Best of 2011, Part 4: Craft Categories

Alright, it's my last big list post for this year, but it's a big one. Today, we're covering just about everything that goes into movie making that isn't done by people whose names you'll recognize. Before we get started, I suppose I ought to define these categories for you:

Art Direction: Production design: creating, designing, and building the world in which the movie takes place. Generally associated with set-building, but also stretches to conceptual aspects
Costume Design: ...The design of the costumes.
Visual Effects: Special Effects. CGI, models, etc.
Makeup: ...makeup.
Film Editing: Editing the movie: cutting in some places, lengthening in others. Generally responsible for the rhythm of a film, as well as keeping continuity and making sense of the plot.
Cinematography: In layman's terms, how pretty the movie is. Screen composition, lighting, camera techniques, etc.
Original Score: Music composed for the film itself.
Sound Mixing: Blending the four film sound elements (dialogue, sound effects, ambient noise, music) to create a coherent overall mix.
Sound Effects Editing: creating the sound elements and sound effects heard in the film.
Original Song: Songs written specifically for the film.

Let's get going, shall we?

Art Direction

5. X-Men: First Class-an inspired, goofy, heightened take on the Kennedy era. The swanky strip-club, Xavier's mansion, and the futuristic-looking submarine core all stick out.

4. Immortals-Ancient Greece repurposed as a brightly colored nightmare. Extra points for that utterly bizarre temple-labyrinth.

3. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy-An immaculate collection of cold, boxy spaces. Every set on this film looks and feels like a tastefully decorated prison.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-The wizarding world with which we're all so familiar by now morphs into a fascist, battle-torn wasteland. Whoever came up with the look of Hogwarts' big magical bubble deserves something special.

1. Hugo-Hugely extravagant, delightfully colored and lived in spaces; that huge, fairy-tale train-station, the maze of clockwork and pipes, Papa Georges' more restrained living space, and, of course, the recreations of the turn-of-the-20th century film studios. It's hard to deny how wonderful this movie looks.

Honorable Mention: the height of the Hollywood elite in The Artist

Costume Design

5. Hugo-Though less ornate and impressive than the sets, Hugo's costumes are still inventive and character-defining, adding another level of eye candy. Respect must be given to the wonderful costumes made for the film-making flashbacks.

4. The Artist-Spotless finery for the 1929 1%. George Valentin's favorite tuxedo is memorable, as are Peppy Miller's collection of fancy flapper dresses.

3. Jane Eyre-Both attractive and serviceable, Jane Eyre's costumes are period-specific, beautiful to look at, and define the characters inside them. Note how rigid and dark the threads of Jamie Bell and Sally Hawkin's characters are, compared to the (relative) flippant prowling-wear of Michael Fassbender's Rochester.

2. Captain America: The First Avenger-These clothes are just so much fun. Though everyone will remember the uniform-evolution montage, I find myself recalling the intentionally somewhat silly fusion of accurate 50s garb with the idealized world of comic women. No real women in the military looked like that, but the movie can certainly be forgiven for wanting them to look like that anyway.

1. Immortals-The late, great Eiko Ishioka turns in stellar work, as usual. Her designs gleefully pass the boundaries of hopelessly ludicrous and emerge on the other side as brilliant fairy-tale creations. The golden armor of the gods, the Oracles' absolutely absurd travelling clothes, and the animal-esque designs of King Hyperion's lieutenants; this movie has it all. And I haven't even mentioned what may be the best collection of fantastically goofy headwear this side of just about anything.

Honorable Mention: The fashionable, muted tones of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Visual Effects

5. Transformers: Dark of the Moon-Though the movie sometimes has trouble integrating its humans into the mayhem realistically, the mayhem is admittedly incredibly well-rendered.

4. Hugo-Hugo recreates the Paris of the 1920s with a wickedly fantastical slant, conjuring a world both plausible and completely fictionalized.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-The high point of this series' effects. The magical shield and its subsequent bombardment and destruction are some of the most eye-popping visuals.

2. The Tree of Life-This film details the creation of the entire universe, from the formation of solid matter and the infinite reaches of space, down to the nucleus of a single cell. It's incredibly gorgeous work, and its snub from the Oscars in this category is nothing less than a sin.

1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes-As beautiful as The Tree of Life's effects were, I can't deny the extraordinary technical prowess of Weta Digital's latest offering. It grabs motion-capture technology as we know it and warps it into something much, much better. Those monkeys look almost too realistic, and the level of detail afforded the motion-capture actors is simply unbelievable.

Honorable Mention: The big ol' boxing robots in Real Steel

Makeup

3. Thor-giving Anthony Hopkins the weight of eons in his beard and face, giving each god some silly and identifiable look, and creating frost-giant prosthetics so convincing most people probably assumed they were CGI.

2. Immortals-the most improbably attractive gore this side of a Park Chan Wook movie. Extra points for titans that look like burn victims, realistically war-wounded soldiers, and (assumably) at least $20,000 spent on personal manscaping.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-Voldemort's creepy noseless visage, Bellatrix's impossibly poorly-groomed head, goblins straight out of Grimm, hulking werewolves, and battlefield-related carnage. Remind me why this series hasn't been noticed more for its makeup?

Honorable Mention: the uncanny aging effects in The Iron Lady

Film Editing

5. Paul Tothill-Hanna-Pulse-pounding rhythms, incorporating the film's various long takes with more frenetic rhythms without once losing forward momentum.

4. Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanivicius-The Artist-Good comic timing is tough. Doing it without aural cues is even tougher. The Artist zips along, focusing on all the right places, and (generally) pruning where necessary.

3. Chris King and Gregers Sall-Senna-Senna sifts through a labyrinthine collection of hours and hours of sports footage and crafts an impeccable narrative construction.

2. Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezenda, Billy Weber, Mark, Yoshikawa-The Tree of Life-Though it appears unformed on the surface, the editors of The Tree of Life managed to compress almost infinite footage of infinity itself into a finely observed tone poem whose seemingly disparate sequences are fluidly integrated into the whole.

1. Mat Newman-Drive-Drive's editing allows for the most delicate balance of the year, intertwining moments of quiet tenderness with the most tensely realized style of the year, interspersed with flawless action scenes. Drive works like a perfect Swiss watch of film craftsmanship.

Honorable Mention-the insistent, driving rhythms of Moneyball. It was really, really hard for me to leave this out of the top five, but you've got to make cuts somewhere.

Cinematography

5. Jeff Cronenweth-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo-Brooding, frigid, and singularly uninviting, Cronenweth's lensing captures a world as unfriendly to look at as it is to live in.

4. Alwin H. Kuchler-Hanna-brashly confident, exquisitely choreographed camera work, mixed with surprisingly captivating compositions and colors. Like a storybook come to ghastly, unnatural life.

3. Guillaume Schiffman-The Artist-Some of the smartest visual choices of the year, combined with sumptuous black and white, all in service of telling a story almost entirely through visual cues.

2. Thomas Newton Segel-Drive-skillfully deployed slow-motion, eye-catching symmetrical compositions, and evocative noirish lighting. Drive looks like the a pulp-serial detective turned inside-out who has wandered onto a macabre music-video.

1. Emmanuel Lubezki-The Tree of Life-Lubezki makes yet another convincing argument for himself as greatest working cinematographer. The Tree of Life is heartbreakingly beautiful, capturing images both incredibly grand and impossibly intimate images. The world through his camera is both instantly recognizable and delightfully impressionistic. This film walks through the world like a faded but fondly recalled memory.

Honorable Mention: Brendan Galvin's crazed, delirious work on Immortals

Original Score (I'll link to my favorite tracks from each movie)

5. Alberto-Iglesias-The Skin I Live In-these violins are almost violent in their passionate intensity. It perfectly fits the grand melodrama on screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D24ajpIFV3U

4. Alexandre Desplat-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-Skillfully reconnects to the original music from the first Harry Potter while integrating new themes which match the later film's darker tones. Desplat's orchestrations is fantastic, as usual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TB_BLx5c3M&feature=related

3. Ludovic Bource-The Artist-Bource is saddled with incredibly difficult task of creating a silent film score upon which the film can easily lean, and he does it with style and heart. His jazzy numbers have just the right amount of pep, and his more quiet numbers don't get lost in the shuffle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tUrPa7YncI&feature=related

2. Steven Price-Attack the Block-Driving, dance-hall beats mix with street sounds and ridiculous synth-tracks to create a sci-fi score that is simultaneously futuristic and a little seedy; just like the movie itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG7TD0p0Zg4 <---that one's my favorite, but this one is also pretty nifty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUviTwo8vQ. Really, the whole soundtrack is just one big highlight.

1. The Chemical Brothers-Hanna-Hanna's soundtrack is absolutely instrumental (forgive the pun) in making Hanna the awesome experience it is. Like another character, the music drifts through the movie, making its presence known at crucial periods. Who can forget that beguilingly peppy whistling theme, or the delightfully melodramatic organ sections, or, of course the times when the music devolves into a wild combination of percussion and rhythm?

You ought to familiarize yourself with the whole soundtrack, but if you need to narrow it down:

This one is the most recognizable/most badass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBmwcuLa1as

This one gives a good sample of the weird but appropriate incongruities the music strikes with the visuals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE4_XlnNCcs

And this one might be my favorite. It's not the loudest, or the most obvious, but it's just unbelievably gorgeous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2To6ymd_rkM

Honorable Mention: the muted trumpets and acoustic guitars of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Special Music Awards

Normally I don't do this, but I have to spotlight two movies for their music.

First, War Horse: it's got some genuinely stirring, powerful music, and that main theme is so lovely. But, because it's John Williams, he starts crescendo-ing in the first five minutes, and he only continues from there. So the music lacks for subtlety, and it NEVER shuts up, but some of the things there are wonderful. For instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT59FgzIVfQ, which has got to be one of the prettiest tracks available for consumption this year.

Secondly, The Eagle. Though most of the film is scored with fairly routine period-action music, the credits whip out this doozy of a track, which is hands down one of my favorite musical offerings of the year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28W_TyJUhQ. If the whole movie had been scored at this level, I'd probably have it at the #1 spot. Alas, it's relegated to the bargain bin instead.

Sound Mixing

5. Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol-That sandstorm, inside the giant computer, the fight in the parking garage; this movie knows exactly how to control chaos.

4. War Horse-Horses! War! Bombs! Horses! I know, I know, I feel a little bad for putting something this desperate for love in the top 5, but I can't deny how accomplished and layered this mix is.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-Harry Potter sound mixes have always been impressive in their own way, but the last installment really brings it here. The battles always sound crisp and clear, despite the maelstrom in which they're taking place.

2. Drive-As usual, when talking about this film, I need to talk about balance. Drive finds the perfect medium between its long stretches of silence and its sudden violent cacophonies.

1. The Tree of Life-Not only does this movie take time to create the universe, it makes it as wonderful to listen to as it is to look at.

Honorable Mention: the giddy insanity of Hanna

Sound Effects Editing

5. War Horse-cavalry charges, never-ending rows of machine guns, and the unpleasant but unmistakable hiss of gas in the trenches.

4. Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol-sophisticated gadgets, quick, brutal fights, the slap of sticky gloves against glass 100 stories high, and the year's most surprising car crash.

3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon-I hate this movie with a burning passion, but its effects are astounding, as always. The robots sound organic, and the humans sound robotic. This movie plays like the inside of a robot sex dungeon. ...In a good way.

2. Rango-The sounds of the Old West are repurposed and given their own distinctive voice, and the action scenes remain an impressive standout. The aerial chase in the canyon is still the only scene this year whose sound effects elicited an impressed gasp.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-The scale of the events shown, and their aural uniqueness, allowed Harry Potter to take this one in a walk. Specific sounds--Voldemort destroying the shield, snake-on-throat action, a giant hitting a bell with his club--can all be immediately recalled in my memory.

Honorable Mention: world-building stentorian roars in The Tree of Life

Original Song

5. "Star Spangled Man"-Captain America: The First Avenger-a silly, manically peppy pastiche of World War II bond drives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeTok5A-Efg

4. "Fake I.D."-Footloose-Ok, so it's admittedly country, but it's face-paced, energetic, and a hell of a lot of fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wJKxRTBRic

3. "So Long"-Winnie the Pooh-It's quirky, upbeat, and adorable; naturally, it's sung by Zooey Deschanel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1iwPtdJHsw

2. "Life's a Happy Song"-The Muppets-It's the opening toe-tapper, and it succeeds admirably at both getting our toes and the dancers' toes tapping. It's so joyful that it's basically impossible to frown during this song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZBe7_lE9lE

1. "Pictures in My Head"-The Muppets-Kermit's at his best when he's doing mopey ballads, and the latest Muppets iteration is no exception. Nostalgic, melancholy, accompanied by weepy piano; I just want to run up and give him a hug. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PJ7NlcdIp4

Honorable Mention: the silly/comic powerballad "Man or Muppet" from, you guessed it, The Muppets

Well, that's it for this year, believe it or not. I'll wrap everything up tomorrow with my dream Oscar ballot, but here end the lists. In summation, here are movies with the most nominations:

1. Drive-8

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2-8

3. The Artist-7

4. The Tree of Life-7

5. Hanna-5

6. Bridesmaids-5

7. Weekend-4

8. Martha Marcy May Marlene-3

9. Jane Eyre-3

10. The Muppets-3

And as far as most wins are concerned, only four movies racked up more than one win:

Drive-3 (Director, Actor, Film Editing)

Weekend-2 (Picture, Original Screenplay)

The Tree of Life-2 (Cinematography, Sound Mixing)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Makeup, Sound Effects Editing)

Well, where did I go wrong?

Best of 2011, Part 3: Acting

Yup, we're still plugging along over here. Today, let's look at acting. I'll try to include clips of the performances, but no guarantees.

Best Actor

5. Tom Cullen-Weekend

Though it's nigh on impossible to choose between the two leads in this movie, ultimately I went with Cullen, whose portrayal of Russell, the quiet, semi-closeted orphan, provides the still center around which the film revolves. The performance is an achievement in naturalism, never straining too much for effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ALoy_zGmz0&feature=related

4. Jean Dujardin-The Artist

I kind of thought silent film acting was an entirely lost art, until Jean Dujardin tapped into my life. He's endlessly charming, his comic abilities are fantastic, and he doesn't skip a beat when transitioning into the more traditionally dramatic segments of the film. Dujardin is the glue that holds The Artist together and makes it as charming as it is.

(not the best clip, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPm0IuVylFU&feature=relmfu)

3. Brad Pitt-Moneyball

Some actors let their fame or star persona get in the way of their performance. I love what Brad Pitt does here because he harnesses the movie-star thing he's got going, yokes to his already impressive charisma and acting skills, and creates something surprisingly affecting. While I'm not the film's biggest fan, I can't deny that Brad Pitt absolutely owns this movie. His tired, cynical, eternally youthful-looking baseball coach is almost certainly one of the best performances of his career.

(Again, youtube fails to provide a clip that really showcases the performance, but this one catches him in a rare moment of tenderness, which is nice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTnIHnawJeI)

2. Michael Fassbender-Shame

Fassbender's got a tricky job here. On the one hand, he needs to portray the farthest gone of addicts; cold, alienating, completely indifferent to everything but his next fix. That being said, his addiction is to sex, so to get that hit he needs to be completely believable as the kind of person who can get a person to bed within an hour of meeting them. That Fassbender can pull off both these qualities at once is pretty unbelievable. The trick is in the eyes, I think. Sure, he's smiling and flirting and buying drinks, but he's got the look of a predator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1TGgbAOeBE&feature=related

1. Ryan Gosling-Drive

Talk about restraint. In the entire running time, Gosling gets maybe 30 minutes of dialogue. Most of this performance he's just watching, waiting, coiled like a snake. The real genius of this performance are the silences themselves; it's incredible how many different thoughts and emotions Gosling can convey with a seemingly blank face. One shot, in which Gosling's character just sits on the couch, perfectly content, knowing he's finally found somewhere that makes him feel like a person, is one that I haven't gotten out of my head, even though I saw this movie more than four months ago. The way he balances this impossible gentleness and cold brutality in his character is just astounding.

Because I said the balancing act was important, here's one nice scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkWiPBX28Ok&feature=related

And here's one brutal scene (sorry for the naked ladies): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7zmYmfa6XQ&feature=related

Honorable Mention: Michael Shannon desperately trying to hold onto sanity and an appearance of normality in Take Shelter

Best Actress

5. Kirsten Dunst-Melancholia

As Lars Von Trier's vessel for apocalyptic depression, Dunst plays a psychic bride-to-be with the sparkle of a mutilated corpse. Her wedding scenes are alternately depressing and morbidly funny as she tries to go through the motions of a happy ceremony, before sinking into some well-earned bathtub wallowing. Dunst is fascinating to watch when she's clinically depressed, but even better in the final scenes when she adopts a sort of bloodthirsty stoicism, romping around the mansion spouting things like "the world is evil, we don't need to grieve for it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51xBPG0MOsA&feature=relmfu

4. Elizabeth Olsen-Martha Marcy May Marlene

This performance feels like fancy china: it's delicate and it's exquisitely wrought and when it breaks it's both terrible and almost uncomfortably fascinating to watch. As a young ex-cultist trying to hide from her past, Olsen brings impressive shades of subtlety and depth to what could have been a paint-by-numbers 'scared girl' role. Instead, she crafts a realistically broken woman whose strangely conditioned behavior sometimes floats to the surface in disturbingly routine ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Xh0NM-jNg&feature=relmfu

3. Viola Davis-The Help

Viola Davis' performance is inarguably the most important performance to its film this year. Davis takes her character--a tired version of the uneducated, tragically noble black maid who needs a white woman to happen along and save her--and turns her into one of the most interesting, compelling characters on the screen this season. She adds layers of depth and truth and honesty that very obviously weren't written into the script, and completely elevates the movie in the process. Most of The Help's quality (however dubious or relative a term that is in this context) can be traced back to Viola Davis' heavy lifting. She grabs this silly little white-savior movie and refashions it all for herself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGx4pF0yfPU

2. Kristen Wiig-Bridesmaids

Here's the funniest performance of the year in the best ensemble of the year. For starters, Kristen Wiig is absolutely hilarious, but never looks like she's trying to be funny. Playing the straight partner to the bigger characters is tough, and stealing laughs from them is even harder. But she also nails the abject depression, the absorbing self-pity, the quietly angry failure of all her endeavors. Kristen Wiig creates an incredibly believable human being, both funny and vulnerable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9heR4uqMWQ&feature=related

1. Charlize Theron-Young Adult

Here's a performance that doesn't want you to like it, and isn't going to work for your approval. Theron has the guts to go for broke with this addled alcoholic heroine, playing as cruelly as possible; she can cut diamonds with that glare of hers. The impossibly large ego, the hellish determination to ruin other people's lives to benefit her own, the way she converses with other people like she's playing at sarcastic bear-baiting, and then that unbelievably brutal and vulnerable breakdown on her old flame's front lawn. This performance has it all, and then some.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvXTprPxnBU&feature=related

Honorable Mention: Meryl Streep's perfromance in The Iron Lady was honestly in the top five, but then I started writing about it, which reminded me that I hate the movie too much to include in a top anything. Meryl was great in it, but not great enough to redeem a quickly sinking ship.

Best Supporting Actor

5. Tom Hardy-Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Cocky, self-assured, casually seductive, and ultimately beaten down and made pathetic. The whole cast shines, but Tom Hardy's newbie spy-in-love lingers.

(No clip, sorry.)

4. Albert Brooks-Drive

Brooks plays this role like a politician who's been given free rein to do anything he likes. He keeps his public relations smile going, even when he's stabbing someone in the eye with a fork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBkl8DEBXfw&feature=related

3. Brad Pitt-The Tree of Life

Pitt is a compelling portrait of bruised masculinity and harsh fatherhood, as a man who lets the world turn him into a violent stranger in his own house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL7mkwcuOM4&feature=relmfu

2. Corey Stoll-Midnight in Paris

Stoll plays Ernest Hemingway, but doesn't go for impersonation. Instead, he plays the man as the complete distillation of his written work: aggressively masculine, sweepingly broad, like how a bear would speak if it were a little tipsy. His performance is far and away the best thing in this movie, though, admittedly, it's better if you're familiar with Hemingway and his writing.

(this clip cracks me up like crazy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpLEKjPud_k&feature=related)

1. Christopher Plummer-Beginners

Here's a delicate, lived-in, finely observed performance from Plummer as an older man who's just come out of the closet. He's sweet, he's funny, he's a little petulant, and he vibrates with a joy for life and a love for his son that nothing can kill. It's a very impassioned, moving performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc5R8IA_f4o&feature=relmfu

Honorable Mention: Bryan Cranston is a memorable boss/mob connection-cum-father figure in Drive.

Best Supporting Actress

5. Melissa McCarthy-Bridesmaids

Raunchy, somewhat bizarre, blunt to a fault, but full of genuine heart. McCarthy's deserved Oscar nomination was one of the most fun surprises on nomination morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUbWIlgo4MU&feature=related

4. Carey Mulligan-Shame

The chaotic, explosive Yang to Michael Fassbender's frosty Yin, Mulligan's achingly vulnerable performance is as critical to the success of Shame as Fassbender's more talked-about work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux5GjpVUyis&feature=relmfu

3. Jessica Chastain-The Help

Chastain's white-trash-turned-society-wife is one of the standouts of The Help's admittedly accomplished ensemble. She's quick, funny, and surprisingly tough, turning (like every woman in The Help has to do) an underwritten caricature into a living, breathing individual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5PA-qKoqiM&feature=related

2. Angelica Huston-50/50

Huston gets approximately 3 scenes in this film, but she completely blows everything else away with her performance as a fussy, overbearing, but ultimately loving mom. She's both hilarious and incredibly moving; her "I only smothered him because I loved him" is one of the movie's funniest one-liners, and if the scene between Huston and Gordon-Levitt before surgery doesn't put a lump in your throat, you're probably not a real person.

Here's the pre-surgery scene. So 50/50's not perfect, but having just watched this scene again (twice), I've realized how totally remiss I was in not including this in the 'best scene of the year' category. So chalk this one up as an honorary member. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6BWddCJ4k&feature=related

1. Rose Byrne-Bridesmaids

Rose Byrne shows a hitherto-unsuspected comedic gift, turning her role as Helen--a pretentious, competitive Bridesmaid--into just about the funniest thing in an already funny movie. Whether she's toasting in Thai, smiling at her step-kids, or denying that she's an ugly crier, Byrne never once makes a false move.

This clip's long, but worth seeing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyx4GXdUKrA&feature=related, but if you feel like something shorter, I'll never understand how Byrne's face from 1:23 to 1:32 in this scene didn't earn her an Oscar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBLmb-a-OHI&feature=related

Honorable Mention: Berenice Bejo's spunky, charismatic work in The Artist.

Well, that's it for today, which is a good thing, since I've been writing on this post on and off since around 8:15 this morning. Finding all those clips took a really, really long time. Anyway, what do you think? Where'd I go wrong? Should I have given more slots to Bridesmaids than I did to Hugo, War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and The Help combined? I think so, but I could be wrong.*

*totally untrue.

Best of 2011, Part 2: Directing and Screenplays

Welcome back! If you made it through yesterday's giant post and are still coming back for more, than you're really beyond my help. People with this much appreciation for punishment tend to die like David Carradine. (...You know, after asking so nicely for views, I suppose I ought to abuse you less. You're a tragically noble figure out there. Keep that chin up!) So anyway, as a change of pace, I"m going to try to keep today's post a little more brief. So, let's get to it: the categories I plan to screw up later in life. Directing and Screenplays!

Best Director

5. Andrew Haigh-Weekend

Though his film isn't as flashy as some of the others on this list, I mostly admire Weekend as an exercise in restraint. Haigh's camera always knows when to linger so as to give its characters privacy, and the film's hard-hitting moments tend to be delivered in sneaky, verite-esque ways. Extra kudos for allowing his two lead performances to evolve in medium/shared shots. Too many movies today rely on close-ups and one-person compositions. Weekend has the guys to makes us watch these two guys act together.

4. Joe Wright-Hanna

Where Weekend tends to hide its stylistic impulses, Hanna pounds its style into your eyeballs with a rusty socket-wrench. Wright shows obvious courage in some of the shots he captures; long takes, difficult choreography, and unexpected framing. He then saturates his piece with the zanily grim fairy-tale aesthetic which makes Hanna so unique.

3. Michel Hazanivicius-The Artist

The Artist couldn't possibly have succeeded without an assured presence at the helm, and Hazanivicius fulfills that role with carefree wit and panache. Outside of the performances (which must certainly owe something to Hazanivicius as well), The Artist's primary successes stem from its deceptively smart visual sensibilities. Hazanivicius finds novel ways to convey story without the crutches of sound and dialogue, and he does it effortlessly.

2. Terrence Malick-The Tree of Life

Above all, The Tree of Life is a directorial achievement. It's a huge, sprawling, gorgeously unformed work of art, splashed across the canvas like a Jackson Pollock/Monet lovechild. More than any other film this year, The Tree of Life relied on the vision of the man behind the camera to congeal into something relevant. Under Malick's guidance, The Tree of Life does better than relevance; it reaches greatness.

1. Nicholas Winding Refn-Drive

I almost gave the top spot to Malick, but he ultimately lost out (mainly because almost all of Tree of Life's flaws can be traced back to his own choices). Where The Tree of Life is unformed, Drive is wound as tight as it possibly could be without breaking. Having achieved the most compelling atmosphere in cinema this year, Drive ups the ante by veritably oozing style and cool out of every orifice. Take the atmosphere and the style, then add the film's perfectly executed balancing act: Drive is part crime drama, part romance, part action movie, and part one lucid dream, and every single part manages to slip effortlessly in and out of the others. This movie bleeds excellence.

Honorable mention: the hazy, surreal stylings of Sean Durkin for Martha Marcy May Marlene

Best Original Screenplay

5. Sean Durkin-Martha Marcy May Marlene

An impeccably structured waking nightmare that combines emotional honesty with creeping paranoia.

"Think of someone who hurt you, lied to you. Feel it. Feel how they made you feel. Let it build, let it transfer to the gun. Building in the gun. Breath out, release. Feels good, right?"

4. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo-Bridesmaids

A fantastic blend of broad comedy, subtle wit, and frankly observed pathos.

Annie: You read my diary?

Brynn: At first I did not know it was your diary. I thought it was just a very sad handwritten book.

3. Woody Allen-Midnight in Paris

Funny, charming, intelligent, Midnight in Paris makes a compelling argument that Woody Allen is still one of cinema's more interesting writers, when he feels like it.

"I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte, who's truly brave. It is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds, until the return that it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it."

2. Mike Mills-Beginners

Ornately structured, full of quietly observed personal moments. A perfect blend of humor, bittersweet determination, and abstract musing.

"I can really see Anna's eyes in 2003. Her ears, her feet. This is what it looks like when she says "I love you" in 2003. This is what it looks like when she cries. When she tells me there's always a new empty room waiting for her. They used to make her feel free. Now they make her feel the opposite of free."

1. Andrew Haigh-Weekend

Simply put, one of the most emotionally honest, achingly vulnerable constructions I've seen in some time. This movie speaks the way I wish I could speak.

Glen: Do you ever think about finding your real parents?

Russell: Not really.

Glen: Why not?

Russell: I don't really see the point. You know, I don't think it would change anything.

Glen: Why don't I pretend to be your dad and you can come out to me?

Russell: That is so weird.

Glen: Just ignore the fact we just had sex.

Russell: Don't think I can. Guess I'll try. Ok. Dad? I got something to tell you.

Glen: What's that?

Russell: I'm gay.

Glenn: Hmmmm.

Russell: I like guys, not girls.

Glen: Well, you know what, son? It doesn't matter to me. I love you just the same. And guess what?

Russell: What?

Glen: I couldn't be more proud of you if you were the first man on the moon.

Honorable Mention: the delightful, dog-filled antics of The Artist

Best Adapted Screenplay

5. Steve Kloves-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, based on the book by J.K. Rowling

Klove's script captures the heart of the book while streamlining it for uninitiated audiences, hitting a number of fresh insights on the way.

"It doesn't matter that Harry's gone. People die every day. Friends, family. Yeah, we lost Harry tonight, but he's still with us, in here."

4. Moira Buffini-Jane Eyre, based on the book by Charlotte Bronte

An adroit adaptation of a classic novel, reinterpreted and pruned without sacrificing the integrity of the original.

Rochester: Who's there? This hand. Jane Eyre.

Jane: Edward, I've come back for you. ...Fairfax Rochester with nothing to say.

Rochester: You're altogether a human being, Jane.

Jane: I conscientiously believe so.

Rochester: I dream.

Jane: Awaken, then.

3. Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller-The Muppets, based on characters created by Jim Henson

Witty, light on its feet, true to the spirit of the original characters, and capable of wringing emotion and heart out of even the most used cliches.

Kermit: Guys, we can't kidnap Jack Black! That's illegal!

Fozzie: What's more illegal, Kermit? Briefly inconveniencing Jack Black, or destroying the Muppets?

Kermit: ...Kidnapping Jack Black.

2. Hossein Amini-Drive, based on the book by James Sallis

Takes a potentially tired story and reshapes it into a terse, unyielding take on the frog-and-scorpion fable.

"I used to produce a lot of movies in the 80s. Kind of like action films. Sexy stuff. One critic called them European. I thought they were shit. Anyway, he arranged all the cars for me. Did all the stunts. I liked him. I liked having him around, even though he overcharged the shit out of me. His next business venture, he got involved with some of Nino's friends. They didn't go for the overcharging bit. They broke his pelvis. He's never had a lot of luck."

1. Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin-Moneyball, based on the book by Michael Lewis

These two guys took a dry-for-non-fans nonfiction book about baseball statistics and turned it into a witty, heartfelt character study.

"I know these guys, I know the way they think, and they will erase us. And everything we've done here, none of it will matter. Any other team wins the World Series, good for them. They're drinking champagne, they get a ring. But if we win, on our budget, with this team...We'll have changed the game. And that's what I want. I want it to mean something.

Honorable Mention: the tightly wound, sharply observed prose of The Ides of March

Well, that's it for today. I'm off to do homework and contemplate the rosters for tomorrow's acting awards, which I *still* haven't sorted out. Anyway, how did I do? Did I really honestly put both The Muppets and Harry Potter in a category over fancier movies? Yup, I totally did, and I dare you to tell me what I should have put in instead.

Best of 2011, Part 1: Top 20, Zen Awards

I've got a problem. A compulsion. An (dare I say it) addiction. You see, I just start making lists and can't stop. Don't believe me? I've got proof. Sick, horrible, unnerving proof. And I'm going to drag you through it like a cheap hooker through motel-packaged bubble-bath. And I'm going to like it. If you really want to help me, you're going to have to stick it out until the bitter end (and hopefully leave a comment or two as well).

So, 2011 was a strange year for movies. I don't think anyone can claim that it was an incredibly strong year, at least in the arena of films that actually get distribution, and especially not in the type of Oscar-friendly prestige pics that clutter the winter release season. Prestigious-looking films came and went, the pained screams of their utter failure getting lost amid the general cacophony of year-end movie massacring. All that being said, I find myself almost inordinately fond of most the films near the top of the list, with the top six or seven leaving me in something resembling giddy euphoria. So let's get to it, shall we? Today, I'll just rattle off my top 20. If that seems too boring for you, stick around for the inevitable silly awards that will come after the list.

Note, in interest of transparency, here's a list of the movies I got to see this year. In alphabetical order: 50/50, The Adventures of Tintin, Albert Nobbs, Anonymous, The Artist, Attack the Block, Battle: Los Angeles, Beginners, A Better Life, Bombay Beach, Bridesmaids, Captain America: The First Avenger, Carnage, Cars 2, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Contagion, Cowboys and Aliens, Crazy Stupid Love, A Dangerous Method, The Descendants, Drive, The Eagle, Extremely Loud and Incredibly CLose Final Destination 5, Footloose, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Green Lantern, Griff the Invisible, The Guard, Hanna, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hell and Back Again, The Help, Hugo, I Saw the Devil, The Ides of March, Immortals, Insidious, The Iron Lady, J. Edgar, Jane Eyre, Kung Fu Panda 2, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Meek's Cutoff, Melancholia, Midnight in Paris, Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol, Moneyball, The Muppets, My Week with Marilyn, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Project Nim, Rango, Real Steel, Rio, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Sarah's Key, Scream 4, Source Code, Super 8, Take Shelter, Thor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Tree of Life, Trollhunter, Twilight: Breaking Dawn--Part 1, Senna, Shame, The Skin I Live In, Vincent Wants to Sea, War Horse, Warrior, Weekend, What's Your Number?, Win Win, Winnie the Pooh, X-Men: First Class, Young Adult

This year was a banner year for me--80 movies in one calendar year, largely thanks to Netflix. It was however, a really poor year for foreign films and I; I'm missing tons of high-profile titles, most notably A Separation, which I have to assume would feature in a ton of these lists, had I been able to see it by press time.

Ok, enough foreplay.

Honorable mentions: though they didn't make the list, I have a soft spot in my heart for the silent-film nostalgia and gorgeous color palette of Hugo, the unabashed blue-collar triumphs of Warrior, and the dramedic balance of 50/50.

The Best Films of 2011

20. Immortals (dir. Tarsem Singh)

Bold, beautiful, utterly bonkers. When I first saw this movie, I described it as a 'serial-killing, heroin-addled animaniac.' The description sticks. Throw in Tarsem's characteristically jaw-dropping visuals and enough homoeroticism to sink the Love Boat, and you've got something special.

19. Young Adult (dir. Jason Reitman)

I love this movie's misanthropy. I weaker film might have attempted to show some kind of reform, or tack on a happy, inspiring ending, but Jason Reitman's prom-queen-gone-alcoholic romp defiantly flips off the audience while giddily wallowing in its own desperate narcissism.

18. Shame (dir. Steve McQueen)

Undoubtedly one of 2011's bleakest offerings, McQueen's fable about a psychologically damaged sex addict and his screw-up sister is anchored by incredible performances by Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, but manages to soar due to its patient, no-holds barred direction.

17. Senna (dir. Asif Kapadia)

Compiled entirely from archival footage, this rewarding documentary combines a lucid and moving character study of famed Brazilian race-car driver Ayrton Senna with a gripping rags-to-riches tale.

16. Take Shelter (dir. Jeff Nichols)

Here's a wonderful two-hour long look at paranoia, whose slow-burn and wire-tight atmosphere produced one of the most unexpectedly unnerving and compelling indie finds for me this year. Who knew the scariest movie of 2011 would be about building a storm shelter?

15. Melancholia (dir. Lars Von Trier)

Oh, Lars, how can I not love you? Though Melancholia's middle third is ultimately dead weight, its first and final parts, showing a wedding which rivals the mad macabre grandeur of the film's whimper-not-a-bang apocalyptic finale, are just brilliant. If the whole film were pitched at that level, Melancholia would be competing for the top prize here. Unfortunately, it's not, and I just can't love a film with 45 minutes of dead space. Still, when the film works, it's devastating.

14. Attack the Block (dir. Joe Cornish)

"This is too much madness to explain in one text!" Too true. Attack the Block, a manic and gleeful action film about a group of British hoodlums defending their block from alien invasion, has to be the most fun movie released this year. Seriously, go rent this. It's perhaps too insubstantial to take a higher place on the list, but it's so endlessly inventive and hilarious, with an utterly badass soundtrack thrown in, that I had to include it in my top 20.

13. Midnight in Paris (dir. Woody Allen)

Admittedly, Woody Allen can do better. That being said, Woody Allen at his best is almost impossible to top, so I'll forgive him. Midnight in Paris is effortlessly charming, sweet, and never once panders to its audience. This film figures that if the audience won't get jokes about Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Luis Bunuel and The Exterminating Angel, and le Belle Epoque, than the audience doesn't deserve to laugh anyway. Points for Corey Stoll's dazzlingly zany interpretation of Hemingway.

12. The Muppets (dir. James Bobin)

If any movie this year can give Attack the Block a run for its money in the fun department, it's The Muppets. Though it leans heavily on nostalgia for the original Muppet gang, this 2011 iteration is chock-full of heart, sly wit, and enough creaky puns to make a legion of Statlers and Waldorffs slit their wrists. I'm going to be suggesting that we 'travel by map' for years to come, I think. On top of all that, The Muppets manages to wring genuine emotion out of its admittedly paint-by-numbers premise.

11. Bombay Beach (dir. Alma Har'el)

This is either the strangest or the most innovative documentary I've seen recently. Though ostensibly a non-fiction piece, Bombay Beach frequently segues into impressionistic performance art; the most striking example in my memory remains a sequence in which two love-struck teenagers, suddenly surrounded by candles, don blank-faced white masks and do a fluidly choreographed dance through a basketball court. While the visuals are gorgeous, what makes Bombay Beach hit home is its bittersweet narrative, which captures the lives of a community who are trying to close the gap between what they can imagine and what they can create.

10. Jane Eyre (dir. Cary Fukunaga)

I know, who'd have thought we needed another adaptation of the Bronte classic by now? The style Fukunaga brings to this version, however, sets it apart. From its effortlessly tactile atmosphere--damp moors, devastatingly quiet living spaces, stuffily oppressive parlors--to its quietly fragile heart and its carelessly carnal undertones, Jane Eyre reshapes a Victorian work for discerning contemporary audiences. Special mention must be given to the entire acting ensemble: Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska are effortlessly compelling in the lead roles, but each part, Judi Dench's fussy made through Sally Hawkin's authoritarian cameo, integrate seamlessly into the whole.

9. Bridesmaids (dir. Paul Feig)

Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are that this raunchy comedy managed to hold onto this high a spot in the rankings. Sure, it's unbelievably funny, which helps. I still crack up thinking about Kristen Wiig's drug-fueled airline shenanigans ("It's civil rights. This is the 90s.") or the way Rose Byrne denies that she's an ugly crier. Bridesmaids isn't just funny, though; it's an intelligently written, smartly acted look at depression and self-pity, at the necessary evolution of friendship, at self-consciously pooping into a sink. Hey, I said it was raunchy, didn't I? Bridesmaids' comic and dramatic beats are skillfully covered by the most accomplished cast of the year; no performance goes wrong, and every single character is a valuable addition.

8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (dir. David Yates)

What drives me nuts is that they waited until the very last film in the series to prove that they were capable of making really good movies. Forget War Horse: Harry Potter is the best 2011 British war film. This movie lives and dies by its 90-minute Hogwarts siege, which distills and bottles the sort of courage-against-impossible-odds that War Horse can only dream of achieving. The action scenes are stunningly well done, but what sticks with me are the fairly radical statements the film makes at the end. Sure, everyone gets the "words are our most inexhaustible source of magic" monologue, but Neville's big moment really grabbed my attention: how many war movies, or movies in general, respond to the *SPOILER WARNING* death of their main character by saying something along the lines of "who cares? Everybody's the hero of their own story." This movie. *END SPOILER* ...Ok, and admittedly, I'm sure my reaction to this movie was helped by the fact that the end of this movie put my childhood on a train to Hogwarts and will never, ever give it back. Whatever.

7. Martha Marcy May Marlene (dir. Sean Durkin)

A fascinating companion piece to Take Shelter, Martha follows a woman who may have physically escaped from her cult, but may never leave it mentally or emotionally. The disjointed style, non-linear storytelling, and most of all, the beautiful expressive performance by Elizabeth Olsen weaves a singular narrative experience in which reality is always one step away from descending into madness. The dreamy limbo the film achieves in its first half make the sudden violence of the second half seem far more shocking and disturbing than it has any right to. Martha Marcy May Marlene's tapestry of uncertainty of fear is topped off by what might be the most perfect ending to a film this year: utter ambiguity. I don't want to give it away, but the last two minutes, a seemingly innocent set of images made sinister by the preceding events, are met with one last terrified, uncertain face. We don't know what's happening, or what has happened, or what will happen in the future, but we don't need to.

6. Hanna (dir. Joe Wright)

Joe Wright, formerly an expert in British period pieces (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) threw a curve-ball this year with Hanna, a stylish, bizarre, excitingly morbid fairy-tale of a film. If the Brothers Grimm tripped acid, their nightmares would look like Hanna; a story about a teenage girl raised in the Arctic with only an encyclopedia and a book of fairy tales to connect her to society at large. When she's let loose on the world as a trained assassin, all manner of hell breaks loose, not least in Hanna's attempts to relate to people her age who don't know how to skin a caribou, but do know the depreciation timeline of a good boob-job. Hanna's appropriately macabre stylizations are matched with breakneck pacing and dazzlingly assured cinematography. Marry that with wonderfully choreographed action, fantasy-trappings, and the year's best score, and you've got one of the most impressive technical achievements of the year.

5. Beginners (dir. Mike Mills)

Here's one I wasn't expecting. Though it sets itself up to be a fairly modest character study, Beginners reaches universal heights, mainly due to its unorthodox structure and incredibly intelligent script. On the surface, Beginners chronicles a son's attempt to relate with his elderly father, who has recently come out of the closet, as well as with his own stagnating love life. The film takes naturalistic interludes, however, betraying the director's origins as an artist; montages chronicling the history of love, anger, and the state of manhood in 1955 lend Beginners a higher vantage point from which it can regard the beautifully honest interactions of its characters. Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent, and especially Christopher Plummer give impeccable, delicately observed performances that elevate the film toward something resembling greatness.

4. The Artist (dir. Michel Hazanivicius)

Yeah, yeah, I know The Artist is kind of an obvious pick, but how can I deny something this incredibly joyful, energetic, and casually self-assured. The Artist resembles nothing more than its main character, silent film star George Valentin: cocky, sure, but utterly charming and confident of its place in the firmament. Its story might be well-worn, but The Artist manages to surpass its storytelling with an assortment of incredibly smart visual ideas, a fantastic lead performance, and two staggeringly well-placed sounds. Throw in a cute dog, and you've got something that's almost impossible to argue against. It might not be the smartest movie on the circuit, but the level of quality it achieves on its own terms is utterly beguiling.

3. The Tree of Life (dir. Terrence Malick)

Now we hop from (arguably) the most straightforward film on the list to the most defiantly inscrutable. The Tree of Life is Malick at his most abstract: it's a two-and-a-half hour long tone poem, contemplating the existence and character of a higher power, the place of man in the universe, the evolution of morality and desire, and the relative importance of one individual in the midst of infinity on either side, all while (theoretically) telling the story of a Texas boy's coming of age. I fully understand that some people might be turned off the twenty minute creation sequence, in which characters and dialogue are eschewed for supernovae, volcanoes, and cellular nuclei. Not only does this movie have dinosaurs (hell yes), but its dinosaurs spend all of their screen time making conscious moral decisions.That's just wacky, and I love it. Beyond the wackiness however, The Tree of Life manages to catch a slice of life that is both incredibly authentic and inexplicably surreal. Watching this film is like wandering through another person's memories. Or maybe watching this movie is like being able to see the the entirety of existence, all at once. I don't know. I can't characterize it. All I know is that it's a singular artistic achievement. Maybe the last ten minutes, involving Sean Penn wandering around a beach for too long, aren't successful, but what comes before the end is so staggering that it doesn't even matter.

2. Drive (dir. Nicholas Winding Refn)

If The Tree of Life has a companion, it's Drive. The two movies have almost nothing in common, other than the fact that they're both extremely bold artistic statements from two directors working at the top of their game. Drive is, above all, about style. It conjures up a lurid Technicolor fantasy land which looks like an 80s LA Michael Mann hallucination. Into this sleek world of white satin and neon strides The Driver, played by Ryan Gosling as the most compelling enigma to carry a film in recent memory. Drive varies between extremes: it's quiet for long stretches of time (outside of Aki Kourismaki movies, I've never seen a film with so much staring and so little dialogue), but then it rapidly veers into intensely brutal violence and pulse-pounding car chases. This movie is like a high-stakes street race. It waits at the light, engine purring, totally assured of its own coolness, before firing on all cylinders to scream to the next light, where it steps back and re-assumes its veneer of calm detachment. Drive announces the arrival of Refn as a director who can now command attention, and the establishment of Gosling as possibly the most interesting actor of his generation (not that Half Nelson, Blue Valentine, etc. hadn't done that already).

1. Weekend (dir. Andrew Haigh)

Full disclosure: it took me a while to put a film this seemingly modest above the one-two directorial punch of Tree of Life and Drive, but in the end, I had to go with my gut. Weekend joins Lost in Translation, Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, Brief Encounter, and others in the legions of heady, briefly realized romances between two people passing like ships in the night.Russell, a twentysomething lifeguard, hooks up with Glen, an art student, out of drunken habit on Friday night. The two spend the next two days talking, and the film itself has the courage to do nothing but let these two men talk. Eventually, it's revealed that Glen is moving to America at the end of the weekend, and their conversation takes on the bittersweet, elegiac quality normally reserved for people who've been told they've got a week left to live. While Weekend should be commended for its subtle demystification of gay relationships, its real strength is its blunt realism. This film strikes like a lightning bolt. There aren't any unnecessary confrontations, no tacked-on subplots, and the possibility of an implausible romantic-comedy-esque declaration of true love is immediately dismissed. What we get instead is an impossibly delicate, quietly observed snapshot of two existences which brush against each other before slipping away. Though, as a fairly short film comprised mainly of conversation pieces, it may appear modest, Weekend reaches depths of emotion and honesty that other films can only dream about.

...Geez, that took forever. I'm going to go get a cookie, and then we'll do something a little more lighthearted.

Best Scenes of the Year

(you're getting 11 this year, because I just can't bring myself to cut any more.)

11. Marcy's Song-Martha Marcy May Marlene

In one fell swoop, this film shows us just how easy it is to fall into this cult, and just how hard it would be to get out, when the cult leader (played by John Hawkes) sings to Marcy May. (It drives me nuts that I can't find this scene on youtube, but here's the song anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogmJ2B41l2U&feature=related)

10. Surrealists-Midnight in Paris

Maybe it's because I'm an incurable Dali fan, but for me, the hands-down funniest part of Woody Allen's nostalgia romp was our time-traveling main character's run-in with a table of surrealists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecYvVTfVCPk

9. Container Park-Hanna

Here's the best example of Joe Wright's manic style, coupled with the fantastic fight choreography and the Chemical Brothers' rockstar score. Simply put, it's probably the best pure action sequence of the year.

(This clip is just a small piece, so it doesn't really convey the building tension of it all, but here's a taste anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_jDK5Pwt4c)

8. Courtyard Apocalypse-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Here's where the movie's earlier optimism is crushed, and the go-get-em enthusiasm that accompanies the beginning of any war is replaced with the second-to-second terror of just trying to stay alive. And the fact that it does so in such a visually impressive manner doesn't hurt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pki8LR5ahu8&feature=related

7. Every Good Movie Ends With a Big Dance Number-The Artist

Boy, does this movie go out in style. Eschewing the frenetically edited musical numbers of today, The Artist sends its characters off with an Astaire/Rogers-esque classical tap number. It's so gleeful it hurts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2MKKJAuijE&feature=relmfu

6. Coming-Home Party-Drive

Irene's husband comes home, cutting short the romance she and the Driver were cultivating. At his coming-home party, we're shown two people, separated by walls, by other people, by their relationships, by their own personalities, but the music makes clear that their minds are only one place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rdO6Y85HSQ&feature=related

5. Goodbye-Weekend

Russell and Glen, knowing full well that they're never going to see each other again, try to figure out how to say goodbye. Finally, Russell gives in and just give Glen a hug, finally acting out the feelings he's been scared of showing in public.

(Yeah, this movie probably won't even make it to DVD, much less Youtube, but hey, it's streaming on Netflix instant, so go watch it. Now. I'll wait.)

4. Civil Rights. It's the 90s-Bridesmaids

Poor Annie. Just when she thinks she's got the whole 'maid-of-honor' thing down, vindictive friend Helen spikes her alcohol, and this happens:

(I can't believe this whole thing isn't on youtube. Oh well. Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP2zVb8Ufsw&feature=related followed byhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIlSgsXYqdw&feature=related and then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9heR4uqMWQ. Good lord.)

3. Gazebo Dance-Bombay Beach

I mentioned this already, but Bombay Beach's performance-art dance deserves mentioning twice. It's beautiful, it's innovative, and it says more about who these people are than any conventional documentary technique could.

(Again, not on youtube, but it's on netflix instant. Alternately, the trailer gives a brief look at this scene around the 1:26 mark.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J876cYfutg)

2. The Elevator-Drive

Yup, Drive strikes again. Just as the Driver is asking Irene to come away with him, everything flips on its head, as the violent events he's gotten wrapped up in finally find them, and he realizes the man he must become to save Irene is a man that can never, ever be with her. All this in a slow-motion ballet of romance and head-stomping. It's really impressive stuff.

(The only versions on youtube are ones with crappy alternate soundtracks, and since the music in this movie is so very, very important, I'm not posting an alternate version, because they suck. But seriously, you really ought to have seen this movie anyway.)

1. Creation-The Tree of Life

I get that most of the people who didn't like The Tree of Life cited this sequence as a reason. It's arbitrary, they say. It's pointless, it's slow, it's pretentious. At risk of sounding pretentious myself, these people don't get it. The slow, steady formation of a livable world is pretty much the entire point of this movie, and the visuals are absolutely stunning. I know they'll lose a ton of their impact when transferred to a computer screen, but when seen in a big theater, with that music thundering and the rafters almost literally shaking, this sequence inspires something resembling awe.

(If you're really committed, here's the first seven minutes of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkUBECRoAwM. Alternately, here's a much briefer clip which is probably the prettiest part anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WvuJwMFPz4. The fact that this wasn't nominated at the Oscars for best Visual Effects is just nauseating.)

Single Best Shot of the Year

Bahnhof Rumble-Hanna. In one incredibly ballsy and confident single shot, the camera follows agent-on-the-run Eric out of a train-station, down the street, into a subway station, and through a 5-1 street-brawl, before watching him leave the station again. The amount of planning/technical acuity required for this shot is just mind-boggling.

Here's a piece of it; it's not all of it, so you don't get to appreciate how long this shot goes, but still: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIaUqIucp5E

New Image Awards-for movies that show us something completely original and unique.

-Moral Dinosaurs-The Tree of Life. Yup, the dinosaurs are back. I know we've seen them in movies before, but how often do movie dinosaurs take time to consider how their actions will echo for eternity?

-Sky Fight Fresco-Immortals. While not a perfect film, Immortals' final image, a blue sky packed to bursting with brawling deities feels like a Da Vinci fresco mixed with a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare. I honestly gasped when watching this scene. Wish I could find it on youtube, but no dice.

-The Weed Room-Attack the Block. One assumes that the poorer sections of London are packed with drugs, but who knew they were grown in fortified safe houses at the top of apartment towers?

Best Inanimate Object in a Movie

-The Scorpion Jacket-Drive. For being thematically relevant, instantly inconic, and just really, really, really sexy.

-(on that note) Ryan Gosling's Abs-Crazy Stupid Love. I just...I don't. I can't even....Whatever. Not fair.

-George's Big Portrait of Himself-The Artist. For being charming, obnoxious, and a little sad, all at once.

-Carrot Cake-Bridesmaids. It's so good that cops are willing to fight raccoons for it.

-the NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--OOOOOOOOOOOOOO--*.....*OOOOOOOOO Coin-X-Men: First Class. Sure, Magneto kills someone with it, which is appropriately badass, but I'm much more interested in how it got James Macavoy to scream for a full minute without stopping for breath.

THE WINNER: Jamie Bell's Harem Pants-The Eagle. There's not much in The Eagle worth seeing, but Jamie Bell wrestling in a pair of low-slung harem pants is definitely one of them.

The Child I'd Most Like to Punch in the Face with a Punch-Operated Shotgun

Dakota Goyo-Real Steel. Ok, being precocious is one thing, but when this little asshole starting speaking crappy Japanese, all I wanted to do was spend the rest of the day rubbing poop on everything beautiful in this world.

The "Not This Gay, but Dammit, You're Trying" Award for excellence in Homoeroticism

Immortals. Obviously. No guy in that movie wears more than a loincloth and a breastplate, and they spend all of their time rolling around on top of each other saying things like "Want to go south with me?"

Most Cringe-Inducing Element of an Otherwise Well-Written Film

I can only assume that the language barrier is the only thing that inspired Lars Von Trier to nickname Kirsten Dunst's character "Auntie Steelbreaker." Similarly, his vast misunderstanding of the the English word "cave" is the only explanation for the third-act teepee which is so very, very obviously not a cave.

Most Fashionable Headware for Birds

Immortals. Again. Man this movie is nuts, and I love it.

Best Instance of Enya-Related Torture in Which the Torture isn't Simply Listening to Enya

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Because what serial killer doesn't consider trying to rape a bound Daniel Craig before killing him while listening to Orinoco Flow?

Most Surprising Introduction of Very Large Boobies Which Honestly Kind of Looked Like Udders To Me

Albert Nobbs. Hey, I felt bad for the movie. I had to give it something, right? In other news, Janet McTeer has huge tits. Like, bowling ball huge.

Best Use of Chris Evans Clad Only in a Dishtowel

What's Your Number? One the one hand, this movie was so, so terrible. On the other hand, Chris Evans in a dishtowel. I'm so happy this movie exists.

And Finally...

The Worst Films of the Year!!

5. Cars 2

Like watching a redneck Jar Jar Binks murder his way through a crowd of unsuspecting toddlers. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Mater the Tow Truck is a member of the KKK. After the movie, he goes back to Japan and lynches EVERYONE. Plus, there was way more torture in this movie than I was expecting. Really, Pixar? Do better next time.

4. Green Lantern

Take a character with all the potential in the known universe, saddle him with being the watered-down piss poor version of Iron Man, and what do you get? Crappy motion-capture panties on a clearly bored Ryan Reynolds. I'll give someone a shiny new dime if they can explain why Peter Sarsgaard decided to do his whole role in his best Yoko Ono impression.

3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Like any Michael Bay movie, Transformers is a three hour long treatise on how much Michael Bay doesn't respect women, masquerading as the world's most expensive army recruitment video. I hate this movie so, so much.

2. Battle: Los Angeles

An admittedly awesome concept that is quickly raped, killed, raped again, burned, raped once more for good measure, and then used to make Newt Gingrich's next terminally ill spouse. Someone should be punished for this movie.

The Peter Travers "Did I Really Just See That?" Award for Biggest Piece of Shit to Smear Its Way Across a Movie Screen

Twilight: Breaking Dawn--Part 1

I can never unsee this. A "vampire" performs a C-section with his mouth. An 18-year old werewolf gets to share a romantic montage with a baby. Kristen Stewart is visibly pregnant at 2 weeks. She never makes a facial expression, even when her boyfriend is ripping mutant spawn out of her disinterested vagina. I'm honestly not convinced that I didn't hallucinate this movie. Nothing this straight-up horrific and terrifying and anti-woman and pedophile-riffic could be such a mainstream hit, right? Right? ....Right?

What have we done?

Ok, I've been working on this for about three hours, so comment, because I desperately need someone to validate all this effort. DO IT. Please. What'd I get wrong? Right? Any Twilight fans out there?