Top Ten Movies of 2012

Post your top ten (or five, or three) movies from 2012 in this thread! If you can't remember what was this year and what was last year, wikipedia has a good list here.

Mine:

10. John Carter
[pause for derisive eye-rolling]. Everyone hated this movie but me! So maybe it's not for you? The first time I saw it, I really enjoyed it, but was willing to concede that it was pretty rote. The second time I saw it I liked it even more. I think what I respond to most is the obvious love for adventure stories present. I was transported. My crush on Lynn Collins probably helped.

9. Pitch Perfect
School competition movies have predictable outcomes, but what elevates the good ones from the bad ones are charm, energy and wit. This has all three.

8. Skyfall
Beautiful to watch, great action sequences, a great villain and a great Bond. Who cares if the plot doesn't make much sense?

7. Life of Pi
A really beautiful story about the value of religion, with the understated emotions that we've come to expect from Ang Lee on display in the Irfan Khan scenes. And the visuals are mind-blowingly gorgeous.

6. Argo
I went in to this expecting to hate it, as I have done with all of the movies Ben Affleck has directed. But it's great! The period details are perfect, and it succeeds at the difficult task of balancing funny moments with more serious thriller stuff.

5. Cabin in the Woods
Inventive, that's what I'd say about this movie. I'll avoid spoiling it here, since if you haven't seen it, it's best to go in completely blind. It's hilarious and scary at the right moments and just a really clever script.

4. Moonrise Kingdom
The first half of this movie is absolutely magical. The second half is weaker, which is the only thing keeping this from being higher on my list. Probably Wes Anderson's best film since Royal Tenenbaums.

3. Lincoln
Despite the seemingly dry material, this film had a buoyancy that really kept things moving for its two and a half hour running time. The period details are immaculate and Daniel Day Lewis is always fascinating to watch. It's Spielberg's most restrained film in years.

2. Django Unchained
Tarantino's larger-than-life stories are self-indulgent and excessive, but oh so filling. I think this is his best film since Jackie Brown. More restrained than Kill Bill, a superior narrative to Inglorious Basterds, and terrific performances by Sam Jackson, Leo and Jamie Foxx.

1. The Avengers
No other film this year filled me with the joy of the movies more than The Avengers. Somehow able to appeal to my childhood nostalgia while tweaking my adult cynicism, with witty banter, fabulous action sequences, tons of energy and a cast who obviously loved working together. With the possible exception of The Dark Knight, this is the best comic book movie ever made.

I can't do top ten, but I can do bottom, middlest and top five. Each sublist is not necessarily in order, but I will say that the one that could be used as a proof of atheism was easily the worst while the one I say was the best is, in fact, the best.

Bottom five: Perhaps not the worst, but the ones I most regret having wasted two hours on.

Taken 2 - I think Quackers covered this one in the Movies I Saw thread. Bad action scenes, awkward acting and teeeerrible dialogue.

Red Dawn - Are you kidding me with this shit?

Wrath of the Titans - Liam in his second appearance. I hope that was a good paycheck!

The Amazing Spider-Man - I really thought that maybe they could rejuvenate the Spider-Man film franchise by tackling it from another angle, like the sorta-serious comic-booky path taken by the Marvel installments. Or maybe, based on the super emo trailers, just going straight up Nolan with it. Either way would have worked. Instead the movie was just as goofy as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films, but with absolutely none of Raimi's charm.

That's My Boy - Why did we start watching it? Why did we finish it? There is no God.

Middlest five: These are mostly movies where I'm under the impression I was meant to love or hate them, but ultimately I came away pretty uninterested either way.

John Carter - About three hours longer than it needed to be with a dull cast and unimpressive 3D elements.

Cabin in the Woods - I've covered this before. I just wasn't impressed. They had a super interesting premise, and I feel it was handled in the least interesting way possible. Hell, I'm the rare person who even likes Fran Kranz, and I just didn't like this movie.

Skyfall - More like SKYDULL.

Battleship - I get that I was supposed to hate this movie, but it didn't even manage that. Really, all I hated was the lead. God, that guy is terrible. Taylor Kitsch is 2012's Sam Worthington. Everything he touches turns to blah.

Brave - Better than Cars 2, not as good as Cars 1. Pixar's second flub in a row for me. Monsters University has a lot to live up to.

Top five: These may not be the best movies of the year, but they're the ones I came away from having most enjoyed my time with them.

The Raid: Redemption - Remember the twenty minute long action scene in Hardboiled where Chow Yun Fat has a baby and he's running around a hospital shooting dudes? This is like that, except it's the whole movie.

Ghost Rider 2 - Yeah, I said it. This movie was completely fucking bananas from start to finish. It makes an ideal movie night when paired with Punisher War Zone. It may be a terrible movie, but I couldn't stop grinning.

Mirror, Mirror - Light and breezy, but with a fun script, good performances, an adorable Snow White and, if nothing else, it's way the fuck and gone better than Snow White and the Huntsman.

The Avengers - Batman doesn't exist on any of my lists. It might make a top ten at the ten slot, but Avengers is number one with a repulsor ray. Avengers is the four color world of superheroes come to life, though. It doesn't always make sense, but who cares when the action is coming at you like this, the stars are so goddam likable and Hulk smashes? I saw it at midnight on a cruise ship in 3D, and I still loved it.

Wreck-it Ralph - I'm sorry, did I say that Avengers was #1? I may have made a mistake. Cos Wreck-It Ralph was the best movie of the year in my estimation.

Special mention for best could go to The Five Year Engagement, which I really enjoyed. Jason Siegal doing more films is my number one reason for wanting How I Met Your Mother to end. And for middlest, Prometheus, which I didn't dislike nearly as much as I think I was supposed to, and whose sequel I'm actually looking forward to. And for worst, hey, how about Madagascar 3? That movie was dumb as shit and makes me feel that the filmmakers must hate kids.

I'm with you on this one; I might even call it my biggest disappointment after The Hobbit. For a Pixar movie, which are usually so tightly written it seemed bizarrely scattered, and the main story took way too long to get going.

This was my number 11! I didn't like a lot of what Sarah Silverman was doing, but everything else in it was terrific.

As I'm skimming through that Wikipedia list I realize how many movies I wanted/still want to see, but I keep forgetting about them. Still planning on seeing Chronicle, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Looper, Holy Motors (my mom and brother went without me and I will hate them forever for it) and Django Unchained. Not on the Wikipedia-list but so on my wish-list are Jagten en Amour. At least I'm going to The Hobbit tomorrow so that's something. Except everybody was disappointed by it or something? Well shit. (And, wtf, Norwegian Wood is on that list? Did it really come out so late in the US? I saw it over two years ago...)
Anyway, here's my list*:

5. I Wish. It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but I think the child actors did a great job on showing how naive kids can be. A nice little feel-good story.

4. ParaNorman. A little par for the course but I thought you could really feel the love the put into making it an ode to B-movies.

3. Moonrise Kingdom. Wes Anderson has this whole 'love or hate' thing going on apparently, and I'll happily admit to belonging to the love side.

2. Beasts of the Southern Wild. Dramatic, but good dramatic. Very beautiful, I caught myself holding my breath several times.

1. Kauwboy. Look, I know this is some weird-ass Dutch film none of you will ever see, but fuck me if this wasn't the best movie I saw all year. It's about a very troubled boy who befriends a jackdaw (kauw in Dutch, pronounced like cow, hence the name). It's supposed to be a movie for childeren but me and my mom were glad we didn't take my little cousins because holy shit, this stuff is heavy. Here's the trailer with some English subs for your convenience:

It's some serious stuff, and while I'd definitely recommend everyone to try to see it in some way (if possible), I would not recommend taking your kids.

* Note: some of these might be from 2011 or something, but I saw them in a real-life movie theater in 2012.

2. Prometheus: big science fiction marred by not giving a shit about the unimportant but somewhat distracting details of the supporting cast and occasionally unimpressive writing. The central question is a wonderful one and survives largely thanks to what Scott does well, which is visual storytelling and purposeful spectacle. Given the trajectory of conversations around this, I strongly recommend using the Prometheus movie thread to tell me how much this grinds your gears. Also, a superb, prompt blu ray release in the mold of the excellent Alien quadrilogy boxed set really helped me enjoy the details of the movie.

1. Django Unchained: I hadn't heard much about it until it was about to come out, and I was surprised to see it come close to topping Jackie Brown on my personal ranking of Tarantino films, which is high praise. I liked Inglorious Basterds, as well, but in many ways that now feels like a dry run for this film. Great performances, including DiCaprio providing the definitive response to Red Letter Media's attack on his acting chops in the recent Titanic review (offscreen: him choking a movie critic out with his own entrails). I look forward to having lots of conversations about this one as people see it, as I'm really interested in what constitutes effective, purposeful use of exploitation versus shock value alone.

And that's it. I think the only other movies I saw this year that were noteworthy were Batman, the Avengers, and the Cabin the Woods. Of those three, the Avengers would have been in the list but I had the opportunity to see it again recently and it felt really thin. I understand why fans of Whedon, the comics, or the superhero movie generally like it, but it's just not for me. Batman was a mess and Tom Hardy doing some excellent work couldn't save it, and I think a second viewing would be really unkind to it. And Bahimiron's summary above wrt Cabin about sums it up although I was actually expecting something much worse.

Pretty sure I saw it in 2010, but you get kudos for being the only other person I know of who has seen it. I think it's a fantastic children's film, although it has flaws. I felt the youngest son spent a lot of time knocking holes in the forth wall, for example.


Jagten is completely worth it, but there is an even better Danish film directed by the Jagten writer, Lindholm. It's called A Hijacking, released this year over there. It might not have a distributor yet where you are- they've got one here in the UK likely on the back of festival buzz.

I guess I have to work on a list now.

10. Argo
9. Skyfall
8. Queen Of Versailles
7. Cabin In The Woods
6. Moonrise Kingdom
5. Lincoln
4. Pitch Perfect
3. The Avengers
2. Life Of Pi
1. Searching For Sugar Man

Dredd because it was the second movie released last year I actually liked.

Avengers for being the first.

I guess that makes a top two.

I also don't really have 10 to come up with, but I'll list the movies I really enjoyed this year.

6. Skyfall - I don't even like Bond, but I do love Roger Deakin. It also helps that Skyfall seems to be the best Bond movie made for non-bond people.

5. The Loneliest Planet - Quiet human drama set in between a beautiful travelogue? My inner hipster loves it.

4. Looper - Human drama set in science fiction without the science getting in the way? Also, I'm a big fan of JGL since his days in brick, also by Rian Johnson. I would have loved this movie, flaws and all.

3. Avengers - Joss Whedon finally gets his big screen success and it couldn't have been more well deserved with Marvel's biggest franchise.

2. Life of Pi - I thought the book was filmable, but liable to lose a lot of its lyricism and artistic themes and I'm not that great a fan of Ang Lee, so color me surprised that this movie not only kept the spirituality intact, but made me a believer in good use of 3D. I doubt any other 3D movie will use its stereoscopic technique as artistically as Ang Lee did to bring the story of Pi to life. Bonus points for the choice on the scene when Pi tells the 2nd version of the story.

1. Wreck-it Ralph - The Iron Giant for this generation. This is an awesome movie.



Movies I wished I watched this year: Argo, Pitch Perfect, Lincoln, Django Unchained.
Movies I cared nothing for: Cabin in the Woods, Moonrise Kingdom, Brave,

Ghost Rider 2 is fucking awesome, as is Punisher: War Zone. HISTORY WILL JUDGE IT SO.

I really liked that one Punisher movie that came out that was only a trailer. That was pretty good. But the whole thing pretty much peaked with Dolph.

Those international release dates are weird. Although I do remember international release for this movie being so late because it was initially not intended for audiences outside Japan. Which is noticable, there were some cultural barriers. It was also a bit on the long side, they could've shaved off the last half hour. It still made my list because I like that it's a feel-good movie were nothing is really resolved at the end. I thought that was really well done, and I liked it a lot.

I can't seem to find the A Hijacking release date for the Netherlands, but I'll keep my eye out for it. Jagten got 5 star-reviews all around here, so I'm really eager to see it. But it's something you need to be in a certain mood for (not a Christmasy type of mood), so I've not seen it yet.

Edit: did Kauwboy get any festival buzz in the UK by any chance? It's really, really good. I can't stress it enough. It will be the Dutch contribution for the Oscars, and though Jagten is probably objectively better, this is the first time I think a Dutch entry deserves to win. It's not perfect by any measure, but it hit me like a sledgehammer.

Important bonus info: most of my oldest daughters class appear in a scene in Jagten.

And Bahimiron, Madagascar 3 was awesome. Totally bonkers. Clearly the writers decided not even to try and make a story that made logical sense, instead there's just a bunch of scenes of connected slapstick. But it works.

It doesn't - it is absolutely awful and I agree with Bahimiron about the makers hating children. It doesn't even have something akin to the Scrat through-line that saves the Ice Age films from being irredeemable pieces of shit.

What can I say? My kids absolutely loved it, and I laughed out loud at several points, something I never do.
It's not Iron Giant or good Pixar great with an underlying message and a poignant story, but as sheer unadulterated surreal fun, it works.

It's not hitting my bet of 2012 list (well, perhaps it is, because I watched so few movies released this year).

Got that a bit wrong- it was actually 2011, and I technically cheated because I caught it at a festival. Major release in the UK is actually February this year. I agree about the length and the resolution, too. It's not afraid of being realistic, which is a bonus for that sort of film.

I would look out for A Hijacking in maybe Q2 this year. The UK release is around April and it'll probably be a fair few screens running off the back of the Jagten love or the general appreciation for Scandinavian drama around. The problem is that it's a harder sell, I think, than a film with Mads Mikkelsen in it. Do watch both, though, they're both worth it.

Kauwboy was at London but I didn't catch it. I didn't really hear anything about it, either, but that's not to say it didn't get any buzz in the right quarters. I'll put it on my watch-list.

FTFY.

No. You didn't.

Anyway, I didn't see many new movies this year, but of the ones I did, the only two I could see putting on a Top 5 list are Moonrise Kingdom and Samsara.

I'm pretty sure Ghost Rider 2 didn't have any written dialog in the script for Nic Cage other than "Just Be Nic Cage"

All of the Movies I saw in 2012 are on this list:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. The Hobbit
3. Lincoln

There is a huge gap between 1 and 2, which is ahead of 3 because Daniel Day-Lewis was awesome but the film was a bit of a snore. The Hobbit was dumb but entertaining.

The Raid really is something special, I'd say their amps go to twelve.

10. Looper: Like all time-travel movies, the plot makes little sense. Neither does the initial concept. But the concept is interesting, the movie looks cool, the acting is pretty good, and there's a cool reveal that I really liked. Also, the B-story with Paul Dano is awesome.

9. Seven Psychopaths: This movie is really good up until about the 3/4 mark, when it suddenly drags like nothing you've ever seen. But for the first 90 minutes, this movie is great. Yay Christopher Walken.

8. Cabin in the Woods: I'm a Whedon fan, and a weaksauce horror-movie aficionado, so this worked well for me. Also I love Brad Whitford so anything he's in I am probably going to like. This film is the first one on this list that I recommend without hesitation. It moves well, the concept is cool, it's got tons of clever references in the script. It's basically Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz but for slasher-horror films.

7. Chronicle: I liked this a lot more than many people. I went in with low expectations, particularly because I usually hate "found footage" movies (and that aspect added nothing to this film). But what I got was a terrific lead performance and a really cool, dark look at what would actually happen if people got super-powers. It's a really good villain origin story, basically, and I came out pleasantly surprised.

6. Argo: This is a real throwback. It's not just set in the 70's (and perfectly conveys the 70's), it's like a movie from the golden age of 70's cinema: super-tense despite having almost no action or immediate danger to the characters. It's basically just shot after shot of dudes in 70's clothes and haircuts smoking and talking. And yet it kept me riveted to the screen the whole time. It's like an All The President's Men or Dog Day Afternoon.

5. Django Unchained: I liked this a lot less than many people, but it's still a really good move for the first two hours. Not even in the top 50% of Tarantino movies as far as I'm concerned, but that still puts it in the top 10% of all movies. It has 30 minutes of totally unnecessary stuff at the end, highlighted by terrible self-casting by Tarantino, but before that point it's pretty great: interesting, moves well, great acting, well-shot. My one big disappointment: there really isn't any amazing Tarantino tense-dialog scene. They come close in the plantation house at the end, but they don't quite get there. But amazing performances by Waltz, Dicaprio (check out the story about how he actually cut open his hand during that final scene and they just kept it in), and Foxx.

4. Avengers: After seeing this movie I figured it would be my #1. That it ended up at #4 tells you what a great year this was for movies. Great dialog, great action, fun plot, great performances by almost everyone. All the heroes managed to look cool and not ridiculous, even Thor. But most importantly, they somehow managed to do a superhero-group movie where everyone really has something to do and you get to know each character. I laughed, I cheered, I can't wait for the sequel.

3. Wreck-It Ralph: I went into this with fairly low expectations and was blown away. The plot is pretty standard but the performances, animation, and all the cool little references were amazing. I am in love with John C. Reilly I think. I found myself unexpectedly heart-tugged by a couple of the scenes, too. Hey Jane Lynch's character sure looked like her didn't she?

2. Moonrise Kingdom: I really like Wes Anderson and I thought this was one of his best movies ever. I still like Tennenbaums better but this one is a very close second. Great performances, amazingly shot, funny dialog, and a lot of heart. Big, big thumbs-up.

1. Life of Pi: I loved, loved, loved this movie. Brilliantly shot and brilliantly written, with great acting from almost everyone (teenage Pi stumbles a bit in his big scene but is good through the rest of the movie; Irrfan Khan is amazing). This movie was both beautiful to look at, and also had a great, amazing theme that was wonderfully delivered in a very understated way. In a year filled with some really good movies, this was still far and away my #1.


Worst Movie of the Year: Prometheus, by a long margin. And this was in a year where I saw Snow White & The Huntsman. Fuck you Lizard_King!

What else would you elevate to that stature?

The good:
1. Wreck It Ralph. Silly fun, really enjoyed it, it helped that I liked all of the comedians doing the voicework going in.
2. The Avengers. Big budget superheroes in a way that my inner 12 year old could only dream of.
3. Dredd. I'm glad I'm not the first to mention this, I really wanted this to do better so I could have more Karl Urban as Dredd. It got so much right.
4. Goon. The best hockey movie ever. I know that's not necessarily saying a lot.
5. Chronicle. The only decent version of Akira we're ever gonna get.

No srs drama movies for me this year, I guess, but I haven't seen some of the bigger names in that category yet (Lincoln, Argo) and my last few years have had their fill. Maybe it was just time for silly fun.

I have to go find a copy of Ghost Rider 2 now, because god knows I like Punisher War Zone. My spouse is going to ask why I'm watching anything with Nicolas Cage, and I'm going to blame this thread.

It's a total pet peeve of mine that this is so frequently our refrain. Damnit, scifi movie authors. I liked Looper, but the exceptionally terrible premise kept it off my list.

I haven't even seen ten movies from 2012 so far. Which is usually what I find out in threads like this. From the small subset I did see:

The top Four!

The Avengers - I was braced for it to be a by-committee unfocused mess, particularly after being underwhelmed by inoffensively bland recent Marvel Movie entries preceding it in years prior. So it was a fine example of pessimism yielding great personal outcomes when expectations are handily exceeded.

Chronicle - I likewise enjoyed this by way of even lower expectations being very exceeded, though not nearly so much as the Avengers. Marred by having zero reason whatsoever to be found-footage style.

Argo - remarkably gripping for mostly being a movie about people talking at one another.

Lincoln - likewise; plus I was pleased to see Spielberg mostly keeping his more spielbergian sentimentality-schmaltz under control.

The Okay Two:

Men in Black 3 - Inoffensively fine. It had laughs and no surprises. A decent but unremarkable cheeseburger of a movie.

Dark Knight Rises - A mild disappointment.

The Possibly Not Even Seen One:

I vaguely think I might have seen Paranormal Activity 4, but I honestly don't know. My brain could just be confused about 2 and maybe 3. Though I don't know now if I even saw 3. So if I did see it, it was at least not worth remembering. If it had been worse, I'd remember it.

Loss-making, and I don't think 2000AD has the draw it once did. It did top the Box Office charts in the UK on release. It also did very well in the second week of release, but unless it has a huge DVD/BluRay showing that's probably the last we'll see of Judge Joe Dredd.

I was really bad at getting to the cinema this year so this list fails to break ten. I'm sticking with nine because that's as many as I feel are worth recommending. No would have been on here if it was released this year, or one of This is not a film, Burning Man, Oslo August 31st, Avalon, Generation P or Pariah if I hadn't put them on my 2011 list before changing my rule about festival films. There are also a very large number of films I wish I had seen like Nostalgia for the Light, Berberian Sound Studio, Tabu, Amour, Cosmopolis and The Master. As a note, I'm going with UK release dates and I'm also putting anything I saw at a festival out of contention if it wasn't released this year (and is going to be released soon):

Once Upon A Time in Anatolia
I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again; every few years, a director enters the pantheon with a great film. This is one of those films.

Martha Marcy May Marlene
She's just a picture.

Into the Abyss (and the accompanying documentary series
I still have a massive soft spot for anything and everything Werner Herzog does.

Jagten
The most dangerous pray.
Mads Mikkelsen deserves every award thrown his way for this one.

Sightseers
Glorious, black, gory glee.

Aqui y alla
This one's not getting a UK release, so it's going in here. My favourite film of the year. Breathtaking.

In the Fog
Also unlikely to get a UK release, this is a WWII resistance film so unique and

Museum Hours
One for the film fans only. Quite slow, quite studied, very good.

We Need to Talk About Kevin
Similar reasons to MMMM, I think. Darkly harrowing tale that storms the heart by having incredible central performances hung off an actress with more talent than is feasible.



Sundry items

Most disappointing+:
Prometheus
I went to my second Secret Cinema this year, andit turned out to be Prometheus. So yeah, I've sat in Idris Elba's chair and touched the flight deck consoles and seen the vehicles. The actual ones- they have a relationship with Ridley Scott and he shipped some of the props over. The film still isn't very good.
Saying that, they still build the best sets and provide the best cinematic experience it is possible to have if you're willing to give a little, and the previous one was The Third Man which was just incredible. I mean really, truly brilliant. So if you're into cinema and near London, or they expand to a location near you, go to one.

Heartiest wail:
Post Tenebras Lux
Dear Lord above.

Best film that isn't a film:
This is not a film
(Seriously, catch it if you can)

I see few short films but this one is worth it:
Curfew



+thinly veiled go see Secret Cinema paragraph.

*thumbs* This guy. It's more than just plot, there's writing and polish issues throughout. What did poor Helen McCrory do to deserve being that cartoon character? It was a shame to me to see what was good about the movie - novelty, good acting, sumptuous visuals - bolted onto sometimes downright bad writing or sloppy moviemaking.

I don't know in any given instance if, say, "running from an explosion in a tunnel" (from an helicopter full of napalm, by the by) is meant as an "homage" to something or what, but I don't want to be in the middle of a Daniel Craig Bond movie rolling my eyes at the sheer abandonment of post-Bourne (or Casino Royale) pseudo-realism in action mechanics. There's a way to show someone groping underwater beneath a frozen-over lake at midnight after being blinded, and then there's how they shot that sequence, to pick example of them just not giving a fuck about paying off what they started. And that's like a minute or two after loving the night-and-fire visuals (throwing back to the title sequence) - which were already marred by my fear that they were about to lazily go for the stupidly obvious "given away by flashlights" routine, which they did.

Then how about a weird-ass Belgian, Swedish or French film? Me and my partner go to the arthouse theater often so we see a lot of weirdo non-English stuff, some of which is very good. Some of them in no particular order.

Broken Circle Breakdown is about a couple who lose their daughter to cancer, then lose each other. The film switches between the happy and the sad years, bringing the sweet and sour in almost equal doses. And there's bluegrass. A beautiful and touching film.


Snabba Cash 2
Swedish for "easy money", the first Snabba Cash movie was a very sober, hard movie about several very different Swedish criminals, having very different reasons for ending up doing what they do. Sometimes their lives intersect. Sometimes their cars intersect.
Part two follows these same people after the events of the first movie, but it stands on its own very well. The first movie simply serves as backstory.
It's a very, very hard, realistic, sober, in-your-face movie with some very well-shot sequences.

Italy: love it or leave it
This is more of a documentary. A gay couple living in Rome are contemplating whether perhaps they should leave Italy for a country that less resembles a banana republic. To aid them in making their decision they make a road trip through Italy to find its high points and its flaws.
Nice, fluid and light-hearted road movie slash report with a serious undertone. Part of the appeal is the wonderful Italian way of conversing.


Dans la maison
The new François Ozon, known for Swimming Pool, Potiche, 8 Femmes and others. In this, a somewhat detached but intelligent high school student becomes obsessed with the comfortable family life of one of his classmates, something he himself has always lacked. By befriending his classmate he is able to infiltrate into the family, but it is unclear with which intentions. He relays this story to his French teacher through essays for class, putting the latter in an uncomfortable position: he's not supposed to know such private things, but when the essays take an increasingly worrying turn he feels forced to act.
Sorry, I couldn't find a trailer with subtitles.


Laurence Anyways
This is the third movie of Quebecois director Xavier Dolan, who already has an impressive track record at the age of 23. His movies are strongly visual with themes of homosexuality.
In this movie, a high school teacher comes to terms with his transsexuality and decides to take steps to becoming a woman. The process is difficult, with everyone from her students and her colleagues to her girlfriend and her parents reacting strongly. The film beautifully documents the transition from man to woman, the effect on existing relationships and the aftermath. Really a visually stunning movie. This is probably my number one of the year.
Watch it for the Masked Ball-scene alone.

REPORTED

Om nom nom

He was the greatest puller any raid had ever seen.
But when you pull, all it takes ... is one mistake.

Agro

I always hesitate on these lists because I hate having to write something about every single one and there are always some big movies that I know would make the list if I'd seen them. I always end up doing it anyway though, so here goes.

1. The Cabin in the Woods - A brilliant deconstruction of the horror genre, (of which I'm a big fan anyway,) with some fantastic performances, Whedon dialog, (which I love so shut up,) and one of those movies I want to keep watching again and again to see what I've missed. In 3 days I saw it twice in theaters for exactly that reason. I never see things twice in theaters. Yet I almost went back a third time.

2. The Avengers - I saw it in 2D at a midnight showing at the Harvard Square theater with a drunk college crowd. So the worst audience ever. Yes, Bahimiron, I bet it beat your cruise ship. I also still adored it.

3. Wreck-It Ralph - Saying it's the best video game movie ever is damning it with very faint praise, but "ever" also includes the foreseeable future, because I don't see Hollywood addressing video games with this same kind of love and respect again for some time. Some very minor nitpicks stopped it from making me not a total Whedon fanboy this year.

4. Goon - I lived in Montreal for 5 years growing up, and my fraternity in college had the entire hockey team in it. There's a culture that surrounds hockey players, and this movie nails it. It nails it like none other.

5. Argo - The most recent viewing on this list, so it's the most fresh in my mind. Like people have said, it's mostly people talking to each other, so it's amazing it had my rapt attention.

6. Silver Linings Playbook - It's impressive that this movie managed to be simultaneously lighthearted and brutally honest about mental illness. In addition, this is the best performance Robert De Niro has given in over a decade.

7. John Carter - I found it woefully underrated. Taylor Kitsch I can take or leave, but I could tell there was love for the source material, and I found an unreasonable amount of joy in Jimmy McNulty: Planetary Overlord.

8. Skyfall - I saw Quantum of Solace in theaters yet couldn't tell you one damn thing about it. It was that unmemorable. I expect I'll be able to remember this one fondly for quite some time, even if James Bond did turn into Kevin McAllister near the end.

9. Frankenweenie - I chose to ignore the sound of Tim Burton completely running out of ideas and was surprised to enjoy this one a lot. In the Burton animation stable, I'd say it's second only to The Nightmare Before Christmas.

10. Ted - I know I'm going to have to defend this one. My girlfriend and I both found it really funny, and in a totally meta bonus, we saw it at the Somerville Theater, where the Phantom Menace scene was filmed. That made it even better. Still, I'm willing to bet this gets bumped off as soon as I see either The Hobbit or Django Unchained.

That theater is gone and nobody will ever miss it.

Did Joss Whedon have something to do with Wreck-it Ralph? I didn't know that.

More like a few nitpicks prevented him from making it (Ralph) number 1 or 2; instead of his current list where the top two positions are dominated by Whedon.

My list is probably the exact inverse of the box office… …just did not see that many movies this year, though saw repeated viewings of all these (at theater and/or DVD) except for The Avengers, The Grey, and Seven Psychopaths.

8. The Avengers — entertaining, but cheesy, formulaic, predictable and the fireworks and effects have gone stale. Suck it box office numbers.

7. The Hunger Games — kept me entertained

6. John Carter — a good flick that could have been a lot better, but it might be the best that could be done with a 100 year old story that from reading didn't seem to lend itself to an easy film adaption

5. The Dark Knight Rises — Christopher Nolan is overrated and there are ridiculous plot processions and tangles (but wasn't that true of the first two in the series also?), but I enjoyed this

4. The Grey — did not expect to like this so much, especially with the preposterous plot premise, but Liam Neeson is great, the cinematography excellent, suspense capturing

3. Seven Psychopaths — did not expect to like this either, dragged to theater in a birthday procession, but it was rip-roaring hilarious and Walken, Rockwell and Harrleson (who slid in when Mickey Rourke exited ;)) pull off comedic genius

2. The Hobbit — yeah Jackson trudges all over cherished memories and rearranges for his cinematic work, this time adding a bunch of cheesy filler, but in HFR 3D I loved the eye candy

1. Cloud Atlas — movie of the decade! yeah, box office tank, but so was Big Lebowski and 15+ years later it the cream of 1998 films, most talked about (seriously Armageddon?, Godzilla?, Something About Mary?) and cherished film; predict the same for this epic post-modern film

Really wished to catch *Lincoln* and *Wreck-it Ralph*, suppose I'll have to wait for DVD for those soon…

Equis has the right of it. My Top 2 movies are both Whedon works. Wreck-It Ralph didn't break the top 2 because of a few nitpicks. Therefore I am a Whedon fanboy this year and Wreck-It Ralph did not prevent that from happening.