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Sigh. I was rather enjoying my Monday until I read this infuriating piece by Alexia Tsotsis over on TechCrunch - I’d Rather Watch Instagram Than A Movie.

The basis of the comparison? Attention. The basis of the preference? Simplicity and relatability.

The appeal of Instagram is, for lack of a better word, simple; the world is moving too damn fast and we don’t want the cognitive load of figuring out what we’re looking at — we just want to see simple pretty things. This simplicity is what makes services like Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest a joy versus other entertainment offerings.

The truth is that on any given day, I’d rather check in on Instagram then watch a movie.

Call me a snob, but I feel sorry for the simple mind that can equate one form of attention to another so easily, and put it down to "killing time". It is total underappreciation for film as an artform.

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This post from tnl.net, entitled Where the hits are streaming in 2011 was a real eye-opener, and one that I first heard on TWiT 336.

For each movie of the top 100 movies at the box office, I pulled data on for stream­ing info on Net­flix, Ama­zon on Demand, iTunes, and Vudu. I also pulled up avail­abil­ity of DVDs to use as a yard­stick in terms of over­all movie avail­abil­ity.

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I'm trying something new this year. I've traditionally ranked my end of year list top to bottom, and it's been incredibly difficult, not to mention a false, unfair measure. This year, I'm grouping them by star-rating.

I've been using Flixster for the past 1.5 years, but this year, I've made a conscious effort—for every movie I've seen this year that's in Flixster's database—to add a star rating, and write a review; be it a sentence or a rare, wordy exposition. Note that this will also contain random, older movies I've seen at home, etc throughout the year.

One thing I'm noticing now is how extremely difficult it has been for me to award something 5 stars. It's silly in retrospect, but shows I don't completely believe in my ratings, or am afraid to say, "hey, I think this is worth 5 stars and found basically nothing I didn't love about it". Considering the extremely subjective nature of it all, I don't know why, so I'll have to normalise some of that now.

On the flipside to that, you'll also notice how rather positive I am with my ratings in general, because, heck, I love my movies, dammit! At least in the context of everything else on here, it can be taken as relative.

Oh, and just to clarify, these are movies I've seen at the cinemas in the year of 2011, in Australia and Austin, during SXSW. While looking back, I was surprised that some of these weren't 2010 releases, but then remembered Australia's backward nature in receiving them.

I've written a relatively large amount about movies in 2011 across Twitter, posts on this blog, Flixster, and the /r/movies subreddit, so this is simply going to be a list.

Here they are, grouped by star-rating out of 5, and alphabetically within the groupings.

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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. An IMAX marvel of breathtaking, beautifully constructed action sequences and ingenious use of field tech!

Tom Cruise is so meant for this role that it's ridiculous. His physique, intensity and willingness to put his own body at risk are only magnified by the IMAX screen and Brad Bird's wonderful direction. You've all seen the scene in the trailer with the craning shots atop the Burj Khalifa, but they don't prepare you for half the beauty and thrill you'll experience. 

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You learn something new every day! I love that there are people out there who do this kind of thing for a living.

Chaos Cinema is a two part video essay by Matthias Stork analysing well constructed action sequences and techniques; the recent Hollywood trend of faster, overstuffed, hyperactive action filmmaking; how sound design has improved dramatically to compensate; its effects on dialogue, and the rare occasion where it is used well.

Chaos cinema apes the illiteracy of the modern movie trailer. It consists of a barrage of high-voltage scenes. Every single frame runs on adrenaline. Every shot feels like the hysterical climax of a scene which an earlier movie might have spent several minutes building toward. Chaos cinema is a never-ending crescendo of flair and spectacle. It’s a shotgun aesthetic, firing a wide swath of sensationalistic technique that tears the old classical filmmaking style to bits.  Directors who work in this mode aren’t interested in spatial clarity. It doesn’t matter where you are, and it barely matters if you know what’s happening onscreen. The new action films are fast, florid, volatile audiovisual war zones.

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The Shawshank Redemption. A fascinating look into the psyche of men and their perceived notion of safety, freedom and self-worth, if the only life they are familiar with is that inside a prison.

I'd heard a LOT about this film, and all things considered, it doesn't live up to the unbelievable reputation it has. For all I'd heard about it though, I'd never read the plot, and my expectations of the main character—Andy Dufresne, played extremely competently by Tim Robbins—were way off the mark, and I was pleasantly surprised by the direction the film took, turning into a clever prison break, and me realising how much the TV series Prison Break borrowed from this film.

The highly resourceful Andy Dufresne remains the same man through it all, not letting prison get the better of him, and bettering the life of other inmates, but this film is about Morgan Freeman's Red and the change he goes through in his mindset, and he puts in a damn fine performance! Honourable mentions to a crazy William Sadler and scumbag warden Bob Gunton.

Uplifting and filled with hope as it may have been, with the reunion at the end sending definite chills, I'm still not 100% sure Andy didn't commit the crime he was in jail for. Knowing this was written and directed by Darabont, and the twisted ending to The Mist I absolutely adored, I really thought Freeman would find a murder weapon or something that incriminated Andy. Alas.

UPDATE:

Had a discussion about this on Reddit, increasing my understanding of why people did like it so much, and someone made the very good point that my proposed ending would have gone against everything the film stood for.

Darabont is an extremely intelligent fellow. He knew much better than to incriminate Andy. That would have worked against everything else in the film. Andy wasn't a great man, but he was honest to his word, that was what Darabont built his entire character around.

Green Lantern. Fuck you, Hollywood. What disgustingly impressive willpower you've used to destroy my favourite superhero.

The first theatrical trailer made me nervous. One TV spot after that completely changed the tone, and there was hope. After the first set of mixed reviews and universally bad consensus, all hope was gone, and I'd been contemplating whether I wanted to put myself through this. The first fifteen to twenty minutes held my attention, and I thought maybe my incredibly low expectations may have saved me. No, no they didn't.

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This just made my Saturday! A wonderful 25 minute video taking us behind the scenes and thoughts of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in a classic episode of At the Movies titled Going to Movies with a Critic.

Both Ebert and Siskel talk about their thoughts before going into a movie, their expectations, their pre-movie rituals, where they sit in the theatre, what they're thinking during a movie itself, and how they analyse and review it afterwards. 

David and Margaret? Puh-lease.

If you're a movie buff, or even mildly curious, you *have* to watch it!

Going to Movies with a Critic

Hanna. Thrillingly shot action and chase sequences, with a perfect accompanying score [of the year for me] from The Chemical Brothers!

Saoirse Ronan turns in another stellar performance, leading the cast in fine style, and putting the action heroes of recent times to shame. Fierce and frightened, coming to grips with the [and her] world at large, Ronan demands your attention, even when the script loses some of its focus and runs astray.  Eric Bana proved solid, Olivia Williams you can never go wrong with, and Cate Blanchett's villainous, caricaturey turn was most entertaining, along with her oddly dressed, whistling minions.

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Boy, have they come a long way. 

Sometimes, you lose track of how ridiculously big the Harry Potter franchise has become, but then you hear it's raked in $95 million in a day, and is set yet again, to break all kinds of box office records, and for once, I'm ok with that, because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was a magical end.

It's been 12 years since the first Potter book graced my hands, and I still remember a car ride to Kiama being all I needed to get through the Philosopher's Stone. I was a voracious reader back then, but by the time I finished the Deathly Hallows, reading had become a rarity for me, and more than anything, I was just glad it was over.

I'd never bothered with the films, but I remember how much I loved the Half-Blood Prince, and with my love of film slowly increasing, I thought it fitting to see it on the big screen, and saw the others in preparation over a few days. The escapism and wondrous nature I got with reading them initially were replaced with feelings of "Why am I bothering with these childish movies?" They did get somewhat better, and I didn't mind the Half-Blood Prince or part 1 of the Deathly Hallows, but they were nothing special.

I loved part 2.

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Requiem for a Dream is my favourite film, and a film that is strangely untarnished in my mind, because I've hardly read anything about it, as much as I love it.

I came across a discussion today on /r/movies, and that comment took a few seconds to process, but yes, now I'm wondering how I did not see that earlier.

Requiem's "villain" is hope, not drugs

Aronofsky's films are all thematically heavy on addiction / obsession [Pi, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan], but where these others are told through one main character, Requiem really brings to the fore the shared mindset of addiction across vastly different circumstances and lives.

It's a bit obvious isn't it? It's called Requiem for a Dream. It's about the collection of souls crushed by a dream, the real cost of having hope. Go through each character and you'll see that each addiction is about hope to either alleviate or escape from a situation. It's not the drug that's the enemy, it's the peoples use of escape.

Yes, it is a bit obvious, and I did see it on some level; I just hadn't seen it crystallised on paper.

Is addiction / obsession always fuelled by hope though? In the case of this film, it feels that way, but of Aronofsky's in general, I'm not so sure.

Either way, another viewing this indeed warrants.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon. EPIC. The biggest blockbuster and the best 3D you'll see; an action packed, technical marvel!

Let me just set some expectations up front, and get the bad over with. No one's winning an Oscar here for acting of the script. Women in Transformers are objects for Bay to impregnate with his camera. For what it's worth, I've seen a lot of hate around Megan Fox 2.0, and I have to say, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was more than bearable; not sure what all the raging is about. Oh, and of course, there's that small matter of how hot she is...

The stupidity, corny lines and moments are still there, but greatly reduced, and rather surprisingly, at the expense of Hollywood actors I'd never expect to see in a Bay film. And there's about 30 [maybe more] minutes from the middle of the film that could've been cut. 

Right, if you're still with me, read on for the good.

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It would be an understatement to say I thoroughly enjoyed this year's Sydney Film Festival. A wonderful selection of films, a real sense of community through the #sydfilmfest Twitter hashtag [I'm still following it on TweetDeck!], and an increased love of film that has got me thinking in a lot of random tangents.

I saw 15, and really, I had a pretty darn good strikerate! I honestly don't know how some nutters out there get through 30+, because I felt like I needed another weekend after weekends were lined with 3 films a day, leaving me emotionally drained and physically tired. For someone requiring constant distraction, it was a fine test of concentration.

For all the filmmaking mastery of Malick's The Tree of Life, the quiet, simple—almost antithesis in some regards—genius of Le Quattro Volte, the perfect drama of A Separation and the psychological powerhouse that was Take Shelter, I found myself unexpectedly, but wholeheartedly gravitating towards the beautifully put together story of Ayrton Senna.

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Senna. Thrilling. Tragic. The most emotionally resounding story of the year.

I tried to recollect what I knew about Ayrton Senna the morning I watched the film, and all that came to mind were two things; he raced in Formula 1, and more faintly than that, he died while racing.

I now know that he was a family man, a man of Brasil, not one bit interested in the politics that ruined racing, unbelievably determined, and most importantly, a man of God. I say most importantly a man of God in a selfish way, as a viewer of this film, because hearing Senna talk repeatedly about what God had given him broke my heart little by little, knowing what would eventually happen. 

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