2011 Endy Awards

After not being able to see many movies before Oscartime last year, due to baby-induced home-boundness, I'd always meant to come back and do a proper awards post for 2011, something I'd forgot about until putting together the awards for 2012 this past week. So with Endies on the mind, I guess now is as good a time as any to reward the best of what I've seen from 2011. As always, eligibility is determined by the date given by imdb. I'll list the nominees in each category in alphabetical order and the winner will be in bold.

Best Picture:

1. Damsels in Distress

2. The Day He Arrives

3. The Deep Blue Sea

4. Margaret

5. The Tree of Life

Best Director:

1. Hong Sangsoo, The Day He Arrives

2. Terence Davies, The Deep Blue Sea

3. Johnnie To, Don't Go Breaking My Heart

4. Kenneth Lonergan, Margaret

5. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

Best Actor:

1. Jack Black, Bernie
2. Alex Ross Perry, The Color Wheel

3. Liam Neesen, The Grey

4. Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

5. Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Actress:

1. Greta Gerwig, Damsels in Distress

2. Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea

3. Anne Marsen, Girl Walk // All Day

4. Anna Paquin, Margaret

5. Leila Hatami, A Separation

The actor category for this year is merely OK, but this might be the strongest group of actresses ever. Can't believe there's no room for Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin, Gao Yuanyuan in Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Carlen Altman in The Color Wheel, Michelle Williams in Take this Waltz, Jessica Chastain in Take Shelter and Charlize Theron in Young Adult.

Supporting Actor:

1. Sonny Carl Davis, Bernie

2. Tom Hiddleston, The Deep Blue Sea
3. John Doyle, Girl Walk // All Day

3. Lau Ching-wan, Life Without Principle

4. Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life

Supporting Actress:

1. Megalyn Echikunwoke, Damsels in Distress
2. Carrie MacLemore, Damsels in Distress

2. Cécile De France, The Kid with a Bike

3. Denise Ho, Life Without Principle

5. J. Smith-Cameron, Margaret

Original Screenplay:

1. Whit Stillman, Damsels in Distress

2. Hong Sangsoo, The Day He Arrives
3. Milkyway Team, Don't Go Breaking My Heart

4. Kenneth Lonergan, Margaret
5. Lee Kwangkuk, Romance Joe

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Richard Linklater, Bernie

2. Terence Davies, The Deep Blue Sea

3. Craig Schultz & Stephan Pastis, Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown

4. John Logan, Hugo

5. Lynne Ramsay & Rory Kinnear, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Foreign Language Film:

1. The Day He Arrives (Hong Sangsoo)

2. Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Johnnie To)

3. Romance Joe (Lee Kwangkuk)
4. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

5. Wuxia (Peter Chan)

A great year for Johnnie To and his collaborators at his Milkyway Image studio, with two of my favorite films of the year. Unfortunately, they came up short awards-wise, barely beaten out in the supporting acting categories and edged by masterful work in directing and original screenplay. Foreign language film was probably their best shot, but Hong Sangsoo's The Day He Arrives is one of his best. 

Documentary Feature:

1. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (Adam Curtis)

2. Crazy Horse (Frederick Wiseman)

3. Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films

4. Pina (Wim Wenders)

5. The Story of Film: An Odyssey (Mark Cousins)

Animated Feature:

1. The Adventures of Tintin

2. Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown

3. Rango

4. Winnie the Pooh

The best Peanuts special since The Great Pumpkin, seamlessly integrating the classic strips and characters into modern animation techniques (POV shots, computer-rendered crane shots) while respecting and preserving the unique stylization of Charles Schulz's original drawings.

Animated Short:

1. La Luna

Live Action Short:

1. La belle epoque (Hou Hsiao-hsien)

2. Green Island Serenade (Hou Chi-jan)

3. Key (Leon Dai)

4. Ritual (Wang Toon)

5. Unwritten Rules (Cheng Yu-chieh)

These are all part of the Taiwan Film Festival's compendium 10 + 10, a series of 20 short films by 10 veteran and 10 younger Taiwanese directors. A mild upset here as Hou Hsiao-hsien was the heavy favorite, but Hou Chi-jan's swoon-inducing musical time travel picture won me over.

Film Editing:

1. A Dangerous Method

2. The Day He Arrives

3. The Deep Blue Sea

4. Life Without Principle

5. The Tree of Life

Cinematography:

1. Florian Hoffmesiter, The Deep Blue Sea

2. Gökhan Tiryaki, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

3. Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life

4. Janusz Kaminski, War Horse

5. Saemus McGarvey, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Art Direction:

1. The Cabin in the Woods

2. The Deep Blue Sea

3. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

4. Hugo

5. The Turin Horse

Costume Design:

1. The Artist

2. Damsels in Distress

3. The Deep Blue Sea

4. Hugo

5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Make-up:

1. East Meets West

2. The Grey

3. Super 8

Sound Mixing:

1. The Deep Blue Sea

2. Hugo

3. The Tree of Life

4. The Turin Horse

5. We Need To Talk About Kevin

Sound Editing:

1. Hugo

2. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

3. Super 8

4. War Horse

5. We Need To Talk About Kevin

Visual Effects:

1. The Cabin in the Woods

2. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

3. Hugo
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
5. Wuxia

Original Score:

1. Damsels in Distress

2. Drive

3. The Muppets

4. The Tree of Life
5. The Turin Horse

Soundtrack:

1. Company
2. The Deep Blue Sea
3. Girl Walk // All Day
4. Midnight in Paris
5. The Tree of Life

I would have loved to give more awards to The Deep Blue Sea, but Davies's screenplay and this for soundtrack will have to do. The group singalongs give the film's love triangle a historic perspective, one of lives shattered in a community similarly shattered by the war. Hilary Hahn's recording of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto makes up the rest of the soundtrack, and Davies times his camera movements and edits perfectly with the melodramatic swoops of the music. The film's opening sequence is one of the great achievements in recent history.