Movie – Mirror Mirror (2012)

Mirror Mirror is one of two Snow White movies that were released in 2012.  The other – Snow White and the Huntsman – took an ultra-serious approach to the story and didn’t succeed.  Mirror Mirror took a more family friendly, tongue in cheek approach.  While it also fell short in some areas it does have enough fun moments in it for me to recommend it.  It also received a 2013 Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design, which was unsurprising given director Tarsem Singh’s reputation for opulent outfits and sets.

Movie – Flight (2012)

Flight received an Oscar nomination for Denzel Washington’s performance as an alcoholic airline pilot that miraculously saves almost everyone on board when mechanical issues arise.  It also got a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.  In both cases the people nominated face uphill battles if they are going to win.  Regardless of this, Washington gives one of his best performances in years in this film.  He’s really the reason to see it.  He even manages to overcome an ending that does a lot to harm all the good things the film had done up to that point.  I will discuss my problem with the ending in a well marked spoiler section, so you can skip over it if you have not seen the film.

Movie – Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

In my recent review of Django Unchained I wrote that I’m not a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s films and that while I’ve liked most every one I’ve seen (2007’s Death Proof being a big exception), I’ve never loved them quite as much as many others have.  I have almost exactly the same regard for Wes Anderson’s films – like, but not love.  And just as with Tarantino’s Django Unchained, I found Anderson’s latest film Moonrise Kingdom to be my favorite of the movies he has done so far.  It has an engaging story of young love and rebellion, but with events shown from the perspective of adults, too.  This film will likely end up in my Top 10 of 2012.

Movie and Book – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

The first Hobbit film was the movie I was most looking forward to in 2012.  It did not come out until December, so that made for a long year, movie-wise.  When it did come out I found it to be entertaining, but a notch below the heights that the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) films had achieved.  This is entirely in keeping with the relation of the books to each other, though.  The Hobbit was written by J.R.R. Tolkien for his children, while LOTR was written for adults.  Gandalf, for instance, is a much more serious character in LOTR than he was in The Hobbit book.  People going into this film looking for another LOTR may come out a little disappointed.  However, if you go in looking for a lighter tale of adventure then I think you will be pleased by it.

Movie – Skyfall (2012)

Skyfall is the third of the Daniel Craig Jason Bourne movies.  Wait.  That should have read James Bond, not Jason Bourne.  (Since the reboot it’s become almost impossible to distinguish between them.)  This Bond outing was much praised by critics, and as a big fan of the real Bond movies I was looking forward to it.  I found it to be an entertaining film, although still of the “shut your brain off and eat popcorn” variety.  They do finally toss a bone or two to the fans who know that Bond existed before Daniel Craig started playing him, so that was good.

Movie – Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Wreck-It Ralph is the last of the five films nominated for Best Animated Feature that I saw, and it turned out I saved the best for last.  It is head and shoulders above the other nominees, and not just because Ralph is nine feet tall.  In fact, it might make it into my Top 10 films of the year.  It represents some nostalgia for people like me who played lots of video games in the 80s, as well a lot of really great humor even for the people that won’t get any of the references to real games.  To use a gaming metaphor, it is a winner.

Movie – Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

Searching for Sugar Man is nominated this year in Oscar’s documentary category.  It is about the quest of a couple of South Africans to find an American folk singer that by chance had become massively popular in their country.  Much like the doc Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008) these filmmakers shift events around and leave out some key facts, all in the name of making a more entertaining movie.  Despite this, it is not a complete fabrication and it does have a satisfying arc for the viewer.

Ranking the 2013 Best Picture Nominees, Plus Some Observations

I have now posted reviews for all nine films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  I am not done yet.  I intend to write reviews for those films I have seen that received other Oscar nominations, and that I would recommend.  Look for reviews of Searching for Sugar Man, Flight, ParaNorman, Moonrise Kingdom, The Hobbit, Wreck-It Ralph, and others in the future.  You can read my previously posted reviews for nominees The Avengers here, Prometheus here, and Brave here.  You can read my comments on Snow White and the Huntsman, a film I didn’t recommend, here.

In the meantime, here is how I would rate the nine Best Picture nominees from best to not quite the best.  I have also included how these films are ranked according to the Rotten Tomatoes critics (RTC), the Rotten Tomatoes audiences (RTA), and the IMDB voters. 

Movie – Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Before seeing Silver Linings Playbook I had already heard that it was getting good word of mouth from people who had seen it, and that critics liked it, too.  Now that I have watched it I understand the former, but not the latter.  It is a romantic comedy/drama, a genre that movie goers tend to like, but that critics tend to dislike.  And when you get right down to it, other than the mental illness angle, this is a pretty conventional movie for the genre.  In other words, there’s nothing really that different about it to make it more understandable to me why critics like it.  Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed this movie.  Then again, I tend to like movies in this genre, so that doesn’t surprise me.

Movie – Lincoln (2012)

Everything about Lincoln the movie (aka “LtM” to distinguish it from the man) screams “quality”.  You can see it in the performances, in the sets, in the costumes and makeup, and in the dialogue.  In addition, it’s about an Important Topic.  If you weren’t sure from the subject matter, the fact that well known actors and actresses appeared in this film in roles much smaller than usual showed how important they felt it was.  Finally, it has a stellar Oscar pedigree among the people who made it (more on that in a bit.)  With all these things going for it, it is no surprise to me that it received more Oscar nominations this year (12) than any other film.  Despite all of this, and while I think it is a good film, it ultimately did not grab me emotionally as much as I thought it would.

Movie – Django Unchained (2012)

I’m not a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s films.  While I’ve liked most every one I’ve seen (2007’s Death Proof being a big exception), I’ve never loved them quite as much as many others have.  It’s understandable then that I went into Django Unchained with interest, but without any real expectations.  It turned out that I liked the film a lot.  It is far more entertaining than it has any right to be.  In fact, this may be heresy to fans of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, but I consider Django Unchained to be the best film Tarantino has done to date.

Movie – Argo (2012)

As I write this review Ben Affleck has just won the DGA’s Best Director award for Argo.  This adds to Affleck’s and the film’s wins at The Golden Globes, the PGA awards, and the SAG awards.  The only major guild it failed to win an award from was the WGA. Hollywood loves movies about themselves.  Just last year the Best Picture Oscar went to The Artist which was about the start of the sound era in Hollywood.  To add even more to Argo’s plus side, the Hollywood people get to be heroes in the story.  All of these wins and the characteristics of the film have combined to push Argo to the favorite position for winning Best Picture at the Oscars.  And all of this despite Affleck not even getting an Oscar nomination for Best Director. 

Movie – Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Beasts of the Southern Wild is the first full length screenplay and film from writer/director Benh (not a typo) Zeitlin.  It stars first time actress Quvenzhane (also not a typo) Wallis.  Both of them know how to start big because they were nominated for Oscars in all those categories.  (Zeitlin shares the screenplay nomination with Lucy Alibar who wrote the play this film is based on.)  In addition, the film itself is nominated for Best Picture.  The best chance for any of them to win is probably in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, since people will likely want to reward the film in some way and this category is often used for that purpose.  The film, although quite interesting, is unlikely to topple any of the much more lauded nominees for Best Picture.

Movie – Amour (2012)

Amour is nominated not only for the Best Picture Oscar, but for Best Foreign Language Film, too.  Adding in its nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress and it seems to be a lock to at least win the Best Foreign Language Film category.  I have not yet seen enough of the Best Actress candidates to have an informed opinion on who should win, but nominee Emmanuelle Riva gives a strong performance in this film.  This is not a happy movie, but it is one that will probably hit close to home for many who see it.

Movie – Life of Pi (2012)

Life of Pi is the first Best Picture nominee I’ve seen that I felt was a step above the others, although I’ve still got five more to see.  It wasn’t until the last fifteen minutes of the film that I felt that way, though.  Up until then it had been a decently entertaining movie, but then it took a step up.  I will be discussing this ending in this post, inside a piece clearly marked for spoilers so that you can read the rest of the review and skip over that section if you have not seen the film. 

Movie – Les Miserables (2012)

You should know that this review of Les Miserables is coming from the perspective of someone who has never seen the stage musical.  While I did read the book, it was many years ago and I only remembered a few basics of the story.  This means I should have been coming in relatively new to the entire thing.  Unfortunately, Anne Hathaway spoiled the fates of four of the five major characters for me by relating a filming story on The Daily Show, and then when I later looked at the soundtrack for the film there right in the titles of some of the songs are massive spoilers for what happens in the movie.  Knowing what was going to happen in the film obviously reduced its impact on me, but I still felt the film was worthy of recommending.

Movie – Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

With the film Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow returns to the region of the world that got her an Oscar for The Hurt Locker.  This time instead of Iraq she is further east in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  And while more of this movie focuses on the search for Bin Laden, the last hour of the movie is dominated by the military assault on his headquarters that killed him and captured tons of information.  That is about as far as the comparisons go, though.  Ultimately, Zero Dark Thirty is not as compelling as The Hurt Locker, but it is still a movie worth your time.