| Posted by Lou | The time is 9.10pm here in London UK |
The best movie you saw during the last year
I saw a lot of excellent films in the past 12 months, with the two stand-outs being Animal Kingdom and Inception.
I was thinking "gosh, I raved about them at the time so there's nothing to say"... but it seems I just gave Animal Kingdom a one-liner, and didn't review Inception at all. Go figure!
Mind blown.The films are in some ways complete opposites - the small indie film from Australia that viscerally captures a criminal underworld, and the mega-blockbuster from Hollywood that takes a surreal action-journey through layers of dreams.
In common are superb writer-directors who have crafted scripts that engage then directed them beautifully, and top-notch casts that give brilliant individual performances as well as having rare group chemistry.
Panic risen.Both are films I will cherish and watch again and again.
In the interests of gender equality, I'm also going to give a Special Mention to Black Swan. I thought I would hate it - fantasy and surrealism I can give or take, depending on whether something about it feels real.
Instead I loved it for the layer upon layer of theme and genre, parcelled up in such beautiful art direction, and grounded in what for me was a very real and under-represented story in Hollywood (the punishing result of the female search for physical perfection - Hollywood's speciality!).
Vomit tasted.However, apart from this one film it was again a year bereft of great female characters. (Also bereft of great non-white characters.) I shake my fist at you Hollywood!
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