My 10 Favourite Female Performances of 2011.

Here we go again with a little 'nostalgia' (I guess we can call it that). With this list, I wasn't really aiming for the 'normal Oscar crew' - these are lady performances which I just loved, despite the fact that they didn't get as much love as they should have. And no, you won't be seeing any Meryl Streep here. Without further ado, my favourite women of 2011 who totally rocked on screen...

Honourable mentions: Juliette Binoche - Certified Copy, Lubna Azabal - Incendies, Hayley Atwell - Captain America: The First Avenger, Vanessa Redgrave - Anonymous, Emily Browning - Sleeping Beauty, Vera Farmiga - Higher Ground, Berenice Bejo - The Artist, Emily Watson - Oranges and Sunshine, Elena Anaya - The Skin I Live In, Helen McCrory - Hugo, Mary Page Keller - Beginners, Rachel Weisz - The Whistleblower, Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn, Evan Rachel Wood - The Ides of March, Carey Mulligan - Shame, Jennifer Ehle - Contagion, Leila Hatami - A Separation, Sareh Bayat - A Separation, Shailene Woodley - The Descendants, Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs, Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs, Viola Davis - The Help, Octavia Spencer - The Help, Kristin Scott Thomas - Sarah's Key, Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids, Liana Liberato - Trust, Mia Wasikowska - Jane Eyre, Eva Green - Perfect Sense.

10. Saorise Ronan as Hanna in Hanna.

Maybe this comes out of pure envy. Saoirse Ronan is around the same age as me, and all I can think of when I see her is "how the heck does she do it?" She's such a talented performer, always lighting up the screen in whatever she's in. However, there is something truly terrifying about her performance in Hanna. First of all, she kicks ass. Second of all, she puts on this perfect accent - which is pretty hard for someone like myself to do (any European accent just sounds Indian if I do it). Third of all, she brings this strange fish-out-of-water aspect to it, wandering around her surroundings with such amazement and wonder. You can't help but feel sorry for poor Hanna, but then you remember that if you got on the wrong side of her, you wouldn't come out the other side all that well.
Key scene: "I just missed your heart."

A Film Like a Migraine, But One You Can Appreciate

Film: Tyrannosaur
Year: 2011
Written and directed by: Paddy Considine
Starring: Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan, Paul Popplewell, Ned Dennehy, Samuel Bottomley, Sally Carman, Sian Breckin.
Running time: 92 min.
This film will be released on DVD by Madman Entertainment on June 14th in New Zealand.

Let me be straightforward from the get-go: Tyrannosaur is not a feel good movie. It is not the kind that one can easily crack the faintest of smiles at. I've heard it said many times before that the cheeriest scene in this movie is a funeral scene. Which is absolutely true. This film is exactly like a cracking migraine. It crushes your brain for the entire time, leaving you completely still and transfixed on the screen as if the slightest movement could make the migraine worse. Your eyes are forced to see things they don't want to see, and they want to shift out of focus so that things don't turn out so bad. While the film is heaving this mass amount of pressure onto your head that ensures the most uncomfortable viewing ever, it rips your heart out and holds it in this dark cube, where happiness is about ten planets away. Tyrannosaur may be capable of all of those different, horrible feelings, but I can promise that it is a very good film. It isn't the kind that you can easily sum up as being a "film that I enjoyed". It is a film that I "endured and appreciated".

A Woman in Power, A Film Out of Control

Film: The Iron Lady
Year: 2011
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Written by: Abi Morgan
Starring: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd, Richard E. Grant, Roger Allam, Julian Wadham.
Running time: 105 min.

The Avengers is receiving a lot of buzz lately, but what about all the films that came before it? Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Iron Man 2...I've seen them all. Somehow, after all this time, Meryl Streep's entry into the saga, The Iron Lady totally slipped my attention. After seeing it, I realise how it fit in: it is an interesting prequel to Iron Man, as Meryl Streep plays a woman who could very well be Iron Man's mother. It could also work as a sequel to Captain America, where we find out what really happened to Steve Rogers after he crashed, and his brain was taken over by Alzheimer's which is why he didn't know that he was asleep for so long. And it totally fits in with Thor, because it used as many crooked angle shots as Kenneth Branagh did with his tale of the Norse God. So I'm shocked to see that Meryl isn't on the poster for The Avengers. Oh...wait. She plays a real life person who was the opposite of a superhero. I never would have guessed from the film.