Things to Learn from the MIFF Critics Poll

After all the films and fun of the 60th Melbourne International Film Festival - yes, we're still discussing it! I should hope that the 60+ films I saw shouldn't be immediately deemed "old news" less than a week later - was over, a bunch of us filmy criticy folks submitted grades for every film we watched into a critics poll being hosted by At the Cinema.net. It's a fascinating look at how people respond to certain films and fail to connect with others. Most of the films at the very top of the poll receive unanimous acclaim while, likewise, the bottom rungs of the chart are almost universally negative.



I've included the feature poll here, but click over to this link to see what we all thought of the documentaries and shorts that screened.





Click for documentaries

Click for short films

Of the films that had several grades attributed to them, I can deduce the following facts:

• I am the sole representative to give 5 stars to Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture and the only one to give Markus Schleinzer's Michael 1 star out of 5.
• I appear to be in the minority on Jon Hewitt's X (4 stars from me; average of 2.33/5) and Markus Schleinzer's Michael (1 star from me; average of 3/5).
• Werner Herzog's highly anticipated 3D documentary Cave of the Forgotten Dreams must surely take the title of the festival's biggest disappointment, scoring an average of 2.40 out of five. It was certainly the film that, for me, had the greatest discrepancy between levels of anticipation and end results.
• The King of Comedy, Martin Scorsese's 1983 satire masterpiece, was the festival's best-received title. Who cares that it was a retrospective title when it's able to amass eight 5-star raves from the nine critics who saw it? After The King of Comedy it was a three-way tie between A Separation, Senna and Melancholia, which all received six 5-star raves from the critics polled.
• Of the critics polled, I was the only one to see Ruhr, the Melbourne shorts programs, French child fable On the Sly, African drama Sleeping Sickness and French animation Tales of the Night.
• Three films managed 1 star from three separate critics: Norwegian Wood, Post Mortem and my personal choice for worst of the fest, Innocent Saturday. Another diabolically bad film, Greek import Wasted Youth, ranked equal last with two critics polling it with 1 star. I note that I know of at least one of the other critics here who ditched their later screening of Wasted Young based on the reception greeted to it.
• The lowest ranked film from the most amount of votes was another Greek film, Attenberg. Averaging a score of 3.0/5 from 12 critics.

MIFF Blogathon: End Credits

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

The 17 days of the Melbourne International Film Festival were a hectic, inspiring, memorable, festive, exciting, taxing and exhausting time. I saw some ungodly number of films - I'm counting that terrible 44-minute Louis Garrel film as a full title and bumping my number to 60 - and averaged 3.5 a day, although some days were 5 films long, others a more manageable at 2 a day.



I was surprised to find that so many of the films I saw were actually quite good. Throughout my 16 daily blogathon entries (mostly all written at Midnight after a long day of filmgoing) the number of films rated C+ or lower was thankfully rather low as law averages would suggest at a third of all titles. While, unfortunately, many of the ones I didn't care for I really didn't care for, there were also a whole lot that I not only loved, but really loved. And I even found plenty to enjoy in the films that didn't quite live up to the praise that had been heaped upon them here and around the world (13 Assassins for instance.)



Let's take a look at all the films I saw (plus a few extras that I saw in preview media screenings before the festival) in order from #1 to #60. Each embedded link leads to what I originally wrote on the film, and bear in mind that my opinions on these films will surely fluctuate over time and, in the case of something like The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, already has. So what I wrote after seeing a film in the midst of a 60-strong onslaught might not necessarily reflect what I would think about a film if seen free of the festival arena.



1. Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

2. The King of Comedy (dir. Martin Scorsese)

3. The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed)

4. Tiny Furniture (dir. Lena Dunham)

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

6. How to Die in Oregon (dir. Peter Richardson)

7. Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier)

8. Natural Selection (dir. Robbie Pickering)

9. Ruhr (dir. James Benning)

10. Neds (dir. Peter Mullan)

11. Jane Eyre (dir. Cary Fukunaga)

12. Jiro Dreams of Sushi (dir. David Gelb)

13. The Innkeepers (dir. Ti West)

14. Tyrannosaur (dir. Paddy Considine)

15. Beauty and the Beast (dir. Jean Cocteau)

16. Pool Party (dir. Beth Aala)

17. LennoNYC (dir. Michael Epstein)

18. Winter's Daughter (dir. Johannes Schmid)

19. Senna (dir. Asif Kapadia)

20. The Piano in a Factory (dir. Zhang Meng)

21. X (dir. Jon Hewitt)

22. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

23. Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (dir. Michael Rapaport)

24. Submarine (dir. Richard Ayoade)

25. Falling for Sahara (dir. Khoa Do)

26. Tomboy (dir. Céline Sciamma)

27. The Turin Horse (dir. Bela Tarr)

28. Bi, Don't Be Afraid (dir. Dang Di Pan)

29. Brother Number One (dir. Annie Goldson)

30. Top Floor Left Wing (dir. Angelo Cianci)

31. Kill List (dir. Ben Wheatley)

32. The Eye of the Storm (dir. Fred Schepisi)

33. Sleeping Sickness (dir. Ulrich Köhler)

34. The Ugly Duckling (dir. (Garri Bardin)

35. 13 Assassins (dir. Takeshi Miike)

36. Living on Love Alone (dir. Isabelle Czajka)

37. Beauty (dir. Oliver Hermanus)

38. The Forgiveness of Blood (dir. Joshua Marston)

39. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (dir. Göran Olsson)

40. Page One: Inside the New York Times (dir. Andrew Rossi)

41. On the Sly (dir. Olivier Ringer)

42. The Future (dir. Miranda July)

43. Tales of the Night (dir. Michel Ocelot)

44. Toomelah (dir. Ivan Sen)

45. Swerve (dir. Craig Lahiff)

46. Littlerock (dir. Mike Ott)

47. Bobby Fischer Against the World (dir. Liz Garbus)

48. Clay (dir. Giorgio Mangiamele)

49. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (dir. Werner Herzog)

50. Attenberg (dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari)

51. Tatsumi (dir. Eric Khoo)

52. The Triangle Wars (dir. Rosie Jones)

53. I Wish I Knew (dir. Zhangke Jia)

54. Familiar Ground (dir. Stéphane Lafleur)

55. A Useful Life (dir. Federico Veiroj)

56. Michael (dir. Markus Schleinzer)

57. The Little Tailor (dir. Louis Garrel)

58. Norwegian Wood (dir. Anh Hung Tran)

59. Wasted Youth (dir. Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel)

60. Innocent Saturday (dir. Aleksandr Mindadze)

- Post Mortem (dir. Pablo Larraín) - walk out



I also saw three short film packages, but they're hard to rate in a list such as this so I left them out. Nevertheless, the "Melbourne Shorts Program 2" was the best, following by "Melbourne Shorts Program 1" and "Experimental Shorts Program 1".



And in the coming weeks we have titles like Beginners, The Woman and many others getting a theatrical release so who knows how many of the 250+ titles that screened I will eventually get to see?!? Tomorrow I'm going to do some fun little awards and citations for best performances and things like that, my own MIFF Oscar's if you will, but to end this entry I'm going to thank all the people I met along the way this year that helped pull me through my flu-riddled MIFF adventure! It was wonderful to meet all of these people, whether I knew them before the festival or if I was only just finally putting a real life face to a Twitter handle or blog name. So many of these people inspired me to keep chugging along and making me want to write better and with more energy and vigour than I probably would have mustered otherwise. You could say they put the "festive" in the Melbourne Interntaional Film Festival!



Thank you to my Beauty and the Beast death march partner Mel Campbell, that mysterious festival lounge lurker Syms Covington, those marvellous Sydneysiders Alice Tynan, Beth Wilson and Simon Anlezark, the team from AtTheCinema.net including Melburnian Julian Buckeridge, Brisbanite Sarah Ward (plus her husband Darren) and New Zealander in the Cosby cap Greg Bennett. Thanks to the esteemed intelligence of Cerise Howard and Richard Watts for walking out of Post Mortem as well, thanks to Tara Judah and Josh Nelson of Plato's Cave for enlivening many a conversation, thanks to Lee Zachariah and Paul Nelson from Hell is For Hyphenates for being fabulous organisers and seat-savers respectively (as well as fantastic conversationalists, obviously) and to the representatives of Sharmill Films, Potential Films and Umbrella Entertainment, Kate McCurdy, Coreen Haddad and JoJo Warrener respectively. And then, of course, there's Myke Bartlett and Rhett Bartlett who share a name and a similar awesomeness.



Thanks to the master of Greater Union cattle-herding Dave Lamb (and his magic hat), that other amazing MIFF volunteer Suze Stein, the two men from Geelong aka Anthony Morris and Guy Davis and to newcomers Tom Clift, Rich Haridy, Ben Buckingham, Kwenton from Twitch, Goran, Paul Ryan, Ian Barr and anybody else who I spoke to, anyone who tapped me on the shoulder and asked "are you Stale Popcorn?" and anyone who commented here on the blog. You made the experience incredible.



However, the biggest thank you of all must go to my fellow blogathon buddies: Luke Buckmaster, Thomas Caldwell, Jess Lomas, Simon Miraudo and Brad Nguyen. Five of us gave each other daily re-assurance that we were not in fact mad, but merely dedicated cinephiles. I never actually got to meet Brad, which was curious since you'd think seeing 60 films would mean crossing paths once or twice? Yesterday, upon waking up from my near 14 hour slumber I actually was hit by a tinge of sadness that I wouldn't be seeing these wonderful people every day. Alas, now as we somehow crawl back to our past lives of work and film screenings for movies like The Green Lantern, I will look back upon the experience fondly, even if certain aspects of it give me a wobbly stomach.



Click on the "more" label below to see some fun post-MIFF awards to wrap this sucker up!







BEST PICTURE

Drive

How to Die in Oregon

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Melancholia

Tiny Furniture





BEST DIRECTOR

James Benning, Ruhr

Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive

Lars von Trier, Melancholia



BEST ACTOR

Michael Fassbender, Jane Eyre

Ryan Gosling, Drive

Hamish Linklaker, The Future

Conor McCarron, Neds

Peter Mullan, Tyrannosaur



BEST ACTRESS

Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur

Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia

Rachael Harris, Natural Selection

Zoé Héran, Tomboy

Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Sara Paxton, The Innkeepers

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melancholia

Mia Wasikowska, Jane Eyre

Ursula Werner, Winter's Daughter





TOO. MANY. ACTRESSES. !!!.



BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Albert Brooks, Drive

Jean-Christophe Folly, Sleeping Sickness

John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Gorô Inagaki, 13 Assassins

Fırat Tanış, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia



BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Judi Dench, Jane Eyre

Malonn Lévana, Tomboy

Sarah Paulson, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Jang Shin-Yeong, The Piano in a Factory

Laurie Simmons, Tiny Furniture



BEST SCREENPLAY

Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Lars von Trier, Melancholia

Robbie Pickering, Natural Selection

Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur





BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Newton Thomas Sigel, Drive

Jody Lee Lipes, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Manuel Alberto Claro, Melancholia

Gökhan Tiryaki, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Fred Kelemen, The Turin Horse

Mark Pugh, X



BEST EDITING

Matthew Newman, Drive

Ed Barteski & Deborah Peretz, LennoNYC

Zachary Stuart-Pontier, Martha Marcy May Marlene

James Benning, Ruhr

Chris King & Gregers Sall, Senna



BEST SOUND DESIGN

Drive

The Innkeepers

Senna

The Turin Horse

X





BEST DOCUMENTARY

How to Die in Oregan

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

LennoNYC

Pool Party

Ruhr



{fin}

The Melbourne International Film Festival: The List

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

And so it begins.

My mission to see 60 films at the 60th annual Melbourne International Film Festival has begun. Well, not exactly. The films themselves don't start until opening night on the 21st of July with The Fairy from directors Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy and conclude on the 7th of August (the big "closing night" film is Winding Refn's Drive, but it screens on the Saturday night so as to allow partying long into the night for those who don't actually have more movies to see the next morning! Here's hoping for a surprise screening of it on Sunday!)

If you're attending the festival then this programmer from @danshep79 is a wonder because it allows you to see who is attending the same session as you. Great for knowing which of those Twitterers and bloggers you've never put a face to before are "in the house". Anyway, let's take a look at what films I will be seeing at this year's fest.

My festival begins not with some big Cannes title or world premiere. No, it begins with Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy from 1982, which is screening as a part of the festival's retrospective program. There was no way I could give up the chance to see my #2 Scorsese film on the big screen. There's something about Sandra Bernhard's performance that was made to be projected on a huge screen, don't you think? Other retro titles I selected in my program are Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, which I've never seen, Giorgio Mangiamele's Clay and Carol Reed's The Third Man. Why not, yeah? The other films I have selected are a mix of features, documentaries and shorts - which is rare given my aversion to them, but the Melbourne Shorts programs of rare short films about Melbourne, including what sounds like a few really fascinating titles like Loop and The American, sounded too good to pass up given my love for this city of mine. I also added a selection of "experimental" shorts because I figure they'll be more interesting than regular shorts. And if they not? Sleepy time.

Unfortunately there were several high profile casualties, as there always are when programming a festival lineup. Another Earth and Elena were two titles I was most disappointed about having to give the flick due to screening at the same time as titles less likely to get a release post-festival. Scheduling conflicts also brought about the end of my seeing Black Venus, 3D French animation Tales of the Night, Face to Face, Exporting Raymond, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, Aussie documentary The Curse of the Gothic Symphony, 280 minute The Mysteries of Lisbon and The Mill and the Cross. Take Shelter, the high profile Cannes title starring Michael Shannon, had to be cut due to its run time cutting into the late night screening of The Innkeepers with director Ti West in the house. Considering West's last film, the chilling The House of the Devil, got the barest of obscure film festival releases long after it premiered in America so I thought that I'd see that one before it gets lost in niche horror distribution hell. I replaced Take Shelter with Kill List, so I don't think I'll be going all depressed at the thought of missing it. La Havre and A Seperation, too, were victims of the dreaded "you'll be getting a release anyway so I'd rather see something else" syndrome.

Meanwhile, there are still two sessions that I am unsure about. I have booked myself in for Errol Morris' Tabloid and the Canadian exploitation homage Hobo with a Shotgun, but I find myself wishing to swap them out for Ruhr and The Turin Horse respectively. We'll see how that goes. As for a film I'd rather die than see? How about that documentary about Elmo. Christ, hasn't that nostalgia hipster fad ended yet? Note: I chose The Turin Horse and Ruhr. Those two are far less likely to receive a release of any kind so, ya know, why not?

**As a tip for future ticket buyers, I would suggest not bothering with Red Dog, Beginners, The Guard, Senna or Jane Eyre due to their release so soon after (or even during) the festival. I'd suggest you not bother with Norwegian Wood because it so insufferably bad. While a lot of the films I will be seeing will get a release some point in the future, I don't see much point in going to see films that are of little interest just because they won't get a cinema release and Martha Marcy May Marlene will, ya know?**

Friday 22, July
13.30 - The King of Comedy (USA, dir. Martin Scorsese)
18.30 - Melbourne on Film Shorts Program 1 (Australia, dir. Various)
21.00 - Melancholia (Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany, dir. Lars von Trier)

Saturday 23, July
13.00 - Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Canada/USA/France/Germany/UK, dir. Werner Herzog)
16.00 - Living on Love Alone (France, dir. Isabelle Czajka)
18.30 - Submarine (UK, dir. Richard Ayoade)
21.00 - Kill List (UK, dir. Ben Wheatley)
23.00 - The Innkeepers (USA, dir. Ti West)


Sunday 24, July
18.30 - Martha Marcy May Marlene (USA, dir. Sean Durkin)
21.00 - 13 Assassins (Japan, dir. Takeshi Miike)

Monday 25, July
11.00 - Armadillo (Denmark, dir. Janus Metz)
13.30 - LennoNYC (USA, dir. Michael Epstein)
16.00 - Post Mortem (Chile, dir. Pablo Larraín)
21.00 - Swerve (Australia, dir. Craig Lahiff)

Tuesday 26, July
13.30 - The Piano in a Factory (China, dir. Meng Zhang)
16.00 - Little Rock (USA, dir. Mike Ott)
18.30 - Bobby Fischer Against the World (USA, dir. Liz Garbus)
21.00 - Michael (Austria, dir. Markus Schleinzer)

Wednesday 27, July
12.00 - The Third Man (UK, dir. Carol Reed)
16.00 - I Wish I Knew (China, dir. Zhang ke jia)
18.30 - How to Die in Oregon (USA, dir. Peter D Richardson)
21.00 - Tomboy (France, dir. Céline Sciamma)

Thursday 28, July
11.00 - The Ugly Duckling (Russia, dir. Garri Bardin)
14.30 - Winter's Daughter (Germany/Poland, dir. Johannes Schmid)
18.30 - Tiny Furniture (USA, dir. Lena Dunham)
21.00 - Beauty and the Beast (France, dir. Jean Cocteau)


Friday 29, July
11.00 - On the Sly (Belgium/France, dir. Olivier Ringer)
13.30 - Top Floor Left Wing (France/Luxembourg, dir. Angelo Cianc)
16.00 - Experimental Shorts 1 (USA, Australia, UK)
18.30 - Brother Number One (New Zealand, dir. Annie Goldson)
21.00 - The Black Power Mix Tape 1967 - 1975 (Sweden, dir. Goran Olsson)

Saturday 30, July
11.00 - Ruhr (Germany, dir. James Benning)
13.30 - Pool Party (USA, dir. Beth Aala)
16.00 - Toomelah (Australia, dir. Ivan Sen)
18.30 - The Forgiveness of Blood (USA/Albania/Denmark/Italy, dir. Joshua Marston)
21. 00 - Bullhead (Belgium, dir. Michaël R. Roskam)

Sunday 31, July
18.30 - Detroit Wild City (France, dir. Florent Tillon)
inc. The Future Will Not Be Capitalist (Austria, dir. Sasha Pirker)
21.00 - The Turin Horse (Hungary, dir. Béla Tarr)

Monday 1, August
18.30 - The Future (USA, dir. Miranda July)
21.00 - NEDS (UK, dir. Peter Mullan)

Tuesday 2, August
11.00 - Falling for Sahara (Australia, dir. Khoa Do)
16.00 - Natural Selection (USA, dir. Robbie Pickering)
18.30 - Wasted Youth (Greece, dir. Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel)
21.00 - Tatsumi (Singapore/Indonedia, dir. Eric Khoo)

Wednesday 3, August
11.00 - Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Turkey/Bosnia Herzegovina, dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
18.30 - A Useful Life (Uruguay, dir. Federico Veiroj)
inc. The Little Tailor (France, dir. Louis Garrel)
21.00 - Beauty (South Africa/France, dir. Oliver Hermanus)


Thursday 4, August
13.30 - Innocent Saturday (Germany/Russia/Ukraine, dir. Alexander Mindadze)
16.45 - The Triangle Wars (Australia, dir. Rosie Jones)
18.30 - Tyrannosaur (UK, dir. Paddy Considine)
21.00 - X (Australia, dir. Jon Hewitt)

Friday 5, August
13.30 - Bi, Don't Be Afraid (Vietnam/Germany/France, dir. Phan Đăng)
16.00 - Sleeping Sickness (Germany/France/Netherlands, dir. Ulrich Köhler)
18.30 - Melbourne on Film Shorts Program 2 (Australia, dir. Various)
21.00 - Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (USA, dir. Michael Rapaport)

Saturday 6, August
11.00 - Page One: Inside the New York Times (USA, dir. Andrew Rossi)

Sunday 7, August
11.00 - "Surprise Screening 1"
13.30 - Atteberg (Greece, dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari)
16.00 - Clay (Australia, Giorgio Mangiamele)
18.30 - Jiro Dreams of Sushi (Japan, dir. David Melb)

And that's that, folks. I'm sure some of these will change if there are screening troubles or some other life happening that must take precedence. As it stands, however, this is what I plan to spend 17 days of life devoted too. There will (hopefully, but not guaranteed) daily updates and reviews.

By the Numbers:
Number of Films: 58
Number of Days: 17
Number of Documentaries: 15
Number of Shorts: 14
Number of Aussie Films: 8
Number of Classic Films: 4
Number of 5 Film Days: 3
Number of 3D Films: 1
Number of Times I Will Say "JIRO!!!": Infinite

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: 2011 Mid-Year Report Card

The midway mark of 2011 has come and gone and with it we pause to look back on the last six months. What has the cinema given us that will stand the test of time? Hard to say, although I've found one surefire masterpiece - Kelly Reichardt's trance-like minimalist western, Meek's Cutoff - and a series of very strong contenders for any "best of 2011" list. You'll notice that the upper echelon on the list below is very heavy on genre entertainments. Perhaps exemplifying my current state of mind more than anything else, but I've found myself cherishing the entertaining trips to the cinema that Scream 4, Unstoppable, Thor and Kaboom provided me over the exercises that were The Tree of Life, Sleeping Beauty and Of Gods and Men. Don't get me wrong, those movies are incredibly worthwhile experiences that have provided hours of intelligent discussion, thought and writings, but I can't deny that I wish I had more encounters like those I had with The Green Hornet, I Love You Phillip Morris or Insidious, you know? Still, having said all that, Meek's Cutoff is the best film of 2011 (so far) and that's hardly a thrilling, action-packed trip to the multiplex, is it?

It's both unsurprising and yet disappointing that the three best films that I have seen so far this year on the big screen were actually classic movies. Gone with the Wind, Taxi Driver and Baraka are all bona fine "greatest of all time" trustees and being able to witness them a the cinema was something I'll cherish far more than, say, Bridesmaids.

Let's take a look at all the films I've seen that have received a 2011 release - or have one imminent because we like long lists - either theatrically or on DVD. Some titles, like Black Swan, were not released in Australia until this year hence their inclusion. I'm sure I've left something out and I'm sure people will balk at my ranking of stuff like Burlesque, but there ya go. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on the year so far.

1. Taxi Driver (35th Anniversary ReRelease)
Martin Scorsese's greatest film is getting an official re-release next week so I think it's fare to include it (whereas I saw Gone with the Wind and Baraka at single Astor sessions). I honestly can't recommend this movie enough, especially on the big screen. Those magical opening credits with the taxi cab slowly emerging out of a pit of filthy New York subway steam and smoke took my breath away, as did so many other images found within. It's an astonishing movie and, with little surprise, will probably be the best film released in 2011 35 years after the fact. A+

2. Meek's Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt's latest film is a grand expansion of scope and ambition for this incredible talented writer and director. I've liked her past movies, like Old Joy and her first Michelle Williams collaboration Wendy & Lucy, but with those two it felt like her very minimal take on the material was because there was little there in the first place, but with this sparse western her talents - her wonder with framing nature and the way people interact with it whilst dealing with loss - finally met a story that really took my breath away. I was incredible moved by this film and it has effected me ever since. A

3. The Illusionist
4. Scream 4
Sure, it's not the fourth best made movie - or the fourth best anything, really - but I just had a blast and I'm gonna have an even bigger blast devouring it on DVD over and over again. A-

5. Rabbit Hole
6. I Killed My Mother
7. Inside Job
8. Burlesque
There's something to be said about a movie that gave me so much enjoyment. I cherish this movie and I can guarantee that I will rewatch it more than any other film on this list - barring Scream 4 most likely. A-

9. Jane Eyre
10. I Love You Phillip Morris
Best comedy of the year, hands down. I still laugh thinking of it and I saw it nearly a whole year ago at the Melbourne International Film Festival. A-

11. Black Swan
12. Unstoppable
13. The Green Hornet
14. Heartbeats
Xavier Dolan, director of this and I Killed My Mother, is surely one of my favourite new directorial and acting (to be honest, I think he's a better actor but his directing is so assured that it's hard not to fall for him and his films). A-


15. Kaboom
16. Thor
17. Griff the Invisible
18. Rango
19. Insidious
20. Certified Copy
21. The Tunnel
22. Potiche
23. 127 Hours
24. Another Year
25. Rio
26. Of Gods and Men
27. Bridesmaids
Despite my reservations about some of this film, surely Kristen Wiig's performance will go down as one of the year's best. B+


28. Senna
Most assuredly one of the greatest feats of editing for the year. B+

29. In a Better World
30. Oranges and Sunshine
31. Sleeping Beauty
32. The Tree of Life
33. X-Men: First Class
34. Cane Toads: The Conquest 3D
35. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
36. Source Code
37. True Grit
38. Mega Piranha
This ranks just below two Palme d'Or winners - don't say I ever take myself too seriously, you guys! B

39. Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape
40. Limitless
41. Mrs Carey's Concert
42. Wasted on the Young
43. Oceans
44. Mr Popper's Penguins
45. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 3D
Perhaps the defining film of the year and home to one of the best scenes committed to celluloid - that'd be the hair flick sequence set to Etta James' "At Last" - doesn't have anything on the great backstage concert documentaries like In Bed with Madonna, but it succeeds grandly at what it is (which is basically In Bed with Madonna for the G-rated tween set). B-


46. Water for Elephants
47. I Am Number 4
48. No Strings Attached
49. The Round-Up
50. Catfish
51. Mad Bastards
52. Conviction
53. Here I Am
54. The Fighter
Definitely my least favourite of this year's ten Best Picture nominees. C+

55. Sanctum 3D
56. The Adjustment Bureau
57. Never Let Me Go
58. Little White Lies
59. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
60. Blame
61. How I Ended This Summer
62. Barney's Version
Three movies in a row with utterly infuriating lead characters. Or, in the case of Blame, a whole bunch of infuriating lead characters. C- for all three.

63. I Saw the Devil
64. Brighton Rock
65. Stake Land
66. Snowtown
Did you eventually go and see this controversial Aussie film? I remain staunchly in the negative on Justin Kurtzel's debut feature, a arty telling of the worst Australian serial killings, but others have most definitely been high on it. My review was quite popular so do go have a read if you haven't already. D+ from me.

67. The Hangover Part II
68. Cars 2
69. Kidnapped
70. Sucker Punch
71. Norwegian Wood
The best part of this film from Tran Ahn Hung were the 20 or so minutes I fell asleep during. Insufferable drivel; these characters couldn't off themselves fast enough. D


72. The Tempest
73. Rubber
What a load of rubb...ish. D-

74. Hereafter
75. A Heartbeat Away
76. Battle: Los Angeles
The two movies I gave an F to in 2011 were released on the same day. Coincidence?

What say you, dear readers? Do you agree or - as I suspect - disagree most violently.

Ranking Woody Allen Posters + Midnight in Paris Meets Van Gogh

The poster for Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, has been released at Yahoo and I liked it. It's nothing groundbreaking or particularly ingenious, but I think it's nice and shows at least some artistic thought that was sorely lacking in this department for Allen's films lately.


The poster it obviously reminded me of most of all was Allen's Everyone Says I Love You, another Parisian-set film that featured a poster on the banks of the Seine. This one is obviously better than that one from 1997 since it's not just a movie still with floating block heads chillin' in the sky above. As for this poster, it ranks as one of the better Allen designs as of late, but let's take a look at his entire career for this list of the best Woody Allen movie posters, shall we?

20. Mighty Aphrodite
19. What's Up, Tiger Lily?
18. Hannah and Her Sisters


17. Alice
16. Husbands & Wives
15. Another Woman


14. September
13. Scoop
12. Everyone Says I Love You


11. New York Stories
10. Celebrity
9. Radio Days


8. Hollywood Ending
7. Deconstructing Harry
6. Sleeper


5. Shadows and Fog

Such great composition. Gives a perfect reflection of the kind of film it's selling and does so with a great central image.

4. New York Stories

The only film on this list with two entries is this Allen/Scorsese/Coppola omnibus film from 1989. As you'll see with our #2 entry as well, many foreign Woody Allen posters are far better than their domestic American versions. Why that is, I'm not too sure, although I did like the American one for New York Stories as well (up at #11), just not as much as this delightful Asian design. Of course, both come from a time when the director was as much the star as the actors and cinemagoers new what film directors looked like enough to put them on the poster! You would never see that today, would you?

3. Small Time Crooks

In my Top 50 Posters of the Decade countdown last year I wrote: "Fun visual gag alongside that attention-grabbing silhouette and a silly, but delightful, tagline. Considering the efforts that have gone into some Woody Allen films this past decade ... I think we can safely call this one a winner." And that still stands.

2. Anything Else

Yet another Asian design - Asian posters to me are what Polish/Czech posters are to most others, apparently - and whatta design it is! Love the use of an old New York map, the oddball drawing style and that apple. It all "adds up to something wonderful and almost whimsical (but not in the annoying indie way)." I ranked it as the 12th best poster of the decade.

1. Manhattan

I shouldn't like this poster as much as I do. Not only does it use a movie still, but it lumps it up in the top third of the design and fills the rest with nothing but white space and text. And yet...

And yet... if you're going to do this sort of design concept, this is how you should do it! Picking an instantly iconic slice of imagery for one thing helps and then roughening the edges of it so it doesn't merely look like you put it there and forgot it existed. And, hey look at that! A typeface that is relevant and romantic and dreamy. Can I say that that's my favourite film poster font of all time? Because I think it is. It's just so perfect in every way.

So, dear readers, do you agree? Disagree? What would you say is your favourite Woody Allen poster and where does Midnight in Paris rank?

Rank and File: Predictions for the 83rd Academy Awards

Today is Oscar day! Or, it is in America. As of right now it's 10:36pm on Sunday evening in Australia. The ceremony is telecast live here from 12:30pm tomorrow (er, Monday - are you following this?), which is really quite nice if you're, like me, just sitting around home and not doing anything anyway. Gone, thankfully, are the days where Australians had to avoid television and online media like the plague for fear of having the delayed telecast spoiled - I will, however, never forget the time when Channel 9, the network that has screened the awards for as long as I remember, spoiled Halle Berry's history making win mere minutes before her category was to be announced! - due to declining ratings and the ever-burgeoning presence of social media all but making the ceremony a mere arbitrary obligation for night own diehards.


Here I thought we'd have a bit of fun with the traditional predictions post. Instead of simply listing who I think will win, I have decided to rank all the contenders in their respective categories (with my predicted winner highlighted in bold). I've done quite well for myself this year, having seen the largest number of nominees pre-ceremony ever. Even in the Best Documentary category, where I rarely seem to get past seeing three of the nominees months(/years!) after the awards, I have been privy to four of the five. I kick myself right now for deciding against seeing Wasteland at last year's Melbourne International Film Festival when I had the chance. In fact, the very final Oscar contender I had to watch was Tim Hetherington and
Sebastian Junger's Restrepo, which received a well-timed direct-to-DVD release just last week (as did Dogtooth, which I aim to revisit, but haven't gotten to just yet).

So, without further ado, let's get to it!

Best Picture
1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. Black Swan
4. The Kids are All Right
5. 127 Hours
6. Inception
7. The King's Speech
8. True Grit
9. Winter's Bone
10. The Fighter

Best Director
1. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
2. David Fincher, The Social Network
3. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, True Grit
4. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

Best Actor
1. James Franco, 127 Hours
2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
3. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
4. Jeff Bridges, True Grit
- Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Best Actress
1. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
2. Annette Bening, The Kids are All Right
3. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
5. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Best Supporting actor
1. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids are All Right
2. John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
3. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
4. Christian Bale, The Fighter
5. Jeremy Renner, The Town

Best Supporting Actress
1. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
2. Amy Adams, The Fighter
3. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
4. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
5. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

(I'm better on a lot of last minute screener action for Weaver, as well as every Australian member of the Academy ticking her box, so to speak.)

Best Original Screenplay
1. Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Bloomfeld, The Kids are All Right
2. Mike Leigh, Another Year
3. David Seidler, The King's Speech
4. Christopher Nolan, Inception
5. Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson & Keith Dorrington, The Fighter

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
2. Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich, Toy Story 3
3. Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours
4. Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, Winter's Bone
5. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, True Grit

Best Editing
1. The Social Network
2. Black Swan
3. The Fighter
4. 127 Hours
5. The King's Speech

Best Cinematography
1. Black Swan
2. True Grit
3. Inception
4. The Social Network
5. The King's Speech

Best Costume Design
1. I Am Love
2. True Grit
3. The King's Speech
4. Alice in Wonderland
- The Tempest

Best Art Direction
1. Inception
2. The King's Speech
3. True Grit
4. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Part 1
5. Alice in Wonderland

Best Make-Up
1. The Wolfman
- Barney's Version
- The Way Back

Best Original Score
1. How to Train Your Dragon
2. Inception
3. The Social Network
4. The King's Speech
5. 127 Hours

Best Original Song
1. "Coming Home" from Country Strong
2. "A Whole New World 2.0" from Tangled
3. "Randy Newman's Burps Would Get Nominated Here" from Toy Story 3
4. "The Song That Sounds Like Nothing" from 127 Hours

Best Sound Mixing
1. The Social Network
2. Salt
3. True Grit
4. Inception
5. The King's Speech

Best Sound Editing
1. TRON: Legacy
2. Unstoppable
3. Inception
4. True Grit
5. Toy Story 3

Best Visual Effects
1. Inception
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
3. Hereafter
4. Alice in Wonderland
- Iron Man 2

Best Documentary Feature
1. Inside Job
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
3. GasLand
- Restrepo
- Wasteland

(The category I've gone back and forth on the most. I have Restrepo here to watch before the ceremony and will update this when I've finished it.)

Best Animated Feature
1. The Illusionist
2. Toy Story 3
3. How to Train Your Dragon

(The one category were I don't care what wins - even if we know what will - and the first time this category that thrown up an entire roster of nominees worthy of the win!)

Best Foreign Language Film
1. In a Better World
2. Dogtooth
- Biutiful
- Incendies
- Outside the Law

Best Documentary, Short Subject
- Killing in the Name
- Poster Girl
- Strangers No More
- Sun Come Up
- The Warriors of Quigang

Best Animated Short
1. Day and Night
- The Gruffalo
- Let's Pollute
- The Lost Thing
- Madagascar, A Journey Diary

Best Live Action Short
- The Confession
- The Crush
- God of Love
- Na Wewe
- Wish 143