My Best/Worst 2012 Films, Oscar Rankings

Sure, it's 55 days into 2013 but why not take a trip back in time with me? Since I've finally seen all of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture, and I don't think there are any more 2012 releases that I'm going to see -- if any I haven't seen are even still in theaters -- it's time for my top ten of the sixty films (up by 6 from last year) I got to see. But first...

My Bottom 5 of 2012

5. Men in Black 3 -- An extremely tired sequel.
4. This Means War -- The worst rom-com and there's no Katherine Heigl or Gerard Butler in sight.
3. Silent House -- So bad I couldn't remember what it was about until I checked Wikipedia, and then it all came back to me.
2. Les Miserables -- I think I hated "Silent House" worse but I walked out of this one. But I did stay to the end of THE worst film of 2012...
1. Rock of Ages -- I will never understand why the film version, with the female lead's character named Sherrie, didn't bother to include the song "Oh Sherrie." Never. That song might have saved this from my only F of 2012...umm, probably not...

My Top 10 of 2012

Newtown: Same Old Same Old

Many of you aren't going to like what I have to say, but it's how I feel. Right now the only thing that truly angers me about the latest massacre via gun, in Newtown, Connecticut, is that the Fox network has decided to televise the prayer service going on right now, instead of showing the new episode of "The Simpsons" that my DVR is supposed to be recording. (And the prayer service -- don't get me started. It seems like they're trying to include every possible religion, so every speaker is trying not to say something that might offend someone else. A Lutheran chaplain just said that we all call God by different names but "however we address you, you are still father and mother to us all...") Since I started writing this, I switched to the NFL game on NBC, and now they've also switched to the prayer service because President Obama has begun his remarks. So now I have no "Simpsons" and no football.

I'm not investing another ounce of emotion into these things unless something, heaven forbid, happens to someone I actually know and care about personally. Every time this happens, the same old responses happen: people say it's senseless and a tragedy and they're shocked and outraged and sad and their prayers and thoughts are going to the victims and post pictures and article links and quotes and memes on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and ask why we don't have more gun control laws/complain that gun control laws wouldn't make a difference and blah blah blah blah blah. Then a few days go by and it all fades into the background and people start obsessing over the Kardashians again.

Why does it take multiple deaths to even get this response, as short-lived and futile as it is? People of all ages are gunned down every day, over and over, all over this country. Why is one child's murder in, say, North Philadelphia less important than 20 children in Connecticut? Add up all the gun deaths that occur one at a time and they'll add up to a hell of a lot more than 26.

And why does anyone think this time is going to be any different? All this talk about making sure this never happens again has been heard after the Columbine massacre, and after the Virginia Tech massacre, and after the Dark Knight movie massacre, and on and on and on. Nothing changes because the only real way to bring about change (not just on guns but on lots of issues) is if everyone rises up and makes their voices heard by voting. But most people don't vote except in presidential election years, and even then nowhere near 100 percent of eligible voters actually bother. And those who do vote don't put enough thought into it. People say they're in favor of this or that but vote for politicians who completely disregard those wishes. Everyone says they hate Congress but they keep voting for the same clowns in their own district. The politicians who are in bed with the National Rifle Association keep getting reelected by somebody.

And what passes for TV news reporting falls into two general categories: insensitively interviewing children who may have just seen their playmates killed, or asking politicians important questions like whether they're too fat to be elected President. Here's a couple of ideas: try to interview a child during a traumatic event and you lose your job. And if a politician refuses to answer important questions about why they don't stand up to the NRA, then they don't get airtime for puff pieces like when mayors or governors make a bet on the Super Bowl or World Series.

So, sorry, but I'm just bored with this whole thing. Hurry up and get over it so we can all go back to the business of making sure that evil criminal mastermind Lindsay Lohan finally gets locked up.

Quick Reviews: Bourne Legacy, ParaNorman

There's an inspired line of thinking in this article I came across the other day. It discusses the Simpsons episode where the "Itchy and Scratchy" studio, trying to reinvigorate the ratings of their tired cartoon, introduce a new character: Poochie, the rapping dog (voiced by Homer). Poochie is an amalgam of test-marketed "hip" cliches. The first "Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie" show gets tons of eyeballs, but everyone (except Homer) hates it. The studio ends the Poochie experiment quickly.

The article points out that Hollywood has taken the "Poochie" strategy to heart. Desperate to keep franchises alive, new (or sort of new) characters have been introduced in the most recent "Indiana Jones" and "Men in Black" sequels, and even a plot twist at the end of "The Dark Knight Rises" can be seen as an introduction of such a character for future films, although since Christopher Nolan is done with Batman, it's not too likely that anyone will follow up on that particular twist. But the article's prime example is the just-released "The Bourne Legacy," in which we learn that there's more than one black ops program in which super-soldiers were created. This is convenient because there's no Jason Bourne to hunt down, as Matt Damon refused to sign on for another sequel. So we have Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, who has to take pills to enhance his physical and mental abilities, on the run after Bourne's actions lead to the elimination of Cross's program -- and his life, if he's caught. The movie looks less jittery but is more confusing and generic, despite Renner's best efforts. And they still had the nerve to use that same Moby song at the end. My grade: C-minus.

On a brighter note, despite being somewhat darker in tone than the trailers led us to believe, is the animated (and 3D) "ParaNorman," which ostensibly is about a kid who talks to dead people, and has to use this ability to save his town from an ancient curse. Yet, while there's all that, and a good amount of humor, at its heart it's really an anti-bullying, we-should-embrace-our-differences movie. Whether it's the witch whose death leads to the curse, or Norman himself, seen as a weirdo because, to everyone else, he's talking to himself, the bullying angle is prominent. The film works on pretty much all levels, though, except for that 3D crap. I really dislike 3D. Wearing 3D glasses over my glasses is not particularly comfortable. 3D is not necessary except in rare cases -- the only film I've seen where the 3D really impressed me was "Avatar," which had other problems, such as plot silliness -- and it's mainly a way for the studios to make more money. My grade: A-minus.

Quick Review: The Dark Knight Rises

I suppose this is a not-so-quick review. Then again, the movie was 2 hours, 40 minutes long. (And I managed to sit through it without running to the bathroom. Woo-hoo!)

It seems impossible to discuss "The Dark Knight Rises" without mentioning the mass murders in Aurora, Colorado. I'm still angry that much of the hoopla and excitement for this movie was wiped out by the actions of an evil individual -- not to mention our nation's pathetic excuse for gun laws. Since it happened, I haven't seen a single advertisement for the film. (On the other hand, we also got a respite from those slimy political ads, as the Obama and Romney campaigns, and the super-PACs supporting them, suspended their advertising.) Still, it only slightly tainted my enjoyment of the film.

Looking at the trilogy as a whole, Christopher Nolan did a masterful job of telling what is really one long story with multiple themes. "The Dark Knight Rises" goes back to plot points and themes in "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" and weaves them into the film coherently, tying everything up extremely well. It even borrowed some from various story lines in the Batman comic books. (Does Bane break Batman's back? I'm not telling, just like I'm not telling whether or not Batman dies, as has been hinted and rumored.)

Specifically concerning the finale, it lived up to all of my expectations, particularly in regard to two of my fave actors. Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle was her usual marvelous self. She's never actually called Catwoman in the film; no mention of cats at all, only her master skills as a thief, thus avoiding the campiness usually associated with the character. (I'm not complaining about the camp: I adore Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman.) And Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a cop -- the trailers gave away nothing about why he was important to the story at all, but it pays off, especially with a hat tip to another Batman character at the very end.


To be honest, though, I think "The Dark Knight" was slightly better than "TDKR," mainly because of one aspect: Bane. No complaints about Tom Hardy, and I even was able to understand most of what he was saying under that mask with that weird voice, which still wasn't as annoying as Christian Bale's Batman voice. But even before Bane's motives were somewhat undercut by a plot twist near the end, as strong and powerful as he is, there's a little lacking when compared to the brilliant madness of Heath Ledger's Joker. My grade: A.

Quick Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

In between the summer superhero behemoths -- "The Avengers" and "The Dark Knight Rises" -- comes "The Amazing Spider-Man." "The Avengers" turned out extremely well, and I have similar expectations for "Dark Knight." As for this Spider-Man film, my expectations weren't as high despite some of the hype. So I wasn't overly disappointed that I wasn't overly excited by it. It looks good, it's well-acted, but with it being a reboot of the franchise so soon after the previous three films (the first of which arrived in 2002) it felt like I had pretty much seen it before. Peter Parker's back in high school, with Andrew Garfield taking over for Tobey Maguire. They changed a few details, added some more, swapped out love interests and villains, but otherwise it's the same: Peter's bitten by the spider, gains powers, doesn't stop a bad guy, bad guy kills Uncle Ben, Peter becomes Spider-Man, fights villain... I will say that I liked it more than the first movie in the Maguire-as-Spidey trilogy, so if this new one's sequel improves similarly, the next one should be quite a film. My grade: B-minus.

Quick Reviews: May 2012

Since I continue to procrastinate and waste time (not entirely wasting it, as I've had some stuff to deal with as well), I have to lump together the films I've seen instead of trying to do post after post. After today I've got seven that I've seen since the start of the "summer" movie season (which this year was, I suppose, the week "The Avengers" was released, which was before Mother's Day). Since I saw four of them in May, I'll wrap them up. Really, though, what's finally spurring them on is the one I just saw a few hours ago, so stay tuned.

Marvel's The Avengers: Do I really have to refer to this as "Marvel's"? Anyway, I am a bigger fan of the DC superheroes -- although with their "New 52" crap driving me away from the comic book stores, not to mention the better success of the Marvel character movies, it's a bit harder to say that. I have high hopes for "The Dark Knight Rises," but once Christian Bale's final Batman movie is over with, anyone trying to make a DC movie will seriously need to step up their game to come close to what "The Avengers" pulled off.  I was so dazzled that I had to really think of a reason to not give this a perfect A-plus grade. I finally came up with this: there's an obligatory scene where some of the heroes fight each other. This happens in the comic books and almost always is contrived -- they have to fight each other before teaming up to fight the bad guy. Even though in this movie it was almost plausible and understandable plot-wise, it was still there. My grade: A.

Dark Shadows: It started with a surprisingly long prologue before getting to the 1972 setting for the main story, which turned out to be quite disappointing. I love that Johnny Depp throws himself into these roles, and there were a few moments that were enjoyable, but resurrecting this old TV show just seemed totally unnecessary. My grade: C-minus.

The Dictator: If my generalization is correct, people mostly loved Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" and mostly hated "Bruno," although I loved both,