Taking On 2011: Supporting Performances

Now that I have finished up my music and video game coverage over the past couple of weeks, and with Oscar nominations right on the horizon, it seems fitting that I start focusing on the world of 2011 cinema. While I will withhold qualitative judgments until later, there are still plenty of films from last year that I want to see despite already watching a total of 67 2011 releases, as I was compiling these lists I realized that this year was pretty fantastic for actors (both male and female). The journey itself has been long, but that's the trip, baby. We are all along for the ride, and now it's time to start making sense of this crazy, mixed up world.

Before getting to the lists, I want to briefly outline my requirements for eligibility. Basically I needed to personally have some way to access a film in the year 2011 for it to make the list. That means films like Carnage and A Dangerous Method are going to be held off until next year's list. Similarly, because my unabridged list has some films that I included as 2010 movies, but didn't see theatrical distribution or DVD release until early 2011 I am going to include them one final time this year. So even if a performance made my list last year, if the film itself is on my 2011 Master List then it can win again, as the case may be.

And with that, on to the awards!

All The Points Where Contact Fails Us, All Of The Dead Spots In The Zone

Shame (McQueen, 2011)

Addiction is tough. Each day, I would imagine, we confront it in many different ways. This seems, certainly at first, to be at the core of Steve McQueen's Shame, the visual artist turned director's sophomore follow up to the harrowing (it will be fun to see how many times I use this word in the forthcoming paragraphs!) Hunger. Moving from Ireland all the way over to the red blooded American soils of New York City, McQueen crafts a movie that confronts, in an admirably direct fashion, main character Brandon (Michael Fassbender) as he grapples with a crippling sex addiction. What results is a deliberately paced character study that has sent critics all aflutter, and produced some of the year's greatest pull quotes. Take, for example, this gem from Tony Macklin's review of the film:

"Shame is a noxious porridge of porn and pointlessness. It's a penis in search of a plot. Its protagonist is a masturbating cipher."

With a glowing endorsement like that, how can Shame be anything but excellent?

Nobody Gonna Steal My Head Now That I'm On The Road Again

Drive (Winding Refn, 2011)

I love driving. I don't enjoy gas prices or the idea of potentially stepping into a metallic death trap each time I get behind the wheel, but there's an undeniable allure for me of being insulated in a world full of music. A personal retreat for my mind. It is with this attitude that I approached Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn's Cannes award winning art house affair that chronicles an episode in a nameless driver's life. Here's the thing though, I don't really care for cars all that much. So as the film started playing I really was unsure exactly what I was going to be getting from this much buzzed about genre film. And you know what, even though I don't think that I benefited from knowing very little about the specifics of Drive, I would not blame you for waiting to read this - or any other - review of the film before checking it out. If you want to preserve that surprise then know this: Drive is great and you need to see it. And now, let's light this candle.