My 10 Favourite Directors of 2011.

2011, you say? That thing that happened over seven months ago? Sorry, guys in the future, but my mind has just clicked out of 2011 mode. I've seen all of the '2011' films that I'd wanted to see (apart from Carnage, which doesn't hit for another month, unfortunately), so I figured it was time to give my full, official 2011 retrospective. Why didn't I just do that at the start of the year and leave all of the 2011 films released in 2012 to be 2012 films? Because that's dumb. I didn't really want to be talking about films like War Horse, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Artist etc etc etc when it came time to make my 2012 list. And it's better late than never, am I right?

Tonight, I'll be looking at my favourite directors of the year. Tomorrow will be reserved for actresses, Saturday for actors, and Sunday for my favourite films of 2011. So set those clocks back and bear with me: I know I'm behind, but you try live in New Zealand!

Honourable mentions for my favourite directors of the year: Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist, Pedro Almodovar - The Skin I Live In, Martin Scorsese - Hugo, Jeff Nichols - Take Shelter, Sean Durkin - Martha Marcy May Marlene, George Clooney - The Ides of March, Bennett Miller - Moneyball, Mike Mills - Beginners, Cary Joji Fukunaga - Jane Eyre, Asghar Farhadi - A Separation, Neil Burger - Limitless.

10. Brad Bird - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

This may strike some as an odd choice for a list that is filled with a whole lot of independent/arthouse films, but hear me out. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was definitely one of the best blockbusters to come out last year (and to think I nearly missed out on it because I couldn't be bothered watching the first three...and I didn't even need to), mainly because it has some kick-ass action set-pieces. I mean, come on, that scene way up on the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai? That had me scared like I've never been scared before. There's also an extremely well choreographed scene which involves a lot of cars. And not to mention, an action sequence taking place during a sandstorm. It is a heavy load to carry in order to ensure that these insane sequences look slick, but Brad Bird - in his live-action directorial debut - manages to take it all in his stride and make a rousing blockbuster.
Key scene: The Burj Khalifa Tower scene was definitely one of the most memorable of the year, but the scene involving all of the cars was pretty darn well choreographed.

Nothing is What it Seems.

Film: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Year: 2011
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Written by: Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on the book 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' by John le Carré.
Starring: Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, David Dencik, Simon McBurney.
Running time: 127 min.

In my English class at the moment we're doing a film study on The Shawshank Redemption. As much as I love the movie, the analysing of all the shots, lighting, sound blah blah blah is driving me nuts (it is interesting, but seeing the opening scene seven times is not my idea of fun). As I sat down to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy around three hours after I left my English class, I still had the whispers about camera techniques and the like bouncing around my head. And while I was watching Tomas Alfredson's first English film, I couldn't help but notice that he turned everything that I had been told in my English class upside down. The thing with The Shawshank Redemption is that the symbolism is always right in your face, directing everyone's line of thought in the exact same direction. Tinker Tailor is nothing like that. This is the spy world, remember, so nothing is ever what it seems. Tomas Alfredson realises that, and makes it in the most subtle - yet detailed - way that he possibly could. This is a film that would be hard to teach at schools.

DVD--The Girl Who Played with Fire

or: New director, way different sequel.

One word to sum it up: Inferior.

I, amazingly, really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for the utterly fearless and brutal film that it was. Even though I don't really get the whole craze over the books by Stieg Larsson (they're average, but not as great as everyone makes them out to be). However, with my enduring excitement to watch The Girl Who Played with Fire, I came out quite disappointed. Mainly because the slight soft-porn theme this movie took on and the detached direction from Tomas Alfredson, who doesn't have a patch on Niels Arden Oplev.

After spending a year abroad, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns to Sweden. She calls on her court-appointed guardian to remind him, in her own way, of his promise to submit satisfactory reports on her behavior. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) continues as an editor of Millenium magazine and they are onto a major story about prostitution and trafficking in women from Eastern Europe. When the investigative journalist working on that story is killed, the police announce that Lisbeth is their prime suspect. Lisbeth and Mikael work independently trying to find who is behind the murders. They not only learn the identity of the culprits but also some of Lisbeth's family secrets.

The biggest thing that this series has going for it is it's heroine, Lisbeth Salander. Most heroines we see these days are beautiful and sexy, go around shooting evil and never really have a back story. Lisbeth, on the other hand, is tomboyish and likes goth makeup and clothing; instead of shooting evil, she makes sure they suffer as much as she has; and the more we go into the series, we learn about Lisbeth's painful past and what she has done for female liberation. Therefore, Lisbeth is not only a very interesting watch, she is also iconic and stands for a reason. The perfect thing about Lisbeth is that she was brought to life by the amazing Noomi Rapace. My message to Rooney Mara: you have shoes three times the size of Bigfoot's feet to fill.

Not only does Noomi Rapace continue to give good performances in the series, she also has great chemistry with Michael Nyqvist, who plays Mikael Blomkvist. This, unfortunately, is part of the undoing of The Girl Who Played with Fire, as they spend most of the movie apart. Though learning of Lisbeth's background does make up for that, the sex-trafficking story seems so distant from the rest of it that I couldn't help but feel a little bored. It's not just the deficiencies in the story which keep this movie from being as good as the first. It's the strange direction from Tomas Alfredson, which at points felt either very doco-style or very home video style. He fails to pack to punch that the first one had, and I don't know if that's whether the material was just better, or if it's because of the big change. Despite all this, Rapace and Nyqvist keep things going, in a sequel which can't live up to the first one, but still proves worthy.


THE VERDICT: The Girl Who Played with Fire is a fine installment to the Millenium series, but the new director and slightly mediocre material.

6/10