The Best Movies of 2012

Welcome one and all to the only top ten list you'll ever need! Listed below are all of the films I managed to see in the Year of our Gordon-Levitt 2012. This list is incomplete in a number of respects. One, this may come as quite a shock but I am not a professional film critic. Gasp! This means that I only seek out films that I think would be interesting in the first place, and while I try to have broad range, my scope is much smaller than those who are paid to see everything. So apologies if Battleship is an unknown gem. Secondly, I still have not managed to see a handful of titles generating buzz and that happen to pique some sort of interest in me. For example, I have been planning on seeing Argo for months now but I was too busy watching Chicken Little to get around to it. Meanwhile, something like Zero Dark Thirty has not yet been released in my neck of the woods. Lastly, and this is the biggest problem with this list, I am a man of restrictions, of rules and regulations, and I decided long ago that for a film to qualify it had to have its world premiere in the year in question. If imdb says that a movie opened at a film festival in Argentina on 31 December, 2011, it cannot make the cut. There are several drawbacks to this method, one being that a disproportionate number of foreign films are ineligible for inclusion. This means that one, The Turin Horse or Once Upon a Time in Anatolia are barred from the list, and two, since I know they won't qualify, I put off watching them. Sorry rest of the world! The other problem with my method is that sometimes the best film I saw in the theatre this year, the one I have championed more than any other, also must fall by the wayside. Let it be known that had The Cabin in the Woods been an official 2012 film it would be a lock for best film of the year. It is the only movie I saw three times and the only one that I own the Blu-ray and the Official Visual Companion book on. See what I did there? I wrote a whole list of reasons why my rules suck, then I cheated and named a movie from last year as the best. On with the show!

18. The Campaign
17. John Carter
16. The Hunger Games
15. The Dark Knight Rises
14. Paperman
13. ParaNorman
12. Seven Psychopaths
11. The Queen of Versailles

10. Premium Rush

The perfect late summer drive-in movie. Premium Rush is a twenty-first century chase film set in the world of New York City bike messengers. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee--don't worry, the Looney Tunes connection is acknowledged--who is hunted down by the crookedest cop this side of the bad lieutenant (played to the hilt by the great Michael Shannon). Directed by long-time blockbuster screenwriter David Koepp, the film moves at a breathless clip, starting the race in the first reel and rarely letting up until the conclusion. There are some nice cinematic touches throughout, including a method of showing Wilee's thought process as he comes to a dangerous intersection. We see him visualize weaving between two cars only to run into a baby carriage, or hook a left and get hit by a truck. Premium Rush is a breezy feature that straddles a fine line. It continually emphasizes the high stakes but it never takes itself too seriously.

9. Casa de mi Padre

What an ingeniously stupid movie Casa de mi Padre is! Will Ferrell's Spanish-language homage to the telenovela is a ridiculously thin conceit stretched out to the barest of feature film lengths. And it is hilarious. In fact, it might just be Ferrell's most consistently enjoyable film. Ferrell plays the dimwitted son of a ranch owner who must protect their land from the malevolent drug lord Onza, played with relish by Gael García Bernal. Diego Luna hams it up as Ferrell's brother Raul who has gotten himself wrapped up in some shady dealings. The film plays up its threadbare, low budget quality to ludicrous effect, at one point an establishing shot of a city street is filmed with miniatures including a Hot Wheels car. To pad out the film there are all manner of goofy shenanigans including a psychedelic dream sequence and a smorgasbord of slow motion action shots. Casa de mi Padre is a one-of-a-kind creation, a hypothetical doodle taken to its idiotic extreme.

8. Brave

There are a number of wonderful elements in Pixar's Brave. This princess story is a conscious attempt at rewriting the very DNA of a princess story. The headstrong Merida is a mischievous dreamer who would rather scale a mountain by herself than entertain royal visitors. There is no dashing prince and therefore no happily-ever-after romance. It is a film about the bonds between mothers and daughters, a rarity in the boy's world of Hollywood. And as usual, the animation is of a caliber that astounds. Merida's hair is quite possibly the greatest special effect of the year. However, the film is executed with a roteness that is anathema to Pixar's emphasis on engaging story. All of the elements are there but they don't feel inspired. The abundance of slapstick humor with characters running into walls and others showing off their genitals is entirely unfunny. And while the film tries to subvert the foundations of the princess story it still feels overly familiar, hitting many of the same tired beats. It is now two years running that the annual Pixar release was not the best animated film of the year. Regrettably, next year's Monsters University looks more like a hat trick-achieving third contestant than the film that rights the ship.

7. Holy Motors

If a film is made but no one is there to see it, does it still exist? This is one of the questions brought to the surface in Holy Motors, Leos Carax's return to cinema after a decade-plus absence. The film dreamily begins in a cinema full of sleeping (or possibly dead) patrons. The ambient noise of the film awakens Carax, who can't see the forest for the trees and must break through a seemingly solid wall to enter the theatre. From there, the film follows Denis Lavant, in a fantastically fearless performance, as he rides around Paris in a stretch limousine, keeping a number of "appointments". These events require him to disguise himself as, among other things: a beggar woman, a dying old man, a motion-captured sex dragon, and a homeless Munchkin. The movie deals in obfuscation, where masks are constantly worn and nothing is quite what it seems. Carax expertly teases out information, often framing a scene tightly and slowly expanding its field to reveal a new set of clues. The film is deeply referential about the history of cinema, including the director's previous work. Even the name of Lavant's character, Mr. Oscar, can be taken as a nod to the Carax's real name or the Academy Award, or both. If the main character is a surrogate for Carax then there is something to be said about the fact that Oscar dies four times throughout the movie, on three occasions by his own hand, twice in the same scene. Since the film is a series of self-contained vignettes it varies significantly in quality from piece to piece. The greatest sequence is a joyous accordion-laden march through a cathedral, while the worst sees the aforementioned Munchkin kidnapping Eva Mendes, dressing her in a burka and eating her hair. At one point in the film, Lavant is driving around the city in a beat-up hatchback and listening to the song "How Are You Getting Home?" by the band Sparks. In many respects, Holy Motors reminds me of the Mael brothers' inimitable discography. It is clever, expertly constructed, overflowing with ideas, and on occasion, excruciatingly annoying.

6. Looper

Director Rian Johnson pulled off quite a feat with his thoroughly original sci-fi thriller Looper. He found a fascinating new tangent for the overused theme of time travel and used the fantastical conceit as a means of dwelling on age, choices, mortality and morality. He also managed to create a fully realized, futuristic society that appears wholly organic and believeable. And he followed his storytelling muse in a series of intriguing left turns. Somehow a film that starts out with hover cycles, new wonder drugs, and shots of dystopian downtowns, ends up on a quaint little farm and it makes total sense. There are a few cracks in the armor along the way that sidetrack the film from true greatness. First of all, the second half shifts into a lower gear that jars with the fast-paced, overstuffed beginning. While the choice to move events to the farm was interesting--it also gets a little boring. The worst element, however, is the make-up on Joseph Gordon-Levitt, used to make him resemble a twenty-something version of Bruce Willis. Gordon-Levitt does a phenomenal job aping Willis's steely mannerisms on his own and the make-up (especially those unfortunate eyebrows) undermine him every step of the way. Looper is a promising film that doesn't quite reach the level of its abundant potential.

5. Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino's companion piece to his magnificent Inglourious Basterds is another stylized revisionist revenge tale, this time taking place in the antebellum south where a bounty hunter played by Christoph Waltz picks up Django, a slave played by Jamie Foxx, who can help him catch three wanted men. Once this bounty is acheived the two men team up and eventually make their way to the plantation, ingeniously named Candyland, where Django's wife now resides. The violent retribution at the heart of the picture is more emotionally overwhelming than Basterds thanks to Tarantino's unflinching depiction of the beatings and humiliations meted out on slaves by their white captors. No Tarantino film has ever brought me close to tears before. Django succeeded twice. Unfortunately, in every other respect the film is inferior to the auteur's previous film (and for my money, all of his others as well). The film plays out at an epic length but it does not possess an epic story. There are a couple of tone deaf scenes, particularly a complete piece of filler showing some proto-Klansmen arguing about the effectiveness of their hoods, and one wonders if this ungainly length and disjointed rhythm is an effect of Tarantino losing his career-long editor Sally Menke to an untimely death. Django Unchained is still a fun, exhilarating work with some phenomenal performances (Leonardo DiCaprio's Calvin Candie being one of the best) and a great shoot-out aping the fabulous climax to The Wild Bunch. However, the film has a feeling of deflation about it and the final fifteen minutes doesn't provide quite the satisfaction it is aiming for.

4. The Master

The Master is a glorious, curious, lumbering creation from one of cinema's most electrifying auteurs. It is also the first Paul Thomas Anderson film that failed to surprise me. The picture is a strange hybrid of the writer/director's two previous features, Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood, both of which work better as a whole than his latest. Tonally, The Master's depiction of two men circling one another under the auspices of religion recalls the push and pull between Daniel Plainview and preacher Eli Sunday in the latter picture. Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie feels like a frustrated and angry descendent of Punch-Drunk Love's wounded Barry. Both men are struggling with their inner demons and trying to make some sort of connection in a world in which they don't quite fit. Phoenix's performance is the foundation for The Master's success, his commitment to the role unwavering even when the film veers off the rails on a tangential indulgence. If he wins the Oscar over Lincoln frontrunner Daniel Day-Lewis, I would not be the least upset. The first auditing session between Freddie and Philip Seymour Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd may be the single best scene of any film this year. It is a riveting exchange, just two men engaged in a fierce battle of wills that is more exhilarating than any apocalyptic CGI-induced action spectacle. However, as a whole, my sincere appreciation for The Master comes from a distance of detachment. While I can marvel at the performances, the exquisite cinematography, the refined period detail, and superbly unnerving score, I never could quite connect with the material.

3. Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph is pretty awesome.

2. The Avengers

After wandering ever further into the dark abyss of Gothamic grittiness, where men in make-up and rubber suits are made to act out heavy-handed, simplified allegories of today's topical landscape, The Avengers is the first comic book film to tap into the youthful giddiness of the medium since Sam Raimi's fantastic Spider-Man 2 a decade ago. Prior to the film's release, skeptical speculation ran high on the film's ability to successfully integrate so many main characters into a 150 minute-long extravaganza. Nine months removed from its spring release, it is no wonder that writer/director Joss Whedon was able to pull it off. Having proven himself adroit at juggling the multiple storylines of a huge ensemble cast on his wonderful television shows (even Dollhouse!), tackling a super-team of superheroes with their outsized egos and inhuman strengths must have been a delightful challenge for the genius. His ability to cater to the very disparate worlds of the diehard fanboys, the completely uninitiated, and those in between (me) lead to the film's box office bonanza. The Avengers is a breezy, colorful, action-packed joy. Whedon manages to give adequate screen time to his legion of superstars, dishing out witty quips for Robert Downey, Jr., pulpy Shakespearean for Chris Hemsworth, patriotic platitudes for Chris Evans, and he even manages to coax a fine performance out of Scarlett Johannson, who fills Whedon's quota of girl power with aplomb. Her opening scene, an interrupted interrogation, is the best introduction to a superhero in the film. However, it is Mark Ruffalo's definitive portrayal of the Hulk who is responsible for the film's greatest moments. Breathlessly watching the Hulk leap off a building to catch a skyfalling Iron Man is to be a ten-year-old boy again. Incredible.

1. Lincoln

Is there a more divisive 2012 film amongst cinephiles than Steven Spielberg's Lincoln? The war among the geeks is almost as bitter as that played out onscreen in this tense, grey drama. The arguments are certainly nothing new. Spielberg is too obsessed with beauty, he is manipulative, his staging too theatrical, too calculated. These arguments are, for the most part, entirely correct but that does not detract from the fact that Spielberg is a moviemaking maestro whose films recall the grand works of cinematic titans like John Ford or Frank Capra. No one working today could make a movie about this subject matter so invigorating while remaining so accessible. Lincoln wisely narrows its focus on the President to the Herculean passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Daniel Day-Lewis subtly and gracefully plays Abraham Lincoln like a human being, not a diefied figurehead. His Lincoln is distant and driven, yet taken with folksy, meandering asides. Tony Kushner's deft screenplay manages to weave together these disparate qualities while also giving ample time to flesh out a supporting cast headed by a phenomenal performance from Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, a progressive who must compromise his ideals to secure the Amendment's passage. By the second half, the film becomes less about Abraham Lincoln and more about the lesser men in his orbit who must decide what side of history they plan to exist on. The only undercooked element of the film is a subplot featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Lincoln's son, Robert. Spielberg is for the most part quite restrained with his direction here. He lets many a scene play out organically, without a need to cut heavily. When he does create some sort of montage it is to wonderful effect. As the Amendment passes, he splits the attention between the raucous uproar in the House and a scene of soldiers hearing the news, until resting on the President, who stands isolated by a window hearing the muted bells outside toll. Lincoln is a film that inspires pride without being cloying or overtly patriotic. It shows that democracy is a messy, arduous business but that it has the power to transform lives.

My Top Ten Most Anticipated Films of 2012

Guess what?  The Dark Knight Rises is totally going to suck.  You know how I know?  My eyeballs and ear canals told me.  Between Anne Hathaway's clunky delivery of truly horrible dialogue in the trailer to the downright laughable six-minute mumblecore prologue attached to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, this one looks like a true turkey.  And what's up with that football scene?

Below is a list of ten tantalizing, thought-provoking cinematic spectacles due out sometime in the next 365 days, all of which look infinitely more interesting than Tom Hardy with a gas mask.  (As a brief aside, if you want some really good contemporary Batman, you should check out Scott Snyder's current run in DC Comics' New 52.  Now that's an interesting Dark Knight!  Bonus: you can understand what everyone's saying!)  You won't find many of the other big blockbuster names here and for that I apologize.  I'm not sure why, but what the hell, I love ya!  What do you say, let's boogie!


10. Untitled Terrence Malick Project

Do I really think that this film starring Ben Affleck as a man who returns to his hometown after the dissolution of his marriage, will be released anytime in the next decade?  No, not really, but we have to tell ourselves lies in order to get through each agonizing day.  A new Malick film is like a golden carrot of destiny guiding us forward through the eternal abyss of time.  I'm writing this list way too late at night.


9. Gangster Squad

So that guy that made Zombieland is apparently directing a film about the L.A.P.D.'s war against organized crime in the 1940s and 50s and he got Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Josh Brolin and Nick Nolte to tag along.  That sounds like a pretty righteous idea.  Let's hope it cleanses Public Enemies from our collective consciousness.

8. Seven Psychopaths

Playwright Martin McDonagh reteams with his In Bruges star Colin Farrell for this, his second feature. The story of a screenwriter who winds up in a dognapping scheme sounds like just the right vehicle for McDonagh's trademark black comedy.  And with co-stars Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Mickey Rourke and Christopher Walken, the potential for shenanigans is at a fever pitch.

7. Wreck-It Ralph

Disney's newest animated feature is about a villain from a classic arcade game who longs to be a hero.  He attempts to do this by sneaking into a new fangled game and unleashing a vicious enemy in hopes of defeating it.  I'm not just plugging this just because I'm already vowing to watch it.  It actually sounds pretty interesting.   Plus, Ralph is voiced by John C. Reilly so you know it's going to be awesome.

6. Casa de mi Padre

Although I rarely find his films enjoyable on the whole, I think Will Ferrell is absolutely hilarious.  I especially like how he has used his fame as of late to do any weird, wacky thing that comes into his brain.  First there was the great appearance of ace reliever Rojo Johnson at a minor league baseball game, then came the Davenport, Iowa Milwaukee's Best commercials, and now comes this Spanish-language epic about two brothers trying to save their father's ranch from a drug lord.  Because, why the hell not?

5. Brave

If you couldn't tell by yesterday's list, Cars 2 really, really hurt.  I actually toyed with the idea of setting up an online campaign to raise funds to buy billboard space around Emeryville begging Pixar to stop making sequels.  Please Brave, prove me right by being original, heartfelt and incredible.  But nothing like the Incredibles.  We've already seen that movie.  Help me Brave, you're my only hope.

4. Lincoln

Steven Spielberg is back suckas and he's taking no prisoners.  His long-gestating tale about Abraham Lincoln navigating the Civil War is filming right now and looks like it should hit theatres right around Christmas.  The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the sixteenth president and is based on the work of Doris Kearns Goodwin.  She's a Red Sox fan but don't hold that against her.

3. Much Ado About Nothing

Joss Whedon's contemporary adaptation of the classic Shakespeare comedy was shot at his house during his vacation away from some other movie he directed.  Much Ado features a veritable rogue's gallery of just about every wonderful actor from many of Whedon's beloved television series.  Above all the film stars Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof as Beatrice and Benedick which means I can finally stop writing all of that Fred and Wesley Angel fan-fic.

2. Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino describes his latest film as a "Southern", a Western set in the South about a slave, played by Jamie Foxx, who rises up and wreaks vengeance upon his oppressors.  With a stunning supporting cast headed by Leonardo DiCaprio as the plantation owner, Django Unchained sounds like a hell of a bloody good time. 

1. The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson returns to the big screen for the first time in five years with this thinly veiled story about the rise of Scientology starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as a man who comes home from war and decides to create his own religion.  It's going to be tough topping There Will Be Blood but this sounds like it's got a pretty great shot.

Boy, I can't wait to see how all of these movies let me down!

The Best Movies of 2011 (and all of the others too because what the hell)

Another godforsaken year gone and what do we have to show for it?  Nothing except wrinkles, regrets, some magic beans, and lists, lists, lists.  Below is one such list, detailing every film released theatrically in 2011 that I, for whatever drunken reason, deemed worthy of my precious time.  For your benefit I went ahead and ranked them all, from the films I hated with such profound passion that I cursed my very existence, to the ones I will realize I completely overpraised five years from now.  The top ten movies even get their own pithy commentary by yours truly.  They all must feel honored.  Lastly, keep in mind that I'm a stickler for rules, so any film that had a premiere earlier than 2011, even if it didn't make it to Seattle before the calendar year, is ineligible.  Therefore you won't be seeing such indie titles as Beginners and Meek's Cutoff (although to be honest, neither would have made my top ten regardless); or such foreign fare as Poetry and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Without further ado, the cinematic year in review:

22. Cars 2
21. Drive
20. The Artist
19. The Muppets
18. Win Win
17. Source Code
16. Captain America: the First Avenger
15. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
14. Kill All Redneck Pricks: A Documentary about a Band Called Karp
13. Beats, Rhymes and Life: the Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
12. The Adventures of Tintin
11. The Future


10. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Having not seen any of the other entries in the Mission: Impossible series I must declare that my excitement for this fourth installment was riding on just one element: Brad Bird.  Animation genius behind the Iron Giant, the Incredibles, and one of my favorite films of all time, Ratatouille, Bird took on the fourth Mission film to prove that he was capable of handling a live action movie, emphasis on action.  And boy howdy, does it go off like gangbusters.  Bird's background in animation, where one must be a perfectionist with both framing and movement, pays huge dividends as we are thrust headlong into a bonanza of explosions and gunfire.  The two hour film is almost relentless with exhilaration, from the opening prison break to the Kremlin bombing to the hotel heist to the blind car chase to the nuclear launch, it is breathtakingly sure of itself.  Along the way we get just enough moments of goofy hilarity to relieve the tension and then its back out into the fray.  Ladies and gentlemen, Brad Bird, action hero.


9. Winnie the Pooh

Disney's comfortingly low-key return to the Hundred Acre Wood proves once and for all that you don't need pop culture references, celebrity voices, 3-D gimmickry or any other manner of foofarah to make an enjoyable family film.  The beautifully hand-drawn Winnie the Pooh is timeless; full of gentle, charming moments that should delight any filmgoer regardless of age.  It stands up well alongside its thirty-five-year old predecessor, the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  Heck, the hallucinatory Backson sequence from this year's film may give the Heffalumps and Woozles a run for their money.  One of the great rewards stemming from Disney's purchase of Pixar Animation Studios came when Pixar head John Lasseter was given free rein of the Disney animation department.  He immediately ousted anyone who couldn't draw from the building and re-opened the hand-drawn division.  They have since released two gorgeous little films (the other being 2009's the Princess and the Frog) both of which are vastly superior to Pixar's 2011 output.  Here's hoping that they are allowed to make many more.


8. Moneyball

Like last year's the Social Network, Moneyball seemed like the least filmmable story on the face of the earth.  How does one translate Michael Lewis's phenomenal book about the rise of statistics-based management on the Oakland A's baseball team into something even remotely cinematic?  Ample credit is due screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (the latter also having penned the Social Network) for zippy dialogue that managed to present the science in an intelligent manner without it ever becoming tedious (unlike this sentence).  In fact, my only real qualms with the film are when it strived to be more conventional, shoehorning in a treacly father-daughter relationship that was utterly superfluous.  Thank Willie Mays (or whomever you pray to) that the film ended up in director Bennett Miller's hands after Steven Soderbergh (and his animated Bill James) left the project.  Miller's tasteful, restrained direction smartly kept the focus on the audacious tenacity of Brad Pitt's Billy Beane, never feeling the urge to resort to flashy spectacle.  

7. Rango

Unlike most mainstream films cranked out nowadays, children's films in particular, the delightfully oddball animated feature Rango doesn't feel like a film created by committee.  It has the distinct imprint of a personal, idiosyncratic vision.  Director Gore Verbinski's neo-Western about a sheltered chameleon (voiced winningly by Johnny Depp) who finds himself in a drought-stricken desert town, a place where he can start anew, inhabiting the persona of the hero he longs to be, is full of bizarre interactions with genuinely fresh characters.  The action set pieces are all staged beautifully, which is to be expected by the man that deftly helmed the first three over-the-top, rip-roaring Pirates of the Caribbean films.  The jokes are organic, not shoehorned-in pop culture references.  Sure, the plot and machinations are borrowed from every other Western under the sun, but in this style, with this perspective, it all feels like a loving homage, not a calculated move.  It all just feels right.  In a left field sort of way.


6. Bridesmaids

I am shocked by how much I enjoyed Bridesmaids.  Shocked, I say!  I didn't catch up with the film until about a week ago, having avoided it solely on the absolutely atrocious trailer I was subjected to prior to the film's release.  It looked like the most by-the-book, lowest-common-denominator, gross-out film to come through the pipeline.  Despite proclamations of critics and friends I wholeheartedly trust, I couldn't bring myself to sit through it.  Thankfully with six months' distance, my defenses were weakened enough to open up to this sweet, honest and emotionally mature film, that just so happens to traffic in equal amounts of diarrhea and vomit.  Kudos to Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote the film (with Annie Mumolo) and gives a fearless performance as a down-on-her-luck single woman who feels threatened less by her best friend's impending nuptials, than by the model of perfection who tries to usurp their lifelong friendship.  Wiig adeptly carries the emotional weight throughout, even when she's getting herself arrested for drunken shenanigans on a plane or punching a giant cookie.  Plus, as a true sign of the film's greatness there's nary a trace of Wiig's real-life husband, Bill Hader, anywhere!  I hate that guy!

5. Super 8

Critics like to try and tie a cinematic year together under a common theme or idea.  This allows everyone to put a nice ribbon on everything and go to sleep believing that there is a semblance of order to the universe.  Either that or they're just over-analyzing the trivial, as usual.  If I were to be fool enough to play such frivolous games, which I undoubtably am, I would unoriginally argue that 2011 was the Year of Adolescent Protagonists and Movies About Movies.  No film merged the two so completely than J.J. Abrams' Super 8, the most fun summer blockbuster I've seen since well, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek two years ago.  The film tells the endearing story of a group of gawky, geeky kids trying to get their homemade zombie film completed amidst the chaos and destruction brought to their hometown by the escape and subsequent hunt of an alien being.  A blatant but loving homage to the early work of Steven Spielberg, the film tapped into the collective past of a certain group of cinephile so precisely that it felt a bit like a comfort blanket.  But that's okay, I like staying warm, especially if the blanket is made with care.  What lifts Super 8 above the level of mere carbon copy and allows it to stand on its own is the honest portrayal of the lives and friendships of these kids which is due both to Abrams' assured writing and direction, and the uniformly winning performances of the cast.  I would be remiss if I didn't single out Elle Fanning because her portrayal of the new girl in the group is pitch-perfect.  Her transformation into a zombie before the eyes of pining protagonist Joe (played by Joel Courtney) might be my favorite single scene in any film this year.

4. War Horse

From J.J. Abrams aping Spielberg, we turn to Spielberg himself aping the works of John Ford with the majestic War Horse.  Spielberg's been rather quiet for the last several years, having only released the miserable Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the last half decade, a textbook example of phoning it in, but thankfully he returned this year with not one, but two solid features.  While The Adventures of Tintin is an enjoyable--although uneven--genre exercise (infinitely better than Crystal Skull though), one cannot deny the high level of commitment on display in War Horse.  In this story about a boy and his horse, separated through hardship and turmoil, questing to return to one another, Spielberg is firing on all sentimental cylinders.  While not all of it works--the French reverie in the film's middle is a little too precious--one cannot help but be won over by the end of the picture.  The lyrical evocation of early twentieth century rural life is top notch, the scenes of battle are distinctive and harrowing, and the cinematography (by frequent Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski) is stunning.  Most every performance is superb, not least of all that of the horse(s) that portray the titular character Joey.  I'm not quite sure how Spielberg was able to wring such emotional nuance out of a horse but I swear I could see fear, love and joy in its eyes.    

3. Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's fantastical fable, Midnight in Paris, is a pure charmer from start to finish.  A conflicted American writer vacationing abroad with his fiance and her family, finds himself, at the stroke of midnight, transported back to the 1920s and the great intellectual scene then based in Paris.  Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, and Salvador Dali all drink and carry on, critiquing one another's work and having the time of their lives until morning comes and the world rights itself.  Admittedly I am a born sucker for the 1920s time period so I was hooked the moment that magical cab appeared and whisked Owen Wilson away.  As always there's a backlash brewing, calling the film flimsy, the supporting characters one-dimensional, and the lessons learned trite.  Yes, yes, and yes, but that doesn't matter at all because that's not what this film is about.  Midnight in Paris is Cinderella, it's Sleeping Beauty, a fairytale, nothing more, nothing less.  Rachel McAdams's shrill harpy of a fiance is nothing but a wicked stepsister deposited in a luxury hotel suite.  We're not supposed to care about her, she's simply a plot point.  And despite the lack of complexity in the realization that the grass will always be greener, I enjoyed the fact that the movie lets you have your cake and eat it too. We are reminded that the 1920s and every other period in the history of the world seems unsatisfactory to those living in it, but they're still great places to visit.  Especially when they're portrayed so beautifully as in Midnight in Paris.

2. Hugo

Is there a more consistently invigorating filmmaker out there than Martin Scorsese?  Most often my initial memory of seeing a new Scorsese picture is the buoyant feeling I have while walking out of the theatre, my mind racing with excitement, close to the speed of Scorsese's trademark verbosity.  The closest auteur I can think of that exudes such a passion for the art form of film is Quentin Tarantino, but even his adoration of cinema must go through the transcendent trajectory of Scorsese.  Scorsese's entire career has been a proselytizing paean to the magical powers of cinema and if--heaven forbid--he were to suddenly cease making films, I can think of no more perfect a send-off than Hugo, his absolutely gorgeous, glorious, magnificent love letter to early cinema.

Based on the acclaimed children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Hugo follows the titular character (played by the wonderful Asa Butterfield) an orphan living in the clockwork of a French train station.  Over the course of the film he tries to rebuild an automaton and discover the historical mystery of George Melies, pioneer of early cinema, now beaten down and working in the train station toy shop.  Ben Kingsley's deft portrayal of Melies carries the picture, as he transforms from a heartbreakingly defeated man to a genius reborn.

There has been a lot of ballyhoo made this year about the Artist, the French-produced silent throwback that has audiences swooning for its magical return to the early days of cinema.  Unfortunately there is nothing beneath the film's black-and-white facade but a barrel of snake oil.  It is all trick, no magic.  There is neither substance nor wit under the film's artificial veneer.  It doesn't even feel like a silent film.  With its infinite charms, Hugo manages to transport us much more successfully to a bygone time and place, evoking such an honest and heartfelt recreation of cinema past, despite its 21st-century technology.  The Artist is littered with allusions to classic films but with no apparent rhyme, reason or skill.  Hugo on the other hand, spends ample time showing the actual recreation of older films, and the enthusiasm and affection for the cinema's forefathers permeates every single frame.  Editor Thelma Schoonmaker's tour-de-force of a silent film homage contained in Hugo has more verve in its half minute of screen time than the entirety of the Artist.  Hugo will be the film we return to decades down the line when the artifice of the Artist has been fully swept into the dustbin of history.

1. The Tree of Life

I am so predictable.  While I think it's a stretch to say a work of art changed my life, I can think of no film that has had a more lasting impact on my person than Terrence Malick's fifth feature.  Not just this year, any year.  Having waited impatiently for a long, long time (as the Tree of Life's release date was rescheduled time and again) I feared that the fever pitch of my anticipation would be nothing but detrimental to my viewing experience.  Fortunately there is no artist working today that can so completely bypass our expectations and give us something so grand, majestic and unwieldy, that we could never have hoped to contain it with our puny imaginations, than Malick.  After my first viewing, the Tree of Life clung to me for weeks on end.  I woke up with it for days and it acted as a prism for which to see my actions, life and relationships.  The film hung over most every thought or conversation.  That sounds melodramatic and cheesy, which is probably how the plot of the film sounds to most people, but like the film, I am being unabashedly sincere.

It is this relentless sincerity and purity of vision that really propels Malick's work into the stratosphere.  Really, how could any other film released this year top Tree of Life?  None of the other admittedly fine films on this list had half the ambition and audacity of this epic, that sets its wide eyed gaze on the potentially small story of a mid-century childhood in Texas and somehow manages to consume the creation of the universe in the process.  There were also dinosaurs and they were awesome.

The performances in the film are uniformly fantastic.  Jessica Chastain plays the matriarch less like a mother and more like an angel.  Brad Pitt gives the most mature performance of his career as a fierce, determined, but woefully flawed father trying to navigate an uncertain world and instill ethics and purpose in his children.  Many saw the parents as a simple dichotomy of good and evil, but it is far more nuanced than that.  The kids run to their mother for protection but she is completely ineffectual; while the father is the most complex and fascinating character in the whole movie.  But it is Hunter McCracken's portrayal of the young Jack, our protagonist, that carries the film.  This kid is so natural, so unflinchingly real, that I hope to never see him again in another movie because I don't want to believe he is not Jack all of the time.  He's that good.

The Tree of Life felt so real to me, as if it were my childhood being displayed onscreen, or better yet that of my father, who grew up in the midwest in the same time period.  My thoughts continually returned to my dad throughout the film and then on back to his father and their relationship.  It made me reflect on my mother, this time in a light I was unaccustomed to, or maybe I had just neglected.  It made me think about family and the bonds and connections that are so intwined with our DNA that we cannot even articulate them.  They're just there.

In the final sequence of the film the adult Jack (Sean Penn) envisions a reunion in the afterlife between himself, his long-dead brother, father, and the rest of his family.   They walk along a beach, wordless but completely understood.  An arm on a shoulder is the only reassurance we need.  This emotional reverie allows Jack to finally find a modicum of grace, the longed-for quality his beautiful mother exuded that has heretofore eluded him.  He returns from his metaphorical heaven, literally descending from his austere downtown high rise, and then out the door and back into civilization.

Then a bird flies by and you just weep.