Across The Atlantic: Fifth Edition, 30th December 2011

Every fortnight (that is two weeks in case you are reading this hung-over) I will collect, evaluate and release all the film-tastic news that may or may not have made your radar due to it being UK/European specific. Some of it you may read, the majority of it however will probably leave you scratching feverishly at your skull wondering “Who is this? And why am I reading this balderdash!”

The next edition will single the start of a new dawn, a new day, a new life, for me and I’m feeling good! In case you’ve been drunk since Christmas, I’m talking about 2012, and with this post I’d like to wish a Happy New Year to all the readers and writers of Anomalous Material!

The Guardian have released twenty minutes worth of video which looks at the best and worst films of the last twelve months. [Guardian / 2]

Catherine Shoard at The Guardian has created a list showcasing all the Film Themes of the Year, which includes Autophilia, Gosling Lust (left) and Useless Aliens. [Guardian]

Producers of the German television show Stromberg, essentially a German version of The Office, have raised one million Euros in just a week in a drive to see the show reach the big-screen. Talk about people power! [Guardian]

LoveFilm has signed a deal with Sony Pictures to stream their titles as the battle between LoveFilm and NetFlix hots up. Look forward to plenty of deals and offers next year as NetFlix finally invades the British isles. [Guardian]

Neil White had somewhat of a ‘mid-life crisis’ this year, so what did he end up doing to counteract the fact that he was getting older and his two children had left for University? Well, he traveled the word and saw over 600 feature films of course! [Independent]

The TotalFilm Team have chosen their top 10 films of the year. [TotalFilm]

TotalFilm have stuck together a list of 50 potential Oscar contenders, personally though I think you could have summed the feature up in two words: Michael Fassbender. [TotalFilm] 

So a few weeks ago we brought you the news that Colin Firth was out of Spike Lee’s proposed Oldboy remake, but now news has emerged that suggests Clive Owen (left) may take the role instead. [TotalFilm]

Empire’s Top 20 Films of 2011. It contains Senna, Drive and Fast Five (really?) among others. [Empire]

Stellan Skarsgard has been confirmed for Lars von Trier’s next film The Nymphomaniac, while his female muse, Charlotte Gainsbourg is in talks to star alongside Skarsgard. [Empire] 

Stephen Fry plays a character of “pure grossness” in Peter Jackman’s epic two-part adaptation of The Hobbit. He also mentioned that during his audition he was made to eat testicles by the famous director. [Metro]

Meryl Streep has only seen Margaret Thatcher speak once before and that was at her daughter’s university around 2001/2002. She said it left an “indelible impression…” [Metro]

Sacha Baron Cohen is being put on the spot with his next project after director Tom Hooper announced that he wants the actors to sing live in front of the camera, rather than record in a studio, for his adaptation of Les Miserables. [TheSun]

The Sun columnist Alex Zane gives his opinion on the most anticipated films of next year, it looks pretty simple until you get to the final film which happens to be Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. [TheSun]

But that isn’t all…

Because it is the festive period, there’s an understandable lull in the amount of film news that would usually proliferate the airways, so I thought I’d tack my two favourite films of the year – English and Foreign – on to the end of this post.

Jordan’s Favorite English Language Film of 2011: Ben Wheatley’s Kill List.

Kill List quickly became my favorite film (not to be confused with what I would designate as the best film of the year) of 2011 once the credits began to roll at the conclusion of Ben Wheatley’s second directorial feature. So what makes Kill List so special, it’s just another generic assassin picture, right? Wrong! Not only does Kill List contain three masterful performances from Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley and MyAnna Buring, but the final act departs so quickly from the generic thriller that it is setting itself up for it literally catches the audience off-guard and in a perpetual state of shock and awe. The conclusion can only be described as a brutally shocking and completely unpredictable ending turning Kill List from a great film, into something which guarantees to subvert, surprise and most importantly, evoke a hellovalotta conversation between members of the audience. Kill List dared to try something different and be something else and that is why this film is my favorite film of 2011.

Kill List is currently available on DVD in the UK, and it is being released on Video-On-Demand on the 4th of January 2012 and in theatres during the first week of February.

Jordan’s Favorite Foreign Language Film of 2011: Andre Ovredal’s Troll Hunter

Walking into Troll Hunter I didn’t really know what to expect. I personally hadn’t read much into the film and I wasn’t sure it if was going to concentrate more upon the actual notion of the validity of ‘trolls’ and the folklore which accompanies them or actual troll hunting. Thankfully, it was the latter. From the moment that Hans (Otto Jespersen) runs out of the woods shouting “Trolls!”  to the final ambiguous conclusion, it is a relatively low-budget film which contains just the perfect amount of humor, folklore, and reality to create an engaging film with amazing visuals. By infusing the nature of trolls with the bureaucratic wrangling which constantly restricts Hans in his work, the film feels grounded in reality one moment and ten miles beneath the surface the next and it is this combination of reality and fiction that made me fall in love with this Norwegian film.

Troll Hunter is currently available on DVD and Video-On-Demand in North America. It is due to be released on DVD/VOD in Europe on the 9th of January 2012.