Sarah and I choose our unranked lists of five favourite films out of all the films we saw in the past year. We also choose a personal "best" film from our list, a "almost-made-it" film and a "worst" film. Naturally each list can only be understood as a reflection of our own opinion and viewing sensibilities, and a film's place on the list is due to its own subjective meanings to the each of us.
Why?
In a nutshell, it's fun. It's a great way to take stock of all the films we've seen in 2011, both good and bad. Also, it's an easy way to look back in the future and recall the state of films in that year. Lastly, it's always great to discuss and compare lists as conversation topics, particularly when we spend so much of our time on films.
The Rules
Only films seen in the theatres are considered. The rationale is simple: the theatre is the most accurate reflection of the directors' (or at least the producers') personal vision for the film. To make judgement on films seen through other mediums (such as television or computer screens) is unfair, and diminishes certain values of the film.
This includes every film seen in the calendar year, regardless of their actual date of release. Sarah and I had a nice little discussion on this. She sees a clear distinction between the last films of 2010 (The King's Speech et al) and the first film of 2011. It might seem strange to include films from 2010, but personally it makes perfect sense for me.
Due to the nature of the industry, prestige films tend to be released in the months of November and December. Global distribution is usually a step behind, and Singaporean distributors often wait till after the awards season - hoping to piggyback a film on its good record in the major awards.
As such, these films reach Singapore shores only in late December, January and even February (see the likes of War Horse, the Descendants and GWTDT for this year). Ignoring them, we would only be able to choose from the summer films, which tend to be blockbusters like Green Lantern and Transformers. Occasionally you get a good one, but by and large, these tend to be films that are less thoughtful and frivolous.
With that, the full list of 28 films for our consideration, were:
- The Artist
- 50/50
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
- The Ides of March
- Drive
- Midnight in Paris
- The Tree of Life
- Contagion
- Wu Xia
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
- 13 Assassins
- Green Lantern
- X Men: First Class
- Super 8
- Fast Five
- Source Code
- Thor
- Sucker Punch
- The Kids Are All Right
- True Grit
- The King's Speech
- Winter's Bone
- 127 Hours
- Black Swan
- Monsters
- The Fighter
- Love and Other Drugs
No comments:
Post a Comment