Academy Fight Song: 2011 Edition
Awards season is once again upon us, and like the grim specter of death hovering over the career of Matthew McConaughey, the Academy Awards have cast their mighty, perennial pall over the entire film industry. The nominees were announced today and there’s nary a surprise among the bunch; well, not the good kind, at least, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
I find myself most conflicted during awards season. On the one hand, I can’t help but scoff at the inept decisions the Academy makes, and this disappointment pretty much runs across the board—from the nominees, to the awards presentation itself, all the way down to the eventual winners (Slumdog Millionaire, anyone?). On the other hand, I remain irresistibly drawn to it by equal parts fascination and disgust. It’s like Japanese pornography: unwholesome, morally corrupt, humiliating for all parties involved; but at the end of the day what else are you going to masturbate to?
First and foremost, can we all agree that expanding the Best Picture nominees from five to ten remains a failed experiment on the part of the Academy? This isn’t the Republican primaries; do we really need all these mediocre candidates cluttering up the field just to bring in some extra publicity? I know people love 9/11-related stories that don’t involve Adam Sandler, but does Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close really deserve to be here? That’s not to say that any of the other candidates necessarily deserve the recognition either. The Tree of Life, as I said over the summer, is a clunky, overblown mess of a film and easily the worst project Terrence Malick has ever produced. Woody Allen, meanwhile, has directed a film that announces to the world that he stayed awake during his elementary school English class. His portrayal of Jazz Age literary figures plays less like a loving homage and more like an SNL sketch gone awry.
The Top Ten Films of 2011
It was completed under the gun and with a little help from my friends, but for the first time since 2007, I have a top ten film list for the year. I know, it’s not a particularly noteworthy cause for celebration, but I’m excited nonetheless, if for no other reason than it was a damn good year for movies. Which, come to think of it, in the preamble to lists such as this, it’s always either a good year for something or a bad year, never a just right year. I guess it doesn’t sound appropriate to say something is merely satisfactory. Thankfully, this year went above and beyond, so I need not make such concessions. From a completely silent film about passing the torch between generations to films about New Yorkers who respectively can’t stop taking photos and masturbating, the films were as varied as they were outstanding.
Normally I look upon the rankings in these lists as arbitrary and more a formality than anything else, but this time around I can say that at the very least the top three films here are of particular interest and the film at the top was far and away the best film of the year to the point where it almost demands an entirely separate list detailing the individual ways in which it excelled. Of course, that should in no way diminish the quality of the rest of the films on this list, which are all exceptional in their own right.
Special thanks to Louis Doerge and Erick Bieritz for helping out with the material. Between the three of us, we have seen a decent number of quality films this year. Though, in my case, I probably have them beat when it comes to scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Attention Theaters! Stop Showing This Ad!
I’ve been seeing a lot of movies in theaters lately and, by extension, I’ve been forced to sit through a lot of shitty commercials as well. You see, I don’t have cable or even an antenna, so I don’t have access to even the most basic television channels. Plus, I got all this ad-blocking software on my computer and I have a moratorium against watching programming on Hulu so I can’t even remember the last time I watched an actual commercial. I assume they’ve only gotten worse since I last saw one and watching unnecessary commercials before I sit down to watch the 90-minute commercial that is Ghost Protocol pretty much confirms that.
Nick’s Top Ten Albums of 2011
In terms of music, I was a little bit disappointed by 2011. New releases by some of my favorite acts (Radiohead, Drake, Atlas Sound) didn’t really manage to capture my affection. Sure, “Lotus Flower” is a great song and Bradford Cox is still one of the most interesting songwriters around, but there was very little new or groundbreaking about 2011.
As with all top 10 lists, please take mine with a grain of salt. This list is likely to change depending on the day. For instance, I’m currently fighting the urge not to put Panda Bear at number one, but there’s the voice inside my head that reminds me of how may times my #1 played during my subway rides to and from work. Some runners up: Radiohead’s The King of Limbs, Drake’s Take Care, M83’s Hurry Up We’re Dreaming, Atlas Sound’s Parallax, and Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks’ Mirror Traffic. With no further ado, my best of 2011.
Top Twenty Tracks of 2011, Part II
We’re down to the final ten and, honestly, the order of these tracks is more a formality than a hard-and-fast evaluation. I would feel comfortable calling any one of these my favorite track of the year and, in all fairness, does it really matter which is which? The bottom line is they all deserve a listen. No real need for a long-winded introduction here, I covered all that in part one. So let’s just get on with it and call it a day.
Top Twenty Tracks of 2011, Part I
Last year when I broke down my favorite tracks of the year, I stuck quite rigidly to just ten, which in hindsight was a bit foolish given the quantity of songs released in any given year. So this year I’ve decided to expand my list to include—you guessed it—twenty songs, which will probably be blown up even further next year until I finally realize that systematically ranking music is an inherently absurd proposition.
Until that time, however, I present to you twenty songs which are all slowly creeping their way into my “top 25 most played” playlist. I tried to remain as unbiased as possible with this list, not favoring tracks because they were big hits this year, but also not attempting to leave off tracks just because they were in heavy rotation on blogs and music sites. I briefly considered letting each track speak for itself and not offering any explanation as to why I loved each so, but that would run contrary to the spirit of a year-end list, no?
Dave’s Top Ten Albums of 2011
This year we’re going to do something a little different with our year-end music lists with both Nick Burd and myself each presenting our own set of picks. This is great because I feel that my oppressively totalitarian view on music can be a little stifling and it will do the site some good to have another voice shine a light on a few albums that I probably categorically dismissed. Obviously my list will be running today and Nick’s will run on Monday; so hope you like a decidedly rockist perspective, because that’s the only weapon in my arsenal.
As I look back on all the music I listened to this year, I have to grudgingly admit that 2011 wasn’t nearly as stellar a year for music as 2010 was. I hate phrasing it that way because it seems that every year at least one critic drags out that tired old lead in as if to say, “Hey, I did the best I could with the material I was given, so if you don’t like my picks, don’t blame me; blame the music.” Well, that’s not entirely the case here. 2010 was a ridiculously good year for music. If 2011 pales in comparison, it’s only because there was nothing on par with albums like The Monitor and Halcyon Digest. But the music released this year was certainly nothing to scoff at. Bottom line, any year in which a Radiohead album is easily the most forgettable release of the year bodes well for everyone else.
The Worst Films of 2011
There’s a strong possibility that once again I will not be compiling a list of my ten favorite movies of the year. I know. I’m sure you’re all real torn up about it. The reason is the same as always: laziness. Well, sorta. Mostly, I feel as if I haven’t seen enough to warrant such a list and to attempt it would just be an unfair representation of what 2011 had to offer. Still, a scant few weeks do remain in the year so, who knows, maybe I’ll come around.
That said, when it comes to the worst films released in 2011, any concept of fairness gets thrown out the window. Even if the five films I’ve gathered together here were the only five films I watched all year, I still would not hesitate to call them the very worst of the worst. No disparaging remark is too harsh; no unprovoked attack unwarranted; no inflated sense of superiority too snobby. These films deserve to have their names dragged through the mud, and I might even crack a smile in the process. So, in (possible) lieu of a “best of” this year, let us instead commence with the vitriol.
The Ten Most Shocking Movie Deaths
On the most basic level possible, movies can be divided into two fairly broad categories: ones in which a great many people die while the audience barely bats an eye and ones in which mortality carries with it a certain degree of weight, sort of like it does in real life. Now, to avoid being terribly reductionist, I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t the only way to approach a film and even within this strict rubric of evaluation shades of grey exist between these two extremes with arguably the vast majority of films toeing the line between them. At the same time, I’d be surprised if an individual felt the same level of grief or introspection when Bill Paxton’s character bites it in Aliens as he or she might when, say, Bambi’s mother died. While certainly no film inspires total indifference to the concept of death (with the possible exception of Cloverfield in which every death was not only justified, but as mundanely routine as a morning constitutional), there are still certain movie deaths that stand out among the rest, conjuring up the kind of sorrow or disbelief, or whatever you want to label it as, typically reserved for more personal losses. As part of the latest entry into our ever-growing catalog of lists, I’ve decided to gather together a few such movie deaths here.
Before we begin, I should mention that by “shocking” I don’t necessarily mean “surprising” (although that term definitely comes into play). Certainly the death of Marvin in Pulp Fiction catches the audience off guard, but did anyone really lament his passing after he was gone or feel that the film was missing some integral component following his untimely demise? Ditto, Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. Unlike those deaths which provide a cheap thrill more than anything else, the deaths I’ve focused on here are the kind that leave an empty void in the rest of the film, as if something has been irreversibly removed from it that changes everything completely.
Oh, and I’m sure it doesn’t need to be pointed out, but there are definitely spoilers ahead.
Like Its Central Antagonist, The ‘Remake’ of Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ Copies Its Predecessor With Monstrous Results
In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus over the last few months. My apologies for the lack of content; very soon we’ll be working our way out of the cold. It will just take some time. Of course, this metaphorical freeze up here on the site makes it all the more fitting that the first film I’ve decided to review upon our return is a remake of John Carpenter’s 1982 classic gorefest The Thing which sets its cast of misfit scientists adrift in the Antarctic and pits them against a monstrous alien force capable of copying their bodies.
Ten Memorable Movie Endings
When we here at Boxing Uwe Boll teamed up with Isle of Cinema to handle our collaborative lists covering our favorite opening and closing scenes in movie history, the process of selecting what made the cut essentially came down to putting each film to a vote. Each writer submitted their own personal twenty which were then weighted and ultimately pared down from there into a master list. Obviously when you leave something to a committee, there are certain advantages—you cast a wider net and draw upon a greater degree of knowledge and resources. By that same token, certain drawbacks do arise, namely that the items that will likely generate the most votes are the ones that are almost unanimously agreed upon, leaving some of the more left-field choices on each individual list entirely unrepresented.
Located in some studio head’s office, I imagine a massive wall covered in yellow post-it notes, each one emblazoned with the name of some dormant pop culture franchise. Tiny holes are punched through the notes written with “Transformers,” “Star Trek,” “Battleship,” among dozens of others, while “Lite-Brite,” “Speed,” and “Home Alone” have escaped the flying dart’s impalement. As the “Planet of the Apes” note hangs precariously unblemished on the wall, the fat studio head prepares to throw another dart at the wall, hoping it will stick.
20 Fantastic Finales From Filmdom, Part 4
Well, it’s been over a month and our partnership with Isle of Cinema has come to its conclusion with the final entry in our list of the greatest film endings. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out all the previous installments in this list over at IOC along with our other list counting down the greatest opening scenes here on this site. Once more, special thanks to Boaz Dror and the entire Isle of Cinema staff. We hope to undertake more of these collaborative lists sometime in the near future. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading them.
‘The Myth Of The American Sleepover’ Approaches Boredom Both Thematically And Literally
The ability to capture the dullness inherent in day-to-day life on film without resulting in the film itself becoming boring has eluded filmmakers for decades. A select few by virtue of their immense talent as screenwriters (Jim Jarmusch, Wong Kar Wai, and Sofia Coppola come to mind) have dived head-first into a world of soul-destroying boredom only to emerge with films that remain engaging while still portraying that familiar tedium of life, but such examples are few and far between. Unfortunately, first time writer and director David Robert Mitchell isn’t among those talents and his The Myth of the American Sleepover is one of those films that represents boredom both thematically and literally.
James Marsh Examines The Complex Relationship Between Man And Animal In ‘Project Nim’
As a cat owner, I often find myself torn on what I perceive to be my relationship with my pet. At times he gives the impression of harboring some unspoken camaraderie with me, effectively bridging the supposedly insurmountable gap between man and animal. Then I come to my senses, remember that his world is centered entirely around instinct and sustenance and realize that whatever reciprocated affection I feel from him is more than likely just a byproduct of his knowledge that I’m a provider of food and shelter. He appears to like being petted, but what does that mean? It’s a one-way street. He certainly can’t return any such affection. He can’t be counted on to provide advice or insight during hard times, and certainly I wouldn’t trust him to pay me back should I ever lend him money. But perhaps there is some deeper connection there that transcends what we feel among the people in our life. There’s almost a humbling innocence to him. At least, that’s how it appears to be, but how much of that is illusory and how much of it is real?
20 Fantastic Finales From Filmdom, Part 3
By now you know the drill with these. It’s Monday and part three of our list with Isle of Cinema is now up. We’re getting down to the wire here and as such some truly unforgettable endings have cropped up in this installment. The list will conclude next Monday. Any guesses as to what might be number one? Once more, special thanks to Boaz Dror and his Isle of Cinema staff and, as usual, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out our previous list: Twenty Unforgettable Opening Scenes.
‘Attack The Block’ Takes The Nostalgic Tone of ‘Super 8′ In A Darker, More Distinctive Direction
After seeing Super 8 earlier this summer, I praised J.J. Abrams for his restoration of a unique genre born out of the 1980s; a genre which specialized in pitting pre-teens against impossible odds. Much of this fell under the production of Amblin Entertainment, or films that took heavy inspiration from that company; movies like Goonies, E.T., and The Monster Squad, to name a few. It seems, though, that this summer Abrams wasn’t alone in his yearning to revisit this era in filmmaking.
The Five Worst Cover Songs Of All Time
A cover song like a movie remake is something that should be handled as sparingly as possible. Even if all the conditions are perfect (and really, can they ever be?), you still ought to step back and question whether it’s entirely warranted. Most of the time you’re only going to raise some eyebrows, if not outright anger people. Remember when Gus Van Sant remade Psycho only to have his decision universally (and rightfully) panned by critics? His explanation for making it, which was as clever as it was casually delivered, was “so no one else would have to.” A nice way to sidestep the blame, but it doesn’t hold water when you consider that no filmmaker in their right mind would have been crazy enough to even consider doing that.
Stop me if this sounds familiar. You’re at a party and for the last ten minutes you’ve been talking with a complete stranger. The conversation isn’t exactly going swimmingly and has been punctuated by uncomfortable silences and bewildering statements. But you keep at it because maybe the person you’re talking with is just nervous and not in reality the complete sociopath you’re beginning to mistake them for. Besides, every once in a while they’ll accidentally string together a sane phrase that leads you to believe that you’ve got a legit conversation going. Eventually the whole thing comes to a screeching halt when they say something irrevocably damning like Hitler was misunderstood or that Danielle Steel is their favorite author and you have to slowly start inching away because you’ve noticed there are a lot of potential stabbing implements around and you’d rather not take a chance.
David Micevic
Louis Doerge
Nick Burd
the Boxing Uwe Boll Staff
Steven Short
