Film Year In Review--2012

Time for our eagerly awaited film wrap-up for 2012. Not being a professional critic, there were plenty of titles I missed, including a handful that sounded pretty good, but I believe I saw enough to get a general feeling for the year.  And I didn't think 2012 was much of a year--though to be fair, I can't remember ever thinking so little of so many films supported by the audience, the critics, or both.

In fact, I had to cheat to fill out my top ten, putting in a few films that didn't deserve to be there.  But before we get to that, let me explain how this works. I discuss only feature films released in theatres, or first made widely available in theatres, in 2012.  No TV, no shorts.  I'll give out some awards, note some trends, categorize the films I saw and then list my top ten.  You can rush to the bottom right now.  I can't stop you.  But most of the fun is on the way.

Whether or not you agree with me--in fact, you won't agree with me--feel free to leave a comment.


2012 AWARDS:

Male Star Of The Year: Channing Tatum.  He starred in three big hits in three different genres, 21 Jump Street, The Vow and Magic Mike.

Female Star Of The Year: Jennifer Lawrence.  She established herself as the lead in a blockbuster series (Hunger Games) and got an Oscar nomination for an indie hit (Silver Linings Playbook).

Actor Of the Year: No performance really stood out, but I'll give it to Sam Rockwell for Seven Psychopaths.

Man Of The Year: Abraham Lincoln, who passed the Thirteenth Amendment and took care of the vampire threat.

Disease of the Year: A perennial--alcoholism (Smashed and Flight)--tied with polio (The Sessions and Hyde Park On Hudson).

Crime Of The Year: Dogsnatching--Killing Them Softly, Seven Psychopaths
 

Weapon Of Choice: Bow and arrow--Hunger Games, The Avengers, Brave, Snow White And The Huntsman

New Face Of 2012: Bella Heathcote in Dark Shadows and Not Fade Away.

Worst Performance Guaranteed To Win Lots Of Awards:  Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables.

Best Surprise Good Performance:  Megan Fox, quite funny in This Is 40.

Most Pointless Performance:  Chris Tucker, who hasn't done a non-Rush Hour film in 15 years, shows up in Silver Linings Playbook to do nothing.
 

Best Performance In A Bad Movie: I liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead as an alcoholic in Smashed, and really she's the movie, but somehow I didn't like the movie itself.

Worst Year Ever:  Taylor Kitsch, an unknown, got to star in two mega-flops--Battleship and John Carter (to be fair, they grossed okay overseas, but they're still huge disappointments).  And you can throw in another high-profile miss, Savages.

Funny Money:  Certain consistent comic moneymakers better watch it. For years an Adam Sandler comedy was the surest bet in Hollywood, but now with 2012's flop That's My Boy following the previous year's Jack And Jill, is his audience deserting him?  Then there's Ben Stiller (co-starring with Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill) in the expensive flop The Watch. These guys need hits if they want to justify their salaries.  There are always Seth MacFarlanes waiting to become the new comedy king.

Best Musical Number: "This Must Be The Place" from This Must Be The Place (though the movie edited out the best part)



Worst Title: Tie--Brave (generic and not particular relevant), To Rome With Love (sounds like Woody is sucking up, and anyway it's an old TV series)

That's Not A Title, That's A Warning:  Atlas Shrugged II

Most Misleading Title: Tie--Lincoln and The Comedy

Best Missed Title:  Big Miracle, about an effort to rescue a whale trapped in ice.  Why was this not called Freeze Willie?

Worst Accent: Helen Hunt, with a character from Salem in The Sessions. Or was that even an attempt at an accent? (Though if I were giving a Best Breasts award I think she'd win.)

Worst Historical Impersonation: Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock. Kept thinking I was watching a chubby Anthony Hopkins

Fairy Tale Of The Year:  Snow White in Mirror Mirror and Snow White And The Huntsman (not to mention Once Upon A Time on TV).

You Me And Dupree Award For A Film That While Nominally A Hollywood Comedy Is Actually A Surrealist Masterpiece, Where Plot Points Are Introduced And Dropped For No Reason, Where Dialogue Is Unrelated To The Action, And Where Characters Do Things That Bear No Resemblance To How Humans Act: Playing For Keeps

Clint Eastwood Award For Most Boring Film Of The Year: Les Miserables. They just wouldn't stop singing.(For the first time in a while, the Clint Eastwood film didn't win--maybe because he didn't direct.)
 

Best Final Shot: The Avengers



Worst Idea For A Film:  Rise Of The Guardians. I don't care if it's based on something, do we want to see a story that messes with beloved children's figures?

Oddest Plot: This Must Be The Place—an old, retired goth-style rocker living in Ireland travels across America hunting Nazis.

Biggest Disappointment: Brave. Following their worst film, Cars 2, Pixar does not come back, but rather gives us their take on a Disney princess story, and shows with a muddled plot they're not very good at it.

Worst Soundtrack: Rock Of Ages.

Worst Reboot: The Amazing Spider-Man.
 

Worst Remake: Red Dawn
 

Worst Sequel: Taken 2

Most Cliche-Ridden Film: Trouble With The Curve. Clint Eastwood plays a crotchety old man who secretly goes to his wife's grave to talk to her. He has an adult daughter he was never able to raise properly, and now they've got issues. She goes to visit him on the road even though she's a hotshot lawyer who has to leave behind a big case that just might get her that partnership she's been working every Saturday for seven years to achieve. Clint's a baseball scout who's being replaced by a weasely guy at the front office who uses those newfangled computers and seems to have never even attended a ballgame. But that guy doesn't understand you need the wisdom that Clint brings—in person—to spot talent.  Unfortunately, Clint's eyesight is failling--though he stubbornly refuses to do anything about it.  Hope his daughter can help him. Along the way they meet a former pick Eastwood brought up to the big leagues—he's become a scout, too, since, against Eastwood's direct advice, they had him pitch too much until he threw out his arm. They go to scout a kid who's obnoxious, ugly and, turns out, isn't that good—though only Eastwood can tell because the computers say he's great. Meanwhile, a poor, hardworking, noble kid that the ugly kid mocks--one who's not even on the baseball team but sells hot dogs at the stadium to help out his family--turns out to secretly have great talent (amazing this small town has two MLB prospects). Maybe if they sign him it'll save Clint's jobs and even bring him closer to his daughter, who will also be able to deal with her intimacy issues and be with the other scout.
 

House Of Sand And Fog Award For Reminding Us How Miserable Life Is: Amour

Movie That Most Makes You Wish You Had Memory Loss:  The Vow.

Best Location Shooting:  Ann Arbor in The Five-Year Engagement.
 

TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS:

Islands In Trouble: The Dark Knight Rises, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Moonrise Kingdom

Performing Surgery On Yourself To Remove Something Dangerous Put Into Your Body: Prometheus, The Bourne Legacy, Total Recall

Disgruntled Asian Domestics Are Funny: The Campaign, That's My Boy

Assisted Living: Amour, The Sessions, The Intouchables

Bostonians Who Were Famous As Children But Today Live Forgotten, Dissolute Lives Love To Party Hard With Forgotten Celebrities:  That's My Boy (with Vanilla Ice), Ted (with Sam Jones, aka Flash Gordon)

Smoking Is Cool: This Must Be The Place, Flight, Chicken With Plums, Holy Motors

Nothing Is More Exciting Than A Chase Over The Old Rooftops Of Istanbul: Taken 2, Skyfall
 

Water Kills: Life Of Pi, The Impossible, Kon-Tiki

Lots of Business Is Done Inside Well-Equipped Luxury Cars. Cosmopolis, Arbitrage, Holy Motors

Old People Do The Darnedest Things:  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Quartet, Amour

Chris Hemsworth Goes Into The Woods Where People Try To Kill Him. The Cabin In The Woods, The Avengers, Snow White & The Huntsman, Red Dawn

Everything Is Food:  Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, Lunch, The Hunger Games

Worst Trend: Found footage movies,. Project X, Chronicle, the latest Paranormal Activity and others. The concept has been spreading through TV and movies for years now, and it's gone from novelty to encumbrance. The sort of cheating involved to create a scenario where everything necessary to tell the story just happened to have been captured by some camera is not only absurd, but leads to annoying and unpleasant footage.

Got A Message? Use Western Union: Promised Land, Killing Them Softly, The Campaign, The Lorax

Fifty Shades Of Grey: The Grey, The Woman In Black, Dark Shadows, Men In Black 3, Snow White And The Huntsman, Dark Horse, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

This Is 40 Minutes Too Long. Yet another Judd Apatow comedy, This Is 40, easily over two hours. Do we need this?  Citizen Kane was under two hours.  There were a bunch of films this year that took two and a half hours or more, though the tedium started setting in well before. If you're in the editing room and you see the cut is over two hours, you better make sure it's justified. And if it's a comedy, aim for 90 minutes.

What The Hell Was That?: The Master, Holy Motors, The Comedy, Dark Horse

Lost In Translation: Gigantic hits in their own countries met with quizzical stares in America. The Intouchables, The Inbetweeners, Klown The Movie
 

It Started Well, Anyway: Dark Shadows, Flight, Rampart, Chronicle, Jack Reacher

Tricky Titles When Buying Your Ticket: A Late Quartet and Quartet (especially the late showing)
 

Best Argument For Occupy Wall Street: Cosmopolis

Best Argument Against Occupy Wall Street:  The Dark Knight Rises

Best Pro-Torture Argument:  Zero Dark Thirty

Best Anti-Torture Argument: Think Like A Man (because the film is torture, get it?)

Best Argument Against Child Care: Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Best Argument Against Old Person Care: Amour

Least Effective Argument:  2016: Obama's America

Loved The Atmosphere, Not The Movie: Dark Shadows, Not Fade Away.

Nowhere To Go: Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, A Thousand Words

Violent, Crazy People Are Charming: Silver Linings Playbook, Seven Psychopaths, That's My Boy, Killing Them Softly

History Mystery: Three films nominated for Oscars based on specific and well-known historical situations—Lincoln, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. It's sort of cheap, in that you can claim this is real to make it seem more exciting (even as you invent things that never happened), but also excuse weakness by saying that's how it really happened. Still, it's interesting to make something dramatic where we already know the ending.

Disappointing Directors: A number of my favorite directors had films that did well, or were critically popular. Some were even considered comebacks. But they all disappointed me, to one extent or another--Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom), Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Todd Solondz (Dark Horse), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook).


RANKINGS:

Good:

Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, The Secret World Of Arrietty, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope, Bernie, Marvel's The Avengers, Paul Williams Still Alive, Argo, Pitch Perfect, Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, Lunch, A Royal Affair

Okay:

Chronicle, Let The Bullets Fly, Footnote, Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, 21 Jump Street, The Hunger Games, Headhunters, Natural Selection, Ted, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Klown The Movie, Dark Horse, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Side By Side, Sleepwalk With Me, Robot And Frank, The Inbetweeners, Looper, This Must Be The Place, Lincoln, The Sessions, Life Of Pi, This Is 40, Jack Reacher, Django Unchained, Barbara, Amour, Kon-Tiki

Not Okay:

Contraband, Coriolanus, Haywire, The Grey, The Woman In Black, Man On A Ledge, Rampart, Thin Ice, Safe House, Wanderlust, John Carter, Friends With Kids, Mirror Mirror, The Lorax, American Reunion, The Three Stooges, Project X, The Five-Year Engagement, Dark Shadows, Moonrise Kingdom, The Dictator, The Intouchables, Men In Black 3, A Cat In Paris, Battleship, Prometheus, Rock Of Ages, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, Brave, To Rome With Love, The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, The Amazing Spider-Man, Savages, Snow White And The Huntsman, The Dark Knight Rises, Killer Joe, Ruby Sparks, Total Recall, The Campaign, The Bourne Legacy, A Thousand Words, Paranorman, The Expendables 2, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, That's My Boy, Premium Rush, 2016: Obama's America, Hit & Run, Lawless, The Vow, The Master, Taken 2, End Of Watch, Smashed, Flight, Skyfall, The Details, The Comedy, Silver Linings Playbook, Trouble With The Curve, Hitchcock, Killing Them Softly, Red Dawn, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Rise Of The Guardians, Playing For Keeps, Stand Up Guys, This Means War, Les Miserables, Not Fade Away, The Guilt Trip, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Big Miracle, The Impossible, Think Like A Man

TOP TEN

A few of these are charity cases, but ten is a tradition.  So here they are in alphabetical order:

Arbitrage

Okay, maybe it shouldn't be here, but a reasonably intelligent genre film dealing with the world of finance, featuring a good lead performance from Richard Gere and a plot that's not entirely obvious puts it a cut above.

The Cabin In The Woods 

Joss Whedon did another decent film in 2012, but this was the really exciting one.  Not a horror film so much as a comment on the horror film.  Funny, clever and exhilarating.

Chicken With Plums

A film (in French) about a man who lies down to die.  Sounds depressing, but this is a fantasy filled with life and imagination.

Cloud Atlas

A very flawed film. It bravely takes a stand against slavery, blackmail, murder, false imprisonment, human trafficking and the apocalypse.  But what it lacks in depth, it makes up for in amazing breadth.

Holy Motors

A man drives around all day in a limo performing in different scenarios, every time playing a different character.  Quirky, even bizarre, I'm not even sure if I like the film.  The biggest problem is I didn't feel any cumulative power, but the stuff that worked was fascinating.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present

I was worried this would be an insufferable document about a pretentious performance artist. Instead I got both a great history of a pioneering woman, and a moving portrayal of her latest installation/retrospective.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

No matter how many we've seen, there's always room for another coming-of-age film as long as it's done with this much emotion, humor and imagination.
 

Safety Not Guaranteed

A lot of little films that come out of nowhere deserve to return there, but this was funny and intriguing.  And the relationship between Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass was perhaps the most moving of the year.  Still not sure about that ending.

Seven Psychopaths

Martin McDonagh's people are violent and unpleasant.  But they're also witty and interesting.  The cleverest film of the year.  It was too much for some people, but I'd think the title would have told them what they were in for.

Zero Dark Thirty

Kathryn Bigelow's detailed, no-nonsense take on the labyrinthine hunt for bin Laden raises the film far above the procedural it might have been.