The Best of 2012

BLAH!
2016: Obama's America 
These kinds of docs, be it Fahrenheit 9/11 or 2016, are turn offs since they make no attempt to give the audience member truth. These docs only serve to excite the base it is trying to appeal to rather than win over anyone with compelling journalism. (D-)

Haywire 
You lost me Soderbergh. C-

Moonrise Kingdom 
He still is stuck in indie dry humor mode. Everything remains flat in this picture. Was the teenage couple cute? Yes. The overall mood of the film just seemed recycled.

YOU DID GOOD, PIG. YOU DID GOOD.

The Dark Knight Rises 
Third installments to superhero (or any) franchises can prove tricky. It's an all or nothing card that is usually dealt. Spiderman 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, Lethal Weapon 3, etc. Most of these films range from adequate to poor. Dark Knight Rises would belong to the former. Nolan really said all he needed to say in The Dark Knight and while we were left wanting more, it makes me question if the signal should have been turned on for the third time? Still, what we got was something that isn't . It stroked the Catwoman nostalgia card we have from Batman Returns while giving us a new face in the suit. DKR remains the dark horse of the trilogy. Not as good as Dark Knight and not really as good as Begins either
C+

Men In Black III 
Better than the second. Not as good as the first. The third greatest trait is its ability to create a plot twist that harks back to the first. A trait which I applaud. Now if only it had a memorable villain. C+

Seven Psychopaths (B-)


With a better script, this movie could have been great. Unfortunately it kind of loses me around the middle. Which is a shame since so many great actors are in it. B-

Lincoln 
A Daniel Day Lewis period piece is bound to get just about anyone's attention. Attach Spielberg to the directing position and add Tommy Lee Jones to it and you have a movie guaranteed to get me in the seat. Regardless of his previous lackluster efforts, Lincoln boasts great performances and signature Spielberg camerawork. It still is missing something though. A rewatch will be needed. Until then, B.

Frankenweenie
Burton's best since Big Fish. His love of Universal horror is on full fledge display here. B

Flight 

Washington delivers his best performance in years and the opening plane crash proves Zemeckis still has it in him. B

Cabin In the Woods

One of the biggest surprises of the year. This is what horror needs more of. B+

TOP TEN

10. Silver Linings Playbook

Russell hasn't really crafted anything of note since Three Kings. Thankfully, he found the cast that helped him change that situation. While the bulk of the cast are good performers, the MVP is Lawrence, whose chemistry with Bradley Cooper keeps the film walking a tightrope between the familiar and the unpredictable. B+


9. Prometheus (B+)

(see September archive review)

8. Argo

Affleck's scriptwriting is at its peak. He has yet to craft a masterpiece, but Argo shows he is more than capable. Every scene of tension is earned. A-


7. Django Unchained 
If any trait can be culled from the many that Tarantino possesses, it is that he knows how to write fully realized characters. Dr. King and Calvin Candie became two of the highlight characters of this veritable buffet of dialogue. It is a lot looser than previous Tarantino films as far as structure. Yet it coheres in a way that Basterds does. As a friend from Radio Isn't Dead put it, Tarantino is at the point where he makes film that are his own genre. Django Unchained isn't a comedy, western or action film. It is a Quentin Tarantino film. A-


6. Looper

Director Rian Johnson’s debut feature was the awesome Brick, a pulpy noir set in a modern day high school. It established him as someone to watch, and he makes good on his early promise here with Looper, a film that borrows from literally every other time travel science fiction film ever made and yet still manages to be fiercely original. A film that backed away from making diagrams with straws and instead made fully realized characters and story developments. A

5. Paradise Lost: Purgatory

A+

4. Skyfall 

Like Batman & Robin was for the Batman franchise, Die Another Day became the black cloud that the franchise kinda needed. You can only go so far into sell-them-toys mode until you have Batty whipping out a credit card. Or in Bond's case, driving invisible cars and jumping onto Playstation- level CGI ice chunks.  Thus, a silver lining was created in 2006 with Casino Royale. The 'Batman Begins' of the series. Daniel Craig was a fresh splash of water in the face of a stale formula. A man only Martin Riggs would be capable to go toe to toe with. Yet the potential wasn't fully realized because we still didn't get the Bond film we deserved in terms of story. Well, it took two movies and we finally got what we wanted. Ian Fleming would be proud. A+

3. Killer Joe
Some counties away from the Firefly clan, lives a family intent on casting themselves in their own little personal hell.  As if Texas didn't have enough problems with Leatherface, Anton Chigurh and the Firefly family, they know have brought a new terror into the world- Joe Cooper. A+

2. The Master 

The Master defies easy interpretation, is at times frustrating to watch, but continues to remain endlessly fascinating months after viewing. It’s a story of a man searching for purpose in a world without meaning for him, and he finds a man who’s doing much the same, although with false intentions. These characters are so complex that we often reinvent them in our own heads as the film progresses; only when the story concludes do we realize that this has been a tragedy all along. I think this is one of the most sharp, assured character studies ever made. It is far and away PTA's most oblique picture. His Eyes Wide Shut. Phoenix is outstanding, remarkably so, reinventing himself, and Hoffman commands in an equally important role. This is a dense, deliberate, abstract film, but it’s also a great one. (A+)


1. Cloud Atlas 

This film’s vision is unprecedented, a 172-minute magnum opus to humanity about the emotions we all feel, utilizing six different storylines spanning hundreds of years; it’s sprawling, it’s dense, but above all it’s grounded in human emotion. I don't think a full on, let's stay true to the novel version could have been possible. (i.e. what Coens did with No Country) But the choices the creators did in adapting by folding minor characters and subplots into larger plots and more prescient characters, the story arcs are able to coalesce into something fun, action packed, dramatic and entertaining.

VILLIAN OF THE YEAR: Gyp Rosetti

One of the defining characteristics of villians like Tommy DeVito and Frank Booth is just how funny they are. Gyp takes these characteristics in stride. Turning a 'funny ha-ha' scene to a scene that makes an viewer shift in their seat at the flip of a coin.

FAVORITE ALBUMS

1. Swans- The Seer
2. Fiona Apple- The Idler Wheel
3. Godspeed You Black Emperor- Allelujah! Dont Bend! Ascend!
4. Killer Mike- R.A.P. Music
5. Scott Walker- Bisch Bosch
6. Ne Obliviscarios- Portal of I
7. Rush- Clockwork Angels



BOOKS READ IN 2012
(in somewhat chronological order of reading)

Fiction
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
The Thin Red Line by James Jones
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Haunted by Chuck Palhaniuk
Choke by Chuck Palhaniuk
A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Conner
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
On Writing by Stephen King
The Stand by Stephen King
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Non-Fiction
Serial Killers: The Methods and Madness of Murder by Peter Vronsky
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Travers & Eliot Aaronson
Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story by D.T. Max