The 25 Best Films of 2011 | Film | Slant Magazine

1. Certified Copy

The year’s most subtly intriguing cinematic puzzle is also its best film, a roaming two-hander that’s by turns haunting, confounding, uplifting, and sad. Unnamed art-dealer She (Juliette Binoche) and visiting author James Miller (William Shimmell) wander through the streets of a rustic Italian village, encountering presumptuous baristas, sacred shrines, and hordes of hopeful brides, who blow into the frame like gusts of windblown flowers. Under the guiding hand of an eminent humanist like Abbas Kiarostami, what’s essentially a rambling argument between two often-unlikable people turns into an extended examination of authenticity and imitation, expanding its characters’ love for copies from art to architecture to humanity itself, an open tap endlessly spewing reproductions of itself. Less formally explosive than The Tree of Life, Certified Copy nevertheless solidifies Kiarostami’s reputation as an international director, capable of porting his usual wistful themes and rigorous style onto a modern European setting, telling a story that’s achingly specific but also beautifully universal.

You don’t visit Slant to agree or disagree with its reviewers, you visit Slant to read some of the best and most cerebral film writing on the internet. That being said, I’m happy to agree with their selection for best film of 2011 - though I’d let it share the honor with Beginners. 

Her willful admission that everything she does is artifice, her on-stage declarations that she hates the truth, and her opportunistic transformation from vapid fame whore to protective mama monster with a message all point to her being, to paraphrase the performer in an early interview, the most impressive con artist pop music has ever seen…There are lots of mentions of Jesus Christ throughout the Born This Way project, not to mention Judas, Mary M., and machine guns that shoot church bells. Which makes sense, since Born This Way will likely be playing on a loop in hell.

Slant Magazine’s 4-star review of Born This Way

Lady Gaga: Born This Way | Music Review | Slant Magazine

Source: slantmagazine.com

In a Better World

Exuding the feeling of a crazy man walking around in circles, talking to himself about the woes of humanity, In a Better World asks a lot of little questions about masculinity and the hunger for violence, none of them particularly profound or interesting, in part because of Bier’s willingness to readily resolve everyone’s problems.

Apart from The Village Voice’s J. Hoberman, there really aren’t any other major critics as literate or well-versed in film history as one of my favorites, Slant Magazine’s Ed Gonzalez. Though he didn’t particularly care for In a Better World, it’s a dense and stimulating review that, like everything he churns out, is worth a read.

Source: slantmagazine.com

…And though he flips a cop car just because he can’t stand the idea of *not* flipping a cop car, the director’s look-at-me approach allows the focus to be on his B-movie action rather than his characters…

Slant Magazine’s surprisingly positive review of Tony Scott’s UNSTOPPABLE.

In case you didn’t know, Ed Gonzalez and Nick Schager are two of the best film critics around.