I did not see nearly enough movies this year for this to be anything resembling comprehensive or objective as a “BEST” list.   In fact, based on reactions I’ve seen from others, I fully expect that half of this list would be knocked off if I redid it after catching up on The Master, Holy Motors, The Raid, The Grey, 21 Jump Street, Amour, Chronicle and Zero Dark Thirty (god damn it Chicago for not getting in on the limited release).

This is just the best times I had in theaters this year.  Make of it what you will.

 

 10.  SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS

 

The reason this isn’t higher probably has less to do with how much better the other 9 movies are than it does with how much better In Bruges is.  Which probably isn’t completely fair, but this is my list and I didn’t promise anyone fair.  Martin MacDonough’s latest is not so relentlessly entertaining and definitely not as unexpectedly moving as its predecessor, but it is still frequently hilarious and definitely much bigger and full of ideas.  A lot of those ideas are treading over ground that Adaptation covered ten years ago, but I can see rewatching this a lot more than that one, since McDonough’s characters are constantly fun to spend time with, which does not seem to be a concern of Kaufman’s in his quest to eviscerate himself as thoroughly as possible on screen.  Which is all by way of saying that metafiction is usually not this much fun.

2012 Trend-watching:  Great performance from an aging actor prone to phoning it in (Christopher Walken).  Heavily metafictional.  Good movie that is disappointing as a follow-up to the director’s previous masterwork (In Bruges).  Harry Dean Stanton cameo.  Murder for hire.

Watch it for:  The Quaker Psychopath sequence

 

9.  SKYFALL

 

I don’t know how to not make this sound backhanded, but Skyfall impressed me most with how much I liked it spite of it being a James Bond movie.  I’ve never loved Bond, and found Casino Royale to be pretty good rather than the revelation many folks seem to have, but I love Craig’s weathered, more brutish take on the character.  Throw in a supporting cast of ringers like Ralph Fiennes and Naomi Harris, a terrific villain turn from Javier Bardem, some actual meat for Dame Judi Dench to chew on her way out the door, and man-eating komodo dragons and you have an action spectacle that delivers on nearly every front.  The story, due to the focus on Dench’s M, feels weighty in a way that 007’s adventures rarely do, no matter how much peril the world is in.  And holy mother of god, do Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins shoot the living hell out of the exotic locations and beautiful people.  Whatever quibbles I might have about the on-the-nose references or awkwardness of trying to make the movie the capper to the “Bond Begins” trilogy while simultaneously examining how Craig’s incarnation is getting over-the-hill by 00 standards, a summer blockbuster this visually sumptuous is a rare treat.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Lowbrow material tackled with style and intelligence.  Heavily metafictional.  Murder for hire.  No one can make a movie under two hours anymore.

Watch It For:  The jaw-droppingly gorgeous skyscraper fight.

 

8. LOOPER

 

Say this for Rian Johnson’s Looper: it’s not like anything else out there.  With it’s high-and-highly-complicated concept, act breaks that seem to begin entirely new movies, and moments of legitimately chilling horror, it seems perversely, almost compulsively non-commercial.  It’s a sci-fi thriller set in/around futuristic Kansas City, for crying out loud.  But it’s also thoughtful and inventive on a level that most sci-fi flicks don’t even aspire to, and even if the time travel mechanics are a bit wonky or the ending works more conceptually than emotionally, there are multiple sequences here that will stick with me for years, like Paul Dano’s character drawing just an incredibly short straw, or the 30 year montage.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Great performance from an aging actor prone to phoning it in (Bruce Willis).  Good movie that is a disappointing follow up to the director’s previous masterwork (Brick). Murder for hire.

Watch It For:  Emily Blunt stealing the show from two bona fide movie stars with half the screentime.

 

7. LINCOLN

 

What’s most amazing about Lincoln is not that it’s good, it’s that it’s so frequently fun, without undermining the enormous historical import of the subject matter.  It’s realistic about the compromises and messiness required to pursue even the most lofty political agenda, while still managing to present the ability to compromise as something noble.  And that’s something that is hard to do in movies (our fictional heroes are heroes precisely because they make the principled stances we can’t be bothered to make ourselves), and even more so in politics, where any slight change in position is pounced upon as ideological weakness by opponents and the noisy fringe of one’s own party alike.  It’s not a perfect movie, although it would be close if it weren’t for the tacked-on inclusion of the assassination, but there is so much to love from Day-Lewis and the ridiculously loaded supporting cast that I can’t imagine anyone walking out disappointed.

2012 Trend-watching:  Elaborate period piece.  Slavery.  Great performance from an aging actor prone to phoning it in (Tommy Lee Jones).  No one can make a movie under two hours anymore.

Watch It For:  (arguably) the Greatest Living Director directing (arguably) the Greatest Living Actor in portraying (arguably) the Greatest American, and somehow living up to the challenge

 

6. ARGO

 

Ben Affleck is the goods. He’s delivered three polished adult thrillers with no duds in a time when such movies are increasingly endangered by the continual encroachment of superhero and tween romance franchises on their natural studio habitats.  Argo’s Hollywood satire may be rather toothless (if amusing), but as a thriller and a window into an obscure, bizarre corner of American history, it’s taut and immensely effective.  I only saw one movie in 2012 (more on that later) that had the audience as effortlessly in the palm of its hand from the opening on, spending minutes on end in breathless silence before erupting in laughter or gasping in all the right places.  We’ve come to expect so little from brain-dead blockbusters that its refreshing to see one that can manipulate our reactions without insulting our intelligence.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Elaborate period piece. Heavily metafictional.  No one can make a movie under two hours anymore.

Watch It For:  The harrowing opening sequence

 5. MOONRISE KINGDOM

 

I thought I might be over Wes Anderson after The Darjeeling Limited, which did nothing for me that earlier works didn’t do better.  But Moonrise Kingdom somehow managed to be a refreshing return to form from a guy who has never really changed his form.  Maybe it was the focus on actual children instead of manchildren, maybe it was actually setting it in the 60s instead of a hazy, old-fashioned feeling version of the present, maybe it was bringing in some fresh blood like Ed Norton, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis and Tilda Swinton.  But for whatever reason, Moonrise Kingdom was funny and sweet and entertaining all the way through, and possibly the only movie of the year that I actually felt like ended too soon.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Elaborate period piece.  Great performance from aging actor prone to phoning it in (Bruce Willis, again)

Watch It For:  Incredible young actors Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman inhabiting the mannered Anderson style with as much aplomb and authenticity as any adult ever has.

 

 4.  DJANGO UNCHAINED

 

Tarantino’s latest massive revenge-of-the-oppressed epic/pastiche lacks some of the quiet, creeping intensity of Inglorious Basterds, but it is even bloodier (Django appears to be firing something closer to RPGs than actual bullets at the slavers), funnier (the Klansman bag scene is a comedic gift that just keeps giving), more gorgeously filmed (the shot of Big Daddy getting blasted off his horse that just follows its galloping legs was a particular standout).  I would rank it pretty low amongst Tarantino’s filmography, in large part because it goes on for too long after shedding its best characters, but then sitting comfortably alongside Reservoir Dogs is none too shabby a place to be.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Elaborate period piece.  Slavery.  Murder for hire. Good movie, but disappointing as a follow up to the director’s previous masterwork (Inglorious Basterds).  Great performance from an aging actor prone to phoning it in (Samuel L. Jackson). Heavily metafictional.  Seriously, no one can make a movie under two hours any more.

Watch It For:  Performances – Sam Jackson playing an actual character, Dicaprio rocketing miles and miles over the top, Jamie Foxx’s childlike rapture when asking Schultz to tell him the story of Siegfreid, but mostly watching Christoph Waltz own the screen like (insert tasteless reference to owning human beings as property here)

 

3.  THE AVENGERS

 

 

The Avengers would’ve been a damn good time if it had gotten even two of its half dozen heroes right.  As it is, it is absolutely the biggest, best crowd-pleaser we’ve gotten in years, with something for any blockbuster, superhero or otherwise, to learn from. If I was doing a list of my favorite moments from movies this year, this movie would dominate it to an embarrassing degree.  Black Widow turning the tables on Loki.  The Galaga joke.  Hawkeye cheating to knock Loki off his sled.  The shawarma bit. Captain America taking charge of the final battle. Every. Single. Thing. The Hulk. Does

The Avengers doesn’t just validate the long game Marvel has been playing with its various lead-in movies, it makes me like all of them a little more in retrospect, which I’m still not sure how that even works.  Is it an “important” movie?  Not really.  But it is a fucking excellent one.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Lowbrow material done with style and intelligence.  Harry Dean Stanton cameo.  Jesus Christ, no one can make a movie under two hours anymore.

Watch It For:  The Other Guy.

 

2. CABIN IN THE WOODS

 

The biggest and best surprise of the year (I don’t doubt Whedon or Drew Goddard’s abilities, but the 2 year shelving didn’t inspire confidence), Cabin got billed by some as the “horror film that kills the horror genre”.  I think that’s malarkey, though, as it’s a big, genuine love letter to the genre that flays and removes the pieces for inspection, but in a friendly way.  And it does metafiction the way I prefer, with those elements as allegory/subtext to a story that never betrays its own internal logic (it’s why as much as I liked Seven Psychos, I think Inception is a better “movie about movies”).  And it does have something to say about the genre and it’s cultural importance underneath the simple layers of reference and parody; the allegory here can be read as critical of audiences for being bloodthirsty slaves to convention, but ultimately the point is that we consume horrific entertainment as a way to engage with our darkest, most dangerous impulses without endangering the social contract. Horror saves the world in Cabin’s way of things; I’m not sure I buy that completely, but it’s not something that a movie interested in destroying the entire genre would put forward.

It’s also packed to the gills with terrific gags and payoffs and references for the horror fans in the audience.  The whiteboard alone is worth the price of admission for those folks.  And I didn’t even mention Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins or the speakerphone gag!  Truly this cup runneth over.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Lowbrow material done with style and intelligence.  Heavily metafictional.  Murder for hire.

Watch It For:    The merman.  We should all see one eventually.

 1. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

 

How on Earth did a first time director make this movie?  Get this performance from a 5 year-old?  Capture these images, this specific sense of place?  Beasts is a difficult movie to describe, as there’s hardly a plot and the tone is at once dream-like and earthy.  And there are some political undercurrents that some have objected to, but I do not think the world of the Bathtub is depicted as unambiguously good or bad enough to get your partisan hackles up about.  This movie is not unabashedly fun like Cabin or Avengers, or expertly executed as Argo or tackling American historical atrocities head-on like Lincoln and Django, but it was the most unusual and moving time I spent in a theater this year.  More than anything else I saw, this was less of a film and more of an experience.

2012 Trend-Watching:  Beasts is such a singular piece of work that it does not have any of the elements I connected with the others.  Here’s hoping that the Aurochs kick off a trend of more movies in 2013 featuring antediluvian beasts.

Watch It For:  The performance of the year by young Quvenzhane Wallis.

 

NICK’S LIST – JOSH’S LIST – TIM’S LIST

Check out these new duds. I’d say it’s a step up (revolution) from last year’s list which, if you couldn’t tell, was drafted as I was just learning how to edit photos. I was but an untested noob still gesticulating in the sewer, as it were. This year I had the benefit of Jeremy G. Butler designing these splendid works throughout the page. And a huge thanks to the man. If you see a visually appealing graphic on the site, Jeremy’s the culprit 90% of the time.

Anyways, movies. 2012. Good year.

Honorable Mentions: Brave, Chronicle, The Dark Knight Rises, Dredd, Flight, For a Good Time, Call…,, Frankenweenie, Goon, Haywire, Jack Reacher, John Carter, La Cara Oculta, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, On the Road, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Red Hook Summer, Rise of the Guardians, Ruby Sparks, Skyfall, Sleepwalk With Me, Wreck-it Ralph

Films I missed: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Holy Motors, Killer Joe, Killing Me Softly, Klown, Promised Land, The Sessions

 

Tim on Miami Connection:

I know, how does a film made in 1987 make a Best Of list in 2012?

Drafthouse Films. And $54.16.

Connection debuted in but a scant eight theatres in 1988 and died quietly, never achieving national distribution until Drafthouse scooped up a print in ’09 on an eBay blind bid (for the above mentioned price), restored it and gave the film a proper rollout.

Its beauty is surely in the eye of the beholder, but can any film featuring a new wave synth pop band of taekwondo practitioners facing down a conglomerate of cocaine-dealing, motor-cycle riding ninjas be truly awful? As it turns out: yes. But Miami Connection provided me the most communally satisfying theatrical experience in all of 2012. Hilariously misguided, painfully acted, horrendously blocked, Miami Connection is a crowd-pleaser for the right kind of crowd seeking the right kind of pleasure. And, for the immense joy it’s brought me, more than deserves a spot on this list.

Current Rating: Friendship out of 5

Performance to savor: Future (at the time, now former) UFC World Heavyweight Champion Maurice Smith’s grand legacy may now be his performance as Jim, the scrawny, whiney member of Dragon Sound who just really wants to find the father who abandoned him. There’s something so sweet in Jim’s otherwise vacant eyes. He’s a smile waiting by a mail box, waiting for a letter that’s yet to arrive. When it finally does? Cinemagasm.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Put on your favorite (read: only) Dragon Sound record and face the ninja!”

Buy it from us. Josh’s Blu-ray Review.

 

Tim on Silver Linings Playbook:

Put anybody else in the director’s chair and Playbook’s chances at success are likely to take a dive. But David O. Russell’s brilliance lies in his ability to find heart in those quiet, in-between moments. A good thing, given most of the film is a gigantic between-moment – one that finds its leads shedding their past transgressions for an uncertain future.

Distracted at times and perhaps a touch too cheeky for its own good, Playbook still triumphs as a meditation on mental illness and its ability to derail even the best intentions. Bradley Cooper gives the best performance of his career while De Niro proves he can still bring the goods if the material engages. Not quite a romantic comedy, not quite a redemptive drama, Silver Linings Playbook instead dances within the in-between.

Current Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Performance to savor: Who knew Chris Tucker was even capable of a performance? As Danny, the lunatic with a heart of gold, Tucker becomes his director’s ace in the hole. Any time the film threatens to lag, Russell brings in Tucker to pick it back up. And just like that, he’s gone again. A great turn that’s used sparingly by a wise filmmaker.

CHUD.com Pullquote: “It’s a delight watching these two tough nuts crack, fall in love.”

Pre-order from us. Renn’s Review.

 

Tim on 21 Jump Street:

What strange parallel universe is this? A film starring the fat kid from Superbad, the John Cena-looking dancer from Step Up, and directed by the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs guys? And it’s a take-off of 21 Jump Street, the TV show? And it’s good?

Not only is 21 Jump Street good, it’s one of the funniest films of the year: an across the board success for all involved. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller once again show a knack for turning “can’t win” adaptations into “can’t miss” success stories. Here they use the “Dragnet Template” putting a comedy film smack dab in the middle of a cop procedural TV show. And it works. Meanwhile, Channing Tatum finds another opportunity to showcase hidden depths, this time comedic.

Current Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Performance to savor: Tatum – who brings the right amount of affable charm and nuance to tough guy rookie, Greg Jenko. Jonah Hill’s the lead, but Tatum does the grunt work and carries the film on his back. A great comedic pairing that produced one of 2012’s most-rewarding surprises in Tatum.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “A buddy cop surprise, 21 Jump Street features a covalent bond for the ages by way of Hill and Tatum.”

Buy it from us. My Review.

 

Tim on The Raid: Redemption:

The Raid isn’t the future of action, it simply is action: unfiltered, balls-to-the-wall, knee-to-the-face, knife-to-the-scrot action. Brutality at its most elegant thanks to incredible choreography based around the unforgiving martial art of Silat. Director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais have perhaps made the most true-to-form videogame film of all-time: with a narrative that begins at level one and escalates immediately, until a final act that’s boss battles galore. Action in its purest, leanest form.

Current Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Performance to Savor: Yayan Ruhian as Mad Dog, head foot solider of big boss Tama’s drug operation. Remember The Simpsons Yakuza vs. Mafia fight where Marge forces Homer inside before he gets to see the tiny, devilish-looking guy throw down? That moment right before you know that evil-looking dude’s going to do something insanely badass? That’s Yayan Ruhian for The Raid’s entirety. And you see it all.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “This high-energy action epic kicks your balls into your throat just so it can belittle you for swallowing your own balls.”

Buy it from us. Josh’s review.

 

Tim on Seven Psychopaths: 

With Seven Psychopaths writer / director Martin McDonagh has unleashed a true “writer’s film,” guiding us through the mind of a troubled screenwriter as he goes about fleshing his exceedingly violent work. McDonagh’s not rewarding viewers looking for an easy point A to point B narrative, instead forcing us to go on a strange acid trip as he bends and morphs the film to fit his whims. It’s less of a coherent film than a window into the mind of a writer arriving at his story. And we never see that story in its entirety, just McDonagh’s arrival to it. Repeat views offer a variety of interpretations, as the film makes a phenomenal double feature with Jonze’s Adaptation.

Current Rating: 4 out of 5

Performance to Savor: Sam Rockwell as Billy, best friend to Colin Farrell’s Marty. Rockwell commands every single scene he’s in with an unhinged comedic presence that might just define his career. Billy is Travis Bickle by way of Lloyd Christmas, and Rockwell pushes himself into the next-level performance we’ve always known he was capable of.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Not the film you would expect, Seven Psychopaths is a brilliant showcase of an artist deconstructing his own process.”

Buy it from us. Josh and I’s tag-team.

 

Tim on Magic Mike:

One man’s misguided struggle to not be defined by the lifestyle that ultimately comes to define him. If 21 Jump Street proved Channing Tatum could be a star, Magic Mike cemented the notion – proving once and for all that dude can act under the right handlers. Here, the actor’s handled again by Soderbergh, reteaming after garnering another fine performance from Tatum in Haywire. This was a personal story for Tatum, one based in part on his own male-stripper exploits, and the film manages to dissect its chosen subculture to fascinating effect.

It’s a modern-day Saturday Night Fever in its ability to take you in and hold you in the palm of its hand, allowing you to experience firsthand a world you may not be accustomed to. Calling this the “male stripper” movie is as egregious a faux pas as calling Brokeback Mountain the “gay cowboy” movie. Both works rise above any attempts to lazily categorize.

Current Rating: 4 out of 5

Performance to Savor: There are a few, but I have to give the nod to Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas, boss man and stripper extraordinaire. Dallas is the guy Mike fears becoming, yet can’t seem to divert course.  A slithery serpent with six pack abs, this could very well be the role McConaughey was born to play.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “A d*ck-pumping good time.”

Buy it from us. My review.

 

Tim on God Bless America:

I’m something of a walking contradiction in that I loathe guns in real life yet respectfully view them as a fine and proper storytelling device in film. It’s easy to dismiss Bobcat Goldthwait’s God Bless America in light of yet another gun massacre, but it’d be a mistake.

America is a darkly disturbing self-reflection, a film that takes the temperature of American pop culture. Frank Murdoch (Joel Murray) is a man apart, torn asunder and predisposed to indignation by a country he perceives as sacrificing its ethical decency. So he resolves to kill the Kardashians, Super Sweet 16ers, and Bill O’Reillys of his fictional world. Not to make it a better place, but just because he thinks they’re all assholes. Few comedies are darker, nor as oddly gratifying. Goldthwait is using farce to illustrate his point, and the result is both shocking and resonant.

Current Rating: 4 out of 5

Performance to Savor: Joel Murray, seen on Mad Men as pant-wetting recovering alcoholic Freddy Rumsen, grounds Goldthwait’s film in a manner that the viewer can identify. You might not agree with his viewpoint or his methods, but he’s too damn earnest and endearing not to empathize with in even the tiniest manner. Measured and restrained, signaling the cold resolve of a man’s final acts before he falls apart.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Politically incorrect has never felt so… politically incorrect.”

 

Tim on The Grey:

There’s usually one film I come around on before year’s end. In 2011, that was X-Men: First Class. Today, it’s Joe Carnahan’s The Grey: a film I challenged Renn on only to realize he was right on the mark all along. The Grey is a meat and potatoes nightmare work, detailing the struggles of a band of lowlife plane crash survivors as they attempt to forge through tundra of frozen nothingness as both the elements and viciously territorial wolves threaten to stave their efforts.

I still have problems with it, including Carnahan’s increasingly apparent inability to end his films, but what works about The Grey is evident throughout. The human struggle for survival against overwhelming odds is made all the more compelling against a seemingly impenetrable wall of nihilism. Beautifully shot, perfectly acted, painstakingly brutal, I can live with the non-ending thanks to the haunting journey that brought us there.

Current Rating: 4 out of 5 

Performance to Savor: Frank Grillo, who’s come a long way from his time as a squirelly doof on Prison Break.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Once more into the fray, Joe Carnahan’s latest is also his best.”

Buy it from us. Renn’s review.

 

Tim on Life of Pi: 

The story of one boy’s effort to tame a tiger from feasting on the nubile, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is a powerfully touching effort that amounts to the most striking visual experience I had in 2012. From a haunting shipwreck to Pi’s efforts to tame his ornery tiger Richard Parker, Lee’s affecting film about faith admittedly has trouble sticking the landing. The ending may be a huge kick in the pants, but everything leading up to is so gratifying, so emotionally poetic.

On the whole, Life of Pi is a wonderfully dizzying array of 3D, artfully crafted CG, and Lee’s ability to make the relationship between a shipwrecked boy and his CG tiger believable.

Current Rating: 4 out of 4

Performance to Savor: Irrfan Khan, as older Pi narrating his journey. Khan pulled off one hell of a hat trick this year, appearing in two films with characters named Richard Parker. One is a tiger, the other is Peter Parker’s dad. More so than any other in 2012, this stat blows my mind.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “A touching story about one tiger’s journey from meek zoo animal to sea-faring faith metaphor!”

 

Tim on Argo:

With Argo, director Ben Affleck has established his brand: confident dramas rife with quality performances, engrossing storytelling, and an adult-minded tone we haven’t seen this consistently since the 1970s. No surprise then, that Argo feels right at home alongside some of my favorite ’70s dramas and thrillers. While not on the level of Coppola (yet), Affleck’s made a film that has no issue standing alongside a work like The Conversation – another film made in a director’s prime and set in one of cinema’s most rewarding periods.

Affleck would be wise to stay the hell away from Justice League and that rumored (but unconfirmed) senate run. He belongs behind a camera. And 2012 was a better year because of it.

Current Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Performances to Savor: Alan Arkin and John Goodman as Lester Sigel and John Chambers, respectively: two Hollywood insiders secretly in the trenches fronting a fake movie. Arkin provides 2012’s most quotable line.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Argo f*ck your plans and see Affleck’s latest film!”

Pre-order it from us. Renn’s review.

 

Tim on The Avengers:

I’m the first to admit, I didn’t have high hopes for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. I enjoyed previous Marvel films to varying degree (Captain America being my favorite). But nothing prepared me for Whedon’s blockbuster epic – a film that should come to define the phrase moving forward. Cynics can poke holes where they like, but this is a perfect example of the sum being a crowd-pleasing representation of its parts.

Avengers is two hours of pay-off, an experience that makes good on the years of groundwork Marvel laid getting us here. An across-the-board success that’s still seeing heavy-rotation in my Blu-ray player, The Avengers is the best comic book film ever made. And that’s coming from a Batman guy.

Current Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Performance to Savor: The two-pronged offense of Mark Ruffalo and ILM, giving us the finest Banner / Hulk interpretation we’ve seen on-screen. The Hulk’s presence in the last act is unfiltered joy, and proof positive that this character still has a future in film.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Bow before The Avengers, mewling quims!”

Buy it from us. My review.

 

Tim on The Cabin in the Woods:

Director Drew Goddard (along with co-writer Joss Whedon) didn’t reinvent horror with this film, he took everything about horror, jammed it into a bottle, shook it up and spilled forth a frothy brew that genre fans will drink down for years to come. This is the ultimate horror mash-up film, where Goddard gives life to a world where Hellraiser, The Stangers, Dawn of the Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a host of other horror films all exist – an all-star, role-call, best of compilation. Goddard made a horror mixtape and called it Cabin in the Woods.

For future reference, any film where entrails get spat out of a man-eating merman’s blowhole will earn consideration on this list. Always.

Current Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Performances to Savor: Bradley Whitmore and Richard Jenkins, as the puppetmasters of the titular cabin. These two performances illustrate everything I love about the film, as their presence is the prism filtering out Goddard and Whedon’s horror goodness.

CHUD.com Pull Quote:  “A film that takes the pulse of a genre, The Cabin in the Woods is the best horror effort in over a decade.”

Buy it from us. My brief write-up.

 

Tim on Looper:

Neill Blomkamp. Shane Carruth. Rian Johnson.

These are the names I’m pinning the future of original science-fiction storytelling on. With Looper, writer / director Rian Johnson once again knocks it out of the park. And if you’ve seen Brick or The Brothers Bloom, there shouldn’t have been any doubt. Looper, a taut, brilliantly engrossing time-travel thriller, is the best sci-fi film since Blomkamp’s District 9, and reminder that original sci-fi is always going to have a more celebrated shelf life than the constant stream of (usually) limp franchise fare Hollywood clings to.

Johnson provides vivid world-building that gives way to iconography on the level of a Blade Runner. Years from now, sci-fi fans will be proudly showing off their blunderbluss replicas on their prop shelves.

And seriously, are we all in agreement that Kid Blue grows up to be Abe?

Current Rating: 5 out of 5

Performance to Savor: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, making good on the promise he first showed us in Johnson’s Brick. Assisted with a prosthetic nose, the gifted actor channels a young man who will someday grow up to be Bruce Willis. And yet JGL steers clear of imitation, instead adopting Willis’ mannerisms and forging a character all his own.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “I would close my own loop for this movie. I don’t know what that means, just that I’d do it.”

Buy it from us. My review.

 

Tim on Cloud Atlas:

Modern film’s most ambitious effort, ever. That Cloud Atlas has been so roundly dismissed in popular culture is borderline criminal. Tom Tykwer  and The Wachowski Starship have assembled a moving, poignant and infinitely poetic work out of what many believed an unfilmable book.

The result is a brave project. Its place in history, its overall contribution, won’t be felt for sometime. Not enough people have discovered it yet. But it will be felt. This is a movie that extends your notions on what film can and should be. That it fails in parts only makes its successes that much more rousing. Part anthology, part self-affirmation, Cloud Atlas is, at its essence, a call for change and self-betterment as we follow a soul’s journey from revilement to redemption. All set to the tone of Tykwer’s gut-churning score, Cloud Atlas is an accomplishment that demands discovery and rewards understanding.

Current Rating: 5 out of 5

Performance to Savor: Ben Whishaw. Though he plays a variety of characters through the film, his performance as troubled composer Robert Frobisher is a career-maker. The most touching and tragic in all the film.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Cloud Atlas is the real true truth.”

Notify for pre-order. Renn’s review.

 

Tim on Django Unchained:

Without question, Quentin Tarantino is the finest filmmaker working today. He’s also one of the more unique, as no other director is as deft at applying his influences to create unique works. Django Unchained is a cinematic celebration made by one of cinema’s greatest lovers. I don’t subscribe to criticisms that the film’s tinged by bloat, if only because bloat shouldn’t feel so richly rewarding.

Robert Richardson blankets his cinematography in rich colors, gorgeous landscapes, and a clarity that highlights the cracks in the faces of the performers. This is an ugly film, but beautifully so, one that blends Tarantino’s own sense of morality with his predisposition to almost comedic levels of violence and gore.

Not my favorite Tarantino film, but undoubtedly my favorite film of the year. A great story, well told: an objective that no modern storyteller is more accustomed to reaching than Quentin Tarantino.

Current Rating: 5 out of 5

Performance to Savor: Samuel L. Jackson as slave Stephen, reminding us why we love him. A phenomenally dark performance by a prolific star who rarely acts.

CHUD.com Pull Quote:  “Kinetic, colorful, powerful and crowd-pleasing in a way few films are, Django Unchained is that ‘one in ten thousand’ film.”

 Pre-order from us. My review.

 

 

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Honorable Mentions: Moonrise Kingdom. Skyfall. Room 237. Magic Mike. Looper. Beasts of the Southern Wild. Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Compliance.
Disqualified: Two Australian films left a big impact on me this year. 1) The restoration of Wake in Fright, released this fall; the film would have easily made my Top 5, were it not actually from 1971. 2) The disturbing new film Hail effected me the way Amour seemed to effect most mainstream critics, but Hail is not officially released in the US yet (or much of anywhere).
Happiest Little Surprises: Pitch Perfect. Goon.
Movie I Still Can’t Believe I Like As Much As I Do: Jack Reacher.
Films I Missed: The Master. Cloud Atlas. The Perks of Being A Wallflower. The Central Park Five. West of Memphis. Silver Lining Playbook.

 

Josh on 21 Jump Street:

Who the hell thought this movie was going to be any good, let alone the funniest American comedy of the year? Not me. I had been expecting Hollywood to reboot Jump Street as a TV series one of these years, but the idea of bringing the show back as a wacky film comedy starring Jonah Hill reminded me of that aborted Jack Black Green Lantern project. Someone was going to come to their senses before things got too far. Then they didn’t. The real achievement here isn’t just that the film turned out funny, but that screenwriter Michael Bacall and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were able to make Jump Street funny without resorting to a detached satire of the original series like The Brady Bunch movie did. Jump Street actually works as a straight-forward comedy. And it is hysterically funny at times. I’d actually like a sequel.

Current rating: rating: 4 out of 5

Moment to savor: Without getting into spoilers, let’s just say a certain surprise cameo by a certain someone.

Performance to savor: Jonah Hill may be the Oscar-nominated actor and seasoned comedian, but Channing Tatum steals this movie from Hill. I never thought I’d type that sentence, but I just did.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Holy shit, Channing Tatum is funny!”

Buy it from us. | Tim’s Review.

 

Josh on Detention:

To call Detention “bonkers” is a gross understatement. It is beyond that. Over half a year has passed since I saw the film, and my brain is still reeling. I’m not entirely sure exactly what this movie is — is it a brilliant masterwork of controlled madness, or a hollow piece of meta confection that replaces substance with filmmaking artifice? I may never decided. But I am confident of two things: 1) This may be the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen that was made by a professional and successful director. And 2) If you view movies as an artform and not simply as an un-challenging avenue of entertainment, then you have to see it. This is definitely the “must see even if you hate it” film of 2012. The true madness to Detention isn’t even the off-the-wall subject matter, but writer-director Joseph Kahn’s ADHD presentation. The film is basically an entire season of a TV series, whipped through at feature length with disorientingly insane pacing.

Current rating: 4 out of 5

Moment to savor: The opening scene in which the world’s most obnoxious high school meangirl breaks the fourth wall to introduce us to her world, before unexpectedly being murdered by a horror movie Slasher.

Performance to savor: Parker Bagley as Billy Nolan, a jock with cinema’s most ridiculous dark secret.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “This movie will make your brain shit its pants.”

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on Cabin in the Woods:

This is a horror fan’s horror movie — a fact that some have used against the film. It isn’t trying to be scary. It isn’t really a horror movie. It is just a bunch of references you won’t even get if you don’t watch a lot of horror movies. Sure. But I do watch a lot of horror movies. It is your fault if you don’t. In a genre that even at its best is generally wallowing in repetition, Cabin is an island unto itself. It is truly unique. Even if you knew what to expect, you were nonetheless caught off guard when the film began with two government facility drones and immediately showed its hand. Cabin‘s script has Joss Whedon coming out the anus, for better or worse depending on your feeling towards Whedon’s Whedoniness. This very easily could have been a special two-part episode from Buffy or Angel. Admittedly, if you don’t like Whedon this could be a problem. So I feel fortunate that I happen to like Whedon’s Whedoniness quite a lot. The intentionally cliche college kids storyline loses some luster on repeat viewings, but the puppet-masters portions of the film only get better.

Current rating: 4 out of 5

Moment to savor: The journey through (and unlocking) of the monster zoo, featuring a who’s-who of horror movie homages — my favorite being the pseudo-Cenobite and his spherical puzzle.

Performance to savor: The duo of Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford. I really wish we could get a prequel TV series about these guys.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Someone got some meta on my horror movie.”

Buy it from us. | Renn’s Review.

 

Josh on Sleep Tight:

Considering that Jaume Balagueró wrote and co-directed REC and REC 2, I had certain expectations entering this film — especially because, like the REC films, Sleep Tight takes place solely inside an apartment complex. But Sleep Tight isn’t a horror movie. It isn’t even really a thriller. It is a quietly demented dark comedy that evolves into a devilishly tense dark-comedy-thriller towards the very end. The movie feels like a fucked up rendition of that section of Amelie where Amelie is messing with her jackass neighbor; changing his shoe sizes and such. I wasn’t that familiar with star Luis Tosar going into the film, but he is what makes the film skip along with such twisted charm. Cesar is a truly despicable character, a pure sociopath with a soulless motive. Yet you relish his every terrible victory, big and small, rooting for him to somehow get away with it all. At least I did. Maybe I’m a horrible person.

Current rating: 4 out of 5

Moment to savor: A brilliantly nail-biting scene, when Cesar spills ether on his face while trying to make a silent, unnoticed escape — which of course makes doing so fairly impossible.

Performance to savor: As already mentioned, this is Luis Tosar’s movie through and through.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Remember to be extra nice to your building supervisor this year.”

Buy it from us.

 

Josh on Headhunters:

This blazing adaptation of crime novelist Jo Nesbø’s book is the kind of film that the pull-quote “thrill ride” should be reserved for, instead of the myriad action films that receive the generic appraisal year after year. Gripping, gleeful, and unpredictable, Headhunters is a walls-closing-in thriller that becomes doubly fun as the “how will our hero get out of this mess” tension is fused with “holy shit, where is this going” chase-movie intensification. And boy do things intensify. Headhunters is an utterly preposterous movie that borders on parody at times, but it doesn’t contain the kind of plot-holes that require you to turn a blind eye. Don’t get me wrong, much (hell, most) of the story will leave you with a dubious smirk if you pull it through ye ol’ logic machine. It contains a lot of one-in-a-million moments of chance, but it never quite gets out of step. Even with plot-holes the movie would be a great “thrill ride,” but it holds up well to repeat viewings because there aren’t any.

Current rating: 4 out of 5

Moment to savor: When our hero Roger, left with nowhere else to run, decides to hide in an outhouse. In the lower portion of an outhouse. In the lower portion of the lower portion of an outhouse, using a tube to breathe while submerged beneath an unpleasantly authentic level of bathroom build-up.

Performance to savor: Eivind Sander as Roger’s gun-toting, hooker-loving accomplice Ove.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Part No Way Out, part The Fugitive, with a twisty-turny escalation towards exquisite lunacy to rival David Fincher’s The Game.”

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on Holy Motors:

I’ve noticed a recurring theme in most reviews of Holy Motors — the reviewer starts off by saying that they aren’t sure they entirely understand the film, but that the film is brilliant anyway. It sounds rather lazy to say “It is genius, whatever it is.” But that about sums it up for me. Like most people, I too walked out of Leos Carax’s meta-fantasia with a sense of awed bewilderment. Not every part of the film worked equally for me, yet it never allowed me to withdraw from its grip. I saw the film at Fantastic Fest this year, a festival that often finds me seeing four or five movies in a single day — most totally weird and fringe. Yet Holy Motors lingered in my mind and keeps lingering. Like Detention, after a while, if I’m debating whether or not something is brilliant or just weird for its own sake, I have to concede that the mere fact that I’m debating this demonstrates that the film is special. And unlike Detention, Carax’s film takes time to linger. Holy Motors may never add up to something in my mind, but few films this year can compare with it on a scene-by-scene basis.

Current rating: 4 out of 5

Moment to savor: There are so many strange moments in the film to choose from that my mind keeps straying back to a quiet and intimate car-ride conversation between our hero Oscar (in one of his many “roles”) and his daughter.

Performance to savor: It is hard to choose, everyone is – I’m just kidding. Denis Lavant tackles one of the most enviable (though surely terrifying to take on) acting roles I’ve ever seen. Lavant, playing multiple bizarre roles, takes the shtick of Eddie Murphy and drags it through the arthouse.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Holy Motors, more like Holy Cow!” – said in a Gene Shalit impression.

 

Josh on The American Scream:

Unlike Michael Stephenson’s previous breakout documentary, Best Worst Movie, which had an absurd film production to recount/re-live, a host of long-lost cast members to revisit, and two decades worth of bizarre fan growth to explore and highlight, The American Scream‘s subject matter is comparatively wispy. Halloween home haunters are a mildly interesting topic, maybe enough for a solid five-minute news segment.  These are just average people putting together complicated but completely inconsequential holiday decorations. If they fail, what will happen? Kids will shrug and move on to the next house on the street to get some candy; which they’re going to do regardless. The stakes are non-existent. This is Stephenson’s challenge. And he succeeds by not bothering with “stakes.” There is no faux sense of urgency or drama. Stephenson and his crew are interested in the people and what motivates them to put so much blood and sweat into something that will only exist for a few hours on a single evening. Unsurprisingly, what he comes away with is very funny. The big surprise is how moving and inspirational the film is.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The “pay-off” in which we finally see teens and parents with small children, dressed up in their Halloween best, going through the home haunts. It is an odd experience to tear up with joy seeing small children nervously clutching their parents with terror. But goddammit, I did. Many times.

Performance to savor: Victor Bariteau is the heart and soul of the film, but his oldest daughter, Catherine, in the secret star. When Catherine excitedly dumps out a box of mutilated Barby dolls, and then tells the camera, “I hate Barbies,” a whole generation of young male horror fans surely found a new crush.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “The Halloween movie that will make grown men cry.”

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on Wreck-It Ralph:

If 2012 is our indicator, it seems that Disney and Pixar have gone Freaky Friday and been brain-swapped. Pixar’s Brave felt decidedly Disney to me, and Wreck-It Ralph was Pixar through and through. Somewhat inexplicably, video games have proven elusive to filmmakers. Even ignoring all the heinous specific game adaptations, just the concept of a video game – the aesthetics, the rules, how we perceive them – has historically been embarrassingly represented in movies. Ralph gets video games the same way Toy Story got toys, and Roger Rabbit got cartoons. The film is not as perfect or ground-breaking as either of those other films, but Ralph filled a void. And it filled it well, with genuine inspiration and heart. It would have been easy to phone in this film, relying solely on “Hey, remember this game?” references, but Ralph sought to build a world instead. Pixar’s influence is felt most in the world-building area, where director Rich Moore cleverly uses video game logic and limitations to craft the inner-workings of Ralph‘s world — I’m hard pressed to think of another recent movie that left me with such a strong desire to continue exploring its universe.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The scene in which Ralph smashes Vanellope’s new car was easy to see coming. The fact that the moment nonetheless got to me emotionally was not.

Performance to savor: Alan Tudyk channeling Ed Wynn as King Candy.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Finally someone made a good video game movie!”

Buy it from us. | Josh and Tim’s Review.

 

Josh on Sleepless Night:

This movie floored me with its awesomeness. The movie kept reminding me of De Palma’s Snake Eyes. The two films don’t share any story or stylistic similarities, but the single-location setting and real-time pacing nonetheless kept my mind making the connection. But whereas Snake Eyes only worked (if it worked for you at all) because of sheer De Palma/Nic Cage gonzo verve, Sleepless Night also packs legit dramatic punches. The film is just balls-out kick ass. Don’t know any other way to say it. It is tense, fun, funny, inventive, never lets up, and is totally fulfilling. It also features one of the best fight scenes in the past ten years — a seemingly endless and increasingly wince-inducing fist fight between our hero and one of the film’s many antagonists in the club’s kitchen, while the bewildered (and at this point, comically indifferent) kitchen staff try to keep out of the way. Subtitles aside, this film could not be more accessible for Americans unless it starred Tom Cruise. Of course, an American remake is already in the works. Probably with Tom Cruise.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The aformentioned thrilling, knock-down bare-knuckle kitchen brawl.

Performance to savor: Tomer Sisley as Vincent. This is a one-man kind of film, and Sisley owns it.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “It reminded me of Snakes Eyes, only actually good.”

Buy it from us.

 

Josh on The Raid: Redemption:

Gareth Evans and his white-knuckled bruiser of a film seemed to come out of no where this year. Cutting his chops in Indonesia, Evans came to us a fully-formed action director, with a visual “voice” ready to hit those high-notes. It isn’t that hard to fill a movie with wall-to-wall mayhem, or brutal fights, but it is incredibly hard to do so and keep us all engaged and on the edge of our seat. The Raid did that. And then some. The film is practically the definition of a “no story” film, making all the Die Hard comparisons it got rather off-base — The Raid‘s narrative makes Die Hard‘s story look like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Evans’ film is so single-minded it shouldn’t work. Yet Evans found poetry in the film’s utter simplicity, and slapped down his calling card with a loud bang. There’s a new sheriff in town.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The tense, Hitchcockian scene with our hero Rama stuck inside a wall, as a thug randomly stabs a sword through the drywall to see if anyone is hiding within.

Performance to savor: Yayan Ruhian as the diminutive yet ferocious Mad Dog.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “It won’t just entertain you. It won’t just rouse you. This movie will kick your ass.”

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on Bullhead:

If your perception of Belgium is based solely on In Bruges, then Bullhead will change your mind like a punch to the face. Writer/director Michael R. Roskam takes us into the criminal underworld of the Belgian cattle industry, where illegal beef hormones are peddled with the same seriousness and danger as cocaine. Roskam uses this familiar Sopranos-esque setting as a backdrop for the tale of Bullhead’s antihero, Jacky Vanmarsenille, a tortured and rage-consumed gorilla who juices himself with just as many steroids as he gives his cows. The fact that Roskam and an unrecognizably beefed up Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust & Bone) make you not only feel sympathy for Jacky, but at times find him somewhat adorable as he awkwardly attempts to woo an old crush, is what makes the film far more than a straight gangster flick.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The horrifying flashback detailing Jacky’s childhood injury.

Performance to savor: Matthias Schoenaerts consumes this film.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “This movie has balls.” [That won’t make sense if you haven’t seen it.]

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on Zero Dark Thirty:

I thought The Hurt Locker was an exciting and excellently directed film, though I did not think the overall product was quite as number-one-film-of-the-year phenomenal as the rest of the critical community did. But Zero Dark Thirty finds Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal’s reaching their stride examining similar themes and characters, not to mention locales. The film’s extreme topicality should have hurt it (for me at least), but Bigelow’s casual yet fraught direction rooted the film to its characters in a way that prevented it from being ripped-from-the-headlines sensational. The film has been accused of validating torture, but I never felt that the larger conversation about torture was based solely whether or not it ever worked. Because obviously it works sometimes. Zero Dark Thirty is about the people doing the torture. Bigelow and Boal tell us the story from their perspective, doing bad things so we can all take the moral high-ground. We live in a world of grey areas, some very dangerous ones, and it would have been incredibly disingenuous for Zero Dark Thirty to have presented things otherwise. The film has also stirred up controversy of a far stupider and less grey-area kind — the idea that Kathryn Bigelow is over-rated because she is a woman, and an attractive woman. Hollywood does love a good real-life narrative. Maybe Bigelow wouldn’t be getting as much attention right now if she weren’t an attractive woman. So what? I couldn’t care less what motivations get good films made. None of these misogynist detractors seem to say similar things about Hollywood’s current boner for handsome Ben Affleck, or its boners for George Clooney or Robert Redford before him. Bigelow has been making excellent films since the mid-’80s. I’m not really sure how anyone can see Zero Dark Thirty and feel that Bigelow is being coddled by the industry unfairly. The film is complex, provocative, and electric at times.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The lengthy climactic compound assault is what pushed this film from a 3.5 to a 4.5 for me. The whole sequence is gorgeously taught. The almost mundane efficiency with which the Navy Seals carry out their mission heightens the peeking-around-the-corner intensity to horror movie levels, and realistically delays the catharsis of the ending we already know is coming — in turn making the film’s final moment fully resonate.

Performance to savor: Jessica Chastain. Her emotional freak-out on Kyle Chandler is the thing Oscar clips are made of.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “The critics Osama been laudin’ this film with praise.” Boom!

 

Josh on Klown:

Mikkel Nørgaard’s international break-out comedy (soon to be remade for subtitle-phobic Americans) is actually a film adaptation of the popular Danish TV sitcom Klovn, in which comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen play fictionalized versions of themselves. Yet, aside from missing some of the humor in seeing respected Danes playing themselves in the film (such as filmmaker Jørgen Leth), Klown is so goddamn funny that you don’t need any context whatsoever to laugh your ass off. The jokes stand on their own, with nothing lost in translation. The film takes some inspiration from The Hangover, keeping all the ribald humor but pushing things into darker and more uncomfortable corners, and – oddly enough – walks away with a more heart-warming and uplifting conclusion for its efforts.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: The scene in which Frank, while trying fruitlessly to get some sleep, is asked to lend a helping finger while Casper is awkwardly having sex next to Frank in the same bed.

Performance to savor: Casper Christensen. Casper is the “Vince Vaughn” of the film, though we’re talking Swingers Vaughn, not Fred Klaus Vaughn.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Thumbs up…your ass.”

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on The Avengers:

If the war-weary and economically stressed ‘00s were following a similar filmmaking trajectory as the war-weary and economically stressed ‘70s, then The Avengers must be the new Star Wars. I didn’t know it until my ass was in the theater seat, but apparently I’ve burnt out on the gritty, unsmiling post-9/11 phase of filmmaking. I’m ready to start having some fun again. Most everyone seemed to enjoy The Avengers, but most were also quick to dismiss the film once it came to discussion of “true” quality, as though making a movie spectacularly entertaining is somehow easy. If such is the case, why am I so painfully bored with so many mainstream action films? The Avengers has a threadbare-leaning-towards-non-existent story, but Joss Whedon was savvy enough to know that too much story would just get in the way. There are times when we don’t need to take everything so seriously. The Avengers was such a time. Marvel Studios, their filmmakers and actors, had already put in the time and ground work. They’d played the season. Whedon had the Pro Bowl. He not only pulled off and stuck the landing on Marvel’s questionably high-concept franchise orgy, but he did so with far, far more aplomb than I could have expected even in my most adoring moments of Whedon’s TV career. I knew he’d deliver the banter, but I was uncertain if he could deliver the action and scope. I’m now fine with Marvel jerking around with however many franchises they’d like, as long as we get an Avengers sequel of this comparable quality every few years.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: It is a herculean task to select just one savory moment in what is essentially a montage of savory moments, but measuring the decibel level of audience shit-losing from the two times I saw the film in the theater, the winner has to be Hulk’s cathartic Droopy Dog-style ass-whooping of Loki.

Performance to savor: Mark Ruffalo. After two other Hulk films that couldn’t figure out how to make Bruce Banner even a quarter as interesting as his green counterpart, Ruffalo did the impossible — he made us not mind if he took awhile to get angry.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Hulk smashed my expectations.”

Buy it from us. | Josh’s Review.

 

Josh on Django Unchained:

I saw The Hobbit and Django in the same week, and it was hard not to see the two films as kindred spirits. In both we can see a director with the resources and prestige to indulge himself with a meandering, masturbatory three hour film the could easily have been significantly shorter and still accomplished its narrative goals. The big difference between the two is that I desperately wanted The Hobbit to be a full hour shorter, and – pardon the expression – apparently I’m more than happy to watch Quentin Tarantino jerk off on whatever the hell he wants for as long as he wants. If it weren’t for Death Proof, I’d be tempted to say Tarantino is infallible when it comes to lengthy dialogue and irregular structure, because no matter where Django rambled or moseyed, it felt on the money, expanding upon all that came before it in the film. It takes a special, unique sort of film to feel like an instant classic while you’re watching it. But it is becoming old hat for Tarantino at this point. Django has also caused me to turn around on Jamie Foxx. I wasn’t happy with his casting originally. Now I can’t imagine it any other way. Foxx’s eyes brought palpable fire and rage to his performance.

Current rating: 4.5 out of 5

Moment to savor: Calvin Candie’s epic phrenology speech.

Performance to savor: Samuel L. Jackson’s sycophantic and eminently hatable Stephen. Jackson takes a Stepin Fetchit-esque stereotype and conjures a plantation-era Littlefinger [that’s a Game of Thrones reference for the un-indoctrinated.] In a film overflowing with extremely unlikable characters, Jackson’s Stephen inspires a special level of hate.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Tarantino jerks off on us again, and it tastes… Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll just stop there.

Tim’s Review.

 

Part 1 (Navajo Joe) • Part 2 (The Mercenary)

In the lead up to (and now aftermath of) the release of “the best, most brutal, most intensely watchable film of the year” that releases on Christmas Day, I’m going to be running a five-part series called “Unchaining Django” that preps you for the film and celebrates Quentin Tarantino’s latest, greatest masterpiece (they all are, in some way or another) by looking at some of the films that led to it.

Django

As I write this, well over $65m worth of you (!) have seen Quentin Tarantino’s great Southern, so with the next entry in Unchaining Django I figured it best to just go ahead and tackle the namesake. Our third Sergio Corbucci film, this masterpiece 1966 Western is the predecessor to QT’s latest in more than just name.

To start, let’s go ahead and recognize that Tarantino did not pick just any ole western from which to appropriate the lead character’s name for his own. This Sergio Corbucci classic rivals just about any Leone film, and features one of the most interesting western Anti-hero journeys the genre has ever produced. Per usual, Corbucci is all about stories with no real hero, and Django’s journey from being a mere fastest-gun opportunist to a legitimate Western hero has a higher dynamic range than your typical pulp story provides. Django’s greedier and more thoughtless when he’s bad, and yet his backstory and shift back to some kind of humanity is more poignant than you’d ever expect- an arc resonantly rendered by Franco Nero’s blazing performance. The story that plays out in between features all of Corbucci’s trademark brutality, hyper-violence, symbolism, action sequences, fascinating filmmaking, social and political cynicism, and requisite coffin theft. The brutality thing is key- nobody is willing to off characters more unceremoniously or demonstrate the cruelty of a villain more harshly than Corbucci, as demonstrated by the way Major Jackson’s “racists” entertain themselves.

Now again, the connections between Django and Django Unchained go much deeper than a shared name and the re-use of the amazing Luis Bacalov theme song from the former in the latter (sung by Rocky Roberts, doing his best Mr. Presley). There are indeed plenty of surface details like music and shots that Tarantino swipes for his own purposes, but most important is the shared sorrow of both Djangoes- they’re both men who have had their loves robbed from them. Nero’s Django begins his film trudging through the western mud, dragging along a coffin that not-so-subtly stands in for the emotional weight he bears from his murder of his wife. The coffin and its contents also serve as a nice Checkov’s gun and, even after its contents are dramatically revealed, its potency and use as a metaphor for Django’s internal journey remains consistent (and beautiful) throughout the film.

During his own Luis Bacalov-backed title sequence, Foxx’s Django is anchored by no mere coffin but the artifacts of the very idea of institutionalized oppression by the chains on his feet and the scars on his back. Both characters will square off against clumsily hooded gangs of racists, and neither dish out anything but bloody, mercilessly widespread vengeance. The key difference, of course, is that Foxx’s Django has only been separated from his wife, setting the stage for the eponymous “unchaining” and Tarantino’s very modern, very cathartic piece of hip-hop cinema. Inevitably both Djangoes find themselves torn back down to their lowest before they meet their final fates but, as Django Unchained is in no sense a remake of Corbucci’s 1966 film, the two largely diverge from there.

It wouldn’t be any fun to go without mentioning some of those other surface details. The most obvious are the shared bits of music, which include the main theme and a triumphant piece of Bacalov’s orchestration that plays over Django II’s first moment of badassery…

         

And of course we have the aforementioned gangs of racists…

Along with these specific details, there’s a meta-textual appropriateness to Tarantino choosing Django as a namesake film, as Corbucci’s film was so immensely successful that it is also the most shamelessly ripped off western there is! Literally dozens of films presented themselves as sequels or derivatives of Django, even without the director or star involved in any way. There is only one “sanctioned” sequel, Django Kills, but beyond that the 30-something other Django films you may run across are mere products of its immense success and influence. It’s all too appropriate that several decades later Tarantino would throw his own rip-off (complete with the original music and the “friendly participation of” Franco Nero himself) onto the pile, and that it would be best of all of them.

Finally, Django also represents the height of Corbucci’s directorial style, with some of the classiest zooms, hero shots, and generally superb filmmaking choices you’re likely to find in the desert on any continent. In a very general sense, Tarantino has gobbled up the Italian director’s tactics along with the techniques of so many other directors he admires, building those techniques into his own filmmaking DNA. So even when you don’t see the same compositions or notice the same bits of blocking, Django Unchained never fails to feel like the descendant of Corbucci’s best work.

Undoubtedly I’ve missed some other specific repeated costumes or recreated compositions, but you’re sure to have fun spotting many of those yourself. And, like all of the films so far in this series, Django is an absolute classic in its own right, one well worth your time even when divorced from the hype of a new Tarantino film.

Alas, Django does not sit on Instant Watch as the first two in our series do. Still, get your ass to a video store or queue up the disc because it’s all the way worth it. Even better: grab the Blu-ray through us or stream it on Amazon…

Thanks for reading!
Two more to go, and maybe even a bonus or two if you guys are up for it…