Blasts From The Past...11 of '11 of A/V

A selection of 11 Best Films and Soundtracks from last year. 

FILMS

#1 Drive (Dir: Nicholas Winding Refn): A Getaway driver lands in a sticky situation despite good intentions. A Stunning film of multiple genres, all mashed into one dreamy, gritty, and simply amazing piece of cinema.  5/5

#2 The Tree Of Life (Dir: Terrence Malick): A boy's struggle to choose his path of life, the way of nature and the way of grace. Much like any Malick's films, the visuals should not be doubted. And like any Malick's films, the simple story is transformed into a profound piece in a typical Malickian fashion. 5/5

#3 Midnight In Paris (Dir: Woody Allen):  A writer finding solutions to his life problems through time traveling and the beauty of Paris. A very brilliantly written film, and gorgeous to boot, not to mention quite full of trivias. 5/5

#4 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Dir: Tomas Alfredson): Adaptation of the bestselling John Le Carre's Novel of the same time. A Retired British spy had to come out of retirement to expose a Russian Mole in the British Intelligence, set during the cold war. Unlike the super spy James Bond, there is no sleek cars and women in the job, just a lot of mind work, and table discussions, with a very cold looking cinematography and 70's aesthetics, and a very badass Gary Oldman in glasses. 5/5

#5 Melancholia (Dir: Lars Von Trier): The end of the world, when a super planet is on its way to collied with Earth. A very beautiful piece about depression, with a super nihilistic view on life. 5/5

#6 The Artist (Dir: Michel Hazanavicius): A silent movie star fall, the rise of talkies, a love story between the old and the new. The plot is very similar to that excellent musical film starring Gene Kelly, Singin' In The Rain. But, here we have a very idealistic George Valentin, with a very high pride and ego who refuses to talk in front of cameras due to fear of humiliation and Peppy Miller, a rising talkie movie star whose career was launched by Valentin and ironically destroyed Valentin himself, but kept on loving him silently. The first black and white silent film to hit cinemas in a long, long, long time. 4.5/5

#7 Hugo (Dir: Martin Scorsese): The first children and 3D film from Martin Scorsese about an orphan and (certainly would be) movie buff, Hugo Cabret who lives secretly in the station while attempting to fix a broken automaton, a journey that would lead him to Filmmaker Georges Melies and a sequence out of film studies 101. A sumptuous feast that would satisfy film enthusiasts, and filled with much obvious love with cinema. 4.5/5

#8 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Dir: David Fincher): Probably one of the most badass films to hit cinemas in 2011. It is an adaptation of Swedish author Stieg Laersson's novel of the same name which was adapted into film in Sweden in 2009, giving us Noomi Rapace as The Girl.  Rooney Mara, the pretty girl who kicked of Fincher's The Social Network in 2010 is the girl in this one, and she is much more fragile, and well..human. Despite its close runtime to the 2009 film, this film is the film the book deserved, it captured the book's spirit much better. 4.5/5

#9 Shame (Dir: Steve Mcqueen): A film nearly as depressing as Melancholia only less pretty and more gritty. Michael Fassbender, shows us what an excellent actor he is and what he's capable of. Playing Brandon, an emotionally detached man with sexual addiction and a perfectly organised life whose world is brought down by the return of his sister, who reminded him that he is human after all. 4.5/5

#10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Dir: David Yates): the final film of the Harry Potter Saga an epic fantasy film that worked nicely in contrast with Part 1 ultra grittiness and also the most straight to business Potter film. 4.5/5

#11 Super 8 (Dir: J.J Abrams): Yet, another love letter to the cinema. 2011 was so filled with films about films, and one couldn't help but to smile. After The Artist and Hugo tribute to the classics. J.J Abrams paid tribute to the modern classics, the Steven Spielberg's science fiction films. Unfortunately the alien bit didn't work out quite as well as Spielberg's, but the bits with the children trying to make a film were just pure joy to watch. 4/5


SOUNDTRACKS

#1 The Artist (Ludovic Bource): All silent film scores were incredibly essential, not to mention very lush and grand. Bource's composition did not necessarily resemble those silent film scores exactly, but it is very much a golden age Hollywood film score at its best well worth the Oscar win.
5/5

#2 The Adventures Of Tintin (John Williams): John Williams return, and what an exciting music he brought to Tintin. It has all the things you love in a John Williams adventure score, epic, robust, energetic, but not the lush sentimentalism for that you need to listen to.....
5/5

#3 War Horse (John Williams): Another Williams's score, another Spielberg film. Set in 1912-14 England, Williams played a bit with the 'English sound' and much like any other period epics, the score is lush, romantic, and highly sentimentalist in a Spielberg-Williams fashion, after the exciting Tintin, this is just too much to believe.
5/5

#4 Captain America: The First Avenger (Alan Silvestri): Not only is 2011's the year John Williams returns, it is also the year Alan Silvestri returns to form and gives Marvel Studios their best score yet (along with Patrick Doyle for Thor). The star spangled man music is just good old fashioned Hollywood film scores that are hard to find in today's film scores. And the main theme? Sounds like its set to join John Williams Raiders March, Superman March, Star Wars March and Danny Elfman's Batman Theme.
5/5

#5 Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Alexandre Desplat):  Being a major fan of Desplat's work, having him composed the finale to the Harry Potter saga was such a delight too good to be true, this score and Part 1's score were beautiful piece of music that brought Potter back to the level of the first three and fourth cinematic scores. What John Williams started, Desplat finished beautifully.
5/5

#6 THOR (Patrick Doyle): Another too good to be true, but totally expected case since Director Kenneth Branagh is a frequent collaborator of Doyle. Surprisingly Doyle decided to tone back his usual style and adds in the typical modern film scoring method made popular by Hans Zimmer and his Remote Control Productions. The result is still a far better score than any RCP composers best work (with exception perhaps John Powell and occasionally Zimmer), and much like Captain America, this is one of the better scores in Marvel Studios films.
4.5/5

#7 SUPER 8 (Michael Giachinno): Giachinno decided to stay true to his style rather than try to imitate John Williams. The result is a score that sounds pretty much similar to Lost, but also has a hint of John Williams. The main theme for the boy is touching, and the secondary theme for the girl could've been better used, but all in all, a really good warm score that today's films definitely should use more of.
4./5

#8 My Week With Marilyn (Conrad Pope/Alexandre Desplat): One of the few films where Orchestrator Conrad Pope scored an entire film without being shadowed by John Williams or Alexandre Desplat. Originally meant to be yet another Desplat Project, Desplat surprisingly recommended Pope to take this score on, but he did write the film's main theme, which is truly beautiful add in Lang Lang's piano and ah, just beautiful. Having worked behind John Williams for many years, it is no surprise that Pope's music sound pleasingly Williams like, definitely want to hear more from Pope in coming years.
4/5

#9 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias): The film is a very tense affair, and the score has to compliment the tension. This score more than done its job, it started out brilliant with a noir-ish theme for George Smiley, but after that becomes more generic and the noir sound abandoned. However there are several moments where the music displays a very Desplat mannerism which brings to mind the question what would Desplat have produced?
4/5

#10 Hugo (Howard Shore): Scoring Scorsese's love letter to the cinema, is composer Howard Shore of Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and Scorsese's Gangs Of New York, The Aviator, and The Departed. Being a children film, one expects to hear lots of warm melodic themes ala John Williams, but sadly that is not the case, and the score is a disappointment in that regard. However what we get is a nice quirky sound and yes, there is a warm melodic theme just not as much as one hoped. The French sound of the score is also quite nice.
4/5

#11 Drive (Cliff Martinez/Various): More like droning ambient noises ala Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross' effort in The Social Network and The Girl With The Dragon Tatttoo. However it would be a crime not to mention this soundtrack, especially because the first four tracks which contain the uber cool songs which worked perfectly in the film.
3/5