MY FAV MOVIES OF 2012

This year brought us the promise of big blockbuster movies as well as some real out non-superhero entertainment, but if we have to be honest, this was the year of superheroes; returning, rebooted as well as new. Enjoy the list of my best movies of 2012… and feel free to disagree!

1.) THE AVENGERS

Starting with the words of Jay-Z in his “So Appalled” verse, where he references Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, “Where do I begin this?” I had geek orgasms just watching the trailers leading up to this movie and finally it came (double entendre)… a week after its worldwide release and I had to hear about the movie’s plot from someone else. Aaargh! Nevertheless I carried my trusted wallet and headed to the cinema the next day and oh boy was I excited. Really, where do I begin this? I’m even writing a story as you can see. To break it down, let me just write my favourite line from each character:

Thor: He’s adopted.

Loki: An ant has no quarrel with a boot.

Nick Fury: (To Loki) Ant (To control board which will drop him 30 feet in the air) Boot!/ Let me know if real power wants a magazine.

Dr. Bruce Banner: You want to know my secret, Captain? I’m always angry!

Tony Stark/Iron Man: Since when did he become Phil? ...His first name is Agent.

Captain America: It seems to run on some form of electricity.

Hulk: (After pounding Loki) Puny god!

2.) THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

So is it better than The Dark Knight? Sort of, it had ambitions that were clearly not manifested! There’s a reason why The Avengers will take top trophy above TDKR, because the former’s storyline was linear: defeat Loki. TDKR, like its predecessor is not linear, but compared to it The Dark Knight has a very linear story: defeat The Joker. TDKR plays like two plots in a movie, which it is. The first half is a war movie; the second half is a super-hero movie. This is where the fault comes in. Nolan has turned the super-hero genre into more than just campy action. Yes, the original Spider-man franchise was the campiest of them all, but it was good and well layered (we’re omitting Spider-man 3 here, but it too was good, better than the present reboot), but what do you expect from Spider-man, he’s a fun guy. Batman isn’t. The guy lives in a mansion all alone with his man servant Alfred and eschews any form of social life. The Avengers are party animals each thinking they’re better than the other. Since Batman has no one to show off against (The Justice League does not exist in Nolanverse) he beats up bad guys and goes home to Alfred. TDKR however is less about Batman and more about Bruce Wayne as evident to the story. This leads us to the two genres in the movie.

First of all TDKR had the potential of being better than The Dark Knight, as a matter of fact it was until the second half when the Nolan brother realized they were writing a super-hero movie and decided to change back from the war drama that was the first half and the better half, I might add. There’s less Batman in the first 45 minutes of the movie, he only appears once, but I swear you won’t notice if it wasn’t for those attentive critics who decided to point it out, before I saw it. The fact that we don’t miss Batman or ask, “When do we see some action?” proves the Nolan brother’s ability to turn the super-hero genre into more than just action and explosions. The problem is when they revert to it. Don’t get me wrong, the action scenes are great, especially the beginning, where we see Bane, who is just equally as good a villain as The Joker. When the story goes back to super-hero action, there are lapses. I want to know where that well was and how Bruce Wayne made it back to Gotham undetected from Calcutta or wherever he was?

And then we have to talk about Bane. People kept saying he was not The Joker. Of course he wasn’t, but this guy beat the shit out of Batman in the comics. Bane actually carries the movie, when Bruce Wayne is locked down in the well. This is credit to Tom Hardy who is made to act with his eyes and muscular movements like attempting to break the Bat (Watch to find out if he does). People complained Bane was not as charismatic, did we watch the same movie here? Bane was funny, yes, unintentionally, but funny nonetheless, “He has a very lovely, lovely voice.”

And we have to talk about Anne Hathaway’s performance as Selina Kyle. If ever there was a role to separate her from being the cute little girl from The Princess Dairies franchise, it was this role. She kicks ass, starting with the man himself, Bruce Wayne. The girl was taking no shots, no losses.

Alfred has perhaps the movie’s most touching moment, but I won’t delve into that. Suffice to say, some people will be talking about another Nolan movie (Inception) when discussing the end.

3.) SKYFALL:

Bond redeems himself for the dismal Quantum Of Solace with the 23^rd movie in the franchise and Daniel Craig’s 3^rd outing as the beloved spy. There’s a lot of build up to the movie’s pivotal point: the meeting of the new villain, who has quite a lot in common with Mr. Bond. Also for the first time since Craig’s first outing in Casino Royale (or in any other Bond movie for that matter) Skyfall delves into the past of our super-spy like no other movie with the 3^rd act being the penultimate moment of the movie from where the title comes from. This particular Bond  movie could’ve worked well as a television series, ‘cause you feel like you just watched a Bond trilogy in one go with each act being a movie onto itself.

4.) ARGO:

Beautifully written. Beautifully directed. If  you still don’t respect Ben Affleck as a director, Argo fuck yourself.

5.) PROMETHEUS:

I can write a whole thesis on Prometheus and what I think it means; theories about life and God and so on. Really I can, but I will save you the anguish and tell you I quite enjoyed this movie despite initially not wanting to watch it in the first place, seeing as I’d never seen any of the movies from the previous Alien franchise, yet I found Prometheus, (which is the prequel to the Alien franchise) quite nice. Shouts out to Michael Fassbender, brilliant as the robot David… at least he didn’t show his wang in this one.

6.) THE ARTIST (Winner for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Picture at the 2012 Oscars):

Like the movie, I won’t say much!

7.) THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)

I usually hate remakes, reboots and series turned movies especially remakes of foreign films by Hollywood, there are exceptions to the rule like the reboot of X-Men, Christopher Nolan’s Batman or the 80s series 21 Jump Street being a movie, which brings me to Dragon Tattoo. Director David Fincher is an absolute genius. After directing The Social Network (an original movie), he remade the Swedish (and original) version of Stig Larson’s The Girl… for Hollywood and it is amazing. Word is he shot it scene for scene, except with a minor change at the end.

8.) THINK LIKE A MAN

I’m surprised to say I actually liked this movie. Well written and well acted.

9.) SAFE HOUSE

Two things keep Safe House from being another movie with the same plot: 1.) Denzel Motherfucking Washington and 2.) It’s the first movie where Ryan Reynolds doesn’t remind you of Ryan Reynolds. That’s an achievement and honestly the story’s quite superior for its genre, but still formulaic.

10.) PROJECT X

I felt a little injustice was done to this movie comparing it to Superbad (actually I see the comparison to be honest), because really it stands out on its own as one of the baddest teen (and really, adult) movies I’ve seen.

11.) CABIN IN THE  WOODS

Joss Whedon appears on our list for the second time, this time as a producer and a co-writer for this slasher movie that makes fun of the horror genre.

12.) CHRONICLE

Not at all what I expected, instead Chronicle is a very realistic view of what it might be like if humans actually had super powers.

13.) PREMIUM RUSH

Very simple story: deliver a message before a crazy villain gets his hands on it. Yes, it’s a storyline that’s been repeated, but try it with a bike messenger and a villain who’s a police officer.

14.) 21 JUMP STREET

Yes, Johnny Depp makes a cameo and he shows us how much he detested the character that made him a household name and pin-up/teen idol. Depp was so concerned by the popularity of his character that he thought it would harm any chances of him being seen as a serious actor. Well Depp, we’ve taken you seriously over the years and you’re still many a women’s idol, which makes his cameo not only perplexing, but somewhat justified and I’m sure it was his idea to do what he did! He’s that crazy! Just watch the movie!

15.) THE IDES OF MARCH (2011)

The problem with political thrillers is they tend to start off slow, like take in case The Ghost Writer, but once you settle in they get quite good. Case in point George Clooney’s The Ides of March starring pretty boy Ryan Gosling and Clooney himself. This time the war takes place largely within the same camp, kind of like The Ghost Writer, but this doesn’t involve espionage, just some real background political wrangling and gasp, a scandal, like they never is one in these types of movies. Wondering when someone will make a movie titled Lawan-Otedola.

16.) THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

Good, but not so amazing. I like this new spider-man, but it was too soon. We are possibly the only generation to have two spider-men, two batmen (played by four different actors) and if you’re old enough, one and half super-men. The half is the disaster that was Superman Returns. Of course I’m not counting TV super-men here, because Tom Welling would kick Brandon Routh’s ass any day, just the ones on the silver screen. While this new spider-man captured the angst of Peter Parker being a teenager it never measures up to Raimi’s first spider-man movie and Raimi did condense so much of Spidey’s history yet he was able to make a better movie, sorry Webb (I’m referring to the new director who really is called Webb). So it’s settled, Raimi’s Spider-man> Webb’s The Amazing Spider-man.

17.) TED

If you’ve ever wanted to watch a Family Guy movie without the cast of Family Guy, well you’re in luck. Everything you’ve come to expect from MacFarlane is here: his mockery of faith, unnecessary flashbacks, references to 80’s pop icons and so on. My only problem with Ted (yes, I know it’s a talking teddy bear) is that the movie seemed to drag on in some scenes, pretty much like some Family Guy episodes.

18.) DRIVE (2011)

Some people hated this, some people loved it. Released last year, Drive starring Ryan Gosling as… well, a driver; a stunt-driver and part-time getaway expert to be precise, who gets mixed up in some shit he shouldn’t. You know how it goes.  Driver meets girl, driver decides to help girl’s husband who just got out of jail (only God knows why) to pull off one more heist and that there is the basic story. Sounds stupid, but somehow it works, except if you were one of the many who complained. There are many Twilight-like moments, where characters stare at each other. The only difference here is I didn’t feel like tearing the screen apart.

The How-Did-They-Go-Wrong Movies of the Year:

DARK SHADOWS:

Johnny Depp? Check! Tim Burton? Check! Great source material? Check! Success/ Er… Pause! How did this go wrong with such a great source material? Sure, the movie had its moments, but they were far between and I believe someone could’ve written a better script than what was handed in. Tim Burton still works his magic, but failed to wow audiences and ultimately the box office. Johnny Depp doesn’t do much, but play weird. He’s used to it, but Jackie Earle Haley and Michelle “I’m back” Pfeiffer put in stellar performance and a little credit to Chloe what’s-her-last-name?

THE RAVEN:

This movie was bad, sooo bad, but I love movies that have great concepts. The Raven is a fictional account of the last days of writer Edgar Allan Poe. The problem here is the story itself, it involves a killer. In real life Poe died in a park confused, supposedly mumbling the name, “Reynolds”. The real life murder aspect of it is that Poe might have been killed for something that was popular during his time, where people were made to vote for a certain candidate by being coerced and then killed off after. This movie takes a different approach that involves a killer mimicking Poe’s stories, where people die in weird fashion as described by the author in his books. What’s interesting though is I couldn’t help watching actor John Cusack who plays Poe, thinking Robert Downey Jr. would’ve been perfect for this. The problem however is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, which Downey portrays in the recent movie franchise, is based in part by Poe’s detective character C. Auguste Dupin and we really can’t have Downey playing everybody. People would be out of jobs.