Some 2012 Favorites -- Movies, Part Three

Hollywood Swinging

It was a damn fine year for mainstream big-studio filmmakers, with high concept ideas (Lincoln, Flight, Argo) rubbing shoulders with strong franchises (The Hunger Games, Skyfall) and auteur projects (Ted, Django Unchained) and pulling in worldwide audiences in the process.  While the push and pull of sweeping tension and relative minutia of Lincoln and Argo revealed layers of compelling drama, it was nice to have moments of levity as well, be they the rich wet veins of Ted or the drier, more subtle streams of Skyfall and Django Unchained. 

Although Skyfall clicked off all the Bond boxes and more (get ready for that Oscar, Adele) and Ted showed a surprisingly well-rounded capacity for full entertainment, the film I keep thinking about the most was Django Unchained, for showing us a world that never existed, yet was the closest thing to truth with respect to that peculiar institution that I ever will see.  It was laugh-out-loud funny and bluntly shocking, all anchored in expert characterization and the genre collisions that only Tarantino can deliver.

Docudramarama

Who knew that Keanu would drive an educational and engaging documentary on the intrusion of the digital world into analog filmmaking processes?  Side By Side captures the history of digital innovation in recent film through lively discussion with a wide variety of all the best talking heads (Cameron, Lucas, Lynch, Scorsese, Boyle, etc.) in a fashion that’s never boring or insider-ish or depressing.  Now, if you want depressing, look no further than the following three docs – Girl Model, The Invisible War, Detropia – that look at teenage Russian models, sexual assault in the military, and the current state of decline and decay in Detroit, respectively.  While I would have liked to see Detropia use more of a historical arc in getting to the current day, it was compelling nonetheless; however, the depth of sorrow and empathy generated by Girl Model and The Invisible War made each experience more resonant and meaningful than the average doc.

3D Wonderlands

I have glasses, so 3D movies should be an extra slice of repellent for me.  (What frames do I wear under the 3D glasses to maximize the visual field?  Will the bridge of my nose split and bleed before the end of the movie?) And yet, when used well, I’ve seen some stunning visuals in the 3D domain.  (U23D and How To Train Your Dragon come to mind.)  When it’s not used as a gimmick, but rather a way to increase depth of field to create expansive digital vistas, it’s a compelling technology.  

The films that made the best use of this technology – Wreck-It Ralph, Dredd, Life Of Pi – would have been fine and dandy without those cumbersome glasses, but the extra dimension was such a value-added experience that it’s hard to imagine each film without it.  The whale breaching the water line, the warped perspectives of the Slo-Mo addicts, the video game worlds of ones and zeroes as a kid would dream them to be – all enhanced and amplified and rendered one step beyond.  Just stay away from post-production 3D, OK, Hollywood?

Boo!

There is terror and there is horror; one is exterior and precedes an event, while the other is interior and follows an event. (Or maybe it’s the other way around…really depends on the interpretation).  I’m always hopeful for horror movies to bring something new to the table, and most films (especially of the PG-13 variety) tend to offer the same crap in slightly different packages.  That’s why Kill List, Entrance, and The Cabin In The Woods piqued my interest to such an extent this year, although each worked magic in different ways.

Kill List offered what appeared to be standard British gangster murder fare, until an interesting twist towards the end that thrust the movie into different horror genre territory, while Entrance has a low-budget slow build (and I mean sloooooow build, which may discourage the average viewer) that also twists at the end into a metaphor of what Los Angeles can do to a person.  However, The Cabin In The Woods goes one step beyond into mythic archetypal territory, and is the better for it in terms of narrative impact, if not necessarily for the “gotcha!” factor.  For this is the end, my friends.