Your Top Five Films of 2012

Here's my favorites!

#5 Skyfall

#4 John Carter

#3 Django Unchained

#2 Paranorman

And to no one's surprise...

#1 The Avengers

Oh! And this isn't a Top Five thing, but my "Bad Ass of The Year Award" goes to Bilbo Baggins. Hulk was cool, James Bond kicked ass and Jamie Foxx sure killed a lot of honkies, but not one of them showed the bravery and overcame the odds like that little Hobbit.


And to counter my Top 5 Favorite Films, here's the Top 5 Disappointing Reels of Nonsense from 2012:

#5 Safe House

#4 Looper

#3 The Grey

#2 Ted

And the biggest let down, stink on toast of 2012 is...

#1 The Dark Knight Rises

1 The Hobbit
2 Argo
3 Brave
4 The Avengers
5 Dark Knight Rises

The Rest of what I saw of 2012 films was Okay...

6 Ted
7 Skyfall
8 Haywire
9 John Carter
10 Total Recall
11 Bourne Legacy
12 The Grey
13 Ghost Rider
14 Battleship

But to be fair, I Haven't seen any of these yet, but I plan to:

Prometheus
The Raven
Les Misérables
Lincoln
Resident Evil: Retribution
Cloud Atlas
The Man with the Iron Fists
Life of Pi
Rise of the Guardians
Hitchcock
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Here's everything I saw in 2012, a high point in moviegoing for me. I haven't seen this many movies in a single year since the 1980s. They are in no particular order, and I pretty much liked everything I saw, despite a few quibbles here or there. One great discovery for me was that two theaters within driving distance were showing Bollywood movies, so I went to a bunch of those and had a great time. Many of the US movies I saw with my 17-year-old younger son, so that probably helped my enjoyment of all this middlebrow stuff. My 20-year-old older son is away at college, and he has much more discerning tastes, so he would have been much more critical, or would have refused to see a lot of it.


Bollywood movies seen 2012

Barfi -- Deaf/mute Barfi charms and/or pranks everyone in Pondicherry with his Chaplin homage routines. A comedy, a love story, and a kidnapping and murder mystery. Not much singing or dancing, tho the soundtrack was nice enough.

Bol Bachchan -- broad slapstick comedy as Muslim Abbas Ali (played by big star Abhishek Bachchan) is forced to pretend to be Hindu Abhishek Bachchan, and then to moonlight as his imaginary gay dancer Muslim twin brother Abbas Ali. Lots of great singing and dancing, hilarious over the top fights and car chases, gorgeous indian scenery.

Ek Tha Tiger -- Salman Khan plays superspy Tiger, on the run from everyone with hot double agent Katrina Kaif. Great singing and dancing, great international locations.

Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana -- Prodigal son returns to try to rediscover his family's famous chicken recipe, learns the secret ingredient (POT), and then learns the REAL secret ingredient (LOVE). Beautiful food, cooking, and locations, okay music but no dancing, overlong, but still effecting.

Delhi Belhi -- (seen on video, not in theater) great heist comedy of errors with good acting, great music, but no dancing except in the credits. Far more vulgar, explicit, sophisticated, and human than any other Indian movie I've ever seen, kind of a Bollywood Hangover.

The Dirty Picture -- sentimental epic telling the life story of a Bollywood actress, full of singing and dancing and corny big emotions, great stuff!



Hollywood movies seen 2012

21 Jump Street -- Great comedy action movie, great chemistry between the two buddy leads, lots of great supporting roles including some memorable cameos.

John Carter -- great-looking adaptation of the books, lots of fun, close enough in spirit, although of course tons got changed.

MIB3 - fun time travel and space alien action yarn

The Dark Knight Rises -- I liked this a lot, what with the excellent superhero action and fine performances by all involved. A fine ending to the trilogy.

Django Unchained -- great movie, awesome action, great characters, unsparing portrayal of the horrors of slavery, and fantasy revenge!

Moonrise Kingdom -- incredibly beautiful camerawork and photography, wonderful characters and dialogue, great movie overall.

7 Psychopaths -- funny sorta-thriller, sorta-shaggy-dog-story with great actors doing great work

Avengers -- great superhero action, great dialogue and performances, great special effects, and good shawarma

Expendables 2 -- Lunkheaded but enjoyable shoot-em-up nostalgia fest

Chronicle -- decent found-footage low-budget teen superhero story. Nice work for what they had to work with.

Looper -- fun time travel and psychic powers action yarn

Life of Pi -- Inspirational shipwreck story of a boy and his tiger, beautiful CGI and thoughtful script.

Skyfall -- James Bond has "lost a few steps" but can still save the world in the end, and look good doing it. A less arrogant version of Bond from Daniel Craig, makes us feel some pain and remorse for the terrible things he has to do, and some genuine affection for the women he beds but cannot keep. Preposterous technical details are part of the fun.

Amazing Spider-Man -- unnecessary but still decent reboot of the franchise. Emma Stone looks perfect as Gwen Stacy, Rhys Ifans looks not so perfect as the Lizard.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- I loved every minute of its three hours in Middle Earth, with awesome characters and special effects that looked just great in 2D.

There were a few things that bothered me about the Spidey reboot. I liked the film over all, it was fun. But at the end why dod Spiderman need to be saved? Doesn't he stick to walls? Sure he was out of webbing but, Couldn't he stick to the building?

Joe Lee wrote:

There were a few things that bothered me about the Spidey reboot. I liked the film over all, it was fun. But at the end why dod Spiderman need to be saved? Doesn't he stick to walls? Sure he was out of webbing but, Couldn't he stick to the building?

I like TASM a lot too, but a couple of things at the end really irked me. The nonsense with the cranes was really, really silly. I truly didn't mind it all that much, like John McClane leaping onto the back of a harrier jet I'm pretty comfortable letting some silly stuff wander into films. On it's own I'd totally overlook the crane business, but coupled with the final scene I tend to automatically highlight it. Speaking of which, the final scene. Peter breaking his promise to Captain Stacy really bothered me.

There are few heroes that I hold to such high ideals, but characters like Clark Kent and Peter Parker are shining examples of all a hero should be. Heck, guys like Peter Parker are the kind of heroes other superheroes aspire to be -breaking a promise, to a dead man no less, seemed wildly out of character to me. Especially when it comes to Peter, he is renowned for personal suffering at the cost of doing what's right. I think having Captain Stacy force Peter to make the promise in the first place was a mistake because obviously Peter and Gwen were going to end up back together at some point. It's just sad the writers couldn't find a more interesting way to bring them together beyond having Peter cop out in the last minute of the movie. Given the coy smiles both characters had it was obvious the film makers were going for a kind of "look out charmingly cheeky these two are together" when really it just made Peter look like a jerk.

In order, best first,

John Carter (better a broken version of a good story than no story)

Avengers (no story, but lots of action and banter)

Lock-Out

The Grey

Prometheus

The Total Recall remake was ok too.

I wanted to like Skyfall and the new Bourne but neither really cut it
and I hated the perfectly tied up ending in Dark Knight Rises
And I didn't see Amazing Spiderman yet, hated the last one before it with all the villains,
Sandman, Venom, Hobgoblin, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, and carnage just too much

No real argument about the Spidey movie. There was a lot of goofy stuff in there. I dunno, maybe my critical skills have just been turned off in movies lately. I'm able to enjoy stuff that would bug the heck out of me if I saw it in a comic book. Even stuff that would have bugged me in movies when I was younger, I seem to be giving it a pass nowadays. If the movie keeps me somewhat entertained and has a few good set-pieces, a few laughs here and there, some pretty scenery, that seems to be all I really need these days.

Like in Skyfall, there's a bit where they capture the computer hacker badguy, bring him back to the MI6 HQ, and proceed to plug his laptop right into their mainframe, ostensibly to run tests on it. Heck, even the pimply-faced kids at the Best Buy Geek Squad counter know not to connect my virus-laden laptop to their main system! So of course, the laptop takes over the whole system and proceeds to blow everything up even more than before! But despite this obvious bit of nonsense, the ensuing explosions and fights were entertaining enough that I didn't mind it. Like I said above, preposterous technical details are part of the fun.

Peter Urkowitz wrote:

Like in Skyfall, there's a bit where they capture the computer hacker badguy, bring him back to the MI6 HQ, and proceed to plug his laptop right into their mainframe, ostensibly to run tests on it. Heck, even the pimply-faced kids at the Best Buy Geek Squad counter know not to connect my virus-laden laptop to their main system! So of course, the laptop takes over the whole system and proceeds to blow everything up even more than before! But despite this obvious bit of nonsense, the ensuing explosions and fights were entertaining enough that I didn't mind it. Like I said above, preposterous technical details are part of the fun.

That's exactly the type of tiny detail that would irk me, but in this case I felt it fit one of Skyfall's themes. MI6 were so arrogant about being the untouchable alpha dogs they just assumed without any real thought that their security would be about to combat whatever might have been on the bad guy's computer. The smartest dude in the room was beside himself with disbelief because he's the best of the best, or at least he thought so until that moment. They were one upped from every angle, not because they're stupid but because they'd never really been beaten before, at least not on so large a scale, or so directly.

I saw the following films (all but three in the theater) that were released in 2012:

Joyful Noise
One for the Money
Big Miracle
Chronicle
Safe House
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Wanderlust
The Lorax
A Thousand Words
John Carter
21 Jump Street
Hunger Games
Wrath of the Titans
The Raven
The Avengers
The Avengers IMAX 3D
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Dark Shadows
Men in Black 3
Moonrise Kingdom
Snow White and the Huntsman
Prometheus
Rock of Ages
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
Ted
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Dark Knight Rises
The Watch
Total Recall
The Campaign
The Expendables 2
The Possession
Dredd
Trouble with the Curve
Hotel Transylvania
Looper
Argo
Here Comes the Boom
Seven Psychopaths
Sinister
Paranormal Activity 4
The Sessions
Cloud Atlas
Skyfall
The Man with the Iron Fists
Wreck-It Ralph
Lincoln
The Hobbit
Zero Dark Thirty
Jack Reacher
This Is 40
Django Unchained

(My wife also says I saw Underworld: The Awakening with her, but I don't remember a single thing about it so I respectfully disagree with her.)

Of the films above, the worst would have to be Paranormal Activity 4, with a dishonorable mention for The Dark Knight Rises. Weak endings for film series that were at once interesting and innovative. Also a shout-down to Looper and Prometheus.

Of the films above, I would award as follows:
Best Supporting Actress to Judi Dench for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Best Supporting Actor to Bill Nighy for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Best Lead Actress to Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty.
Best Lead Actor to John Hawkes for The Sessions.
Best Original Screenplay to Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola for Moonrise Kingdom.
Best Screenplay (Adaptation) to Chris Terrio for Argo.
Best Director to Kathyrn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty.
Best Film to Cloud Atlas. Honorable Mention: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Zero Dark Thirty.
Best Action to The Avengers.
Best Horror to Sinister.
Best Comedy/Musical to This is 40. Honorable Mention: Joyful Noise, Wanderlust, Wreck-It Ralph.

Ted Kilvington wrote:

(My wife also says I saw Underworld: The Awakening with her, but I don't remember a single thing about it so I respectfully disagree with her.)

Having seen the first three of the series, I would have to say, not remembering much of them is probably enough evidence to legally prove you had seen the thing.