Top Ten Films of 2011: Melancholy with a slice of hope

If anyone tells you 2011 was a bad year for cinema, stop in your tracks, turn around and walk away without ever looking back. They have no idea what they’re talking about. With a wealth of quality films from bonafide auteurs devoid of source material, the sheer amount of original work is astonishing. The trend for remakes will most likely never end, but it’s good to know artists in and out of the Hollywood system are fearlessly treading their own path to make movies exciting again. And by exciting I…

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REVIEW: Project Nim [2011]

“It’s the humans I wanted to leave; not the project” If James Marsh‘s documentary Project Nim tells us anything it’s that you must lay out the objectives of scientific experiments concerning animals before heading blindly into them. Columbia University’s Herbert Terrace wanted to see if he could teach a chimpanzee how to communicate by integrating one into a family of humans from birth but never took into consideration the intrinsic emotional and psychological bond we make with those we raise. Enlisting former student—and sexual partner—Stephanie LaFarge to be the surrogate…

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