The Best Films of 2011

Ultimately, when starting to compile this list, I threw out my star ratings and just considered the titles that jumped out at me most—the ones I felt worthy of a top 10. There were a total of 17, and I'll start the countdown with the seven honorable mentions. And for more best-of-2011 talk, check out my year-in-review post.

Bill Cunningham New York was until very recently my favorite documentary of the year—just a supremely pleasant film. Ultimately, it just couldn't quite measure up to the heavyweights on this list.

Not long ago, I called Drive merely an exercise in style. I do very much appreciate Nicholas Winding Refn's unique approach to this revenge story, as well as Ryan Gosling's fantastic performance, but the film didn't speak to me like so many others this year did.

Moneyball was on this list for a while. I totally dig the way Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian took this very inside baseball (literally) story and turned it into something incredibly universal. Plus, Brad Pitt is exceptional.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is what a blockbuster should be. Its special effects serve the story, and it achieves more emotional satisfaction than almost every other film this year.

Take Shelter and We Need to Talk About Kevin are two showcases for extremely talented directors (Jeff Nichols and Lynne Ramsey, respectively), as well as two of the best lead performances of the year from Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton.

A Separation was actually on this list less than 48 hours ago. I shared my list on Twitter Thursday night and called it a storytelling tour-de-force. I just happened to see something later that evening that floored me a little more. Still, Iran's Oscar candidate deserves all the praise it's gotten, and then some. Seek it out as soon as you can.

Now, the top 10:

10.) The Tree of Life
I never even formally reviewed this film because after I saw it the first time, I didn't know what to make of it. I knew I had major problems with the Sean Penn material, but I also knew that Malick's formless style of storytelling through imagery was awe-inspiring. A second viewing enhanced all the film's positives while making the negatives easier to forgive. I hope that trend continues on my inevitable rewatches.

9.) Melancholia
Yes, it's really depressing, and the wedding scenes drag on a bit too long, but the second half is sensational. I can just picture Von Trier laughing maniacally as his fictional giant blue planet comes to wipe us all out.

8.) Midnight in Paris
No one was happier than I to discover that Woody Allen was back, and it's clear he's having an absolute blast with this whimsical and wonderfully nostalgic adventure.

7.) Contagion
Apparently, I like this one much more than most others. But a second viewing confirmed what I suspected the first time I saw it: Steven Soderbergh is clearly having a blast with this cold but relentless epidemic film. The ensemble is also very strong, as is Cliff Martinez's score.

6.) The Interrupters
Steve James' hands-off approach to Chicago gang violence yields honest and uncompromising results. The film's three subjects are the heroes of 2011. Their courage will shake you to the core.

5.) 50/50
The best ensemble work of the year comes from the unlikeliest of comedies—one about cancer. JGL is as fantastic as always, but the best-in-show award goes to Anjelica Huston. Her arc is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

4.) How to Die in Oregon
The film that replaced A Separation on the list. I started crying within the first five minutes of Peter Richardson's documentary on Oregon's controversial Death with Dignity law, and I kept it up for the duration of the film. Along with The Interrupters, this is one of 2011's real must-see films.

3.) Martha Marcy May Marlene
This immaculately composed character study features the best performance, male or female, that I've seen in years. Elizabeth Olsen's work is unparalleled. I can't wait to see what she and first-time writer/director Sean Durkin do next.

2.) Certified Copy
The ultimate art-house flick. There haven't been many films this year as challenging as Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, but if you can stick with it all the way through, you won't find many films as rewarding, either. Juliette Binoche is tremendous, in what's really a dual role, but the star is the director who composes every shot very deliberately and with a real eye for detail.

1.) Hugo
Yet, as much as I admired Kiarostami's incredible work, no film filled me with as much joy as Martin Scorsese's Hugo. It's so ironic, too, because I went in with little to no expectations. Part of it was the bizarre trailer, but I think a lot of it was due to the 3D, which I had completely written off. The way it's used here, however, is probably better than any other film I've ever seen. But that's just one reason why it's my #1 film. The art direction, cinematography, and editing are all fantastic. The score is one of my favorites of the year. The cast—even Asa Butterfield—fills each role perfectly. Ultimately, however, it's about something so near and dear to my heart—the movies. Scorsese is telling a story that's both personal and deceivingly universal. It's a heartwarming ride that holds up so well on second viewing, and I'm so happy it's getting the recognition it deserves. I know I have a lot more to see still in the coming weeks and months, but for now, it's Hugo that has my heart. It's my favorite film of 2011.

WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER

Typically, a movie gets just one opening gambit, and most are too scared to take the opportunity. Asghar Farhadi's A Separation gets two, and it makes both of them count: first, we see passports being photocopied, from a perspective inside the copier, one after the other, a different one very time, without anyone ever coming to replace them. It is scarily decontextualised, and it promises that we're about to see a tale in which papers - the grinding wheels of bureaucracy - are going to play a huge role, and that the specific story we're up for is just one of many that could be told.

It's a great foundation for the opening credits, and it's kids' stuff next to the first scene proper: a single shot of a man, Nader (Peyman Maadi), and a woman, Simin (Leila Hatami) sitting in a blank, obviously official room, staring right at the camera. They are there to request a divorce: Simin wants to leave Iran with their 11-year-old daughter and their visas expire in 40 days; Nader refuses to leave while his father suffers from Alzheimer's. Thanks to the arcana of Iranian law, Simin can't leave the country as a married woman if her husband stays behind; and so within just a few minutes we are presented with an insoluble problem in which both players seem equally right and totally incapable of reaching a compromise. The judge - sitting in our position - does not grant their request, and the shot ends with a close up of Simin, glaring as the judge loftily declares that her issue is a small one. She's staring angrily at him, but the brunt of her ire lands right on us, and no filmmaker could do a better judge of posing the central question of the film to come: do we dare think that we can properly judge what's going on? Do we know what is or should be true about these people?

A Separation - a corruption of the much-better Iranian title which translates as The Separation of Nader from Simin - arrives in the States on the back of just about as much praise as one movie could possibly receive, not least of which is that it's the most-rewarded film in the history of the Berlinale festival. The mere fact that it's not accordingly the best film ever made thus ought to be a touch disappointing, but let's be reasonable. It is, certainly, an instant qualifier for the top tier of modern Iranian cinema, a return to the extraordinary output of Iranian directors in the 1990s and early '00s after a half decade of the national cinema suffering under increasingly severe censorship. A Separation itself had a bit of a run-in with the authorities, which wasn't enough to prevent it from being Iran's official submission to the Oscars, in what I might call a blatant fit of hypocrisy if the film didn't deserve it.

The alarmingly convoluted plot starts out simply, with the situation I have just sketched; following the denial of her request, Simin moves back in with her mother, leaving her daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi, the director's daughter) with Nader; and we will not see her again for a very long time, during which things go to hell in the most colorful ways. Nader, at loose ends about what to do with his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), hires a temporary caregiver, Razieh (Sareh Bayet), who is pregnant, unbeknownst to her new employer. It's not her only secret either, for she has refrained from sharing the details of her new job with her unemployed husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), a religious hardliner with a quick temper.

Every reviewer of A Separation will eventually come to the important point of decision: at what point will I stop talking about the story? That point, for me, is now. Suffice it to say that things transpire which put the two couples in opposition to one another, and set them in opposition within one another, and the film turns invisibly into a procedural thriller of sorts about the search to figure out the truth, guided there by an exhausted, disengaged court interrogator (Babak Karimi). The glee with which Farhadi exploits the gulf between what is on-camera and what happens out-of-frame, and his similar use of the crucial break in continuity caused by an edit, so that we in the audience are always more sure of what we think happened and what we think the characters have done, than we know what happened; this extraordinary manipulation of what we perceive to be "real" in cinema is borderline Hitchcock, if it weren't the case that A Separation was so heavily rooted in the European realist aesthetic that makes its generic elements - and there are undoubtedly elements of genre here, the second hour of the film is as nervewracking as any proper action-adventure of 2011 - play almost as parody; we could as easily call the film an anti-thriller as a thriller, and is surely an anti-procedural.

The film is, in fact, so much fun to watch that you could very nearly miss the important fact that it is also as piercing a critique of Iranian society as that country has produced in some time - since Jafar Panahi was last able to make a feature way the heck back in 2006, at least. Mostly, this is done through establishing oppositions: secular, middle-class Nader and Simin are opposed to religious, lower-class Razieh and Hodjat; the husbands are both autocratic in their own ways, their wives obliged to assert themselves indirectly and with cunning rather than force. Termeh is weary and nervous and always looked worn-out; Razieh and Hodjat's much younger girl Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini) is bright-eyed and inquisitive and full of life (some of the best shots of the movie consist of nothing but lingering shots of the child actress, staring intently). Religion, sexism, and classism are all woven into the film so casually that it never feels like a harangue, nor are the character reduced to symbolic agents, as they could so easily be. Part of this is thanks to the outstanding performances from all four principals - five if we include Farhadi, and six if we really stretch to include young Hosseini - with my pick for best in show going to Hatami, who has perhaps the smallest role by screentime, being as she is packed off for most of the first hour, but who grounds the film once she returns with unmatchable moral authority, and whose focused gaze is the most commanding thing about the whole movie; and with her pale skin and flaming red hair, she stands out visually from rest of the cast, focusing our attention on her intense performance even further.

This is devastatingly great filmmaking: brilliantly shot using an extremely limited palette of compositions that are all used with surgical precision, edited so that its esoteric and largely conversational drama is as riveting as the most salacious mystery. If there was any doubt after his naggingly effective About Elly that Farhadi is a top-shelf international filmmaker, A Separation eliminates it; the final shot alone, a marathon-length job that goes on through the whole of the end credits and relies heavily on the slightest, most graceful subtleties on the part of actors, would be enough to get any director a spot in the best of the year heat. Plain and simple, this is a masterpiece: rich in specific detail about a very particular problem in a very exacting place, but redolent with universalism and human feeling.

10/10

Do US journalists even know the Constitution?

"Ron Paul Slams Barack Obama on drone strikes" (James Hohmann, POLITICO):

Ron Paul accused President Barack Obama on Thursday of offering suspected terrorists fewer legal protections than Nazi war criminals were given.
The Republican presidential candidate laced into Obama for authorizing the CIA-led drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Qaeda leader, in Yemen this September. He reiterated his previously stated position that al-Awlaki’s American citizenship entitled him to due process.

I'm sorry, does James Hohmann not know the Constitution?  Do they not teach that to journalists?  Ron Paul is correct.  What he states above is correct.

Rebecca wrote a great post last night ("good for kelly clarkson") that I hope you already read.  I will also applaud Kelly Clarkson for speaking her mind and also note my regret that she was then attacked online for doing so.  

Attacked with mis and dis information.  

I had noted that these latest rounds of rumors -- started this go-round by corporate hit woman Gloria -- had been addressed in 2008.  They were denied then.  They've been denied repeatedly.  The media is eager to kill off the chances of anyone who does not support empire and endless war.

Endless war makes a lot of money for the empire.  Not just for NBC (co-owned by weapons maker GE) but for all of them.  They feel their bread & butter threatened and they're striking at Ron Paul as a result.

I do not think Ron Paul is God, Jesus, Buddah or anyone else.  I think he's a politician.  Flawed like anyone else.  I also believe he is against the continuing empire project.  

For that reason, I applaud him.  For that reason, I defend him. 

Gloria's assassination attempt wouldn't have worked without (a) a lot of whores and (b) a lot of mindless zombies.  The whores know the rumors are false but repeat them.  The zombies are too mindless to think for themselves and just follow marching orders.

Again, the rumors that surfaced at the end of last week?  Nothing new.  Covered in 2008.  Denied then.  Addressed then.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):

Friday, December 30, 2011.  Chaos and violence continue, protests take place in Turkey and Iraq over the Turkish military killing 35 Kurds, Nouri's forces attack protesters in Baghdad and seize journalists' equipment, Ayad Allawi reminds everyone of the Erbil Agreement, McClatchy closes its Baghdad Bureau, the political crisis continues, the issue of the families of service members being upset about the media whoring for Barack (the false claim that ALL troops were home for Christmas) finally bubbles up in the media, and more. AFP's Prashant Rao Tweets: prashantrao Prashant Rao Hundreds of people in both Arbil and Sulaimaniyah have protested Turkish air strikes that killed 35. #Iraq #Turkey 11 hours ago The Kurds are considered to be the largest minority in the world without a homeland.  Northern Iraq borders Turkey.  As noted in yesterday's snapshot, using drones for 'tracking' and 'surveillance,' the Turkish military then sent air planes to bomb the border northern Iraq and Turkey share to kill members of the PKK.  As Mike noted last night, the Turkish government seems to think it would have been okay if the 35 dead and 20 injured were PKK but they weren't PKK, they were Turkish citizens.  The PKK is a group of Kurds -- one among many -- who fight (physically fight, use violence) for Kurdish equality and dream of a Kurdish homeland.  Many are in the mountains of northern Iraq.  They form in 1984 as a response to decades of oppression in Turkey.  And the government of Turkey gives little reason for them to stop.  Last week, Kaya Genc (Index On Censorship) reported, "In the latest wave of arrests of those the state claims are linked to the separatist group Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), 41 people were detained across Turkey on Monday including many journalists. Initial reports placed the number of media workers arrested at 25, but this number rose in the aftermath of the crackdown. Mustafa Özer, the Agence France-Presse photographer, was among those detained in the operation, which is reported to have taken place in the wee hours of the day. Dicle News Agency's offices in İstanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakır, Van, İzmir and Adana were raided and ten staff members were detained, including the agency's news director, editor in chief and various reporters. Five journalists from Turkey's main Kurdish newspaper Özgür Gündem were among those detained, as well as reporters from Birgün and Vatan newspapers."  Wladimir van Wilgenburg (Rudaw) reports further on the demonization of all things Kurdish, explaining today that a new video game, which is selling briskly (five million in one week alone) is entitled battlefield and allows the player to be a US soldier fighting 'terrorists' -- the 'terrorists' are Kurds and their base, in the game, is the Kurdistan Regional Government (northern Iraq). Along with protests in Iraq over the killings, there were protests in Turkey as well.  The Irish Examiner explains that "thousands" turned out for the funerals today. Al Jazeera adds: Coffins were brought in a long convoy of cars and ambulances, sounding their horns as mourners flashed defiant V for victory signs. "It is impossible to kill them mistakenly. The soldiers were 150 metres away and had a bird's eye view," 20-year-old Mehmet from Ortasu village, near the site of the raid, said, referring to troops who observed the attack. Mehmet, who also makes his living by smuggling goods from the border, said: "I could have been one of the [victims]." A young woman whose cousin died in the bombing was in tears. "This was no mistake. They intentionally killed people, who were trying to earn a crust," she said. The EuroNews notes Turkish government claims that there will be an investigation and, they swear, no cover up. A protester in Uludere shouted, "Damn you, Erdogan . . . One day you too will know our pain!" The 35 killed were in Turkey. For some reason the Turkish government continues to insist upon stating that they were in northern Iraq. IC quotes the PKK's Bahoz Erdal stating, "This massacre was no accident ... It was organised and planned. We urge the people of Kurdistan... to react after this massacre and seek a settling of accounts through uprisings." Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes of the 35 dead "most appeared to be members of an extended family and were under the age of 30." CNN reports, "Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that he regrets the deaths of 35 civilians in a military airstrike in a Kurdish area on the border with Iraq."   BBC News notes Erdogan termed the attack "unfortunate and saddening" and President Abdullah Gul noted "pain" over the murder of the 35.  But, as well as noting that 20 people were also injured in the bombing, Bloomberg News quotes Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc stating, among other things, "Turkey is combating terrorism and in that fight incidents like this may occur." That statement really doesn't make the alleged regret seem genuine.  Christopher Torchia (AP) adds, "For a second day, stone-throwing demonstrators clashed with police who responded with tear gas and water cannons in several cities in the mostly Kurdish southeat. Protesters lobbed rocks at a national ruling party office in Diyarbakir, the region's biggest city, and Firat said 30 people were arrested there." A protest took place in Baghdad today as well and the government's actions did not speak well.  It did, however, back up an observation Jack Fairweather (Financial Times of London) made today about how "the mechanics of the Iraqi state remain unchanged from the days of Saddam Hussein."   Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) captured the protests in a series of Tweets: JomanaCNN jomana karadsheh demo organized by brother of Bush shoe thrower to celebrate #US withdrawal. 12 people turned up & more than 200 security forces. #Iraq 12 hours ago   JomanaCNN jomana karadsheh demo organized by brother of Bush shoe thrower to celebrate #US withdrawal. 12 people turned up & more than 200 security forces. #Iraq 12 hours ago JomanaCNN jomana karadsheh Police Gen. there said gathering was "unauthorized" &kept asking them 2 leave. Hrs later, protesters set #US flag on fire &were beaten up 12 hours ago JomanaCNN jomana karadsheh Protesters down to 8 ppl at the end kept asking us not leave, saying our presence stops security forces from detaining them. #Iraq 12 hours ago JomanaCNN jomana karadsheh Camera of 1 Iraqi channel confiscated, our cameraman prevented from filming& my cell phone almost confiscated after taking one still. #Iraq 11 hours ago JomanaCNN jomana karadsheh protesters surrounded as we left, 1 telling me now 3 were detained after being beaten up. cant reach them 2 confirm, their phones off. #IRAQ 11 hours ago The continued crackdown on protests in Iraq. Excuse me, the continued crackdown on protests in supposedly 'free' Iraq. Nouri's goons grab cameras (Karadsheh's cell phone) and target reporters attempting to do their jobs, the Iraqis beg the reporters to stay out of fear of what happens when no witnesses are around and then the Iraqis disappear.  That's Nouri al-Maliki's Iraq and the US installed him and kept him in power in 2010 even when the Iraqi people rejected him by voting Iraqiya into first place in the March 2010 elections with Nouri's State of Law trailing in second place. Remember what followed those elections?  Nouri's tantrums.  And eight months of his digging his heels in -- with US backing -- and refusing to surrender the post of prime minister -- even though his term had expired and even though, per the Iraqi Constitution, Iraqiya would have first shot at building a government.  Nouri refused to obey the Constitution and the US  government applauded that by continuing to back him even when the likes of Moqtada al-Sadr and Ammar al-Hakim were stating publicly that Nouri could not be the next prime minister. Political Stalemate I ended in November of 2010 with the Erbil Agreement hammered out in Erbil between the major political blocs (and the US) whereby every one was supposed to make concessions. The Kurds would get to keep Jalal Talabani as president. They thought they would get three vice presidents. Iraqiya won the elections in March 2010 and the political bloc was headed by Ayad Allawi. Nouri wasn't stepping down and the White House was backing Nouri. For Nouri to remain prime minister, Allawi was promised he would head a new, independent council over security issues. He was also promised that the Iraqiya candidates demonized as Ba'athists and forced out of the 2010 elections by Nouri's friends would have their names cleared. On November 11th, the new Parliament held their first real session. They voted Osama al-Nujaifi Speaker of Parliament (he was from Iraqiya and that was part of the Erbil Agreement), Jalal was named president and Nouri was named prime minister designate (but we were all informed in the following days that this was 'unofficial' -- once named prime minister-designate, you have 30 days, per the Constitution, to put together a Cabinet and get the Parliament to sign off on each member). But what of the security council? It and other promises were forgotten as Nouri refused to abide by the agreement. Ayad Allawi, leader of Iraqiya and former prime minister of Iraq, remembers what happened and Tweeted about it this week. AyadAllawi Ayad Allawi 4the sake of stability,Iraqiya agreed2join the national unity government upon the Erbil power-sharing agreement reached a year ago 1/3 28 Dec AyadAllawi Ayad Allawi However,4more than a year now Mr. Maliki has refused to implement this agreement, instead concentrating greater power in his own hands. 2/3 28 Dec Nobember 25th, Jalal 'officially' named Nouri prime minister-designate. Nouri had created Political Stalemate I by refusing to surrender the prime minister post. He'd done that for eight months. In that time, he should have had some ideas about a Cabinet. But Nouri's problem was he over-promised to get support. So when it was time to name a Cabinet, suddenly the Cabinet had more ministers and deputy ministers than it had previously (from 37 in 2006 to 42 in 2010). And he still couldn't keep his promises to everyone.  December 21, 2010, the Constitution was tossed by the wayside and Nouri was allowed to move from prime minister-designate to prime minister because he'd assembled a kind of Cabinet. He named 31 out of 42 ministers and people pretended that was good enough. He had failed to meet the Constitutional mandate of naming a Cabinet but everyone looked the other way. He refused to name the security posts: National Security, Interior and Defense. His defenders (including the White House) swore those posts would be named in a matter of weeks. His detractors saw the refusal as part of a pattern of power grabs on Nouri's part and stated he wouldn't fill the posts. This is the start of Political Stalemate II.  And it's where Iraq remains, still in a stalemate and now in a political crisis.  In the latest embarrassment for Nouri al-Maliki, Alsumaria TV reports that State of Law MP Adnan Mayahi, who serves on Parliament's Security and Defense Commission, has declared that the bulk of Iraq's security services have been infiltrated and that a great many working in prisons practice torture.  After a year of refusing to name heads to the Ministery of the Interior, the Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Defense, you'd think stories like this would lead for widespread calls for Nouri to stop holding those posts and instead fill them.  And Alsumaria TV has now reported more on this story on their English version site: No Iraqis would be imprisoned for their opinions and thoughts but for violence and terrorism only, Armed Forces General Commander Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki assured, on December 10. There are no limits for human freedom if it doesn't oppose public interest, he added, a source told Alsumaria. Iraqiya List headed by Iyad Allawi revealed, on December 14, that random arrests are still occuring in all Iraqi regions which contradicts human rights' basics. Our members are holding constant meetings regarding this issue, Iraqiya indicated. Iraqi Government is not executing most of its international agreements and conventions concerning human, women, children and prisoners' rights, Representative of Secretary General of the United Nations in Iraq Walter Kalin accused in his report on June 3. In its report issued last February, Amnesty International revealed that there are secret prisons in Iraq where detainees are being tortured for confessions used in their convictions. Meanwhile it's been one denial after another from Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi. Ammar Karim (AFP) reports he is denying co-writing "How to Save Iraq From Civil War" (New York Times) with Rafie al-Issawi and Ayad Allawi but instead insists that his name was added to the byline without his knowledge. Why deny co-writing the column? Because some are saying the column was a letter to the White House asking it to intervene in Iraqi matters. Alsumaria TV reports that National Alliance MP Qasim al-Araji is among those declaring that the column is a plea to the Barack Obama administration to intervene in Iraqi affairs. In addition, Al Mada reports al-Nujaifi is denying having made a deal with President Jalal Talabani to oust Nouri via a vote of no confidence. Al Rafidayn notes that he declared the meet-up with Talabani was to discuss a national conference to be held shortly to address issues (including the political crisis) and the need to resolve the Tareq al-Hashemi issue via the judiciary. On the first issue, Al Mada notes Talabani says the conference will be held within two weeks and, on thesecond issue, Al Mada adds that the political blocs are currently debating the proposal that al-Hashemi's case be transferred to the Kurdish judiciary. Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a member of Iraqiya, has been accused by Nouri al-Maliki of being a terrorist. If convicted of that charge, the punishment is life in prison or execution. Tareq al-Hashemi is currently in the KRG and a house guest of President Talabani. al-Hashemi is not the only member of Iraqiya that Nouri has targeted recently. He's also demanding that Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq be stripped of his office. Were al-Mutlaq stripped of his office, he would lose immunity and Nouri could sue him for statements Nouri did not like. (Nouri is highly litigious. Along with suing other Iraqi politicians, he likes to sue news outlets such as the Guardian.) The targeting of the two members of Iraqiya comes as rumors swirl that others will be targeted -- including supposed arrest charges for Financial Minister al-Issawi -- and after the November arrests of over 500 alleged "Ba'athists."   In an introduction to a new profile on the Financial Minister, Jack Healy and Michael R. Gordon (New York Times) observe: He may also be the next leader to fall as the country's Shiite prime minister takes aim at perceived rivals and enemies, his fate a litmus test for a country in crisis. Unlike other Sunni politicians who have drawn fire from the Shiite-led government, Mr. Essawi is known as a conciliatory figure who has built bridges with Kurds, Shiites and Westerners. If the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, takes action against him -- he has already tried to relieve Mr. Essawi of his duties --  it could open deep new divisions in Iraq's already tattered sectarian landscape and send a discouraging signal about whether a post-United States Iraq can forge a truly inclusive and representative government. Calls for the charges against al-Hashemi to be heard by the KRG judiciary stem from the control over the Iraqi judiciary (Baghdad-based) that Nouri has as evidenced by numerous rulings.  This point is made in a report by an Iraqi journalist for McClatchy Newspapers: A politician in Maliki's own National Alliance told McClatchy yesterday that Maliki holds "complete" sway over the Supreme Court. It was the Supreme Court's "interpretation" of the constitution that enabled Maliki to retain his position as PM and form a government after the last elections, although Iraqiya bloc had the highest take. It was also through the Supreme Court that Maliki all but stopped the legislative powers of the parliament by its "interpreting" the constitution to say that legislation can only stem from the executive branch (cabinet and presidency) and that the parliament could only make "suggestions". The report is called "Iraq At The Crossroads" and hopefully it will run in all McClatchy owned papers because it's an important piece. We're grabbing from it on the courts because that's what I need for this entry but the whole thing is a gripping read. McClatchy's Iraqi journalists have done top-notch work throughout the war. This report (at McClatchy's Inside Iraq) continues that tradition.  And today brings the news, at Inside Iraq, in a heartfelt post, that McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau has now closed.  Sahar Issa, Laith Hammoudi, Jenan Hussein, Mohammed al Dulaimy and others did so much to help the world understand what was taking place on the ground in Iraq. Their spirit and passion for journalism was inpsiring even before you factor in that their reporting took place as Iraq became the war that claimed the most journalist lives and as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders repeatedly documented the attacks taking place within Iraq on journalists and the practice of journalism. While some risked all to convey the truth, others live to obscure.  Professional victim and apparent hobbyist liar Mayada Al Askari surfaces to flaunt her stupidity at Gulf News.  In a poorly written piece, Mayada wants to yet again snarl about Saddam and attack Iraqiya because her hatred has consumed her and she has nothing left to offer but anger and lies.  (You'd think someone who should be seeing their life as "rescued" would be able to tap into some joy but some people only want to embrace the darkness.)  The piece of trash scribbles a defense of Thug Nouri in which she notes: Al Hashemi, who is a member of the Al Iraqiya bloc, is accused of backing terrorism, and the Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad issued an arrest warrant after a number of his bodyguards confessed to carrying out terrorist acts. The Al Iraqiya bloc headed by Dr Ayad Allawi mishandled the problem by boycotting the parliament, which may easily lead to additional deterioration in stability and security. Let's be really clear here, Mayada is nothing but TRASH.  When you've made it your life's purpose over the last years (even before the US invasion) to decry torture and false confessions under Saddam, you damn well don't accept 'confessions' at face value.  That's even before you realize that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly documented that 'confessions' are forced by torture under Nouri al-Maliki.  You're trash because you pretended to give a damn about torture but in fact all you gave a damn about was that torture touched your own tiny circle.  You weren't opposed to torture, you weren't opposed to forced confessions.  If you truly were, you'd be the last person in the world to be insisting that 'confessions' aired on state TV qualified as genuine confessions.  You're just a dirty trash.  And possibly that keeps you far too busy to ever concern yourself with facts, but, as usual, your facts are wrong. Iraqiya did not walk out on Parliament in response to the arrest warrant for Tareq al-Hashemi. From the Friday, December 16, 2011 snapshot: "In other explosive news, Al Mada reports that Iraqiya has announced it is breaking off talks with the ruling bloc. [. . .] When announcing that talks were over, Al Mada notes Iraqiya stated that they had given up a great deal for the good of Iraq but there was no compromise from another. That's a reference to Nouri's State of Law as well as the coalition he now heads. In giving up the right to prime minister, Iraqiya was promised (and the Erbil Agreement is in writing) that an independent security commission would be created and that Ayad Allawi would head it. That's among the many broken promises Nouri made to keep his claws on the post of prime minister."  That was their announcement on Friday, December 16th.  Saturday, December 17th, they made good on their announcement.  Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) reported, "The Iraqiya political bloc boycotted parliament today over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's failure to properly share power and the arrests of hundreds of Sunni Iraqiya suppoerters in a crackdown against alleged Ba'ath Party members. [. . .] During a meeting last night the Iraqi block decided to suspend its participation in parliament to protest the prime minister's management of the country." Sunday, December 18th was the infamous airport moment at Baghdad International where Nouri's goons forced Saleh al-Mutlaq (Deputy Prime Minister), Tareq al-Hashemi and Finance Minister Rafie al-Issawi as well as their bodyguards.  Three of al-Hashemi's bodyguards were taken into custody, the rest and the three officials were let go and allowed to reboard the plane. As documented in the December 19th snapshot, Monday, December 19th is when the arrest warrant is issued: CNN reported this afternoon that an arrest warrant had been issued for Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi by the Judicial Commitee with the charge of terrorism.  Omar al-Saleh (Al Jazeera) terms it a "poltical crisis" and states, "The government says this has nothing to do with the US withdrawal, that this has nothing to do with the prime minister consolidating his grip on power.  However, members of al-Iraqiya bloc, which Hashimis is a member of, say 'No, [Maliki] is trying to be a dictator."  Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal) observes, "The arrest warrant puts Mr. Maliki on a possible collision course with the Kurds, who run their own semiautonomous region in the north and participate in the central government but have longstanding disputes with Baghdad over oil and land; and with Sunni Arabs in provinces like Anbar, Diyala, Nineveh and Salahuddin who have pressed in recent weeks for more autonomy from Baghdad with the backing of the Kurds." No, Iraqiya did not walk out on Parliament after an arrest warrant was issued for Tareq al-Hashemi.  That is a bold face lie. Mayad Al Askari is trash and she's condemned herself to a hell of her own sickness because instead of embracing a new chance offered she wants to baste in the hatred she's carried, stroked and nursed for years and years and years.  She'll die in a hell of her own making.  There is no hope for her.  She will never awaken to the fact that her life could have been different if she'd chosen to embrace the present instead of submerging in a past that is long gone. Back to al-Nujaifi denials, Alsumaria TV reports he is also denying accusations that his actions are being directed by the United States which, the rumor insists, seeks to overthrow Nouri. Turning to the topic of Sahwa. They've been called "Awakenings" and "Sons Of Iraq." They are Iraqis (largely Sunni but some Shi'ites as well according to David Petreaus' April 2008 Congressional testimony -- Petraeus is now CIA Director but he was the top commander in Iraq back then). They were put on the US payroll to get them to stop attacking the US military. Al Mada reports that the Baghdad-based government has recorded 1498 Sahwas deaths since 2006nd that another 830 Sahwas have been left wounded. The government also estimates that over 100,000 people became Sahwas since the program's 2006 inception. Remember all the weeks this month we've repeatedly called out the press lie that ALL US troops have come home from Iraq?  Remember how we've noted that some are being repostured to surrounding areas of Iraq and that some will actually remain in Iraq?  And we've called out the press repeatedly for its painful lie.  We've noted repeatedly that family members of loved ones who are not coming home for Christmas have decried this lie and have mailed this site and Third about how painful it is to hear the lie of "ALL" over and over from one outlet after another (including The NewsHour on PBS which should be able to get the facts right)?  Geoff Ziezulewicz (Stars and Stripes) has an important article today on family members upset that their loved ones are not home for Christmas and he notes, " It has also been painful to see news articles in the past week touting the fact that all U.S. troops are home from Iraq, Thane said."  That's Andrea Thane whose husband is not yet out of the Middle East.  There was never a reason for the media to WHORE for the administration and put lies over the airwaves to give Barack a happy Christmas poll boost.  But they chose to, they chose to whore for Barack at the expense of reality and we noted repeatedly here and at Third that their WHORING was HURTING military families.  They need to do some self-reflection on the way they MISREPORTED all month long. We first began hearing from the family of service members on this issue at the end of November and wrote "Editorial: Words have meaning" about this subject and the pain it was causing.  The media chose repeatedly to disregard the truth because they wanted to whore for Barack.  I'm sorry but I thought the media role was to inform the public (of reality), not to lie in order to push up the poll numbers of a politician. iraq afp prashant rao cnn jomana karadsheh the irish examiner al jazeera bloomberg news bbc news the los angeles times alexandra zavis rudaw wladimir van wilgenburg jack fairweather the financial times of london alsumaria tv almada afp ammar karim al rafidayn mcclatchy newspapers inside iraq the new york times jack healy

2011: The Year in Film

I have mixed feelings about the film year that was 2011. On the one hand, there's a glaring lack of four-star titles. That said, I was really intrigued by so many films that even if they didn't pan out perfectly, they've lingered with me a long time. I'll say that this list more so than any other in recent memory is fluid. I expect a lot of changes as I revisit films again and catch up with some of the big ones I missed (including Shame, The Artist, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Margaret, Le Havre, The Guard, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a dozen or so others).

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have already seen my top 10 films of the year. I'll be writing more about them tomorrow (as well as giving some honorable mentions). For now, I'm going to repeat what I did last year and share some thoughts on the best performances and technical achievements from this year's crop of films. Enjoy.

Best Lead Actor: Woody Harrelson, Rampart
Runner-up: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

Best Lead Actress: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Runner-up: Charlize Theron, Young Adult

Best Supporting Actor: Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Runner-up: Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method

Best Supporting Actress: Anjelica Huston, 50/50
Runner-up: Jessica Chastain, The Help

Best Director: Abbas Kiarostami, Certified Copy
Runner-up: Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Best Original Screenplay: Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Runner-up: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, Moneyball
Runner-up: George Clooney and Grant Heslov, The Ides of March

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life
Runner-up: Robert Richardson, Hugo

Best Original Score: Cliff Martinez, Contagion
Runner-up: John Williams, War Horse

Best Trailer (for films released in 2010): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (click here to view)
Runner-up: Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (click here to view)

Best Animated Feature: Rango
Runner-up: Winnie the Pooh

Best Documentary: How to Die in Oregon
Runner-up: The Interrupters

Best Foreign Film: Certified Copy
Runner-up: A Separation

Biggest Surprise: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Runner-up: Hugo

Biggest Disappointment: Super 8
Runner-up: Carnage

Worst Performance: Amandla Stenberg, Colombiana
Runner-up: Jodie Foster, Carnage

Worst Films of the Year:
5.) Super 8
4.) Transformers: Dark of the Moon
3.) Limitless
2.) Dream House
1.) Colombiana

Best Films of the Year:
Come back tomorrow!

OH MAGGIE, I WISHED I'D NEVER SEEN YOUR FACE

Firstly, The Iron Lady is historically illiterate to a degree that shouldn't be allowed for a movie dramatising events that happened less than three decades ago, and I suspect that's true regardless of whether you're a fan of contentious and controversial Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, or if like me you regard her as one of the most loathsome heads of a democratic state of the 20th Century. Having a political opinion on The Iron Lady is probably inevitable, but there's absolutely no point to it: the woman we see onscreen is Thatcher to roughly the same degree that the garrulous British gentleman in The Last Station is Leo Tolstoy, and considerably less than the turgid and hideously reductive 1944 Wilson (one of the all-time great shitty biopics) is about the 28th U.S. President.

Mostly, the film is designed to showcase Meryl Streep in one those "mimic + an accent" roles that she does better than anybody else in the history of film acting, in lieu of taking interesting parts in intelligent movies. Here, she gets to play a determined woman whose rise to power is pushed back at every step of the way by sexist men on all sides of the political spectrum, and who dealt with this by digging her heels in and adopting a scorched-earth "my way or the highway!" approach to everything in the whole world but especially running a country. The film absolutely adores her for this: I just said that bringing politics in was stupid, but I don't think it takes politics to say that a movie which suggests that the right way to lead a world power is by screaming "FUCK YOU, I'M THE PEE-EM" every time anyone even mentions that other people have differing opinions is a movie with a faintly odious concept of how the world should work.

So that takes care of the what that Streep gets to play. The how, now that must have been even more exciting than the idea of playing Thatcher as a woman of great fortitude in a man's world: first, the role takes place over several decades, meaning Streep gets to play a woman from middle age to elderly decrepitude, during the last of which she is aided considerably by some of the swellest old-age makeup that I have ever seen, though perhaps it just seems that way because it's not so silent-horror-movie as the terrible things that happened in J. Edgar (it is a disappointment to all that the filmmakers elected not to have Streep also play the young woman version of Thatcher in a further cloud of latex, but at any rate that part went to Alexandra Roach, who is a bit colorless but no more so than the role insists that she be). Plus, not only does Streep get to do an English accent, the character arc involves her transitioning from one accent to another, much posher and more authoritative, one. Which must have been catnip to the noted chameleon, who has not played a British character in a quarter of a century, unless I have forgotten something.

Whatever accolades usually accrue to Streep, hold true here; myself, I find her mechanical precision tiring and much prefer her comic turns (e.g. Julie & Julia), especially the ones spiced with a little bitterness (e.g. The Devil Wears Prada) to be considerably more satisfying then the really intense, dramatic ones. So you'll be getting no "holy heck, Meryl Streep is amazing and it's like I was looking Margaret Thatcher right in the face!" here. What is certainly true, Streep is the best thing about The Iron Lady by a gargantuan margin; the only good or even tolerable thing in a movie that is mostly comprised of nothing but absolutely bizarre structural choices married to hallucinatory direction that has proceeded from the notion that the right way to deal with Abi Morgan's weird script is to run screaming into the abyss of madness. The film starts in the late 2000s, when Thatcher is starting to run headlong into senility, and is visited by the apparition of her dead husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent), who is maybe a ghost and maybe just the confused interjection of an old woman; that this point is even slightly unclear has less to do with any sort of desire to achieve character study through ambiguity, than with director Phyllida Lloyd's psychotic behavior with the camera.

Ah, Phyllida Lloyd! Her last and only film, you may remember, was Mamma Mia! which also starred Streep (in one of the worst performances of her entire career), and which was a hatchet job of the first order, as though Lloyd had decided that she didn't want to be bothered with copying things other directors had already done and so set herself to the task of reinventing film grammar from the ground up, resulting in an uninterrupted string of all the wrong decisions and some of the worst-staged musical numbers in living memory. The Iron Lady, I am staggered to report, is worse still than Mamma Mia!. At least that film didn't try to incorporate newsreel footage with the drunken abandon of The Iron Lady; it didn't whirl through camera set-ups like a Michael Bay action movie set in the musty halls of Parliament; it did have unmotivated slow-motion all over the place, but The Iron Lady makes a kind of abstract poetry of dropping into slow-mo whenever the hell Lloyd feels like and screw it if the results make absolutely no sense.

Then there is the matter of Ghost Denis, played with plummy wretchedness by a never-worse Broadbent - and who can blame him, really, when the part is this maddeningly ill-written? Functionally, Denis is there to challenge Dotty Ol' Maggie into remembering her past, raising her defenses when she's confronted with the reality that two decades after the political shenanigans that took her from power, she's remembered with virtually no love, and some outright hatred, by most of the British populace. He is the voice of her proud past, the part of her that remains steadfast in her belief that she was right - the iron of the title. There's nothing inherently wrong with it conceptually, though it smacks of Paul Bettany in A Beautiful Mind or Dustin Hoffman in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, two films that are not generally good things to call to mind. In fact, I take it back, it is inherently wrong conceptually, and it's made worse by Broadbent's tremendous lack of interest in doing anything with it, and worse still by Lloyd's dumbfounding treatment of Denis's peek-a-boo antics, like the antagonists in the Micky Mouse short Lonesome Ghosts only in a serious drama. There is a sequence in which Thatcher turns on all the electric appliances in her house to drown out the sound of Denis's voice, with the soundtrack duly cranked up to 11, as Streep lumbers about with technically flawless approximations of how old people lumber about, and everything about it made my soul die.

Next to all of its tremendous artistic shortcomings and various terrible conceptual ideas, the film's superficial psychology is practically restful: the reduction of Margaret Thatcher to a strong-willed grocer's daughter who wins everything and then loses track of it through nascent paranoia has nothing interesting to say about the historical woman, her cinematic doppelgänger, or the 1980s in Great Britain, and compared to the flailing about of the movie proper, its thematic shortcomings just seem like business as usual for awards-season biopics. It's a bit sad to say that the best parts of the movie are the ones that leave it as a wretchedly anonymous example of one of the most inherently unlikable genres in modern cinema, but that's the special Phyllida Lloyd flair for you, I guess: so dazzlingly incompetent and incomprehensible that mediocrity is a relief.

4/10

LAST SEEN: BBC GREAT EXPECTATIONS - WHAT A GREAT BELATED CHRISTMAS GIFT!

Estella : "I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape." (from the book)

Let's start from the end. Yes, right from the end. I'm afraid this will be a major spoiler if you haven't read Dickens's novel yet. So, you are warned.  I've just finished watching this beautiful new BBC adaptation of  Great Expectations and I'm delighted  they've chosen Dickens's revised ending, unlikely the previous BBC version. This time Pip and Estella meet again at Satis House ...

"We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench. "And will continue friends apart," said Estella. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her". (from the novel)

Looking rightly into Estella's eyes and wrapping her hand into his, Pip is sure they will never be parted again. Actually, I didn't mind the sad epilogue Dickens had chosen to write at first (it is the end I've got in my printed  edition)  and I always thought it was perfect, very sad but perfect. On the other hand, I'm now happy BBC has chosen to enlighten the darkness in this story with a romantic happy ending. And now ... we can  go back to the start! 

The story (from BBC Press Pack). Eleven-year-old orphan, Pip, runs into an escaped convict on the marshes near his home. The convict, Magwitch, orders the boy to steal a file from his Uncle Joe's forge to remove his shackles. The terrified Pip returns with the file and some food – and this innocent act of kindness is set to have far reaching consequences for them both.

Meanwhile, Miss Havisham the reclusive owner of grand Satis House, has requested a boy be sent to her; Pip is to be a playmate to her adopted daughter Estella. Miss Havisham encourages Pip to believe that he might be destined for a future beyond the marshes, a future linked to that of beautiful Estella. Pip's hopes are dashed, though, when Miss Havisham pays for him to be apprenticed to Joe as a blacksmith; it seems his dreams of greater things were unfounded.

At first Pip struggles to come to terms with a life in the forge but eventually he accepts this as his fate. However, everything changes when a lawyer from London, Jaggers, makes a surprise visit. He informs the now adult Pip (Douglas Booth) that he is a young man of great expectations and will inherit a fortune when he becomes twenty-one. There is one condition. Pip must not enquire into the identity of his benefactor; this will remain secret until that person chooses to reveal themselves. In the meantime Jaggers is his guardian. Pip sets out for London leaving all he knows behind to pursue his new life, with his heart set on seeing Estella again.

This new three- part BBC series is very beautifully filmed tense, noir drama and it got directly to my heart. I find it succeeds more than other versions - which tried to soften these features instead - in visually rendering all the sadness, the tragicality, the gloom, even the violence Dickens wanted to convey in his briefest but,  according to many,  best- written novel.

Douglas Booth, 19,  is Pip and I've read that he has immediately won a legion of admirers.Well, he's stunningly beautiful and his Pip is so incredibly sweet. This teenager's features, his eyes and his rare, sudden  smile pierced the screen and the Victorian elegant attire suited him perfectly  (he was a model for Burberry). Pip is incredibly good, incredibly naive and his journey through the story is full of suffering and tragic revelations. Like Oliver Twist or David Copperfield he often doesn't understand or doesn't realize how wicked adults actually are. 
Gillian Henderson was brilliant as ghastly Miss Havisham, characterizing her with her childish voice,  death-like paleness,  staring eyes,  wicked eerie appearance ,  festering skin, and claustrophobic self - imprisonment in her decaying, spectral home -  where she awkwardly welcomes Pip - Satis House. She is psychotically manipulative and  psychologically damages both  Pip and Estella as children. 

In the cast, lots of well-known , familiar faces from British TV (follow the links and discover where you've already seen them): 
Estella, the poor orphan brought up by Miss Havisham and trained to deny love and to believe she doesn't own  a heart, is Vanessa Kirby. Herbert Pocket, Pip's loyal friend in London,  is Harry Lloyd; Magwitch, the convict Pip's helps as a child and who will change his life, is Ray Winstone; Jaggers, the formidable lawyer who's Pip's guardian in London, is David Suchet; Joe Gargery,  Pip's brother-in-law,  the village blacksmith who brought him up with his overbearing wife, is Shaun Dooley; Drummle,  Pip's model as a gentleman, then rival in his love for Estella is Tom Burke.

The Book 

As it usually happens, there are several changes or cuts respect to the original novel, but they are not relevant. At least, I didn't mind them at all.
Great Expectations is the latest of  Charles Dickens's novels I read and it has become my favourite so far. Dickens has the power of making  me smile, laugh, reflect on serious matters,  be astonished at his skillfullness as a story-teller, be moved to tears and all in one story. I read it 5 or 6 years ago in summer and it got me so involved I went on reading at night to know what was going to happen to poor Pip.

Though not considered as autobiographical as David Copperfield, which he had published some ten years earlier, the character of Pip represented a Dickens who had learned some hard lessons in his later life. Especially strong throughout the novel are the concepts of fraternal and romantic love, how society thwarts them, how a man should find them. Dickens had left his wife at that time and there were rumours of an affair with a young actress, Ellen Ternan.

For financial reasons, Dickens had to shorten the novel, making it one of his tighter and better written stories. It was published in serial form, as were all of his novels, and the reader can still see the rhythm of suspense and resolution every couple of chapters that kept all of England waiting for the next issue, and me , as I told you, awake at night.

All in all, Great Expectations is considered the best balanced of all of Dickens' novels, though a controversy still persists over the ending. Dickens had originally written an ending where Pip and Estella never get back together. Many critics, including George Bernard Shaw, believe that this rather depressing ending was more consistent with the overall theme and tone of the novel, which began, continued, and perhaps should have finished with a serious, unhappy note. Nevertheless, Dickens published the ending where all is forgiven and Estella and Pip walk out of the Satis House garden together.

Previous and upcoming adaptations

I have already seen Great Expectations  adapted in a couple of versions:  the previous BBC adaptation of this novel, which dates back to 1999 , and an  American movie (1998), loosely based on the novel, with Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Bancroft and Robert De Niro,  which transferred the story to nowadays and to the USA.

Now I'm eagerly waiting  to see the 2012 film adaptation directed by Mike Newell and starring Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch, Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham, Holliday Grainger as Estella and Jeremy Irvine as Pip.

Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havinsham in the upcoming movie

There's a lot of Dickens coming out in 2012 since it is the year marking the Bicentenary of his birth! (see Dickens on the BBC and Dickens's Bicentenary Official Site)