2012: Best and Worst

This is my Best (and Worst) of 2012 List so far. Most of the award-worthy bait still has not yet found its way to where I live even at this late posting. Or I just have missed many contenders. Such is life. This list will be updated when I see films wonderful (or terrible). Yes, I am bending the rules of a year-end list. But it’s my list. Such is life.

Updated: 24 February 2013
Updated: 14 May 2013

The best

1. Holy Motors. A film that defies explanation as a man dons several personas, jumping acting roles as we jump life roles. The mystery is what I love about film: Getting amazingly, irretrievably lost.
2. Lincoln. Steven Spielberg foregoes biopic clichés and shows us the 16th president in his final months, forcing a re-birth of our nation’s soul even as it dooms his own life.

3. The Master. Paul Thomas Anderson’s delivers another watch-on-repeat drama. Here, he takes on the obsession of human control.

4. (Tie) Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild. One beautiful life ends, another begins. Heartbreaking and unshakable female leads.

5. Argo. Timely, urgent, funny, and mostly-true, Ben Affleck’s masterpiece can stand tall with the greatest 1970s thrillers.
6. Zero Dark Thirty. Kathryn Bigelow’s film is a dead-serious take of our grim reality: How far do we go to fight the good fight?

7. Margaret: Director’s Cut. This new version of a little-seen 2011 film played one cinema in 2012. A shame for a new classic.

8. The Sessions. This somber story about a disabled writer seeking sexual fulfillment never plays the “weeper” card. But you will weep.

9. Frankenweenie. Tim Burton returns to his strange roots of dark satire in this stop-motion gem about a boy and his dead dog.

10. Flight. Denzel Washington is amazing as a pilot whose midair miracle uncovers a life full of deceit and addiction.

The worst

5. Moonrise Kingdom. I know it’s loved, and Oscar-nominated. Me, I’m done with Wes Anderson’s repetitive hipster cool bullshit.

4. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Nicolas Cage pisses CGI fire in his second trip as the flame-skulled biker. This is his career.

3. Freelancers. 50 Cent plays the Worst Cop Ever, working for Worstest Cop Ever Robert De Niro, in another career low.

2. Rock of Ages. Actors as diverse as Tom Cruise and Paul Gaimatti sing remixed rock hits as if cast in “Glee”’s worst episode.

1. Total Recall. In a year stuffed with so-called reboots, this was the most useless, a trip back to Philip K. Dick’s short story too insipid to use the brilliant text, instead aping the 1990 satirical action classic.