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After the
power went out last night I decided to just postpone writing my Top 5, but here
there are, just like I planned I did my reviews for the movies of 2012 before
the end of January just like I hoped.
Now to stop reviewing things for a while cause my brain is tired.
5. Award for Best Soft Science Fiction: "Looper" (Trailer)
Time travel
movies are a pain in the ass from a scripting/plotting position. By their very nature they are trying to
express a metaphor for life without coming out and saying it, but people get so
bogged down in the details of the mechanics (and really that is part of the
fun) that they miss the point.
Take
"Back to the Future" (Trailer), a big thrust of that Franchise is how the more
things change, the more they stay the same.
There are restaurants catering to nostalgia; there are campaign vans
doing announcements; in each movie there are similar instances of the main
character, Marty confronting bullies, in the 1950's he soundly defeats them, in
2015 he barely gets away unscathed, in 1885 he is nearly murdered. The point is to illustrate how certain world
views would come into conflict in different eras, but there is a sense of
repetition and contrast.
"Looper"
has a very different message, one that has to do with the cyclical nature of
one's decisions and how they affect others.
If you could go into the past to kill your hated enemy as a child, would
you try to change the path your younger self is on, and how would seeing what
you eventually become change your view on the world. There is a lot that can be said about trying
to kill your own future self, not just through bad decision making but by
actually trying to shoot him/you.
9/10
4. Award for Best Horror Movie, and Arguably Best Comedy:
"Cabin in the Woods" (Trailer)
I am the
first to argue that Horror as a genre needs some fresh perspectives on
itself. They (as well as much of
Hollywood) have begun the horrific act of self cannibalism as they reuse old
franchises, old tropes, and haven't gotten anything "new" in recent
time outside of going more and more extreme with violence.
And I
understand why, it is hard to come up with a new idea, design it, produce it,
and then sell it. Even making something
classic well is difficult because trying to put a new spin on something like
vampires or werewolves isn't possible because they have been run so far into
the ground.
"Cabin
in the Woods" is the ultimate destination for horror, and I would go so
far as to say that it kind of broke the whole genre down to its core. It vivisects the idea of people being in the
middle of nowhere under assault by monsters.
"Cabin" addresses the soulless machine that produces the
movies, it addresses the audiences, it addresses the element of escalation. This movie is great.
Let me
leave with this, at one point the heroes are cornered, and they concoct a
plan. Logically what happens would
require slightly more effort but I don't think anybody should care. This movie gets to a point in which you do
not think it can go any more insane, and then they hit (what I will call) THE
AWESOME BUTTON and the whole thing just takes off into new levels of HOLY-SHIT.
9/10
3. Award for Most Awesome Dystopia: "Dredd" (Trailer)
I like
dystopias, they are some of my favorite social commentaries as they mostly just
reductio ad absurdum a current trend in the modern world. "Blade Runner" (a movie I do not really like) in which you can buy and sell androids that are more human than
human, leaving the audience to question what happened to the dumb masses as
they are literally buying people.
"1984" was the totalitarian regime of history re-writing
fascists, a world in which... well, I guess we can all debate which political
ideology won the Cold War in that universe, in my opinion it could have been
anyone. Or "Mad Max" when the
world is slowly creeping toward depletion and nobody has a way of making
civilization sustainable again.
"Dredd"
is a simpler commentary than that, it is about the escalating nature of the war
on crime, the problems that a future of urban sink will cause, and the possible
necessity of much more draconian police work.
Whoo-boy is this movie fun: violence is not toned down, a guy's head is melted in the cold opener, numerous people are burned to death, skinned, shot,
exploded, or die choking on their own crushed throat bones, frequently this
violence is shown in slow motion, and the slow motion is not gratuitous, but is
actually a plot point. This is the sort
of violent dystopia that "The Hunger Games" (Trailer) was supposed to be, and
couldn't attain because of its market.
I pray to Metztli
this movie sells enough on DVD to get its sequel because the theater release
was not strong enough even in 3D. When
this thing hits 15$ I think I will snap it up because it really needs to be
bought and supported, like its brother in arms, "Kick-Ass". (Trailer)
9/10
2. Award for Most Cathartic Violence: "Django Unchained" (Trailer)
While
"Dredd" has violence against criminals that are law breakers and
violent monsters in many cases, and the violence feels good when it is exacted
on the bad guys, the truth is, "Dredd" is commenting on a future that
has not happened yet and uses its style to explore a very strange and dark
future that is rather easy to avoid.
"Django Unchained" is a very clever and powerful exploration
of an era in history that already happened.
The
violence in "Django" is not against law breakers and crooks, it is
against the plutocrats that have grown rich and fat off a monstrous
civilization wide failure. The villains
have their own twisted perspectives, they have their own beliefs, they have
there own families and histories, they love and hate different things, in
short, the bad guys are more human and believable, and as such their monstrous
behavior ending in a chaotic over the top explosion of violence on the part of
the hero feels good on a deeper level.
"Django"
has smart dialogue, human characters, powerful scenes, and a full and dark
exploration of slavery that juxtaposes so well with the almost cartoon like
levels of violence to produce a very rich and thought provoking movie that is
so worth the time to watch it.
10/10
1. Award for best Realization of my Dreams to Date:
"Avengers" (Trailer)
I like
superheroes. This is no secret, I have
written more than 50 blog entries on the topic of comic book super heroes (of
which I have only migrated 3 onto this particular blog, but that is really more
of a house keeping issue than a strike against my favorite hobby), I have
hundreds of comic books, I have read probably more than a thousand (I have
never really put together a good estimate) I have created my own characters
since I was a kid, and I have had any number of contacts with the genre of
superheroes my whole life because I love it.
"Avengers"
rocked my socks. Yes there are little
things in it that don't make sense (except most of the ones people cite do make
sense if you think about things from the perspective of the character doing the
action) but those are few and don't matter.
Things build and build and then release in the best action scene of the
year. The whole movie is filled with
good dialogue and interesting characters interacting. The thing is just excitement and fun and it
makes me feel like a kid watching the characters I treasure so much come to
life to fight a villain that I really like and understand and feel somewhat sorry
for. This is the stuff young Josh would
have loved to get growing up and the idea that it exists for current Josh to
appreciate and that more of the things I love will come to life in time makes
me feel good about the cultural future I get to be a part of. We collectively are looking up to big heroes
and big ideas and in the long run that is important, we should think big, we
should dream big, and that should be what our biggest and best movies should
be.
10/10
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