Our Best Films of 2011 | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

As I reiterate every year, there are films you like and films you don't. As a critic and cultural observer, I try my best to go a little beyond that _ to prove that cinema still matters as a tool of thought, of politics, of social criticism, or of the simple magic that we sometimes forget while being swept along with the rush of commodified movies.

And, of course, film is art. Or can be art. And I wonder since when "art" _ a positive and abstract noun _ has begun to carry a negative and even jaundiced connotation when it is followed by the word "movie" _ as if movies are something to stay away from, like green mambas or crocodiles. I value entertainment as much as my mother, who doesn't read this newspaper, and as much as anybody sitting next to me in the dark coffin known as a movie theatre. But I also value something else that cinema has to offer, the something that I and you know what it is when the atomised light projected on screen bounces back and touches you.

So I have two lists here: the 10 films I like that have been released here, and 10 that I saw during my expeditions to various film festivals, because there are so many good films out there that do not make it to the shores of this Kingdom. Or they are on the way here, since out release schedule is usually slower than in the US during the year-end peak period, thus strong films like The Iron Lady, J. Edgar, The Descendants, The Artist, and many others are queuing up for multiplex slots _ while other films listed below will never make it to the big screen here.