Not Coming to a Theater Near You Two-Thousand Eleven In Review

by Glenn Heath, Jr. Movies were grand this year (thanks in large part to superb festival stragglers from 2010), and many critics have written as much over the last few months. The consensus is that those viewers who sought out titles beyond the mainstream, like Certified Copy, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, The Arbor, and even dynamic Hollywood fare like Hugo and Fright Night, were justly rewarded with films that explored and destroyed the boundaries between cinematic time and space. Looking back at my own life-altering experiences in 2011, both as a writer, traveller, and film spectator, one common thread thread snakes through the highest of highs: regional cinema, or more specifically, the focus on cities and communities as extensions of perspective, character, and experience.

I have to mention the earthly locale that opened up so many possibilities for me in 2011. Going to The Cannes Film Festival for the first time was a tornado of emotions and opportunities that I’ve spent the better part of six months processing. Walking down the serpentine Croisette, hearing the orchestra of coughs continue throughout each epic screening at the Grand Theatre Lumiere, debating the merits of Drive and Miss Bala with fellow festival-goers (two other films immersed in urban dynamics); it was all special, every single moment. Yet after all the films, and waiting in lines, and late hours writing dispatches, what I remember most vividly is sharing a cold drink in the hot sun with a longtime friend and fellow film writer whom I’d never actually met before. We talked, and drank, and wished there was more time to do more of the same in this stunning city of cinema by the sea.