Finally saw Drive yesterday. I really like the movie and I'm not a Gosling fan at all. The people I watched it with were complaining does this guy even utter one line in the movie? I don't know it really worked for this film though. The one track (music during the strip club scene) Desire- Under Your Spell was a welcome surprise. I know it's some artsy fartsy hipsters trying to pretend to be Berlin mixed with Cocteau Twins meets Goodbye Horses but I love the guitar riffs in that track.
Michael Shannon in Take Shelter was without a doubt the biggest oscar snub of the year. Take Shelter 13 Assassins Tree of Life Attack the Block Senna Drive
It seems its either you love it or hate it. Both me and my wife loved it ( I actually went and bought it, I never do that anymore), but just about everyone else I know hated it. I think most people went in expecting a particular story arc and when it didn't actually pan out that way they were let down. All I kept hearing was " Hes a driver and there is no driving in the movie ...." Seems most only want brainless action with big explosions and anything outside this structure is gonna suck to them. I liked the score and sound track, it all fit so well with the characters and feeling of the locations and situations.
Since folks have opened this up a bit to foreign movies just released in 2011, I want to give a shout out for the Red Riding trilogy. I was anticipating these movies for some time, and even though they actually came out in 2009, it took a while to make it to our shores (and still are a bit of a challenge to find). I don't know, could be I live in a zone of video isolation Anyways, definitely one of the most impressive film opuses I have seen, and far and away the stand out from last year.
Red Riding trilogy got some weirdly inaccurate reviews in the USA ... the tendency was to describe them as being horrifically violent, which when I saw them, I realized was totally ridiculous. Many mainstream films (e.g. Drive) are far more graphically violent. I really liked all three, especially the first one. Maybe the offended reviewers were actually talking about what was in their heads rather than onscreen?
