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Movie Quote of the Day – Rango, 2011 (dir. Gore Verbinski)
Rango: Now, remember son: stay in school, eat your veggies, and burn everything but Shakespeare.
Cinema Fanatic’s Favorite Fifteen Films of 2011
While, for me, 2011 was not as a great a year in cinema as 2009 (many of the films I loved from that year I didn’t get to see until Jan of 2010, but still), I found myself loving more films this year than I did last year. In fact, you may notice that although I claim this is a list of fifteen films, it in fact contains sixteen films. There is one tie and I will explain my choice when I get to it. Last year before the year ended I managed to watch 53 new releases; this year I saw 57 (which is kind of pitifully low when you consider how many new-to-me films I saw this year; but that’s neither here nor there and you have to wait until tomorrow to read about that cinematic odyssey). I want to point out that my top five films have not changed since October, but the ten (eleven) that follow have been shifted and adjusted many, many times since then. Probably when I rewatch those films late on this list might still evolve some. I also want to mention that there were at least two films that I wanted to see before the end of the year that I was not able to see (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn); as always, there is no way to know whether those films would have even made the list had I seen them, but I wanted to point out that I’ve yet to see them so that comments of “where is ***?!” didn’t ensue. Okay, enough chatter, on to the list.
2011 Golden Globe Nominations
Best Motion Picture – Drama
- The Descendants
- The Help
- Hugo
- The Ides of March
- Moneyball
- War Horse
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
- 50/50
- The Artist
- Bridesmaids
- Midnight In Paris
- My Week With Marilyn
Best Actor – Drama
- George Clooney – The Descendants
- Michael Fassbender – Shame
- Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar
- Ryan Gosling – The Ides of March
- Brad Pitt – Moneyball
Best Actress – Drama
- Glenn Close, – Albert Nobbs
- Viola Davis – The Help
- Rooney Mara – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
- Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
- Tilda Swinton – We Need To Talk About Kevin
Best Actor – Musical or Comedy
- Jean DuJardin – The Artist
- Brendan Gleeson – The Guard
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50
- Ryan Gosling – Crazy, Stupid, Love.
- Owen Wilson – Midnight In Paris
Best Actress – Musical or Comedy
- Jodie Foster – Carnage
- Kate Winslet – Carnage
- Charlize Theron – Young Adult
- Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids
- Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn
Best Supporting Actor
- Kenneth Branagh – My Week With Marilyn
- Albert Brooks – Drive
- Jonah Hill – Moneyball
- Viggo Mortensen – A Dangerous Method
- Christopher Plummer – Beginners
Best Supporting Actress
- Bérénice Bejo – The Artist
- Jessica Chastain – The Help
- Octavia Spencer – The Help
- Shailene Woodley – The Descendants
- Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs
Best Director
- Woody Allen – Midnight In Paris
- George Clooney – The Ides of March
- Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
- Alexander Payne – The Descendants
- Martin Scorsese – Hugo
Best Screenplay
- Midnight In Paris
- The Ides of March
- The Artist
- The Descendants
- Moneyball
Best Original Song – Motion Picture
- “Hello Hello” – Gnomeo and Juliet
- “The Keeper” – Machine Gun Preacher
- “Lay Your Head Down” – Albert Nobbs
- “The Living Proof” – The Help
- “Masterpiece” – W.E.
Best Original Score – Motion Picture
- The Artist
- W.E.
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
- Hugo
- War Horse
Best Foreign Language Film
- The Flowers of War (China)
- In The Land of Blood and Honey (USA)
- The Kid With The Bike (Belgium)
- A Separation (Iran)
- The Skin I Live In (Spain)
Best Animated Feature Film
- The Adventures of Tin Tin
- Arthur Christmas
- Cars 2
- Puss In Boots
- Rango
April Showers, 117 Films, One Film Festival and Finishing Off Woody Allen
This month was a bit of a slow month for me. Lots of subbing and I spent the last few days at the TCM Classic Film Festival, so I had less time to watch films than previous months. You can see my month-in-review for January, February and March here. I watched a lot of great Ray Milland films this month (thank you TCM), some “Classic Cerebral Foreign Films” (or, that’s what Netflix calls them), as well as several of Georges Méliès short films. Last month I saw films from 11 different decades, this month I trumped that and saw films from all 13 decades that there have been films! I mean by that, at least one film from the 1890s-2010s; see the following list for a breakdown by decade. Oh, and I also (finally) finished watching all of Woody Allen’s directorial filmography. Starting in May I’m going to do an extensive look at his body of work leading up to the release of his 43rd feature Midnight In Paris.
the diary of a film history fanatic 