9. Cutie and the Boxer
Director: Zachary Heinzerling
Cutie and the Boxer, Zachary Heinzerling’s fascinating documentary about Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, studies the life of a man who is entering his 80s, but still dreams like he’s 20. Ushio, who spear-headed the Neo Dadaist movement in the ’60s, is best known for his “boxing paintings,” created by punching the canvas with paint-soaked boxing gloves. The documentary follows the passions and struggles of the couple as they live in their small New York City apartment with little income to support their lives and endeavors. Noriko emerges as the heart of the movie, as she recalls her life while writing a graphic novel about her rocky marriage. Heinzerling combines Noriko’s drawings with contemporary footage to create a story that isn’t only a tale of creative minds, but an honest love story.—Jeremy Mathews
8. Holy Motors
Director: Leos Carax
Actors: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue
Like a breath of fresh, revitalizing air, French filmmaker Leos Carax's Holy Motors uncontrollably attacks the senses with unbridled imagination and creativity. It's as imaginative as it is transformative, following a nameless actor (Denis Lavant, in an outstanding performance) who makes a series of pit stops throughout Paris while driving around in a stretch limousine, each separate vignette allowing him to portray a different character in a new mini-movie.
From a performance-capture suit to a leprechaun-like green suit, Lavant's various get-ups inform his many assignments, and they're all vibrant, funny, unnerving, and unnaturally surreal. Carax's multilayered, endlessly fascinating film operates on two distinct wavelengths: One one hand, it's a peppy love letter to all things cinema, but, on the other, it's also a sad, gloomy chamber piece about connecting with cinema's older, simpler ways in the face of modern advancements.
No matter how viewers take it, Holy Motors is one cinematic fever dream from which you won't want to wake up.
7. Kill List
Director: Ben WheatleyActors: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley, Emma Fryer, Harry Simpson, Ben Crompton, Struan Rodger
The year’s most disturbing genre movie is also one of most lingering mind-fucks to come around in years. With the scarring Kill List, English filmmaker Ben Wheatley establishes himself as a fearless storyteller, keeping the mood pitch-black while concealing several jarring twists and maintaining a firm ambiguity that, by the film’s end, will leave you bewildered.
Most importantly, though, Kill List will burrow into your nightmares, which is fitting, since the movie’s shocking imagery and brutal ideas come directly from Wheatley’s own scary dreams. At its core, Kill List is about an out-of-work, married military vet and former hit-man (Neil Maskell) who reconnects with an old partner-in-crime (Michael Smiley) to off a few unlucky folks for a mysterious new client. And that’s all we can say here.
Though Wheatley himself has been open to discuss the film’s crazier elements in the press, like he did with us, we’re suggesting that you wait and see Kill List for yourselves before probing its deep, dark enigmas. But just know that you’re not likely to see a more psychologically damaging horror flick any time soon.
6. The Dark Knight Rises
Director: Christopher NolanActors: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Ben Mendelsohn, Juno Temple
With staggering ambition comes the occasional misstep, and Christopher Nolan's third, and final, Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises certainly has its fair share of slip-ups. While being swept away in every stirring, visceral, and emotionally resonant moment, audiences can't help but succumb to Nolan's magic, but take a few post-viewing steps back and the film's script begs a large number of questions.
Here are a few: How could they end Bane's (Tom Hardy) story line with such an anticlimactic punch line? How in Sam hell did Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) manage to restore his broken-down body, with its cartilage-less knees, to walk properly, let alone fight an army of bad guys? And how could Batman's customized airplane get away from that nuclear bomb's three-mile blast radius?
Taking such logical questions into consideration, it's inevitable to label The Dark Knight Rises an inferior follow-up to Nolan's 2008 masterwork The Dark Knight. But here's the thing: Even with those flaws, The Dark Knight Rises is still superior to any summer blockbuster in recent memory. And, as this list shows, it's also better than damn near every other movie released in 2012.
With the odds against him, post-Heath Ledger and mountains' worth of piled-up expectations, Nolan relied upon his dazzling visual sense and command of high-stakes emotion to put together a satisfying conclusion to arguably the greatest big-screen trilogy of all time (don't act like The Dark Knight Rises isn't superior to The Godfather Part III).
5. The Cabin in the Woods
Director: Drew GoddardActors: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Amy Acker, Brian White, Jodelle Ferland
Give it up for the year’s most difficult-to-market movie, a meta-horror-comedy so ambitiously self-aware that its distributors had no choice but to sell it as a generic slasher movie. Written by Joss “Mr. Avengers” Whedon and first-time director Drew Goddard, The Cabin in the Woods inevitably suffered a quick demise at the box office, surely on its way to cult infamy and home video glory. Is that fate frustrating for all of us who quote-unquote “got” it? No question, but we’re also just happy that it exists.
Deconstructing practically every overused horror movie trope in the book, The Cabin in the Woods winks at savvy genre fans in every scene, all while delivering several genuine shocks and a plethora of intelligently comedic moments. And then comes the see-it-to-believe-it final act, a fan-pleasing climax that’s both totally batshit and amazingly generous. Even if general audiences didn’t pay attention, we passionate horror lovers salute you, sirs Whedon and Goddard.
4. Looper
Director: Rian JohnsonActors: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Noah Segan, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo, Pierce Gagnon, Garret Dillahunt
Watch, years from now, when critics and cinephiles look back on Rian Johnson's Looper, they're going to realize that it's a new genre classic.
As of now, folks are well aware of its many virtues, least of which is Johnson's ability to make time travel story mechanics easily digestible while never skimping on the headiness and ambition. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (hardly recognizable under tons of makeup) plays a futuristic mob-hired hitman whose job requires him to murder people sent back from the 30 years into the future, and whose life gets very complicated once his future self (played by Bruce Willis) becomes his latest target. And with that, you've got a high-concept action film rooted in science fiction and driven by characters.
Impressively, though, Johnson (coming off the well-received, and vastly different, indie flicks Brick and The Brothers Bloom) underscores all of Looper's genre tropes and glossy eye candy with an surprising amount of emotional intensity. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that he's not afraid to plunge into dark moral territories, ones that require viewers to adjust their sympathies and expect the unexpected. It's comparable to Christopher Nolan's Inception. That's no small compliment.
3. West of Memphis
Director: Amy Berg
Prepare to have your hearts and guts beaten to pulps. An astoundingly researched and exhaustive look at social injustice, director Amy Berg's magnificent West of Memphis is the year's epitome of powerful, awe-inspiring documentary filmmaking. And, it's worth pointing out, 2012 was a phenomenal year for documentaries (see, in addition to those previously included in this list: The Queen of Versailles, The Invisible War, How to Survive a Plague, The House I Live In, and Searching for Sugar Man).
At a sprawling yet justified 146 minutes, West of Memphis leaves no figurative stone unturned, probing deeply—through multiple interviews with those who lived through the events—into the controversial case of the West Memphis Three. They're Damian Echols (who co-produced the film), Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., three guys who, as teenagers back in 1993, were targeted for their antisocial ways and interests in occultism as the savage murderers of three little boys.
Berg's harrowing film unflinchingly shows every aspect of the actual killings, the investigation, the subsequent trials, and the eventual evidence of wrongful imprisonments. West of Memphis is intimate, shocking, maddening, and revelatory.
2. The Grey
Director: Joe CarnahanActors: Liam Neeson, Frank Grilo, Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale
Fun fact: The Grey was the first screening we attended in 2012, way back in early January. Nearly 360 days later, it's still an unshakeable and profound piece of work.
The commercials promised one thing: Liam Neeson knuckling up against a pack of vicious wolves in freezing cold, snowy conditions. Action movie gold, right? So imagine our surprise when director Joe Carnahan’s remarkabe film brought us close to tears. Much like last year's Warrior, it's a pure guy-cry experience, though, in The Grey's case, the spiritual undercurrent lingers long after its bravura final scene.
Guided by an extraordinary, well-rounded performance from Neeson, The Grey is anything but a man-versus-animal smackdown. Pitting a small group of airplane crash survivors against not only the threat of malicious wolves but also ferocious weather and depleting hope, Carnahan’s uniquely solemn action film challenges feelings of spirituality, masculinity, and emotional fortitude, all with superior deftness. It’s the uncommon “guy movie” with an active brain and a big, beating heart.
1. Zero Dark Thirty
Director: Kathryn BigelowActors: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Edgar Ramirez, Jennifer Ehle, Chris Pratt, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini Mark Duplass, Stephen Dillane, Harold Perrineau, Scott Adkins, Taylor Kinney
There's a strong chance that the majority of people who'll pay to see Zero Dark Thirty will do so with the sole intention of watching Osama bin Laden get killed. And why not? What could be more cathartic and celebratory than seeing the monstrous terrorist who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks receive his long-overdue comeuppance? Even if it's through secondhand acting and Hollywood production values.
While that's not a bad way to enter Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's (coming off The Hurt Locker) in-depth look at the 10-year C.I.A. manhunt for bin Laden, there's so much more going on throughout Zero Dark Thirty. By the film's end, it's actually tough to stand up and cheer. Most likely, you'll be too mesmerized and emotionally drained to do anything other than catch your breath.
Led by a formidable performance from Jessica Chastain (playing the stone-faced yet sympathetic C.I.A. hotshot who ignited the decade-long search), Zero Dark Thirty is, first and foremost, a tremendous piece of investigative journalism decorated as a white-knuckle film. Screenwriter Mark Boal (also of The Hurt Locker) parlayed tireless research and interviews with those who lived the film's events into what should, in a just world, take home the upcoming Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. With admirable objectivity, he and Bigelow touch upon all of the positives and negatives that come from tracking down a man like bin Laden, from heinous torture methods to dangerous on-the-ground undercover work.
Zero Dark Thirty's biggest strength is that it never even flirts with "America, fuck yeah!" sentiments. Its primary concern is to outline all of the hard work, stress, and mortality that was spent in order to locate a mass murderer. And once bin Laden's compound is raided (in a long, masterfully staged sequence for which Bigelow deserves excessive props), crying children and petrified, innocent women remind us that, in the end, bin Laden was just a defenseless, weak man. One taken out by our nation's finest soldiers, all of whom, much like every other C.I.A. figure who's fictionalized in Zero Dark Thirty, are honored by filmmakers confident enough to let their actions speak for themselves.
Director: Zachary Heinzerling
Cutie and the Boxer, Zachary Heinzerling’s fascinating documentary about Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, studies the life of a man who is entering his 80s, but still dreams like he’s 20. Ushio, who spear-headed the Neo Dadaist movement in the ’60s, is best known for his “boxing paintings,” created by punching the canvas with paint-soaked boxing gloves. The documentary follows the passions and struggles of the couple as they live in their small New York City apartment with little income to support their lives and endeavors. Noriko emerges as the heart of the movie, as she recalls her life while writing a graphic novel about her rocky marriage. Heinzerling combines Noriko’s drawings with contemporary footage to create a story that isn’t only a tale of creative minds, but an honest love story.—Jeremy Mathews
8. Holy Motors
Director: Leos Carax
Actors: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue
From a performance-capture suit to a leprechaun-like green suit, Lavant's various get-ups inform his many assignments, and they're all vibrant, funny, unnerving, and unnaturally surreal. Carax's multilayered, endlessly fascinating film operates on two distinct wavelengths: One one hand, it's a peppy love letter to all things cinema, but, on the other, it's also a sad, gloomy chamber piece about connecting with cinema's older, simpler ways in the face of modern advancements.
No matter how viewers take it, Holy Motors is one cinematic fever dream from which you won't want to wake up.
7. Kill List
Director: Ben WheatleyActors: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley, Emma Fryer, Harry Simpson, Ben Crompton, Struan Rodger
Most importantly, though, Kill List will burrow into your nightmares, which is fitting, since the movie’s shocking imagery and brutal ideas come directly from Wheatley’s own scary dreams. At its core, Kill List is about an out-of-work, married military vet and former hit-man (Neil Maskell) who reconnects with an old partner-in-crime (Michael Smiley) to off a few unlucky folks for a mysterious new client. And that’s all we can say here.
Though Wheatley himself has been open to discuss the film’s crazier elements in the press, like he did with us, we’re suggesting that you wait and see Kill List for yourselves before probing its deep, dark enigmas. But just know that you’re not likely to see a more psychologically damaging horror flick any time soon.
6. The Dark Knight Rises
Director: Christopher NolanActors: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Ben Mendelsohn, Juno Temple
Here are a few: How could they end Bane's (Tom Hardy) story line with such an anticlimactic punch line? How in Sam hell did Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) manage to restore his broken-down body, with its cartilage-less knees, to walk properly, let alone fight an army of bad guys? And how could Batman's customized airplane get away from that nuclear bomb's three-mile blast radius?
Taking such logical questions into consideration, it's inevitable to label The Dark Knight Rises an inferior follow-up to Nolan's 2008 masterwork The Dark Knight. But here's the thing: Even with those flaws, The Dark Knight Rises is still superior to any summer blockbuster in recent memory. And, as this list shows, it's also better than damn near every other movie released in 2012.
With the odds against him, post-Heath Ledger and mountains' worth of piled-up expectations, Nolan relied upon his dazzling visual sense and command of high-stakes emotion to put together a satisfying conclusion to arguably the greatest big-screen trilogy of all time (don't act like The Dark Knight Rises isn't superior to The Godfather Part III).
5. The Cabin in the Woods
Director: Drew GoddardActors: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Amy Acker, Brian White, Jodelle Ferland
Deconstructing practically every overused horror movie trope in the book, The Cabin in the Woods winks at savvy genre fans in every scene, all while delivering several genuine shocks and a plethora of intelligently comedic moments. And then comes the see-it-to-believe-it final act, a fan-pleasing climax that’s both totally batshit and amazingly generous. Even if general audiences didn’t pay attention, we passionate horror lovers salute you, sirs Whedon and Goddard.
4. Looper
Director: Rian JohnsonActors: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Noah Segan, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo, Pierce Gagnon, Garret Dillahunt
Watch, years from now, when critics and cinephiles look back on Rian Johnson's Looper, they're going to realize that it's a new genre classic.
As of now, folks are well aware of its many virtues, least of which is Johnson's ability to make time travel story mechanics easily digestible while never skimping on the headiness and ambition. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (hardly recognizable under tons of makeup) plays a futuristic mob-hired hitman whose job requires him to murder people sent back from the 30 years into the future, and whose life gets very complicated once his future self (played by Bruce Willis) becomes his latest target. And with that, you've got a high-concept action film rooted in science fiction and driven by characters.
Impressively, though, Johnson (coming off the well-received, and vastly different, indie flicks Brick and The Brothers Bloom) underscores all of Looper's genre tropes and glossy eye candy with an surprising amount of emotional intensity. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that he's not afraid to plunge into dark moral territories, ones that require viewers to adjust their sympathies and expect the unexpected. It's comparable to Christopher Nolan's Inception. That's no small compliment.
3. West of Memphis
Director: Amy Berg
Prepare to have your hearts and guts beaten to pulps. An astoundingly researched and exhaustive look at social injustice, director Amy Berg's magnificent West of Memphis is the year's epitome of powerful, awe-inspiring documentary filmmaking. And, it's worth pointing out, 2012 was a phenomenal year for documentaries (see, in addition to those previously included in this list: The Queen of Versailles, The Invisible War, How to Survive a Plague, The House I Live In, and Searching for Sugar Man).
At a sprawling yet justified 146 minutes, West of Memphis leaves no figurative stone unturned, probing deeply—through multiple interviews with those who lived through the events—into the controversial case of the West Memphis Three. They're Damian Echols (who co-produced the film), Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., three guys who, as teenagers back in 1993, were targeted for their antisocial ways and interests in occultism as the savage murderers of three little boys.
Berg's harrowing film unflinchingly shows every aspect of the actual killings, the investigation, the subsequent trials, and the eventual evidence of wrongful imprisonments. West of Memphis is intimate, shocking, maddening, and revelatory.
2. The Grey
Director: Joe CarnahanActors: Liam Neeson, Frank Grilo, Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale
Fun fact: The Grey was the first screening we attended in 2012, way back in early January. Nearly 360 days later, it's still an unshakeable and profound piece of work.
The commercials promised one thing: Liam Neeson knuckling up against a pack of vicious wolves in freezing cold, snowy conditions. Action movie gold, right? So imagine our surprise when director Joe Carnahan’s remarkabe film brought us close to tears. Much like last year's Warrior, it's a pure guy-cry experience, though, in The Grey's case, the spiritual undercurrent lingers long after its bravura final scene.
Guided by an extraordinary, well-rounded performance from Neeson, The Grey is anything but a man-versus-animal smackdown. Pitting a small group of airplane crash survivors against not only the threat of malicious wolves but also ferocious weather and depleting hope, Carnahan’s uniquely solemn action film challenges feelings of spirituality, masculinity, and emotional fortitude, all with superior deftness. It’s the uncommon “guy movie” with an active brain and a big, beating heart.
1. Zero Dark Thirty
Director: Kathryn BigelowActors: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Edgar Ramirez, Jennifer Ehle, Chris Pratt, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini Mark Duplass, Stephen Dillane, Harold Perrineau, Scott Adkins, Taylor Kinney
While that's not a bad way to enter Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's (coming off The Hurt Locker) in-depth look at the 10-year C.I.A. manhunt for bin Laden, there's so much more going on throughout Zero Dark Thirty. By the film's end, it's actually tough to stand up and cheer. Most likely, you'll be too mesmerized and emotionally drained to do anything other than catch your breath.
Led by a formidable performance from Jessica Chastain (playing the stone-faced yet sympathetic C.I.A. hotshot who ignited the decade-long search), Zero Dark Thirty is, first and foremost, a tremendous piece of investigative journalism decorated as a white-knuckle film. Screenwriter Mark Boal (also of The Hurt Locker) parlayed tireless research and interviews with those who lived the film's events into what should, in a just world, take home the upcoming Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. With admirable objectivity, he and Bigelow touch upon all of the positives and negatives that come from tracking down a man like bin Laden, from heinous torture methods to dangerous on-the-ground undercover work.
Zero Dark Thirty's biggest strength is that it never even flirts with "America, fuck yeah!" sentiments. Its primary concern is to outline all of the hard work, stress, and mortality that was spent in order to locate a mass murderer. And once bin Laden's compound is raided (in a long, masterfully staged sequence for which Bigelow deserves excessive props), crying children and petrified, innocent women remind us that, in the end, bin Laden was just a defenseless, weak man. One taken out by our nation's finest soldiers, all of whom, much like every other C.I.A. figure who's fictionalized in Zero Dark Thirty, are honored by filmmakers confident enough to let their actions speak for themselves.
Shade aside this film was absolutely fantastic my girlfriend loves horror films and 9 out 10 times I refuse to watch it because it looks so terrible or I do watch it and it is indeed terrible but on the odd occasion I'll see a trailer for something that looks like it could be a pretty cool story line, this was so much more than that! Way better than I had expected. 365movies It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time with my jaw hanging from the suspense.
ReplyDeleteReminded me of 'hush' from Netflix but it has si-fi monsters which usually puts me off but it's not super wacky so you can kind of go along with it. Deserves 10/10 because the actors were great it was cool to watch and a bit different with the lack of dialogue made the room feel empty and so easy to imerse in there suspense, I left the cinema feeling totally satisfied. 365movies If your into thrillers I would definitely recommend!
This movie was a nice change to the usual horror/thrillers which are all the same. It had me on edge the entire film. I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend. Best horror/thriller I've seen in such a long time. watch Avengers: Infinity War free online