My Top 25 Movies of 2012
Anyway, I apologise for starting on the defensive! … First things first, this has been the WORST year ever for me in terms of being able to have the time, money and general means to see the films that I’ve wanted to see. In fact, the major awards contenders at the time of writing this list remain sadly unseen by me. So much so that here’s a stand-alone Top 10 of the films that I desperately wanted to see in 2012 and never got the chance for one reason or another (… but I did get the chance to see Here Comes The Boom. Go figure!):
What’s left on my list is no piss-poor rundown of second-stringers, I hasten to add. They’re just a bit more mainstream across the board because that’s pretty much the type that I’ve been exposed to this year.
Before heading into the list itself I have to give special mention to those that fell just outside of the final twenty-five: The absolutely delightful return to form of The Muppets, the really rather lovely Jeff Who Lives At Home, the stupendously enjoyable romp that was Haywire and the beautiful, challenging, confounding and brilliant extended cut of Margaret (which was finished in 2007, released in 2011 and granted a run in its superior extended form in 2012 – and left off of the list due to arguments as to whether it could be considered in a Top 25 of this year!).
Anyway, without further ado, here’s my Top 25 Movies of 2012:
25. The Pirates! In Adventures With Scientists
As long as we pretend Flushed Away was made by someone else, it would be fair to say that Aardman have never put a foot wrong. Their Wallace & Gromit movie certainly bought them a lot of good favour with me and this film most definitely increased it. This is like the Airplane! of stop-motion animated movies with sight-gag after sight-gag lined up alongside some of the wittiest dialogue you’ll ever find in a “kids” movie. It’s very clever, incredibly zany, beautifully made and immense fun!
24. Safe House
As generic mainstream dispensable ‘studio fare’ goes, this was one of the best of the year for me. Its script is as unmemorable and predictable as the direction is fast and charged. This is a film that masks its shortcomings by casting well, keeping things tight and just aiming to shoot the shit out of what they’re faced with. The results are accomplished, bombastic and thoroughly entertaining offering up one of the best car chases of the year in the process.
23. Ted
If you’re the sort of person, like me, who believes that an Irish version of Tremors would be no bad thing then this is the film to reconfirm your belief. This is a very funny, immensely self-assured little B-movie with great FX, abundance of immensely quotable dialogue and – in Ruth Bradley’s female lead – one of the warmest, loveliest, most natural performances I’ve seen this year.
21. The Descendents
Alexander Payne has made, with this film, four modern American masterpieces in a row now as The Descendents can sit comfortably alongside Election, About Schmidt and Sideways. George Clooney headlines a truly wonderful cast in a bittersweet, dryly amusing and heart-warming little drama that reinforces Payne’s cinematic mandate of making the mundane exceptional.
20. God Bless America
Never allowing itself to be hobbled by the limitations of its budget and subsequent struggling reach, Bobcat Goldthwaite’s black comedy is a genuine guilt trip of hilarity that takes a shark sized satirical bite out of our current (and somewhat dangerous) obsession with reality TV. It’s a guilt trip in the sense that you laugh hard at the same time you’re gasping at just how dark it’s prepared to go to make a point. The cast of Jersey Shore and the like should probably invest in bulletproof vests.
19. 21 Jump Street
No one could have predicted not just how good this film would turn out, but just how flat out funny it would be too. It’s a big-screen ‘redo’ of an embarrassing “young cops go undercover in high-school” TV show. At best it should have hoped to have been as reasonable as the first Charlie’s Angels movie. Instead it aimed higher and achieved The Fugitive style levels of big-screen greatness. The comedy is hilarious. The action is sparse but well-done when it arrives. This is the sleeper hit of the year for me.
18. Martha Marcy May Marlene
I landed in front of this film with the weight of what felt like absurd critical acclaim almost working against it. By the time it finished I was left twisted out of shape and wracked by just how effective and tense it had been. The sense of dread and foreboding offered up is outstanding, as is the jaw-droppingly brilliant performances from John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen.
17. Young Adult
Jason Reitman hasn’t taken a single misstep yet in his directorial output and Young Adult reinforces this. Following on from Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up In The Air, this edges into far more darker and more cynical territory with a vastly more mature script from Diablo Cody at its core. Charlize Theron gives, for me, the best performance of her career so far whilst Patton Oswalt holds on alongside her and comes off all the better. This is a film that takes pride in being a joyously uncomfortable black comedy.
16. Berberian Sound Studio
I fought against seeing this for as long as I could despite the outstanding critical acclaim that it was receiving, mainly because I hate the films of Dario Argento and ‘gaillo’ horrors in general, both of which this movie is said to be a heavy homage to. However, the opinion of people I really respect started to sway me and I gave in – As a result I experienced a unique, weird little jewel of a film that’s driven by yet another fantastic performance from the always great Toby Jones. If there’s a film that put sound to better use in cinema in 2012 then I’ll be amazed. You’ll never be able to look at a watermelon again without feeling slightly queasy.
15. Chronicle
To find a film that confidently kicks the stale ‘found footage’ subgenre so hard it restarts its fading heartbeat is one thing, but to do so whilst completely reinvigorating the whole ‘superhero’ movie at the same time is astounding. However, finding out that said piece of cinematic work is from a first time director working with a first time writer and that the result is one of the best films of the year? That’s almost unbelievable!
14. Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters
Whilst many argue that the best dramatic television delivered over the last few years has came from the Danish and the Dutch, the best thriller at the movies this year was a Scandinavian effort, adapted from an extremely well-regarded potboiler of a novel. This is a nerve-shredding, streamlined, rollercoaster of a ride that moves like a bullet out of gun.
13. The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan’s trilogy-closer dazzles on first watch but falls apart under closer inspection. It is, sad as it is to say, the toy only capable of being played with once before it breaks. Yes, this film had an absurd and somewhat unfair level of expectation attached to it but that doesn’t excuse what is ultimately a surprisingly lazy, hackneyed screenplay. Therefore it has to be said that it’s testament to the sublime casting, fantastic and fantastical set-pieces and brilliant design that it still ends up being one of the best blockbusters of the year even in the face of its failings.
12. The Cabin In The Woods
This was probably one of the best surprises I’ve had at the cinema this year simply because, despite being a little bit of an occasional ‘spoiler-whore’, I went into this film completely “cold” and just sat back for the ride. And what a ride it was. This was a thrilling, funny and wholly original ‘geek treat’!
11. Skyfall
Coming into this as one of “those types” who actually thought Quantum of Solace wasn’t actually that bad, I was blown away by just how solid the latest James Bond effort was. I’m a big fan of Casino Royale simply because all involved seemed to want to make a genuinely great blockbuster and not just a great Bond movie. However, Skyfall was different. This was folk refusing to settle for just a great ‘blockbuster’ and pushing very hard to make a great film, full stop. It’s exciting in all the ways that a Bond movie should be and far too often isn’t. But it’s also surprisingly dramatic and somewhat moving in a lot of ways that a Bond movie has never really tried to be before.
10. The Impossible
I’m not ashamed to admit that I sobbed plentifully through this film in exactly the way the filmmakers intended an audience to the minute they cast those wonderful three child actors in central roles. Putting aside my initial confusion as to why we only seemed to be seeing how white people from around the world were affected in Thailand, most of my real issues were with the third act in terms of just how far the dramatic and emotional manipulation is taken. However, said issues aren’t strong enough to distract from this being recognised as a harrowing, moving, sublimely acted, masterfully directed, genuinely great piece of cinema.
9. War of the Arrows
In terms of pure edge-of-your-seat, hold-on-for-dear-life, rousing action cinema this is hard to beat. Set during the second Manchu invasion of Korea, we follow a young archer as he enters into a non-stop cat-and-mouse chase against the might of the entire Qing Dynasty when they kidnap his sister. If you like your cinema fast, unrelenting and stupendously entertaining then seek this out!
8. The Avengers
This should never have worked even half as well as it did, let alone ending up as the best blockbuster experience of the year. Paying off what has essentially been a five film build-up? Balancing six to seven characters each in need of their own arc / storyline / time to shine? Providing spectacle above and beyond what any audience member has already seen in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor or Captain America? The film succeeds on just above every conceivable level whilst stepping up where The Dark Knight Rises floundered; ensuring its own plot-ditches and logical blemishes don’t diminish its power on repeated viewing. This wasn’t the best possible result we could’ve hoped for from a “superhero team-up movie”. It was better.
7. Life of Pi
To put it simply this is everything that is great about cinema: It’s thought-provoking, touching, funny, thrilling and absolutely gorgeous to look at. I am by no means a fan of 3D at all but even I have to recognise that Ang Lee’s work in this form is the best I’ve ever seen, bar none. It’s a truly wonderful, inspiring film that – if there’s any justice – will garner Suraj Sharma a well deserved Oscar nomination.
6. The Imposter
I was well aware of the unbelievable true story – and all the twists and turns it permeates – that this much-lauded documentary covers well before its release. I’d read The Guardian piece a while back and I’d also seen The Chameleon, the depressingly inane indie movie based upon the events starring Famke Jannsen and Ellen Barkin. I didn’t think that it could offer up anything particularly different to what I was already familiar with and came to it incredibly late in the year as a result. I was enormously wrong: This is on par with Errol Morris’ The Thin Red Line. It’s a gripping and engulfing experience that uses talking-head interviews and dramatic reconstructions to pave the way for one of the most audacious and disturbing true stories of our time.
5. Lobos De Arga
Stumbling across this Spanish Shaun of the Dead style werewolf movie in a supermarket bargain bin under its absurdly generic title of “Attack of the Werewolves”, I decided to give it a go when a casual glance at the small print on the bottom rear of the blu-ray cover revealed it was actually the very Lobos De Arga I had heard a great deal of ‘buzz’ about. Within minutes of the animated prologue coming to an end I was absolutely hooked and subsequently rewarded with a fast-paced, very funny, witty little horror comedy that works wonders in the face of its low budget and delivers above and beyond what films of this ilk are normally capable of. It is the jewel of 2012’s movie releases.
4. Looper
For those reading and re-reading your now stale copies of the unproduced Gemini Man screenplay (or watching and rewatching Joe Carnahan’s “proof of concept” ‘trailer’ starring Clint Eastwood!), this is the movie for you! It’s a time-travel movie that streamlines the usual paradoxes of the time-travel subgenre, wearing them on its sleeve like a badge of honour. It’s an action movie of great visual wit and assured ambition. It’s a thriller that dares to take its entire third act and apply the brakes in order to introduce not only a romance but to ask questions of the audience. It is, quite simply, a fantastic film and the year’s best low-fi sci-fi movie.
3. Moonrise Kingdom
For those tiring of Wes Anderson’s “schtick”, I demand you come and sit by the warm glow that Moonrise Kingdom offers and have your hearts thawed out. There is no more of a delightful film released in 2012 then this – a lovely, ever so slightly off-kilter, rambling ode to small-town life and young love. It is cast to absolute perfection (Bill Murray, by now, is as predictably awesome as you’d expect in an Anderson movie. But Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and Frances McDormand are exceptional!) and visually resplendent from its first frame to its last.
2. The Raid
This wasn’t JUST the best action movie of 2012. It was also unarguably one of the best action movies of the last twenty-odd years. Hell, if not ever made. It is that good. Insanely violent, audaciously choreographed, massively entertaining – it’s a bludgeon to the head of the action genre; laughing in the face of shitty CGI and silly stunt-doubles. It’s as close as you’ll ever get to “as real” in terms of action without watching the very set-pieces happen in front of your very eyes in real life. See this movie. Then once you’ve seen it, see it again. Then once you’ve seen it again, hunt out Merantu (stupidly named Merantu Warrior in the UK) too.
1. The Grey
Released in the first week of 2012, this is a film so brilliant that – as good and as great as every film on this list is – no other movie has surpassed it this year. Playing off of one of the best movie marketing confidence tricks ever carried out (This is not a “Liam Neeson fights wolves” film), all involved are so sure in the movie they’ve made that they don’t mind how you’ve been tricked into seeing it, just as long as you see it. Because they know they’re going to blow you away regardless.
And that they do – Liam Neeson has spent so long in his post-Taken generic action man role that it’s easy to forget what a truly fine actor he is when used well. And he is used extremely well here. The real scene-stealing tour de force though is character actor Frank Grillo who turns audiences’ assumptions and first impressions on their head and – in his final lines of dialogue – reveals not only that if he’s not nominated for Best Supporting Actor it’ll be a travesty, but also the real core of the film: This isn’t “Liam Neeson Fights Wolves: The Movie”. It’s only ever so slightly a “Man Versus Nature” adventure movie. This is a surprisingly deep, deftly handled character studio of broken men finding their worth, facing redemption or staring down fate.
The biggest revelation though stands Joe Carnahan at the helm. I’ve long been a fan of the guy and his full-throttle style (I think his interpretation of The A-Team is one of the most underappreciated blockbusters of the last ten years!) but this is not the Carnahan you might be expecting based off of Smokin’ Aces and Narc. That’s pretty much clear from the first act-ending plane crash that he plays not for broad entertainment but for pure guttural terror. Dialling the dazzling action set-pieces back, dulling his colour-palette right down and giving his fantastic all male cast room to work, Carnahan has made an astonishing piece of cinema that delivers on just about every conceivable level.
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