The Golden Iris Awards - Including the Best Films of 2011

Best of 2011

1. Take Shelter

Directed by Jeff Nichols

"Take Shelter" embodies a moment in time, a period in American history when honest, hardworking people, who have done what the proverbial American dream has dictated they must do to succeed, have been stricken with the ominous premonition that something beyond their control threatens to come along and wash away everything they've worked for, the lives they've built for themselves. As a character study, it is intimate and candid, and Michael Shannon was more deserving of an Oscar nomination for his performance here than any other actor I saw in 2011. As a profile in paranoid schizophrenia it is accurate and heartbreaking. But as an allegory for the economic recession it is inventive and harrowing and very, very powerful. Jeff Nichols' "Take Shelter" has tapped into a national mood. With any discernible degree of cosmic justice, time will endow this film with historical significance. "Take Shelter" is the best movie of the year.

Chronicling the Year-End Binge

This time of year, in regions (like here in Nebraska) where most of the year's films don't make it to town until very late - if at all - anyone plotting to compile a list of the year's best must consume an inhuman number of films in a mercilessly narrow time frame, this amounts to raiding the local art house theater, where films like Steve McQueen's "Shame", which just opened here, saw the bulk of its reviews hit the papers in late November. To Netflix, both on disc and instant watch, and to the lingering success of a few films that have found their way to the  local multiplex. The following is a brief rundown of what I've seen in the last 8 days. With any luck, I'll post micro-reviews of as many of these films as I can in the coming days.

Sorry for the Delay, Folks

It's been a while, no?

Perhaps I should have shared this earlier, but I've taken up arms as a contributing critic for efilmcritic.com. I'll be directing you to them here as they go up, which should be about once a week. My sole review so far has been "Take Shelter", available here, which was among the very best 2011 has had to offer me. Like our Facebook page for quick links to my eFilmCritic reviews.

With my formal criticism headed to a more prominent outlet, the format of this blog will likely undergo something of a change. Hopefully, chief among these changes will be a more consistent output. Me and Jon will still compile our annual Pantheon in the summer. I will engage more in the kind of 'first impression' criticism that one might find at, say, Richard Brody's "The Front Row" blog at the New Yorker. Keep an eye out for sporadic observations of any old film I happen to see. Keep an eye out also for my spontaneous "DVD of the Moment" segments. Finally, I'm in my year-end movie binge, catching up on all the movies of acclaim the year had to offer. My annual top 10 list will go up during Oscars week, along with some commentary on the myriad ways the Academy fouled up this year. For now though, because I'm behind I'm going to resort to the frantic method of micro-review clusters my esteemed colleague Jon employs over at The Film Brief.

All the best,
R

Music Takes an Evolutionary Leap

The King of Limbs

by Radiohead

Four Stars

Is anyone either willing or able to define Radiohead’s greatness? I’m not sure very many can. The British five-piece have remained the most enigmatic of shape shifters since the release of “Pablo Honey” in 1992.  The albums that followed have managed to elude, in escalating fashion, the comprehensive understanding of their increasingly galvanized fan base. The veiled invitations they’ve extended, to comprehend their labyrinthine efforts, have been a haven for pseudo-intellectuals who’ve foolishly claimed to “know” what Radiohead is “up to”, and for an antiestablishment movement drawn complacently to the band’s effervescent strangeness.

The Pantheon (2011)

#1 The Third Man

Jon's Picks
Rollan's Picks


1. The Third Man (-) Carol Reed, 1949
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (-) Stanley Kubrick, 1968
3. Citizen Kane (-) Orson Welles, 1944

4. The Passion of Joan of Arc (+2) Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928

5. City Lights (-1) Charlie Chaplin, 1931

6. Taxi Driver (-1) Martin Scorsese, 1976

7. Vertigo (+2) Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

8. Rear Window (-) Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

9. Stalker (+3) Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979

10. Magnolia (-) P.T. Anderson, 1999

Masculine Humor Made Ever More Impressive in High Heels

Bridesmaids

Directed by Paul Feig

Three Stars

We laugh, that we may not cry. Paul Feig’s “Bridesmaids”, with its rueful wit and a startlingly introspective performance from Kristin Wiig, has the courage to infuse its gratuitous, adult humor with sizable human drama. It bears more in common with the likes of the Coens’ “A Serious Man” or Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” than with the films of Judd Apatow - like “Knocked Up” or “The Forty Year Old Virgin” - who served as this film’s producer.

DVD Review: Easy A

Easy A

Directed by Will Gluck

Three Stars

By Guest Critic Taylor Biltoft

Every now and then, among the mess of commercial flimflam, a teenage comedy pokes its head out and takes a bite into popular concepts. There are teen comedies in which a pod of hormonic individuals embark on a crusade to be naughty and have the night of their lives, and then there are smart, funny teen comedies that also happen to deconstruct our assumptions. “Easy A” belongs in the latter, joining other films like Election, Juno, Mean Girls, and John Hughes films to which it can accredit some stark influence.