A premature albeit late-in-the-game list of my favorite films of the year. Alphabetically:
AI WEIWIE: NEVER SORRY (Alison Klayman). A documentary not just about a great artist/dissenter/personality, but also about a young filmmaker’s evident fascination with and love of her subject that welcomes and washes over the viewer.
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Benh Zeitlin). For its fresh, unrestrained energy, and because Ben Richardson’s photography proves that celluloid still has the power to produce some of the most beautiful and magical images of the year.
DJANGO UNCHAINED (Quentin Tarantino). For its richness in character and design, and because Tarantino, whatever you may think of the guy, has never lost his commitment to his audience or to pure entertainment.
HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (David France). A triumph of archival assemblage: passionate, powerful, and extremely moving.
THE MASTER (Paul Thomas Anderson). Does the polarization of this movie prove it’s a work of genius? Of pretense? Did Anderson simply fail to deliver in the wake of the high standards set by “There Will Be Blood?” Legitimate questions for a movie that seems to have no answers. And yet, it contains the most striking performances and images of the year, and signifies what is the continued growth of the most exciting director working today.
MOONRISE KINGDOM (Wes Anderson). From another director whose development as an artist, storyteller, and visual stylist is both evident and thrilling here. The Anderson stamp, which I’ve always been on board with, is very much present, but this movie reaches an emotional level that none of his movies have previously.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (Nuri Bilge Ceylan). A film that demands patience, observance, and the appreciation of how an image is framed, as well as one that seems made with those same qualities.
OSLO, AUGUST 31st (Joachim Trier). A beautiful bummer of a movie, with one of the saddest, most sympathetic characters of 2012, and one whose life you have the highest hopes for. Anders Danielsen Lie gives the most underrated performance of the year.
SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN (Malik Bendjelloul). Where an unsung music genius finally has his voice heard – a generous, beautifully made documentary about, among many things, how finding great music in turn makes us feel found.
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (David O. Russell). Like Tarantino and both Andersons, Russell is a singular American voice in movies. This one, so scruffy and freestyle, so loving of its characters and the things they say and do and the world they live in, shows that a distinct style can make a typically carbon-copied genre feel fresh and alive, and make a happy ending feel earned.
TAKE THIS WALTZ (Sarah Polley). A film that began so unsure of itself, and that steadily gained so much confidence in its performances, its color palette, its sexiness, its honesty. Ultimately, a movie that surprised me in the loveliest of ways, and that features some of the finest music moments in the movies this year.
ZERO DARK THIRTY (Kathryn Bigelow). Overblown (but not surprising) torture controversy aside, this movie features, in a great year for women in film, a strong, complex female lead that, in a two and a half hour movie, captures a decade-long arc of national moods and attitudes. Bigelow and Boal prove their collaboration is a vital force.
Runners-up, no particular order: "Lincoln," "Argo," "Bernie," "The Grey," "The Queen of Versailles," "Elena," "Side by Side," "Marley," "The Loneliest Planet," "21 Jump Street," "Wanderlust".
All due respect to “Amour,” “Barbara,” “Holy Motors,” “The Impossible,” “Life of Pi,” “Not Fade Away,” “Skyfall,” “Tabu,” “This is Not a Film,” “The Turin Horse,” etc. None of which I’ve seen yet, but will. Soon. I promise.
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