Frozen River Film Festival

For those of you in the Winona area, the Frozen River Film Festival is now underway. You can find the schedule of screenings here. There were some last minutes changes to the schedule so you may want to consult the website before heading out to the events.

Best and Worst Films of 2011

On today's episode of Sounds of Cinema I counted down my picks of the best and worst films of the past year:

Best:

1. Margin Call


2. Shame


3. The Artist


4. Melancholia


5. Hanna


6. A Better Life


7. Page One: Inside the New York Times


8. 50/50


9. Hugo


10. Warrior



Worst:

1. Jack and Jill
2. Your Highness
3. The Hangover Part II
4. Priest
5. Sleeping Beauty
6. Bad Teacher
7. Road to Nowhere
8. Mr. Popper's Penguins
9. 30 Minutes or Less
10. Sucker Punch

You can find more information, including rationales for each film and lists of honorable mentions and cinematic trends of 2011, here.

And lastly, here is a clip from Hardball with Chris Matthews in which the host interviews Margin Call director J.C. Chandor and actor Kevin Spacey about their film.

2011 Year End Wrap Up Episode

The Sounds of Cinema episode for January 22 will review the year 2011 and I'll unveil my picks of the ten best and worst films of the past year. Be sure to tune in to see if your favorite films made the cut.

January Updates

Happy (belated) New Year.

Any of you who check out this blog on a regular basis have probably noticed the lack of posting in it throughout the last quarter of 2011. My apologies for that. Circumstances beyond my control made it difficult, if not impossible, to make meaningful contributions to either of my blogs, but I'm resolved to return to regular postings in 2012.

Another year has come to a close, and that means I am at work on a special episode reflecting on the films released in the previous year, including a countdown of my picks of the best and worst pictures. I've been busy screening notable films from the past year that I missed during their theatrical run because they didn't get released in this area, they were pulled from theaters too quickly, or I refused to see them in the theater (Smurfs, I'm looking at you).

Because I am so busy screening films and putting together the year end wrap up, this weekend (January 15th) will see a rerun of an earlier episode. The 2011 Year End Wrap Up is planned to air January 22nd, 2012. Remember that you can find previous year end wrap ups here.

In the meantime, here are some links to other end of 2011 retrospectives from other critics:

• Mark Kermode picks his favorites and least favorites of 2011.
• The Cinema Snob's picks of the worst films of 2011.
• Roger Ebert's picks of the best films of 2011.
• Richard Roeper's picks of the best and worst of 2011.
• The A.V. Club's picks of the best of 2011.
• Rotten Tomatoes list of the 100 best reviewed films of 2011.
• Todd McCarthy's picks of the 30 best films of 2011.
• Peter Travers' picks of the 10 best films of 2011.
• Kenneth Turan's picks of the best films of 2011.
• The Huffington Post: 11 Great Films You May Have Missed
• Owen Gleiberman's picks of the 10 best of 5 worst films of 2011.
• Lisa Schwartzbaum's picks of the 10 best and 5 worst films of 2011.