2011 in Film: Year of the Scorpion (Jacket)

Everything but the kitchen sink
Everyone agrees it’s been a stellar year for UK filmmaking, but what I find most interesting is that the year’s best British films all saw directors take a hammer to our narrow filmmaking traditions (kitchen sink dramas, literary adaptations, gothic horrors), then reassemble them to fit their own sensibilities. Andrea Arnold soaked her take on Wuthering Heights in mud, racism and four letter words; in Attack the Block Joe Cornish turned a grim council estate into a neon-lit playground where fireworks wielding urban warriors did battle against furry aliens with fluorescent teeth; Ben Wheatley‘s Kill List flipped between Mike Leigh and Hammer Horror via some great Tarantinoesque banter between two schlubby contract killers; and Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice), in the year’s most surprising directorial volte-face, made Hanna, a blistering action picture about a pint-sized assassin that felt like a Children's Film Foundation project co-directed by Luc Besson and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Overrated film of the year
Daily Express readers got a chance to take a break from mourning Princess Di in January when The King’s Speech, the year’s unexpected blockbuster, rolled into town. For months art-house cinemas reeked of a heady mix of Werther’s Originals and jingoism as cinema’s most ignored demographic, the middle-aged, and its most indulged, the simple minded, flocked to see this vapid crowdpleaser. Even David Cameron’s glowing endorsement couldn’t stop this box-office juggernaut. The Oscars loved it of course – probably because most academy members are both middle-aged and simple-minded. Plus it features a disability. Not one of those insurmountable ones that require the actor to look disfigured or shit in a bag taped to their leg or anything, but a nice photogenic one that can be overcome by some witty banter and a bit of Judd Apatow-style bromance. It swept the boards, beating hot favourite The Social Network, which surely ranks alongside Dances with Wolves's triumph over Goodfellas as the Academy’s biggest cock-up.

Stinker of the year
I’m tempted to give this to The King’s Speech as a bit of pay-back for David Fincher, but with fuel poverty reaching crisis point under our clueless government who would begrudge a film that warmed the older generation’s hearts? And besides, there was an even more undeserved best film award in 2011 – and it happened a lot closer to home. Fast Romance, a woefully unfunny comedy set amid Glasgow’s nonexistent speed dating scene, inexplicably bagged the audience award for best film at this year’s Scottish BAFTAs. I’ve yet to speak to anyone who enjoyed this am-dram horror show with a camera-phone porn aesthetic, but Cineworld’s Glasgow audience seem to have lapped it up. Proof, if ever it was needed, that democracy doesn’t always work.

Soundtrack of the year
Taking inspiration from Trent Reznor’s electronic score for The Social Network last year, the best soundtracks of 2011 sounded like the kind of thing Johnny-5 would put on a mix-tape if he started going steady with C3PO. The Chemical Brothers' work for Joe Wright on Hanna and the squelchy Carpenter-esque score by Basement Jaxx for Attack the Block were highlights, but Cliff Martinez’s Tangerine Dreamsy music for Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, coupled with the film’s 80s-tastic tracks Nightcall (Kavinsky and Lovefoxxx) and A Real Hero (College and Electric Youth), were rarely off the iPod. Drive's soundtrack is so good, in fact, that despite the majority of my listening taking place while travelling on the top deck of the 38 bus to Easterhouse it still made me feel as cool as Ryan Gosling’s laconic getaway driver.

Man crush of the year
Gosling (or Baby Goose, as he’s affectionately dubbed) brings me onto this relatively new phenomenon of equal opportunity pinups. Last year dimple-cheeked aspiring polymath James Franco was the heartthrob that straight blokes were crushing on, but the image of Baby Goose rocking a white satin jacket embroidered with a gold scorpion in Drive made many a heterosexual man's heart skip a beat. I suspect Michael Fassbender, Baby Goose’s biggest rival in the bromance department this year, might take up this baton when Shame (and Fassbender's 'baton’) hits cinemas in January. Lets just hope no one puts these two in some homoerotic buddy movie any time soon or the world could be facing a Children of Men scenario.

Line delivery of the year
Line delivery of the year – and best performance – came from the brilliant Juno Temple as London, the fez-wearing firecracker in Kaboom, Gregg Araki’s nutty college sex farce cum alien conspiracy movie. While receiving head from a meathead jock who clearly doesn’t know a clitoris from his elbow, London springs off her dorm bed with the immortal line “Dude, it’s a vagina, not a bowl of spaghetti.” Sage advice for all budding cunning linguists.

Rerelease of the year
The majority of films rereleased in 2011 reeked of déjà vu – are there people out there who haven’t seen repertory perennials like Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver and Kind Hearts and Coronets? Don’t get me wrong, these are masterworks I’d happily watch again any day of the week, but by distributers and programmers continually giving oxygen to these canonised classics they’re suffocating the films that really need rediscovered. Films like Ivan Passer’s paranoid neo-noir Cutter’s Way, Jacques Deray’s feverish La Piscine and Carlos Saura’s Cría Cuervos, his woozy and spooky vision of childhood. It was an honour to witness these three underseen gems on the big screen, but my rerelease revelation came when I stumbled across Jerzy Skolimowski’s bonkers and brilliant 1970 film Deep End, a funny, sexy and quite surreal tale of unrequited love set in a crumbling South London swimming baths. It features great tunes from Can and Cat Stevens, and, in Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown, the hottest onscreen couple since Something Wild’s Charlie and Lulu.

Weepie of the year
2011 has been a great year for sports movies. As a rather doughy film-geek I have little opportunity (or inclination) to exercise in real life, so the sporting achievements of Mikey “Irish” Ward (Mark Walberg, The Fighter) and Ayrton Senna (Senna) gave me the vicarious rush of endorphins I don’t get watching L'Avventura. Sports movies are also my Achilles’ heel when it comes to my tear ducts. We all have our weaknesses: for some it’s terminally ill Labradors, for others it’s final reel clinches at airports or railway stations. For me, it’s the triumphant underdog. No film of 2011 pandered to this sports movie cliche more than Gavin O'Connor's Warrior, a deliciously cheesy ultimate fighter movie that didn’t just feature one underdog, it had three. By the end of the press screening I needed to be hooked up to a drip to rehydrate. My fellow film journalists, meanwhile, looked on at my tear splashed face in disgust.