My 15 Favourite New-To-Me Films of 2012

Sure, there are still four days left in the year and usually I manage to fill these last days up with some great movies, but I might as well list down my 15 favourite new-to-me movies I've seen this year. It was a rather hard task to whittle these down to so few, especially considering there were over 300 movies in contention - meaning that I achieved my New Year's resolution of seeing at least 300 new-to-me movies (how I found the time, I'll never know). So here we have my 15 favourite new-to-me films of the year, and what a good movie watching year I had.

15. The Heiress
Admittedly, this 1949 classic starring Olivia De Havilland and Montgomery Clift was one I watched because I couldn't go and see Jessica Chastain and Dan Stevens in the stage production of it, currently on Broadway. However, this was a more than worthy substitute. Olivia De Havilland gave a firey performance as Catherine Sloper, a woman who is all too vulnerable to everything but eventually comes into her own. A really interesting portrayal of society ideals put to the test in the 1800s.

14. The Red Riding Trilogy
So technically these are three films, but you can't really judge the separate films on their own merits - they must be viewed as a whole. I watched the three British made-for-TV films over one night before I started school again, and I was so impressed with how intricately detailed this was and how everything came together. It was a stunning achievement for a made-for-TV project - in fact, TV just keeps getting stronger and stronger every year.

My Movie Biography: Where It's At Now in 2012

(2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) Well, we're heading into the home stretch now. Tomorrow is the big day. Just to let you know, you will probably have trouble visiting the site for a while. Don't worry, (fingers crossed) everything goes fine and I'll be back up and running this time tomorrow. Hope to see you there!  Anyway, 2012 in my movie biography...

• By some small coincidence, all of the movies I got at one time from Fatso were by Roman Polanski. So I started off the year with Chinatown, Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. That was...fun.
• I saw The Muppets and The Adventures of Tintin on the same day. I felt so awkward being this 16 year old all alone in cinemas filled with children. Funnily enough, I preferred Tintin a lot more, but now The Muppets is pretty much my go-to movie when I want to feel better about life.
• I finally got out of NZ! My father and I went to Melbourne, Australia for a week and that was exciting. I was pretty excited for the plane trip, because Drive was playing on the plane and I hadn't seen it because it was an R18. I did really like it when I saw it, but I completely forgot about the fact that it was censored, so I was left wondering what was so R18 about it. Then I looked it up on the internet and apparently there were 70 swearwords in it, but I hadn't heard any of them. When I got the film on DVD, I finally embraced it and it became my second favourite movie of 2011. While I was in Melbourne I bought a crapload of movies because they had everything that I'd been looking for. And there's like, five JB Hi-Fi's in the city, so I was in heaven. Also heavenly was the Pancake Parlour, but that's another story. I also went to the cinemas a fair bit because I wanted to escape the heat. I only really wanted to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, because I thought it was going to be an R18 in NZ and it was only an MA15+ in Australia. I was so excited to be all rebellious. Then I got back to NZ and I found out that it was only an R16. Which was somewhat disappointing. I also saw The Descendants and Hugo just because I could. I really miss Melbourne. It was such a nice place. One day I hope to go back.
• While I wasn't as excited for the Oscars as much as I was last year (I blame the fact that I hadn't watched many of the movies), I still thought it was a good idea to wake up at 3am and watch the Oscar nominations for fun. It wasn't all that fun until I saw that Rooney Mara got nominated, in which case I let out this weird squeal that woke up everyone in the house. I stayed up until at least 4.30am ranting with people on Facebook about them. Which probably wasn't the best idea, because once the morning hit we were going to Palmerston North to watch War Horse. It didn't affect the experience. I still spent the entire film crying my eyes out. And when I say the "entire film", I mean the entire bloody thing. As soon as I saw that horse I was in tears.

I Am 16, Going on 17...

In a few hours, it’ll be my 17th birthday. To be honest, I don’t see 17 as a very special birthday, apart from the fact that if I lived in America I’d be able to legally watch Shame, when in an actual fact I have to wait another year to see it legally in NZ (ironically, I am getting it for my birthday). Other than that, all I can say about this birthday is that it brings to a close what has probably been the best year of my life thus far. This time last year, I did my 16 Days of Birthday marathon (it was really a year ago?), building up the excitement to the birthday that would let me get R16 movies out myself. The year didn’t disappoint. It has been filled with some great achievements and memories, of which I am proud to have lived through in one way or another. Instead of boring you all with my usual “life is great!” speech that is so blatantly throwing heavy-handed inspiration at people who probably don’t need it, I’m going to share the 16 most memorable things that have happened to me in my 16th year of living. I feel like I should be apologising for yet another personal post, but I’ve built a blog based around my strange personality – another achievement which being 16 has lead me to. So, in no particular order, here’s my year:

-Getting a LAMMY for Best Rating System, along with being Runner Up for Best Blog, and then three other nominations on top of that.

-That Paramount call. Waiting for that call was pretty much the longest week of my life, and I could probably tell you everything I did that week even though it happened nine months ago. Anyway, it was awesome to get praise for a school essay from Hollywood.

-Finally seeing The Dark Knight Rises after four years of waiting, and crying my eyes out like I’ve never cried before.

My 20 Favourite Movies of 2011.

Okay, here we are. 20 may seem like a big number, but it was the only way I could fit in everything that I wanted to fit in. So let's not spend any time waffling - it is time for me to close out 2011 once and for all...

Honourable mentions: Hesher, Moneyball, Like Crazy, The Ides of March, Incendies, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Captain America: The First Avenger, Sarah's Key, The Adventures of Tintin, Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Limitless, Thor, Young Adult, Hugo, Melancholia, Contagion, The Help, Crazy, Stupid, Love., Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Super 8, X-Men: First Class, Source Code, Jane Eyre, Rango, Another Earth, Perfect Sense.

20. The Skin I Live In - Dir. Pedro Almodovar

A little strange? Definitely. The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodovar's latest film, explores themes of loneliness, sexual identity, death, and possibly the most unique tale of revenge that I've ever seen. In other hands, this would have been the stuff that fits right into The Human Centipede's generation of horror. Almodóvar creates his macabre, ominous tale with elegance, kitsch and malevolence. The Skin I Live In is almost in a breed of it's own, playing out as a horror that dares you to get under your skin and make you question your own identity. Which is somewhat funny to see these days when horrors are all about scaring you with more blood and guts than are probably possible to be inside one person.

Addiction Eating Away at Normalcy.

Film: Shame
Year: 2011
Director: Steve McQueen
Written by: Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie, Lucy Walters, Elizabeth Masucci, Amy Hargreaves.
Running time: 102 min. 
WARNING: The film is discussed at length, so there'll probably be spoilers. My suggestion is, if you haven't seen the film, see it, and then come back and gush over it with me.

Ever since October last year, I've been looking forward to seeing Shame. I watched the trailer and I couldn't shake the feeling that it made me want to make a film of my own. For months now, I've been going on about it, talking about what it was rated, how I was pissed that Michael Fassbender didn't get an Oscar nomination even though I hadn't seen it...I've been obsessed with this movie for ages. Because of this obsession, I no longer had expectations. I felt like I had already seen the film. But boy, when I sat down to watch it on Tuesday night, I was taken to places that I hadn't expected to go. I was given this whole new perspective of film that either I'd never bothered to look for, or has been missing from my recent film-watching. It had such an immediate effect on me that I knew would happen, but not as strongly or as powerfully as it did. Shame was responsible for one of those rare occasions where I've been so overpowered by a film that I just sit in my seat, frozen, with my eyes locked on the screen as the credits roll, and then find it necessary to tell everyone in the world that I've just seen a film that changed my life. It may sound hyperbolic - especially coming from a 16 year old girl who is legally deemed two years too young to see this film - but Shame had such an effect on me, which gave me just the wake up call I needed.

10 2011 Films I Want to See in 2012

By now, you've probably seen all of these films. You're probably sitting there, laughing at me for not seeing any of these films yet. But in NZ, it is still 2011, and will stay that way until at least May/June. 2012? What is this year you speak of? You futuristic beings.

This list is in alphabetical order, just because there's no particular order in which I want to see them.

50/50
So, it would be nice if someone gave this a release date here. I know that Australia is getting it next month or so, but I can't see the same happening here. Like Warrior, it will end up going straight-to-DVD, even though it probably deserves a whole lot more. Why do we do this - give lots of crappy movies a proper release and leave the good-looking, critically acclaimed ones to get put straight on the shelf? It sucks. I might just buy this Blu-Ray off Amazon, because I might actually get to finally see Joseph Gordon-Levitt's latest to tide me over until his mammoth 2012 kicks in to gear.

The Artist
This actually came out last week, but there have been a few problems. First of all, it is only showing in nine small cinemas across the entire country. Second of all, the closest place it is playing to me is three hours drive away. I don't know what the heck is going on here, especially as we're pretty good with showing every movie up for an Oscar in every bloody cinema there is. I think the cinemas are a bit cagey because it is silent, but it has been on the news basically every night (with the most terrible puns I've ever heard - "it was a silent film that made the most sound" etc). I hope it does eventually come to cinemas, just so I can justify my love for Jean Dujardin and Uggie.

Carnage
As anyone, I'm a pretty big fan of Roman Polanski. So it will be pretty damn interesting to see him doing a comedy. This is specifically my type of comedy - it is based on a play, so that means for the most part the sets are pretty restricted, letting the dialogue show through. It also has a very simple idea, too, which I like. Plus, the cast is pretty cool, too. Christoph Waltz is always perfect. I thought this film would have got more attention than it did, so I'm not terribly unhappy that it currently has an April release date. However, I would be surprised if it even made it to many cinemas here.

Like Crazy
This came out two weeks back, but like The Artist, it isn't playing anywhere near me. Don't ask me why I want to see this so much, because I honestly don't know. Maybe it's because I want to give Anton Yelchin a cuddle so much (gosh I love the word cuddle). Maybe it's because I LOVE Felicity Jones. Maybe it is because it looks like exactly like my sort of film - romantic, but realistic. It looks like it could rip my heart out. And I like that feeling every now and again (no, I'm not an emo or goth or whatever you call them now).

Martha Marcy May Marlene
I'm SO incredibly pissed that I missed this at NZFF. And even though I haven't seen this, I'm still kinda sad that it didn't get much Oscar love. I would have loved to have seen an up-and-coming actress like Elizabeth Olsen getting an Oscar nomination. But whatevs, Oscar or no Oscar, I still really want to see this film. Just the idea of a cult (and an apparent great use of editing, which I always love - such a nerd) is enough to get me excited. I think this comes out in March, but again, I doubt it will come to any cinemas near me. If it does, my butt is right on that seat!

A Separation
One of my biggest regrets of 2011 was that I didn't go and see this film at the NZFF. I remember that it played directly after Melancholia, and I did ask Mum whether I could see it as well but nothing ever amounted so I let it go. When I got out of Melancholia, the screening was completely sold out. Now, I have to wait until April (hopefully) to see this Iranian film which is apparently quite amazing. Please please please Palmerston North, GET THIS FILM AT YOUR CINEMAS!

Shame
Okay, so here's one I won't be seeing in cinemas, unless I sneak in as I threatened to do when I go to the capital on a school trip next week. People always look at me strangely when I say I want to see this movie, and then I have to explain that it is about a sex addict and it stars my fifth husband and blah blah blah. But trust me, my reasoning for wanting to attempt sneaking in is because this actually looks like the type of film I'd like to make. I like the idea of harrowing addict dramas. And I know I shouldn't judge a movie by it's trailer, but that trailer makes me want to make a movie so much. Then there's the whole Michael Fassbender and his...golf stick.

The Skin I Live In
If I were to judge my anticipation just by watching the trailer, I would not want to see this film. The trailer is so odd, with the feel good, slightly porn-ish sounding music playing in the background when I'm sure this is supposed to be a serious movie. But I've read plenty of good things about this film, and I always like to see something a little out of the ordinary. And I'm glad that Antonio Banderas has decided to do something a little different to voicing an extremely seedy cat. I knew I should have hunted down one of the smaller cinemas in Melbourne (but it was hard enough trying to find the two huge ones that I did...THAT PLACE IS SO BIG) so I could see this, but I'm waiting for an April cinema release.

Take Shelter
Here's another movie that I should have seen at NZFF, but I actually couldn't. Why? Because it was playing on my birthday. And despite the fact that all I wanted for my birthday was a few tickets to the film fest, I didn't get to go over to see it. Which was fair enough, because it was playing pretty late and I had school the next day. But it is okay, as it is coming out on DVD next month. I placed many warnings in my emails to my Dad on the order, threatening all sorts of things. I sincerely hope he did end up getting it (because he only said "I think I did"), because I need another Jessica Chastain movie like I need to breathe air. Seriously.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
I shouldn't complain too much about this one, since it is my own fault that I haven't seen it yet. It came out in cinemas a month ago, but I still haven't seen it, because I haven't had a chance to go over to Palmerston North to see it. I can't really be bothered begging and pleading to have someone drive me over, but my parents just seem to go over whenever I can't go (which sucks). Oh well, I should keep trying to learn how to drive, even though my Mum's car hates me. Otherwise, it'll be a DVD watch for me, which is more than okay: I can try my best to wait for a cast like Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch, directed by the excellent Tomas Alfredson. If I can live without gluten, I can do this too.

What do you think of all of these films? What are some 2011 films that you still need to see?

The Short Life of an Oscar Hit

When Steven Spielberg got up to present Best Picture at last year's Oscars, he said this: "In a moment, one of these ten movies will join a list that includes On the Waterfront, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather and The Deer Hunter. The other nine will join a list that includes The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate and Raging Bull!" Among the films that joined the latter list were Inception, The Social Network, and Black Swan. The film that joined the former list was The King's Speech. Anyone remember that film? Does anyone still talk about it today in a conversation about something other than why it shouldn't have won? Has it left a mark on cinematic history? Does it deserve to be in a list that includes The Godfather? If you'd have asked the latter two questions this time last year, lots of people would have said yes. Now, reflecting on last year's Oscar season, most people would have given the award to anything but The King's Speech.

Here's the thing with awards season: everyone gets quite obsessed with a set of movies, and they're all that matters for a long time. The producers and advertising team manipulate you into thinking these are the best movies ever by drowning their TV spots in "WINNER OF..." "★★★★★!" "UP FOR X OSCARS!" They'll play the most epic orchestral music they can find, show you plenty of tears and hugs and sentiment. The posters won't be advertising the movie...they'll be advertising all the awards it has and the awards it is hoping to get. I am one of those people who does get easily manipulated by awards season advertising...I admit, I was taken in by the TV spots of The King's Speech with Colin Firth announcing "because I have a voice!", going as far to Facebook the quote and say that it was a magical movie. I loved seeing the triumphant looking advertisements for The Fighter and probably got more inspiration from them than I did from the actual movie. 127 Hours had me crying at the very mention of it's name amongst all of the Oscar buzz - not because it was bad, but it was exactly the type of human hardship movie that Oscar likes so much and that was manipulative. I spent around two months of last year talking non-stop about these movies. Now, they'd be lucky to get into the conversation.

It isn't because they're bad movies, because, in fact, I liked all of the ten nominees, and held at least five of them in particular high esteem, but there isn't really any burning need for me to keep talking about them now. Basically, my relationship with these movies ended long ago. With the exception of Winter's Bone (I do own it - I actually own all of the nominees - but just haven't got around to watching it again), I've seen each of last year's nominees at least twice. I watched them when they first came out, and then again when they came out on DVD. After their DVD release though, I haven't watched most of them again. In fact, the only ones that I've watched since then are Inception, Black Swan and The Social Network, three films which I loved to death and had their fair share of Oscar success, but didn't get the big prize. These are three films which I feel have lived out past the awards season and people still talk about them a bit today - and why is that? Inception for the multiple questions surrounding the plot and the big debate over the end, Black Swan for it's stirring look at how someone can transform and Darren Aronofsky's freaking awesome direction, and The Social Network for being one of the best modern movies ever, taking a look at the phenomenon that is Facebook. But what is The King's Speech? It tells a nice enough story about a King with a stutter who eventually overcame his fear, featuring splendid performances from Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush. Problem is, while I don't have much of a problem with the odd period biopic, they don't challenge cinema in any way. They're doing what has been done for ages, and yet they still get accolades. But once those accolades are over, people are unlikely to remember them, because they were too safe.

Let's take 2011, for example. With the Oscar nominations just around the corner, there'll be a lot of deserving movies that will be missing out. As I said in my review of The Descendants, it is a film that will be popular during awards season but people will forget about it just like that. I imagine that would be the same case for films like Moneyball or War Horse. However, Hollywood is showing a bit of a change - they're not so keen to support period biopics like The Iron Lady, J. Edgar or My Week with Marilyn unless it is for the performances at the front. There are a few odd films making their way into Oscar contention, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (even though Fincher and Co. are trying everything they can to stop it from happening), shockingly an R-rated comedy, Bridesmaids, is making some waves and silent film The Artist is the front-runner to win Best Picture. I have to wonder whether this film might become another The King's Speech, even though it is silent and in black and white which provides a bit of difference, but other than that, is it really that special? Who knows?

2011 has been an odd year in cinema, which is most likely what it will be remembered for - and it would be nice if the Oscar nominations could reflect that as they become the first segment of cinematic history that people will look at in the future. Yet, I can't see the Academy showering love upon Terrence Malick's beautiful, polarizing The Tree of Life. Or what about Steve McQueen's NC-17 look at sex addiction in Shame? Or maybe the 'film event of a generation', the wonderful Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2? The wonderful Nikhat mentioned that 2011 was a nostalgia-filled year, with films like Midnight in Paris, Drive, Super 8 and Hugo...these are films that should stand the test of time because they realise times from the past and teach us modern people about them and what we can learn from them. I know it is impossible to accurately predict the future, but the Oscars shouldn't keep rewarding the best movies of the past two months and start thinking about the movies that will factor in as some of the best movies of all time.

I've always wondered how something like An American in Paris won Best Picture over A Streetcar Named Desire. Or Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or Forrest Gump (a good movie) over the better The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction. Slumdog Millionaire over an un-nominated The Dark Knight. The King's Speech over The Social Network. And definitely Crash over Brokeback Mountain. I wonder which one of those films is remembered the most now.

The Oscars are an interesting thing - they get easily obsessed with one film, whether it be through the manipulative marketing or by the actual film. Then we all wonder how they could be so blind as to not nominate some great films. Of course, the Oscars aren't everything, but to relatively young newcomers to film-loving such as myself, they are the first records of what was good in year X that I'd go to. So I wonder what 2011 films will make it through the Oscars and into a long, prosperous life?

What do you think? Do you think Oscar hits are destined for a long life of being loved by the masses or do they end their lives quickly? Discuss.

AAN: The BAFTA nominations w/ Fassy, Loki and Owen

I was going to do a Golden Globes recap, but it didn't make much sense since I never saw the show and every man and his dog has blogged about it. All I have to say is this: if The Descendants wins Best Picture or Best Actor, I'll be fuming. I'm one of the few who wasn't terribly impressed by it or by the Cloon's performance. There, I'm unpopular.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the BAFTAs and how they'll affect the Oscar race, along with Fassy, Loki and Owen in some of the categories (not all, because there are a lot).

Best Film

The Artist / The Descendants / Drive / The Help / Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

YAY for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy! I haven't seen the film, but I am glad that it is finally getting some love. I thought it would be a huge player in the awards race, but it has been virtually non-existent. Such a shame, as it looks so great. And yay for Drive. I will be reviewing that film later tonight, and it was really good. I'm a bit surprised by The Help's nomination, since there are some far better films than that out there, but I'm happy for the inclusion. The Artist and The Descendants are pretty much locks for Best Picture, and The Artist will definitely win. As for The Descendants, meh. This is a brilliant line-up, so I'll give it the Happy Fassy.

Best Director

Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist / Nicolas Winding Refn - Drive / Martin Scorsese - Hugo / Tomas Alfredson - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy / Lynne Ramsay - We Need to Talk About Kevin

What I love about this category is the fact that these directors are nominated because they created wonderful, visual, atmospheric films, unlike the directors who are just nominated because their films are in the best picture category (you know, like Alexander Payne for The Descendants or Steven Spielberg for War Horse). I've only seen Drive and Hugo, but those two are some of the most well-directed films I've seen from 2011, Drive for the style and Hugo for the pretty visuals. Hazanavicius is nominated because he dared to make a silent film, and Alfredson and Ramsay are probably nominated for the atmosphere they create in their films. These nominations are what the directors category should aspire to be, not the ones where directors become a default nomination just because their film is nominated for Best Picture.

Leading Actor

Brad Pitt - Moneyball / Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy / George Clooney - The Descendants / Jean Dujardin - The Artist / Michael Fassbender - Shame

Even though it doesn't have Leonardo DiCaprio, this is one bloody good line-up. Sure, I'm pretty meh about George Clooney (I mean, he was quite good, but I don't think he quite deserves to be winning all of these awards), but he is lock whether I like it or not. What I'm most glad to see, though, is Gary Oldman getting some love, finally, as I thought that this would be his year. How does he keep missing out?! I have a feeling that Michael Fassbender has a huge chance here, considering the Brits will be more likely to shower love upon Shame than anyone else. But this should be Pitt's year, though that is looking more and more unlikely. Dujardin could be the upset, though. I love this category!

Leading Actress

Berenice Bejo - The Artist / Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady / Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn / Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin / Viola Davis - The Help

Interesting to see that Bejo, a Supporting Actress regular, is in this category. The BAFTAs like to do this a lot, though. This is pretty much our average category, with Streep likely to take the award home. I'm a bit sad that Rooney Mara is getting forgotten a lot for her excellent performance in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but there seems to be a slight aversion to young, up-and-coming actresses like her, Felicity Jones or Elizabeth Olsen. I'm pretty 'meh' about this category overall, probably because I have only seen The Help. I could go and see The Iron Lady, but I'm not going to pay to see Meryl Streep be great but everything else not living up to her.

Rest of the nominees after the jump...

Stevee's Best and Worst Posters of 2011...

Well, it's December (how, I do not know), so it's the time of the year when everyone rolls out their 'best of' lists for the year. While I might make a top ten films list (though it would be better if I did one at the end of next year), I'm going to look at all of the promotional stuff that I can see with the click of the fingers. Now, I'm quite the expert on movie posters, so I'll take a look at the five worst and ten best posters of 2011 films.

Here are the top five worst posters from 2011:

5. Main St - I already talked enough about this poster in this post. I still haven't seen this movie (I kinda plan to, just to see what went wrong), but here's some wishful thinking: it might be better than whoever photoshopped this hideous Coronation Street-esque poster.

4. The Darkest Hour - Sure, this isn't a horribly bad poster compared to some other ones. When it was one of the featured trailers on my IMDB app, the poster was so bad that I stopped using the app for a while until they changed it. Working at a DVD store, I see a whole lot of Z-grade straight-to-DVD disaster films, and this one - which is actually going to cinemas - looks exactly like one of those. I mean, just look at the lame lightning ripping through the city. And the awful colouring of the tagline. And that tagline being bigger than the title. It just makes it look really awful.

3. X-Men: First Class - The large majority of the X-Men: First Class posters were the victims of someone who got a bit too excited about photoshop. This one, showing all of the characters from the movie (and there are quite a few, hence the troubling one-dimensionality of some of them), is quite the eyesore. It all starts with the blueness, and then you wonder why half of these people are walking and the other half are just standing there looking menacing. James McAvoy probably came out worse off...I mean, look at how disproportionate his body is. Michael Fassbender looks like he is in pants that are miles too big to him and his turtleneck has made his neck disappear. And if you look really hard, you can see Lucas Till in the distance, all faded away. It's just such a silly poster.

2. I Don't Know How She Does It - Apart from having one of the most annoying titles of the year, this movie has an annoying poster to match. First of all, there is the colour. It makes me think of puke. Then there is Sarah Jessica Parker, who looks slightly uncomfortable and has a bizarre looking smile on her face. She's holding a teddy with her bag, just to show that no-one knows how she does it. On the right side of her she is a whole lot of things that she needs to do. I'm so glad that she has to make cookies. I don't know how she does that.

1. New Year's Eve - I don't know where to begin with this poster. It is just bloody awful. Just the way everyone looks. Some people look like they've been cut out of a tabloid magazine (ahem, Ashton Kutcher), some have been cut directly out of the official film stills, others just look purely idiotic. I'm talking about you,
Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges. I'm sorry, but you look like you're a prisoner applying to be Santa Claus, your smile is that un-genuine. There's just way too much gold. We get it, New Year's Eve is gold, but that doesn't mean it's the annual lottery holiday.

Best posters after the jump...

Let's Talk About Film Censorship Ratings...

The big news this week was that Steve McQueen's sophomore effort Shame got given the dreaded NC-17 rating by the MPAA. Now, this isn't something that came as a huge surprise, as most of the people who saw the film at various film festival's said that it's explicit content would get it the NC-17. It's all because this movie deals with sex addiction, which of course leads to a whole lot of sexually explicit material which then results in the NC-17 rating because, you know, kids can't watch that kind of stuff. Unlike many of the films before it, Shame will not be put up for appeal for an R rating. Instead, it's going to wear it's NC-17 rating loud and proud, and hopefully it will change a few people's attitude towards the NC-17 rating. Because, if the critical acclaim, trailer and cast are anything to go by, this film will be amazing.

Why is being an NC-17 such a bad thing?

Okay, so coming from New Zealand, which probably has the most complicated rating system like, ever, I can't help but feel that the MPAA rating system is a pile of crap. Well, to be honest, my life would be a whole lot easier if we had the 'R' rating here, because then I could drag my mother out to see films like Drive which is an R18 here. But this NC-17 business? It is seriously the largest pile of crap I have ever heard in my life. So, what I gather from this whole Shame situation and everyone trying to cut their films down to get an R rating, is that being an NC-17 is totally bad territory.

Here's what I don't understand: why is being an NC-17 such a bad thing? Here in New Zealand, we have R18's. Technically, this is a far worse rating than an NC-17. Yet, we just go about our day. Sure, there are very few R18's that make it to the cinema, but in the past couple of years, there have been some pretty successful ones in cinemas like: Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Kick-Ass, Machete, Piranha...the R18 is just a sticker here, to be honest. Also, some of the movies that are widely regarded as classics are R18's, like: Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs, American Psycho, Trainspotting, Taxi Driver, Requiem for a Dream and The Usual Suspects.

The R18 effect.

If you took a walk down the average DVD store's new release wall, you'd find that the large majority of the R18's are films that missed the cinema and went straight-to-DVD. Usually that's because they're sucky B-grade horrors that only have their target audience with fourteen year-old girls and boys who think they're as tough as nails and enjoy watching people suffer. But while the R18 doesn't necessarily do that much here outside of the cinemas, it does have this strange power which makes the younger crowd more interested in it.

Psychosis, one of those straight-to-DVD horrors

And here is where we have our problem. I see this happen all of the time. Let's say, a group of fourteen year -olds come into Blockbuster because they are having a movie night, and their mother or father has to stand by the counter awkwardly, where their children hand over a pile of DVDs so they can pay for them. More often than not, the pile is filled up with R18 horrors or action films, because these days teenagers are instantly drawn to incessant gore and violence to fill up their movies. The fact that their choices are R18's only makes them better because a) they feel so high and mighty when they're watching an R18 because it is against the law which of course makes them bad-ass, and b) if it's an R18, that means it probably has a lot more gore and violence in it than an R16 which will obviously make it better. That's just the way things are. It's never going to change. You slap an R18 sticker on a movie at the cinemas and the kids are just going to illegally download it. Just look at Kick-Ass, which was one of the most downloaded movies of 2010.

The Shame in having a whole lot of sex scenes.

Fact of the matter is: teenagers will only watch R18's if they are horrors or actions. Teenagers are all about the violence. And now I'm going to be perfectly blunt: if an R18 had sex scenes in it, there is only about a 10% chance that a teenager would get it out because firstly, they wouldn't want to watch it with a whole group of people and secondly, they'd have to get their parents to get it for them and that could cause a particularly awkward moment. Teenagers only want to watch sex scenes by themselves. And you know where they can do that? On the internet. Where it's free. So to be perfectly honest, what teenager is going to want to watch Shame? Apart from me, of course, the one who has it on her most-anticipated list simply because Michael Fassbender looks amazing in it. To be perfectly honest, no teenager is going to want to watch - or own up to watching - Shame just because it is an R18. No teenager is going to want to see Shame just because it has Magneto from X-Men: First Class in it. I bet you, by the time it comes out, everyone will know it as the 'sex addict' movie, and other teenagers will think you're weird if you have seen it and liked it. The exact same thing happened with Black Swan, which teens were quick to label as the 'weird lesbian movie', and the very few of us who actually liked it were attacked by the Facebook statuses of those who didn't. So yeah, there won't be a big teenage fan base for Shame, so I don't know why the MPAA is getting their knickers in a twist about.

What really gets me, though, is that sex is deemed worse than violence in film. It was the same back in the strict 'Hays Code' days, when the code was more lenient towards violence then it was to sex and offensive language. Nowadays, in your average M-rated film (probably PG-13 in the US), you could see a few people getting killed. On television shows like CSI or Criminal Minds, which are on at times when little kids could still be up, you can see people meeting their grisly demise. Hell, The Dark Knight escaped with an M rating and I know quite a few people around my age who were terrified by the violence in that movie. There are very few M rated films which has sex scenes in them, in fact, the only ones I can remember are Never Let Me Go, The Constant Gardner and Brokeback Mountain. But once we get up into the R/NC-17 territory, sex really is bad. I mean, come on...how can something as sick and vile as The Human Centipede: The First Sequence pass with an R rating (it's obviously an R18 here, and all the teenagers watch it like there's no tomorrow), but Shame gets an NC-17. Let's look at it this way: whether we like it or not, people have sex. That's how you, the person who is reading this, came to be on this Earth. People do not make centipedes out of humans for fun. Yet, there's still heavy censorship on something that humans do actually do but something about stuff that humans shouldn't do escapes with a lighter rating. This is the moment when I yell: "WTF?!"

But if people were inspired by The Human Centipede, then Tom Six thought ahead and incorporated that idea into his sequel. Along with having a guy do a whole lot of obscene sexual things towards his centipede. And that got banned in the UK along with going 'Unrated' in the US. At least there is some justice left in the world.

Is the NC-17 rating going to hurt Shame?

My uneducated answer to this is no. Of course, I have not seen this film, and probably won't get to see it until at least half way through next year when it comes out on DVD. Even without seeing the film, I could tell you that Michael Fassbender's performance is probably one of the best that this year has to offer. If the Academy decide to turn his performance down because of the fact that this film is an NC-17 then a lot of people aren't going to be happy. And really, what's an NC-17 to them? They're all over 17, so they can get the fuck over themselves. The biggest thing that Shame has going for it is the fact that it was so well-received at the various film festivals it played at and it already has a wide enough fan-base, which is no doubt due to the fact that everyone likes Steve McQueen, Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. People are excited by how upfront this movie is. If any of the awards circles reject Shame because of it's rating then that is the biggest douchebaggery that I will ever witness.

In conclusion...

I think that Shame will change the face of the NC-17 forever. If it gets some nominations come awards time, then we'll be able to say that an NC-17 finally got some proper awards attention. There's just something so different about the Shame case which is different to, I don't know, something like Showgirls or what ever other NC-17's you can think of.

There's something that we all really have to face: films are more violent, more sexual, more profane than the censorship system ever wants them to be. Films like The Human Centipede or the entire Saw franchise abuse this fact, but films like Shame use it to actually tell a proper story. That may sound like a sentence straight out of the 'How to be a Pretentious Douchebag who Also Loves Films' manual, but it is true.

So my message to everyone is embrace the NC-17. If cinemas refuse to show the films, then stuff 'em. We in New Zealand will still show R18's and we seem to be getting along fine. An R18 is worse than an NC-17 and yet we don't run around like the world has ended.

And there is my $0.01. Where's yours?