September 19, 2012 -- Here is my list of the best and worst films, best actors, etc. from the year of 2011, with the usual caveats. There are a few top films I have not seen for various reasons, and I have definitely missed (on purpose) most of the year's worst films. My picks for the best and worst films and many other categories, such as best actor, director, etc. are listed below. As you can tell by the date on this article, I am running way behind my usual pace this year for a number of personal reasons.

Among the films missing from my “best of” lists are “Melancholia” (which actually made my “worst” list instead and “The Artist,” which was good, but not great. Both were good films which were wildly overrated for different reasons. “Melancholia” tells pessimists what they want to hear: That people are earth are scum and deserve to die, and that the rest of life on earth, including actual scum, doesn't deserve to survive either, and a whole bunch of other medieval nonsense like that. “The Artist” was a nice little black and white, silent romantic comedy. A bit thin for an Oscar winner, and it lacks the narrative sophistication you expect from a great film.

Below the list of top films are a list of honorable mentions, followed by lists of my picks for top director, top actor, top foreign film, etc. Those lists are followed by lists of the worst films, overrated films, funniest, saddest, etc. I've added a couple of Dubious Distinction awards as a satirical comment on certain awards that seem to be based on factors that are literally skin deep. My top 10 lists include more comedy and films starring black actors, two varieties of movies absent from most top 10 lists. Drama is easy, but comedy is tough to get right. This is a good year for documentary films. I've got five in my top 10 list and there are plenty of other good ones this year as well.

Page navigation: Honorable mention,  Best of by category,  Funniest movie,   Saddest movie,  Scariest villain ,  Overrated movies,   Best movies you haven't heard of,   Worst movies,   Dubious Distinctions.

Links to reviews of all the films below are indexed in the following web pages:

A through B   C through D   E through G   H through L
M through Q   R through S   T through Z

All of these films have won awards or have been highly rated by some critics groups, or have won praise at some film festivals, or are just overpraised by critics. These are listed alphabetically. The Artist
The Hunger Games
Melancholia
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1

While I saw most of the best films of the year, I purposefully missed nearly all of the reportedly bad films, including Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Jack and Jill, The Roommate, Shark Night 3D, Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil, The Darkest Hour, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, The Three Musketeers and The Ledge. Those are all wide release films which made it to most cities and town in the U.S. I also missed most of the limited release bad films, among many others, so this is not in any way a list of the worst of the worst films, just the worst of the films I saw. After all, I don't get into the movies for free, and I don't like to waste my money. I did see The Green Lantern, Battle Los Angeles and The Green Hornet which are supposed to be bad, but I liked them anyway. Careful as I am, I did get fooled into watching the following bad films anyway:

The jail bait award is usually won by very attractive, very young women, or girls, some of whom are pre pubescent, or at who least look like they might be, and who get high praise from critics for performances which aren't all that great. Why is this you ask? Because most film critics are men and most men (especially older men) have trouble remembering actors at the end of the year for awards purposes unless they are very young and pretty. O.K., so they are dirty old men.

Past winners are Saoirse Ronan for “Atonement,” Anna Paquin for “The Piano,” Ziyi Zhang for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” of course Polanski's old flame, Natasha Kinski for “Tess,” and most of the cast of “Thirteen.”

The award this year goes to Chloë Grace Moretz for “Hugo”. She has been widely praised for her performance in this film, as well as her performances in “Let Me In,” “Kick Ass” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” but this isn't just because she is very young and very pretty, the juicy jail bait factor. She is also very talented, which takes a lot of the fun out of this award. I think this girl is going to continue to be successful when she gets older, unlike some past winners.

The second dubious distinction is the Marilyn Chambers Memorial Nothing Left to the Imagination Nudity Award:

Michael Fassbender wins the 2011 nudity award for his full frontal sex scenes in “Shame.” I didn't much care for the film, but I am envious of Fassbender, if you catch my drift. Past winners of the nudity award include, Anne Hathaway for “Love and Other Drugs,” Kate Winslet for “The Reader,” Rinko Kikuchi for “Babel,” and Maria Bello for “A History of Violence.”

The Critic's skin deep award:

A number of critics downgraded their reviews of “A Week With Marilyn” just because, in their expert opinion, they thought star Michelle Williams didn't have the right size and shape to portray Marilyn Monroe properly. Really. A New York Times review complained that her breasts weren't pointy enough. The Guardian review was a lot more detailed: “Marilyn reportedly wore a size 12 to a size 16, depending on which website you are reading. What is pretty much common knowledge is that Monroe's top measurement was 36D. Williams looks half that size. And she has almost no hips at all.”

It isn't about the acting, it's just about looks, with some critics. And there is a common wishful-thinking misconception about Marilyn Monroe's size, too. She was tiny. The Snopes article, based on a fashion editor who actually tried on some of Monroe's famous costumes, says she was a size 8, and was never more than a 10, even when she was at her maximum weight. Her waist was a mere 22 inches and her bust a modest 34, according to this Bloomberg news article which is backed up by other articles written by people who handled Monroe's costumes at auction. Regardless of her shape, Michelle Williams gave a great performance.

Links to reviews of all the films are indexed below:

Page navigation: Honorable mention,  Best of by category,  Funniest movie,   Saddest movie,  Scariest villain ,  Overrated movies,   Best movies you haven't heard of,   Worst movies,   Dubious Distinctions.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2012 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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