Well, last year I made it kind of a goal of mine to watch a lot of movies, and I ended up watching 103 for the year. This year, I backed off that quite a bit, watching only 52 films I hadn't seen before. If you want to see the whole list, and my thoughts on them (though I'm not sure why anyone would), here it is.
That said, it's been a great year for movies. I have plenty of movies I still want to see, but most of my favorite movies were films that came out this year. When thinking back over the year, 8 movies stood out as a cut above the rest (though shout out to Warrior, which just misses the cut, and is well worth checking out on Netflix Instant). So, without further ado, here's the top 8 movies I watched for the first time in 2012.
8) The Raid: Redemption
Absolute insanity, but in the best possible way. It's a pure action movie. Sure, there's a plot in there, some story to hold the thing together, but mostly it's just an excuse to string awesome action scenes together. And awesome they are. Seriously, I cannot overstate how fantastic the martial arts action in this film is. It's fluid, imaginative, and bone-crushing. It's also just a really well put together movie. Director Gareth Evans understands that you can't just have all action all the time. He paces everything extremely well, and maybe the best scene in the movie isn't one of crazy action, but a scene that is as tense as anything I saw in a movie this year.
7) Margaret
Oh Margaret...what am I to make of you? Ostensibly, Margaret is about a girl who witnesses a bus accident and how she processes that. Really though, it's about way more than that. It was filmed in 2007, but the director struggled for 4 years trying to make a final cut. You understand why when you watch the film, there's a ton of stuff going on in here. Anna Paquin plays perhaps the most convincing teenager I've ever seen in film. More than anything else, the movie is a great depiction of the self-absorption and drama that so define being a high schooler. At times, the movie feels like a bit of a mess, but that's forgivable given how epic and sweeping its scope is. Is it the movie I enjoyed most this year? Nope. Is it the movie that burrowed into my brain and had me thinking about it the most? Probably.
6) Adventureland
One of my new favorite comedies. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are both perfectly cast as the leads, their understated style working really well with the laid-back feel of the movie. The real stars here, though, are the supporting cast, who are uniformly excellent. Martin Starr is fantastic, and Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig steal every single scene they're in. I saw this on Netflix Instant and decided to check it out, and it was one of the more pleasant surprises of the year for me.
5) Moonrise Kingdom
And speaking of surprises, here's Wes Anderson's latest. When I saw the trailer for this, it seemed like it was going to be Anderson overindulging his worst instincts, just an overabundance of twee quirkiness. To my surprise (and delight), it's absolutely great. It's still unmistakably a Wes Anderson film, but it isn't overindulgent and it works perfectly for the coming-of-age story being told here. Gone is Anderson's usual focus on daddy issues, and in its place is a fantastical tale of young romance. It's beautifully shot, absolutely hilarious, and filled with great performances (the two child leads in particular). Seriously, I was shocked by how much I loved this, it's just great.
4) The Avengers
Look, I wasn't going to not like this movie. It's the Avengers, it's all my nerdy dreams come true on the big screen. More than that, it's directed by Joss Whedon, and if you've read this blog you know that I have no shortage of love for that guy. My expectations for this movie could not possibly have been higher, and it delivered. It's everything I wanted it to be. It's a perfect summer blockbuster film. I saw it 3 times in theaters and loved it every time. It's big spectacle, but it's also genuinely funny and character-oriented. Whedon gets the team dynamics of the Avengers and manages a fantastic balancing act, giving every character their moments. In particular, Whedon gets the Hulk. Both individual Hulk movies are failures on different levels, but here, as part of an ensemble, Whedon and Mark Ruffalo find the heart of the character and really make him work. I could go on and on about this, but I'll stop. It's a movie just chock-full of amazing, memorable moments, and perfect for what it is.
3) Chronicle
And with all that said about The Avengers, it wasn't my favorite super-hero movie of the year. WHAT??? Well, that honor goes to a little movie called Chronicle. I rewatched this recently, and it holds up brilliantly. On multiple viewings, I'm even more forgiving of the found-footage aspect of it, though I still don't think it's completely necessary for the second half of the movie. That's neither here nor there, though. I love that Chronicle doesn't care about how the boys got super powers, it's concerned with what they do with them and how that changes them. The scenes of them playing around with their powers and learning what they can do are fantastic. In particular, the scene where they learn to fly is awesome, just filled with joyous exuberance. Once those scenes are done though, the film is equally successful depicting Andrew's descent into villain-hood, finishing with an Akira-inspired, building-destroying telekinetic battle. On the whole, it's a brilliant twist on two genres which have felt stale and overdone in recent years (found-footage and super heroes) that feels fresh and exciting.
2) Looper
I came out of the theater twice this year feeling like I'd just witnessed a new classic of the genre. I'll get to the other in a second, but Looper genuinely feels like a new sci-fi standard. First of all, it builds a convincing and interesting world. The world of Looper is both familiar and strange, gritty and fantastical. Like the best sci-fi/fantasy, it feels deep, like there are other stories going on in this universe and we're just seeing one of them. I love Joseph Gordon Levitt and he's great, but the real stars here are Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels (who makes great use of his screen time). And then there's Pierce Gagnon, who gives an absolutely stunning performance for a child actor. There's so much to love here, it's a smart, well-made, wildly entertaining piece of sci-fi. I've made no secret of my love for director Rian Johnson, and this is another home run for him. He's one of the best directors working right now. If you want to jump on, there's still space on the bandwagon :).
1) The Cabin in the Woods
Gosh, this film is so good. I said above that I felt like I'd seen two new genre classics this year, Looper and this one. The thing is, I'm not even sure Cabin in the Woods is a horror movie. I mean, it is a horror movie, but it's more than that, it's both a love letter to horror films and at the same time a deconstruction of the genre. I'm not much of a horror fan, but I adored this movie. For one, it's absolutely hilarious. Fran Kranz's stoner character is one of my favorite things in film this year, with several scenes that had me just dying. It's also filled with some genuinely freaky, scary stuff, and the end is just a glorious explosion of craziness. The whole movie is wildly inventive and ballsy. It's a movie with a twist, but it isn't a "gotcha" twist, it's a twist that is gradually peeled back in the most awesome and engaging way. Honestly, I can't recommend this highly enough. Even if you don't like horror movies, there's so much here to love.
