My 2011 Oscar Ballot

This week was a bonkers week for me at work (in a good way & in a bad way...way too much stress, but ultimately satisfying), so we didn't get to our normal My Oscar Ballot feature on Thursday.  However, as I mentioned on Friday it was my brother's birthday this week, and this is one of his favorite features on the blog, and so I am bound-and-determined to at least get this week's ballot out on the blog during his birthday weekend, so we're going to be moving into 2011 on a Sunday instead.  As I mentioned last week, we still have three more to go (2007, 2010, & 2012) before I run out of these, and then we'll be doing them at the end of each "OVP Ballot" cycle (which will almost perfectly coincide with us finishing up our 2004 recap).  If you're new to this feature, check out links below both to past "My Oscar Ballot" (where I pick who I would've nominated at the Oscars for a given year) and the races of 2011 (where I talk about every single nominated, feature-length/narrative category & how I would've ranked the Oscar nominees).

Picture

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Drive

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

In Darkness

Jane Eyre

Melancholia

A Separation

Shame

The Tree of Life

Weekend

Gold: No film this decade has been such a profound meditation on the meaning of life, love, and where we are in the universe as Terrence Malick's magnum opus The Tree of Life, a true vision of a movie & one of the finest films ever made.  I love it so much that the poster to the left is hanging in my house.

Silver: In virtually any other year Weekend would've been a threat for the gold.  This is exactly the kind of movie that I love-a slice-of-life romance with a ticking clock in the background, where two people realize they're perfect for each other...but are they willing to acknowledge it before the buzzer?

Bronze: Lars von Trier's films are such a mix for me, but Melancholia is the rare one where we're totally on the same page.  Similar to The Tree of Life, it finds a way to examine life & its preciousness under a microscope, but here it has a harder (but very real) lesson to learn from its study.

Director

Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)

Andrew Haigh (Weekend)

Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)

Lars von Trier (Melancholia)

Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)

Gold: Malick stands apart in this group not just because I like his film better, but because he devoted decades of his life to making it happen.  A total achievement, bold & willing to go forward by positing questions most director's would dare to ask.

Silver: Lars von Trier's work here is mesmerizing.  All of the indulgences that challenge some of his other work (the deep cynicism, the cruelty inflicted in his characters) are checked mercifully by a sense of light...he makes sure we understand the preciousness of life before he pulls it from us.

Bronze: Andrew Haigh's Weekend might not be an obvious director's film, but that's part of the brilliance of what he's doing.  He pulls the camera into such tender moments as to feel like we're part of this conversation, inviting the tender claustrophobia of getting to know a person intimately (in every sense of that word) for the first time.

Actor

Tom Cullen (Weekend)

Michael Fassbender (Jane Eyre)

Michael Fassbender (Shame)

Ryan Gosling (Drive)

Chris New (Weekend)

Gold: A tough call, but I'm going to go with Tom Cullen, given the more central focus of Weekend, and a role we don't oftentimes see in movies.  He's asked to play a man who is out, but not necessarily proud.  The rich inner frustration he clearly feels as he overcomes hurdles he's put to his own happiness is delicate, strong work.

Silver: Michael Fassbender is, of course, also a man who must deal with Shame.  Lost in the conversations at the time about how Fassbender's supporting part was more of a lead (I wasn't going to make it through the whole article without at least one aside), was the way he gives us a raw, unflinching look at the ravages of unchecked addiction.

Bronze: Ryan Gosling continued his brilliant streak at the time with his unknowable lead in Drive.  Playing this kind of part is tough-you have to instill enough knowledge to feel like the audience will root for you while still staying a mystery.  Gosling does that here, emulating past icons like Alan Ladd in Shane or Charles Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West.

Actress

Juliette Binoche (Certified Copy)

Viola Davis (The Help)

Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene)

Kristin Wiig (Bridesmaids)

Gold: The politics of The Help have made it difficult to sing the praises of the picture in retrospect, but that shouldn't negate the work being done by Viola Davis here.  She takes a character that Hollywood treated as "stock" for decades & gives her a voice, particularly during her powerful final showdown with Hilly.

Silver: It's not often that a former child star can truly rise above their beginnings and carve out a performance that makes you basically forget the prodigy they were.  Kirsten Dunst does that with her brutal Justine, finding a character vindictive, annoying, & real in Melancholia.

Bronze: In a year of difficult roles, perhaps no actor cited here had it harder than Juliette Binoche.  A woman who must not just create herself, but facsimiles within herself, sometimes without the audience entirely knowing what she's doing, Binoche makes Certified Copy's cerebral concept totally work.

Supporting Actor

Ralph Fiennes (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2)

John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene)

Hunter McCracken (The Tree of Life)

Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life)

Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris)

Gold: My favorite performance from one of my favorite working actors, Brad Pitt's Mr. O'Brien in The Tree of Life is a seismic turn.  He must represent the wounds we carry from childhood, the missed expectations & the way we reassess our parents & understand their own hopes (without ever truly knowing them).

Silver: Hunter McCracken's wordless work in The Tree of Life is so expressive.  The way that he seems to carry the burdens of his own parents' expectations, and the way he never lets go of those disappointments-a smart pairing with Sean Penn playing him as an adult, the older Oscar winner has to do very little heavy-lifting after such a stunning debut.

Bronze: John Hawkes got his Oscar due the year before, but it's in his creepy, intoxicating cult leader that we get maybe his best work-to-date.  The hold he can have on Elizabeth Olsen's Martha you can feel reaching through the screen.

Supporting Actress

Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life)

Anjelica Huston (50/50)

Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)

Carey Mulligan (Shame)

Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Gold: She became a movie star for a reason.  Melissa McCarthy's Megan is so good not just because of the actress's flawless comedic skills, but also because she brings with her no sense of being in on the joke.  Megan is a real person, a somewhat lonely one, but one who is confident she brings something to the lives of the people around her-McCarthy giving her respect is what sells this part.

Silver: A performance filled with grace (for obvious reasons), Jessica Chastain's Mrs. O'Brien brings instant, constant nostalgia to The Tree of Life, her work a reminder of the wonder of childhood, paired perfectly with Pitt's stern father.

Bronze: Similar to McCarthy, she became a star for a reason.  Spencer doesn't get the plum emotional depths that Davis does, but she still makes Minnie someone the audience can see.  The scene-stealing is perfect (and much needed against some of the other actors not quite knowing what to do with the film's midsection)...a character actress finally getting her due.

Adapted Screenplay

Drive

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

In Darkness

Jane Eyre

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Gold: High Noon as told from the perspective of a neo-noir?  That's kind of the risky motif that Drive is going for here, where we are given a story with total confidence, bursting onto the screen with precision & total determination.

Silver: A compelling mystery is always catnip for me, and boy does Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy bring that to the screen.  A densely-packaged whodunit, one that is unsparing in those it catches in its web, it delivers on John Le Carre's famed novel.

Bronze: How, exactly, does one take a story that is known by heart like Jane Eyre and make it feel fresh & new for the screen?  By amplifying the gothic aspects of the story, and letting the smart leads have rich, felt backstories to accompany the strangeness of their romance.

Original Screenplay

Bridesmaids

Melancholia

A Separation

The Tree of Life

Weekend

Gold: A perfect duet of a script, Weekend is that rare film that feels so organic in the dialogue that you'd be confused into thinking that it was simply improvised.  Conversational & romantic, a near perfect piece of writing.

Silver: A Separation is brimming with plot details, little asides that carry the story to its chilling, complicated conclusion.  It is a script with a mystery so central that you cannot help but keep guessing how it will turnout, and what will happen next.

Bronze: Some may scoff at the concept of The Tree of Life having a "script," but that's what makes Malick's best films so good-you are led to believe that the sense of feeling you're getting from the tale onscreen is simply a result of your own emotions, rather than one you're being led on by the tale of the O'Brien's.

Animated Feature Film

The Adventures of Tintin

Kung Fu Panda 2

Rango

Gold: For a movie that is focused on drawing out the ugliness of its character design, Rango is a weirdly gorgeous movie.  Not remotely made for kids (not just because none of these are obvious plush novelties, but also because the Chinatown references are going to go totally over the young ones' heads), and its run time feels appropriate to tell its full story.

Silver: Aided by a brilliant Gary Oldman as a villainous peacock (if that doesn't get you to buy a ticket, we don't have the same cinematic inclinations), Kung Fu Panda 2 takes all of the whimsy & fun of the previous entry and adds on a sense of mystery and perspective to the characters that reads as "story confidence" more than "sequel insurance."

Bronze: Though it isn't quite as magnificent as it could've been (some of the jokes in it are a bit pedestrian compared to the more sophisticated Pixar, which it's obviously trying to compete with), The Adventures of Tintin is still a rip-roaring action movie, with terrific animation details & thankfully steers clear of the uncanny valley.

Sound Mixing

The Adventures of Tintin

Drive

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Gold: Malick's The Tree of Life has to combine the classical/modern score with natural sounds, as well as dialogue both in & narrated above a scene.  That it pulls it off without it seeming like an aural mess is a testament to the vision that the director can bring to his projects.

Silver: It feels weird for a movie that is so focused on the apes & humans to instantly think of the trees, but that shows how in-tune Rise of the Planet of the Apes is with its background that nature, which is going to have a pronounced voice by the film's end, is brought to the front here.

Bronze: War Horse brings such majesty to the Joey character (think of the wind as he's on a gallop), but really the whole movie is about giving you goosebumps, particularly during the chilling war scenes from an animal's innocent perspective.

Sound Editing

The Adventures of Tintin

Drive

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Tree of Life

Gold: I'm still a bit perplexed how The Tree of Life missed with the Oscars here, considering that they manage to convince you that they've created the whole universe from scratch in the movie's opening scenes.  A jaw-dropping stunner.

Silver: Drive is an action movie that is about subverting your expectations.  Told through car chases (always a good source of inspiration for this category), it's really the gigantic pop of guns and the way that it transports you through the shifting gears that makes this sing...you get great, realistic noises but never sugarcoated ones where what happens onscreen feels excessively glamorized.

Bronze: Rise of the Planet of the Apes has the challenge of having characters with little spoken dialogue, and trying to find distinguishing inter-species war cries to make a distinction amongst its cascade of characters.

Score

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Jane Eyre

Super 8

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Gold: Gothic howls mark Dario Marianelli's score in Jane Eyre, using a strong reliance on solo strings to move the audience, giving us a sense of what is hiding in plain sight in this mysterious tale of romance & secrecy.

Silver: John Williams is the correct choice for the grandeur of War Horse's epic tale, using muted trumpets and a sense of simplicity (this is, at its heart, a children's story about the adult tale of war), to get across perfectly the epic nature of this picture.

Bronze: 80's nostalgia has been a well that filmmakers go to so often that you'd be forgiven for forgetting Super 8, JJ Abrams' fine but little discussed thriller from 2011.  What you couldn't be forgiven is dismissing the period-perfect wonder of Michael Giacchino's reaching music that brings the film together.

Original Song

"Bridge of Light," (Happy Feet Two)

"It Will Rain," (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1)

"Life's a Happy Song," (The Muppets)

"Pictures in My Head," (The Muppets)

"Pretty Bird," (Rio)

Gold: The Muppets have been part of the musical landscape for decades, but brought about by Disney's relaunch of the brand, they get a score that feels worthy of their unique talents.  "Life's a Happy Song" is a burst of joy to start out the picture, reminding you why you love this gang to begin with.

Silver: Of course, the Muppets also know how to get you to reach for the tissues (who doesn't cry when they bring "Rainbow Connection" out to underline our history with these characters?).  While not quite as iconic, Kermit refreshes the nostalgia for that ballad with "Pictures in My Head," talking about long ago friendships.

Bronze: Bruno Mars was nearing the peak of his fame when "It Will Rain" came out, another reminder that few franchises had their head closer to the pop culture heartbeat than the Twilight movies.

Art Direction

Captain America: The First Avenger

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Hugo

Jane Eyre

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Gold: Oh how much I adore the over-crowded, winding offices of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  In some ways it feels like this film kicked off a whole new level in art direction.  We'd see such realism in this style of film, as if production designers were taking note of the elevated storytelling when it looks like you're actually in an office.

Silver: Hugo is a much more traditional choice for this category, as it has a large, expansive, & reimagined Paris for us to play in, but I think the best parts of the movie lie in the ways that the set designers hint at the brilliance of Melies' work & how it informed our perceptions of early cinema.

Bronze: With Jane Eyre, it's always about the castle.  Gargantuan, this one imposes & emulates the stone heart of Mr. Rochester, which makes the inevitable fall of Thornfield Hall all the more meaningful.

Cinematography

Drive

Jane Eyre

Melancholia

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Gold: If you haven't been paying attention, you might have missed that The Tree of Life is not just my favorite movie of 2011, but perhaps my favorite of the decade.  This inevitably comes with its crowning glory (Cinematography) getting the gold, coming together like a NOVA documentary lensed by Mark Rothko-limitless & felt.

Silver: Melancholia's effects team plays a part in getting that final sequence in order, but it's the wedding, with the floating lanterns & the desolation in the eyes of all of the actors to come that makes the film's camerawork stand apart.

Bronze: Has Los Angeles ever looked so magnetic in the humming neon lights that bring together Drive?  If it has, I don't remember it-the car chases are obviously a highlight, but every frame in Drive feels like it's pulled out of a film school textbook on ambience & mood.

Costume Design

Captain America: The First Avenger

Drive

Hugo

Jane Eyre

Melancholia

Gold: I love when a period film seems like it's sporting clothes that haven't been bought-and-worn for the first time.  That's the case with Jane Eyre, which sports clothes that match the rigidity of the main characters, but also feel like they've been pulled out of an actual closet, and aren't just sewn for one scene & then discarded.

Silver: It's always dangerous to give an award for a film largely based on one iconic look.  That being said, Drive's bright white scorpion jacket and driving gloves are iconic in a way few screen costumes dare to be, and deserve adulation.

Bronze: The Captain America franchise is the best part of the MCU, and part of that comes from it not taking itself too seriously.  The retro takes on superhero apparel is so full of whimsy, it's hard to not instantly root for our heroes in this tale.

Editing

Drive

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

The Tree of Life

Weekend

Gold: We've talked a few times about the "ticking clock" hanging over Drive, where doom or glory (or some bittersweet combination) are inevitable from the opening scene.  That kind of adventure sequence requires meticulous editing, focused on trimming all of the fat so the adrenaline never leaves the audience.

Silver: It must be a nightmare to try & piece together the worlds of Terrence Malick, with a cerebral script and a story driven by mood & imagery just as much as the actors onscreen.  That it ends up imparting such meaning onto its audience is in part the genius of (I'd imagine) a patient editing team.

Bronze: What is real, and what is simply a memory of the titular character(s)?  That's the question that towers over Martha Marcy May Marlene, with us not knowing until the final frames what dangers wait in store for our inward-looking protagonist.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

The Iron Lady

My Week with Marilyn

The Skin I Live In

Super 8

Gold: Putting aside that Dick Smith's handbook wouldn't have even been out when Super 8 was set, it's rare that a movie genuinely puts movie makeup & its resident maestro at the center of a story, but in doing so it underscores the care a makeup team brings to a film of this nature.

Silver: Glamour requires work too, people.  And that's certainly the case with My Week with Marilyn, recreating the iconography of several well-known film stars, including the titular doomed icon, fully transformed around Michelle Williams' breathy performance.

Bronze: Speaking of transformations, J. Roy Helland finally won his Oscar after decades of styling Meryl Streep for a bravura bit of work for Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.  The best parts of this aren't just that he makes her look like Thatcher in her heyday, but the ways he keeps parts of her personality as she ages, the wear of age through hair & makeup.

Visual Effects

The Adventures of Tintin

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Tree of Life

Gold: Douglas Trumbull, visual genius, uses his decades of experience in high-speed photography to emulate his magnum opus 2001: A Space Odyssey, as both are about the provocative evolution of man.  Also, I liked the dinosaurs.

Silver: Revolutionary effects, a brilliant story to support them, and a visual effects team that knows "less is more"...Rise of the Planet of the Apes became a template for the next decade in motion-capture with its hyper-realistic ape characters.

Bronze: Animated films are hard to know how to classify in a field like this, but the sheer scale of Tintin's motion-capture technology, creating a cartoon genuinely from the actions of its voice cast, is massively impressive.

Also in 2011: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap

Other My Oscar Ballots: 2005, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

Cars 2 (2011)

Film: Cars 2 (2011)
Stars: Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, John Turturro, Eddie Izzard
Director: John Lasseter
Oscar History: Cars 2 made history as the first Pixar movie not to receive an Oscar nomination in any category.  It did get nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globes, though, so you know it was close.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We're going to move back to conventional animated films, and what says conventional animation better than Disney, or rather in this case, Pixar?  This could just be the kind of accounts I follow on Instagram, but a lot of people seemed to be trying to see all of the Pixar movies or all of the Disney movies over quarantine, and while I haven't done that, I do have it as a goal to at the very least someday see all of the Pixar and Disney films, and since I was two short for the former, I recently accomplished that task.  Today is the penultimate of those films (logic will dictate which one of the films was the last one, and thus which one we'll be getting to later this week), and anyone who knows the reputations of Pixar films will understand why this one was one I waited upon-it is generally considered the worst of the Pixar movies.  Going into it, I was curious just how bad it could be, and if perhaps its egregious reputation might save it based on lowered expectations.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place after the events of Cars, with Lightning McQueen (Wilson), now a champion, but still mourning the loss of his mentor Doc Hudson (Paul Newman had passed away since the first film was lensed).  However, being on the top always comes with those wanting to take down your throne, and he is challenged by Francesco Burnoulli (Turturro), to a new multi-city race, run by an organic biofuel company.  However, in different legs of the race, there are cars that are crashing, from some sort of sabotage from an evildoer who is unknown for the bulk of the film, and by mistaken identity, the main car that is trying to unveil the criminal mastermind is clumsy, mumbling Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), whom spies Finn (Caine) and Holley (Mortimer) have allowed into their covert operation.

The film is silly, but I'll be real here-I don't get the hate for this movie that it received on its first outing.  I think it might have been more a combination of Pixar having made four true masterpieces in a row (Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3) and thus not only having impossible standards, but also people tend to want to tear down successful enterprises.  We don't allow anyone to enjoy unencumbered success forever, and so if you're basically flawless outing-after-outing, when you make a mistake, it's going to become pronounced.  This is what happened here.  Had Cars 2, say, come out in 2015, when Pixar had already stumbled with Monsters University and The Good Dinosaur, it'd be greeted with a different reception.

That said, it's not great.  The decision to put the popular side character Mater front-and-center makes sense from a marketing standpoint (keep in mind that for a time there the Cars franchise rivaled Disney Princess in terms of ubiquity at your local Wal-Mart), but it doesn't work in the film.  Mater is too bumbling, his schtick gets old pretty quickly, and there's not enough to keep the film grounded.  In a lot of ways it's what would have happened had Frozen 2 made the film entirely about Olaf.  It's not great-there are funny moments in the film, but it's juvenile, and lacks the gravitas of Pixar's best outings, and the cuteness of its more sophomoric installments.  Despite the film's relatively low box office (compared to other hits of that era), it still was able to spawn not only a sequel, but in 2013 with Planes, an entirely different franchise.

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Film: Winnie the Pooh (2011)
Stars: Jim Cummings, Bud Luckey, Craig Ferguson, Jack Boulter, Travis Oates, Tom Kenny, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, John Cleese
Directors: Stephen J. Anderson & Don Hall
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

You'll be forgiven for wondering what the hell is happening on this blog this week, because A) we have a review every day-consistency! and B) the reviews feel a bit...eclectic.  Yes, as I might have mentioned either here or on social media, I'm cleaning out my drafts folder for all of the films I am behind on in terms of reviews, and in the process, am coming up with some odd movies that I have recently seen, but haven't had a chance to review.  This should hopefully mean that, as I've picked up the pace of films that I've been watching, that we should have a steady course of film reviews & content for a while now (we'll also be doing more in-depth articles about Oscar races and politics, so don't worry if those feel light this week, but I want to really focus on film reviews this week before I start adding in other elements).  Winnie the Pooh is one of the most recent Disney-animated features (a list I'm trying to get through, one of many lists that have that claim this summer), and is our seemingly random movie today.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film isn't quite as episodic as some past adventures that Disney has produced from Winnie the Pooh, but it's close.  The film's larger narrative is about Pooh's eternal quest to find more honey, which he is constantly running out of (oh bother).  In the meantime, we have a few mini quests, including a contest to find a new tale for Eeyore (he has lost the old one) and a hunt for the Backson, a creature that comes less from reality and more Owl's inability to read (what actually happens is that Christopher Robin has written "Gon Out Bizy Back Soon," meaning "Gone Out Busy Back Soon").  This is the main thrust of the plot, but like most adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood, it's also about friendship, love, and an eclectic group of characters brought together (weirdly they skip an appearance from the only character that Disney created rather than AA Milne, Gopher).

The movie is lovely, if a bit dry.  I think most of your tolerance for the film will depend greatly on how willing you are to fall into the nostalgia of Winnie the Pooh.  I loved Pooh as a child, and quite frankly love him as an adult.  I've grown an appreciation for some of Disney's other iconic characters, but Pooh & his gang didn't need an appreciation of film history to get where I could look at them with wonder-that was already there for these characters (I have several of the Pooh figurines in my hobby room).  The movie is beautifully drawn, and features enough whimsy that it's easy to appreciate, and also it's so classy (and bereft of "new" animated characters like Olaf or Wreck-It-Ralph) that you also get why it got a collective shrug from the public.

Because despite solid reviews and a constant fascination with Pooh & his friends from children, it disappointed at the box office (only making $50 million, a pittance for an animated movie), and didn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.  This is really unusual, because Disney-Pixar has dominated that category since its inception, to the point where it's easier to count who wasn't nominated than who was.  Since 2001, only two years (2005 & 2011) have had no Disney-Pixar features nominated (though 2005's Howl's Moving Castle was distributed by Disney, and 2011's Chico & Rita was distributed by Disney in some parts of Europe, though not in North America).  The Disney films released in those years were Valiant (Rotten Tomatoes score of 31%), Chicken Little (37%), Mars Needs Moms (37%), and Cars 2 (39%), all critical bombs; Winnie the Pooh, on the other hand, scored a 91%, thus making it the most critically-celebrated Disney-Pixar production ever to miss with this category of the Oscars.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

Film: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Stars: Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Michael Nyqvist
Director: Brad Bird
Oscar History: Is it weird that this franchise has never made it with AMPAS, even in Sound or VFX?  Considering it's increasingly well-received by critics, you think it would have landed.  Either way, no, nothing from Oscar.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Tom Cruise is a great movie star.  He may be crazy, but he's truly a great movie star, and one of my favorite screen presences when he's actually firing on all cylinders.  His movies, though, have increasingly become more banal.  It's hard to imagine Cruise ever playing a risky role again like he did in Magnolia, or hell, even doing a straight-forward romance like Jerry Maguire.  His only forays into something outside of action-adventure in the past decade have been in a comedic film where he was actually not taking much of a risk at all (Tropic Thunder-even if the movie was a dud "whoa-that's Tom Cruise?!?" was always going to save him) and a musical that no one remembers (Rock of Ages, anyone?).  He might still be a matinee idol, but it's hard to get excited about him in the movies anymore from a critical perspective, and increasingly he resembles more Harrison Ford or Sylvester Stallone (going back to his most beloved creations rather than challenging himself) than someone who once made an arthouse film with Stanley Kubrick AND played a cult-of-personality narcissist for Paul Thomas Anderson in the same year.

(Spoilers Ahead) Still, though, in my opinion Cruise's best performance was John Anderton in Minority Report, so when he's at the top of his game in an action-adventure film, he is hard to best in that genre, and there are moments in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol where he succeeds on that front.  The plots of the Mission Impossible movies were always unnecessary and needlessly confusing (there's nuclear codes in the wrong hands that might lead to nuclear war...which admittedly feels a bit too real right now, so this was a strange choice for my weekend), but the real star has been the insanity of Cruise's action set pieces and the fantastically choreographed ways he fights off the bad guys.

That comes to a head in one of the most psychotic scenes I think I've ever witnessed in a movie.  I have a sincere fear of heights, particularly high, open spaces (I remember the first time I went to the top of the Empire State Building I snuck out, got my picture, and then was very ready to go back down to the earth...it's really a miracle I don't get freaked out by flying to a major degree or else I'd never get to travel).  Cruise, of course, famously does his own stunts and in a jaw-dropping sequence cascades down Burj Khalifa, the tallest building on the planet.  It's a staggering achievement, made all the more surreal by the photos that were released during press showing that he was, in fact, doing these stunts and not just enjoying the safer, but less impressive, world of CGI.  I can only imagine what it must have been like for Brad Bird to tell Cruise, after literally running down several stories outside of a building in a matter of seconds a mile above the ground, "yeah, umm, Tom, we're going to need another take."

This scene is frightening and thrilling, and pretty much worth the price of admission.  The rest of the movie isn't remotely equal to it, as Cruise doesn't bring much in terms of acting or his signature charm here and Pegg/Renner/Patton seem to be on auto-pilot, nothing particularly fascinating in what they're creating for the picture.  The movie also suffers from that skyscraper action set piece being truly jaw-dropping to the point where nothing else can remotely compare and feels like a letdown, particularly a fight in a parking ramp that should have been more interesting than it was.  Bird's a fine director, but that scene was shot in WAY too many closeups when we should have gotten the cool juxtaposition of a mountain of sports cars playing background for an intense fight with a major movie star.  Still, though, I'm giving this three stars as that ten minute sequence in the center of the film is what makes movies so special-name me a television show (or hell, name me another actor) that could do what Ghost Protocol/Cruise did in that scene.

Those are my thoughts-I know I'm late to the party here, but if you have any favorite moments to share from the fourth installment in the Mission Impossible series, put them below?  Anyone else wishing that Cruise would maybe stretch his considerable acting talents a bit more, or are we all fine with him continuing to defy the lies of nature for as long as his seemingly ageless face/body allow?  And how much money would you need to scale the world's largest building?  Share in the comments!

African Cats (2011)

Film: African Cats (2011)
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Keith Scholey, Alastair Fothergill
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

DisneyNature is a company initiative that I can totally get behind from the House of Mouse.  I grew up loving nature films and copies of National Geographic Jr. and as I got older this never went away-I still love nature documentaries and regularly read about environmental causes and if you're following me on Twitter you'll know I am outraged by the gorilla story that hit the news yesterday.  I am one of the people who think that the mother in this case needs to be charged with child endangerment and should be subject to a civil lawsuit from the zoo-the fact is her parental negligence caused the death of this rare endangered species...this could be another article entirely but it would be all finger-pointing and little artful ranting, so I shall resist (but know I'm pissed).  Anyway, back to the movie-I recently caught African Cats, the third film from DisneyNature and below are my thoughts.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is, unlike say a miniseries from David Attenborough, a narrative tale.  We are not seeing random snippets across the Savannah of a series of different interactions of cheetahs, tigers, lions, and leopards, but instead two specific narratives surrounding Mara, a young lion cub, and Sita, a cheetah with five newborns trying to make it in the Savannah.  The film follows these two narratives, trying to point out the toughness that is required for the young and old alike on the Savannah, even if they are fierce predators.

The movie is surprisingly harsh and realistic, even if it gives all of the animals cute names that surely had a marketing tie-in from Disney all ready to go (it's been a few years since this movie came out, and I haven't been to DisneyWorld in years so I don't know how much of a hold DisneyNature has on the park).  The film isn't shy about showing, for example, that the cheetah cubs won't all make it in the wild as two of them are killed by a pack of hyenas or that Mara's mother will eventually succumb to the ware-and-tear of old age, or that Mara very nearly will die as a result of a new lion taking over her pride.  This level of realism in a nature documentary geared almost entirely for children is quite refreshing (it gives an actual depiction of nature), but a little jarring for me who wasn't expecting anything sad.  Then again, this is Disney, land of the single parent, so I shouldn't be totally floored.

I think the best moments are when, quite frankly, you get to see interactions between animals you wouldn't have expected.  I loved the scene where a band of older male cheetahs are harassing the cheetah cubs and then are eventually chased off by an elephant, something that feels as if it was plucked from an actual Disney cartoon and surely the filmmakers were high-fiving after catching that on-tape.  The film gets a little heavy-handed in trying to force some of the mothering narrative onto the animals (you half expect a fake conversation between Mara and her mother Layla when Layla eventually disappears to die, abandoning her daughter), but overall the movie is quite fun, if relatively simplistic and clearly directed at children.  I'll surely be checking out more DisneyNature films in the future (I've only seen Oceans, I believe, before this), and if you have kids I'd highly recommend putting this into their DVD rotation.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Any other nature documentary addicts?  Anyone have a particular favorite DisneyNature film? Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Film: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Stars: Chris Evans, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper
Director: Joe Johnston
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Captain America, in my mind, was always the most boring of the Avengers growing up reading the comics.  Iron Man was a cool gadget-y guy, Thor was a studly God, and the Hulk was giant and green.  Captain America, on the other hand, was just a sort of lifeless figure on the page.  He was too generic, too noble-he was the Marvel equivalent of Superman, classic but with no edge.  It's the principle reason why I actually skipped out on the first two Captain America films when everyone else across the country was catching them in theaters (I didn't get acquainted with Chris Evans in this role until The Avengers).  However, when Winter Soldier got a shock Best Visual Effects nomination, it became a need and not a want to see the film, and so that I did.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film on the surface feels like almost every other superhero movie at this point.  Honestly, part of me was really glad that Guardians of the Galaxy came out this past year because it felt different, something that was still an origin story but with humor and fun and panache.  Captain America: The First Avenger isn't what you'd consider one of the more beloved films in the Marvel franchise, and there are a variety of reasons for that.  For starters, the Hydra villainy here isn't what you'd call particularly impressive.  The film's focus, which is in the first half on a scrawny Steve Rogers and in the second-half on a jacked-to-the-hilt Captain America, spends probably too much time trying to have it all, and that starts by making us feel like there's a compelling villain at the center of everything.  Hugo Weaving's Red Skull is too major of a character from the Captain America comic books to not be his first villain, but I have to admit that I never found him super eye-catching (this has always been the problem with Marvel villains compared to the iconic cavalcade of DC baddies-someone like the Joker or Lex Luthor is always going to tower over a Red Skull).  Part of me almost wished they'd gone with Toby Jones' Arnim Zola (thankfully they did in the sequel) for the villain as he always felt a bit more ruthless and get under your skin.

The rest of the film occasionally veers into fun, which is welcome in the increasingly serious world of Marvel comics.  Sebastian Stan, for example, is wonderful as Bucky, Rogers' sexy and over-confident best friend who has the roles reversed on him when Steve becomes a leader rather than a sidekick.  I also loved the whole sideshow aspect of the film-there was something so unsettling about the way that they turn Captain America into something of a war propaganda tool, rather than the hero we consistently see in the comic books.  Chris Evans is such a game performer, and so loose at comedy and charm that this was the perfect avenue to take him in (this was why he's the saving grace of the Fantastic Four movies).  I also thoroughly enjoyed Hayley Atwell's Agent Carter at the beginning, though I felt like toward the end she lost much of her identity to Captain America and his love interest (Marvel cannot seem to write interesting female love interests, even if they're far better at female superheroes...even though the only one they seem interested in is the Black Widow).  Aside from Weaving, in fact, the only person who feels a bit on autopilot here is Tommy Lee Jones, who is doing his curmudgeonly act for the 17,000th time, and there's nothing new here to warrant mention except when everyone else seems to be elevating their game you'd think he would too.

The effect of Chris Evans body, I have to say, feels like an effect that just isn't going to age well.  It's such a cool idea that I am totally behind it in concept, but the execution feels sloppy-you never really believe Chris Evans is a scrawny dude and the entire effect feels cheap, like something you'd see in a 1950's Sci-Fi film.  The fight sequences, as well (except for the one where Bucky falls from the train) are also underwhelming.  This may in fact be because there just aren't that many, but to that I wonder why they didn't get outside the traditional action film mode a bit more.  What's the point of having even a super-villain to conquer-why not just have Captain America become someone that could become a leader and make it a personal growth story?  Why force a romantic connection to the only female character when you could have a friendship there, at least at first (we don't need Peggy Carter to be Steve Rogers' girlfriend for the subsequent film to work, after all)?  These sorts of questions are worth pondering as we get more and more and more superhero films out into the market and we start to hit a saturation point.

All-in-all, though, this is a fine if not particularly compelling ride.  It's different enough to be interesting, but not different enough to be great, and there's nothing truly marvelous to see here.  We'll get to the sequel in a day or two, but what are your thoughts in the meantime?  Do you share my ambivalence for the film (and Captain America in general)?  What do you think of Chris Evans and the way that his career has become about two superheroes?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Picture (2011)

OVP: Best Picture

The Nominees Were...

 
 

Thomas Langmann, The Artist
Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, and Jim Taylor, The Descendants
Scott Rudin, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, and Michael Barnathan, The Help
Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Midnight in Paris
Michael de Luca, Rachael Horovitz, and Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Sarah Green, Bill Pohlad, Dede Gardner, and Grant Hill, The Tree of Life
Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, War Horse

My Thoughts: And we have finally hit the end of the road for the 2011 Oscars.  This won't necessarily be our last discussion of 2011.  As I've gone along, I've added multiple precursor films to my Netflix list, and when I revisit any of our discussed nominated films I reserve the right to fully review the films, though my official selections, much like the Academy's, are set in stone.  That's part of the point of this project-people complain about the Academy's decisions to not give Citizen Kane Best Picture or to never give Peter O'Toole an acting Oscar, but that's because hindsight is 20/20.  While I can't travel back in time and make these decisions as the films are happening (yet-Apple's probably working on an app for that right now, though, so cross your fingers), this is about as close to a recreation of the "hindsight is 20/20" as I can get.  And so, it's time to add one last winner to the 2011 roundup, and we'll start with the film we've most discussed in this project, Hugo.

Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Steven Spielberg are arguably the three directors who have contributed the most to the zeitgeist of film in the past forty years (throw out the names you'd replace them with in the comments-that's what they're there for).  It seems odd that this is the year that all three managed to get a Best Picture nomination at the same time, as none of them are really focusing on the subjects that made them supremely famous in the first place.  Spielberg's film is not a fantasy adventure, Woody's not in New York, and Marty's film could not have less to do with crime and the mob.  And yet, you have to stop and admire the fact that all three men (the youngest of which is 65) are still able to make such a mark on cinema decades after they became global icons of quality that they can receive Best Picture nominations.

We've discussed Scorsese's film to death in these articles, from almost every angle, but there's a reason that we've done that-there's a lot of strength in this film.  Martin Scorsese doesn't make a shoddy picture-he's a man of meticulous detail, and one of the things to deeply admire about the film is that Scorsese gives it a unique vision.  It's not his best work, and it's not the best of this field, but that's not to say it's not a fun picture-it's one that I would readily recommend to anyone who asks about the film.  Part of the problem with the film is that you can see what Scorsese was going for-he's trying to make a cherished film about the wonders of childhood, and that's not what he's able to pull off with this movie. All the elements are there, but in order to make a film like The Wizard of Oz, you have to everything pulled off flawlessly, and there are just too many storylines, too many missteps (once again, Sacha Baron Cohen, ladies and gentlemen) to have an indisputable masterpiece for children.  It's a film that will likely become a part of many people's holiday traditions (it's got that Christmas vibe to it, though I don't recall anything distinctly Christmas-y in the film), and it's a film that will be fun to revisit, but it's not a masterpiece.

Neither, I should say, is Steven Spielberg's War Horse, though again, I should say that there's the ingredients to make it one.  Unlike Scorsese, Spielberg has captured childhood wonder in the form of a near-perfect film, but Spielberg has long since grown up, for better or for worse.  I'm not sure if Spielberg is just going for John Ford's record, or if he has lost interest in the Sci-Fi genre, but wouldn't it be spectacular if he tried to do a film like Close Encounters or Jurassic Park again-good, strong popcorn fun that ends up being a true classic?  However, instead we are treated to a series of handsome, "important" films that are entertaining, but don't have that spark that made us fall in love with Spielberg in the first place.  However, Spielberg films always have something extra about them-that intangible sense of heightened adventure-he brings us along for the ride more than most directors seem capable of doing.  At its best, War Horse is doing that for us-the run through the war fields is by far the best scene in the movie, and it is one of those jaw-dropping moments where you can feel the wind and the sounds so fully you are immersed in this world.  It's trademark Spielberg, but it's something that lacks in the film's non-action sequences, and in particular the scenes with the French girl-I felt like this was a bit slow and while pretty, not very interesting.  It doesn't help that the source material is pretty slight for such a big film-for those that have seen this play at Lincoln Center, you'd have to agree that while the enormous production and in the case of the play, the spectacular puppet-work, make both film and stage a worthwhile platform, the actual plot is too narrow to stretch over two or three hours.

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris is the third of the three films that I think has that "masterpiece" potential, but doesn't quite deliver on that promise.  Woody's film's problem is that it falls sucker to its own premise.  One of my best friends is a Woody Allen enthusiast of the highest order, so I'm aware that I may be falling into one of those "Woody did this on-purpose" sort of discussion traps, but since the entire point of the film is that nostalgia romanticizes the past to the point of non-reality, it seems weird that the scenes in the 1920's and during the Belle Epoque are far, far more interesting than the modern day portion of the movie.  I love the idea of the bumbling detective, and the "What the hell?!? Is that Carla Bruni?!?" moments were fun, but overall the modern-day elements of the film were lacking (in particular, strong actors like Michael Sheen and Rachel McAdams were just plain bad in their roles), and though Woody films oftentimes seem a little out-of-the-blue, the random romance with a bit part shopgirl seemed like a particularly cheap ploy.  I know that in the Best Director write-up I wrote that this was a particularly sharp metaphor, and from a writing standpoint it's an interesting commentary, but it's also a double-edged sword-it may be clever, but it also makes the film uneven, and when you're competing to be the best of the best pictures, I've got to dock some points.

The Artist is the film that I had the most trouble with in these write-ups.  When I was writing, I ended up falling less and less enchanted with it, and it may have been that it was simply nominated too often or at least in the wrong categories.  It's not a bad movie, and I want to be very clear about that (as we're going to hit a couple of bad movies in a few paragraphs, and I want to ensure that the distinction has been made).  It is a film that's not the masterpiece that it (and some critics) claim it to be, however.  I don't even quibble with the Best Picture nomination, though it doesn't deserve it, because Silent Era films are an art-form that should get a revival of sorts in the cinema, and are a terrific way of telling stories.  But it doesn't have much to say outside of that gimmick.  The movie knows a lot about silent comedies, and there are bits of the film that are supremely fun to watch (the coat rack scene and the constant Dujardin mugging come to mind), but that doesn't make a great movie, and the plot and story arch in the film are too simple and not strongly executed enough to be considered one of the best films of the year, and certainly are not enough to warrant the praise the film received.  A film like Casablanca is simple and classic, but it also has literally every single one of its engines-writing, directing, acting, music-running at full throttle.  The Artist doesn't do that, and while I will readily admit that it's a fun movie (and like Hugo, one I would recommend seeing), this isn't a discussion of the film versus itself-it's a discussion of the film versus every movie of 2011, and that's a conversation in which it just can't compete.

Moneyball is in a similar situation (before we dig in-note that Brad Pitt is amongst the nominees for producing this film, so he did have two chances to win this past year).  Moneyball, in Aaron Sorkin's hands, is a much better film than it should be-the movie should be bogged down in technical jargon and baseball "come-from-behind" cliches, but Sorkin manages to somewhat lift that stain with a deft script.  Bennett Miller also deserves some credit-not just for hiring a technical team that is way better than the subject demands (it's a sports movie, after all-why does it need such sharp sound mixing?), but also for his decisions to focus less on what is on the field than what is going on to make the field play happen.  Brad Pitt, so handsome and with a well-practiced charm, is another highlight that will help this film have a strong video shelf life.  All of that is to say the film could have been a lot worse, but it's still not so good as to compete with the best films of the year.  The film does fall into cliches, even if the script tries not to steer into them.  It's hard to imagine a sports film without any sort of victory (and it is based on a true story, which hinders the writer), but we could have been spared the long speeches and the constant underdog reminders.  Overall, a film I liked way, way better than I imagined I would, but it still doesn't quite get me to that "Oscar" place.

The Help is also a film that relies on cliches, but it does it in a format that we haven't always been (macho, come-from-behind sports films are really all that genre seems to offer), so it gets a little more of a pass.  This is a film that does have people making a stand, but it does it in a nearly all-female cast, something that we rarely get to see on-screen, and something I emphatically root for in the future.  The movie does have its problems-Bryce Dallas Howard's character seems a bit over-the-top, even if her ugly prejudices sadly were shared by people of her time, and the film never quite knows what to do with Emma Stone's character (is she a civil rights activist or simply an aspiring writer that stumbled across a great narrative-who can tell?), but we have three excellent performances from Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jessica Chastain, and the film flies by-there's also something to be said for seeing a film in theaters (and though I will hardly be able to make this claim for other years, I saw all nine of these in theaters), as the audience reaction probably gave me a bit of a boost in my judgment of this film.  However, this film, while too rosy in its critiques of a very serious time in US History, manages to hold its entertainment value through its strong visual element and its three top tier performances even when you're watching at home alone, eating anything but a chocolate pie.

The Descendants, like The Artist, is a film that hasn't gotten a welcome banner in my treatment of it, and I have to say that while The Artist may have lost a few notches in my estimation because of the critics collective orgasm over it (though I do stand by all of my nitpicking of it), The Descendants would still be a dull and lifeless movie even if it hadn't been noticed by any awards bodies.  It seems weird to write such things about a director I so fervently admire like Payne, but the movie is a big miss (whatever our occupation, we all have them), and it doesn't seem to know what direction it's taking.  Clooney's novocaine performance doesn't help, and neither do the "stock" characters that seem to interact with him on a regular basis (and, once more for those sitting in the back, this is said with the exception of Judy Greer).  Overall, this made me wish that Payne would return to the deeply imperfect characters of Sideways and Election and visit the beautiful islands of Hawaii on his own time.

Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the film that we've least discussed, and for obvious reasons-this was one of its only two nominations.  With the new "how many nominees will there be?" sort of system that I've made my peace with but am not a huge fan of, this was definitely a shock nomination and the one that raised the most eyebrows on nomination morning.

Unlike the other eight films that we've discussed so in-depth, I'm going to give a quick synopsis of the movie since we haven't become very well acquainted with the film prior to this write-up. It's about a boy in New York who loses his father in the 9/11 attacks, and the film alternates between months after the attacks and the day of the attacks.  The film is make-or-break for you depending on how you react to Thomas Horn's performance as a potentially-autistic (the film never really says) boy who tries to track down a bunch of clues that he thinks his father has left for him after his death.  This is where the film got me first-I couldn't stand Horn's performance.  It's difficult to be mean to younger actors, but his performance was too braying and abrasive to ever be completely believable-it's hard to imagine random strangers opening up to him, which is the entire premise of the film.  The movie's manipulative nature also was a bit hard-to-swallow too-I felt that the movie was daring us to defy Horn's character, and the cutesy way that every clue seemed to fall right into place without much work on the part of Horn's character.  And while I'm aware that it's based on a book (that I haven't read), it also seems as if the 9/11 backdrop was added more as a ploy for an Oscar than as an integral part of the story.  I've read some critics say that there should never be films about the tragic events of that day, which I disagree with (films have a way of telling stories that other mediums can't, and you should never try and limit that), but this film's use of the events seemed to be handled without much care.  I will end with something nice to say, that Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, and Sandra Bullock all do their best to save the film with solid acting work (I'm leaving out the other very famous actor because I don't believe he's on the same level as the other three), but that's not enough to save this film from failing spectacularly.

And in the final slot, we have Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, a film that dominated early filmic discussions of 2011 with its divisive structure and its loose narrative.  It should be noted that, though Extremely Loud is a film that most shocked people with its surprise nomination, in hindsight perhaps that shock should have been reserved for this film.  The Academy has never nominated such an out-there film that so boldly defies what we expect from the movies.  Not even Blow-Up or 2001: A Space Odyssey could push their Best Director nominations into this category, so it says something that the Academy was willing to go out on a limb for Malick's movie.

It's no secret that I simply adored this movie, and I'm going to try to type up why I did, as it's important to defend your big decisions-this is, after all, largely an Oscar blog, and you don't get a bigger decision with Oscar than Best Picture.  It's partially the beauty on display-Lubezki captures every frame with such light and imagination, and never seems afraid to throw us another winding look at a tree or the alabaster pallor of Jessica Chastain's face.  It's also the deeply profound look we take at the three principle members of the O'Brien family-Hunter McCracken, Jessica Chastain, and Brad Pitt somehow appear so naturalistic that you wonder if Malick told them they were filming, and yet they fit perfectly into Malick's metaphor about the way of nature and the way of grace.  And finally, it's also the sheer awe that the film inspires.  Few directors take on as impossible of projects as trying to exhibit a topic like "the meaning of life" onto the screen, since they know that even if they make perfect films, they will never succeed in answering the question.  That doesn't stop Malick, and while he obviously can't find the answer to the question, what his movie does, by immersing us into this world of big bangs and the ends of time and the bitterness of becoming more aware during childhood, is making us better understand ourselves.  It's the sort of movie, that if you let it, really transforms how you look at the world and how you think.  It seems like the water may be getting a bit deep here, so I'll pull out soon, but I have to say that this is why cinephiles become enchanted with the movies-not just to see great art and great performances, but to have that moment where the art guides us to a different direction, and gets us to think about the world in a new light.

Other Precursor Contenders: Because all of the precursors handle Best Picture in a different way, it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison, but I'll try with our three big Best Picture races-the Globes, the BAFTA's, and the PGA's.  The Globes, which divide into comedy and drama, felt the love for The Artist and The Descendants (their two winners), and also nominated Hugo, The Help, Moneyball, Midnight in Paris, and War Horse, but also found room for The Ides of March, 50/50, Bridesmaids, and My Week with Marilyn.  The BAFTA Awards, limited to only five awards, also went with The Artist for its top prize, and fit Drive and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy alongside The Help and The Descendants.  And the PGA's, which have a 10-wide field, skipped Extremely Loud and The Tree of Life in favor of Bridesmaids, The Ides of March, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: The obvious choice here would be Melancholia, which is one of my favorite films of last year and my second favorite piece of directing.  However, I'd have to put it third, and will instead highlight my second place, a tiny little film called Weekend.  I've mentioned it briefly before, but it has such a strong message about the lives of its two characters, two men brought together by a one-night stand who slowly realize that they may be made for each other.  It washes away all of the "Hollywood love story" sort of glamour and takes a very realistic look at how love can spring from unknown places, and that romance and its allure can enter even into the most ordinary of situations.  It's a remarkable movie, and one that everyone should investigate.

Oscar's Choice: 84 years in, Oscar finally decided to go with a second silent film and The Artist pulled off a victory over Hugo and The Descendants.

My Choice: An easy decision-one of the rare years where Oscar nominated my favorite film of the year, The Tree of Life.  I've already talked enough about it, so I'll simply run down the rest of the lineup: War Horse, Midnight in Paris, Hugo, The Help, Moneyball, The Artist, The Descendants, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

And there we have it-2011 is now completely recapped.  I've got two 2010 films home from Netflix right now, so we'll start that discussion post-haste (as well as some election-recapping, a bunch of 2012 movies, and of course whatever TCM decides to throw my way), but in the meantime, it's important to think about-what was your favorite of these nine films? What movies don't deserve to rank amongst them?  And what was the best film of 2011?

Also in 2011: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap