My 2012 Top 10 Movies

MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2012

10. Savages – This is not a pick I’m prepared to defend. I miss California and somehow this movie capture a lot of people I knew there and miss. 

9. 21 Jump Street – Probably would have rated higher if I got any of the self-referential material from the TV show. In my advancing years, it comes as a relief that I’m still too young to remember it.

8. The Campaign – You had me at Philipino tilt-a-whirl operators are the backbone of this nation.

7. Ted – You had me at Family Guy meets Flash Gordon

6. Marvel’s Avengers –Weinstein may have all the power, but Marvel has all of our money.

5. The Grey – Hear me out. Yes it’s Liam Neeson fighting wolves with his bare hands. But there’s something personal in it, like everything Liam Neeson’s done since his wife died, and this being the purest expression of that anguish. Under the hood, the film is secretly an extended pre-suicide metaphor, which upon reflection raises deeply troubling questions about what it’s trying to say. It’s visually beautiful too. A movie that stays with you for days. Let me put it this way: Roger Ebert walked out of a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT movie he was so disturbed by the memory of this movie.

4. The Dark Knight Rises – So it didn’t quite match its predecessor. Nevertheless, Nolan managed to remake Batman as the most important work yet on the nature of terrorism in a liberal society, and he did so while satisfying its legion of comic fanboys and the much deeper ranks of cheap thrill seekers.

3. Django Unchained – I saw this movie with a largely African-American audience which was boisterously and very vocally engaged from the first scene. It added a lot to the experience. This should probably be several slots lower otherwise.

2. Skyfall – Connery is still the Bond archetype, but Craig is in the best Bond movies

1. Lincoln – Teddy Roosevelt’s still my #1. But Lincoln may have just stepped over Washington into second.