551. Bruce Robinson’s How to Get Ahead in Advertising: Whoops, forgot one. This should have been 543. Oh well. This is the second collaboration between Bruce Robinson and Richard E. Grant and I actually prefer it to Withnail and I. Grant and his boil have exceptional chemistry together. So 551 in 2012? I’ll say 400 in 2013.
550. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained: Let’s be honest, this was definitely one of my most entertaining theater expediences because of the glorious combination of the material projected on the screen and the white population of the packed audience being somewhere around 15%. It was a bit overlong, too bloody in the excessive gunfights (though honest in the violence toward slaves), Tarantino’s cameo was ridiculous (but worth it for his exit), Walton Goggins!, Waltz’s character was the best and most likable being the most racially sensitive (as a German who kills people for money) and Django’s “Auf wiedersehen” could have brought me to tears. Oh, and that soundtrack was the fucking tits.
549. Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall: Watched with the insanely entertaining Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger commentary where Arnold describes everything that is happening on screen. It is quite fun.
547. Spike Jonze’s Adaptation.: It’s all about Charlie (and Donald!) Kaufman’s brilliant screenplay and Nic Cage’s performances playing them. Top 10 of the 00s.
Favorite films of 2012:
543. William Friedkin’s Killer Joe: The overwhelmingly immoral and mind-blowingly stupid characters are what makes this tick. Hilarious and terrifying. Didn’t care much for Emile Hirsch, but everyone else was outstanding. Thomas Haden Church’s character was easily one of the dumbest in recent memory and Matthew McConaughey was so creepy and dominant that I want to see everything else he appeared in this year. Yes, I just admitted that I want to see Magic Mike and The Paperboy and I don’t care what you think about that.
544. Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom: I enjoyed this even more on a second viewing. It will never be my favorite (or even second favorite) Anderson, but it’s his sweetest and zaniest film and certainly comes highly recommended.
545. William Friedkin’s Killer Joe: K-Fry-C blowjob.
542. Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil:All things considered, this was a pretty decent Civil War film. Jeffrey Wright’s chracter of a former slave fighting for the Confederacy was easily the film’s most interesting and complex (along with his relationship to Simon Baker’s character). Tobey Maguire was Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich was completely forgotten, Jonathan Rhys Meyers was a long hair pretty boy cocksucker and Jewels’ boobs looked fantastic.
540. Larisa Shepitko’s Wings: Holy shit, a film where the lead is a woman, directed by a woman? Actually my second of which (White Material) watched this year.
541. Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent: This, along with the previous film doubles my viewing of films directed by women in 2012. Survivalist, anti-war, Jesus metaphor, and more things, this reminded me of Ivan’s Childhood. Both are superb.
539. Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures: I still have like 10 more of these little thoughts about movie whatevers for the remainder of 2012, but I think next year I’ll just give out completely arbitrary Pitchfork digit-decimal-digit ratings because I really don’t know what to say about some of these films especially in the case that I watched them over a week ago and have seen a dozen films since. This one is good. Not to take anything out of Melanie Lynskey’s performance (and film debut), but the hyperactive enthusiasm of Kate Winslet’s performance (also film debut) was much more my jam.
