The Big Picture: The Best Movies of 2012

Kinokohatake

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Daria.Morgendorffer said:
I'll put my eye-rolling about The Avengers aside (okay, one gripe: Awesome fight scenes? Oh, please: the opening sequence of TDKR was more imaginative and suspenseful than ANYTHING in The Avengers)
Really? TDKR was so boring I barely remember anything from the movie. The only part of that movie that was enjoyable was Bane choking Batman while he was using his "scary" voice and just for a second, Batman sounded like Cartman from South Park. Literally the only good part of that movie was the unintentional humor of the moment.
 

gorfias

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MonkeyPunch said:
I was actually a bit disappointed by Ted :(
I'm a big Seth McFarlane fan and the trailers looked great for this, but I left the movie feeling unfulfilled.
Maybe it's precisely because I had my hopes up and high expectations.

From that list I really want to watch Django, Lincoln, Wreck-it Ralph.
Ditto on everything. McFarlane got caught up in a comedy trap that happens from time to time. He had a story to tell and he forgot to be funny and started concentrating on telling his story. The laughs, such as they were, stopped.

I very much want to see those movies, and Paranormin.

Casa De Mi Padre is on Netflix streaming. I'll have to give it another shot. I stopped watching about 1/2 way through.
 

Mikeyfell

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Bob...Where's The Grey?
But, looking at the list I can't really think what I'd knock off in favor of it. Maybe The Hobbit? Naaaaaa
I can't wait for next week's list.
 

MatsVS

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Blood Brain Barrier said:
Who are we kidding. Is there any chance bob isn't being paid for selecting these movies for his list?
Eh, I agree that this list says a lot about Bob's, shall we say, unrefined tastes, but now you're just getting into conspiracy theory territory. He makes short video capsule reviews on a middling sized video games web site. Who could possibly care enough to pay him?
 

Stamaris

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Oh, Bob. You couldn't have waited a week to do this so you could have seen Les Mis? Granted, I don't see a whole lot of movies, but that one was ah-mazing. Definitely would have made my top ten.
 

Lee Quitt

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hentropy said:
I guess I just don't 'get' Tarantino. Don't get me wrong, his movies are entertaining, I liked Pulp Fiction but it didn't change my life. It was fun, irreverent, and entertaining. I'll admit to not seeing Inglorious Basterds, because it looked like his other movies, just another good action movie, so maybe I'm missing something. They're certainly not mindless but they're not mindful either, they really have nothing to say or really interesting stories to weave. To me Django just seems like Tarantino trolling the country. "Oh, you liked my story about Jews slaughtering Nazis? Well let's see how the south likes this one!" But is it a good STORY? Or is it just another fun, well-made and entertaining killing spree movie?

Those kinds of movies just don't seem worthy of the kind of widespread critical acclaim and Oscar nods that they always seem to get, it seems like people are paying for and praising the brand (Tarantino) and not the product which might have a hard time getting a Fresh rating on the tomatometer if the same movies were made by another director.
He is a master bro. Jackie fucking Brown. Pulp Fiction is perhaps the greatest film of the 90's as well. Although I for one hated Inglorious Bastards, but you haven't seed it, and still bitched about it. odd.
 

Lyvric

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There's a couple I have not seen (ted/various cowboy hats), and a couple not in the order I would have placed them; however, I enjoyed many of these.

Not a bad list :) I look forward to seeing if any of the worst ones are ones I've seen.
 

Daria.Morgendorffer

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Thomas Guy said:
Daria.Morgendorffer said:
I'll put my eye-rolling about The Avengers aside (okay, one gripe: Awesome fight scenes? Oh, please: the opening sequence of TDKR was more imaginative and suspenseful than ANYTHING in The Avengers)
Really? TDKR was so boring I barely remember anything from the movie. The only part of that movie that was enjoyable was Bane choking Batman while he was using his "scary" voice and just for a second, Batman sounded like Cartman from South Park. Literally the only good part of that movie was the unintentional humor of the moment.
In all fairness, I wasn't talking about the whole movie (TKDR), which I liked, but was really disappointing, particularly after the opening sequence. What I said was the ONE action scene from that movie beats ANY from the other movie. The Avengers was imaginative? My ass.
 

Kinokohatake

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Daria.Morgendorffer said:
Thomas Guy said:
Daria.Morgendorffer said:
I'll put my eye-rolling about The Avengers aside (okay, one gripe: Awesome fight scenes? Oh, please: the opening sequence of TDKR was more imaginative and suspenseful than ANYTHING in The Avengers)
Really? TDKR was so boring I barely remember anything from the movie. The only part of that movie that was enjoyable was Bane choking Batman while he was using his "scary" voice and just for a second, Batman sounded like Cartman from South Park. Literally the only good part of that movie was the unintentional humor of the moment.
In all fairness, I wasn't talking about the whole movie (TKDR), which I liked, but was really disappointing, particularly after the opening sequence. What I said was the ONE action scene from that movie beats ANY from the other movie. The Avengers was imaginative? My ass.
What one action scene are you referring to? Nothing from that movie stands out except Hathaways performance and Bane's god awful voice. And I won't argue with you on the Avengers fight scenes, not because I agree, but because it's the internet and you're entitled to your opinion.
 

longboardfan

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MovieBob said:
The Best Movies of 2012

MovieBob gives us a Christmas present with the best movies of 2012.

Watch Video
I'm finding it increasingly harder to put forth any sort of in depth rebuttal, so my apologies in advance. I think 2012 can be summed up in one word: mediocre. Looking at your list, many came out in Nov/Dec shortly before this list was made. By merely stating what was good this year, you are saying more about the year as a whole than the list does to say what was good. Its noticeable because of whats NOT on the list. Many big name movies and only two are on the list. The rest are minor almost indie movies with mostly niche appeal. In a way, that's really freaking awesome, and on the other, it is telling that the big name movies were blarg at best. Spiderman, Batman, Expendables 2, Prometheus, The Grey, Total Recall, Men in Black 3, Res Evil number whatever, Brave, Judge Dredd, John Carter of Mars, Battleship, Wrath of the Titans, Madagascar 3. Ice Age: why can't we stop making these, The Bourne Legacy, whatever that James Bond movie was Skyfall?, Hunger Games, Hotel Transylvania, and so on.

cabin in the woods - you still aren't spoiling this why? No seriously, just tell us what you really think and why already. This mediocre movie with a M Knight Shamalongiling ending isn't that special or awesome. Ooo, monsters in closets in the deep earth. wooo.

cloud atlas - wait wat? when did this thing come out? pardon me for missing this, but did it not get any press? "shhh, if we don't tell anyone about the movie, then no one will go see it and say how bad it was."

django unchained - NO. Let me phrase that again. NO. two letters, one word. Easy to say, and hard to grasp apparently. Oh look, its a movie about a black guy murdering white people. Count me in! Oh and ps, the white people are all evil. All of them. Cause white men are evil. Can we talk about how white men are evil some more? Killing white men is not evil.

paranorman - mediocre movie, made okay by the ending. more of a wish fulfilment movie than a story. Acceptable, but not great. Wreck it Ralph was much better.

ted - didn't see it, never want to see it.

the avengers - omg a AAA movie on a list filled with mediocre niche movies. It was good. But not because it was going to be good, but because it HAD to be good. If it didn't do not just good, but Amazingly Awesome Wonderful Perfect, then superhero movies would have died on the spot.

the hobbit - Going to see it, haven't yet, heard it was too long. Not really worried about this movie's length, as I'm expecting an epic tale to take a while to pace itself. About time long form movies came back.

wreck it ralph - freaking amazing. this is a gold standard of how to tell a story in an American animation. All of the other animated movies that came out this year must be compared to this one.
 

Strazdas

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9. TED. it was an average run of the mill comedy, except that the goofy friend was changed into a teddy bear. they barely even exploited that angle.
i watched it just because you said it was good and was disappointing. your a good critic when it comes to movies overall. anything but comedy. that one you seem to fail every time.
 

Jeronus

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longboardfan said:
MovieBob said:
The Best Movies of 2012

MovieBob gives us a Christmas present with the best movies of 2012.

Watch Video
django unchained - NO. Let me phrase that again. NO. two letters, one word. Easy to say, and hard to grasp apparently. Oh look, its a movie about a black guy murdering white people. Count me in! Oh and ps, the white people are all evil. All of them. Cause white men are evil. Can we talk about how white men are evil some more? Killing white men is not evil.
I can tell by your comment that you have only watched the trailers. Just so you know Django's greatest ally is a white man and the biggest villain turns out to be a slave. Yes, it is a lot of black guy killing white people, but that's describing it in the most basic terms. Django isn't killing white men because they're evil. He's killing them because it's the only way to save his wife. Django actually does some questionable things in order to save his wife casting him in an unfavorable light at times. This movie isn't as clear cut as you make it out to be.
 

DemBones

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I remember Bob once saying that the movies he feels are best are ones that will improve the medium the most. In that light his choices are mostly very good. I thought that Cloud Atlas, despite its scope and goals had far too many flaws that were inherent in adapting the material. They were issues of breadth that could not be overcome because of the differences in how film and literature tell stories. However, if Cloud Atlas gets more recognition for what it tried to achieve and hopefully becomes more successful, it might lead the way for other risky, potentially great films.

The Avengers was the best example of broad, mainstream studio film-making in modern day. It's not that far removed from the classic blockbusters of the 80s, like Raiders or Back to the Future. These are films that have a myriad of flaws that you never notice until you watch them for the hundredth time, because they're terrific examples of the fantasy and escapism of film. Individual aspects of The Avengers and other Marvel films are weak (example: despite any jokes to the contrary, Bane is a better villain than Red Skull or Loki) but as a whole Avengers is a great film. It was also the best effort to date that tried to recreate the craziest aspects of comics (inter-character continuity, heroes fighting with interdimensional aliens, etc.) in a film. I adore all three of the Nolan Batman films and I personally I prefer The Dark Knight Rises over The Avengers (TDKR affected me more personally, although it seems that liking it more than Avengers puts me in the minority). However, not every comic book film needs to, or should, try to emulate the Nolan films.

With that in mind, I disagree with the comedies on the list and with The Hobbit. I can't begrudge Bob for having different comic sensibilities than me so I can't call his choices bad, but I can't stand the Will Ferrell/Adam McKay combo films. The best jokes in Ted were the ones that were the most cartoonish simply due to the film being live action (eg. drawing Peter Griffin imagining himself riding with Flash Gordon isn't very funny; having Sam Jones recreate the scene in live action is). In retrospect a lot of the jokes fell flat. I liked The Hobbit, but I found it to be a bit of a slog until the Riddles in the Dark section, which was about two hours in. I didn't watch the film in 48 fps because that format was only available for 3D prints, and I can't watch 3D.

I haven't seen Paranorman or Wreck-It-Ralph, films that are more geared towards children of today and children of the 80s. I find it hard to believe that nostalgia didn't have an effect in their placement, especially in an overall very good year for film that included Argo, Looper, Seven Psychopaths (similar idea to Cabin in the Woods, but many people seem to have forgotten about it), Headhunters, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grey, Chronicle and Beasts of the Southern Wild. I haven't seen The Master or Zero Dark Thirty yet.
 

Extragorey

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DVS BSTrD said:
And as well done as the Hobbit was, it really went over the top. And I can't understand for the life of me why Peter felt the need to resurrect a past a past villan to serve as the primary antagonist. Was really unnecessary.
If you're talking about Christopher Lee (Saruman), I would hardly call him the primary antagonist. He's not even an antagonist! His appearance was a nice call-back (or call-forward) for those who've seen Lord of the Rings (all of us, let's face it) and seeing him all but ridiculed by Gandalf was rather entertaining. Remember that he's the so-called "head wizard" at this point, and not evil in the slightest. All he does is recommend against pursuing the Dwarves' quest.
The primary antagonist in this film was the white orc, and perhaps Smaug, with the Necromancer being set up as a possible antagonist in the following films. And none of those antagonists have made any appearance in LOTR.

Now, I haven't seen Cloud Atlas, but I thought The Hobbit should have been higher on the list than the Avengers. The Avengers was a very impressive and entertaining movie, but I haven't seen anything as epic as The Hobbit since Game of Thrones finished its season. But hey, I'm probably biased since fantasy is my passion in film and literature.
 

DiMono

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No Dark Night Rises? That's disappointing. As long as it doesn't show up on this coming week's list, I suppose.
 

MrBaskerville

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Haven´t seen a lot of these movies, but i didn´t really care much for The Hobbit and Avengers, i thought they could have been a lot tighter edited in the Action Sequences, personally i felt that they dragged on for too long, especially the last scene in Avengers. But still mildly entertaining with a couple of laughs. But i think i enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises more, even though i don´t really like Nolans movies. I liked that he didn´t take himself so seriously in this one :D, a ridiculous but entertaining superhero movie.

Don´t know what i would pick as the movie of the year, haven´t seen that many 2012 movies yet. But maybe The Hijacking, that movie was intense! This must be the place is probably also going to end up as one of my favourites. Maybe Prometheus, though i need to rewatch it. Hoping to see more 2012 movies in 2013.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

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WanderingFool said:
Okay, taking bets now:

Which position will The Expendables 2 take? Personally, I cant say completely, but atleast the top five...
Have you seen Expendables 2? IMO it was actually good, nowhere near as abysmal as the first one. If they improve as much in the third one it can be genuinely great.

Still waiting to see Django, I really hope it would live up to at least some of the hype. My relationship with Tarantino movies hasn't been exactly wonderful in the past, I'm hesitantly looking forward to it.

About that cavalcade of villains joke: For fuck's sake Bob, TDKR already came out, you reviewed it, the hype has settled. Yet you still childishly harp on about it. That gag reminded me of a bully throwing rocks at a fat kid in the schoolyard after everyone has left. Seriously, who cares?