tree of Life" got in there, but it's a slow start to what could be an extremely fortunate awards run. Glad we're finally starting things off, if a bit slowly. Excited to see what's next.

BEST FEATURE

• "Beginners"
• "The Descendants"
• "Meek's Cutoff"
• "Take Shelter"
• "The Tree of Life"

2 Years of 'High on Celluloid'!

It's kind of hard to think that I've only been working on this site for two years, but at a point it seems like time becomes a less solid thing. I map things out by experience, and I am still very dissatisfied with my work in my entire first year. It was mostly based on these minimalist and isolationist ramblings of somebody who hadn't lived, and therefore didn't have an opinion. I think that the film that really begged me to be more individual and self-assured in my dissent from the popular opinion was "Black Swan", which was oddly absorbed by the popular opinion. Society's sensual obsession with it seemed to minimalize the accomplishment.

If you brought it up to any average person who liked it, they'll say that Natalie Portman's performance is the film. Those who disliked it will narrow it down to being an average thriller. Both miss the point of the film entirely, and I kept reaching these emotional roadblocks in others' responses, and I simply balked at it. It suddenly became so apparent how flawed the public opinion is, which was further compounded by "The King's Speech" winning Best Picture at this year's Oscar race. I thought of the film's true merits, which were few, and it got me to scrutinize the other players in the race, and finding I wasn't as taken with "Toy Story 3", "The Social Network", or "True Grit" as I thought.

I owe some of that sudden change to my film professors, who've done an absolutely brilliant job of broadening my horizon, if feeding my ego a tad too much inadvertently. I owe a great deal more to "Black Swan", as those central themes of railing against your owners in defense of what you believe just ignited inside me. Realize that I gave 17 A-range reviews last year, and only four so far this year, two of which in the past two weeks. I raised my standards to what they should be, rather than settling for less. If I operated this year the way I did in 2010, I think I'd have lost more readers than I'd have gained. The readers I have now are at least more specific.

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.

Film Review: "Meek's Cutoff" (****)

"We're all playing our parts now. This was written long before we got here."

Do not expect "Meek's Cutoff" to get anything from the Academy at the end of the year, because I doubt many will be passionate enough about it to give it the light of day. It has already been pegged as the "boring film of 2011", and that is surely something of an apt description of it. After all, by unadvanced moviegoer standards, not all that much really happens. It starts with them already on their journey, and it ends with them having not finished their journey. In between them an entirety of one new character is introduced. The fascination about this film isn't these massive events, but about the intimate exchanges between person and person.

The film follows a group of settlers on the Oregon Trail, all being led by one Stephen Meek who hasn't been doing the best job thus far. Only minutes into the film, the families are debating on whether or not to hang the man. Meanwhile Meek remains rather ambiguous in character and intent, agreeing on the courses his employers choose, be it a bit reluctantly. Things really start igniting when they gain hold of a Native American resident whom Meek assumes means to brutally murder them. One of the wives, Emily Tetherow, is cautious of either character, but knows which one of them has led her more astray thus far.

Films To See In 2011: April

Last month was a bit of a failure in terms of predicting what is most likely to be good, or at least entertaining, mostly because I haven't gotten around to seeing any of those films yet. I've seen a lot of truly pathetic filmmaking, but we're moving more towards some sort of quality. I'd like to say that I'm sure April will be a step in the right direction, but that hasn't been working out for me. There have been some entertaining films over the past few weeks, but only in the sense that general audiences will probably enjoy it. I have moved more towards a special niche of high quality films, and it's become harder and harder to please me.

I don't expect that we'll be getting a lot of that sort of feature this April, but most of the films that are shaping up to be the most promising are films that I had mixed reservations about before. I'd have Steven Soderbergh's upcoming film Haywire somewhere up here if we had gotten any sort of trailer or footage yet. I think Source Code and Scre4m have promise, but there are creeping doubts in the back of my mind. Hop and Rio are both animated films, and I've found it very hard in the past to peg these sorts of features. The trailers try to appeal to children, and somehow that always involves leaving out the emotional moments that make the films so great. The films I have in the upper most echelon of this month are the films I am relatively certain will end up being good. Your Highness almost made it in, but it was just barely edged out by...

3."Water for Elephants"
Directed by Francis Lawrence

The idea of simple entertainment or fun doesn't really apply to this film, which I initially knocked against for being another throwaway vehicle for Robert Pattinson. Since further trailers have come out, he's actually grown on me. Same goes for Reese Witherspoon, who was at first only shown with an annoying smile, but is now shown with deeper emotionality. Christoph Waltz was never a problem with me, but he's becoming more of a standout actor in this feature, as well as every film he's in. We honestly don't even care about his accent, as if we ever did. Obviously there are similarities to Titanic, a film I've widely called out as overrated, but there's something vibrant that just grabs me in the recent trailers. (Releases nationwide on April 22nd)

Theatrical Trailer: Meek's Cutoff

We've got a few western recreations on our way this year, with the half-assed attempt that is Rango or the intriguing action-thriller Cowboys and Aliens. My interests actually skew most towards this western from Kelly Reichardt, director of Wendy and Lucy. I'm not so much astounded by flair, but deep textured style catches me eye immediately. I doubt there's a single shot from this trailer for Meek's Cutoff that wasn't interesting to my eyes. The tone of this trailer actually strikes me in a similar way to There Will Be Blood, but I doubt a similar outcome based on the PG rating. Check out the trailer below, and comment on your own thoughts from it.