My Awards nominations: Director and Picture

I have a 4/5 overlap between Best Picture and Best Director this year, so I'm lumping them into one big post with the four also-rans that round out my Top Ten of 2011:

Best Picture AND Best Director:

Drive, directed by NICOLAS WINDING REFN:

An art house character study wrapped in a violent crime drama and advertised as a high-speed action movie, Drive offers us startling insight into the irrepressibility of one's true nature more than it offers us chases and fisticuffs. In more cinematic terms, one might describe it as Unforgiven set in modern Los Angeles, at least in how it pertains to the central character's noble attempt but tragic failure to smother his violent propensities. Refn directs his picture with intriguing flare, sometimes opting for odd aesthetic choices, but on the whole, it really works.

A Separation, directed by ASGHAR FARHADI:

An exceptional domestic drama about the failure of human relationships, and not just marital ones (as the title implies), one can't help but notice that the film's painful truths are universal ones, delving deep into human conscience and exposing the dangerous inconsistencies between our personal moral codes, and our responsibilities to model ethics for our children. Farhadi's aesthetic technique is economical but very polished. Every character is superbly played with authentic dimensionality. It's a testament to how well Farhadi wrote and directed his characters.

The Tree of Life, directed by TERRENCE MALICK:

Arguably the elusive master's most thought-provoking – and certainly his most artistically ambitious – effort to date; a flawed, painterly masterpiece that explores in broad, bold strokes mankind's search for God and the fluid relation between Nature and Grace. Malick blurs the venn diagram overlap between his looming themes with scenes that suggest the gracefulness of Nature and the naturalness of Grace. He creates a rich stream of consciousness, laced with internal monologue by our three principles that all seem to be asking “where are you?”.

We Need to Talk About Kevin,
directed by LYNNE RAMSAY:

Ramsay uses vivid cinematic techniques to immerse us in the guilt, anguish, and confusion of a woman whose son holds an inexplicable personal vendetta against her. She directs the hell out of this thing, and what she's ended up with is a disturbing work of art that gets under your skin and stays there against your will. Her evocation of Eva's frazzled memory is a stellar editing showcase. Lady MacBeth herself wouldn't have had such a hard time absolving herself of the guilt that stalks Eva's mind.

Best Picture:

Midnight in Paris

This beguiling psychological love affair that draws us to an epiphany about the root of nostalgia and our human dissatisfaction is Woody Allen's freshest, most imaginative premise since The Purple Rose of Cairo. Owen Wilson aptly plays an extension of the onscreen persona Allen spent years performing himself; the precocious, stammering sentimentalist prone to self-analyzing his own neuroses. The supporting cast that animates his possibly hallucinated alternate Paris is wonderful as well. The midnight sequences are beautifully shot with warm, textured lighting by Darius Khondji and Johanne Debas, before jolting us back into Gil's painful present with the hard, bright light of day.

Best Director: DANFUNG DENNIS

Danfung Dennis employs a smart chronological structure that toggles back and forth between the "Hell" of Afghanistan and the "Back Again" of America, although by the end of the film it's suspected that home may have become Nathan's true hell. He endeavours to dissect and present his subject's state of mind by drawing direct connections between his wartime experiences and his home-front struggles. In keeping with the spirit of true documentarianism, Dennis never indulges in talking head interviews of voice-over narration.

Just missed: 
The Adventures of Tintin
If your thirst for adventure is unquenchable, Steven Spielberg's rollicking popcorn pic should be enough to slake your thirst. Freed up by Weta's ground-breaking performance-capture system to play with the camera in ways he never has before, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is easily the funnest movie he's put out in nearly a decade; An Indiana Jones for the next generation.

Beginners
This gentle little drama about the generation-spanning challenge of finding happiness succeeds in great part due to its three central performances from Ewan MacGregor, Christopher Plummer, and Melanie Laurent. Mike Mills' script and direction are beautifully restrained, employing a melancholy sense of humour when needed to lighten his film's understated but deep-running sadness.

The Ides of March
The hypocritical game of politics is what's put front and centre for us to see; irredeemably cynical (maybe too much so) in its depiction of a profession in which one's career cannot survive without compromising, or even completely abandoning, one's principles. Whether you agree or not with this grim assessment, it makes for a terrific yarn.

Moneyball
This slow-burner of a sports movie (more of an anti-sports movie, actually) appreciates tremendously with time. It's more about ambition and paradigm shifting than it is about baseball, told not through the eyes of the athletes, but of the man putting the team together in hopes that his life and career will mean something. Splendidly written and performed.

My Awards nominations: Adapted Screenplay

Strong crop this year. Here's what I deem the best Adapted Screenplays of the year:

Drive (Hossein Amini):
The irrepressibility of one's true nature is a theme that's startlingly made in Drive. Amini minimizes dialogue and focuses more on implied backstory to illustrate the driver's character.

The Ides of March (George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon):
Clooney et. al. realize that making the actual politics the meat of this story would either alienate or bore their audience, so they wisely keep it on the side, keeping the screenplay lean, polished, and efficient.

Moneyball (Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin):
While not one that always pops, the script does brim with ideas. The dialogue willfully revels in awkward beats that force unspoken characterization. Anyone who can make baseball stats interesting has to be a good writer!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan):
This is a thoughtful and attentive screenplay that intentionally moves a bit slowly, but at least it allows its audience time to process all the little narrative cogs that compose the complex plot.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, Rory Kinnear):
The book's more objective narration is translated into a brilliant first-person character study that comes tinted with its character's guilt and confusion. Cleverly structured as a pseudo mystery.

Just missed: The Help, Project Nim, Tintin

Review - We Need to Talk About Kevin

They say there's no greater grief than that of a mother who loses her child, but what about that of a mother who is hated by her child? In We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay uses bold cinematic strokes to immerse us in the guilt, anguish, and confusion of a woman whose son holds an inexplicable personal vendetta against her, leading up to an atrocity that shatters more than just her life.

Tilda Swinton plays Eva, a practically catatonic woman struggling to lead a normal life in the wake of a hinted-at tragedy that left her without her family and reviled by her community. Through her daily drudgery she comes across sights and sounds that trigger memories that inform us about how she came to her current pitiable station. At first, the recollections are a vague but vivid wash of colour and sound; deep reds cascade across the screen while sirens and lawn sprinklers bleed in and out of the soundtrack.