The New Year!

First, let's get this out of the way:

The 10 Best Movies I Saw In 2012

10. Dredd

Karl Urban's Chin for Best Supporting Actor

I will defend this movie until the end of time.  It was concise, exciting, well-edited, excellently visualized, very well acted, and some of the most fun I had at the movies all year.  It managed yet another post-apocalyptic wasteland story without being boring or tired, by staying focused on the minutia of the story...while ALSO not overburdening the viewer with unnecessary (to the story) details.  Plus, HELLA REWATCH VALUE.  See my full review here.

9. The Words

Bradley Cooper for Best Smarming Author

This movie is a lot of things I don't usually care for - generally unhappy, lacking a satisfying ending, and featuring some really unhappy, unlikable characters.  But I appreciate The Words for daring to be unsatisfying in a world that is too full of pandering, safe choices when it comes to film.  It's compelling and bold in its refusal to play to your expectations.  See my full review here.

8. ParaNorman

Laika Studios for Most Exciting Animation Studio

While I still think the ending could have been composed better, ParaNorman wins major points from me for daring to be different - especially when you stack it next to the stale, rehashed Frankenweenie (same genre, similar subjects, but Frankenweenie reeks of Tim Burton's overused storytelling).  ParaNorman works with a lot of the same material - the undead, an outcast main character, etc.) but does so in a way that feels fresh, vibrant, and, occasionally, legitimately scary.  If Laika Studios could keep making macabre children's stories, that would be fantastic.  See my full review here.

7. Skyfall

Best Use of Assassination Glass.  Also that giant lizard for Best Deus Ex Lizard, but I couldn't find a screencap of that.

Daniel Craig seems to be my Bond of choice - I was never invested in them until he donned the perfectly tailored suit and started kicking faces in.  Skyfall manages to feel like a classic Bond film while still retaining that signature Craig style that I've come to be so fond of, and is dotted with class-act performances by the indomitable Dame Judy Dench, the oily Javier Bardem, and the clever Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris.  It's also extremely beautiful to watch, and very well orchestrated.  See my full review here.

6. Looper

Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Best Healer of Paradoxes

I haven't done a full review of Looper, because I only watched it a couple weeks ago - but I'm including it here because it was a 2012 movie and because it was such a fabulous science fiction film that is ALSO a great example of how to do time travel effectively.  What lacked for me in the performances (Joseph Gordon-Levitt is intentionally detached, which works for the movie but made it hard for me to connect with him and, by extension, Bruce Willis as older-him, but Emily Blunt, and the kid who plays her son, were fantastic) was more than made up for in the vision, scope and cohesiveness of the film.  It is really easy for time travel movies to lose track of what they're doing, or to get lost in their own mechanics, but Looper maintains a consistent set of rules for time travel which, while they aren't my personal views on the subject, were internally consistent and ultimately easy to follow.  I'm hoping the positive reception that Looper had means we're going to get more original science fiction - if it's all as good as this, we'll be in excellent shape.

5. Wreck-It Ralph

Vanellope and Ralph for Cutest BFFs

For the first time I can remember, Disney and Pixar released movies in the same year...and Disney's was better.  Like, by a LOT.  Brave fell so flat for me, and Wreck-It Ralph was emotional, and engaging, and fun, and can I be Vanellope when I grow up?  (Or an Nintendo make Sugar Rush a real game for the Wii?  Because seriously.)  This was also so clearly a labor of love - the attention to the little details, like the way an eight-bit character moves compared to a character from a modern Halo clone, show the respect the filmmakers have for their source material.  The whole film honors the video game medium in a really touching way.  I had a serious case of warm fuzzies when the credits rolled.

Also, Wreck-It Ralph gets major points for making me feel like I knew where the ending was going, but then surprising me with a finale that was both foreshadowed but unexpected. 

4. Cabin in the Woods

Best Use of Zombie Redneck Torture Family

I thought I knew what was coming, and then I REALLY, REALLY DIDN'T.  By now, you know that Cabin in the Woods is not your typical horror movie - how could it be, when it's a Whedon project? - but if you haven't seen it, I'm betting you don't realize how THOROUGHLY not typical it really is.  While I don't make a habit out of watching horror film, I like reading horror lit and reading about horror film, so I'm pretty familiar with most of the common tropes and what's been done to death.  Cabin in the Woods looks those tropes in the eyes, laughs dismissively, and then frolics gaily all over them.  It doesn't just rip them to pieces, it revels in tearing them apart.  The ending is pretty whackjob nuts, but so is the rest of the film; right after viewing, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but on contemplation I don't think it could have ended any other way and retained that sense of insanity.  Plus, there are so many little details and touches that make this a fun experience to watch, it invites rewatches just so you can see what you may have missed the first time around.

3. The Avengers

Best Smartasses

If The Dark Knight is the platonic ideal of a superhero movie, then The Avengers is the platonic ideal of a superhero ensemble movie (good luck, Justice League.  You're gonna need it).  I've watched this one several times since its release on DVD, and let me tell you, that final battle sequence never feels overly long or stale.  The Hulk beating the shit out of Loki never gets less funny, Mark Ruffalo always breaks my heart, and my need for a Black Widow/Hawkeye prequel grows ever stronger.  See my full review here.

2. Argo

Best Deployment of an Expletive: "Argo Fuck Yourself."

I had a rough time deciding which of these last two movies got to be number one on my list, and honestly, it changes depending on how I feel.  While they're both historicals and period pieces, Argo is tight, exciting, and provides a fascinating look into the machinations of an area of government that gets maligned quite a bit. It's a spy movie about real spies, and Affleck skillfully works tension into the story even though we all knew (sort of) how it ended.  

See my full review here.

1. Lincoln

Best Use of Daniel Day Lewis. Don't lie, you think so too.

Lincoln, on the other hand, is thoughtful, a story with no less importance but minus some of the urgency thanks to Daniel Day Lewis' performance.  Lewis is playing an old, worn down, brilliant man in his twilight days, and it's evident in every line on his face and every angle of his body.  His Lincoln is both a powerful, commanding leader and a compassionate storyteller, and Lewis mediates between them effortlessly.  The film is also refreshing in that it shows a pretty complete portrait of what was going on during Lincoln's attempts to bring the Civil War to a close.  There's a lot of political wheeling and dealing that isn't flattering to the President (or anyone), but it feels honest.

So what's coming up for the blog this year?  My New Year's Resolution for Boycott BluRay is to see at least  two movies a month in the theater, trying for more - I always reach the end of the year wishing I'd gotten to see more movies, so in 2013 I'm going to commit to doing just that.  I'm also resolving to post reviews within 48 hours of seeing a film, to keep things current (to me, anyway).

I'm going to feature more different kinds of articles as well, like more Trailer Talk (which is super fun to write) and more ruminations about things movie-related that are not necessarily about new releases.  So on the first day of the month, in addition to whatever reviews I've posted, I'll be writing to you about...well, something movie adjacent.  Stay tuned!

Movies Coming Out In 2013 That I'm Excited About

Gangster Squad

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Warm Bodies

Now You See Me

Oblivion

Iron Man 3

The Great Gatsby

Star Trek Into Darkness

Man of Steel

Monsters University

Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

Elysium

Carrie

Ender's Game

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Words

In spite of myself, I find myself becoming fonder and fonder of Bradley Cooper.

I have never liked him - which is not to say I don't recognize his talent, I thought he was quite good in Wedding Crashers and The Hangover (I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Limitless, for more reasons than him).  I've just always gotten this incredible...smug feeling from him.  He seems smarmy to me, like in real life he'd be kind of sleazily good looking and take advantage of every drunk girl in the room.  (PLEASE NOTE: I have NO IDEA if this is true.  It's probably not.  But it's the air I got from him.)

Well, I'm coming around.  While The Words suffers sometimes from being too clever for most of its plot lines - including never actually stating that it's about Hemingway's lost manuscripts, even though it's totally about Hemingway's lost manuscripts - it is saved by completely absorbing performances and the very bold risks it takes.

Let's talk about that for a minute.  When I was picking a movie to see this weekend, I narrowed my choices down to Lawless and The Words.  The deciding factor, after weighing hearsay, actors, and subject matter, was length: The Words caps out at 97 minutes long.  Aside from movies intended for children, I can't even remember the last movie I saw in the theater that was less than two hours long.  The trend seems to  be toward longer and bigger stories, which isn't bad in and of itself, although it does make for some poor editing choices.  The Words, however, commits to its short length, with tight storytelling and good editing.  There's no wasted time here, and no wasted space.

The only real missed opportunity is Zoe Saldana as the wife of Bradley Cooper's suffering author, who only ever pops up to react to something he's done.  What she does, she does beautifully (no one can cry like Zoe), but she's better than this role, and could have brought some real edge to Dora if she'd been given more material to work with.

But the story is the real star of this show, with three twisting strands: you have Dennis Quaid as author Clayton Simmons, giving a reading of his book.  That book is about author Rory Jansen, struggling in NYC to get his labor-of-love manuscript published.  He finds an old manuscript (A Farewell to Arms disguised by cinematic convenience and a briefcase from the 1940's) and, after finding his despair in it (he will never be half the author this mystery writer is, woe), he publishes it under his name.  Jeremy Irons reads it, recognizes his own work, and finds Rory to tell him the true story behind the transformative writing.

That's a lot going on, but due to some beautiful cinematics and the aforementioned tight storytelling, there's no confusion about where or when you are in the story.  The only vagueness wanders in at the end, and it's there for a reason: you as the audience are meant to contemplate the truth of the words, and decide for yourself what the edges of the reality for all three writers (Quaid, Cooper, and Irons) are.  It's a lot of meat for such a short movie, and I appreciated the chance to chew on it.

The other big risk here is that The Words is not out to please its audience, or even to provide a satisfying conclusion.  It doesn't even really end.  It's a movie about a moment, and the immediate fallout of a decision, and the lingering self-doubt and guilt that gets left behind.  It is almost refreshing its unwillingness to satisfy anyone, the audience or the characters, and while I don't think I'd make a habit out of watching movies of this flavor, it certainly made for an interesting experience.