AFI Top Ten of 2011 Includes 'Tree of Life,' 'Dragon Tattoo,' 'J. Edgar' and 'Bridesmaids'
Will this be the fourth time the Best Picture winner is not among the AFI's top ten?
The American Film Institute (AFI) announced their official selections for the 2011 AFI Awards today naming their top ten films and television shows of 2011 along with news they would be giving The Artist and the entire Harry Potter franchise special awards
Their top ten in the film department was rather diverse ranging from comedy to silent to art house and went like this:
- Bridesmaids
- The Descendants
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- The Help
- Hugo
- J. Edgar
- Midnight in Paris
- Moneyball
- The Tree of Life
- War Horse
If you're looking for some form of correlation to Oscar's Best Picture Award, last year The King's Speech was not among the AFI's top ten, but it was recognized with a special award, just as The Artist is this year.
The AFI has been making a list of the top ten films of the year since 2000 and their lists are made up of films that were American produced, an important fact when looking at the history of winners compared to Best Picture. Since 2000, three times the Best Picture winner not been among the top ten, the first year was in 2006 when The Departed won Best Picture and the second time was in 2008 when Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture. Slumdog, however, was not eligible for the AFI Awards considering it was a British film.
You can also count The King's Speech as the third time the Best Picture winner was not included, but perhaps it started a new trend of the film that receives the "special award" going on to win Best Picture.
Looking at the films mentioned above and comparing to my current Best Picture predictions, only Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is missing and it's still my predicted winner. Does this mean it won't be nominated or will this be another year AFI doesn't match up with Oscar?
As for the television winners, I've listed those directly below.
- "Breaking Bad"
- "Boardwalk Empire"
- "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
- "Game of Thrones"
- "The Good Wife"
- "Homeland"
- "Justified"
- "Louie"
- "Modern Family"
- "Parks and Recreation"
The AFI Awards will be held on January 13, 2012.
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Bridesmaids?! Are they serious? Sorry, but this is probably the most overrated movie of the year. Is it original? Sure, somewhat. But it's really not that funny (not even a top 5 comedy of 2011 for me).
I'm glad to see Bridesmaids here, the best comedy in years.
I think this is a pretty good list- three of the Oscar frontrunners (War Horse, Descendants, Huge), three of the Oscar second-tiers (Moneyball, Midnight in Paris, The Help), plus a big budget blockbuster that I'm expecting to be brilliant and a real visionary art house film.
I'm not surprised by Bridesmaids inclusion. Every year, the AFI includes a mainstream comedy that is well received by critics and audiences- 40 Year Old Virgin in 2005, Knocked Up in 2007, and The Hangover in 2009 to name a few. I think it has a decent chance at an Original Screenplay nom and should do great at the Golden Globes.
The only big "huh?" moment is the inclusion of J Edgar. Great lead performance, pretty awful, boring film. Perhaps AFI is part of the Clint Eastwood Fan Club.
More likely that J.Edgar got in because Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows part 2 is a British film, which wasn't eligible.
Did the AFI specifically say that it considers Harry Potter a "British" film?
I can't imagine that it does. For one thing, it's not. It was American-financed and that generally appears to be AFI's criterion. This is an organization that considers Lawrence of Arabia and The Third Man to be American movies, and they are both far more British than Harry Potter (the movies, not the novels, obviously).
Where is The Walking Dead for Top 10 TV shows?