Best of 2012

All of these best of a year lists seem to have some sort of rules. Mostly it's the movies that premiered that year, but that would leave 2 great movies from my list as there are festivals where the lucky ones can see the movies before the actual premiere. So I've decided to make my own rules and included all of the new movies that I saw in 2012. Might be a bit unfair on the case of those 2 as they have not yet got their proper premiere here in Finland, but in many other countries they have been playing for quite a while now. Then again that also includes many 2011 movies in my list as there was no way of seeing them before 2012 here, many of those have been on the best of 2011 lists of others. So these are the 10 (well 11 actually) best new movies I saw in 2012.


 










10. Dredd (2012)

I was a huge fan of the comics as a kid and after that horrible piece of garbage starring Sylvester Stallone, I didn't have my hopes high for this new adaptation. But much to my surprise it was absolutely brilliant. Quite true to the comic it's ultra-violent with tons of dark comedy and a suiting in-your-face attitude. Once the action starts it doesn't really stop until the end credits roll, what more can you ask from an entertaining action movie?
80%













10. The Raid: Redemption (2011)

Had a huge trouble choosing between this and Dredd as they are so similar in many ways. Where Dredd has the dark comedy at it's side, this one most definitely beats it on the martial-arts aspect. They are both like insane roller coaster rides that knock the wind out of you and as there are so many similarities to them I can't really choose, both of them deserve a spot on this list.
80%













9. Skyfall (2012)

I know, what the hell does a Bond movie do in a top 10 list? Well it's the best Bond in ages, maybe even THE best Bond, though would have to revisit most of them to say that for sure as it's been a long while since I saw some of them. What I can say for sure it's the best looking Bond ever, thanks to Roger Deakins' brilliant cinematography. It also has one of the best Bond villains, played by Javier Bardem. And not only those but it's simply a great movie.
82%













8. The Artist (2011)

Leaving the theater I was thinking that this might be the best movie of the year, but then it hit me, this is a one viewing only kind of movie. Next time you see it it's not nearly as good and eventually it might prove to become quite dull. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely magnificent and well worth watching but it's really not the kind of movie that you'd want to see from time to time until the end of the world. It kind of already gave you everything with one viewing and if you'd watch it again you'd just pay too much attention to the little details. Well at least I would, so I'll just treasure my memories from it and leave it be in the future. And like I said, those memories are well worth experiencing and then some, hence the spot on this list.
85%


 










7. Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Feel good movie of the year. Sure it goes to almost glorifying poverty and does have some issues, but you just don't care as it's such a gorgeous and magical movie. I guess what I'm most at awe about is that this is the director Benh Zeitlin’s first movie, even many veteran directors couldn't pull off this kind of a perfect blend between dreamlike fantasy and gritty realism.
87%


 










6. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Well I guess this is the feel bad movie of the year. Absolutely devastating story done in a way where the drama almost turns into horror. Haven't read the book so can't compare them in any way and after seeing this movie I kind of don't want to read it either. Tilda Swinton pulls out the best performance of any of the movies I saw in 2012 and she didn't even get a nomination for the Oscar.
89%













5. Killer Joe (2011)

Wow, didn't see this one coming, out of nowhere the old man William Friedkin comes around the corner and gives you a punch in the face you won't forget. By far Friedkin's best movie since 1985 and one of the best movies in 2012. In many ways this movie has the same unforgiving attitude as his last masterpiece To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) even though the movies don't have much else in common. Just about everyone in this movie gives out a stellar performance and the direction is quite brilliant. I could almost hear Friedkin saying “well you asked for it, so here it is in your face”.
90%













4. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Well I've become kind of a Wes Anderson fanboy so not a big surprise this one ended up in here. However it's a great movie, even without the fanboyism, it's a bittersweet coming of age story with real depth to it, of course not forgetting the comedy of it all.
91%


 










3. The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Second movie directed by a first timer on my top 10 list, it's definitely been a wild year and so is this movie. One of the best comedy-horror movies in ages and by far the best of the year. I know here also the fanboy factor comes into play as this movie has more references to horror movies than you can count, but it's not only that. This movie just keeps on giving, growing bigger and wilder by the minute until the end which is almost orgastic. And as far as witty and clever films come, this is in a league of it's own.
95%













2. Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese doing a children's movie, what has the world turned into? Well, to a lot better place I must say. This movie is pretty much cinema perfection, technically flawless, entertaining, thrilling, emotional and thought provoking. It's also like the best cinema history lesson you could think of. Sure as a filmaholic I could have wished for a bit more depth and details to it, but for the average moviegoers who haven't seen any of Melies' films it's perfect. You could say it's the movie Melies deserves and then some. This would have been by far the best movie of the year, but then I saw the one below and had the bittersweet task of dropping this to the second best of the year.
99%


 










1. Cloud Atlas (2012)

Well I guess the hell froze over and my idol mr. Hitchcock is turning in his grave, but the Wachowski's actually made a movie which is so groundbreaking it deserves my utmost respect. Not only is this movie the best of the year, it's the best of the decade and one which should set the standard for the upcoming “Hollywood spectacles”. Now most of you might think I'm crazy as there are problems with this movie, it has some big plot holes, it's a bit uneven, it could be a bit shorter, it's overly melodramatic, it borders cheesy at times and even the messages the movie delivers are a bit too obvious. Also the cast is not exactly brilliant, I mean most of them are great, but for example Tom Hanks was Tom Hanks on most of his characters. But all of that is nonessential as this movie does what most of the big Hollywood movies try to do, appeal to everyone, and does it brilliantly. It has something for everyone mixed in to the script like most of the big films nowadays, but the trick is that it's all essential for the bigger picture. Now, there have of course been movies which blend and bend the genre boundaries. There have been movies which have multiple intercutting story lines. There have been movies where the actors play multiple roles. But I have never seen a movie which has all of the above and the separate story lines not only support each other, they also build each other and together build a master story line which turns out to be quite an experience. So the parts you don't usually really care for are so much easier to take as they all together create something larger than what I've used to seeing in the cinema lately. It's like they took the whole conventional cinema apart like Lego blocks and built something fresh and inspiring out of those pieces. I must say that Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski's have some balls to pull off this kind of movie, even though one of them is missing his/hers nowadays (ye bad pun I know, sorry). It's not easy to make a movie that in a conventional sense should fall apart and actually make it work. The art of cinema needs movies like this to keep it evolving, it's not perfect by any means, but someone will come along and take the ideas of this movie and move them closer towards perfection. For that reason alone this movie is nothing short of a masterpiece.
100%


That's the list for 2012. I know the Finns have to wait for a few more months to see Cloud Atlas but I had to put it in as well, but hey, at least there's something to look forward in 2013. I of course haven't seen all of the movies released in 2012, but I think I've covered most of them and especially the most interesting ones. Lots of great movies got left outside the list, but 10 is such a small number and it wasn't that hard to choose those in the end. It's been a surprisingly good year in movies in 2012 and I'm surely looking forward for 2013 as there's some very promising movies coming. Lets hope I can keep this blog a bit more active this year...

The scum of New York in 4K

Taxi Driver (1976)

I got the chance to see the newly restored version of this in glorious 4K and it surely was a beauty. What's so special about 4K then? Well, as Finland is always quite late in the development, all but one of the digital projectors in Finnish theatres are 2K, though I think that's the case in many other countries as well. 2K is a bit bigger than your full HD resolution, 4K is twice as much, so you can watch it on a huge screen quite close and still won't spot the pixels. The thing however is that the only 4K projector in Finland at the moment is at the National Film Archive's theatre and it's a small one with only about 60 seats, so the screen is quite small as well. So the resolution didn't shine through as much as it could have. At first I was a bit worried if the picture would have been over processed to give it an unnatural face lift, but luckily that wasn't the case. It looks like the very first film print of the movie probably looked. The grainy characteristic of the film stock is still there and it still looks gritty as it is supposed to, only it's clean of dirt and the colors are bright again. So definitely it looked stunning. Enough of the pixels and on to the movie itself. I actually have no idea what to say about it that hasn't been said already a million times. It's one of the best movies ever made and one of those movies that are considered as general knowledge. Anyone who likes to watch movies should already have seen it. This was probably my sixth or seventh time I saw it and I must say it hadn't lost a bit of it's power and actually I noticed even some new nuances in it. That's what makes a brilliant movie, you can experience it again. I mean you can of course watch a movie many times, but only a few movies you can experience again even though you know every shot by heart. It's a master class on direction, the cast is superb, the music is absolutely brilliant and the mood is just unbeatable. A true classic and one of the best movies ever made. If you haven't seen it yet, don't tell anyone to avoid embarrasment and go see it as soon as possible.
100%

Scorsese does Bonnie and Clyde

Boxcar Bertha (1972)

Roger Corman hired Martin Scorsese, then quite unknown film director, to make an exploitation flick. Scorsese did that, but the movie turned out to be a lot more than just an exploitation flick. The themes of the movie are quite similar to Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and there is a bit of an exploitative touch to it, but the rest is quite like trademark Scorsese. It's a story about a young woman, played quite brilliantly by Barbara Hershey, who during the depression era drifts into being a criminal. She's joined by a union leader, played by David Carradine, a card hustler, played by Barry Primus and an old friend, played by Bernie Casey. Together they make robberies, get caught, break out and same goes on. It's not the most original story and at parts the dialog is kind of corny, but it's not that bad either. The look is surprisingly like Scorsese's later movies so the touch is already there. This is the second feature length movie the maestro has done and even though he surely didn't have all the control over it, Corman being there to pull the strings, it still has many of those trademark moments. This is not among the best from Scorsese, but still it's well worth watching and a nice look into the early film making days of the maestro.
70%

The island of the mind

Shutter Island (2010)

Psychological thrillers are somewhat of a rarity nowadays with all these fast served cheap scares that tickle you straight from the right spot without you needing to use your brain to find it. So when I heard the maestro Scorsese is making one it went straight to my most wanted list. I rushed to see it in the premiere earlier this year and to be honest I was quite disappointed. The thing is that I love Scorsese's movies and I couldn't believe he made such a simple movie with one major twist. I got the twist quite early on so I was expecting it and thus it didn't work too well. The movie was still brilliantly made and the mood was quite magnificent, but the story was not what I was expecting. A bit disappointed I thought this was somewhat of an miss from the maestro. Then it came out on BR and I decided to give it another try to see did I really miss something or was it really that simple. Oh man was I wrong. The second viewing was absolutely mind blowing. The movie is like a huge puzzle with pieces on many levels all there for the viewer to grab on to. And even knowing the big picture it didn't matter at all, it actually worked even better. I was stunned that I missed so much of it in the first viewing. It's kind of like fine wine, it gets better as it gets older and that's what classics are made of.
95%