My End of Year List: Best of 2012

It's the end of another year, and I thought I'd continue the tradition I started last year with a run down of my favourite new films from the past twelve months. The criteria for inclusion in the list are simple: to qualify, a film must be a new release which I saw in the cinema from 1 January to 31 December 2012. Old films which have been re-released into the cinema, films which I saw on DVD and films which I haven't seen yet (even if they were released in the UK in 2012) are not eligible for my list.

As a general comment, I'd say that this year's crop of movies have been quite an improvement on that of 2011. As well as a few truly outstanding pictures, there were a high number of movies which I'd rate as 'very good' (i.e. 8 out of 10 or above). All in all, it was tough work selecting just 10 for my list - movies which narrowly missed the cut included Avengers Assemble, Young Adult, Moonrise Kingdom, Chronicle, Shadow Dancer, Killing Them Softly, Room 237, End of Watch and The Artist.

Here's my picks for the best of 2012 (in reverse order):

10. Lawless

John Hillcoat's follow up to the similarly uncompromising Australian western The Proposition is a dark, violent, but brilliant look into the lives of bootleggers in 1930s Virginia. Guy Pearce is on fine form as the oily, sadistic villain, Charlie Rakes.

9. Snowtown 

Undoubtedly the most disturbing movie I've seen all year, but absolutely compelling all the same - a story about the power that a charismatic psychopath can wield over vulnerable individuals. The fact that the movie is based on a true life story (the Snowtown murders in South Australia) makes it even more chilling.

8. Headhunters

In comparison with the previous two films on my list, Norwegian thriller Headhunters is a veritable barrel of laughs. It was the most unexpectedly entertaining movie of the year, and certainly the only one in which a character has to hide out in a latrine to escape a relentless pursuer. Based on a novel by Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo, it has a plot which keeps you guessing right until the very end and a brilliant lead performance by Aksel Hennie.

7. The Dark Knight Rises

Though perhaps not quite as impressive as the previous film in the Dark Knight trilogy, Christopher Nolan's Batman swansong is still a tremendously exciting spectacle. Nolan has created a living, breathing Gotham City that seems as authentic as any real life American city - and has populated it with some highly memorable characters.  Both Tom Hardy (as Bane) and Anne Hathaway (as Catwoman) were excellent in their respective roles.

6.  Martha Marcy May Marlene

A haunting, beautiful film that stayed with me long after the final credits had rolled, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a brilliant debut from director Sean Durkin. Telling the story from the perspective of a young woman who has recently escaped from a dangerous cult, the viewer is kept on edge throughout - you're never quite sure whether what you're seeing is real, or just a paranoid delusion.  Both Durkin and lead actress Elizabeth Olsen will be well worth looking out for over the next few years.

5. Looper

For my money, this was the best science fiction film of the year, a highly imaginative take on time travel and psychic powers with a stunning ending. Joseph Gordon Levitt is wonderful (as usual) as a morally conflicted assassin, and all in all, it's a spectacular return to form for director Rian Johnson (after the disappointment of his previous movie, The Brothers Bloom).

4. The Raid: Redemption

I'm not normally a huge fan of kung fu pictures, but this effort, from Welshman Gareth Evans, has made me an instant convert. Set in the claustrophobic confines of a crime ridden tower block, the plot is simple: the last good cop in Jakarta has to fight his way through hoardes of bad guys to take out a crime lord situated in the penthouse suite. This straightforward premise is executed flawlessly: the action is spectacularly exciting and brilliantly choreographed.

3. Margaret

The winner of my "halfway through 2012" list, this film was famously left in limbo for a number of years until it was finally released in this country in January. The version which appeared in cinemas was a cut which neither director Kenneth Lonergan nor the studio was completely satisfied with - but I reckon it's a near masterpiece all the same. As I said right back at the start of the year, the movie has some of the best acting and sharpest dialogue I've seen for quite some time. It's a worthy follow up to Lonergan's previous effort, You Can Count On Me, a film which I'd count as one of my all time favourites.

2. Argo

Ben Affleck continues his streak of success as a director with this sensational thriller, set during the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis. It's a picture which combines touches of humour (the scenes in Hollywood where the plot to create a fake sci-fi flick is hatched) with some incredibly gripping and tense set pieces (particularly the final face off at the airport in Tehran). Argo has been tipped for success at next year's Oscars, and in my opinion, it would be a very worthy winner in a number of categories.

1. Sightseers

Top of the pile this year is the wonderful Sightseers, in which Alice Lowe and Steve Oram play a pair of caravan enthusiasts whose holiday to the North of England takes an unexpectedly murderous turn... It's a movie which is funny, strange, and features one of the best soundtracks of the year - combining bloodcurdling violence with a perfectly observed recreation of life in Britain at the beginning of the 21st century. I reckon Ben Wheatley (whose film Kill List was my third favourite film of 2011) is one of the most talented directors working right now. I'm eagerly anticipating his next movie, A Field In England, which will see him team up with The League of Gentlemen's Reece Sheersmith.

The week in brief (23 - 29 July)

Another fairly quiet week - what with the start of the Olympics, and finishing off the second season of Veronica Mars, I didn't have too much time to spend watching films. I did finally get round to seeing The Dark Knight Rises, however. I reckon pretty much everyone on the internet has had their say about TDKR, but for what it's worth, my two-penneth worth is coming right up.

This week's list of movies watched:

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): 8/10
Robocop (1987): 7/10
1408 (2007): 8/10
Once Upon A Time in the West (1968): 7/10


So then, The Dark Knight Rises. This was a film I'd been looking forward to seeing for over a year, so to a certain extent, in giving the film an '8' (rather than a '9' or '10') out of 10, I have to admit that it didn't quite live up to all the hype surrounding it. Saying that, I don't want to give off the impression that I didn't enjoy the movie - there's a lot to love about TDKR. It's a fantastic spectacle, with the director's preference for real stunts over CGI paying dividends in some stunning action sequences. It's beautifully shot by Wally Pfister, in his last movie as director of photography for Chris Nolan, and you really get the sense of Gotham as a real, living, breathing American city. With one exception, I really enjoyed the work of the ensemble cast - particularly Joseph Gordon Levitt as intrepid cop John Blake and Anne Hathaway, who comes very close to matching Michelle Pfeiffer's iconic performance as Catwoman/ Selina Kyle. One other very pleasant surprise was something which had been talked up as a potential problem for the picture - the voice of supervillain Bane, which I had heard was pretty much impossible to understand. On watching TDKR, I didn't find that to be the case at all - instead, I came away hugely impressed with Tom Hardy's work. He's created a voice for Bane which is a creepy, arrogant, highly intelligent drawl which acts as an interesting contrast to the hulking physicality of the character's physical appearance. For this reason, I found that pretty much any scene featuring Bane was guaranteed to be interesting. Of course, the film is not without its faults. It's a little over long, with a sequence in the middle (which sees Batman banished to a Russian prison) which seems to go interminably. I felt that Marion Cotillard's performance as Miranda Tate (Bruce Wayne's love interest) was a little muted, with little chemistry between her and Christian Bale, and the plot doesn't feel as cohesive as the previous two films in the trilogy, with quite a few loose ends. Having said all that, if I was to rank the three Nolan Batman films against one another, I'd put TDKR about on a par with Batman Begins, but in my opinion, it's not quite as great as The Dark Knight.

Moving on to a quick round up of the other films I've seen this week, the best of the bunch was 1408, a recent horror movie adapted from a Stephen King short story. It's a pretty standard set up: we see a cynical writer of 'haunted hotels' travel guides (John Cusack) checking into a hotel room with a notoriously bloody past. No sooner than he can say 'there's no such thing as ghosts', he's attacked by an onslaught of bizarre apparitions, which represent both previous occupants of the room as well as figures from his own guilty subconscious.  While the film is never quite as terrifying as Room 237 in the Overlook Hotel, it's a very solid effort by director Mikael Hafstrom.

The final two movies of the week would fall under the 'good, but not great' category.  Robocop was, I believe, the first '18' certificate film I ever saw, so it will always have a special place in my heart. Watching it again today, the action sequences and special effects look a little dated, but the humourous and satirical touches from director Paul Verhoeven mean that it's still worth a look. Finally, in watching Once Upon A Time in the West I moved one step closer to my goal of having seen every film on the IMDB top 50. All that's left is a couple of Charlie Chaplin films (City Lights and Modern Times) and the Japanese animation, Spirited Away. I have to confess that I'm not a huge fan of epics, Westerns or epic Westerns, but on balance, I quite enjoyed Once Upon A Time in the West. Although it was a little slow for my tastes, there were a few memorable gunfights in amongst the lengthy, meditative shots of the arid Western landscape.

Kirk's Quote of the Week

Ed Wood (1994)

"Edward D. Wood, Jr.: What are you drinking, Bela?
Bela Lugosi: Formaldehyde.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Straight up or on the rocks?"