My Top 10 Movies of 2012

The ending of a calendar year brings about a "best of" list on just about every topic imaginable. Since I'm a slave to convention on this account, the following is my list of the best movies I saw during 2012.

Before I start the list though, a qualifier must be made. These are the movies I've ACTUALLY seen. There will be movies, even big gigantic everyone must see movies, that aren't on my list because I either haven't had time to see them yet or they simply don't interest me. So don't go looking for Dark Knight Rises...

By the way, the worst movie I saw this year was all the way back in January. I'm a big fan of the Janet Evanovich series of novels starring her character Stephanie Plum, a ne'er do well incompetent but relatively successful bounty hunter. The books are hilarious and full of snappy humor that leaves you laughing at her seemingly endless series of misadventures while trying to make rent and choose between two guys who make her sweaty..and then came the film adaptation of the first novel in the series, One For The Money. It starred Katherine Heigl as Plum. The press before the movie talked about how the actress and the author had become close friends and how the movie would be so good. LIES!

I should've taken the hint when the studio dumped the film in January - a dead man's land for movies. But no, I took vacation time off from work so I could see the first showing at the local theater. And the movie was so incredibly bad that I'm worried I'm not going to like the books anymore. It was putrid in just about every aspect. No worries on a sequel as the film died on arrival at the box office.

Now, in order to wash the garbage taste out of my mouth and your minds, to quote Casey Kasem...on with the countdown:

#10 - MAN ON A LEDGE

Framed for a crime he didn't commit, a man climbs out onto the ledge of a high rise building where the police try to talk him back inside and out of killing himself. Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks starred in this seemingly pedestrian thriller that turns out to be one of the more interesting caper films I've seen in a while.

I went into the film with zero expectations beyond killing 90 minutes or so. What I got was a surprisingly entertaining movie that might not make your top thriller films of all time, but works its way into your head with twists and turns that you don't see coming.

#9 - SOLOMON KANE
The film was originally made in 2009 but never released here in the States. I happened across it on On Demand before it got a theatrical release this year. I'm a huge fan of Robert E. Howard for his Conan the Barbarian stories but I also like his other work and that includes Solomon Kane.

Normally when a movie gets delayed for so long, it is due to the film being disastrously bad. I was worried that would be the case here. In a wonderful case of being totally wrong, the movie was actually quite good. James Purefoy (soon to be seen as a serial killing cult leader on the Fox TV show "The Following") was outstanding in the title role. The story was good and the action sequences were well done.

#8 - THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL
When I wrote about this movie on my Facebook page, I called it charming and got crap from friends who didn't realize I had that word in my vocabulary.

While most people might write off the film as "a bunch of British old farts go to live in India while waiting to die", I happen to really enjoy well done ensemble movies with multiple storylines.

The cast includes Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith and Dev Patel. The central story is a diverse collection of British retirees find themselves for varying reasons moving to India to save money and live out their twilight years. They move to a hotel owned by Patel's character. The hotel is actually quite a bit run down as the owner is more of a dreamer and romantic than a businessman. The group invariably seeks out their own new lives in their adopted country and learn things about themselves and each other they might never have done back in England.

Hey I'm all for the big breasted women in bikinis movies that get foisted upon us all year, but in the attempt to mix up my movie viewing experience, I like character and story driven movies like this just as much or sometimes even more depending on my mood.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a five star establishment you should definitely check into.

#7 UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING
The fourth movie in the series was my return to ogling Kate Beckinsale all decked out in leather. I loved the first movie, but didn't care as much about the 2nd one and skipped the third one altogether.

But this one recaptured my interest. The world finds out about vampires and werewolves and goes about a genocidal purge. Selene (Beckinsale) is fighting to stay alive but she ends up captured and locked away. 12 years later, she wakes up, breaks out and the fun begins anew.

If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil it for you but I really liked the story and appreciated that I wasn't given just another rote sequel. It may be full of action and violence, gruesome deaths and the like, but they gave a coherent story to go with all that other stuff and that makes it far better than the majority of franchise series out there.

#6 - JACK REACHER
Tom Cruise launches another attempt at a franchise action series with this adaption of the Lee Child series featuring the title character. The movie is based on the novel One Shot. When the news broke that Cruise was playing Reacher people laughed because in the books Reacher is 6'5, 210-250 pounds of bad-ass. As you know, Cruise is none of those things.

But a funny thing happened after the fan and critical derision. After some editing of the physical aspects of the character (which even I was a bit hesitant to accept at first), Cruise and the producers came out with a superb offering.

When a shooting massacre occurs, the man accused asks for Reacher. The two share a past and Reacher comes around to investigating the shooting and questioning if they got the right man. But there are those who don't want him to find out the truth and try to stop him. Of course, they don't know Jack.

I went to the theater to see this just a couple weeks ago and I was hugely surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Tom Cruise may come off as a bit of a whack job but invariably he knows how to deliver a good popcorn film - and I don't use that term in a derogatory manner. I don't always want a movie to force me to critically evaluate my life and values. I want to sit down with a tub of non-buttered popcorn and simply be entertained.

Jack Reacher does this in spades and I can't wait to see the next film in the series.

#5 - TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE
He may not have written or directed this movie, but Clint Eastwood does it again! Despite playing yet another cantankerous old fart, Eastwood manages to bring alive, in credible fashion, the role of Gus. He's an aging baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves and is on his way to forced retirement because his eyes are going and he doesn't use modern day statistical analysis to scout players. He's sent to scout a player the Braves want to take in the first round of the draft. But will he be able to give them a proper account of the player when he can't see everything he needs to see?

Enter his estranged daughter Mickey (played marvelously by Amy Adams), a lawyer on the partnership track. She ends up traveling with her father on his trip, despite his misgivings and we learn that she knows just as much as he does about baseball.

The film isn't as heavy in subject matter as Million Dollar Baby or Gran Torino but Eastwood and Adams (fast becoming one of my favorite actresses) make a great team. I never thought I'd write, think or say this in my lifetime but Justin Timberlake is good too. He plays an ex-phenom turned scout that Gus had signed. He is enamored with Mickey, who initially has no time for him. Will Gus and Mickey be able to evaluate the prospect successfully? Well, I'm not telling but you should definitely learn for yourself. This movie is one that should definitely get added to your collection.

#4 - JOHN CARTER
You may be wondering to yourself, "What in the world is the biggest box office flop of the year, if not of all time, doing on anyone's best of list?"

Well, that's the thing about box office totals, they don't actually always indicate whether a movie is good or not. And in this case, everyone got it wrong.

John Carter was the victim of a horrendously bad job of promotion by Disney. They changed the title, dropping "of Mars". The commercials for the movie were simply awful, giving no indication about what the story entailed. Only people who knew of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels would know who John Carter was.

Taylor Kitsch (TV's Friday Night Lights) did a good job in the title role and the movie itself was an action packed good time. They told a solid story and made everything exciting. Yes, it is a popcorn film and it is by no means perfect, but the critical drubbing it got was undeserved. To be frank, after watching the movie, I was left wondering what the critics who got paid to write reviews were watching. I saw a wonderfully adept movie that kept my interest locked onto the screen.

#3 - THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Okay, this is a bit cheating because the movie was released in 2011, but I didn't catch it until the beginning of 2012 so I'm counting it here.

Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara are simply outstanding in this US adaptation of the international best selling novel.

Craig plays a journalist hired to look into a family's secrets and Mara is the chilling psychopath with hacker elite computer skills hired to be a researcher for him. The trail leads the two down a path toward a confrontation with a killer. In the meantime, Mara creates (or recreates for those who saw the original movies with Noomi Rapace) Lisbeth Salander in a ferocious performance that rocks the viewer. For me, she was simply amazing. I'm a big fan of well played psychopaths (or is it sociopaths?) and Rooney's Lisbeth goes on my list of the best of all time.

#2 AMERICAN REUNION
The first three American Pie movies (no one with a lick of sense counts the godawful direct to DVD movies) remains some of the funniest movies I've seen. The long awaited reunion movie came about when Jason Biggs and others got everyone to sign back on for the fourth movie.

Things have progressed in everyone's lives to the point they are now the fully grown adults with life issues to deal with. Jim and Michelle have a baby and the spark is seemingly out of their sex life. Kevin has become Mr. Mom, Finch is missing in action, Oz is a sportscaster and on and on.

When the chance for a high school reunion comes about, the gang all returns to their hometown and the wild hijinx ensue. Lowbrow humor abounds but that's what you expect. The thing about it though is that lowbrow humor done right remains hilariously funny.

American Reunion accomplishes the goal of making you laugh with characters you love. Plus any movie that can get Alyson Hannigan dressed up in leather is A-OK with me.

#1 - THE AVENGERS
I know, big surprise right? What can I say? I had little expectations for this movie, despite Joss Whedon (how is he not elevated to God of the Nerds already?) being in charge of the movie. See, I'm a big comic book fan, but in the past few years, I've come to hate comic book movies. They just didn't entertain me. Then the Captain America movie came out and that was surprisingly good. Then Thor arrived and despite it being incredibly trite story wise, it was enjoyable enough.

But I was still worried about The Avengers. Well...anything I could've hoped for with this movie was far surpassed. This was an amazing movie period. A two hour nerd festival to be sure. But as a confirmed hater of 3-D movies, I actually was considering going to see the 3-D version after seeing the 2-D edition just so I could say I saw the movie twice on opening day.

Of course, I have to wonder just how much DC Comics/Warner Bros. is kicking themselves after firing Joss Whedon from the proposed Wonder Woman movie now that he has delivered THE. GREATEST. SUPERHERO. MOVIE. OF. ALL. TIME.

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Permalink Reply by RJhog (Admin) on January 1, 2013 at 9:12pm

You must see Django Unchained and Lawless. Both would be on my list, with Django being number one. Saw Trouble With The Curve last night, it is good enough for the top ten but almost too feel good at the end.

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Permalink Reply by RJhog (Admin) on January 1, 2013 at 9:22pm

My original thought was that I couldn't even come up with a Top 10 Movies of 2012 list from lack of watching movies, but I was wrong. I went through all of the 2012 releases on Wikipedia and found that to this point, I have seen 14 of them. Keeping in mind that I still want to see Jack Reacher, This Is 40 and especially Zero Dark Thirty, here is my Top 10 Movies of 2012:

10. The Hunger Games

9. Act Of Valor

8. 21 Jump Street

7. Looper

6. Man On A Ledge

5. The Grey

4. Contraband

3. Safe House

2. Lawless

1. Django Unchained

Here are the 4 that didn't make my Top 10:

Trouble With The Curve (very good movie, just missed the Top 10)

The Bourne Legacy (also very good, just missed the Top 10)

This Means War (my wife's pick, didn't hate it, didn't love it)

Madea's Witness Protection (also the wife's pick, this movie was terrible)

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Permalink Reply by Niels (Mod) on January 2, 2013 at 10:53am

I don't think, that I can come up with 10, but these are pretty good imo:

The Avengers
The Dark Knight Rises
The Cabin In The Woods
Prometheus
Life Of Pi
The Hobbit

I still need to see Django, Dredd, Ted and Looper.

Hey, that WAS 10. Well, sort of.