Monday, February 27, 2012

The Golden Iris Awards - Including the Best Films of 2011

Best of 2011


1. Take Shelter
Directed by Jeff Nichols

"Take Shelter" embodies a moment in time, a period in American history when honest, hardworking people, who have done what the proverbial American dream has dictated they must do to succeed, have been stricken with the ominous premonition that something beyond their control threatens to come along and wash away everything they've worked for, the lives they've built for themselves. As a character study, it is intimate and candid, and Michael Shannon was more deserving of an Oscar nomination for his performance here than any other actor I saw in 2011. As a profile in paranoid schizophrenia it is accurate and heartbreaking. But as an allegory for the economic recession it is inventive and harrowing and very, very powerful. Jeff Nichols' "Take Shelter" has tapped into a national mood. With any discernible degree of cosmic justice, time will endow this film with historical significance. "Take Shelter" is the best movie of the year.