2012 in films - the 14 films I've seen.
What is it, I don't even! LJ is actually working for a change! Every time I've tried to log in for the past 2 weeks it's been completely screwed up, barely loading or not loading at all. God, i even forgot how to code, fingers crossed...
This has been a good year for films, I keep hearing and I think I can confirm that. Out of 14 films I've seen - 12 of which I've seen on the big screen, some multiple times - I hated only one and disliked two. The rest was either good, great, amazing or thoroughly enjoyable, and while there is a film or two there that maybe wasn't worth seeing on the big screen, I wouldn't say I wasted my money.
Starting with the worst FILM EVER! and working my way to the best, here is
my personal list of Films I've Seen in 2012.
14. Magic Mike God help me if I ever meet Channing Tatum in person - No, I don't mean it in a kinky way - he will PAY! PAY ME WITH MONEY!! for subjecting me to this. I've never swore and ranted this much after seeing any film, my poor tweeps were subjected to a cluster f-bomb, tweet after tweet. This was, by far, one of the worst, groan-worthy cinematic experiences of my life-- and I sat through Phantom Manace. I saw it with two (female) friends that I'd convinced to go with me and after the film ended I felt so awful and apologetic I returned their ticket-money. About 15 people (all women) left during the screening. As we were leaving I heard nothing but negative comments from the audience. The person sitting before me fell asleep. I'd prefer to have been watching a James Murdoch/Piers Morgan sextape in 48fps 3D over this and I'd watch it with a smile on my face, thinking "hey, at least it's not Magic Mike!"
First of all, this film was advertise as a comedy about guys getting naked but in reality, it was a hipster drama about a dude becoming a stripper but oh my god! Bad things happen! There was maybe 10 minutes of stripping overall and I'm sorry if I seem shallow but once again, me and the entire cinema of women came to see naked Matt Bomer and we did NOT get naked Matt Bomer. The dialogue was obviously improvised and awkward in many places, "the sister" couldn't act, the story was boring, the characters unsympathetic, they relied on uncut shots too often which would be impressive if the actors weren't told to "talk" or "banter". Some actors/films can pull it off, some don't and this was firmly in the "Don't" box in the "The pain, the pain!" folder.
Avoid. Kill if approached.
13. Snow White and The Huntsman It looked like an interesting concept - a film about Snow White with Snow White not being a helpless, passive damsel in distress for a change but a kickass action heroine. Not bad! Plus, you know, Hemsworth, so a must-see. The film itself was average at best, with meandering script, pointless scenes leading nowhere, and CGI bunnies but it wasn't tragic. Why so low on the list then? Why was it so unenjoyable? Kirsten Bloody Stewart. Oh Christ Allmighty, Merciful Good Shepherd! Kirsten Stewart saw the word "atrocious" in a dictionary and decided that her life's goal is to have her picture printed next to it. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! I don't think I've seen a casting choice this bad since Jessica Alba as Sue Storm and Jessica was at least competent (though it didn't help her performance at all). Stewart looked stoned, bored and had less charisma than an average tea towel . I've seen oranges with more spunk than this woman (we see a sperm/cheating joke, we're getting it out of the way, we're walking, we're walking...). And guys, guys, THIS THING IS GETTNG A SEQUEL!!! THERE! WILL! BE! A! SEQUEL!!
Charlize Theron was chewing the scenery as if it was a gourmet meal but was really good as the wicked queen, Hemsworth was doing what he could and he was doing it well.
However, I can appreciate the fact that there was no "getting together" at the end, Snow White remained single and so did her two options... unless Prince hooked up with Huntsman which, btw, is canon until proven otherwise.
12. Mirror, Mirror* [I saw that on instant because I was bored, on holidays and my mum was paying] Because one retelling of a Snow White fairy tale a year isn't enough, we got TWO, with Julia Roberts as Evil Queen and Lily Collins as Snow White in this version. While as uninteresting as SWATH, instead of trying to do grim and gritty it did "comedy"-- note the quotation marks please-- and it kind helped it. Marginally. Saying the humour in this is poor is being overly gracious BUT at least no one looked high and it didn't try to take itself deadly seriously at any point.
Would I recommend Mirror, Mirror over SWATH? Lol, no, I wouldn't recommend anything below this line of text. Let's call it Kirke Saw Some Shitty Films This Year She Wouldn't Recommend To Anyone cut-off line. Hey, want some proper grim and gritty retelling of Snow White that's about 50 times better than both these films combined AND has some half-naked sweaty men too? There you go:
You're welcome.
11. The Amazing Spider-Man I'm not a fan of the original Tobey McGuire trilogy but frankly, I would lie if I said I was in any way excited about this film, followed its development in any way or wanted to see the finished product. The film overall was on the meh side for me. I failed to start caring about any of the character, except for one character who, SPOILER, completely predictably bites it at the end. Garfield was ok but there were moments where he was coming out as terribly awkward and odd - but not in a charming way, more like in a "next time you get near me I will call the police" way. I actually have to say that there was some good chemistry between Stone and Garfield but it wasn't strong enough to justify this film being made. Casting Sheen and Fields was a mistake, I didn't see Uncle Ben or Aunt May, I saw two actors acting - which, ok, it's clearly the job description but you know what i mean. This was clearly the way to add more big names to the cast; wish someone would tell them about the little thing called overachieving. The idiot ball was going back and forth with alarming frequency and there is one scene that's a brilliant set-up that goes absolutely nowhere - and if you have seen the film I have no doubt that you know which scene I'm referring to. On top of that, they tried, yet, still failed to capture Peter's personality. Not a film I'd like to revisit at any point, doubt I would left it on if it was in TV but I wouldn't call it a bad film. All I can say is "better luck next time".
I'm happy to say that the next 10 films on this list were all enjoyable, I'd gladly watch any of them again (some I did, and oh HOW I did) and with one exception I saw all of them at the cinema and the money weren't wasted-- ok, in all fairness I saw most of them at my local cheap-as-dirt sofas-instead-of-cinema-chairs cinema but good point well made!
10. Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance On contrary to TAS I was excited about this one. Nick Cage is a massive comic books fan, they seemed to know exactly what sort of mistakes they'd made in the first film, they hired competent directors and writers this time around-- and it still didn't work out but god help me, god help me, i had fun. It was way over the top, ridiculous, Nick Cage just went for it and decided to do his best, chewiest, batshit Nick Cage impression but that's exactly why I loved it. On top of that it had a lot of genuinely hilarious laugh-out-loud moments. There's nothing else I can say about this film, it entertained me for the right reasons.
9. Seven Psychopaths I realise that this film should be much higher on the list - it has got Sam Rockwell in it though so did IM2 and this film is where ambition goes to die - but unfortunately, it did something Kirke really really hates. She hates it almost as much as people referring to themselves in the third person; it was trying to sell a different film than what this film actually is. I HATE WHEN FILMS DO THAT!!! I hate false advertising campaigns. There are so many good films I'm biased against because they turned out to be not the films they were advertised at - like "it's a superhero comedy! Really!!" Hancock and "it's an old-fashioned action-adventure! Honestly!!" Hugo. This film even lied on the posters, tried to bump insignificant one-scene characters to main cast while completely ignoring the actual main/TITULAR characters. But! The cast was stellar and spot on - not a bad performance between them - the twists were amazing-- though, and there's a good hint for the future, if you want people to be surprised about who is revealed to be the oddball psycho, don't hire an actor renowned for playing oddball psychos. Really.
The biggest slant against this film i have is that SAM ROCKWELL DID NOT DANCE IN IT! Furthermore, I was listening to the Empire podcast where he said that this was a gimmick that he had stopped, since it became obvious that people had caught up on it. Humanity! Oh the all ohs of it!
Most importantly though, there's one gripping confrontation in this film that would easily be on my top 5 scenes on the year list, if I was bothered to ever make that list - but I'm not so whatever.
8. The Muppets Guys! Guys! The Muppets are back! [insert that gif of Kermit doing yaaaaaay] It was the first film I saw this year and it pretty much set the bar for all the other films. It's not worse or less enjoyable than the films above it on the list, it's simply the one I remember the least at this point. I laughed, I cried, I cheered, I had a lot of fun, I loved the songs, I loved the meta humor. My only small problem with this film was the quality of the celebrity cameos, I kept waiting for the moment when the curtain will go up to reveal NPH/major Hollywood star/NPH making out with major Hollywood star but alas, Jack Black *awkward silence*
7. 21 Jump Street Now this is, undoubtedly, the biggest surprise of the year. I've never heard of 21 Jump Street the TV show and if I did, then only that such thing existed, I couldn't say I find Jonah Hill funny and as for Channing Tatum, he'd always failed to excite me in any way... I mean acting-wise, ofcofc >_>
I have Netflix and this film had been sitting there for ages, I was also aware it had really high rating on Rotten Tomato so after ignoring it for a long time - and, frankly, it's been put on Netflix Instant in the same year it was out in the cinemas, how GOOD it could be?? - I hopped onto my exercise bike one day and put it on-- and had my very first The Producers moment. You know, that moment of realisation that something you expected to be kinda ok at best turns out to be hilarious. I was in the state of lolshock for the entire duration of it. I laughed - sometimes so hard it put tears in my eyes - I found Channing charming, funny AND hot and it's got the best and unexpected cameo since Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder. After the film ended I immediately went online to see if it's getting a sequel and yes, thank you baby Jesus!, yes it does.
6. Life of Pi Another surprise though not as big as 21, of course. I wasn't too kin on seeing this but BFF saw the trailer and begged me to go with her. She never told me, that vixen, that she had once tried to read the book and gave up and wanted to see the film just to try tackling the book again - something she confessed to only after we left the cinema. Never mind though, since this wasn't a film, this was an ~experience~, though for the first 30 minutes it hadn't looked like it could be anything else but wasted £10. The beginning is jarring - very static, very chaotic - clearly attempting to get the philosophical part out of the way, so it's cramming in as many questions and answers as it's humanly possible without just having 4 people sitting around the table, havin....oh, wait, wait, this is exactly what happens at one point. It's definitely the weakest part of the film - but that tells you NOTHING considering that once that boat goes down (erm, spoilers) there isn't a single boring minute.
SPOILER: the ending still has me wondering. Normally I hate open endings, I feel like it's a way of having a twist ending without having a twist ending, in case the audience didn't like it. The worst part is that I can usually pick it up quite early in the film - the Inception one being the most obvious and the most telegraphed one I can remember - but not in this case. I was pretty much buying everything until the Seaweed Island, where the scientist in me woke up and said "ok this is bullshit, this is a really really really big pile of nope". After that scene I was treating the film more like a fairy tale however, in this one case, the open twist ending is not bad. I hadn't seen it coming, though once it's out there, you start to remember the little details from the film thinking "yeah, that's right, that makes sense" but then other things don't and I can't commit to any version of the journey. Both are fascinating. I think I like the TigerBoat one more after all. :D SEE BFF?! I HAVE A SOUL!!!!!! ;_;
5. Skyfall It should be noted at the beginning that I'm not, by any stretch of imagination, a James Bond fan; I have seen the old films on TV but I've never aimed to do so, I don't have a favourite Bond and if someone asks I say Lazenby because that usually annoys people, I have not seen a single Bond at the cinema - I'd never wanted to - and I haven't seen a single New Bond since Brosnan took over - I think I've made it through about half of GoldenEye before turning it off. Sure, I drooled at Daniel Craig's speedo pic like everyone else but I'd never gone to see a film just because I fancied a dude - Sam Rockwell doesn't count since I don't fancy him, I worship him, for he's a god and he DANCES and oh-- wait--
But I went to see Skyfall anyway and I regret nothing. It was a great action film, that can be forgiven for the yet another stupid and completely unrealistic Hack The Planet With Computorz plot. Javier (JAVIER, you stupid autocorrect, not jabber, STOP CORRECTING ME!!!) Bardem was chilling, he was creeping me out beyond belief, definitely the best villain of 2012, hands down. I also don't remember the name of the Bond's Girl in this film because there was only one woman that counted here M. Let's face it, we all still would. The first half of this film wasn't anything special but that's a common theme between the films on the top of this list, sans one and the main character was imperfect, hence much more reliable and human.
4. The Dark Knight Rises it should be noted at the beginning that I'm not, by any stretch of imagination, a Batman or Nolan fan. I wasn't blown away by TDKR and often roll my eyes at people claiming it's the best superhero film ever made. First of all, I resent the usage of the term "superhero" - understood in its' plainest form - in the vicinity of Nolanverse; he gleefully strips his Batman out of anything "supernatural", grounds this film in reality to an absurd level and gives the entire trilogy a comicphobic feel. He reminds me of a reviewer in one of the newspapers I had used to read, who treated comic books as the lowest form of "art", with shock announcing one day that V For Vendetta is a good film DESPITE being based on a comic book! Is TDKR a good film? Nope. It's a great film, maybe it's even a great Batman film but it's a terrible comic book film and I'm not budging on this one, despite the number of flow charts and essays thrusted at me, explaining in detail how wrong I am. <-- those were my feelings after seeing TDKR.
I had, one day, caved in and watched Batman Begins - long story short it involved sex - despite not really wanting to and setting myself up for a complete disappointment. Despite that, or maybe because of that, I discovered about half way through that not only I'm enjoying it, I'm LOVING it. And I loved the film too! *rimshot*
In many ways, TDKR feels like a direct sequel to BB, with TDK being a lengthy detour. I'm incredibly conflicted and have many feels about this film. I loved the second half, brilliant script, brilliant performances, brilliant, gripping plot. The first half was rushed, chaotic and suffered of the same issued that Skyfall's first half but just like with Skyfall and Life of Pi, the moment it hit This One Scene all faults were forgotten and I was gripping the edge of my sit, being brutally tossed from one awesomeness to the other and loving it. The conflict I feel over this film comes from what this film was to me, and in my opinion, it was NOT a Batman film. Batman was only needed in it to set up the stage and immediately disappeared, only to resurface at the very end to save the day. This was a Gotham film, this was a people film, this was a film about revolution, this was a film about people like JGL's Blake rising above and beyond the call of duty. TDK briefly touched upon it in a scene that was so cheesy and so cliched and obvious, I literally rolled my eyes at it. TDKR spent half its running time on it and for me, this is what made this film exceptional. I really didn't give a single toss about Bruce Wayne or Batman, he was only there to be the symbol that rallies the people, I wouldn't care if he died at the beginning or was left to rot in his mansion, because the Dark Knight than had risen was the spirit of the people of Gotham.
3. Dredd 3D It should be noted at the beginning that I did not see The Raid.
This film lost $40 mln in the box office, ensuring that we won't see another dark, gritty and beautifully violent comic book films for the next 10 years. The closest thing we'll ever get to The Authority will be a Nolanified Man of Steel. I'm weeping already.
Dredd was perfect; it was a full-on unmistakably comic book production that made things that shouldn't be fun (like squashing people) fun because it allowed you to distance yourself from what was happening on screen and revel the sheer, pure bloodbath. If things are too realistic *coughsTDKcoughs* then the violence makes me uncomfortable but if I can see that "this is just a comic book" then I can immerse myself in the sea of gore and guts. And it! Is! Glorious!
Allow me to tell you a story; I saw this film when I was on holidays in Poland. I took my mum because she hadn't been to the cinema in ages and once the film was finished, she immediately reached for her mobile, phoned my cousin and started raving about how Dredd was the most wonderful film she'd seen in ages. Her exact words were " I hadn't seen a film like that in 20 years!" I've been to the cinema with my mum about 30 times, I'd never seen her do that.
Yes, guys, this film is 100% Mother Monster approved and I know none of you had seen it at the cinema and I Judge you (lolololol, see what I did there?) Go get the DVD as soon as it's out.
Oh and *worships at Karl Urban's feet* You complete me.
2. The Avengers There's nothing I can say about this film that I hadn't said or written already. This is how blockbusters should be made. Whedon pretty much hits all the right notes and while there are issues not a single time it stopped me from enjoying myself no matter how many times I've seen this film. This is also the first production ever that I've seen 3 times at the cinema and if this list would have been made two weeks ago, it would be my number one.... but it's not. It's #2 because the #1 is...
1. The Hobbit 3D in 48fps. Haters gonna hate, potatoes gonna potato, Kirke gonna Kirk - which means I'm planning to be loud, arrogant and ignore other people's opinion because in the end, I know I'm right. The Hobbit was wonderful, joyful, funny, epic, smart, colourful but dark when it needed to be. In the age where the tendency is to grimmify all franchises, The Hobbit is the exact opposite - it took the quite grim and serious world of LOTR and made it funnier and more colourful but still managed to be true to the heart of the original trilogy. With all the complaints you could make (too long, too bloated, Radagast exists) saying that it's not LOTR is simply unfair because of the most simple and obvious of reasons - IT'S NOT LOTR. It's based on The Hobbit, a completely different book that was written with different intentions, for different audience, before the author itself ever dreamt he'd one day create a world like Middle-Earth.
In a way it's Anti-Prometeheus. Prometheus was revered by the reviewers, its' faults forgiven with ease because it ~asked important questions~. Well, my 3 year old cousin asked me recently why do we pee - a question of extreme importance - but I'm not giving her 5 stars because of it. Frankly, I'm not sure should she get two. The awfulness of Prometheus had been passed on from person to person, from tweet to tweet, causing this film an unprecedented slip in the box office, while the critics tried to silence Us, The People by claiming that the hate is caused by the disappointment people feel over Prometheus not being Alien. They ignored the stupidity of the plot holes and the characters, because, once again, The Questions. The Hobbit is now being trashed by the critics because it's not LOTR and it lacks the grandeur and majesty of the LOTR trilogy - the plot makes sense, the characters are competent, there is plenty to love about it but nobody monologues for 30 minutes about the meaning of life, so this film is trash. Once again, complain and pick on this film but by gods, not because it's something it never claimed it would be.
I hate 3D, I never intentionally went to see a 3D film with the exception of Avatar and the first two times I saw The Hobbit it was 2D - but the 48fps made me curious about it. I was beyond sceptical, I heard true horror stories about headaches, anxieties and nausea caused by the 48 frames rate but I needed to see for myself, I needed to KNOW. I braced myself for epic fail and I got epic. I was astonished, literally flabbergasted by the crispness and sharpness of everything I saw, it looked odd for about 10 minutes but the remaining 17,5 hours of the film I watched with genuine reverence. I'm not joking, I nearly cried at the end, because I've never felt so involved in a film before.
The old 3D is finished, 2D or 48 3D, there is no going back.
I'm going to see this film again tomorrow and possibly next week, in 48 of course, and I'll keep watching until there's a cinema showing it.
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