Best Films of 2012... so far

With the year slightly more than halfway through and U.S. studios prepping their fall lineups for Oscar consideration, now seems like a good time to review some of the cinematic wonders of the first part of 2012. Because of the way film distribution works in the United States, the best is typically saved for last. That means some of these films probably won't make my final top ten, and likely not even my top twenty. But they are all worthy of recognition and come highly recommended. Quite a few are currently streaming on Netflix. I've provided links where available.

10. PROMETHEUS (U.S., Ridley Scott)

So what if Prometheus isn't in the same league as Ridley Scott's sci-fi opuses Alien and Blade Runner? So what if the mythology is a little creaky and the characters a little thin? Sci-fi epics with this pedigree and this $120 million price tag don't come around often and they must be savored. The cinematography and acting come very close to compensating for the rickety plot and uneven visual effects. Michael Fassbender, as a Peter O'Toole-loving robot, and Charlize Theron, as a robotic corporate ice queen, both chew the luscious scenery with aplomb. For all its faults, Scott demonstrates a level of virtuosity here (at least when it comes to visual composition) that is rarely found in summer blockbusters.

9. SAVAGES (U.S., Oliver Stone)

Savages marks something of a return to form for Oliver Stone, who hasn't been this gonzo since U-Turn more than a decade ago. The intervening years have not been kind. Any Given Sunday was virtually unwatchable, ditto Alexander; World Trade Center was reverent to the point of tedium; W. chickened out on satire and ended up being schlock; and I skipped Wall Street II: The LeBoof Rises altogether.

But this story of a threesome of attractive, semi-legit marijuana growers facing off against a Mexican drug cartel is pure pulpy goodness. It's a platter of homemade jerk chicken and rice served after so many microwaved beef patty dinners. The ending is a bit of a lark, but the journey is full of tense face-offs and memorable one-liners. Salma Hayek, as the materfamilias of a fading cartel, is the highlight of a stellar supporting cast that also includes Demian Bichir, Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta.

8. ANOTHER HAPPY DAY (U.S., Sam Levinson)

If you can see past some of the self-conscious snark, Sam Levinson's Another Happy Day is a raw and funny film about a family of malcontents and sociopaths (i.e. similar to most families). In it, Ellen Barkin packs up her two boys and heads down to Annapolis for the wedding of a third, who she gave up custody of following a bitter divorce. While I don't often like movies that reek of rich people problems, Levinson's film managed to sneak past my defenses.

The very deep cast ― including a world-wary Barkin and an entertainingly brittle Demi Moore ― does an exceptional job of eviscerating one another (with words, with words). Even tender moments, such as a late-night mother-daughter chat between Barkin and old pro Ellen Burstyn, are saturated with the requisite amount of passive aggression and self-pity. Another Happy Day is available to stream instantly on Netflix.

7. TYRANNOSAUR (U.K., Paddy Considine)

Tyrannosaur is a surprisingly self-assured directorial debut for British actor Paddy Considine, best known for playing an ill-fated investigative reporter in The Bourne Ultimatum. Joseph, an alcoholic with a penchant for self-destruction, escapes a beating at the hands of a few hoodlums by hiding inside a Christian thrift store. There he meets and gradually strikes up a friendship with Hannah, a volunteer who has some problems of her own. The film is a slowly-paced character study, but it delivers a few gut-wrenching blows and two poignant performances by veteran character actors Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman. Tyrannosaur is available to stream instantly on Netflix.

6. RAMPART (U.S., Oren Moverman)

Set amid the paranoia of L.A.'s Rampart scandal, Oren Moverman's Rampart is an engrossing character study cloaked in the trappings of a police thriller. The monster under the magnifying glass is Woody Harrelson's David Brown, a Dirty Harry-style cop who two decades earlier would've been a well-regarded straight shooter. But the 1990s are not the 1970s, and even in the '70s Brown would've been a dinosaur. When faced with charges of racism, Brown replies that he hates everyone equally. That's not far from the truth, but it's also not a satisfactory answer. Rampart is a difficult film to take in. It doesn't provide any reason for Brown's behavior and it doesn't apologize for him, either; and that's really how it should be.

5. HAYWIRE (U.S., Steven Soderbergh)

From David Holmes' jazz-infused score to J.J. Perry's intense, hands-on fight scenes, Steven Soderbergh's Haywire exudes cool. The film also serves as an excellent showcase for the skills of MMA fighter Gina Carano as ass-kicking, globetrotting soldier-for-hire Mallory Kane. She's every bit as awesome as James Bond with one-tenth the baggage. And the ass getting kicked includes the likes of Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum. There's not much else to say. If you're into this kind of movie, you'll love it. If not, you weren't going to see it anyway.

 

4. PERFECT SENSE (U.K., David Mackenzie)

The world goes out with a whimper in David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense. A love story between a chef and an epidemiologist (Ewan McGregor and Eva Green) unfolds against the backdrop of a pandemic that causes people to lose their senses one by one. And each loss is accompanied by a wave of emotion; for instance people break down into sobbing fits just before losing their sense of smell.

Perfect Sense sounds like the epitome of high-concept, but it's actually a quite contemplative affair. I tend to think the apocalypse will look something a lot like this: less fire, more ice. Mackenzie and screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson do a great job capturing the ways in which people adapt to the loss as well as the gradual breakdown of society around them. The ending, which I can't spoil here, manages to be both wrenching and hopeful.

3. PARIAH (U.S., Dee Rees)

Buoyed by an uncanny performance by Adepero Oduye, who has nearly a decade on her 17-year-old character, Dee Rees' Pariah has drawn a lot of comparisons to Precious. Aside from the fact that both films are coming-of-age stories about teenage black girls, the two couldn't be any more different. Precious was given to ludicrous flights of fancy and over-the-top melodrama. Pariah, the story of a lesbian trying to survive pressures at home and on the street, is playing at a much higher level.

Rees, who also wrote the film, really seems to understand her characters and the film has empathy to spare. The relationships between young Alike and her sister, her strict nursing administrator mother and distant police lieutenant father are all fully realized. Alike's mother (played sensitively by Kim Wayans, apparently the most talented and under-rated member of the Wayans clan) could've been an outright monster, but her most hurtful actions seem rooted in a sense of love and desperation.

2. INTO THE ABYSS (U.S., Werner Herzog) 

Who knew it would take a German to make a clear-eyed, penetrating documentary about America's justice system? Werner Herzog makes his position on the death penalty clear very early in Into the Abyss, but his confession is more a function of integrity than advocacy. Unlike a lot of films on the subject, Herzog's documentary doesn't try to brow-beat his audience into adopting his view. Instead, he takes a comprehensive look at one grisly crime spree and its lasting impact on the criminals, the victims and law enforcement; and on a legal system that punishes one murder by sanctioning another.

Herzog has always had an eye for character and Into the Abyss has memorable characters to spare. A prison chaplain describes a chance encounter with a squirrel on a golf course in front of a cemetery of unmarked graves. He laments the mercy he cannot provide his fellow human beings. A woman whose brother and mother were slain over a car describes her anguish and the relief she felt when their murderer was put to death. But she still doesn't carry a phone for fear of another call with bad news. Although he made his position clear from the onset, Herzog's camera and narration doesn't pass judgment on the wrenching story that unfolds.


Into the Abyss is available to stream instantly on Netflix.

1. A SEPARATION (Iran, Asghar Farhadi)

This Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is definitely worthy of the hype thrust upon it. Set in modern-day Iran, Asghar Farhadi's A Separation opens with the divorce proceedings of a husband and wife. They still love each other, but they are divided over where to raise their adolescent daughter. The wife insists there are better opportunities outside of Iran. The husband can't leave his responsibilities, including his senile father, for a foreign land. The magistrate, to no one's surprise, sides with the father.

What follows is a complex examination of morality and truth in a society where both are fraught with ideology. Farhadi's film deals with the clash of the fundamentalism and secularism in a refreshingly even-handed way. His parable scales that larger battle down to an escalating conflict between two families and, in doing so, illuminates greater truths about what we value and how we get by.

Honorable Mention:  I WILL FOLLOW (U.S., Ava Duvernay)

While it's true that most of these films are holdovers from 2011 that weren't released outside of New York or Los Angeles until this year, to include Ava Duvernay's stunning I Will Follow in the preceding list would be bending the rules too far. The film received a blink-and-you'll-miss-it release at 21 theaters in 2011 and showed up on DVD back in August to virtually no fanfare. According to RottenTomatoes, only 10 critics ever bothered to review it.

That's a real shame because I Will Follow is one of the most sensitive portrayals of grief I've experienced in any medium. After her aunt Amanda succumbs to cancer, Maye must sort through her aunt's possessions and prepare to return to the life and career she left behind more than a year ago when she decided to become Amanda's caretaker. The film follows Maye on this emotionally-charged day, dealing with neighbors and relatives and the fallout of her decision to put her life on hold.

It's a film about compassion and hope and loss and loneliness, but it eschews the triteness those subjects often engender. It's also noteworthy because it features a predominantly African-American cast. That probably goes a long way toward explaining why this gem has languished in obscurity. Nonetheless, the film's themes are universal and Duvernay handles them deftly. Thanks to the Internet, I Will Follow is now incredibly easy to see. It's currently available to stream instantly on Netflix.

The Wallys: Best Writing and Technicals

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Margin Call" is a remarkably sober take on the collapsing house of cards that plunged the world into recession. J.C. CHANDOR explores the complex motivations and rationalizations that laid the groundwork for disaster, but he also creates fully-realized characters. The film's climactic scene, a monologue delivered by Jeremy Irons' CEO John Tuld, is emblematic of the mindset that brought us to this point.

SCOTT Z. BURNS spins a frighteningly real scenario in his pandemic disaster flick "Contagion" while never losing sight of the humans at its core. Originally a novelist, LEE CHANG-DONG’s light touch as a director is also apparent in his work as a screenwriter. A lot of the power in “Poetry” derives from what isn’t said. MIKE LEIGH’s script for “Another Year” ― more an outline to guide his actors’ improvisation ― is a masterwork of tone; not a false note in the entire film. The other Mike of 2011, MIKE MILLS, crafted a film that bravely breaks the fourth wall every chance it gets and relies more on his actors, not his words, to carry the "Beginners."


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
IM SANG-SOO skillfully culls (i.e. steals) the plot of the landmark 1960 film that launched a thousand imitators (most famously "Fatal Attraction"), but shapes it into something entirely different. Whereas the original South Korean film takes the side of the philandering husband, Im's version of "The Housemaid" observes its uppercrust soap opera from a cool distance. With biting dialogue and a surreal book-ending sequences, Im has created a satire that cuts to the bone.

At its heart "The Ides of March" is a crackerjack thriller, but GEORGE CLOONEY, GRANT HESLOV & "Farragut North" playwright BEAU WILLIMON also crafted slick, politically-savvy dialogue that manages to squeeze in a reference to Neville Chamberlain. You can almost tell which scenes STEVE ZAILLIAN and AARON SORKIN contributed to "Moneyball," their individual strengths -- honest sentimentality and polished dialogue -- constructing a film out of a thoroughly uncinematic book. PETER STRAUGHAN and his late wife BRIDGET O'CONNOR distill the best parts of the John Le Carre novel (and the BBC mini-series) "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" into an enthralling 120-minute film. Somehow, some way, JOHN LOGAN whittled down a 533-page novel into a film, "Hugo", with the heart and brains to appeal to kids and their parents.


BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Having already proven his chops with the one-two punch of “The New World” and “Children of Men” a few years ago, there was no question EMMANUEL LUBEZKI would create another landmark for the artform with “The Tree of Life.” While the film is on shaky ground tonally, its visuals are something to behold. Working primarily with natural light sources, Lubezki captured indelible image after indelible image. He also has a skill for allowing traditionally-composed frames to blend seamlessly with post-production CG and macrophotography.

Like Lubezki, RODRIGO PRIETO proved his mettle working with available light for “Biutiful,” a film whose carefully composed images more than live up to its title. The cinematography of “Drive” ― full of reflective surfaces awash in the orange of high pressure sodium streetlights ― is integral to the film’s success; and NEWTON THOMAS SIGEL does not disappoint. The oft-ignored ALWIN KUCHLER (of 2002’s “Morvern Callar,” 2003’s “Code 46” and 2007’s “Sunshine”) turns in stunning compositions full of color and movement for “Hanna.” Old pro ROBERT RICHARDSON displays a deft hand capturing the cornucopia of period detail in his frames while never overwhelming the eye in “Hugo.”

BEST EDITING
First, a note about editing: Even professionals disagree about what constitutes “good” editing. What is clear is that a good editor can salvage the work of an inept director filming an unfocused script and a bad one can sink even the best material. Here, I do my best to judge editing based on the clarity and complexity of the film’s narrative and visual components. For instance, if you can’t tell where the protagonist is running to or from in an action sequence, that to me is bad editing.


With so many characters with so many motivations competing for screen time in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” DINO JONSÄTER has to do a lot of heavy lifting, or cutting as it were. It’s a testament to his skill that the audience is never confused over which spy is which, something that’s integral to the success of a film like this. Even more impressive, the film never plods along despite its robust 127-minute running time.

"Biutiful" comes across as a carefully assembled jigsaw puzzle sometimes, with characters and plot threads weaving in and out of the narrative, but it works in large part because of STEPHEN MIRRIONE's sense of the Big Picture and all the necessary pixels along the way. JOSÉ SALCEDO apes Hitchcock’s cutters in Almodovar’s off-kilter “The Skin I Live In,” but he also shows he has a few of his own tricks up his sleeve. “Drive” is one of the “showier” examples of editing this year, but even so MAT NEWMAN knows how to build and diffuse suspense. PARKE GREGG shows a confidence in his shots that’s a rare trait among editors today. In “Take Shelter,” he isn’t afraid to hold a shot a few agonizing moments longer.


BEST ART DIRECTION
“Hugo” would not have worked without the aesthetically beautiful and setting-specific production design of DANTE FERRETTI and set decoration of FRANCESCA LO SCHIAVO, both Scorsese regulars. Their recreation of a 1931 Paris train station is full of period detail that immerses the viewer into the story. Bonus points for the intricate clocks and enchanting Georges Méliès film sets.

MARIA DJURKOVIC, TOM BROWN and JACQUELINE DURRAN capture the banalities and bureaucratic menace of “The Circus” in “Tinker Tailor Tailor Soldier Spy.” ANTXÓN GÓMEZ and CARLOS BODELÓN’s sets are an integral part of the mental duress the characters of “The Skin I Live In” feel. Never has bourgeois style felt more oppressive than in the slick, monochrome mansion LEE HA-JUN, HAN AH-REUM and YANG HYEON-MI create for “The Housemaid.” SHARIF WAKED and MAHA ASSAL create some stunning set pieces, including a see-through discothèque, for the surreal comedy of “The Time that Remains.”

BEST MUSIC OR SONG SCORE

Admittedly, combining CLIFF MARTINEZ's original cues with the recycled tunes wrangled by music supervisors ERIC CRAIG and BRIAN McNELIS is a bit of a cheat. Regardless, "Drive" featured hands-down the best score, original or adapted, of any film released in 2011. Every piece contributes to director Nicolas Winding Refn’s vision of modern Los Angeles.

DAVID WINGO's "Take Shelter" score is simple and incessant. His electronic wind chimes and swelling strings lay the groundwork for a man's unraveling. Like the best Bernard Hermann scores, ALBERTO IGLESIAS' compositions for "The Skin I Live In" are classically unhinged. FALL ON YOUR SWORD's hypnotic keyboards create an ethereal undercurrent for the Earth-bound drama of "Another Earth." It's easy to lose HOWARD SHORE's understated score beneath the stunning visuals of "Hugo," but he too adds to the film's distinct sense of time and place.

BEST FEATURED SONG

Discovering YOU AND ME, recorded by the Columbus, Ohio-based Penny & the Quarters in the early 1970s, was a coup for Ryan Gosling and director Derek Cianfrance. Taken out of context, it's a sugary pop confection. But it lends a shopworn sweetness to “Blue Valentine,” a tale of doomed romance.

Covering Led Zeppelin's IMMIGRANT SONG with Karen O was a stroke of brilliance, one of the only one to be found in Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' all-too-familiar score for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Quietly released in 2010, College's anthemic electro-pop bauble A REAL HERO made a lasting impression in this year's "Drive." Tacked onto the end credits of "Win Win," The National's THINK YOU CAN WAIT is a solid piece of songwriting even if it doesn't jibe with the film around it. The Chemical Brother's HANNA'S THEME is the ear candy to Alwin Kuchler's eye candy.

BEST SOUND DESIGN
Even more stunning than the dense visuals were the city soundscapes created for Scorsese's HUGO. The train station sounds like a train station; the sound mixers adding a fourth dimension to the experience. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO boasted an impressive array of sounds, integrating the beeps, bloops and taps of its plugged-in hacker into Reznor and Ross' ambient score. DRIVE made full use of its L.A. stunt driver milieu, using sound to propel the plot. TAKE SHELTER blends ambient and foley sounds with David Wingo's score to create an claustrophobic emptiness. A lot of the work in SUPER 8 is boilerplate, but the train sequence was a genuinely thrilling piece of sound editing.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

The visual effects in THE TREE OF LIFE allowed Terrence Malick to show his audience something they hadn't seen before: the creation of the universe. HUGO featured some of the best 3-D work I've seen, creating an immersive environment that didn't leave me with an aching head. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES marked a sizeable, if not gorilla-sized, step forward for motion capture. While I wasn't crazy about the film, the effects, including an emaciated Chris Evans (if only Christian Bale was available…), in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER were undeniably impressive. REAL STEEL created boxing robots more tactile than anything Michael Bay has conjured.

The Wallys: The Best Directors and Performances of 2011

With all of Hollywood gathered for one of the biggest spectacles of navel gazing known to man – the Golden Globes – tonight seemed like an appropriate time to hand out a few kudos of my own. Each year, I fill out my own hypothetical Oscar ballot, and this year I decided to give these unbestowed honors a name: The Wallys honor the cream of the 2011 crop.

We'll start with the directors who left their stamp on cinema this year and the actors who created people, not just characters, onscreen. Each of the categories is listed in roughly descending order of preference.

In case you missed it, my top twenty films was posted last week. Technical categories, such as screenplay and cinematography, will come later this week.



BEST DIRECTOR
“Biutiful” incorporates all of the ingredients – fatherhood, globalization, addiction, mental illness, death – ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU has worked into all of his previous explorations of human frailty. This time, he perfected the recipe. Whether the jettison of frequent collaborator Guillermo Arriaga or a natural evolution is responsible for this film’s success is irrelevant. Here, Inarritu deftly extracts some of the most natural performances of his career, particularly from the non-actors who play Javier Bardem’s children. All of the subplots – about migrant workers struggling in the slums of Madrid – billow organically from a simple, poignant story of a dying father doing what he can to ensure his children have a better life.

LEE CHANG-DONG has always had a light touch with empathy to spare. It’s a rare attribute he demonstrated with the somewhat unfocused “Secret Sunshine” last year, and again this year with “Poetry.” The film, about a woman coping with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease while raising an ungrateful grandson, bears more than a slight resemblance to Ozu’s morality plays. Like those films, Lee deals with some potentially incendiary plot points with grace and understatement. Where Hollywood would have played to the cheap seats, Lee uses the film’s central tragedy to further explore his protagonist. You feel the weight of the decision she must make, and you wonder if you’d be able to do the same.

Who knew MARTIN SCORSESE had a kid’s movie in him? Of course, “Hugo” is not your standard issue four-quadrant holiday movie. Every frame is suffused with a love of filmmaking and the early pioneers like Méliès, who were equal parts magicians and task masters. The central character is an boy who keeps the clocks of Montparnasse station running while eluding the watchman bent on sending him off to an orphanage. But Scorses isn’t concerned by the mechanics of plot, but rather the soul, as his camera explores the characters who inhabit the boy’s world. “Hugo” is a landmark film, the first to effectively use 3-D to create the kind of immersive experience that thrilled the first moviegoers a century ago.

ELIA SULEIMAN channels the physical humor of Buster Keaten and the warmth of Charlie Chaplin with “The Time That Remains.” That would seem to be an odd way to approach the Palestinian experience in the West Bank, but it works. Surreal sequences involving a pageant at an Israeli-run school and a man taking out the trash illustrate his family’s experience without delving into divisive politics. Suleiman’s sardonic humor bolsters, rather than undercuts, the harsher indignities and human-scale tragedies inherent in the conflict.

The plot and cinematography of “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” are austere, but it’s an intoxicating experience just the same. Using a story written by the head of a Buddhist temple as inspiration, APICHATPONG “JOE” WEERASETHAKUL creates a beautiful film about death, redemption and renewal. The film demands multiple viewings to absorb its odd pleasures, to lose oneself in its dark jungles and luminescent caves. It’s difficult to describe the film in words, but this film about a man whose imminent death attracts visitors from all walks of life and afterlife is pure magic.

Other helmers of note include: Im Sang-soo ("The Housemaid"), Abbas Kiarostami ("Certified Copy"), Terrence Malick ("The Tree of Life"), Jeff Nichols ("Take Shelter") and Nicolas Winding Refn ("Drive").



BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

MICHAEL SHANNON, no stranger to mad men (see: "Bug," "Revolutionary Road"), has created perhaps the most realistic descent into madness yet in "Take Shelter." His family man takes all the logical steps – he sees a shrink and considers medication to stop the vicious dreams and phantom pains – but the fear of an impending apocalypse wells inside him. But in this age of 60-degree Decembers, outsourcing and corporate personhood and outsourcing, who isn't standing at the precipice?

Existential dread bubbles beneath the surface for JAVIER BARDEM in "Biutiful." GARY OLDMAN is appropriately inscrutable and world-weary in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." For the first time in decades, ROBERT DE NIRO has fully inhabited a character, this time a resentful parole officer in "Stone." BRAD PITT fills the quiet moments – listening to his daughter's CD on the Expressway – with heart in "Moneyball."

Other lead actors of note include: Antonio Banderas ("The Skin I Live In"), Ryan Gosling ("Blue Valentine" and "Drive"), Ewan McGregor ("Beginners") and William Shimell ("Certified Copy").



BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

It's easy to empathize with YOON JEONG-HEE's Mi-ja in "Poetry." She maintains a sunny disposition while raising an ungrateful grandson, tending a lustful stroke victim for meager pay and facing the onset of something more insidious than simple forgetfulness. Thanks to Yoon's carefully modulated performance, Mi-ja's moments of doubt and hope are equally palpable. Her future is uncertain, but Mi-ja faces it with dignity and grace.

Is JULIETTE BINOCHE a bitter spouse or a playful stranger in "Certified Copy"? It's hard to tell, because she's convincing as both. It would have been easy for her "Blue Valentine" character to come across as shrill, but MICHELLE WILLIAMS is stunning as the put-upon wife of a perpetual adolescent. VIOLA DAVIS instills an underdeveloped character, who happens to be a maid, with an internal dignity and strength in "The Help." ROONEY MARA infuses hacker extraordinaire Lisbeth Salander with a vulnerability that the previous incarnation of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" sorely lacked.

Other lead actresses of note include: Isabelle Huppert ("White Material"), Brit Marling ("Another Earth") and Amy Ryan ("Win Win").



BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BRAD PITT is an ocean of contradictions as Mr. O’Brien in “The Tree of Life.” He bullies his children in the hopes of toughening them for a world he sees a cruel and unforgiving. Even if his intentions are sound, his methods are not, and Pitt’s O’Brien seems to register this. His jabs and taunts mask insecurity, as O'Brien's business ventures fall short of his own lofty expectations and his boys seem to favor their mother. Pitt communicates all this, the anxiety and the regret and the rage, through rationed words and subtle gestures.

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER captures the thrill of rekindled passion as a newly out octogenarian in "Beginners." The flesh and hair may just be pixels, but Caesar's soul is all ANDY SERKIS in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." JEREMY IRONS' Shakespearean diction and biting wit is put to good use as a Wall Street executive in "Margin Call." Bernie Rose isn't too different from the kind of character ALBERT BROOKS has always played, but the blood lust is a refreshing change of pace in "Drive."

Other supporting actors of note include: Kevin Spacey ("Margin Call"), Corey Stoll ("Midnight in Paris") and Mark Strong ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy").



BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

LESLEY MANVILLE hits upon some basic – but often elusive – facts about depression in “Another Year.” Nearing 50, Mary is searching for anything – and anyone – to fill the emptiness of her life. She skitters over the edge at her best friends’ home, breaking down into self-pitying tears before passing out, inebriated. At work, she feels put-upon even as she muddles through. She pines for the love of her life, an old philanderer who stayed with his wife, and lusts after the young man she once pushed on a swing set. Meanwhile, she pushes away suitors who are genuine in their affections. Manville brings refreshing levity to the role, but also a genuine understanding of the myriad ways depression warps a person’s perspective on the world.

A quirk of scheduling meant JESSICA CHASTAIN had three incredible – and several more competent but less impressive – performances released in 2011. Interestingly, all of them (in “The Help,” “Take Shelter,” and “The Tree of Life”) are variations on the familiar suffering housewife character, but Chastain managed to make each of these broadly-written characters distinct and memorable. In a few brief scenes, FRANCES CONROY burns the house down (possibly literally?) in “Stone” as an abused and neglected wife on the verge of lashing out. YOON YEO-JEONG brings much-needed comic relief to “The Housemaid,” but also serves as the lone moral compass in an otherwise amoral cast of sociopaths. As written, OCTAVIA SPENCER’s Minny in “The Help” hews dangerously close to a number of unsavory stereotypes about black women. But Spencer never allows the comic relief to supersede the real pain that necessitated it.

Other supporting actresses of note include: Maricel Alvarez ("Biutiful"), Melanie Laurent ("Beginners"), Demi Moore ("Margin Call"), Cicely Tyson ("The Help") and Carice van Houten ("Black Death").

BEST ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE

That director J.C. Chandor was able to assemble an all-star cast for his $1.5 million debut "MARGIN CALL" isn't so miraculous. His lead actor, Zachary Quinto, doubled as producer and most of the cast are a decade or more past their respective box office heydays. This film is proof their talents have not dimmed along with their star wattage. But the true measure of an ensemble are the little character moments: Demi Moore's sacrificed executive taking in the view from her corner office, Stanley Tucci's laid-off risk manager grimly accepting a payoff, Kevin Spacey's veteran floor manager summoning his game face one last time. "Margin Call" has these moments in spades.

"MIDNIGHT IN PARIS" is stunt casting at its finest, with the likes of Kathy Bates and Adrien Brody embodying Gertrude Stein and Salvador Dali. The performances in "UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES" are so unremarkable as to feel completely natural, like these creatures and characters have coexisted this way forever. "ANOTHER YEAR," too, benefits from actors who inhabit their characters’ world completely. An odd mix of actors – veterans and novices, ingenues and character players – gamely tackles the off-kilter melodrama of "THE HOUSEMAID."

Other ensembles of note include the casts of: "13 Assassins" and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy."

Top 20 Films of 2011

And so another year has passed at the cinema. Here are, by my imprecise measure, the best films of 2011: