No more lists, just awards!

The Award for “Best Theft Scene” goes to Cold Weather for a unique climax to a unique story.

The Award for “Best Potential Spin-off” goes to X-Men: First Class for making everyone think a great film would be “Magneto: Nazi Hunter”.

The Award for “Best Michael Caine Impressions” goes to The Trip for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon channeling Michael Caine for five minutes.

The Award for “Best Sex Scene” goes to The Perfect Host for David Hyde Peirce enjoying the company of an imaginary woman.

The Award for “Best 70s Film” goes to Super 8 for being a film straight out of my childhood.

The Award for “Best Soundtrack” goes to Hanna for a killer score by The Chemical Brothers.

The Award for “Most Courageous Film” goes to Tree of Life for being an unconventional film that could have ruined careers.

The Award for “Worst Food Poisoning Scene” goes to Bridesmaids for a gross-out scene that really felt out of place in a fairly smart film.

The Award for “Best Documentary” goes to Tabloid for telling a truly outrageous and entertaining story about Mormonism and kinky sex.

The Award for “Most Offensive Film” goes to Chillerama for being an utter piece of crap.

The Award for “Worst Clown Film” goes to The Last Circus for its absurd circus story that almost works but doesn’t.

The Award for “Best Film with a Strange Planet” goes to Melancholia for telling the story of a giant planet heading towards Earth.

The Award for “Second Best Film with a Strange Planet“ goes to Another Earth for telling the story of a discovery of another Earth eerily similar to ours.

The Award for “Best Chase Scene” goes to Drive for Ryan Gosling outwitting the police using mostly his wits.

The Award for “Best Laugh-out-loud Moment” goes to Shark Night 3D for the one-armed football player standing waist deep in the water, holding a spear, and taunting a shark.

The Award for “Most Slow Motion” goes to The Dead for endless scenes of slow-motion zombie walking.

The Award for “Best Song” goes to The Muppets for making me decide if I am a man or a muppet.

The Award for “Worst Soundtrack” goes to Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol for music that actually took me out of the movie.

The Award for “Best Piece of Property” goes to The Descendants for a parcel of thousands of pristine acres in the middle of Hawaii.

The Award for “Best Use of 3D” goes to Cave of Forgotten Dreams for showing the great Chauvet cave paintings in three dimensions.

The Award for “Most Entertaining Funeral” goes to Hesher for Joseph Gordon Levitt’s titular character talking about his testicles.

The Award for “Most Tired Concept” goes to The Change-Up for another body swap “comedy”.

The Award for “Coolest Car” goes to Bellflower for the flame-throwing, apocalypse-ready Medusa.

The Award for “Worst Final Shot” goes to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for a scene that totally messed up a really cool character.

And back for this year, my favorite part of being a film fan. The Best Repertory Cinema Screenings of 2011:

3) Basketcase (1928) / Frankenhooker (1990) – Crystal Plumage screened these two horror/comedy classics with Henenlotter in appearance. The second film quickly became one of my favorite movies.

2) Meet the Feebles (1989) - The last film of the Exhumed Films 24-hour film festival. I can’t believe I saw that in 35mm!

1) Planet of the Apes (1968) and all the sequels in one sitting. The original is one of my favorite films. And seeing the whole series in the theater was amazing. Thank you Exhumed Films!

Of course, no one has enough time to see every film made in 2011, and there were some big ones that I personally missed. So these lists should be more accurately titled “My Favorite and Least  Favorite Films from 2011 That I Have Seen (So far)”

The Worst Film of the Year

Chillerama – Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Tim Sullivan, Adam Rifkin, USA

A juvenile and offensive mess. This doesn’t send-up old drive-in horror films like a lot of people say. It just shows that the filmmakers have no idea what made those films fun to watch.

The Best!

11) The Future – Miranda July, USA

A strange surreal mixture about people trying to find their place in life. It also has a talking cat. The best thing was that the film made me think.

10) Contagion - Steven Soderbergh, USA

Soderbergh has a talent for making a solid, entertaining film in any genre. Here he excels at telling the story of a plague, and all the people affected by it, from start to finish.

9) Tree of Life - Terrence Malick, USA

Just sit back and let the film wash over you. You won’t understand all the imagery, but may be affected by some. But no matter what you think, you have to admire Malick for trying to make something different.

8) Hanna – Joe Wright, USA

The simple story is merely a shell to show off brutally perfect direction, killer music, and a really cool performance by Ronan. Joe Wright is a craftsman, and this film really showcases his talents.

7) Cold Weather - Aaron Katz, USA

A strange hybrid of mumble-core and mystery. A group of young people set out to find a missing person. But the film is about the people. The mystery is just entertaining window-dressing.

6) Melancholia - Lars von Trier, Denmark

I have a love-hate relationship with Von Trier himself, but there is no denying the power of his films. This one is no exception, showing characters dealing with nothing less than the end of existence.

5) 13 Samurai - Takashi Miike, Japan

Miike’s best film in a while. A group of samurai must kill a incredibly evil politician. They all have their reasons, and the joy is learning about them, and their plan, and then watching it all unfold.

4) Super 8 - J.J. Abrams, USA

Yes, the rumors are true. This film is a Spielberg tribute. And it’s a good one. I identified with this film just like I identified with The Goonies when I was ten years old. It has superb attention to detail in all aspects.

3) The Artist - Michel Hazanavicius, France

Disclaimer: I’ve always loved silent films. This one gets it right. It’s an homage to an era. But its not a copy. It knows enough about movies to do its own thing and to remain true to the spirit of the time-period. It’s an absolute delight.

2) Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen, USA

Woody Allen is still going strong. A film a year for, what is it, 40 years? This one showcases the man’s sense of humor and knowledge of art and history. It’s not deep, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s smart, and as beautiful as Paris in the rain. How can you not smile as this film unfolds?

1) Incendies - Denis Villeneuve, Canada

It has a powerful set-up, where a brother a sister are tasked with unlocking their mother’s mysterious past. And it does not let-up from there. It’s a brutal and emotional journey into a dark and disturbing mystery. I was very effected by the film at multiple times. Good use of a Radiohead song.

2011 was a pretty good year. Stay tuned for the Filmies! Where LCD and I give out individual awards to films that deserve (and don’t deserve) recognition in a certain category.

Eli Craig, USA, 2011, 89 min.

The draw of the film is its gimmick. Tucker and Dale, two well-meaning West Virginians, just happen to look like psycho hillbilly killers. But all they really want to do is go to their vacation home in the wilderness, and have a nice weekend of home improvement, fishing, and drinking.

A group of teenagers happen to be going on a camping trip in the same area. Through a series of comical misunderstandings, the teenagers beleive Tucker and Dale have kidnapped one of their own and are out to kill them all. But Tucker and Dale are just trying to be helpful, even though these crazy teenagers are accidentally killing themselves all over their property.

It’s a great gimmick, and has some great scenes. But the gimmick is over too quickly and the film turns into a standard, if comedic, horror film for the last third. But by that time I was in too much of a good mood to care. The leads and the film are likeable and the whole thing is over before you get a chance to want it to be better than it is.

This film wins the award “Best Use of Horror Cliches”  for taking all of the tired old scenes and reversing them to great comedic effect.

Lars von Trier, Denmark, 2011, 136 min.

I don’t normally give away plot points in my reviews, but the best way to look at Melancholia is to examine the ending.

The film is about a wedding at the end of the world. A rogue planet is coming towards Earth. Will it hit us? No one is really sure, but the wedding goes on as planned.

There are many characters, but the film hinges on three. Kirsten Dunst plays the severely depressed bride, Charlotte Gainsbourg is her strong-willed sister, and Kiefer Sutherland is Charlotte’s rich husband.

The rest of the characters are auxiliary and are there to highlight those three. And what happens at the wedding, which is darkly funny, awkward and depressing, helps us put those three characters into focus.

I would categorize them as the optimist, the pessimist, and the realist.  The realist is Dunst’s character, the one with severe depression. Because in von Treir’s world, depression is a real, tangible thing.

When the end of the world is eminent, they react in different ways. The pessimist, who was sure the planet was going to hit the Earth, breaks down and rails against the situation. The optimist, who believed the planet would pass them by, gives up and commits suicide. The only one who handles the situation with any dignity or grace is the realist.

Von Trier and Dunst have suffered through depression in real life, and together they create a sense of what that must be like. The symptoms, both mental and physical, are somehow larger than life. As large as an awesome, unavoidable catastrophe that is coming to end… well, everything. What I believe the film says, is that the only way to true happiness is to accept the fact that you and all humanity will die, and that an empty life-less universe will be all that is left.

This films wins the award “Most Awkward Wedding Reception” for a party where the bride has a mental breakdown every ten minutes, her mother proclaims her truly evil thoughts on marriage, and her father shows up with two young girls as his dates.

Tarsem Singh, USA, 2011, 110 min.

Immortals is the story of the ancient Greeks, and the mortal battle for an immortal weapon: the Epirus Bow. King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) scours the country in search of it so he can release the Titans, a group of vanquished gods that lost a heavenly war. Henry Cavill plays Theseus, a mortal peasant who was unknowingly taught by Zeus and may be the only thing stopping the king from completing his task.

The bow is very cool or course, and any mad power-crazed king would love to have it. I understand that. But why does the king want to release the Titans? It’s unclear. Whatever the reason, the currents gods don’t want that to happen, but they are banned by Zeus from interfering with mortal affairs. So they watch, on the edge of their seats, as the King gets closer and closer to the bow and the Titans.

Mixed up in all of this is the virgin oracle, (Freida Pinto), who can see the future and may know the location of the bow. The plot is straightforward, but the motivations and the specifics are very muddled. Why are people doing the things they do? Why are they going the places they go? Why don’t they do these other, more simple or more logical things instead?

The movie does have some cool images (dark, murky CGI, but still), and the fights are great (especially when the gods join in). But everything else is working against the film. Fans of Tarsem’s excellent The Fall will not be pleased, but fans of the inane 300 probably will.

This film wins the award for “Most Anachronistic Actor”for Mickey Rourke playing an ancient Greek. Sorry Mr. Rourke, you were evil and creepy in your role but I just couldn’t picture you in ancient times.