Top Ten Films of 2011

Certified Copy

1.     Certified Copy dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Enchanting from the first frame on, with the inexperienced William Shimell astonishingly keeping up with Juliette Binoche doing the best work of her career. Kiarostami imbues the margins of the couple’s (or not) tête-à-tête with remarkable emotional weight, and the mystery — wonderfully beguiling as it is — fades in importance.

2.     We Need to Talk About Kevin dir. Lynne Ramsay
As formally audacious as Ramsay’s earlier masterworks (its elliptically edited flashes of memory surpass even those of The Tree of Life), Kevin manages at turns to be both deeply unsettling and blackly funny. By putting us firmly inside the fractured memory and psyche of Tilda Swinton’s reeling Eva Khatchadourian, Ramsay allows herself even more freedom to revel in stylistic excess in the face of narrative improbability.

3.     Margaret dir. Kenneth Lonergan

Margaret

As messy as its tortured production history would lead you to believe, but the chaos isn’t entirely unintentional, and the post 9-11 moral morass provides an acutely realized backdrop for the impetuous, maddeningly selfish and idealistic Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin, superb). Even if a proper director’s cut never sees the light of day, what we have here is an American classic. Looking forward to double-featuring it with 25th Hour someday.



 4.     Take Shelter dir. Jeff Nichols
Michael Shannon internalizes almost all of the physicality and blistering emotion that can make him such a fun scenery-chewing actor to watch, and the resulting slow-burn dread is matched by Nichols’ direction in this unnerving Midwestern apocalyptic meltdown.

5.     Le Quattro Volte dir. Michelangelo Frammartino
A peek at the mystifying metaphysics behind the sometimes cruel, sometimes comic connections in life, Le Quattro Volte features sublimely designed long takes — one featuring a brick, a mischievous dog, an Easter procession and a pen of goats is easily the greatest one-shot scene of the year.

Meek's Cutoff

6.     Meek’s Cutoff dir. Kelly Reichardt
Yep, the Academy ratio absolutely works to great constricting effect for the poor pioneer souls in Reichardt’s totally assured western. In fact, every detail of the sparse, evocative photography seems to turn your throat dry and perpetually make your heart sink. A cop-out ending? Hardly.

7.     Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Explicating the distinctly alien pleasures of an Apichatpong Weerasethakul movie can be futile. Suffice it to say, allowing myself to become immersed in this world — where the membrane between past and present, reality and fantasy is nearly invisible — was one of my most satisfying cinema experiences of the year.

8.     The Tree of Life dir. Terrence Malick
Neither viewing of Malick’s latest was an entirely satisfactory experience for me, and I can’t shake the feeling this might be his weakest, least realized film. But ambition counts, and when the film is firing on all cylinders (its evocations of deeply personal familial memories and experiences are glorious), it’s truly a wonder.

9.     The Interrupters dir. Steve James
For every single “issue” doc out there, I wish there was a filmmaker with the intelligence and humanity of Steve James behind the camera. Eschewing the tendency to squeeze real life into a narrative arc and turn human beings into character types, James creates an absorbing and sobering study of endemic violence and the people trying to stem the tide in Chicago. When the Oscars can’t even find room for The Interrupters on a 15-film shortlist, you know the system is broken.

A Dangerous Method

10. A Dangerous Method dir. David Cronenberg
Another blow against the “mainstream-ifying” of Cronenberg meme, A Dangerous Method sees the filmmaker sharpening his technique — the blocking and camera work in the therapy scenes is masterfully economical — and finding ways to more obliquely examine themes of body horror and sexual displacement. Michael Fassbender bests his Shame work, but the real story is the riveting physicality of Keira Knightley, who I was not prepared to be impressed with.

And check out a bonus 10 after the jump.

Kino's Sherlock Holmes Blu-ray

Courtesy of Kino International

Over at Blogcritics, I review Kino's Blu-ray release of the 1922 silent version of Sherlock Holmes, featuring a game John Barrymore as the titular detective. It's a somewhat stodgy affair with barrages of inter-title exposition, but the George Eastman House restoration of the once-thought-lost film looks pretty solid on Blu-ray. And it's not directed by Guy Ritchie either, so another plus.

Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review

Tokyo Drifter

The Films

Criterion closes out an exceptional 2011 by upgrading two early titles that sorely needed it — Seijun Suzuki’s deconstructive, gloriously disorienting crime films Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. Replacing the lackluster 1999 DVD editions are two beautiful Blu-rays, and in a year where Criterion has given impressive high-def makeovers to lots of early titles (The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, Diabolique and Orpheus among them) these two might just be the best.

The composition and cutting in both Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill is perpetually astonishing and can be kind of dumbfounding — and not because their respective plots are mostly rendered as mere afterthoughts. Rather, it’s difficult not to be in constant thrall to the imagery and in wonderment of Suzuki’s bald-faced audacity. Every shot is in the moment, often with little concern for what came before or what is to come. It’s pure cinema at its most assaultive.

The eye-popping Tokyo Drifter features the efforts of former hit man Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) to go straight with his retired boss. Naturally, it isn’t long before the underhanded schemes of a rival gang force him back into a life of violence, but Tetsu is no reluctant hero. Repeatedly singing his self-appointed theme song about his new life as a drifter, he evades numerous attempts on his life while leaving a trail of bodies behind him.

Amid the pop-art garishness of the color scheme, even the film’s black-and-white prologue pops with blown-out whites and oversaturated blacks. Suzuki often casts a room’s color in one predominant shade in a method that seems an even more excessive anticipation of Peter Greenaway’s work in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. But whereas Greenaway’s formalism is accompanied by symbolic corollaries, Suzuki just seems to be going nuts. And oh how delightfully cockeyed is the result.

The jagged editing gets even more extreme in the following year’s Branded to Kill, the film that put the final nail in the coffin of Suzuki’s strained relationship with studio Nikkatsu. Shot in expressive black-and-white, the film stars Joe Shishido as Goro Hanada, the third-ranked assassin in the Japanese underworld. He has no shortage of employment, but his profession belies his inherent impotence. He needs to sniff the aroma of boiling rice to get it up, and his fragile mental state is shattered when an errant butterfly causes him to botch an important job.

The film kicks into a gear even more delirious from this point on, as Hanada must deal with a dreamy femme fatale (Annu Mari) who initiated the hit and the mysterious presence of the number one killer (Koji Nanbara), who shows himself unafraid to engage in a series of escalating mind games.

The extreme aesthetic of both Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill — concretely realized despite the films’ apparent chaos — make for a pair of utterly engrossing crime films.

The Blu-ray Discs

Both films are presented in 1080p high definition in their original 2.35:1 aspect ratios. Comparing these gorgeous widescreen frames to the non-anamorphic, severely muddled images of the original DVDs shows one just how far Criterion has come in the past decade. Tokyo Drifter features bold colors that pop off the screen in nearly every instance. While the image is never razor sharp, the slight softness seems inherent to the source and is likely intentional. Branded to Kill offers up an incredibly film-like image, with healthy, detail-rich grain levels. Both transfers are free of any major damage.

The uncompressed monaural audio tracks are adequate and clean, with certain effects coming off a little harsh.

Special Features

Both releases are a little thin in the extras department, although both discs feature new interviews with Suzuki, now 88, and assistant director Masami Kuzuu. Both discs also port over previously available interview excerpts with Suzuki from 1997. The Branded to Kill disc also gets a new interview with Shishido. Trailers are included with both, as are booklets with an essay by Howard Hampton for Tokyo Drifter and the inimitable Tony Rayns for Branded to Kill.

The Bottom Line

Essential upgrades. Even if the supplements are a little slight, the image quality is superb.

Buster Keaton and Marriage: Seven Chances on Blu-ray

The impeccably structured and paced Seven Chances is the latest Keaton Blu-ray from the folks at Kino, who I continue to be impressed by for their commitment to silents in high-def. As usual, the disc is pretty stunning, and the film is pretty much perfect. I review it at Blogcritics.

The Lady Vanishes on Criterion Blu-ray

Frankly, I'm surprised by the paucity of Hitchcock on Blu-ray (although the discs that are out there — Psycho and North By Northwest — are superb). Fortunately, Criterion has stepped up with a Blu-ray upgrade of one of their earliest spines, Hitchcock's delightful penultimate British film, The Lady Vanishes. My review of the disc is up at Blogcritics.

The Three Colors Trilogy Blu-ray — The Criterion Collection

Irène Jacob in Three Colors: Red.

Criterion's latest box set release is gorgeous from top to bottom. Krzysztof Kieslowski's final films that make up The Three Colors Trilogy have simply never looked better, and Criterion even improves upon the extras in the old Miramax box, which were substantial themselves. I review the set at Blogcritics.

Warner Archive roundup

Lupe Velez and Laurel and Hardy in Hollywood Party.

I've taken a look at several recent Warner Archive releases over at Blogcritics:

Night Watch — Elizabeth Taylor chows down on the scenery in a mostly satisfying grand guignol.

Hollywood Party — Eight directors and eight writers create a movie that's exactly as incoherent as you would expect, but some discrete scenes are great. And, it's a rare Archive disc with actual bonus material.

Housewife — This early pairing of Bette Davis and George Brent is pervasively dull and casually sexist to its core.