2011 by the numbers:
Total: 227 [full list here]
Festival: Noir [13], SJFF [2], SIFF [50], MIFFF [6], SLGFF [10].
Shorts packages: 9
Free: 56, plus festival volunteering
Revival: 68
By my arbitrary categories:
Best beloved: Trigger (about which I cannot be rational)
Other favorites: Win Win, Bridesmaids, Hanna, Midnight in Paris
Also worth seeing: The Artist, Melancholia, Drive, Amigo, Martha Marcy May Marlene, 50/50, Le Havre, The Descendants, J Edgar, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Margin Call
Best genre (scifi/fantasy): Attack the Block, Perfect Sense, Super 8, Absentia
Film that put a smile on my face for a solid week, and left me with a nearly-unmanageable crush on Jason Segel: The Muppets
Best Michael Fassbender film: Jane Eyre
Best Jessica Chastain film: The Tree of Life
Best superhero movie: Captain America
Best queer film: 3, Mary Lou, Vito, A(Sexual)
Best documentaries: Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Project Nim, The Black Power Mix Tape, Being Elmo, A(Sexual), Into the Abyss, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Best of SIFF: Submarine, Tyrannosaur, Beginners, Small Town Murder Songs, Saigon Electric, Boy, Detention, The King of Devil’s Island
Best movies you probably didn’t hear about, but are worth a look: Nora’s Will, Henry’s Crime, Cedar Rapids
Best revival: Too many to name
Movies I’m really glad I saw alone: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Almost Famous (director’s cut), Biutiful, You Are Here, Playtime, Resurrect Dead
Most surprising movie I saw twice: Galaxy Quest
Least surprising movie I saw twice: In the Mood for Love
Are these the best films of 2011? Who knows. They are the films I am most likely to hunt you down and make you watch.
Terrible movies with no redeeming qualities: Sherlock Holmes 2 (longest movie *ever*), No Strings Attached, The Rite, Jamie & Jessie Are Not Together, The Scandalous Four, Anonymous, The Darkest Hour
Terrible movies with redeeming qualities: Priest (Maggie Q!), Breaking Dawn Part One(though objectively it is definitely the worst movie I saw all year, even worse than those bad gay movies), Real Steel (Robot dancing!), In Time (with amazing time related puns and Justin Timberlake trying SO HARD to act).
Movies that aren’t out here yet: Maggie: Destroyer of Social Services, Albert Nobbs, Pariah, In the Land of Blood and Honey, A Separation, Carnage, Coriolanus, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Pina, Tomboy
Movies that I missed because I suck: Mainly just The Ides of March & Moneyball.
So… what else did I miss? What did you think was awesome? What did you think sucked, so we can all avoid it?
wicked jaws 
Midnight in Paris, The Muppets, and Moneyball were my favorite movies of the year. It was a great year for movies that start with M.
Removing No Strings Attached from my instant queue right now.
Yeah it was! Throw in Martha Marcy May Marlene & you’ve got it covered!
SKIP IT. Friends With Benefits is okay, if only for Patricia Clarkson & the frank-for-Hollywood discussions of sex, but No Strings Attached is just bad.
I’m amazed & pleased to discover I’ve seen so many of these, despite the feeling of lagging behind! I just feel like I need to run out and see Melancholia while it’s still in theaters. & I still want to catch Le Havre.
Did you see Bellflower, by the way? Ebert’s minions were quite excited about that one & it totally got by me.
I skipped Bellflower because the pieces I read about it talked a lot about the misogyny, and I just didn’t want to deal with that. Maybe you can see it and let me know if it’ll make me want to throw my TV out the window.
See Melancholia! Seeee eeeet! You should pull up the prologue on YouTube; it’s gorgeous.