![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2011 Films
Jan. 21st, 2012 06:04 pmI doubt I'll ever top 2010's total of 130 (and given that it took a broken arm to do that, I rather hope I never do), but I'm quite satisfied with my total of 91 films this year.
91 films in total
86 films (93%) that were new to me
63 films via LoveFilm (£1.50 or so per film)
9 2011 films (bolded in list below)
10 films seen in the cinema (2 in 3D)
6.42 average rating
43 films (47%) I consider good
22 films (24%) I consider mediocre
26 films (28%) I consider bad
16 from imdb's top 250 (as of Jan 2012)
31 Oscar winners (and an additional 7 nominees)
Cinema
This year I rediscovered some joy in going to the cinema, partly because I remembered that it can just be about seeing a film and escaping the world for a bit, and you don't need to organise a social excursion to do that. Consequently I started going by myself, particularly during random days off work when I could watch multiple films in one day (my record was three). It's not cheap, but it was a wonderful way to actually see new releases and just escape the real world for a bit.
3D though still continues to pass me by, I saw two in 3D. Glee the Concert Movie worked fine, Hugo I felt obscured the beautiful design too much. I actively avoided 3D for several other films (e.g. Tintin).
Oscars
An aim for last year was to watch all the Best Film Oscar winners, and I managed all of the ones that are available on dvd (77 out of 83). I'll do a separate post on them, but broadly speaking I found it a bit of a slog. I knew a lot of them wouldn't really be to my taste, but I was surprised at how many I felt were actually not good pieces of film making with poor writing, direction, acting or editing leaving deeply flawed results. There were a few gems in there that I may not have seen otherwise, but overall I'm glad I'm done!
This year's releases
According to IMDB's labels only 9 of the films I've seen are from 2011 although I think there were a couple of others that may be identified as older, but not released in the UK until 2011 (e.g. the excellent Senna). The Help was easily both the one I enjoyed watching the most, and the one that I thought was the best produced, but it's not a difficult competition to win.
Ages and genres
Just over half of the films I watched were made after 2000, 10% from this year, 20% from last year and 20% from between 2000 and 2009. The Oscar watching has been a great driver for watching older films with between 4 and 9% each decade all the way back to the 30s.
The majority of the films I watched are kind of generic drama type things, I actively avoid comedies for the most part as I rarely find them funny, the funniest comedies were both actually horror/comedy crosses and zombie related, Zombieland and the Norwegian Dead Snow.
There were only half a dozen or so science fiction films as well, but they had a much higher hit rate of success the relatively low budget Monsters and Splice were both very good, as was the much larger budget and more action Battle Los Angeles. There were only three subtitled films, the excellent Dead Snow and El Organato and the not so good Girl Who Played With Fire.
Top films
Only 4 films I watched new were rated 9 and they are an interesting set - each is remarkable because they're not trying to push any envelopes or do anything incredible, they are just exceptionally good examples of their chosen genres. How to Train Your Dragon is an extremely entertaining animation from someone other than Pixar, with some great design and hilarious dialogue. Monsters an almost zero budget science fiction story that combines a good story with intimate character development. The Blind Side is a wonderfully uplifting drama that had me hooked from the very beginning. Senna is the only documentary I saw this year and I was sure that it would be the first time I'd been there in the cinema to watch the eventual best documentary Oscar winner. For some reason that no one has managed to explain to me, it's not even on the long list. Whether you're a formula 1 fan or not, this is an amazing insight into a fascinating individual and an amazing piece of work.
Unexpectedly Good
I can fill a whole matrix (and one day I will) with all the possible combinations of expectations and reality when it comes to the enjoyability and quality of films, but the most interesting box I think are those films that I wasn't expecting much of and actually deliver above and beyond. Sometimes that's just because I don't personally think I'll like them because of my ill-informed preconceptions. Rocky is the prime example of that this year, I was expecting a tedious boxing film of montages, brain-dead performances and people hitting each other but actually found it to be a really enjoyable film with a wonderfully sweet performance at the centre of it. Another example is Burlesque, which was widely criticised but I actually found fun and entertaining if you just accept it for what it is.
Disappointments
Tintin and Cowboys and Aliens were both films I was looking forward to and ultimately didn't enjoy that much because they did exactly what they were advertised to do. Tintin was too much a random collection of adventure set pieces and Cowboys and Aliens turned out to be a western with insufficient aliens. Harry Potter Part 1 was disappointing because it was dull, while Part 2 was bonkers because of the convoluted plots, both however were ultimately due to a problem with the source material.
And some flat out rubbish
As per usual there are a fair few films that come with awards and praise that I actually thought were singularly rubbish. From overly long and self-involved epics (Lawrence of Arabia, Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves) to films that I can only assume didn't seem as dodgy to people at the time (The Seven Year Itch, Gigi, Oliver!), to some just plain rubbish (Prince of Persia).
2012
Mentioning films in this section in the past seems to have somehow jinxed my actual chances of seeing them, so I'm almost reluctant to give Cabin in the Woods a reference here, but after 3 years it's finally got a release date! It may be Joss Whedon's year because The Avengers is also out and I'll have to catch up on all the Marvel films I missed this year so I can see it, and on a smaller scale there's potentially also his version of Much Ado About Nothing.
Other stuff - Chris Nolan's Batman, Ridley Scott's Prometheus. Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, Baz Luhrman's Great Gatsby and Pixar's Brave. The Hobbit of course. There's a couple of sci-fi movies that I'm not sure about, but will probably want to see in cinemas - World War Z, Gravity and John Carter (of Mars). Oh.. and The Muppets!
There are plenty of book adaptions coming out. I'm nervous about The Hunger Games and Life of Pi because I loved the books, and intrigued by Cloud Atlas because although I hated the book, I've no earthly idea how they'll approach making a film of it! Meanwhile I'm pretty ambivalent towards Men in Black 3, the next James Bond and yet another Spiderman reboot.
( Full list of films and links to my website )
91 films in total
86 films (93%) that were new to me
63 films via LoveFilm (£1.50 or so per film)
9 2011 films (bolded in list below)
10 films seen in the cinema (2 in 3D)
6.42 average rating
43 films (47%) I consider good
22 films (24%) I consider mediocre
26 films (28%) I consider bad
16 from imdb's top 250 (as of Jan 2012)
31 Oscar winners (and an additional 7 nominees)
Cinema
This year I rediscovered some joy in going to the cinema, partly because I remembered that it can just be about seeing a film and escaping the world for a bit, and you don't need to organise a social excursion to do that. Consequently I started going by myself, particularly during random days off work when I could watch multiple films in one day (my record was three). It's not cheap, but it was a wonderful way to actually see new releases and just escape the real world for a bit.
3D though still continues to pass me by, I saw two in 3D. Glee the Concert Movie worked fine, Hugo I felt obscured the beautiful design too much. I actively avoided 3D for several other films (e.g. Tintin).
Oscars
An aim for last year was to watch all the Best Film Oscar winners, and I managed all of the ones that are available on dvd (77 out of 83). I'll do a separate post on them, but broadly speaking I found it a bit of a slog. I knew a lot of them wouldn't really be to my taste, but I was surprised at how many I felt were actually not good pieces of film making with poor writing, direction, acting or editing leaving deeply flawed results. There were a few gems in there that I may not have seen otherwise, but overall I'm glad I'm done!
This year's releases
According to IMDB's labels only 9 of the films I've seen are from 2011 although I think there were a couple of others that may be identified as older, but not released in the UK until 2011 (e.g. the excellent Senna). The Help was easily both the one I enjoyed watching the most, and the one that I thought was the best produced, but it's not a difficult competition to win.
Ages and genres
Just over half of the films I watched were made after 2000, 10% from this year, 20% from last year and 20% from between 2000 and 2009. The Oscar watching has been a great driver for watching older films with between 4 and 9% each decade all the way back to the 30s.
The majority of the films I watched are kind of generic drama type things, I actively avoid comedies for the most part as I rarely find them funny, the funniest comedies were both actually horror/comedy crosses and zombie related, Zombieland and the Norwegian Dead Snow.
There were only half a dozen or so science fiction films as well, but they had a much higher hit rate of success the relatively low budget Monsters and Splice were both very good, as was the much larger budget and more action Battle Los Angeles. There were only three subtitled films, the excellent Dead Snow and El Organato and the not so good Girl Who Played With Fire.
Top films
Only 4 films I watched new were rated 9 and they are an interesting set - each is remarkable because they're not trying to push any envelopes or do anything incredible, they are just exceptionally good examples of their chosen genres. How to Train Your Dragon is an extremely entertaining animation from someone other than Pixar, with some great design and hilarious dialogue. Monsters an almost zero budget science fiction story that combines a good story with intimate character development. The Blind Side is a wonderfully uplifting drama that had me hooked from the very beginning. Senna is the only documentary I saw this year and I was sure that it would be the first time I'd been there in the cinema to watch the eventual best documentary Oscar winner. For some reason that no one has managed to explain to me, it's not even on the long list. Whether you're a formula 1 fan or not, this is an amazing insight into a fascinating individual and an amazing piece of work.
Unexpectedly Good
I can fill a whole matrix (and one day I will) with all the possible combinations of expectations and reality when it comes to the enjoyability and quality of films, but the most interesting box I think are those films that I wasn't expecting much of and actually deliver above and beyond. Sometimes that's just because I don't personally think I'll like them because of my ill-informed preconceptions. Rocky is the prime example of that this year, I was expecting a tedious boxing film of montages, brain-dead performances and people hitting each other but actually found it to be a really enjoyable film with a wonderfully sweet performance at the centre of it. Another example is Burlesque, which was widely criticised but I actually found fun and entertaining if you just accept it for what it is.
Disappointments
Tintin and Cowboys and Aliens were both films I was looking forward to and ultimately didn't enjoy that much because they did exactly what they were advertised to do. Tintin was too much a random collection of adventure set pieces and Cowboys and Aliens turned out to be a western with insufficient aliens. Harry Potter Part 1 was disappointing because it was dull, while Part 2 was bonkers because of the convoluted plots, both however were ultimately due to a problem with the source material.
And some flat out rubbish
As per usual there are a fair few films that come with awards and praise that I actually thought were singularly rubbish. From overly long and self-involved epics (Lawrence of Arabia, Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves) to films that I can only assume didn't seem as dodgy to people at the time (The Seven Year Itch, Gigi, Oliver!), to some just plain rubbish (Prince of Persia).
2012
Mentioning films in this section in the past seems to have somehow jinxed my actual chances of seeing them, so I'm almost reluctant to give Cabin in the Woods a reference here, but after 3 years it's finally got a release date! It may be Joss Whedon's year because The Avengers is also out and I'll have to catch up on all the Marvel films I missed this year so I can see it, and on a smaller scale there's potentially also his version of Much Ado About Nothing.
Other stuff - Chris Nolan's Batman, Ridley Scott's Prometheus. Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, Baz Luhrman's Great Gatsby and Pixar's Brave. The Hobbit of course. There's a couple of sci-fi movies that I'm not sure about, but will probably want to see in cinemas - World War Z, Gravity and John Carter (of Mars). Oh.. and The Muppets!
There are plenty of book adaptions coming out. I'm nervous about The Hunger Games and Life of Pi because I loved the books, and intrigued by Cloud Atlas because although I hated the book, I've no earthly idea how they'll approach making a film of it! Meanwhile I'm pretty ambivalent towards Men in Black 3, the next James Bond and yet another Spiderman reboot.
( Full list of films and links to my website )
