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<  Third Eye Film Forums  ~  Blanche Awards 2012 - Celebrating the Best Films of 2011

gromit
Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:42 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Maybe instead of a vote, we could turn it into a discussion. Discuss Best Picture this week. With everyone weighing in on favorites, and why.
and then tally up the choices.
Then move on to Best Actress or whatever after a few days or a week or whatever.
Secret ballot isn't terribly important, and then it will probably get done.

I'll start off with The Artist for Best Picture.
Mostly because everything else was mediocre.
But also, it's a real charmer.
Great performances, fun, witty, and it's not easy to make a good silent film in the 21st C.

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knox
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:39 am Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
The Descendants, Midnight in Paris, The Artist, Moneyball, A Separation, The Help, The Adjustment Bureau, Source Code, Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, and Limitless were all good films. Of those, I'd say The Descendants and A Separation stood out and I'd be hard put to say which one deserves a "best."


Last edited by knox on Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:48 am; edited 1 time in total
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gromit
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:32 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Limitless?
I don't know what that is ...
Didn't see Take Shelter.
Don't recall what that is about.

I really thought The Artist and A Separation were the two standouts. The Descendants was fairly solid but seemed pretty ordinary to me. I liked Young Adult better, which had more of an edge than I expected.

I thought the first half of Mysteries of Lisbon was pretty good, but then it got repetitive. Really liked the opening and first half of The Temptation of St. Tony. And Tree of Life had some wonderful scenes and moments in a very mixed bag film.

Much preferred The Adjustment Bureau romp to the more stodgy Source Code. I also liked Another Earth in a bottom of my top 10 kind of way.

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:44 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
The Artist was wildly overpraised for being a sweet, disarming little trifle in black and white and with almost no dialogue. It was charming, nothing less but absolutely nothing more. It was undeserving of even an Oscar nomination, much less the award itself.

A Separation was far and away the best movie of the year, and probably the decade. But it might be better placed in the Foreign Film category.

My top five American movies are War Horse, Bridesmaids, The Descendants, Drive, and Take Shelter--yes, not on most people's radar but a great film with two awe-inspiring performances by Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain.

My Best Actor and Best Actress are Michael Shannon (TS) and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids).


Last edited by billyweeds on Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
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knox
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:52 am Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
Take Shelter - thanks, BW, for another voice in praise. Deserved far more attention than it got (see it, Gromit).

Quote:
Much preferred The Adjustment Bureau romp to the more stodgy Source Code.
Forgot to include in my list, and just edited. I agree, actually. But I liked them both and thought they, with Limitless (Bradley with a super-brain drug), made 2011 a good sci-fi year. Oh, and yes, Another Earth was far more compelling than I expected.
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gromit
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:06 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
billyweeds wrote:

My top five American movies are War Horse, Bridesmaids, The Descendants, Drive, and Take Shelter

Yipes, I only saw ONE of those, buy wasn't interested in 3 of them.

Take Shelter has been on a my to-see list, but the dvd hasn't turned up (or I've missed it). I'll have to peep the cover over at Amazon, so I'll know what to look for.

Meek's Cutoff and The Future are another two I was interested in seeing.

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:10 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
The Future is so twee it makes The Artist look gritty by comparison.
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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:12 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Limitless was very underrated, and Bradley Cooper was terrific in it, one of the really good male performances of the year. A magnificent acting job was done by Woody Harrelson in Rampart, another excellent movie which was completely negated by the Academy. Ellen Barkin in Another Happy Day was great.

Streep is a great actress, but The Iron Lady was almost indescribably terrible, so bad that IMO Streep's Oscar was undeserved. Why couldn't she have won for a great performance in a worthy film, like Postcards from the Edge, for instance?
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bartist
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:34 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Limitless: Knox, Billy - group hug!

The Future - "makes The Artist look gritty by comparison" - LOL - Miranda July used up her Get outta Jail Free card when she became a talking cat with an injured foot. This was an "art film," FCS, and art films aren't supposed to require a shot of insulin.

Gromit - don't know why Take Shelter is so hard to scrounge up in the people's repub - hope you find it.

Meek's Cutoff - I'm eagerly awaiting the RPG!

Seriously, interesting movie, and the "cutoff" ending is good for at least 15 minutes of drive-home conversation.

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
bartist--FCS. RPG. WTF??? ICNUAOT.
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gromit
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:16 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Fucking c**ksucker.
Rocket propelled grenade.
What's so hard to understand?

Limitless sounds kind of silly.
But if it works, maybe I'll give it a try.
I often get bored trying to follow a twisty plot, especially because then the characters usually become 2-dimensional.


Last edited by gromit on Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:18 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
gromit wrote:
Fucking cocksucker.
Rocket propelled grenade.
What's so hard to understand?

Limitless sounds kind of silly.
But if it works, maybe I'll give it a try.
I often get bored trying to follow a twisty plot, especially because then the characters usually become 2-dimensional.


Cooper makes it work. De Niro, OTOH (see, I can use them too), is in his "collect the paycheck" mode.
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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
gromit wrote:
Fucking cocksucker.


Who was that directed at???

Just got it. "For Chrissake," right?

Now to decipher RPG. "Role-playing game"? Maybe, but I still don't get it.
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gromit
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Sorry, kinda crude.
But I thought it was funny.

I'm not that great at figuring those out either ...

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marantzo
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:29 pm Reply with quote
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SciFi in that year from best down IMO (everyone knows what that is, right?) Limitless, Source Code, Adjustment Bureau. Limitless was excellent, Source Code, very good and Adjustment Bureau, good.

Billy and I agree on Limitless, but I thought DeNiro was very good in it. [/b]

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