2011 CAST Awards Announcement

Posted on January 1, 2012 by James McNally
Update: Check out the CASTcast podcast organized by the Mamo.ca guys! It’s hosted by our friends over at Row Three. Hear me and six other loudmouths debate the results for an hour! Special thanks to Matt Brown for organizing this.

I’m very pleased to announce the results of the 2nd edition of the CAST Awards. I “cast” an even wider net this year, and received 40 completed ballots from film lovers in the Greater Toronto Area. Here are the CAST Top 25 voted on from a predetermined list of just over 100 films which had the most preliminary support. Voters ranked up to 25 films on their ballot from top to bottom, with first choices receiving 25 points, second choices 24, etc. The Points column lists the total score for each film, the Mentions column indicates the number of ballots it appeared on, and the Seen column indicates the total number of voters who have seen the film, even if they didn’t include it on their ballot. I’m proud of the group of critics we’ve gathered, even though I’ve described us elsewhere as “a ragtag group of semi-professional film bloggers, tweeters and Lightbox lobby loiterers.” Of the 112 films on the ballot, more than half our voting group saw at least 40, and five saw more than 70!

FILM TITLE
POINTS
MENTIONS
SEEN
1. Drive 548 31 36
2.The Artist 479 26 29
3. The Tree of Life 460 24 27
4. Attack the Block 386 25 36
5. Take Shelter 376 20 21
6. Midnight in Paris 330 24 31
7. Melancholia 306 19 26
8. Shame 284 19 28
9. Beginners 281 19 24
10. Martha Marcy May Marlene 279 20 24
11. Hanna 235 18 28
12. Café de Flore 207 9 13
13.The Raid 205 12 15
14. Blue Valentine 192 11 30
15. Bridesmaids 185 18 31
16.The Muppets 179 14 25
17. The Illusionist 174 11 22
18. The Descendants 172 11 16
19. Super 8 167 16 31
20. Contagion 167 14 22
21. The Interrupters 167 10 12
22. Tabloid 165 12 20
23. Hugo 162 10 23
24. The Trip 159 14 24
25. Meek’s Cutoff 159 10 18

Participants:

Here is a PDF with each person’s ballot and the collated results, with a few more interesting stats included. Voters could opt out of having their ballot included, so you may notice some omissions, but rest assured that each submitted ballot contributed to the overall results.

And for those still reading, here is my final CAST ballot, ranking 25 films from the list of eligible films. In a future blog post, I’ll come up with my own 2011 list(s), similar to what I did last year and in 2009 and 2008.

My CAST Ballot

  1. The Tree of Life (review)
  2. The Artist (review)
  3. Martha Marcy May Marlene (review)
  4. The Interrupters
  5. Take Shelter
  6. This is Not a Film (review)
  7. The Descendants
  8. Win Win
  9. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
  10. Drive
  11. Attack the Block
  12. Beginners
  13. Hanna
  14. Rango
  15. ALPS (review)
  16. Super 8
  17. Goodbye First Love (review)
  18. The Guard
  19. Contagion
  20. Midnight in Paris
  21. Bridesmaids
  22. Shame (review)
  23. Miss Bala (review)
  24. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
  25. The Ides of March
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5 Responses to 2011 CAST Awards Announcement

  1. Joseph says:
    January 2, 2012 at 9:38 am

    Wow, James! You really went all out. I’m not at all surprised but thanks so much for taking all the time needed to get this accomplished. I must say, we have some pretty good taste. I am very happy with our final Top 10. There is really only one picture in there that I consider pretty overrated really and I’m thrilled to see 7 of my Top 10 titles shared in the final results. Funny how 40 people can come together, seem to have completely different taste, and yet still come to a conclusion that satisfies all .. or most anyway.

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  3. Peter says:
    January 2, 2012 at 6:49 pm

    Interesting to see Blue Valentine so high on the list. I watched it in TIFF 2010, so I didn’t put in on my 2011 list. It would have been in my top 10 for sure otherwise. Same thing may occur with A Separation, Warhorse and other movies that either wouldn’t be in regular release till 2012.

  4. James McNally says:
    January 3, 2012 at 4:14 pm

    Agreed on Blue Valentine, Peter. Films that play at TIFF one year and don’t get theatrical releases until the following year will continue to be challenging and will likely fall through the cracks. I voted for Blue Valentine and Incendies last year but didn’t want to vote for them again this year, which undoubtedly hurt a bunch of titles.

    My wife Brooke suggests we do a special CAST Award for Best TIFF Film, and we do it directly after TIFF, so at least those films will get some recognition of their own ahead of their wider theatrical releases. I’d love to do it but will likely need some help (pretty blonde interns please apply!). Even with 40 voters, the sheer amount of work nearly killed me!

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