1. The Descendants - Alexander Payne + Best Dramedy of the Year + Best Hawaii Movie of the Year
2. The Artist - Michel Hazanavicius + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year
3. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lynne Ramsay + Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year (Ezra Miller)
4. Haywire - Steven Soderbergh + Best Breakthrough of the Year (Gina Carano) + Sexiest Movie of the Year
5. The Help - Tate Taylor + Best Mississippi Movie of the Year
6. Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel - Alex Stapleton
7. Bridesmaids - Paul Feig + Best Comedy of the Year
8. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - Brad Bird + Best Action Movie of the Year + Best Blockbuster of the Year
9. Albert Nobbs - Rodrigo García
10. Bernie - Richard Linklater + Best True Story Movie of the Year
Other great films of the year (in alphabetical order)
The Bengali Detective - Philip Cox
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - John Madden
Carnage - Roman Polanski + Best New York Movie of the Year
Contagion - Steven Soderbergh + Best Disaster Film of the Year
Hugo - Martin Scorsese + Best Family Movie of the Year + Most Expensive Flop of the Year
The Ides of March - George Clooney + Best Political Movie of the Year
J. Edgar - Clint Eastwood + Best Biopic of the Year
Jeff Who Lives at Home - Mark & Jay Duplass
Kill List - Ben Wheatley + Best English Movie of the Year
Killer Joe - William Friedkin
Machine Gun Preacher - Marc Forster
Martha Marcy May Marlene - Sean Durkin + Best Thriller of the Year + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year (Elizabeth Olsen)
Mr. Popper's Penguins - Mark Waters
My Week with Marilyn - Simon Curtis + Best Period Movie of the Year
Oslo, August 31st/Oslo, 31. August - Joachim Trier + Best Norwegian Movie of the Year
Red State - Kevin Smith + Wildest Movie of the Year
Scream 4 - Wes Craven + Best Horror of the Year
A Separation/جدایی نادر از سیمین - Asghar Farhadi + Best Iranian Movie of the Year
Weekend - Andrew Haigh + Best LGBT Movie of the Year
Other good films of the year (in alphabetical order)
50/50- Jonathan Levine
Attack the Block - Joe Cornish + Best Monster Movie of the Year
The Beaver - Jodie Foster
Boy/Dreng - Peter Gantzler
The Details - Jacob Aaron Estes
Drive - Nicolas Winding Refn + Best Car Movie of the Year + Best Gangster Movie of the Year
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Stephen Daldry
A Funny Man/Dirch - Martin Zandvliet
The Guard - John Michael McDonagh + Best Irish Movie of the Year
Headhunters/Hodejegerne - Morten Tyldum
Hobo with a Shotgun - Jason Eisener + Best Canadian Movie of the Year + Best Gore Movie of the Year
The Iron Lady - Phyllida Lloyd
Johnny English Reborn/Johnny English Returns - Oliver Parker
Margin Call - J. C. Chandor
Melancholia - Lars Von Trier
Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen + Best Paris Movie of the Year
The Muppets - James Bobin + Best Musical of the Year
Rango - Gore Verbinski
The Rum Diary - Bruce Robinson + Best Comeback of the Year (Johnny Depp and Bruce Robinson)
Shame - Steve McQueen
Silent House - Chris Kentis & Laura Lau + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year (Elizabeth Olsen)
The Sitter - David Gordon Green
Super 8 - J. J. Abrams
The Tree of Life - Terrence Malick
Your Highness - David Gordon Green + Best Fantasy Movie of the Year
The 10 Worst Films
1. Arthur - Jason Winer
2. The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) - Tom Six
3. The Turin Horse/A Torinói Ló - Béla Tarr
4. Fright Night - Craig Gillespie
5. Hall Pass - Bobby & Peter Farrelly
6. Hostel: Part III - Scott Spiegel + Worst Poster of the Year
7. The Hangover Part II - Todd Phillips
8. The Mechanic - Simon West
9. Dolphin Tale - Charles Martin Smith
10. War Horse - Steven Spielberg
Other mediocre or poor films (in alphabetical order)
30 Minutes or Less
Cedar Rapids
Crazy, Stupid, Love
A Dangerous Method
Fast & Furious 5/Fast Five/Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist
Horrible Bosses
Paul
The Raid: Redemption/The Raid/Serbuan Maut
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Skin I Live In/La Piel Que Habito
The Son of No One
The Sunset Limited
Take Shelter
The Thing
This Must Be the Place
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tower Heist
X-Men: First Class
Remarks
This the first post on the year 2011 in films covers 82 reviewed titles, which makes it the most comprehensive movie year on Film Excess so far. It will be elaborated and updated again this Fall and every Fall following that.
Topping the year's list are 6 mastepieces: Payne's poignant The Descendants, Hazanavicious' silent B/W Hollywood homage surprise hit The Artist, Ramsay's uncompromising 'mother-horror' We Need to Talk About Kevin, Soderbergh's (who also released the great Contagion this year) funky-cool martial arts actioner Haywire, Taylor's race-discussing Southern drama The Help and Stapleton's immersive, rollicking Roger Corman documentary, Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel. These films are followed by Feig's female-heading comedy smash Bridesmaids, Bird's majorly exciting, perhaps best M:I movie of all 4 so far, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and Linklater's high-spirited, original crime comedy Bernie.
Moving on to individuals, George Clooney had a spectacular year with Descendants and his own great Ides of March. Johny Depp made a dramatic comeback in Robinson's free-spirited, fun Rum Diary, although it flopped. And Elizabeth Olsen made herself known with excellent, nerve-wrecking performances in both Silent House and the great Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Jason Segel also had a great year on the silver screen with fine work in both the hilarious Jeff Who Lives at Home and The Muppets. Jim Carrey made a refreshing return to great family comedy with Mr. Popper's Penguins.
2011 offered exciting films from Iran (A Separation), Norway (Oslo, August 31st), England (Kill List), India (The Bengali Detective and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Sudan (Machine Gun Preacher) and many other countries.
Scorsese released his massively critically acclaimed, great Hugo, which is the film reviewed thus far that lost most money by far, despite all the praise.
We also got a fine, British monster movie (Attack the Block), an unusually dark Hollywood dramedy (The Details), a car movie that took the world by storm (Drive), a Canadian gore grindhouse homage (Hobo with a Shotgun), a really funny Irish movie (The Guard) and a really strange American one (The Tree of Life).
David Gordon Green released two major comedies that both fared well with Film Excess, The Sitter and Your Highness, but which also both lost millions of dollars. Green is one of the few commercially highly unstable if not downright nonviable directors, who still gets to direct big movies in a freewheeling, steady pace today.
Others are less fortunate, as Winer with the year's undoubtedly worst film, Arthur. Followed by Six's next, preposterous Centipede movie and Tarr's last movie ever, Turin Horse, the worst films of 2011 also include the perhaps worst Farrelly brothers movie to date (Hall Pass), Spiegel's straight-to-DVD Hostel 3, Phillips' Hangover sequel, and the two sappy, flawed movies, Smith's Dolphin Tale and Spielberg's War Horse.
Some of the year's huge films were also not very memorable; namely Rise of the Planet of the Apes, X-Men: First Class and Fast Five.
David Cronenberg (A Dangerous Method) and Pedro Almodóvar (The Skin I Live In) also premiered films that didn't meet their high standards of yore.
2012 Oscars:
Billy Crystal hosted the ceremony for his 9th time, (only beaten by Bob Hope's 12 times as host), following James Franco and Anne Hathaway's disastrous co-hosting job at the 2011 ceremony.
The Artist won 5 awards: Best Picture (ahead of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, (which was a little controversial for its 2 nominations, which some felt were undeserved), Tree of Life, Descendants, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball and War Horse), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Costumes, Best Score (Ludovic Bource). - And Hazanavicious won Best Director ahead of Allen, Scorsese, Malick and Payne.
Meryl Streep won Best Actress for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady, which also won for Best Makeup, and Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest recipient to date, at age 82. Octavia Spencer won Best Supporting Actress for The Help.
Allen won for his original screenplay for Midnight in Paris, and Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash won for their adapted screenplay for Descendants. Robert Richardson won for his extraordinary cinematography in Hugo, which also won the art direction, visual effects, sound editing and sound mixing Oscars.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won its only Oscar, out of 5 nominations, for Best Editing. Bret McKenzie won Best Song for his Man or Muppet from The Muppets.
The shorts The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (Animated), The Shore (Live Action) and Saving Face (Documentary) won awards. Undefeated, about a football team, won Best Documentary, and A Separation won Best Foreign Film, ahead of Bullhead, Footnote, In Darkness and Monsieur Lazhar. Rango won Best Animation.
Dignitary awards went to James Earl Jones, Dick Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Jonathan Erland and Douglass Trumbull.
Still on Film Excess' 2011 watch-list:
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Hell and Back Again, Bullhead, Lorimer, Pina, Harvest, Jane Eyre, Undefeated, Busted Walk, Footnote, Kung Fu Panda 2, A Better Life, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, I Am Eleven, In Darkness, Monsieur Lazhar, Dark Horse, Moneyball, Warrior, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Twixt, Italy: Love It, or Leave It, American Horror Story, Puss in Boots, The Last Time I Saw Michael Gregg and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Related entry:
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
What do you think of Film Excess' 2011 lists?
What movies would top and bottom yours?
What missing 2011 movies and/or TV-series would you recommend?
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