Apologies for the rushed appearance. I thought we’d all be fiery chunks of flesh by now for the Mayans to sift through, Unfortunately (for my sloppy work ethic) the only post-apocalypse in 2013 will be on film, and I only started thinking about this list last week.
Before I started putting together this list I had a quick look at 2011’s, mainly for formatting purposes but to see how this year stacked up. I was surprised to see that across the board in my opinion 2012 kicked 2011’s arse.
Take that year!
Again though we take a lot of bad to get to the good, and this year thanks to me finally revisiting my entire DVD back catalogue as well as practically everything I considered even semi-decent, I was forced to watch more cinematic atrocities than any year of my life.
In keeping with 2011’s format I once again have the standard Top 10 and a separate 10 that are well worth checking out.
Top 10 in Film
Looper – In the end it was a toss up. Both Looper and The Raid gave me more goose bumps than a game of goose rugby, but where The Raid reminded me of classic Jackie Chan, Looper reminded me of nothing. It was a true original featuring multiple scenes and moments that raised the hairs on the back of your neck and the corners of your lips in equal proportion.
More than anything else in 2012 Looper is the film I cannot wait to add to my personal collection and I am sure I will revisit more than once in 2013.
- The Raid: Redemption– Which brings us to the highly credentialed and well deserving runner-up, a film that would be #1 most years. It’s a long time since I watched the same film four times in four months, but The Raid practically demands that I drag it out every time a kung-fu appreciating friend drops around. Action packed, adrenalin fuelled and featuring a star making turn from Iko Uwais, I can’t wait for the inevitable sequel and hopefully many more films like this in years to come.
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn – At last a film that reminds me of both Indiana Jones, The Goonies and a comic book all in one. Steven Spielberg takes motion capture animation, laces it with humour and action and comes out with a modern day classic that introduces a ready-made unlikely hero to the world, all in a package that the entire family can appreciate. I only hope that Peter Jackson’s rumoured follow up is half as good.
- Brave – So it might be a little more ‘Disney’ than any Pixar film preceding it. So it might be a formulaic ‘unlikely princess growing up’ tale. It was fierce, funny and determined, much like the flame haired heroine on the cover.
And next year Pixar unleashes the follow up to its underappreciated gem Monsters Inc.!
- The Dark Knight Rises – Sure it’s not as patch on its two predecessors, which are only two of the better films released in the last decade mind you. So the slightly overdone, slightly flawed The Dark Knight will have to settle for being at the tail end of this year’s top 5, a position most other superhero films can only dream of.
- Moneyball – The first in a long line of good accessible drama in 2012. Moneyball took a sport I don’t like, a cast I don’t particularly care for and a premise that has been discussed at length in sports website over the past decade – sports websites I often read – and made it somehow fascinating and entertaining at once.
And I should mention they also chose to leave actual sports scenes out for the most part.
- The Avengers – It took a long while to get started and was a little full of the supposed cleverness of its own dialogue, but gee whiz that last 40 minutes or so might be the best in any superhero flick in quite a while. And if they could make a Hulk film that rocks as hard as his action moments here I’d be a very happy Hulkamaniac.
- The Dead – A zombie film as deliberate and brutal as the creatures themselves, and it’s all the more gripping and at once disconcerting for it. Watching a no-name case traipsing through zombie infested Africa might not have been high on the wish list at the start of the year, but by the end I was sure pleased I found this.
- Prometheus – Ridley Scott can sure make himself a pretty mess. I have never been as simultaneously frustrated, confused and full of wonder as I was during much of this film. I still don’t get most of it, I just know when Noomi Rapace heads to the lab we are destined for the most uncomfortable 6 or so minutes in this year’s cinema this side of any Lindsay Lohan film.
- Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – I loved The Muppets more and will watch that film again and again and this film never again, but MI4 was in truth the better creation. Amazing setpieces, quality action and director Brad Bird actually made a real life Tom Cruise somehow bearable for two whole hours.
Worthwhile
Another ten worth your DVD rental coinage.
- The Muppets – ‘Cos it’s The Muppets. I loved it, my boy loved it, and I know that any time of the day and month of the year, I can pick it up and love it again.
- Kill List – Hands down – and smashed with a hammer – the most original and freaky film anywhere on this list. A random collection of scenes slowly evolves into something fascinating and particularly nasty.
- Argo – A little too predictable and ‘safe’ for my liking. Nonetheless Ben Affleck managed to continue his unbroken streak of successes as a director. Now if only he starts putting as much care into his acting choices…
- Margin Call – Similar to Moneyball, Margin Call is an unexpectedly captivating drama. Piecing together the evidence to create a plausible reason behind the genesis of the Global Financial Crisis, Margin Call is excellently paced and exceptionally acted.
- Grave Encounters – With The Dead, Kill List and Grave Encounters, horror was in good hands again in 2012. This is clearly influenced by Paranormal Activity – and when I say influenced I mean it rips it off – but in a way effective enough that you grip the armrest and count the minutes left anyway. (And this year’s Paranormal Activity sucked anyway.)
- Moonrise Kingdom – Like Argo it’s not the instant classic the critics would have you believe, but Wes Anderson again gets the quirk/charm ratio about right. I just wish there was more Bill Murray dryness and/or more Harvey Kietel, who’s been absent from screens for too long.
- Safe – Every year we get to decide which was the best of the bad Statham films. This year we actually got a genuinely good one. Featuring an incredible body count, action that makes the piled corpses worthwhile and an actual storyline, Safe is the best pure action Statham film, and his best non-Crank, non-Guy Ritchie film.
- The Grey – Amazingly enough like Statham we get the annual ‘best Liam Neeson action film’ poll in the past 4 or five years. This year The Grey is a clear winner (but not quite as good as is made out) and Taken 2 is second (which itself is not as bad as made out).
- Dredd – Congrats Keith Urban, you have a film that cracked my end of year top 20. All it took was a mask that disguised you and a lack of dialogue that meant I could pretend you were someone with a pulse. That and thousands of bullets.
Now you can retire. Please.
- John Carter – Because this is the only way it will end up on any of these lists. Actually John Carter wasn’t awful, unless you are gauging it in terms of entertaining seconds per million dollars.
So 2012 ends with 4 Great films and a bunch of others I could heartily recommend. Notice too a lack of sequels in the list? Only Mi4 and The Dark Knight are true sequels. Though what to term The Avengers, and Prometheus could be a prequel for all anyone knows?
All in all a good year for film. I am yet to watch The Master or The Hobbit too.
Still more ‘Interesting’ Stuff
Free Gina Carano!
Don’t worry the worst of the year is coming, but before that another 10 films that are worthy of at least a quick mention in their own way. (Alphabetical order)
The Amazing Spider-Man: Might actually be a better film if it didn’t already exist. The ‘best’ of the remakes / reboots.
Bait: Proof that Australian cinema has got what it takes to match it with Hollywood, at least where terribly generic and sloppy shark films are concerned.
Oi! Oi! Oi! Indeed.
The Dictator: Sacha Baron Cohen works within the restraints of a script for the first time, meaning more jokes, less discomfort, and a genuine sense that he is in altogether too far from the edge that he once owned.
End of Watch: A handful of suspenseful scenes in between a pro-cop advertorial and altogether too much ‘we’re so brothers even though we’re so different’ crap. Haven’t we reached a place where people of two races can simply be buddies without mentioning their differences with every breath?
Haywire: It’s strange to say this, but given what Gina Carano managed to do under the directorial gaze of Steven Soderbergh makes me salivate at what she might achieve with a crappier director and a sloppier plot. The woman is the best action prospect since… ever?
Ted: A pretty crappy year for pure comedy, R Rated or otherwise. Seth McFarlane plays a talking bear playing Seth McFarlane. It’s funny and forgettable, and I hope there is no sequel.
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows: Please don’t judge me, I obviously have a weakness for historically inaccurate, heavily stylised period pieces about fictional characters. I liked the first despite myself, I liked this even more.
Wanderlust: Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston and Hollywood can make this inferior crap in their sleep. And from the look of things that’s just what everyone involved did here. And can we stop pretending that we appreciate Jennifer Aniston’s acting and personality more than we care about her doomed relationships and body battles?
The Man with the Iron Fists: The RZA proves that he is a truly great scriptwriter… actor… director… rapper… music producer. I liked it until the opening credits stopped and the film started.
Sinister: Just turn off the DVD, ignore the sloppy ending, forget that the supposed ‘centrepiece’ of the film sucked, and remember how the hairs on your arms crackled in the early going and the goose bumps raised so deliciously during the Super 8 movies. This film had it all going for it until Baagul turned to look at Ellison, then it crumbled away so quickly.
Ghost Rider: This just in: Nicolas Cage is still letting his hair stylist choose his scripts.
As always we end the movies discussion with the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst, the downright Schneiders that live on society’s taint.
Worst Films of 2012
The Cabin in the Woods: I still can’t talk about it without getting upset. The only problem – or blessing – is that none of my friends have inadvertently mentioned that I should check it out, lest I unleash my torrent of pre-prepared self righteous abuse at their sheer stupidity.
Critics be damned, they don’t love horror. I do. And The Cabin in the Woods sucks balls.
Piranha 3DD: The best thing about this is the name – by far. The low budget sequel to the low budget sequel is everything that the previous film was not, in all the wrong ways. Crappiest film of many years.
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift: One of the precious few non-Pixar animated franchises that I liked finally hit the wall. Hopefully this represents its now deserved extinction… A (woolly) mammoth disappointment that will have you gnashing your sabre teeth at its slothfulness.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Like last year’s Real Steel words can’t describe how much I hated this film. This year I’ll leave it at one.
Anti-Millennium.
Trespass: Hey Nicolas Cage made another film this year! And he somehow thought Nicole Kidman would help!
Project X: This year’s example of how out of touch I really am. This is cool you say? A-ha, cutting edge… really? Wait, AND hip? I am so old, it looked like a bunch of douches acting douchey.
The Roommate: I only saw it this year, and its total crapulence demanded that I mention it here. One vacuous idiot covets the life of her exact replica, ever so fashionably and clumsily.
All the Adam Sandler films: I can proudly say I saw not one and have no intention of doing so. Not unless I lose a bet.
Set-Up: I see your problems three; 1/ Ryan Phillipe is your star, 2/ Bruce Willis has learnt what is shit and what is not – and tries not a zack in shit like this 3/ 50 Cent is in your film.
Total Recall 2012: What’s next? A remake of T2 directed by Zack Snyder and starring Channing Tatum? Give me a fucking break Hollywood.
In Music
I got older in 2012 – again. As a result musical relevancy wafts ever further from me into history’s pages.
But I stubbornly purchased a few albums this year despite my increasing age. I even think a few of them are quite good…
R.I.P. Adam Yauch.
- Something for Kate Leave your Soul to Science
- El-P Cancer for Cure
- Killer Mike R.A.P. Music
- The Hives Lex Hives
Short list huh? I guess that saves me from having to come up with a Top 5.
Album of the Year
At least all my purchases were at least solid this year. I consider it quality over quantity.
As with last year I am not yet fully immersed in Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music, which is actually produced by another of my purchase in El-P, seemingly a match made in modern day hip-hip heaven.
Unfortunately my early listens have yet to grab me by the short and curlies. I’ll keep listening to see if that changes, but Killer might again have to settle for Honourable Mention status and #4 on the list.
The Hives rebounded somewhat from the slightly lacklustre Black and White album of a few years ago, it has a couple cracking Hives tracks but too much filler for mine. #3 thanks my favourite Swedish punk-poppers.
El-P makes industrial noise sound like the wings of so many angry yet beautiful butterflies. I love large chunks of this album, especially played at high volume. El-P is the baddest producer in the biz right now but unfortunately only a ‘quite good’ rapper, therefore for now he must remain #2 for at least one more year.
Which brings me to old faithful.
I have enjoyed and absorbed every release from Something for Kate since their debut. They know their lane and stay within it, much to the delight of my old ears.
Leave your soul to Science actually finds SFK veering just a little thought, fortunately for the most part in pleasant ways. So far despite over a dozen listens I am unable to excise more than two songs from my iPod, meaning ten remain, with most being at least 4 * calibre.
It might be predictable and lazy in picking the new album from one of my long-standing favourites as #1, that doesn’t mean it is not well deserved.
Song of the Year
OK so it’s a consolation prize, but a worthy one. I mentioned I love ‘patches’ of El-P’s latest. I really loved this patch.
Drones over Bklyn
It’s fast, ferocious and challenging. And absolutely insane at high volume.
Also worth mentioning from 2012; The Fireball at the end of Everything from Something for Kate, Imagineer from The Imagineers and 1,000 Answers from The Hives.
Hey I only bought 4 albums!
Best on TV
The Walking Dead: Before any Homeland, Game of Thrones, CSI fans get upset. I watch nothing else on TV that isn’t sport or cartoons.
Nothing…
Best Stand up Comedy of 2012
It’s nearly criminal that I only found Bill Burr this year. Opinionated, acerbic and insulting, he mocks the common idiot even as he admits that he is often one of them, but that doesn’t mean he goes easy for one second.
Admitting things no man should, including resentment and animosity toward women, not understanding the worldwide love for the late Steve Jobs, and how funny it might be to smash a nice ladies’ muffins in public, Bill Burr reminds me of me in more ways than I care to admit, but he’s constantly funny while he does so.
Next up: 2013
I might enjoy the live music more than anything in 2013 with The Hives and De La Soul touring Australia and People under the Stairs long overdue.
David Gray must also be pretty close by now, but I said that last year…
In film we have Die Hard 5, Iron Man 3 and Tarantino’s latest Django Unchained (will it be the bloated indulgence I fear or a return to form from the interminable and entirely over-rated Inglourious Basterds?).
But enough with the sequels. We also have remakes! Evil Dead really the only one I care to mention though (Spike Lee doing Oldboy scares me!).
Arnie’s return to starring roles might be interesting given he is closer to the armchair than the hot-seat, though look at Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. And I might be the only guy under 50 who thinks The Great Gatsby looks worth a watch.
Finally I hold back the drool so I can last until the new Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost collabo arrives late in the year. Can they make it three from three? (My vote is Yes they can.)
And then there’s a bunch of shit that I know I shouldn’t watch but will anyway.
Curse my weakness for films!
Happy New Year.
OGR
