MY FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2012

So here's my twenty favourite films of 2012 in descending order. Please note: I don't claim these as the best films of the year, just the ones I personally enjoyed the most. At the bottom of this post you'll also find my five least favourite films of 2012. Enjoy.



20. REC 3
The third in the Spanish horror franchise takes a stylistic left turn from found footage to ‘proper’ film and also becomes more of a black comedy ala Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson. And it works. Bloody, brutal, blackly funny and with the coolest bride since Uma went postal on Bill. Love it.

Trailer

19. HAYWIRE
Steven Soderbergh turns his hand to action movie making in this stylish and violent tale of espionage, double crosses and revenge. Mixed martial artist Gina Carano makes her film debut as the lead, playing a betrayed spy on the run to clear her name. So far so seen it all before. But Soderbergh brings his distinctive look to proceedings as well as a much welcomed pulled back camera and steady and restrained editing to the impressive chases and fights. Carano isn’t the greatest of actors but she certainly has screen presence and charisma. And she can kick ass with the best. She’s scary and sexy and can beat the biggest baddest guys to a pulp. A flop at the cinema this is still way better than the latest Bourne effort.

Carano vs. Fassbender

18. TED
Seth Macfarlane’s directorial debut is exactly the movie you’d expect and hope from the creator of Family Guy, namely lewd, crude, geeky, clever and gut achingly funny. The years best out and out comedy by a mile.

17. SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN
A stylish and exciting retelling of the classic fairytale with added grit, black magic and battles. It’s dark enough, violent enough and intriguing enough to grab your attention. But then add in a wondrously sexy/scary turn by Charlize Theron as the evil queen and this movie had me completely in its power. Kirsten Stewart is good too as Snow and Chris Hemsworth once more oozes gruff movie star charisma as the Huntsman. Not to everyone’s tastes maybe but as a fairytale geek I loved it. Plus much more entertaining than The Hobbit.

16. THE AWAKENING
An old school British horror, The Awakening is set in the early 1920’s in an allegedly haunted boarding school for boys. Handsomely made and wonderfully slow burn and mysterious, the film features a flawless central performance from Rebecca Hall as she tries to debunk the haunting in the school only to discover some disturbing truths about her own past. Dominic West and Imelda Stanton provide excellent support in this classy, atmospheric and highly watchable chiller.

Trailer

15. BRAVE
Pixar do it again with this gorgeous looking, funny and charming adventure about making one’s own fate and fighting for your place in life. Kelly Macdonald is splendid and positively crackles with energy and warmth as the voice of Merida, our young, feisty, flame haired heroine. The rest of the voice cast are great too including Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly and Robbie Coltrane. A lovely film, especially for mothers and daughters everywhere.

14. ARGO
Ben Affleck directs and stars in this true story about the rescue of American diplomats from 1979 revolutionary Iran. Affleck directs in a straightforward and non-showy way letting the story and the actors do all the hard work. It pays off. Argo is a tense thriller with a nice line in humour and Alan Arkin stealing the show and all the best lines as a cynical movie producer who helps with the rescue plan. Great stuff.

13. THE TALL MAN
A darkly disturbing and thought provoking film from Pascal Laugier, the director of the infamous Martyrs, that goes places you aren’t expecting it to go. The Tall Man sees small town doctor Jessica Beil investigating the legend of the Tall Man along with the disappearance of several children from what is a dirt-poor American mining community. Beil is excellent in what is a multi-faceted role and Laugier raises all sorts of troubling questions and moral quandaries around issues such as poverty, parenting and how best to improve the lives and futures of our children. Powerful, affecting and horrific in its own special way, The Tall Man is intelligent horror filmmaking.

Trailer

12. PARANORMAN
A beautifully made stop motion animation from the studio that gave us the sublime Coraline, Paranorman is an affectionate ode to horror movies and to the important role scary stories play in childhood. It’s good to be scared it tells us. However it is not good to let your fear get the better of you and to then hurt others because of it. The movie looks great and the voice talent does sterling work. There are even a couple of proper scares in there to make you jump. But the film finds its real power towards the end as the truth of things is revealed and its message of not letting fear lead to bad things hits home in a sad and genuinely affecting way.

11. LOOPER
Rian Johnson’s time travel thriller is a riveting tale of nature vs. nurture and of changing ones fate. Bruce Willis comes back in time, avoids being murdered by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his younger self, before setting out to change his fate and the future in a radical way. Small scale but with big ideas Looper is a quality thriller that plays with genre in a similar way in which Johnson’s film Brick did. Willis and Levitt are great, as is the lovely Emily Blunt. But it is young Pierce Gagnon as Blunt’s son Cid who proves quite astonishing in what is a challenging and significant role. Quality scifi.

10. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO
David Fincher’s English language version of Stieg Larsson’s darkly disturbing crime novel is a better film than the Swedish original, being far more cinematic and losing the TV movie feel. Daniel Craig is very good as investigative journalist Blomkvist who’s trying to uncover the mystery of the long vanished niece of Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger. But it is Rooney Mara as damaged-but-genius hacker Lisbeth Salander who makes the biggest impact. Noomi Rapace was fabulous in the Swedish film and is still the definitive Lisbeth, but Mara comes a very close second. Intense stuff.

9. THE RAID
Welsh director Gareth Evans’ Indonesian action flick is a stupidly violent, stupidly inventive movie that puts almost all Hollywood actioners of recent years to shame. A bunch of special forces cops enter a building owned by a crime boss who locks the building down and offers his tenants big rewards if they kill off all the cops. What follows is an uber-violent bloody battle as our main cop hero Rama must fight his way to the big boss before then escaping the building in one piece. It’s as simply plotted as that, but is pure bone breaking, bullet ridden genius in its execution. A sequel is on its way. Yay!

Claycat’s version of The Raid (awesome!)

8. CHRONICLE
Josh Trank’s found footage superhero drama is a genius little film that delves in to a troubled teenaged psyche before eventually unleashing the fury of a super villain on to the world in a gritty and ‘realistic’ way. A group of teenage friends develop telekinetic powers after encountering an apparent glowing meteorite in the woods. It’s all fun and pranks at first but things soon get dark and deadly as one of the group of teenagers growing fury at the world finally pushes him over the edge. Cue a big final superhero smackdown filmed in a handheld digicam documentary style but with the huge scope of the end battle of Superman 2. Brilliant stuff!

7. THE HUNGER GAMES
Gary Ross’s film of Suzanne Collins young adult best seller is thankfully far and away from being just another sappy Twilight tweenfest. Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence is fabulous as Katniss, our young and resourceful heroine who, to save her younger sister, agrees to take her place in the barbaric future sport of the title – an annual fight to the death against lots of other children in a huge forested arena. Themes of fear and control and societal repression abound in what is a brutal (though thankfully not gratuitous) and intensely compelling story of inner strength and outer resistance. At last, an intelligent and daring movie franchise aimed at tweens with a strong, selfless and likeable female main character who we can all admire.

6. SKYFALL
Bond is back in Sam Mendes’ stylish, exciting and thematically rich deconstruction and reconstruction of the 007 mythos. Daniel Craig is an intense, emotional and deeply scarred but also humorous Bond, Javier Bardem is the best Bond villain in years, and Judi Dench proves to be perhaps the best Bond girl ever. The stunning Istanbul chase at the start is the action highlight but the drama and the characters hum with power all the way through to the deeply personal ending of what is a Bond film quite unlike all other Bond films. After the rubbish Quantum of Solace we can breathe a collective sigh of relief and say that Bond is most definitely back!

5. JOHN CARTER
Andrew Stanton’s mega-budgeted adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s classic pulp scifi novel A Princess of Mars may have been a box office flop but I for one bloody loved it. A long time fan of Burroughs’ Barsoom tales I thought Stanton captured the epic romantic sweep of the books extremely well. And boy, did it look good, especially the gorgeous Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, who made the role her own in a performance of great sensitivity and steely strength. What a woman! As Carter, Taylor Kitch was fine while great support came from Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Dominic West and a stupidly charismatic James Purefoy. Michael Giachino’s score soared and the FX were mostly stunning. A damn shame then that we won’t get a sequel. Get your ass to Mars!

John Carter has a big fight

4. DREDD
Oh thank God, they got it right. That was my first thought after watching Pete Travis’ Dredd. Forget Sly Stallone’s rubbish Judge Dredd movie, this is the real deal. Karl Urban goes all Eastwood in his spot on performance as the UK’s favourite fascistic future lawman. The plot is essentially the same as The Raid but the execution is gratuitous art house with some stunningly beautiful imagery of utterly horrific things. A violent, no nonsense future thriller, Dredd kicks unholy ass. Urban rules as Dredd but kudos too to the splendid Olivia Thrilby as rookie Judge Anderson and to the always great Lena Headey as vile villain Ma-Ma. Sadly Dredd made no money at the box office so there will be no sequels. Boo!

Trailer

3. THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
2012 is the year the rest of the world discovered what I already knew – Joss Whedon IS God! The Cabin in the Woods, written by Whedon and Buffy/Angel alumni Drew Goddard, and directed by Goddard, is a gloriously clever, funny, wicked homage/undercutting of the entire horror movie genre. See this and you’ll never look at a horror film in quite the same way again. The cast has fun playing twists on intentional archetypes, while the script is so damn sharp you could slice ham on it. Okay, so it isn’t actually that scary, but the fun to be had here is huge. And if you get it, then you REALLY get it. This year’s film with the biggest potential for DVD freeze framing, The Cabin in the Woods is an endlessly inventive blast.

Truth or dare

2. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Christopher Nolan only went and bloody did it. The study of a man broken down by a lie and a perceived loss of purpose, TDKR may not quite reach the same dizzy heights as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight but it is still a deeply intelligent, thunderingly intense thriller. Bale is fab yet again, this time joined by Tom Hardy on splendidly odd and imposing form as Bane. However it is the beautiful and monstrously talented Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle who steals the movie with such slinky purr-fection. Yes, a few plot points don’t make much sense and the story relies on a few too many coincidences and contrivances to make it perfect, but its grandly thematic, operatic sweep overcomes such trifling quibbles. In the end The Dark Knight Rises ends up as 99% the triumph we’d all hoped it would be. And that’s good enough for me.

Trailer…in Lego

1. MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS
Oh Joss, you wonderful man you. Who else on this puny little planet could have been the ringmaster for such a huge and potentially messy and convoluted circus? Thank God then that Marvel had the brains and the balls to hire him for the gig. Of course, to us, his fans, it made perfect sense from the start. The man does motley outsiders who come together to form their own functional family unit in his sleep. It’s his bread and butter (see Buffy, Angel, Firefly). He is also a life long comics nerd who has actually written for Marvel and also runs his own comics line for Dark Horse. So a no brainer then. Except that his only prior movie making credit was the utterly brilliant but box office flop of Serenity. Anyway, he got the gig. And The Avengers came out…. And made a Billion-and-a-half dollars world wide while getting almost unanimous critical acclaim. So what if it ain’t so deep and clever? What The Avengers is, is big, brassy, funny, balls to the wall FUN! Don’t underestimate how hard it would be to make a movie like this work. So many big characters to balance, so many stories to serve, actors to give their appropriate screen time to, big action and drama beats to cover. But Joss does it all with so much apparent ease. You watch it and think, of course, that’s how you make a movie like this. Okay, so he isn’t the most cinematic of directors but he more than compensates where his talents really lie - in character and in making you care about the people. That is at least partly why The Avengers works so damn well. Plus it is very, very funny. Oh, and it also has the “And Hulk… Smash!” moment, my single favourite moment of any film this year. A moment that never fails to make me lose my shit. In the end, what The Avengers is, is the purest form of escapist fun to be had at the cinema this year. In many ways The Dark Knight Rises may be the better film, but for pure putting a huge silly grin on my face movie going, Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Nick Fury just can’t be beat. Make mine Marvel and bring on Phase 2. Oh yeah, and Joss IS Boss!

Live to Rise (Soundgarden music video)


Almost made its: The Woman in Black, Detention, The Hobbit, Prometheus, Kill List, 21 Jump Street, Young Adult


MY FIVE LEAST FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2012

5. WRATH OF THE TITANS
Not so much a Greek tragedy, more a Greek travesty. If you thought the first one was pants then I dare you to watch this dim-witted toss of a sequel.

4. THE DEVIL INSIDE
The kind of horror film that give horror films a bad name being stupid, dull and deeply unscary. Do yourself a favour and do not try to ‘possess’ this silly little devil. If you want a low budget mockumentary film about demonic possession then go get the excellent The Last Exorcism instead.

3. THE DARKEST HOUR
Never has an alien invasion been so bloody dull and uneventful. The cgi energy beam aliens were shit but I was still rooting for them to hurry up and kill the annoying American teens arsing about in Moscow doing bugger all for 90mins. If they turned a corner they might have run in to the equally annoying American teens getting ready to go visit Chernobyl. Sigh.

2. THIS MEANS WAR
Laugh? No. No I really didn’t. At all. Here, McG wastes lots of Fox’s money on a big budget and deeply stupid, deeply tiresome and woefully unfunny romantic action comedy that somehow manages to take the genuinely likeable and talented Tom Hardy, Chris Pine and Reece Witherspoon and make you hate them with a passion. Hmm, quite the achievement really when you think about it. Way to go, McG.

1. STRIPPERS VS. WEREWOLVES
Oh sweet baby Jesus, make Billy Murray (dad of yummy Jamie) and his friends stop making these ultra cheap, ultra terrible British ‘horror’ movies. I managed only half of this one as it was so unbearably terrible on every conceivable level. Just avoid, okay? Your life is way too short for this sort of punishment.

Proof of terribleness

Awesomeness Assembled

I f*****g LOVED Marvel’s The Avengers!

Any worries that this might have ended up an epic and misjudged disaster or simply Iron Man and his Amazing Friends were pretty quickly dispelled. The Avengers is basically a SHEILD movie that features Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Hulk in equal measure. They all get equal screen time and are served with full character arcs. If anything it can be argued that Avengers ends up more as Hulk’s movie as his is the character that pretty much destroys every scene he is in…in fabulous ways. Hulk is the one audiences will lose their shit for. He owns.

To be honest, I wasn’t overly worried about The Avengers not being great, at least not once I knew Marvel had hired my own personal god Joss Whedon to write/direct. I had faith. I just wondered what degree of great it would be? Because when allowed to pursue his own vision Joss has never let me down. Plus he’s a huge comic book geek having written comics for Marvel (as well as his own Buffyverse ones for Dark Horse) meaning that with The Avengers the guy was on home turf.

And Joss didn’t let me down.

I've been a Marvel fan (solid fan, not rabid) since I was a lil' kid and a massive (semi-rabid) Whedon fan since I saw the very first episode of Buffy waaay back in 1997. So, match made in heaven much?

Hell yeah!

What Joss has done is to make The Avengers a joyful, colourful, exciting, old fashioned, non-cynical, non-revisionist superhero adventure ripped right out of the pages of classic era Marvel. It is Fun with a capital F. But he’s also gone and added his own tropes making it smart, witty, laugh out loud funny and adding familiar Whedon themes of thrown together ‘families’, of troubled, flawed outsiders finding strength in each other and in a common purpose. Oh yeah, and kick ass women who struggle with the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Yes, the action is spectacular and a whole load of awesome but as always with Joss it is the dialogue, humour and wonderful character arcs/beats that you really take away with you. If nothing else, what he manages to do with Hulk makes this one damn great movie. And then when you add in Downey Jr, Evans et al then my tiny little geek brain goes and explodes all over the shop. But going back to the action, we of course get the promised hero on hero fights – all of which are great (love the early Thor/Iron Man tussle). But Joss being Joss all the fights and the action have emotional weight. The characters aren’t just fighting each other; they are fighting themselves and their own issues/demons. Also, I love how the end battle is huge yet expertly staged, easy to follow and strategically contained to a relatively small area – done so deliberately by Cap who steps up to be the team’s battle commander and does an awesome job of it. The scene where he barks out orders to a bunch of bemused NYC cops and convinces them pretty darn quick not to question their new Captain is fab. He then does the same to the rest of the Avengers. And they listen and obey. And why not? The man knows his shit. Captain America, f**k yeah!

The entire Avengers cast is fantastic. Downey Jr is full on egotistical but charmingly playful and razor sharp as Stark. Evans is nobly stoic and effortlessly commanding as Cap. Hemsworth is wonderfully sensitive yet also hugely powerful and charismatic as Thor. Sam Jackson is, well, Sam Jackson as Nick Fury. And Jeremy Renner is cool and nicely low key as Hawkeye. However the three standouts are Scarlett Johansson as a deeply troubled, guilt ridden Black Widow, Tom Hiddleston as a venomous and barkingly mad Loki, and the best of the bunch, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk. Ruffalo as Banner/Hulk pretty much steals the show. He gets the movie’s biggest cheer moments with ‘Thor Puncher’ and "Puny God" turning me in to a giggling idiot. What Joss has done here is to allow Hulk to be a fully formed character and to make Banner someone who is more or less at peace with who and what he is. Basically Joss has allowed Banner and Hulk to be heroes, and to have fun. And Ruffalo does great, great work in both human and big green form (he acted Hulk via mocap unlike what was done in the previous Hulks). This is by far the best treatment of the character yet seen on screen.

But what about the actual story?

Okay, so the basic story of The Avengers is nothing original or particularly special. It’s a pretty standard alien invasion job played out like a superhero Dirty Dozen. Dastardly Loki hooks up with an alien army to invade Earth, which he wants to have for himself. In exchange he’ll get the aliens the cosmic crystal which is currently in the hands of SHIELD. That’s your prologue. The rest of the film is then your classic three-act structure. Act one is introducing the threat of Loki to Earth and then SHIELD rounding up The Avengers with those super egos quickly butting heads…and everything else. Act 2 is the guys coming together, working out their differences and what to do about stopping Loki (mostly on the SHEILD helicarrier) before being beaten down by events and dividing. Act 3 is the heroes finding their inner resolve, coming back together and setting out to stop Loki’s army invading Earth is what turns out to be a huge battle on the streets and in the skies of New York. It’s pretty functional stuff. But what elevates it are its many constituent parts and how Joss fits them all together concentrating on set-ups and payoffs and keeping strong character arcs front and centre. He even gets to play with a regular Whedon theme – mistrust of authority/governments. SHIELD are the good guys…or are they? But above all, what Joss does with his movie is to always keep the tone fun. Even when things get heavy and bleak there’s always a witty line or a perfectly timed sight gag just around the corner. And Joss being Joss he loves to undercut things and/or subvert expectations. Loki’s final beating by a certain angry green dude being a prime and hilarious example of both.

In the end, The Avengers is quite the achievement. It’s not a perfect film. Not many films are. But considering the many genre and story/character constraints Whedon inherited and had to stick to, he’s done one helluva job. In anyone else’s hands this could easily have ended up a shallow, lopsided, godawful mess. But in Joss’s hands it’s a smartly written, well-paced, well-balanced and massively entertaining piece of pop culture blockbuster entertainment. The Dark Knight Rises will most likely end up as the year’s best superhero film and possibly its best film, period. But The Avengers will likely end up as the most out and out fun.

What with this and The Cabin in the Woods, 2012 is the year Joss Whedon let the rest of the world know what we, his long time loyal fans, have known for a long time: Joss is Boss.

2011: MY YEAR IN FILMS

It’s that time again.

After some not so careful consideration here’s my favourite and most loathed movies of 2011 plus a brief look at the coolest flicks for 2012.

So here goes…

TOP TEN FAVE FILMS OF 2011:

10. Captain America: The First Avenger

This position was a toss up between Cap and Thor, Marvel’s two in house produced entries in to this year’s summer movie season. Both were excellent with Kenneth Branagh doing a bang up job bringing the God of Thunder to life. However I marginally preferred Cap as it hit my geek buttons slightly more. It’s the 1940’s WW2 setting, the genuinely sweet romance between Steve Rogers and hot English agent Peggy Carter, the uncredited Joss Whedon rewrite (you can tell in places) and that killer ending, plus the teaser for Joss’s The Avengers after the end credits. Kudos to director Joe Johnston and star Chris Evans et al for handling potentially silly and corny material with wit, warmth and a steady hand. Make mine Marvel.

9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tomas (Let the Right One In) Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carre’s 1970’s spy thriller is a beautifully written, acted and directed film with a refreshingly adult tone. It’s a complex, slow burn film that requires patience, attention and a certain level of intelligence from its audience. As much as I love my fun/escapist movie entertainment it is a welcome relief to go and see something now and again that is unapolagetically adult and demanding of its audience. A smart, thoughtful and engrossing film packed with great acting turns from Gary Oldman as lead George Smiley, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy.

8. Sucker Punch

Haters be gone! Zack Snyder’s pop video/video game/musical/art house movie is a thematically rich and visually stunning delight featuring his usual bravura explosion of cutting edge-and-beyond filmmaking techniques. It’s like Inception meets Shawshank Redemption meets Girl, Interrupted by way of all sorts of hyper stylised video games and fevered fantasies. Sucker Punch is a much maligned and misunderstood feast for the eyes as well as for the brain, if only the lazy and the thick could be bothered to dig a little deeper. Covering thematic areas such as the objectification and abuse of women, it kinda makes for a weird companion piece to Lucky McKee’s The Woman (see below). Wicked stuff.

7. The Woman

Lucky McKee writes and directs only his third major film (after May and The Woods), working once again with his muse and good luck charm, actress Angela Bettis. The Woman is a brutal, shocking, disturbing but brilliant treaties on the way women can be viewed and treated by men. In the film, a feral woman is captured in the forest by the brutal father of a family and kept locked in a shed where she becomes the object of the father’s and his son’s fascination/anger/desire. The father wants to ‘train’ The Woman in to becoming more human, more of what he believes a woman should be – compliant, grateful, subservient – the way he has ‘trained’ his downtrodden wife (Bettis) and teenage daughter. Secrets and brutality reign in this isolated family. But those secrets are about to come out. And the Woman is looking to get loose. McKee is a smart director, unflinching in what he does, what he shows. Angela Bettis is great as always as the poor mother, but it is Sean Bridgers as the vile father and statuesque one-time model Pollyanna McIntosh as The Woman who stun. Hard viewing for sure, but a great film none-the-less.

6. Hugo

Martin Scorsese takes a break from gangsters and thrillers to make a film about a young orphan boy in 1930’s Paris looking to make one last desperate connection with his dead father. Hugo is about several things – family, friendship, our place in the world, how everyone effects everyone else in some way, about the importance of stories to humankind. Most of all, though, Hugo is a love letter to cinema itself, to its origins, its history, its power in unleashing imagination, in lighting up the world. This is all hung on the backbone of a fun and glorious looking kids adventure as young Hugo (the excellent Asa Butterfield) and new best friend Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) try to recover Hugo’s father’s notebook and repair an old clockwork automaton. Scorsese recreates 30’s Paris as a wondrous retro city of lights, full of great gothic buildings, high towers, sweeping snowy vistas. It looks amazing. He also uses 3D in possibly the best way I’ve yet seen it used. It serves as an intrinsic part of the story. Seeing how Hugo is about cinema and its progression, then 3D becomes the latest aspect of that. And Scorsese uses the extra dimension to dizzying effect in some scenes and in some truly weird and cool ways in others. It’s the one film this year I’d say that you must see in 3D if at all possible so it can tell its story properly. Everything about Hugo is brilliant, technically, artistically, and thematically. It might just be my favourite Scorsese picture yet. Way to go, Marty!

5. Super 8

JJ Abrams writes and directs this late 1970’s set homage to all things Spielberg and Amblin as a group of small town kids get together one summer to make a horror movie before events intervene to set them on a scary real life adventure. The story itself may not be very original but, as always, it is the telling of the story that counts. The core of Super 8 is the kids and their relationships with each other and with their parents. Great genre pieces aren’t really about monsters or spaceships etc. they are about people, about life, about how we live our lives. And that’s what Super 8 is. It’s a film about childhood, about friendship, about kids relating to, and dealing with parents, and vice versa. And the kids here are outstanding. They act and sound like real kids, not the usual super sweet or overly adult Hollywood kids we usually get. They are real. They are recognisable. Super 8 is a smart, scary, touching, beautifully made ode to a time gone by.

4. Tangled

Tangled is a joy from start to finish. It's a laugh-out-loud funny and immensely charming CG animation from Disney based upon the classic story of Rapunzel. The character animation here is nothing short of astounding and the warm, sharp script crackles and zings with wit while Zachary Levi, Mandy Moore and Donna Murphy are all pitch perfect in their voice roles. This was almost as big a surprise as last year’s How to Train Your Dragon. I can’t emphasise enough how awesome this film looks as well as the razor sharpness of its script and its performances. Too good for kids, do yourself a favour and see it, preferably in HD. Even the songs are good.

3. Drive

Well now, I didn’t see this one coming. Ryan Gosling is a loner Hollywood stunt driver and mechanic by day/wheelman for villains by night who gets close to his cute neighbour (Carey Mulligan) and her kid. But when Mulligan’s husband comes out of prison and is targeted by vicious gangsters, Gosling offers to help him by driving for a job that will clear the father’s debts. Of course it all goes horribly wrong, putting Gosling, the mother and her kid in terrible danger. Cue lots of car chases, blood, death and tears. Drive is an odd film. But a brilliant film. Its oddball director Nicolas Winding-Refyn has described it as an existential, noir action thriller. I’m not sure I know what that means. To me, Drive is basically a western. Gosling’s character has no name, being referred to simply as the Driver. He’s a gifted troubled loner who, like in Shane etc. steps in to help save a family from dastardly outlaws. The story is simple, brutal, touching and utterly compelling. And the car chases are realistic and brilliantly shot. The film also looks fantastic with a sleek, dark, gritty look. And the performances are also excellent, especially the always wonderful and luminous Mulligan and a genuinely nasty turn by Albert Brooks. Winding-Refyn previously made the bonkers Bronson and the boring as hell Valhalla Rising. Drive is not bonkers and is far from boring. See it.

2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Let’s face it, this had the potential to be utter crap…just like Tim Burton’s 2001 Apes remake. Wisely though, Fox opted for a prequel/reboot, hired some good writers, a strong, visionary director and somehow allowed him get on and make the film he wanted to make. Oh yeah, they also hired Weta to do the FX (big thumbs up) and Andy Serkis to play lead chimp Caesar (bigger thumbs up). The end result is Brit director Rupert Wyatt, in only his second feature, knocking it out of the park. ROTPOTA is brilliant! It’s an intelligent scifi thriller, a cautionary tale about what we do to our environment and to other species. It’s also just a damn good, old fashioned, revolt/underdog strikes back adventure ala Spartacus and numerous prison escape films. Caesar is simply a great character as played by Serkis. Following his life and his rise to power is mesmerising and thrilling. And not once do Wyatt and co. drop the ball. The build up has been so strong that the eventual Apes vs. humans showdown is stunning, reaching a skin tingling pinnacle in Caesar’s spoken roar of protest. A great movie then, and a more than worthy addition to one of the greatest scifi franchises of all time. Go Ape!

1. X-Men: First Class

How the hell did this happen? How did Fox, a studio well known for big budget summer cockups, make my two favourite films of the year? The world has gone mad. Anyway, it happened, so there. Just so you know, I bloody love this movie. I love the X-Men anyway, especially Bryan Singer’s two movies. Forgetting that naff Brett Ratner effort and the risible Wolverine thing, X-Men First Class proves to be the right and proper successor to Singer’s X-Men and X2. In fact, Mr Singer came back and was producer here. Thank God! Mathew (Kick-Ass) Vaughn is now the director for this utterly brilliant 1960’s set prequel to Singer’s fantastic X-Men and X2. James McAvoy is a young Prof. X who meets up with Michael Fassbender’s Nazi hunting Magneto and together they must try to stop evil ex-Nazi Kevin Bacon from starting World War 3. Rich in story and character, X-Men: First Class is a slick and exciting superhero action adventure with genuine heart and soul as well as some pulse quickening action and mighty fine spectacle. The entire cast is great but the never better Fassbender is the real star. The A list awaits him. So, forget the barely adequate X-Men: The Last Stand and the godawful X-Men origins: Wolverine, this one’s the real X deal.

The best of the rest (in no particular order):

Thor - Marvel-ous God of Thunder
Hanna - Fairytale teen assassin goes a killin’
True Grit - Jeff Bridges does grizzled in the Cohen Bros. fantastic remake.
M:I-4 - See Tom run, see Tom hang from tall buildings.
Attack the Block – Heroic hoodies vs. nasty alien beasties.
Super – scary psycho vigilante and his even scarier sidekick bash in skulls.
The King’s Speech – Royal stuttering becomes feel good drama.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil – two misunderstood rednecks try to survive a bunch of lunatic college kids.
A Lonely Place to Die – Melissa George tries to save a child from kidnappers in the Scottish mountains.
Stakeland – Grim survival in a post-apocalyptic vampire filled USA.

The top three new-to-me films I saw in 2011 which weren't released in 2011 (And yes, it's a Ghibli fest)

3. My Neighbour Totoro

Hayao Miyazaki’s utterly captivating and charming story of childhood innocence, freedom and imagination. If you don’t watch this with a big ‘ol smile on your face then you have a heart of stone. It’s fun, it’s imaginative, and it’s immensely sweet in a totally unsentimental way. There’s no bad guys, no violence, just a whole bucket load of kindness towards, and admiration for, the free and innocent spirit of young children. A joyful family classic from Studio Ghibli.

2. Grave of the Fireflies

In total contrast to Totoro we have this utterly devastating animated film (animated but not produced by Ghibli) telling the story of a young orphan boy and his little sister struggling to survive in devastated WW2 Japan. Grave of the Fireflies is powerful, affecting filmmaking that delivers more than one emotional gut punch to its audience. It sits up their alongside the likes of Schindler’s List as one of THE most effective attacks on the horrors of war being inflicted upon the most innocent. A hard watch. A great film.

1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki’s awesome 1984 scifi/Eco adventure tells of a far future Earth and a young princess in a hidden valley having to save her people from ever encroaching poisonous jungles, huge vicious beasts, and warring tribes of humans in mechanised flying fortresses. James Cameron obviously nicked loads of this for Avatar and has admitted to being a big fan. Miyazaki’s film is the superior one though. The story here is more complex, more layered, richer in theme and character than Cameron’s film. It also looks amazing.

THE FIVE FILMS I HATED MOST IN 2011:

5. The Chronicles of Narnia: the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Boy, Michael Apted sure knows how to make a dull movie. Not content with sending Bond fans in to boredom induced comas with the rubbish (except for the ace pre-credit sequence) The World is Not Enough, he then went and did the same to kiddie winkies the world over with this flat, dull, episodic, horrifically blatant Christian propaganda trash. There’s no proper story, just some random arsing about on the water before that bloody lion turns up again at the end. Somebody please kill this franchise.

4. Shark Night 3D

A boring, bloodless, boobless, pointless exploitation movie with no sodding exploitation. What a waste of 80 mins. A bunch of sharks are let loose in a salt-water lake to munch on a bunch of bland, annoying teens. Utter rubbish. If you want some quality fishy exploitation fun then see Piranha 3D instead. Now THAT’S how you do it.

3. Season of the Witch

Yay! The bottom five wouldn’t seem right without Nicolas Cage. And this putrid turd fits the bill nicely. I can’t even remember why I hated it so much, only that I did. I recall vague flashes of anger at the way the film depicted the witch of the title and how bloody dumb and annoying the story and characters were. Anyway, it sucked.

2. The Howling Reborn

Some bright spark decided to reboot the long dead Howling franchise by turning it in to a quasi-Twilight effort set in a swanky American private school. DOH! So here we get an annoying teenage boy moping around the place, giving uber-pretentious voiceovers of absurd irony-free self-analytical dialogue you wouldn’t even hear in the worst episode of Dawson’s Creek. This is all because said bland and mopey teen boy feels like an outsider and has a yearning love thang going on for an equally bland and mopey teen girl. Soon though, mopey boy and girl get together and get caught up in some shit about a long lost werewolf mommy coming back to reclaim her kid. Yikes! This is Howling PG-13 for the kids. The werewolf FX are actually ok (when we finally see them) but blood and gore is almost non-existent, as are any scares, tension, or genuine depth to the shitty story. The really annoying thing is that this obviously had some sort of budget to it. It actually looks pretty good with good locations, glossy/gritty photography, nice helicopter shots of cityscapes, a decent score, and some pretty decent FX. It’s just a shame the script is terrible and the director utterly clueless. Bad wolf!

1. My Soul To Take

I always new Wes Craven could be a shit moviemaker but this was ridiculous. Over his entire career Wes has made two great movies and two very good movies. The great ones are A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven’s A New Nightmare. The very good ones are Scream and the original The Hills Have Eyes. Everything else ranges from okay (Scream 2, 3, 4/The People Under the Stairs) to the utter shite (Shocker/Last House on the Left/Vampire in Brooklyn). But Wes reached a new nadir with this one. He wrote this himself, you know. It’s some nonsensical crap about teens in a small town who share the same birthday as some long dead local killer, getting themselves killed off one by one in the most boring, workmanlike ways possible. Is lead teen possessed by the long dead killer? Who the fuck cares? I was bored rigid for the entire running time. As the barely adequate Scream 4 shows us, Craven has long passed his sell by date. Let the old codger retire. He gave us Freddy Krueger. His good work is done.

The rest of the worst: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Your Highness, Insidious, Fast Five.

MY FIVE MOST LOOKED FORWARD TO FILMS OF 2012:

5. Skyfall – Daniel Craig is back as Bond. Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes co-star with Sam Mendes directing.

4. The Avengers – God…I mean Joss Whedon writes and directs Marvel’s superhero team up. Major Yayness!


3. Prometheus – Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender star in Ridley Scott’s scifi thriller set in the Alien universe about the origins of human life.


2. The Hobbit Part 1 – Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth for more Tolkien. What’s not to love?


1. The Dark Knight Rises – Christopher Nolan finishes off his Batman trilogy in what is sure to be grim yet stunning style.