COMPLIANCE (Zobel) - I joked to a friend that if COMPLIANCE weren't based on a true story, I would think it is the one of the worst movies I've seen because the characters are impossibly stupid. I know this and other similar stories are true, yet my cynical take on this movie is that is more about the stupidity of some people than the power of authority.
THE DEEP BLUE SEA (Davies) - I am not sure why this movie isn't in my top ten. I loved the writing, the directing and the acting, but for whatever reason it didn't emotionally resonate with me.
KILLING THEM SOFTLY (Dominik) - This is probably my eleventh place movie. It could have worked its way into the top five, except Dominik underscored the theme of this movie far too bluntly and far too often. It's too bad because if there were three or four less diegetic audio clips of politicians talking bailouts and financial irresponsibility the movie would have been just as thematically resonant and much less scolding.
LOCKOUT (Mather) - A slight, but fun throwback action movie that fans of roguish action heroes that are quick with a quip should watch
LOCKOUT (Mather) - A slight, but fun throwback action movie that fans of roguish action heroes that are quick with a quip should watch
LINCOLN (Spielberg) - Daniel Day Lewis is amazing and I liked how Kushner wrote a screenplay built around the the passing of the 13th Amendment instead of doing a straight birth to death biopic. Some of the other actors (Sally Field, James Spader) were a little too hammy and I didn't care for the mawkish sentimentality or the troublesome racial politics.
MOONRISE KINGDOM (Anderson) - At this point I just think Wes Anderson isn't for me. I liked the movie just fine, but didn't care about any of the characters and I grew tired of Anderson's aesthetic halfway through.
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (McDonagh) - One of the funniest movies I saw all year. It's a giant mess and even the characters in Seven Psychopaths know that, but McDonagh is such a good writer that watching great actors perform his dialogue almost makes up for many larger sins.
WRECK-IT RAPLH (Moore) - One of the sweeter (no pun intended) movies I saw this year. I liked this more than several Pixar entries and it deserves to win the best animated feature award tonight.
10. KILLER JOE (Friedkin)
This is a movie that 5% of people will like, there is a scene in the third act that is so grotesque that I don't judge anyone that walked out at that moment. If you can stomach Killer Joe, it's a marvelously acted, perverted neo-noir that fuses two southern archetypes, trailer trash and southern hospitality into a crime story about a dysfunctional family. Juno Temple, is especially great at humanizing a character who a lesser actor would turn into a pile of quirks.
9. THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES (Greenfield)
One of many great "happy accident" documentaries, Greenfield started filming a movie about time-share mogul David Siegel attempting to build the world's largest private residence. During filming Siegel lost some of his fortune in the 2008 financial collapse and Greenfield turned her Fitzcarraldoesque "build an impossible dream" narrative into a real life fable about the recession. The boy who made a billion dollars selling real estate and a lifestyle to people who couldn't afford before his hubris caused him to make the same mistake.
8. THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (Goddard)
One of the most entertaining movies of the year and a smart meta-horror film that is as funny as any comedy I saw this year. When I rewatched CitW I was impressed with the screenplay's flawless construction: there is a lot of plot to get through, but it is told economically and the film is littered with foreshadowing and minutia that payoff in surprising ways throughout.
7. ZERO DARK THIRTY (Bigelow)
7. ZERO DARK THIRTY (Bigelow)
A taut well executed thriller that keeps moving forward while also showing how arduous the hunt for Osama Bin Laden was. As a child of the internet era I often find my mind wandering in longer movies, but this is a nearly three hour movie that was consistently suspenseful and surprising throughout even though I already knew the story. The final raid on Bin Laden's compound is one of the best pieces of film making all year.
6. THE RAID: REDEMPTION (Evans)
One of the most creatively choreographed and shot action movies I have ever seen. At times the non-stop action is a little wearisome, but that is only a minor complaint. It's less ambitious than some other films on this list, but executed as well as any of them.
5. HOLY MOTORS (Carax)
I don't have the film literacy to break down HOLY MOTORS and even after having read many smarter people than myself write about the film I still have little idea what it is about.* However unlike TABU, whose referential nature made my relative film illiteracy a barrier to enjoyment, HOLY MOTORS is so balls to the wall crazy that I didn't mind that the whole was less than the sum of its parts because some of those parts were so transcendent. In a fair world Denis Lavant vs. Daniel Day Lewis vs. Joaquin Phoenix would be an amazing three man race for Best Lead Actor, but in reality DDL will win in a landslide.
*And though it is about film, I don't think it is about only film, but I can't formulate a compelling thesis about what else it is about. I find it troublesome that such a beautiful, lyrical, fun, movie is only about making movies.
4. THE IMPOSTER (Layton)
It is tough for documentaries to generate legitimate tension, but this true crime documentary is as suspenseful a film as any I've seen this year. I don't want to spoil anything, and I won't, but THE IMPOSTER is not just a entertaining thriller, it is also a documentary about the power of storytelling, how people cope with tragedy, American iconography and uses Errol Morris type re-enactments as well as Morris himself.
3. AMOUR (Haneke)
Michael Haneke is an infamous provocateur that is often contemptuous of his audience, so when AMOUR opens with a smash cut from a rotting corpse to a title card that says AMOUR, I was worried that I was about to watch a fruitless exercise of audience provocation: two hours of scolding an audience for caring about people on a screen. Instead Haneke aims his target at Hollywood and by proxy the audience of Hollywood rom-coms and doesn't ask "Why do you care about fictional people?", but "Why do you think meet cutes and grand romantic gestures are love?" before proceeding to show us exactly what he thinks true love really is.
There is a scene in the first act where Georges tells Anne a story about watching a movie. George talks about how he remembers the elation he felt during the movie, but doesn't remember anything else about the movie. Haneke has made a movie that I will likely develop a strong associative sense memory with, but one that is so well acted, with such well composed mise-en-scene that I will not forget the disposable details of it unlike the heartstring tuggers Haneke is criticizing.
There is a scene in the first act where Georges tells Anne a story about watching a movie. George talks about how he remembers the elation he felt during the movie, but doesn't remember anything else about the movie. Haneke has made a movie that I will likely develop a strong associative sense memory with, but one that is so well acted, with such well composed mise-en-scene that I will not forget the disposable details of it unlike the heartstring tuggers Haneke is criticizing.
2. THE LONELIEST PLANET (Loktev) - The only movie on this list I saw before 2012, I saw this movie during the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival at 9 AM on a weekday and was so tired I was worried I might fall asleep during it. I was engaged from the opening shots and the movie continued to win me over with the beautiful Georgian landscapes, the sound design, the uneasiness I felt during some low key set pieces and how all of this uneasiness ended up paying off made this film a highlight of 2012 for me.
1. THE MASTER (Anderson)
When it was announced that PTA was making a film about Scientology many people, including myself, were expecting a scathing Kubrickian take down of L. Ron Hubbard's religion. Instead THE MASTER is an inscrutable film about Post-War America that both exposes the charlatanry of cults while also showing why damaged people are infatuated by religion. I've heard some people complain that the film was too cold and that they couldn't relate to any of the characters. I understand that point because the characters motivations are largely opaque, but I think PTA's shows his humanistic side by giving his characters agency over their own religious choices. A lesser film would paint Lancaster Dodd's followers as marks getting swindled by a con-man, but PTA helps you understand why lost souls like Freddie Quell are infatuated with The Cause.
No comments:
Post a Comment