Matt's Alternate Oscars

It's Oscar Time again and obviously on Sunday night there will be much tweeting from me and then the Oscar Blog will follow soonafter but for the first time I'm presenting my films that should've been there and don't be surprised if a lot of names turn up in the same categories. Apart from in the Best Picture category I'll try and keep my comments about the nominees brief but you know what I'm like I do waffle on.

Best Picture: Drive

Not only should Drive be nominated for this year's Best Picture but there's no doubt in my mind that it should win the top prize. If you don't want to take my word for it then how about Denzel Washington's wife, who watches all the nominated films on DVD when her husband can't be bothered, she also believes this was the film of the year and should win. But why? Simply it's an exquisitely joyous piece of cinema evoking memories of times gone by while simultaneously keeping things modern. Great performances from Ryan Gosling as the mysterious Driver backed up Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman and Bryan Cranston all add to the film as does the great soundtrack. I think you just know when you're watching a great film and when I watched Drive I felt just that.

Nominees:

Bridesmaids - To be fair Oscar has at least acknowledged comedy with The Artist but this brilliant all-female affair should be nominated for me than its excellent screenplay. The fact that this proved that women could do the gags just as well as the men meant that this was a fairly landmark piece of work and it was bloody hilarious.

Poetry - This Korean film made very few end of year lists but was a beautifully shot piece with a masterful lead performance. A film about growing old and losing part of yourself while still trying to do the right thing is set against an old lady trying her hardest to write a poem. Completely heart-breaking but at the same time strangely uplifting this film deserved to be seen by more people.

Senna - A brilliantly shot film about a man taken to soon which was brilliantly shot and engaging so much so that you wouldn't think that this was a documentary. Asif Kapadia's film about the life of Ayrton Senna took me by surprise the first time I saw it as I wasn't an F1 fan but the great trick of this film is making you see the man behind the sport. On the way to the inevitable ending there was rivalry, greed and a man who wanted to give back to the town from which he came and I personally loved every minute of it. 

Shame- Steve McQueen's story of a sex addict trying to deal with his life and look after his emotionally unstable sister is a supremely artistic work by a man who has an eye for detail. Every shot is perfectly crafted giving you a look into this man's world and the way he thinks. I was totally taken aback with how much I admired this film, especially given the content, so McQueen and lead actor Michael Fassbender did a brilliant job making you see through the nudity to a study of a torn and complex individual.

The Skin I Live In - I think generally Pedro Almodovar's output has been great but this was a film that I found a lot darker than his usual Penelope Cruz starring comedy drama. This film was a thriller with both sex and violence and an intriguing lead performance from Antonio Banderas as a plastic surgeon wanting to create a new skin but being driven by revenge after an incident involving a family member. This was shocking but incredibly well put-together and written by Almodovar and his brother just a great watch that held my attention from beginning to end

Take Shelter - I watched this film very recently and am still intrigued why it wasn't nominated for any Oscars seeing as that it is an American production starring two Academy Award nominees. At its heart is a terrific performance by Michael Shannon, see below, as Curtis  a man who is convinced that a disaster is on its way and is desperate to try and protect them. The great thing about this film is how director Jeff Nichols takes us inside Curtis' head so we're never sure if we're seeing his own visions or what is actually happening. This is a well written film letting the actors say a lot with saying very little and even the young actress playing Curtis' deaf daughter is fantastic. This is what modern American film-making should look like it's just a shame Oscar focuses on saccharine melodrama instead.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - A couple of nods for Gary Oldman and the film's script means that this has at least been given some sort of recognition. However Tomas Alfredson's big screen adaptation of John Le Carre's classic work deserved to be given a great deal more nominations that it was. This is a moody and atmospheric piece full of great supporting performances and a real feeling that you are there with Smiley as he carries out his investigations on his spying colleagues. I think a lot has been said about Oldman's performance but if others like Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch weren't there to back him up then he wouldn't seem half as good. This was much more than a film just about spies and the characters really resonated once the film had finished.

Tyrannosaur - Paddy Considine's debut feature showed that the actor had learnt well from the directors he had previously acted for. It's a shame that Oscar seems to skip over British realism films as this odd romance between a drunk and a battered woman was involving and deftly crafted by Considine who kept the story simple yet involving. Two great leads in Peter Mullan doing drunk and gruff and Olivia Colman doing timid yet strong and both excel in these roles as does Eddie Marsan as Colman's violent husband. While some of the material here could be seen as clichéd Considine and his cast create something beautiful out of the hatred on display and really make you think about other people's lives and their daily grind.

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Quite a lot has been said about this film which shows how a mother's love can get over even the worst atrocities that her son commits. Tilda Swinton's harassed Eva is the star here as we see her dealing with motherhood and then with a tragedy that Kevin has caused and in each instance director Lynne Ramsay gives us reason to care for her and even the outwardly evil Kevin. This film is about whether we are truly born evil or if we are a product of our environment and how our views can change about our own families. Ramsay has a great eye and keeps the dialogue brief but effective which ultimately produced one of my favourite films of the year.

Best Director: Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive)

As well as being brilliantly acted, Drive is definitely the best directed film of the year thanks to Nicholas Winding Refn's skill at bringing out the best in his characters like he did with Bronson a few years ago. I just love how he was able to put together this crime story and romance together and guide you through the streets of L.A. and Driver's world. Winding Refn will hopefully be noticed by Oscar soon, as he has already done by BAFTA, but when he does we can all say we got there first. 

Nominees:
Tomas Alfredson (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) - Like with Let The Right One in it was Alfredson's way of diverting this film away from the genre in which it should sit that made it so satisfying.
Pedro Almodovar (The Skin I Live In) - When Almodovar has a film out he should always be recognised as best director, even though he rarely is, The Skin I Live In was for me his best film in years but even in a film involving major plastic surgery you can still see all his directorial markings. 
Steve McQueen (Shame) - Not all former artists can make the transition to film director so seamlessly but after Hunger it seems that McQueen has a real eye for focusing in on characters and with his first fully fictional work he gives a film all about desire whether it is wanted or not.
Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin)- After years away from the director's chair, Ramsay returned with a very hard job to make this film featuring mass murder and somewhat unlikeable characters a cinematic hit and she did this and more making We Need to Talk About Kevin one of the best reviewed films of the year.

Best Actor: Michael Shannon (Take Shelter)

Take Shelter - Bad dream by teasertrailer
Michael Shannon was nominated for an Oscar three years ago for being the best thing in Sam Mendes' now forgettable domestic period piece Revolutionary Road. In Take Shelter he brings his sort of nervy looks to the forefront to play Curtis a hard-working family man with a deaf daughter who starts getting visions of a possible disaster and decides to spend all of his time and money on putting together a strong enough shelter for his family. Shannon's skill is making us wonder whether Curtis is completely bonkers or there is something more to his visions and he also gives a man who clearly loves his family and is worried about the future. I'm completely shocked that Shannon wasn't nominated in a category which sees fairly ordinary turns from Brad Pitt and George Clooney but then they have the star power that Shannon unfortunately doesn't possess. 

Nominees: 
Michael Fassbender (Shame) - If you can get over seeing his member multiple times in the first five minutes then you'll totally be won over by Fassbender's performance as Brandon a man with a fragile past who gets by on the thrill of sex who has to deal with his unreliable sister for me his turn bought to mind Christian Bale in American Psycho, which surely isn't a bad thing.
Brendan Gleason (The Guard) - Building on his great turn in In Bruges, Gleason once again hit the right tone between comedic and dramatic as Sergeant Gerry Boyle a small town policeman who has to deal with a large scale drug deal and forms an odd couple relationship with Don Cheadle's US Cop.
Gleason had me laughing throughout although he also handled the moments of poignancy perfectly this was certainly a role that didn't get the credit it deserved.
Ryan Gosling (Drive) - A role that wasn't showy enough for Oscar, but then I suppose you could say the same about Gary Oldman, Gosling's central performance in Drive was what tied everything together and he let his face do the talking throughout as Driver was a character with few words but a lot of intensity. I thought definitely the law of averages would see one Gosling performance be nominated but sadly this wasn't the case.
Daniel Henshall (Snowtown) - With Animal Kingdom last year Australia had a strong showing however no love seems to have been given to Snowtown in which Daniel Henshall is completely captivating as a drifter who charms all the people in a small Australian suburb before going on a killing spree convincing some of the locals to join him in bumping off people he felt deserved to die. Henshall's ability to make John Bunting seem charismatic one minute and then the next completely terrifying surely deserves recognition but this sadly wasn't the case.

Best Actress: Catherine Deneuve (Potiche)

It is shocking to me that in her lengthy career the legendary Catherine Deneuve has only been nominated for one Oscar and that her role in the brilliant comedy Potiche has completely gone unnoticed. In the film Deneuve essentially plays a trophy wife who is called to run her husband's company once he is taken ill and changes things for the better. Deneuve makes Suzanne her own and makes the screen sparkle as her diminutive frame makes its away around this factory as she brings colour to this drab institution. Deneuve's chemistry with Gerard Depardieu was also great allowing these two legends to sparkle together including a very interesting dance sequence. A combination of both great comic timing and a sprinkling of pathos made this for me one of the best roles of the year but was left out of Oscar's list presumably because it was in a foreign language, from a comedy and saw an older woman who was comfortable in her own skin. 

Nominees: 
Olivia Colman (Tyrannosaur) - Probably best known for her comedic roles, Olivia Colman had a great year impressing in both Tyrannosaur and The Iron Lady and it is her performance in the former that I thought was fantastic. As Hannah she shows us a woman who is desperate to get on with her everyday life despite the fact that her husband treats her horribly and eventually finds solace in her relationship with a kindly drunk. Colman's everywoman persona fit well in but we also saw her flex her acting chops in some of the film's grittier scenes.
Jeong-Hi Jun (Poetry) - Like with Deneuve it's no surprise that another older foreign lady got left out of the running because what Jeong-Hi Jun demonstrated in Poetry deserves some sort of recognition. She was able to effortlessly portray a woman who has to deal with the fact that her grandson has been involved in a gang rape while at the same time finding out she is going senile. Her small frame and timid nature completely contrast with everything that is happening to her and Jun's expressions and body language perfectly portray what this woman must be going through.
Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) - I suppose Oscar couldn't include everybody in its list but I would've preferred to see Olsen's turn as the young girl taken in by a cult than Rooney Mara's impression of Noomi Rapace from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Olsen's talents are evident as she is able to give us the two sides of this character the one that is receptive to the cult's charms and the other who is trying to shake off her old life and readjust to normal society. I hate to use the word star-making turn but that's exactly what this was and for me Olsen should've been this year's Jennifer Lawrence in the Best Actress category.
Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin) - No surprise here either with Swinton's Eva being one of the most captivating characters of cinema in 2011 as a woman who has no desire to be a mother in the first place but sticks with her role despite the fact that her son does some disgusting things. Like with all the performances featured here it's not so much about the words given as the performance as a whole and that's especially true of Swinton as the scenes which focus on Eva in the present day are almost without dialogue and she is still able to give us a full-fleshed performance which is more that I can say for some of those that are nominated for an Oscar this year.


Best Supporting Actor: Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Clip 2 by teasertrailer
Well I think we all know that anybody donning a motion capture suit was never going to be nominated for an Oscar but I think it's about time they did because as Caesar, Serkis was definitely the heart of Rotpota. In fact I think putting him in the supporting category is almost doing him a disservice as he has to lead so much of the action he could almost feature in the lead category. It must be such a difficult job to convey so much emotion without saying a single word but Serkis manages this as he leads the ape uprising against Brian Cox and Draco Malfoy out of Harry Potter. He is able to combine ape mannerisms with the human ones that have been bestowed upon him by his master and most of all we are able to sympathise with his plight and understand why he did what he did in the first place. Serkis is a great actor with or without the motion capture, as we saw when he played Ian Dury, but in the apes film he proved that this new technology can still produce top notch performances. 

Nominees: 
John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene) - To me Hawkes was better here than in Winter's Bone last year as the charismatic cult leader who is able to charm the girls in his group only to abuse them later on.
Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin) - As the older version of Kevin, Miller is both sinister and creepy but in the final scenes he still lets us sympathise with his character.
Michael Smiley (Kill List) - Hitmen don't come any more charming than Smiley's Gal in this British horror thriller as he convinces his old mate to do one more batch of killings.
Luis Tosar (Cell 211) - Almost a list of villains here, Tosar is brilliant as the prison top dog who takes the lead during a prison break unaware that one of the supposed inmates is the institute's newest guard.

Best Supporting Actress: Sarina Farhadi (A Separation)

A Separation has done surprisingly well during this awards season with a Best Foreign Film award definitely on the cards as well as a nod in the screenplay category. However with most Iranian films director Asghar Farhadi looked close to home when casting the daughter of the warring couple in the film as his own daughter Sarina ended up getting the part. For me her role was the pivotal one in this film and she played it with a wide-eyed innocence which gave way to a better understanding of the way the world works as the film goes on. Her Termeh has to decide which of her parents to live with and her decision is seemingly based on an incident that happens during the film which is something that makes her question her trusting nature. I thought Sarina was completely natural in front of the camera and easily one of the best things about the film but as I've said before performances in films not in the English language tend to be overlooked in the acting categories. 

Nominees: 
Jessica Chastain (Take Shelter) - She has been nominated for The Help but for me Chastain's best performance of the year was where she played Michael Shannon's worried wife who has to take control once she realises her husband's altered mental state.
Elle Fanning (Super 8) - After wowing in Somewhere the more talented of the Fanning sisters was once again a strong presence in Super 8 as Alice the young teen who all the boys love but has got a lot of family issues.
Carey Mulligan (Shame) - For so beautifully singing her own version of New York, New York Mulligan deserves a nomination for me she captured the fragility of her character perfectly.
Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) - As George Clooney's elder daughter, Woodley has garnered a few nods but Oscar seemingly bumped her possibly because of her age which is a shame as she perfectly handled the role of a troubled teen forced to be a role model to her young sister following her mother's accident.

Best Original Screenplay: Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen (Shame)

The beauty of Shame's screenplay is to give us a central character who is seemingly unlikeable yet is able to convey a sense of humanity to the audience. There is also a lot of scenes that don't feature any dialogue yet speak volumes and the relationship between Fassbender and Mulligan's brother and sister is never fully explored so Morgan and McQueen let us make our own mind up about what has happened in the past. It is a testament to both of them that we never really think about how great these characters are and how hard it must be to write a script that features few heavy dialogue led scenes.

Nominees: 
Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones (Like Crazy)- Doremus and Jones' bare bones script allowed the two lead actors to improvise to an extent but at the same time they understood how two people who start dating and then fall in love would interact with each other.
Michelangelo Frammartino (La Quattro Volte) - Though The Artist's screenplay will highlight the fact that a silent film still has a script but it is Frammartino's completely silent goat movie which still gives us a great character who is a man who interacts better with animals than he does with other people.
Ignazio Martinez De Pison and Fernanda Trueba (Chico and Rita)- The two men involved with writing this surprise animated film nominee perfectly capture the jazz scene in Cuba and give us one of the best cinematic romances of the past few years.
John Michael McDonaugh (The Guard) - Perfectly combining a cop story, a comedy and a character study McDonagh's screenplay is equally as great as his brother's work on In Bruges.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Lynne Ramsay and Rory Kinnear (We Need To Talk About Kevin)

Lionel Shriver's source novel is written as a series of letters from mother Eva to her son Kevin and through that the readers learn the backstory between the two and how Eva's life has changed since the incident that Kevin has caused. But obviously this couldn't work on the big screen so Ramsay and Kinnear had to turn this into a multi-layered screenplay and turn the content of the letters into a compelling story with equally real characters. Though the performances is what the critics have focused on I think the adaptation is equally as important for the filmic version of this popular yet hard to read novel. 

Nominees:
Augustin and Pedro Almodovar (The Skin I Live In) - The Almodovar brothers have created a screenplay that keeps you guessing to the character's motives and identities until the very last word.
Hossein Amini (Drive)- It's a testament to Amini that I didn't think Drive was based on a book and the dialogue that he uses seems completely original and the characters different from anything else that has been seen this year.
Richard Ayoade (Submarine) - A film that relies heavily on its dialogue and its lead character's first person narrative is lucky to have the brilliant Ayoade adapting the source material as well directing.
Shaun Grant (Snowtown) - Grant's screenplay is based on true events and the books written around it but he still has worked hard to recreate and imagine various conversations that happened before and during the atrocious murders that the film centres on.

Best Documentary: Senna

I do think enough has been said about this film apart from the fact that it is ridiculous that it hasn't even been nominated for an Oscar as it seems like the obvious choice to win the award.

Nominees:
Bobby Fischer against the World - A film not just about chess but about a tortured individual who was addicted to his game.
The Interrupters - A great documentary that I would've chosen as the winner had Senna been nominated for an Oscar this follows a group of former gang members who now try and stop the violence in their native Chicago
Life in a Day - Kevin McDonald's ambitious project where people sent in video diaries about what happened to them on a certain July day in 2010 and from there is able to create an interesting and thought provoking film.
Project Nim - A film about an ape who didn't form a planet but that was taught to sort of behave like a human only to end up in captivity and one that wasn't played in motion capture by Andy Serkis. 

Best Animated Film: Arietty

As happy as I am to see Chico and Rita nominated in this category I would love to see it sit alongside the latest Studio Ghibli outing as the team adapt The Borrowers to fit in with their own unique animated style. Here director Hiromasa Yonebayashi creates another fantasy world with brilliant characters and as you can imagine from a Ghibli film the animation is just completely beautiful. As both Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle got nominations I was surprised that this masterful film wasn't nominated in a category that includes Puss in Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2. 

Nominees: 
The Adventures of Tintin - Though this wasn't great it still is superior to some of the other nominated films and anything that features a script written by Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright deserves recognition somewhere.
My Dog Tulip - A film that's brilliant animation makes up for its uneven story this was another film that didn't make an impact on its release but if we're honouring animated films then this deserves to at least be nominated.

Best Film Not in the English Language: The Skin I Live In


I have said a lot about this already but the fact that this Spanish film hasn't even been recognised by Oscar shows a great discrepancy between the American awards and the BAFTAs in which it won this award.

Nominees: 
Cell 211- A gripping and engaging prison break thriller from Spain is a lot better than most of the thrillers currently being release in Hollywood.
How I Ended This Summer - A film that relies slightly on the cabin fever that occurs with two men on a desolate station in the Arctic Ocean, this Russian movie has two great performances and a simply yet affecting screenplay.
Poetry - I've already talked about the beauty and brilliant performances in this Korean masterpiece in my list of Best Films of the year so have a read of that.
La Quattro Volte - A film coming out of Italy looking at four seasons in a small village and the reliance on goat farming it sounds like it would be completely dull but on the contrary this is one of the most compelling films that I saw throughout last year.

Quick Picks: 
Cinematography: Newton Tomas Siegel (Drive)
Editing: Chris King and Greggers Sall (Senna)
Art Direction: Carlos Bodelon (The Skin I Live In)
Costume Design: Pascaline Chavanne (Potiche)
Make-Up: Victoria Down (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)
Visual Effects: Wayne Eaton (Super 8)
Sound: Mark Ulano (Super 8)
Sound Editing: Ben Burtt (Super 8)
Score: Cliff Martinez (Drive)
Original Song: Brett McKenzie - Life's a Happy Song (The Muppets)

That's my opinion so tell me what you think leave a comment below. 

Top 25 Films of 2011: The Top Ten

For those of you who missed my first blog I will just reiterate that if a film was released in 2011 but nominated for this year's Best Picture Oscar . So without further ado here are the Top Ten which again will be in alphabetical order.

Animal Kingdom 

And after stating my rules for the list I sort of go and break them. Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom was indeed nominated for an Oscar but as it didn't feature in the Best Picture list I've decided to include it. Another reason it's in the list is that it is a brilliant piece of work and was rightfully awarded for the brilliant supporting performance from Jacki Weaver as the sinister grandmother Smurf. Animal Kingdom is told through the eyes of 17 year old J who is forced to live with his mother's estranged family after she dies of an overdose. It becomes clear that the Cody family are a notorious crime gang led by J's monstrous Uncle Pope. The story basically comes to a head with a shocking incident about halfway through in which J has to decide whether he's on the side of the police, headed by a moustached Guy Pearce, or if he is aligned with his family. I loved everything about Animal Kingdom from the way it was filmed to the performances - Weaver in particular creating a character who accepts her sons' behaviour as long as she gets to shower them with affection. As I said earlier with Snowtown this has been a great year as far as Australian cinema is concerned and I think in particular their gritty outback scenery is a great backdrop for gripping crime dramas as has been proved multiple times in 2011.

The Artist 

I think if any of us thought twelve months ago that an almost completely silent film in black and white was one of the favourites to win the Best Picture we'd have been utterly out of our minds. But that's before Michel Hazanavicius wrote and directed this fabulously charming piece of cinema which evokes memories of pre-sound cinema. Concentrating on the fictional movie star George Valentin it shows how the advent of the talkies prevented some of the stars of the silent age from advancing in their careers. As Valentin's career is on a downward spiral we see aspiring star Peppy Miller go from strength to strength after briefly meeting George in her first feature. While The Artist doesn't really have a gritty subtext it is a lovely film with stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo really clicking sharing fabulous chemistry and looking like real movie stars. Familiar faces like John Goodman and James Cromwell are great as the movie producer and loyal chauffeur respectively but the real star of the show is Uggy the Dog as Valentin's loyal companion and one that is around at the right time to save his life. Though there are touches of A Star is Born and Sunset Boulevard, The Artist is definitely its own film full of joy and humour and more importantly an arthouse film which could appeal to the masses. When modern life is so depressing its great to see a heart-warming film like this doing so well and I for one hope it gets the Best Picture award it so richly deserves.


Drive

2011 was definitely the year of Ryan Gosling from political intrigue in The Ides of March to romantic comedy in Crazy Stupid Love he seemed to conquer every genre but it was the LA-set crime film Drive that saw him give his best performance of the year. At the start of the film Gosling's unnamed driver is an emotionally detached character who simply offers five minutes of his time as a getaway driver to criminals who are after a professional. However his world is changed when he meets his neighbour Irene, played by Carey Mulligan, and her young son that things get complicated and he starts to reveal himself to have emotions even he didn't think he possessed. Drive is very reminiscent of the moody crime films of the 1960s and 1970s and has been in particular compared to Bullitt and The Driver. Gosling's getaway driver/stuntman is a great antihero character and the actor delivers an almost muted performance which develops into something great as the film goes on. Albert Brooks, an actor known for his comic work, was brilliant in the role of the crime lord who ends up becoming the driver's enemy. Drive is incredibly violent but it is never over-the-top and always within the context of the film in addition in possesses one of the year's best soundtracks which has new music which somehow feels that it is about 25 years old. A very new film with a foot in the past, Drive combines great camerawork and set pieces with a lead performance from 2011's most consistent performer.


Poetry

Now onto a great piece of cinema from South Korea with Lee Chang-Dong's story of an elderly woman who has to care for her increasingly unruly grandson while at the same time coping with the fact that she is suffering from dementia and will soon lose her memory. Yoon Jeong-hee gives a great lead performance as Yang Mija a 66 year old woman who discovers that her grandson is one of five boys who was responsible for the gang rape of a girl who later committed suicide. While the fathers of the other boys are able to pay a share of the compensation to the girl's mother, Yang Mija is not and is still torn over whether to put the matter in the hands of the authorities. To distract herself from the real world she enlists in a poetry class and struggles to write her own poem. Poetry survives thanks to the beautiful Korean scenery that Chang-Dong creates and balances it with the harsh reality of both the grandson's crime and  her deteriorating health. The central message is that we all have a poem in all of us whether it be a beautiful one or one that reminds us of the harsh reality of our situation and while the film is not always easy to watch it captures the audience from beginning to end thanks to a great script and an even greater central performance.


Senna 

As you can see in the first part 2011 has an excellent year for documentary films from Inside Job to Armadillo to Cave of Forgotten Dreams a number of great directors have bought films dealing with a number of subject matters. But it was Asif Kapadia's film about the life and untimely death of three time Formula One Champion Ayrton Senna. Obviously going into this film I knew how it was going to end but that's about all I knew as I'm not a big fan of motor racing, or sports in general, therefore I wasn't expecting to enjoy it very much. But Kapadia painted a picture of a complicated man, born in a deprived area of Brazil his skill at his sport meant that he could use his money to improve the area. As well as Senna's life story the film told of the inner-workings of the F1 world full of wealthy brand owners and sponsors willing to buy people's favour. Before the tragic finale the main story told was Senna's rivalry with fellow driver Alain Prost which was present on and off the track. Everything was put together perfectly from the race footage to the talking heads to the soundtrack and this was a film that wasn't just a documentary but a great story. As someone who doesn't know about Formula One I thought it explained the sport well and more than that I felt I'd got to know the man which is a testament to Kapdia's film as well as the captivating Senna himself.

A Separation 

As someone who has studied Iranian film in great depth it was great to see a film like Asghar Farhadi's A Separation which depicts modern day Tehran and the stigmas attached to Iranian society. It sees a couple wanting to end their marriage after fourteen years as the wife Simin wants to leave husband Nadir as he refuses to leave Iran and his father who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The couple argue about who their eleven year old daughter should be with, with her initially wanting to stay with her father and grandfather but her mother slowly changing her mind as the film goes on. Nadir then hires a poor woman to be his father's carer but gets annoyed when his father his left on his own and is accused of pushing her by her angry father. A Separation deals with themes of how much one's social status defines how much people believe their story it also looks at the themes of divorce in a culture as strict as the one in Iran. While Leila Hatami and Peyman Moaadi are both great in the leads it is young Sarina Farhadi as the couple's daughter who is the star of the show as a character who starts to learn that her parents aren't as innocent as she first thought. More than anything else Iranian cinema is about realism and  A Separation almost feels like we are spying on a real family and the ambiguous ending lets the audience decide how the story ultimately ends and that's one of its best qualities.



The Skin I Live In 

Pedro Alomodvar took a break from working with Penelope Cruz this year and the result was this tense revenge thriller about sex and passion. Antonio Banderas starred as Robert Ledgard a plastic surgeon who was working on a new form of artificial skin but who let his personal life get in the way of his work and ends up using his skills as surgeon to a devastating effect. Saying any more than that would ruin the film for anyone who is yet to see this masterpiece which was full of twists and multi-layered characters. Anyone who has seen an Almodovar film knows that they aren't just about one thing but here the main theme seems to be how we define ourselves whether it be by our profession, our relationships or our gender. Banderas is absolutely great in the lead role and it's good to see him playing something outside voicing a computer animated cat it's a very hard role to play but he does exceptionally well. Any film that features a woman in a perfected skin suit fighting with a slightly thuggish man dressed as a tiger is Okay with me and The Skin I Live In combines bizarre plotlines with believable characters and realistic motives for the extraordinary things they do. For me this is possibly Almodovar's best film since All About My Mother which I completely adore. 

Super 8 

Another one people are seemingly split on some people thought it was only okay or detested it but for me Super 8 was another film, along with Hugo, that rejuvenated the flagging genre of the classic family film. JJ Abrams' 1970's set movie about a group of young friends making a zombie film was essentially a love letter to the film's producer Steven Spielberg. The kids against the authorities storyline seems to have been taken straight out of E.T. while the mysterious goings on in the small town of Lilian also draws comparisons to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Though the alien story is the film's central mystery what drew most of us to the film was the relationships between the kids namely Joel Courtney's Joe who has just lost his mother and Elle Fanning's Alice the lost fragile girl who is the object of all the boy's affections. The young actors in the film are just superb and make their film-making endeavours believable as the town members get more and more paranoid as dogs start to disappear and town members go missing. While the ending may be a bit of a letdown what comes before is so great that it doesn't really matter for me this was the best purely entertaining film that I saw at the cinema all year. 


Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 

Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In was one of my favourite films a couple of years back and now he returns with an adaptation of John Le Carre's classic cold war thriller. Gary Oldman was seemingly made to play the lead of George Smiley a sort of distant character who goes into semi-retirement but is talked out when he asked to discover which member of the MI6 team is in fact working for the Soviets. During his investigation Smiley uncovers some secrets and our initial ideas about certain characters are changed throughout the piece. What I really liked about this film was its moodiness, something Alfredson had already demonstrated in Let the Right One In, with all the smoky meeting rooms and dank exterior scenes adding to the feel of the whole thing. Oldman is brilliant in the lead role in a cast of great British male actors and Kathy Burke stand-outs for me were Tom Hardy's slightly shifty Tarr and Mark Strong's illusive Jim. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a film which let its characters speak volumes without actually saying anything a film about men who have been sworn to a life of much secrecy and in some cases are wondering why. A truly spectacular piece of work and another masterpiece to prove that Alfredson is one of the best directors working today. 

We Need to Talk About Kevin  

I wish we could end this blog on a high but instead it's a film about the lack of connection between a mother and a child that ultimately leads to a fatal incident, that ends the blog. Some thought Lionel Shraver's original book of the same name was unfilmable but then director Lynne Ramsay came along and proved everybody wrong. The film though is really Tilda Swinton's show as she plays Eva a woman who is being persecuted for something her son has done, again I don't want to give anything away, and is living in the shadow of tragedy. Most of the film is shot in flashback as we see Kevin's birth and Eva's struggle to get on with him as he goads her while constantly favouring his father played by John C Reilly. My favourite parts of the film were probably those set in the modern day with Eva working in a trashy travel agent where the ceiling fans are blowing posters off the wall and the Christmas party is a particularly cringe-worthy affair. But I feel Ramsay has done everything right here and I did empathise with Eva throughout the film and Ezra Miller was also electrifying as the teenage Kevin. There's too much to praise her from Ramsay's direction through to Johnny Greenwood's score everything was absolutely great and I'm just hoping someone gets some recognition come awards season.

Alright that's your lot, 2011 is finished but 2012 is now upon us and if you go to http://filmsof2012.blogspot.com/ you will discover what my next project is all about. See you on the other side people.