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The "Hammer Horror" on the cover of the new 49th issue of Cinema Scope refers to Kill List, "which strikes me as the key horror movie of the new century so far," writes Adam Nayman, introducing his interview with director Ben Wheatley. Before moving on to the rest of the issue, let me note that Marcus Hearn has a relatively new book out about the original Hammer, The Hammer Vault: Treasures From the Archive of Hammer Films and Kimberly Lindbergs talks with him about it for Movie Morlocks. It's one of her favorite film-related books of the year and, at the Playlist, Drew Taylor gives it an "A."

But back to Cinema Scope. Olivier Père talks with William Friedkin about Killer Joe and, in something of a coup, Jp Sniadecki scores an interview with Ai Weiwei: "He is not officially allowed to give interviews, nor to produce any films,...

Kevin B Lee, editor of Fandor's Keyframe, has put Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy at the top of his list, and when he polled his contributors — quite a roster, too — and counted the number of mentions, Certified Copy came out on top again. Further Keyframe top tens: Michał Oleszczyk and Alejandro Adams.

Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive tops Matt Riviera's poll of Sydney film critics, and you can scan each of their ballots at A Life in Film. Drive's also scored with the Utah Film Critics, as Steve Montgomery reports at the Alt Film Guide. Peter Knegt for indieWIRE: "Tate Taylor's The Help and Dee Rees's Pariah were among the major winners at the Black Film Critics Circle's annual awards."

UK-based Neil Young has quite the eclectic list, but the two films he chooses to dwell on are Gore Verbinski's Rango and Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret.

Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Sleeping Beauty Nicolas Winding Refn's thriller Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, and Albert Brooks, was the Sydney Film Critics' choice for Best Film of 2011. In the United States, Drive was the top pick of the Utah Film Critics; elsewhere, most Us critics groups have gone for either Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist or Alexander Payne's The Descendants. A 2010 release (in the Us), Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan was the Sydney Critics' no. 2 movie. Natalie Portman stars as a disturbed ballerina who slowly loses her grip on reality. That was followed by two arthouse movies: Lars von Trier's Melancholia, which earned Kirsten Dunst the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, a transcendental family drama starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain. The Tree of Life won this year's Palme d'Or in Cannes.