Some of us have to settle for other Oscars.

Oscar nominations were announced this morning and they might as well have been delivered by Mitt Romney, considering the deafening yawns with which they’ve been greeted. Before you check out the list, I just want to say that the only nomination I was looking forward to was one that didn’t end up happening. Albert Brooks’ turn as a murderous gangster/movie producer in Drive warranted a Supporting Actor nod, though it didn’t receive one.

Fresh off the heels of Contagion, Steven Soderbergh delivers Haywire, a lean government spy story. What drives the film are its action sequences, driven by mixed martial arts star Gina Carano’s abilityto kick and jum and crush throats with her thighs. The film also reunites Soderbergh with writer Lem Dobbs, responsible for penning one of the director’s best films, The Limey. Like The Limey, Haywire is a bare-bones genre flick that depends on its ability to play with convention in a way that’s more reminiscent of Shoot the Piano Player than Pulp Fiction.

What I most admire about this mode of Soderbergh’s filmmaking is its approach to actors and their performances. The silver screen is a place where people best succeed when they play themselves: when Humphrey Bogart walks across a room, Anna Karina winks at the camera, or Bruce Willis creeps through an elevator shaft. Much the same is true of Carano: she’s not an actress, and even if she were, I doubt she would be a great one. Yet Soderbergh boiled down her performance to a competent and functional show that barely seems like a performance at all. Combined with the understated presence of veterans like Bill Paxton and Michael Douglas, the cast becomes a collection of compelling characters with a refreshing lack of prescribed depth.

Haywire also succeeds as a romp of the sexes, and I took particular delight in watching Carano annihilate a host of slimy male adversaries. Her fight with Michael Fassbender is especially funny; he delivers line familiar to women everywhere, “You’re out of control!” as she pummels him into submission. In our intertextual media universe, it’s all too possible that this is Fassbender’s sex-addict from Shame really getting some serious introspection handed to him. Haywire isn’t offering the feel-good empowerment delivered by the Kill Bill movies or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where sexuality appears as a uniquely feminine form of empowerment that’s appreciated by men and only tested when it goes head to head with other women. Whereas an overwritten character would have easily fallen into similar tired techniques, it is precisely the character’s lack of development and Carano’s subdued performance that make Mallory Kane a badass female unencumbered by an exhausting need for sympathy.

For all that’s made of the action, though, the film is more interested in unraveling mystery than the drama of a final showdown. Dobbs and Soderbergh know that by the time they’ve showed every card up their sleeves and Carano has unwrapped all the layers of her own betrayal, there will be no need for a final confrontation. The film ends just before Carano delivers her last dose of justice. Conventionally, it’s an unsatisfying ending. But not nearly as unsatisfying as it would have been to sit through a boring, drawn out finale.

Shame, dir. Steve McQueen (2011)

All of the stars were aligning for Shame to be my newest favorite film about destructive addiction.

I entered the theater with an enduring respect and trust for McQueen, and I had been nursing a relatively significant man-crush on Michael Fassbender for the past year. At the risk of sounding dismissive, Shame was overall disappointing, with jigsaw gems shining discreetly within an overly-fragmented narrative.

McQueen is most known for his style, which capitalizes on truthful cinematography and editing with slow gravitas and poise. It’s an eye that is unwaveringly serious and profound, which served him so beautifully in Hunger (McQueen, 2008). Shame, however, does not carry the historical and political drama of the Irish hunger strikes of 1981; Shame pales in comparison, meandering towards melodrama faster than tragedy. I’ll empathize faster with Bobby Sands than Brandon (Michael Fassbender), the wealthy new-yorker-sex-addict who tries to straighten his life out.

That’s not to say that there aren’t several profoundly cinematic moments built carefully into the film. One would be when Brandon’s trashy-yet-charming sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), sings a slow song in a high-rise bar where Brandon and his boss, David (James Badge Dale), watch. Mulligan’s pain dances behind a thin veil of sexuality as we watch her in an uncomfortably close and unwavering shot (which McQueen barely cut away from). It’s hypnotizing and powerful. Another occurs soon thereafter; the three end up at Brandon’s apartment, where Sissy and David lock themselves in Brandon’s bedroom and have sex in his bed. Brandon, with a visceral disgust, undresses, and just as the audience begins to contemplate the the revolting notion that he may be planning to join them, Brandon is in his running clothes out jogging the city streets at night. This jog lasts well over 5 minutes in a continuous take, and it is a well-needed breath for the audience.

There are many moments of beauty in Shame, but for me, the pieces didn’t come together in harmony. I can’t help but feel similarly to how I felt leaving Somewhere (Coppola, 2010). While the vision and pacing of a well-laid film appeared on the screen, the content couldn’t support its very careful presentation. My biggest reaction, overall, is how little I was able to care about Brandon’s situation. I engaged with the film more so on a clinical level than an emotional one; Shame is less of a character-study than a case-study.

Top 10 lists are a universally reviled form of critical expression for a reason: they force the thoughtful fluidity and artfulness of criticism into the confines of ascending order. It’s an exercise as banal as arranging a class of elementary school students by height. Countless stratagems exist that allow list-makers to ease the blow of their pointless task, though the successful approach for me has always been simple irony. See my inclusion of Tron: Legacy in last year’s top 10 list, or 2012 the year before that: two really bad movies meant to serve as a middle-finger to the very existence of year-end top 10 lists.

This year, I approached the list differently. I still don’t think of it as a serious critical process. I think of it as an impression. These are the first films I remembered when I thought about the experiences I had in movie theaters this year. Any picture I couldn’t remember on my own wouldn’t deserve a place below. In fact, I’m glad to have forgotten about the films I saw in 2011 that I can’t remember. They were the high school acquaintances of my movie-going experience. Their only suitable future purpose can be to serve as obscure punchlines.

Here are the films on my top 10 list, with a few words speaking to their inclusion:

Mysteries of Lisbon – Of all the enormous, dramatic film experiences offered in 2011, Mysteries of Lisbon was the grandest.

Sleepless Nights Stories –  Jonas Mekas’ new film is a moving collection of tales caught on video. The diary film is a quintessential homegrown American cinematic form, here it is at its finest.

The Turin Horse – Another monumental, apocalyptic, and beautiful vision from Béla Tarr. I am convinced this film explains the existence of the word heavy.

Melancholia – The last 5 minutes.

The Future – A lot of the time, people see what they want to see in movies. I’m hardly immune to this, in fact, I frequently sink into cushy red seats already formulating the best way to express my hate for the movie I’m about to see. The Future shattered my jaded predictions: where I had expected something unbearably adorable, I found a complicated and profound reflection on the properties of movies themselves. I heard an interview with Miranda July where she said The Future was about a couple struggling with changes in their perception of space and time. I don’t see anything twee about that.

Meek’s Cutoff – A quiet western with mythic and historical resonance.

Contagion – A lot of sleek, studio thrillers came out in 2011. Soderbergh’s vision was the most precise, haunting, and daring.

Hugo – I have always admired Martin Scorsese’s efforts to fund the protection of endangered films and promote the history of cinema. There are kids movies about every imaginable historical circumstance that turns them into fantastical, ridiculous tearjerkers. But when the subject is something already fantastic, like the films and legacy of Georges Méliès, the end result doesn’t seem nearly as sinister, say, Schindler’s List.

Le Havre & Bridesmaids – I laughed a lot at these movies.

Oh my god, it’s finally here.

This was one of those projects. None of the lovely people — Lily Susskind, my mighty co-director; Matt Ferro, our genius behind the camera; STE’s own Jake Teresi, our enabler, producer, and host in New Orleans; Carsie Blanton, our musical muse and sponsor – had any idea if and when it would suddenly (in my unsteady hands) transform itself into something lovely, hard and brilliant, and I had only the slightest inkling (and only sometimes).

Certainly, it was a project with the makings of something good. Carsie had managed to round up a veritable who’s who of the world’s greatest swing dancers – Chance Bushman, Giselle Anguizola, Peter Loggins, Amy Johnson, Reuel Reis, Laura Manning and Lisa Casper — and we’d constructed a tiny crew equally versed in dance and film primed to push the boundaries of the dance on film we’d seen before. Thanks to the generosity and excitement of the performers who joined us, our time in New Orleans and the footage we’d collected was unbelievable. But in the editing process, trying to capture the spirit of all of these dancers and their opposing styles, to respect the dance and still cut it mercilessly, to delight in the magic of New Orleans without reverting to cliché, and above all to fit everything into barely three minutes of song seemed an impossible task.

And yet, at long last, here it is! Shot in the streets of the 8th Ward, inside a St. Charles streetcar, on the balcony of Mimi’s in the Marigny, and in the abandoned Six Flags in Michoud, Baby Can Dance is a celebration of life and joy and dance and a city that’s always pregnant with all three. Please enjoy.

I recently had the profound pleasure of spending a quiet evening at the normally wild and crazy Acme studios in Brooklyn with my dearest friend Rachel Trachtenburg, her mother Tina, and Acme’s brigadier general, Shawn Patrick. After a dinner and a movie of nachos and Sidney Lumet’s Network (try this as soon as you can), I was tasked with sharing a few of my favorite music videos. Most, unsurprisingly, were received well — Rihanna’s Spike Lee/Keith Herring/Warhol/Basquiat send-up Rude Boy and Beyonce as bored/scorned housewife/Marilyn Monroe in Why Don’t You Love Me? are both incredibly fun and really smart cultural homage — but my very favorite video of the year, Robyn’s pitch-perfect (as far as I’m concerned) Call Your Girlfriend, was roundly rejected.

I’m not surprised the Trachtenburgs didn’t like it: in every incarnation for as long as they’ve existed, they’ve embodied a sort of anti-pop sensibility. Their music is smart, sophisticated, daring and different. One of the reasons I jumped to make Dumb Dumbs – Greg Hanson’s truly weird debut video for Rachel’s band, SUPERCUTE! — is the exhilaration of doing something really, profoundly different. Greg and the Trachtenburgs couldn’t be ‘normal’ if they tried — and they don’t. For people with such an eye and ear for the messy, complicated, frenetic, unexpected, and bizarre, what interest could Robyn’s clean, simple, catchy, perfectly engineered product hold?* Still, I feel the need to defend Robyn against the accusation that every character in Dumb Dumbs would surely level at her: namely that she’s just more of the same, or worse, boring.

Call Your Girlfriend is perhaps the millionth example of the single-shot music video, a reaction to the frenzied editing of the late MTV era that relies on the theatrical treatment of time to render whatever complicated spectacle — be it Beyonce’s impossible hip thrusts or a marching band hidden in a field — more impressive by virtue of its unfolding uninterrupted, the video acting as proof by photographic documentation. But Call Your Girlfriend doesn’t utilize the single-shot for the normal spectacular: Robyn dances alone in an empty warehouse towards a (very) handheld camera with only sporadic club lights as support. Robyn’s dancing is somehow simultaneously silly and incredibly alluring: she don’t give a fuck. And there in lies the video’s genius: Robyn’s comfort in front of the camera, and apparent disregard for what you may think of her dance moves, lends the video an extraordinary intimacy. With no one else in the space, it’s clear: she’s dancing for you.

And that’s it. What I love about Call Your Girlfriend (both the song and the video) is what I love about all good pop, especially classic Hollywood: the incredible subtlety and craft needed for the form to completely disappear into the content. Every decision in Call Your Girlfriend — the imperfect motion of the camera, the lack of editing and backup dancers, the crazy lights — serves to bring Robyn’s charisma and energy to the fore. It’s a visceral experience, and it works.

And then there are the little touches — the delayed reveal of Robyn’s shoes, the moment (at 1:20) when Robyn dips backwards and the camera moves sympathetically — that betray how well-conceived and carefully executed the video really is. At the end of the video, there’s a moment of dead space between the song ending and Robyn clearing the frame where she steps up and, suddenly in almost alarming proximity, takes a deep breath, wipes her nose, and smiles. It’s much like the ending of Single Ladies – in which we watch Beyonce catch her breath before breaking into a laugh — and it serves the same purpose: to remind us that the performer we’ve just watched is actually human. Contrary to most indications, Beyonce does need to catch her breath, and though Robyn’s dancing isn’t the same sort of physical feat, it’s still an act of performing bravado, and the disarming human contact at the end makes it clear that she enjoyed it as much as you did.

The principle characteristic Robyn embodies in the video is, of course, grace; an easy, tossed-off gracefulness that says we just used the first take, I just threw these clothes on, and I didn’t wash my hair this morning. It’s called cool, and it’s at the core of all good pop: it’s both of Bieber’s haircuts, Kanye’s backpack, and Justin Timberlake’s dick in a box. It’s Robert Downey Jr.’s acting career. It’s the photos of Obama in college, smoking a cigar. And it takes a number of the smartest artists and marketers in the world to keep it up, to keep it current, to reinvent it for every generation. For every JT there are a million stale Drakes and Maroon 5s.

All of this is not to belittle the Trachtenburgs’ talent. It takes a completely different sensibility to color effortlessly inside the lines than to utterly disregard them, and I am in constant awe of the courage and aplomb it takes to be truly different. But there is something pretty remarkable, too — and pretty unexpected — about stripping everything down, stepping up, and making everyone want to be your girlfriend, in the world of cool.

*Although they appreciated Robyn’s taste in clothing, of course.

To kick off 2012, we’re rolling out Dumb Dumbs, a co-production between Greg Hanson of Greth Productions and STE.

Dumb Dumbs is Greg Hanson’s beautiful homage to drug-scare films of the 1930s with a slap of Godard and an acute sugar high. It’s a music video for the maniacally talented teen-girl outfit, SUPERCUTE!, with Rachel Trachtenburg (watch for her in Ruchiki) at the forefront.

The Company’s own Liz Phelps and Matt Paley were tapped to produce and jumped at the chance to work with those brilliant fellas over at Greth. Be sure to watch for cameos by Andrew W.K. and Kate Nash. Enjoy!

Yeah, we know.  We’re late with the list again. But 2011 had a remarkable run in cinema, and this year’s list truly runs through nearly the entire spectrum.

Something to keep in mind:  none of the individual lists are the same. Films listed as number one by some people weren’t even seen by others. But, indeed, this is part of the film going experience and part of why the list is formulated as it has been. This is a snapshot, a look inside what different people are interested in, and what they thought of what they have viewed.

Below you’ll find the official Company list, followed by all the individual lists, and the scoring and explanation of how the list was created.

1.  Beginners

2.  Melancholia 

3.  Tree of Life 

4.  Midnight in Paris 

5.  Hugo

6.  Meek’s Cutoff

7.  Weekend

8.  Moneyball

9.  Bill Cunningham New York

10.  Drive

*          *          *

Giampaolo
Mysteries of Lisbon
Sleepless Nights Stories
The Turin Horse
Melancholia
The Future
Meek’s Cutoff
Contagion
Hugo
Le Havre
Bridesmaids

Jake
Tree of Life
Melancholia
Moneyball
Poetry
Le Quattro Volte
Hugo
Weekend
The Descendants
The Arbor
Take Shelter

M. Pitkoff
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Too Big to Fail
The Trip
George Harrison: Living in the Material World
The Love We Make
Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
The Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975)
Moneyball
Zookeeper

Liz
Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
Sleeping Beauty
Tree of Life
Beginners
Weekend
Heartbeats
Page One
Bill Cunningham New York
Bridesmaids
Conan O’Brien: Don’t Stop

Brian
Le Quattro Volte
Beginners
Tree of Life
Shame
Midnight in Paris
The Trip
I Saw the Devil
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Moneyball

M. Paley
Beginners
Melancholia
Drive
Meek’s Cutoff
Into the Abyss
Tree of Life
Poetry
Weekend
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
The Artist

Adam
Beginners
Drive
Tree of Life
Melancholia
Shame
Midnight in Paris
Bill Cunningham New York
The Artist
Meek’s Cutoff
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Peter
The Ides of March
Win/Win
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Midnight in Paris
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Bill Cunningham New York
Melancholia
Super 8
Bad Teacher
X-Men: First Class

The list was created through a compilation of frequency and then weighted through adding their rankings and dividing the sum by the frequency. The films in four lists or more have their averages equally weighted with one another.

Beginners – 4  ( 1, 1, 2, 4 ) // 2

Melancholia – 4  ( 2, 2, 4, 4 ) // 3

Tree of Life – 5  ( 1, 3, 3, 3, 6 ) // 3.2

Midnight in Paris – 4  ( 2, 4, 5, 6)  // 4.25

Hugo – 3  ( 1, 6, 8 ) // 5

Meek’s Cutoff – 3  ( 4, 6, 9 ) // 6.3

Weekend – 3  ( 5, 7, 8 ) // 6.6

Bill Cunningham New York – 3  ( 6, 7, 8 ) // 7

Moneyball – 3  ( 3, 9, 10 ) // 7.3

Drive – 2  ( 2, 3 ) // 2.5

Le Quattro Volte – 2  ( 1, 5 ) // 3

Beats Rhymes & Life : The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest – 2  ( 1, 7 ) // 4

Shame – 2  ( 4, 5 ) // 4.5

The Trip – 2  ( 4, 6 ) // 5

Poetry – 2  ( 4, 7 ) // 5.5

The Artist – 2  ( 8, 10 ) // 9

Bridesmaids – 2  ( 9, 10 ) // 9.5

The boys (and girls) over at Greth Productions have long been a source of inspiration for us here at STE. Their work is alive and electric – crackling with humor, ingenuity, and a love for cinema that we see in the eyes of every zombie, cannibal, and bloodthirsty nun they throw on screen. I’ve counted Greg Hanson and Casey Regan amongst my closest friends and favorite collaborators since they lent us a hand on the set of Ruchiki, but hadn’t yet gotten to pay back the favor – until now.

Dumb Dumbs is Greg Hanson’s insane fever-dream of a music video for Rachel Trachtenburg (of Ruchiki fame) and her teen-girl outfit, SUPERCUTE! An homage to the drug-scare films of the 1930s and 40s, Dumb Dumbs is pure Greg – stylish, innovative, twisted and absurd. Liz and I were delighted to be asked to produce – almost as delighted as we are to share a little piece of the madness with you now. Enjoy!