Superbad

Man of Steel

* out of ****

Directed by: Zack Snyder

Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane and Russell Crowe

Running time: 142 minutes

Director Zack Snyder should consider adopting the nickname ‘Kryptonite.’ His reimagining of Superman is a somber, soulless, tedious, cacophonous adventure that is so devoid of humanity, one wonders whether or not the entire thing was designed by machines.

The acting is animatronic-level, the writing a direct copy of better superhero origin stories, and the storytelling is amateurish, displaying blurry, whiplash-inducing action sequences that numb the senses to such a state that there is little rooting interest in what is happening onscreen. Great Caesar’s ghost, what a monstrosity!

Man of Steel is one of the worst summer blockbusters ever made and the largest waste a major studio has ever spent on a production (costs ballooned to close to $225 million). The result is a movie that is an affront to the idea of mass entertainment – it is a bore to sit through – and cinema, delivering not a single moment of convincing emotion.

The film begins with a plodding prologue, set on the planet Krypton. As the planet is laid to ruin and destruction, scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) send off their newborn son, Kal-El, to earth. Kal-El’s blood is infused with a genetic fiber that can one day repopulate the Kryptonian race.

Kal-El grows up on earth, taking the name of Clark Kent under new parents Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane). Jonathan tells Clark to keep his superhuman powers and celestial identity a secret, a problem for a man who can see through walls, walk through fire and run like the wind.

Clark grows up to look like strapping English actor Henry Cavill, who barely ignites any energy underneath a brawny physique. He looks blank and out-of-place, underneath David S. Goyer’s redundant, trite screenplay. Cavill can only emulate Superman in attributes, but not personality.

Man of Steel’s villain is General Zod, a commanding, sneering Krypton played by terrific character actor Michael Shannon, reduced mostly to a one-note menace. He is after that genetic codex that Superman has within him. Zod is glad to reduce the planet to a sinkhole of falling CGI skyscrapers and carnage to fulfill his mission.

The film is full of explosions, high-speed fights and destruction, yet not a moment of it is thrilling. None of the efforts made by hundreds of visual effects artists are worth anything if the actors have nothing useful to do or say.

Amy Adams is a lone spot of light as investigative reporter Lois Lane, although she quickly turns into a withering damsel in distress. The level of the rest of the acting would be adequate for a middle-school play.

Superman also lacks the gravitas and identifiable emotional depth that gets an audience to root for the hero. By the time the action-packed final third begins, the fighting becomes so monotonous – and product-placement savvy, since Supes and company fly through and demolish iHops, 7/11s and Sears department stores – it is hard to care.

Each scene in the film has such a grandiose CGI embellishment that you may end up pining for green screen, a staple of the 1978 Donner original.

Most egregious of all, Man of Steel is antithetical to Siegel and Shuster’s comic creation. The character’s defining traits are his nobility and idealism. He fights for ‘truth, justice and the American way,’ ridding the streets of corrupting and crime and instilling a moral order.

However, there is no sense of that humanity in Snyder’s thunderous film, which also has none of the lively, nimble fun or majestic sweep from earlier films, which were buoyed by Christopher Reeve’s boyish charm and John Williams’ exciting music.

Instead, we have a throbbing headache of a film, with leaden pacing, flat performances and incomprehensible action. Snyder continues to thud downward, reaching a circle of hellish cinematic ineptitude saved for special directors who have bombed spectacularly, namely Michael Bay, Joel Schumacher and M. Night Shyamalan.

Man of Steel marks a special case, where I resort to the notable soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Their Big, Fat, Greek Mid-Life Crisis

Before Midnight

**** out of ****

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Starring: Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy

Running time: 108 minutes

Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy has aged as gracefully as a fine wine: delightful at first sip, more textured when tried in later stages, and always intoxicating.

Before Sunrise, released in 1995, took place over the course of an evening, chronicling the first night of a kindling relationship between an American man, Jesse (Ethan Hawke), and a French woman, Celine (Julie Delpy). After meeting on a train destined for Paris, the two get off in Vienna, stroll the avenues, talk, play pinball, talk some more and fall for each other before heading off on their separate ways the next morning.

Jesse and Celine reconvened in Before Sunset, released in 2004, for a shorter, more urgent catch-up session. During a European tour of Jesse’s book – about, of all things, a chance encounter over one night with an exotic lady – Celine showed up to the reading in Paris. Although he is married with a son in America and she has a steady boyfriend, the two remain smitten with each other.

Nine years later, in the latest dialogue-rich snapshot of their romance, the optimism that once existed between Jesse and Celine has diminished. The two are now husband and wife, living in Paris but vacationing in the Southern Peloponnese with their twin girls, who were born shortly after the events in Sunset.

In Before Midnight, the duo only spend two thirds of the screen time alone. In the middle, there is an extended dinner, a jovial affair with three other couples at different stages of their romantic trajectory. A young adult pair talks about maintaining the bliss of their love through Skype – which another at the table dubs ‘the new romance’ – while the older couples lovingly reminisce about how they met.

Jesse and Celine remember the fleeting adoration they once had and cannot help but smile when recounting the journey of their first encounter. However, sitting at the table, they rarely look at each other, invested more into others' perception of love and relationships than in fulfilling their own.

The couple met in Sunrise on a train after Celine moved from her seat, annoyed by a bickering German couple in her row, to one across from Jesse. Jesse explained on the train that when couples get older, their hollering at each other becomes more intolerable because the husband and wife lose the ability to hear each other.

In this film, that perpetual excitement the two shared in previous entries is replaced by that same hostility the German couple had. It’s no coincidence that Before Midnight takes place in the land where tragedy was invented.

Both actors contributed to the screenplay with director Richard Linklater, infusing the characters with clever ways to bridge nine years between the stories while keeping the dramatic tension palpable and moving forward.

Jesse’s bestseller about his one night with Celine, entitled This Time, now has two sequels on the shelf. He tells a cohort of friends that he is thinking of penning a dark comedy from various perspectives – of a man with a perpetual sense of déjà vu, of one constantly thinking of death, and one with an inability to connect to anyone. He doesn’t quite realize how he is also describing himself.

Meanwhile, Celine feels undermined by her husband’s success and ability to wring whatever he wants from his life without letting her have a say. Peeved about his lack of support for her upcoming job, Celine tests him and wants to admit his mistakes and lack of foresight. When a hotel clerk asks her to sign a copy of Jesse’s book, Celine inks the page in disgust, unimpressed that she is best known as a figment of her husband’s imagination.

Before Midnight catapults into a searing two-person scene in a hotel suite that lasts for nearly 30 minutes, as husband and wife move from aching sexual intimacy to disqualifying their love for each other in a gripping tug-of-war. Linklater films the scene masterfully, letting the camera framing personify the distance between the characters as they move together and apart.

Hawke and Delpy are also terrific, affecting and stingingly funny. Both characters have weathered much – well, each other – through nine years and showcase a chemistry through the crippling verbal blows they throw at each other that any other screen couple would envy matching. 

Through 18 years, Linklater’s trilogy has been something of a miracle: a truthful, tempestuous journey through the changing seasons of romantic love, heightened through a  marriage of nuanced, naturalistic performances and insightful dialogue-driven scenes.

Whether or not Linklater, Hawke and Delpy reconvene in nine years (or 18, 27…), Before Midnight will endure as the riveting, blistering mid-life crisis chapter within an already exceptional collection of stories. 

Aimless Summer

The Kings of Summer

*½  out of ****

Directed by: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Starring: Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman and Erin Moriarty

Running time: 93 minutes

In the scope of independent features that go on to achieve a more mainstream success, there are the good Sundance films and there are the bad Sundance films. Good Sundance films succeed due to a variety of factors, such as an ambitious vision (Beasts of the Southern Wild), innovative storytelling (American Splendor), original characters (The Station Agent) and a sweet, underdog gumption (Little Miss Sunshine).

The bad Sundance films, on the other hand, are self-indulgent and quirky to the point of distraction (think Napoleon Dynamite and facsimiles thereof). Some of these efforts have misunderstood, misanthropic young adult males searching for a way out of a humdrum lifestyle, usually through women, alcohol, male bonding and other forms of autonomy.

The Kings of Summer typifies that bad Sundance film. It’s a coming-of-age tale filled with good intentions and fine young actors and TV veterans. However, it is charmless and slight, replacing humour with awkwardness and emotional depth with sullen characterization.

The three friends who comprise the film’s male contingent are Joe (Nick Robinson), Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and Biaggio (Moises Arias). Joe fantasizes about girls but is in a mellow funk after the recent death of his mother. He also struggles to connect with his stern father, Frank (Nick Offerman, who offers the film’s only chuckles).

Patrick, meanwhile, feels enslaved to his home, annoyed by the cloying niceties of his parents (played by Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson). Biaggio, gets minimal backstory but stands around to provide idiosyncratic comic relief, like speaking in non-sequiturs and swinging a machete furiously. These obscure jokes rarely hit a funny bone.

The high-schoolers decide to escape the dog days of youth by fleeing from their bungalows. Together, they build a house in the woods just outside the Ohio suburbs. Living in the wilderness, the trio agrees to explore and live off the fat of the land.

Soft-focus montages of building a cabin, cliff jumping into a pristine lake and other enactments of male bonding ensue to a twee indie soundtrack taken right from an American Eagle commercial. In town, the parents dawdle around, not caring much about the safety and livelihood of their children.

The Kings of Summer attempts to provoke the same feelings of wistful teenage nostalgia that much better films – Stand by Me and Moonrise Kingdom, for instance – have already captured with more wit and emotional resonance.  

Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts does what he can with Chris Galletta’s weightless, meandering script. The screenplay reaches a level of superficiality that would be at home on the Disney Channel, including forced wisecracks that linger awkwardly onscreen, taking one out of the story.

It is a film about immaturity and coming-of-age that struggles with its own sense of creative arrested development. Not only does the screenplay consist of 40 minutes worth of material stretched to a feature's length, but Galletta has trouble making any of the characters register emotionally. Joe is smug and entitled while Patrick is a reliable, but frustratingly blank best friend.

These two characters yearn to escape from the suburban squalor; however, their home life is not rotten at all. In last summer’s infinitely superior Moonrise Kingdom, the motivations behind Sam and Suzie’s rendezvous away from adult life were clear and understandable: he was searching for pure friendship after being bullied, while she was imprisoned by bullish parents who could not connect with her.

The strain pressed upon the two male protagonists here is unclear, hence lending their vying for autonomy a lack of urgency and purpose. The Kings of Summer is a coming-of-age tale that lacks both a sense of adventure or emotional truth.

It is a slight relief to say that the film, about young teen boys adventuring in the wilderness, has several story similarities to Mud, which is still playing in theatres. Leave these Kings alone and go see Mud instead.

#200

In September 2009, I began writing film criticism and commentary for The Screening Room, a blog that has, miraculously, continued to be a staple of my life since its inception. Dismissing breaks for exams and summer camp getaways, I have written at the rate of a review a week for the last 45 months, as well as Oscar predictions, yearly recaps and top 10 lists.

One week after beginning the blog – with a column criticizing the motion picture academy for expanding the Best Picture race from five to 10 nominees – I attended my first university lecture at Carleton University. I officially graduated from that university today, with highest honours in journalism and film studies. This blog was, simply, an extracurricular amalgamation of my two major programs.

I owe much to my professors in both subject areas, who taught me about arts reportage, as well as essential information about film history and theory. Many of my film professors introduced me to filmmakers, cinema movements and foreign cultural industries that I knew little about.

The Screening Room could also not keep going without several of my peers who visited the site frequently and let me know what they thought of the films or my writing. Their words were both kind and constructive, helping me to improve as a culture writer and reminding me that an audience valued what I wanted to say about arts and entertainment. Thank you.

Alas, as my time at university winds down, so does The Screening Room. This hobby and project has been a pivotal part of my four years as a student, and the work I did for the website has helped me land internships at Tribute Magazine and SamaritanMag.com, where I have contributed my writing.

This fall, I will work as a freelance writer for three local publications: ANDPOP, a music and entertainment blog, Arbitrage Magazine, a student-oriented business publication, and the aforementioned SamaritanMag.com. I may also be writing features and reviews for Toronto Film Scene, but this position is not yet confirmed.

While I am laying The Screening Room to rest, my culture commentary will not cease. This fall, I plan to return to the web with The Balcony.

The Balcony, named in memory and in honour of the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, who shared their opinions on several television series on opposite sides of a balcony, is going to feature more content and a more diverse assortment of writing. After I return from camp in mid-August, I will do some research into web design and try to load the site with more polls, graphics and other fun stuff.

I have not yet finalized what features The Balcony will have. I can promise a weekly review, a weekly column tied to recent news from the entertainment world and a monthly retrospective on a heralded filmmaker or screenwriter. I will also post links to arts-related web pages or articles that I enjoy.

I look forward to sharing The Balcony with you all, and would like to thank you for being such a wonderful audience over the past four years. There will still be more reviews posted over the next two weeks (including my take on The Kings of Summer, Before Midnight and Man of Steel), but The Screening Room will be complete at the end of June. The Balcony is slated to open in late August or early September.

Moreover, to mark this 200th posting, I only felt it would be appropriate to do something special. Near the time of my 100th posting, I put up a list of my Top 10 Favourite Movies. Therefore, it only makes sense to list my, yes, Top 200 films for post #200.

It would be miraculous if I could order the films from my 200th favourite to my top pick (which, if you were interested, is Magnolia, from director Paul Thomas Anderson). It would also be a waste of precious time and effort to try to evaluate the merits of so many wonderful films against each other. So, the list is presented in chronological order, with the title followed by the year of release and director (or directors). 

Steven Spielberg has the most films on this Essential 200 list, with seven titles. Other directors with several appearances: Charlie Chaplin (4 films), Billy Wilder (4), Alfred Hitchcock (3), Akira Kurosawa (3), Stanley Kubrick (3), Sidney Lumet (3), Roman Polanski (3), Francis Ford Coppola (3), Martin Scorsese (5), Hayao Miyazaki (3), Steven Soderbergh (3), Quentin Tarantino (3), David Fincher (3), Wes Anderson (3) and Paul Thomas Anderson (3)

My Essential 200 Films:

The Kid (1921, Charlie Chaplin)

Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton)

Faust: A German Folk Legend (1926, F.W. Murnau)

Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)

Man with a Movie Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov)

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Lewis Milestone)

City Lights (1931, Charlie Chaplin)

M (1931, Fritz Lang)

Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)

Modern Times (1936, Charlie Chaplin)

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937, Leo McCarey)

The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming)

Fantasia (1940, James Algar and company)

The Great Dictator (1940, Charlie Chaplin)

The Philadelphia Story (1940, George Cukor)

Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941, Preston Sturges)

Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)

Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)

The Lost Weekend (1946, Billy Wilder)

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)

Bicycle Thieves (1948, Vittorio de Sica)

Rope (1948, Alfred Hitchcock)

The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)

Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, Robert Wise)

Ikiru (1952, Akira Kurosawa)

The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot)

Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)

Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi)

Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)

Rififi (1955, Jules Dassin)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, David Lean)

A Face in the Crowd (1957, Elia Kazan)

Nights of Cabiria (1957, Federico Fellini)

Paths of Glory (1957, Stanley Kubrick)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick)

12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)

The 400 Blows (1959, Francois Truffaut)

The Human Condition 1: No Greater Love (1959, Masaki Kobayashi)

North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)

The Apartment (1960, Billy Wilder)

Last Year at Marienbad (1961, Alain Resnais)

Days of Wine and Roses (1962, Blake Edwards)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962, John Frankenheimer)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)

8½  (1963, Federico Fellini)

High and Low (1963, Akira Kurosawa)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964, Richard Lester)

The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966, Mike Nichols)

Playtime (1967, Jacques Tati)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968, Roman Polanski)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)

Woodstock (1970, Michael Wadleigh)

Harold and Maude (1971, Hal Ashby)

The Last Picture Show (1971, Peter Bodanovich)

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971, Mel Stuart)

The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)

The Sting (1973, George Roy Hill)

Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)

The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Joseph Sargent)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet)

Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975, Milos Forman)

Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)

Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)

Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)

The Deer Hunter (1978, Michael Cimino)

Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)

Airplane! (1980, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irvin Kershner)

Manhattan (1980, Woody Allen)

Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982, Amy Heckerling)

The King of Comedy (1982, Martin Scorsese)

Tootsie (1982, Sydney Pollack)

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983, Nagisa Oshima)

The Killing Fields (1984, Roland Joffe)

Paris, Texas (1984, Wim Wenders)

Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam)

Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)

Castle in the Sky (1986, Hayao Miyazaki)

Hoosiers (1986, David Anspaugh)

The Last Temptation of Christ (1987, Martin Scorsese)

Wings of Desire (1987, Wim Wenders)

Rain Man (1988, Barry Levinson)

The Thin Blue Line (1988, Errol Morris)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, Robert Zemeckis)

Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)

Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989, Steven Soderbergh)

Barton Fink (1991, Joel Coen)

Beauty and the Beast (1991, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise)

In the Name of the Father (1993, Jim Sheridan)

Schindler’s List (1993, Steven Spielberg)

Three Colors: Blue (1993, Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Chungking Express (1994, Wong Kar-Wai)

The Lion King (1994, Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff)

Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)

Quiz Show (1994, Robert Redford)

Apollo 13 (1995, Ron Howard)

Before Sunrise (1995, Richard Linklater)

Se7en (1995, David Fincher)

Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter)

The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer)

Jerry Maguire (1996, Cameron Crowe)

L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)

Princess Mononoke (1997, Hayao Miyazaki)

A Bug’s Life (1998, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton)

Central Station (1998, Walter Salles)

Rushmore (1998, Wes Anderson)

Saving Private Ryan (1998, Steven Spielberg)

The Truman Show (1998, Peter Weir)

American Beauty (1999, Sam Mendes)

Election (1999, Alexander Payne)

Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)

The Insider (1999, Michael Mann)

Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson)

The Matrix (1999, Andy and Lana Wachowski)

The Sixth Sense (1999, M. Night Shyamalan)

Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)

Amores Perros (2000, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

Billy Elliot (2000, Stephen Daldry)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Ang Lee)

Traffic (2000, Steven Soderbergh)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, Steven Spielberg)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, Peter Jackson)

Memento (2001, Christopher Nolan)

Monsters, Inc. (2001, Pete Docter and David Silverman)

Moulin Rouge! (2001, Baz Luhrmann)

Ocean’s Eleven (2001, Steven Soderbergh)

Adaptation. (2002, Spike Jonze)

Bowling for Columbine (2002, Michael Moore)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002, Peter Jackson)

Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg)

The Pianist (2002, Roman Polanski)

Spirited Away (2002, Hayao Miyazaki)

Talk to Her (2002, Pedro Almodovar)

Y tu mama tambien (2002, Alfonso Cuaron)

Capturing the Friedmans (2003, Andrew Jarecki)

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino)

Lost in Translation (2003, Sofia Coppola)

Seabiscuit (2003, Gary Ross)

Shattered Glass (2003, Billy Ray)

Whale Rider (2003, Niki Caro)

Before Sunset (2004, Richard Linklater)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry)

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004, Quentin Tarantino)

Cache (2005, Michael Haneke)

A History of Violence (2005, David Cronenberg)

Munich (2005, Steven Spielberg)

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005, Martin Scorsese)

Casino Royale (2006, Martin Campbell)

Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuaron)

Little Miss Sunshine (2006, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris)

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Guillermo Del Toro)

Thank You for Smoking (2006, Jason Reitman)

United 93 (2006, Paul Greengrass)

Atonement (2007, Joe Wright)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007, Julian Schnabel)

Into the Wild (2007, Sean Penn)

Juno (2007, Jason Reitman)

Persepolis (2007, Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi)

Ratatouille (2007, Brad Bird)

There Will Be Blood (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson)

The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)

Frost/Nixon (2008, Ron Howard)

In Bruges (2008, Martin McDonagh)

Slumdog Millionaire (2008, Danny Boyle)

Wall-E (2008, Andrew Stanton)

Coraline (2009, Henry Selick)

The Cove (2009, Louie Psihoyos)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009, Wes Anderson)

500 Days of Summer (2009, Marc Webb)

Hunger (2009, Steve McQueen)

The Hurt Locker (2009, Kathryn Bigelow)

The Messenger (2009, Oren Moverman)

A Serious Man (2009, Joel and Ethan Coen)

Up (2009, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)

Where the Wild Things Are (2009, Spike Jonze)

Another Year (2010, Mike Leigh)

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010, Banksy)

A Film Unfinished (2010, Yael Hersonski)

Incendies (2010, Denis Villeneuve)

The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)

The Town (2010, Ben Affleck)

Toy Story 3 (2010, Lee Unkrich)

Trigger (2010, Bruce McDonald)

Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese)

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011, Sean Durkin)

A Separation (2011, Asghar Farhadi)

The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick)

Amour (2012, Michael Haneke)

The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Wes Anderson)

Stories We Tell (2012, Sarah Polley)