A site of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle, the state's professional association of film critics.
3-D Isn’t The Only Gimmick
If A Cursor Falls On A Link And There’s No One There To Hear It…
Next year I’m doing a Top 11. Unless the Mayans were right.
After seeing about 200 movies in 2011, I decided that there was no definitively great movie of 2011. I can’t imagine people talking about any of these movies in 20 years as having been “all-time classics.”
If last year’s “The Social Network,” “Winter’s Bone,” “Black Swan,” “True Grit” or “Inception” had been released this year, any one of them would have topped the list for this year.
That said, I felt as though 2011 was a year in which many genre films - in categories including comic-book and science-fiction - were better than in the past. A couple were even pretty great.
The result is a 10-best list for 2011 that is, as always, something more like my 10 favorites for the year.
Not one of the better years for movies, 2011 ultimately might wind up best remembered as the year everyone finally got a collective migraine from 3-D. Still, there were some outstanding films here and there:
With even fewer great movies in 2011 than 2010, I was unsure whether I’d be able to find enough to fill the standard 10 slots. (Oddly, Tom Cruise to the rescue!) I’m also unsure what it says about me that I know general audiences would not be able to handle four of these films, starting with the top three.
Oklahoma City, Dec. 23 — The Oklahoma Film Critics Circle, the statewide group of professional film critics, has announced its sixth annual list of awards for achievement in cinema, giving top honors to the “The Artist,” a black-and-white, silent film that speaks volumes about movies and the people who make and watch them.
It also earned two additional wins for Michel Hazanavicius in the categories of Best Director and Best Screenplay, Original.
Set in the early days of Hollywood’s motion picture industry, “The Artist” celebrates the wonders of film as it explores the hazards of celebrity in the structure of a charming love story. Like another of the group’s Top 10 films of the year, Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” it pays tribute to the creative force behind filmmaking while also focusing on the impact the business has on the creative process and product.
While the quirky, satirical and even provocative sensibilities of Payne’s previous efforts emerge here, The Descendants is his most tender film to date.
Apparently, even my editors think Ted Turner is an asshole. Meanwhile, Tarsem should just make the world’s awesomest looking commercials. They take less time.
This movie is a lot of fun and, in the era of Occupy Wall Street, ends up being a perfectly-timed wish-fulfillment caper for the 99%.
The Oklahoma Film Critics Circle has honored filmmaker Sterlin Harjo with the 2011 Tilghman Award celebrating achievement in cinema in the state.
The OFCC presented Harjo with the Tilghman Award Friday, Nov. 5, after a screening of several of his most recent works, documentary shorts for Tulsa’s This Land Press. The event was at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
Harjo, a 31-year-old member of the Seminole and Creek Nations, has earned international acclaim for films examining contemporary life of Native people. His feature-length narratives – “Four Sheets to the Wind” in 2007 and “Barking Water” in 2009 – are emotionally rich motion pictures populated by complex characters.
“Sterlin’s films are invested with a humanity and depth of emotion that eludes many of his older, more experienced peers,” says OFCC President Rod Lott. “In a short period of time, Sterlin has really raised the bar for Oklahoma filmmakers. He more than deserves the Tilghman for his commitment to his art.”
Sterlin Harjo receives the Tilghman Award from OFCC president Rod Lott
OFCC’s 19 member critics choose as recipients of the award those individuals who have made significant contributions to film, advanced awareness of film in Oklahoma or highlighted Oklahoma as the home of talented and productive filmmakers, actors and others in the industry.
Raised in Holdenville and now living in Tulsa, Harjo began his filmmaking career while he was an art student at the University of Oklahoma. He credits a film class of Misha Nedeljkovich there with introducing him to the motion pictures of John Cassavetes and other independent-minded directors.
“It really opened my eyes to foreign films and independent films,” Harjo says. “He (Nedeljkovich) introduced me to all these different filmmakers and … the fact that you could make your own kind of film and it didn’t have to be like the stuff you see coming out of Hollywood.”
After launching into film, Harjo was selected to the Sundance Institute Filmmaker Lab. There he met producer Chad Burris, a Weatherford native, and the pair collaborated on a short film, “Goodnight Irene,” before tackling a larger project based on Harjo’s screenplay.
That resulting work, “Four Sheets to the Wind,” premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of a young man named Cufe Smallhill (Cody Lightning) who goes to live with his troubled sister after the death of their father. The movie drew strong critical acclaim and earned a Sundance Special Jury Prize for Tamara Podemski, who portrayed Cufe’s sister. The actress later earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance.
In 2009, Harjo wrote and directed “Barking Water,” a haunting road film about a dying man and his ex-lover traveling across Oklahoma to visit the man’s estranged son. The movie also premiered at Sundance and has been screened around the world.
“I just don’t see myself making films about any other place,” Harjo says. “I mainly tell stories about contemporary Native people from specific tribes — usually Seminole and Creek — and the history of those tribes are that they were displaced from their homeland and put in Oklahoma. There’s a whole dynamic there that’s already created; it’s already complex, and it’s already going to influence my storytelling.”
Previous Tilghman Award recipients are documentary filmmaker Bradley Beeseley, Oklahoma City Museum of Art film curator Brian Hearn and Circle Cinema Foundation president Clark Wiens.
The Tilghman Award is named for William Matthew “Bill” Tilghman, widely credited with being the first individual to make a feature-length movie in what is now Oklahoma. He served as a deputy U.S. marshal and police chief in Oklahoma City, among other law-related positions. Tilghman also served as a state senator. In 1908, he made “A Bank Robbery,” which starred real-life bank robber Al Jennings recreating one of his crimes.
It was the first of several films Tilghman set in the state. In 1915, the lawman-turned-filmmaker made “Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws,” again starring actual criminals and the good guys who chased them. He is known for his attempts to deglamorize the outlaw villain and for striving to prove there are no outlaw heroes.
