We toast the year’s best films.
It’s been a memorable year for our city’s Arts & Life scene, and it’s time to look back at the highlights, provided by Journal writers and our readers Today: The best movies and books Saturday: The best CDs Monday: The best outings/vacations
This is the time of year that movie critics release their Top 10 and Oscar best bet lists. Here are the choices for best flicks seen in 2012 by Journal writers, editors and our readers. Some of their choices may surprise you:
My favourite movie of the year was Shut Up and Play the Hits, a tearful and triumphant documentary about LCD Soundsystem’s last show.
The 108-minute film features concert footage from Madison Square Garden with tidbits from LCD guru James Murphy’s interview with Chuck Klosterman and intimate scenes of the morning after the dance-punk band’s farewell gig.
Murphy is now working on Arcade Fire’s fourth album, but here’s hoping for an LCD resurrection at Coachella 2018.
— Sandra Sperounes
The most charming film of 2012 was Robot and Frank, a bittersweet futuristic social satire, starring Frank Langella as an aging cat burglar coping with dementia, who forms a surprising bond with his helper-robot. The film tweaks the odd couple trope, as Frank rediscovers his craft and his zest of life, taking revenge on the affluent hipster, who wants to rid the town library of its dusty books, the better to give people “the library experience.” Beneath the comedy is a poignant meditation on the nature of memory and the complex cost of family responsibility.
— Paula Simons
The Grey, starring Liam Neeson. This is not a feelgood movie, but it was on TV and I got sucked in and could not look away, or stop thinking about it afterward. A 2012 movie that made me laugh-till-I-cried was 21 Jump Street starring Jonah Hill.
— Caroline Gault
The Hunter: Willem Dafoe stars in this inspired morality tale about a mysterious search for an possibly-extinct tiger, beautifully shot in Australia.
— Roger Levesque
Men in Black 3: Just a hilarious, action-packed thrill ride, with a notorious villain, cool intergalactic weapons and awesome aliens.
— Mark Suits
Sound of Noise: Released in Sweden back in 2010 and only just now making its way through North America, this bone dry Swedish-French caper-comedy follows a group of anarchist musicians as they plan and play music in some very strange locales, including a bank and a hospital, while being chased by an inept, tonedeaf policeman.
There’s nothing quite like this film, and a well-developed sense of absurdity might be necessary to truly appreciate it. Even if you don’t, you’re still guaranteed to forever remember the various set pieces involving some extremely unusual percussion.
— Tom Murray
I saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel last winter, and it was the most wonderful antidote to the gloom that sometimes overtakes us during our longest, hardest season. The performances by the most excellent British cast, including Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton and Tom Wilkinson, were spectacular. But it was the motto of one of the characters, the young Indian hotelier, Sonny (played by Dev Patel) who lures a group of pensioners to his rundown property with the promise of a better, cheaper life that returns to me, time and time again. “Everything will be all right in the end, so if it’s not all right, it’s not the end.”
— Liane Faulder
The Queen of Versailles: The most amazing thing about this movie documenting the rise and fall of the Florida family who tried to build the biggest private home in North America (90,000 square feet, modelled after the Palace of Versailles) is the incredible access filmmaker Lauren Greenfield received to this crazy, sad, nouveau-riche couple and their inevitably spoiled children. It also confirms every fear and loathing you ever had about time shares.
— Marta Gold
Argo had me at the Maple Leaf. Canadian flags were evident minutes into this Ben Affleck-directed movie about the real-life 1979 hostage crisis in Iran that saw a handful of U.S. embassy employees take refuge in the Canadian Embassy there. Affleck gave the story the Hollywood treatment, giving the CIA way more credit than it was actually due. As suspense flicks go, though, this is a doozy; I watched the last 10 minutes peeking at the screen through splayed fingers.
— Jamie Hall
The Queen of Versailles, Silver Linings Playbook, Headhunters
— Richard Helm
OK, you’ve seen the sombre new James Bond movie, in which Ian Fleming seems to have turned into John le Carré, and no one comes in from the cold except gimlet-eyed Ralph Fiennes. And you’ve seen Le Carré’s London look as grim and chilling as an Orwellian nightmare, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Make yourself tense but lighthearted with A Cat in Paris, an imaginative and fleetfooted French animation caper of great charm and visual invention set in the City of Light. A burglar with scruples is accompanied on his nightly escapades by an actual cat, who lives with an unsmiling little girl and her neglectful careerist single mother. The latter is a police superintendent, determined to thwart a ruthless master criminal planning an audacious art heist.
The chase scenes over the rooftops of Paris, culminating in a tangle with the gargoyles leaning over Notre Dame, are thrilling. There’s heart and sentiment, without sentimentality. And in something that kids can watch, along with so-called grown-ups, that’s a quality to cherish.
— Liz Nicholls
The Cabin in the Woods: If you have somehow managed to remain unspoiled as to exactly what’s going on in this seemingly interchangeable and innocuous teen slasher/horror film from Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, you are in for a treat. The fast-paced, insanely funny take on the entire horror genre manages to be both genuinely scary and genuinely thought-provoking, especially when ... — yeah, I don’t want to spoil it. This is quality work from accomplished storytellers who throw all their chips in the pot within the first five minutes, win big, and continue going all in for the rest of the film.
— David Johnston
To be honest, as of this day I don’t think I’ve seen the year’s best movie — yet. There are several promising choices coming out this month. Of the movies I have seen, the one that’s stuck with me is The Queen of Versailles. It’s a documentary about American billionaire couple David and Jacqueline Siegel who start building a mansion inspired by the Palace of Versailles and run out of money when their real estate empire crumbles because of the economic crisis. It hit home the message that it doesn’t matter how rich you are, if you live beyond your means and save nothing for a rainy day, you’re still liable to get flooded.
— Chris Zdeb
I somehow missed reading Yann Martel’s Life of Pi over the years, but I plan to remedy that as soon as possible now that I’ve seen the magnificent film version by Ang Lee. This tender story of a young castaway lost on a vast ocean with a Bengal tiger for company was an unexpected charmer (especially unexpected since we set out to see Skyfall that night — so happy it was sold out!). I’m not always a big fan of 3-D, but the special effects here were stunning and they didn’t distract from the storyline. Suraj Sharma, in his first film, was magical in the lead role as Pi, who is in virtually every scene. And Richard Parker may have been animated, but there was something very wise in those tiger eyes.
— Keri Sweetman
At first I hated Prometheus, the sci-fi prequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 thriller Alien. It left me hanging, refusing to tie the ends up into a pretty bow. Who are the Engineers? Why were we created? The themes of creation, destruction and theology tossed about in my mind for weeks after watching the film, until I finally grasped the depth and meaning behind the story. Brilliant. So, so brilliant. Maybe our questions are better left unanswered.
— Amanda Ash
For Hollywood fare, Avengers, quite easily. Though Dark Knight Rises was a clever and unusual sort of superhero film, it slipped on its treads a little, whereas Avengers was just nakedly hilarious, and it’s the first time the big screen got the Hulk right: “I’m always angry.” Special mention to local filmmaker Trevor Anderson’s The Man That Got Away, which I represented in Vladivostok, and hence saw the fantastic Thai film P-047, as dreamy as a Huruki Murukami novel, about two young mall workers who break into the houses of the rich just to feel what it’s like to live in luxury.
— Fish Griwkowsky AND OUR R EADERS LIKE D …
Moonrise Kingdom was a movie that stood out for me. Once again Wes Anderson has created a storybook world for us, regular colours seem lusher, and moods are set by musical score and a cast of quirky characters, all interesting in their own right. On this little island off the coast of New England, the impossible seems possible. Cast in true Anderson fashion, we have the pleasure of watching an excellent ensemble of actors all with the innate ability to believably become someone else. Jared Gilman as Sam and Kara Hayward as Suzy stand out as the leads.
— Vicky Rogers
A wealthy, sophisticated, cultured, privileged, quadriplegic. A crass, bold, fun-loving, living-on-the-fringe immigrant caregiver. And what develops is the most heartfelt, respectful relationship between the two men. This is the French movie The Intouchables. The movie is a story of friendship and genuine beauty of what makes us human. You will laugh and cry in the same breath, sing and groove to the music and float away with a smile on your face and a glow in your heart. Magnificent.
— Maxine Newbold
Snow White and the Huntsman was an epic movie. It has really good cinematography and special effects. It was a compelling story with interesting characters. There was lots of action. I’m not a fan of things set in the olden times, but the fantasy kept it interesting. There was lots of suspense and tension, but not much romance. I didn’t find it predictable at all. The only thing I could see coming was that Snow White has to face off against the Queen on her own.
— Tracy Au
Skyfall. Dame Judi Dench. ’Nuff said
— Daniel Pietraszewski
The Hunger Games. Seeing a flawless book turned into a great movie is awesome.
— Fiona Jobin
The best movie I saw in 2012 was The Perks of Being A Wallflower
— Jason Broder
Hope Springs: What can I say? Awesome show!
— Denise Kennedy
The Dark Knight Rises
— Mike Dewes
Cloud Atlas
— Stefan Makowski
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at the Princess
— Derek Wicks
Has to be Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. My husband had chosen the movie that Saturday. I had no idea what to expect. It was funny, it was moving, it was so relevant. Recommended it to everyone then and still am today.
— Audrey Handfield
My favourite movie was Stories We Tell starring the Polley family and directed by Sarah Polley. It was my favourite film at the International Film Festival and now that it is at the Princess, it’s confirmed — My favourite movie of 2012!
— Cecily Mills