2012 brought us two whacked-out limousine-set films from auteurs bearing all the markings of future cult classics. But while Leos Carax’s Holy Motors received universal critical praise, David Cronenberg ‘s Robert Pattinson -starring Cosmopolis left critics a little more divided , although how anyone could dislike a film featuring an R-Pattz prostate exam is one of life’s great mysteries. Movieline spoke with Cronenberg, a man who at this point seems physically incapable of tolerating bullshit, about his career, Oscar hopes and realities, and new advances like the High Frame Rate Peter Jackson used on The Hobbit . Along the way he riffed hypothetical on what he’d do for awards season glory, assessed the comfortable niche he’s carved out for himself on the fringes of the studio system, and revealed what he really thinks about… cats. Happy New Year! The Blu-ray release of Cosmopolis is coming out in the heart of Oscar-campaign season. I get the sense it doesn’t bug you too much that this film isn’t being discussed more as a contender. Yes. Every year I try to be as disconnected as possible. This year it’s been very easy because we haven’t been nominated for any awards. It’s not sour grapes, it’s not compensation; it’s a relief. It’s very easy to get caught up in it if you are nominated. The people who are releasing the movie get excited, they want you to do more, and you understand it because the awards can maybe get more people to see the film. This, on its face, is a good thing. However, it is all bullshit, it is all annoying and it is all very problematical. But it gives people stuff to write about, gives structure, we understand. But I won’t be watching any of the awards shows. It’s not just showing up that night, there’s months of campaigning. Oh, yes. I’ve talked with several people, one of whom was Denys Arcand, a French Canadian director who won the Best Foreign Language Oscar for The Barbarian Invasions — I know him well. He said he would never, ever do it again. He said it was a year, an incredibly intense year, and ultimately rather boring. Because he’s not doing anything creative at all, just selling. For a guy like Denys Arcand, though, does an award affect his bottom line? Does it affect his career? Will he be able to buy a new house after winning? No, not really. On the contrary, it’s caused him to retreat. He’s decided he doesn’t want to be involved in anything remotely Hollywood. He wants to make Quebecois films. He attempted to make some movies in English with emerging stars and it was a disaster — it’s not his sensibility. For an actor, though, perhaps it’s a different story. Viggo Mortensen was nominated for some of your films, Keira Knightley was discussed for A Dangerous Method . But let’s say she had won — would that have elevated her, and gotten her roles she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise? I don’t think so. She’s incredibly sought after — despite the fact that the British critics are often on her, but they like to eat their own, let’s face it. She’s too smart and beautiful and too talented, it drives them crazy. I don’t see [an award] doing anything for her. End of the year lists, though — Cosmopolis did end up placing second in Cahiers du Cinema ‘s top ten of the year. Yes and on Sight and Sound ‘s list, as well. So the snooty-pants Euros are digging the movie. And, it’ll no doubt end up somewhere on my top 20, I think. [Note: it came in at #12.] If I gave you money would you put it higher? No. Well? Depends how much money. C’mon, let’s talk. A hundred grand goes a long way. Would you give me a hundred grand to write that Cosmopolis is the best movie of the year? No! [Laughs.] But it’s a thought. Let’s be honest — at this stage in your career, let’s say you met the most reputable critic in the world, you met him at a bar and he said, “Oh, man, I’m in a real money crunch right now, I will make Cosmopolis my #1 of the year for X amount of dollars,” do you consider it for a second? No. But that’s because I’m too cheap. But… fact is, I have been on those lists, New York Times has been very positive on my last few movies, we got three great reviews from three critics at the New York Times for A Dangerous Method . But we still didn’t get…[laughs]…it didn’t… Still nobody in the States sees your damn movies, it’s Europeans only! That’s right. It doesn’t do much. But, listen, you like the validation, especially when they are intelligent people who write beautifully and when they applaud your movie it is terrific and gratifying. Pragmatically, it doesn’t do much. Better to get good reviews over bad, obviously, but we all know terrible movies that got terrible reviews that made a lot of money. There’s no one to one relationship. You just have to get very ’60s… just go with the flow.
In news that makes the pregnant Kim Kardashian ‘s marriage to Kris Humphries look long and blissful, Jenelle Evans and Courtland Rogers have parted ways. Just 26 days after they tied the knot. Those of you who had one month in our official pool were pretty much right on the money. Nicely done, THGers. The first signs of trouble for the duo started brewing last week, when a late-night outing for Jenelle led to divorce talk and rumors that she was back on heroin . Rogers accused her ex, Kieffer Delp, of getting her hooked on it, then voiced concern that she was sneaking around doing drugs behind his back. After a change of heart and a few deleted tweets, they were back on as if nothing happened … until last night when Courtland Rogers called it off. Why? “So I just got broke up with because of talkin to my lil girl on the phone last night, finally getting to (hear) her tell me she loves dada! Wow,” he posted. That lil girl is his daughter from a previous relationship. Jenelle, however, felt Courtland was more interested in chatting with his baby mama – his ex, Taylor Lewis – and that was all it took for her to bail. This time, the breakup may actually stick, too. “Jenelle said she was gonna make up charges saying I beat her, and i never did, so let me say (expletive) jenelle for good,” Courtland Rogers added. In a Tweet to Taylor Lewis … of course. As for Jenelle Evans, she ignored that but cranked out several more messages before peacing out of Twitter and declaring herself done with social media. We’re fairly certain she and Twitter will reunite before long. Her future relationships with heroin and/or Courtland Rogers are much less certain.
THG is counting down the 100 Hottest Bikini Bodies of 2012! For months, we’ve been paying tribute to the hottest celebs with bikini photos galore, and at long last, we’ve finally arrived at this year’s winner: Kate Upton! Really, after the year she had, was there any other pick? Kim Kardashian bikini photos came in second. A worthy effort by the reality star, but even she could not kompete with the perfection that is Kate Upton in 2012. Seriously, Sports Illustrated . And genetics. Thank you. Kate has taken over the world since covering SI ‘s annual swimsuit issue last winter at age 19. Don’t worry guys, she’s now 20. Makes a big difference psychologically. It wasn’t long after that before she Cat Daddy dance d into our hearts, setting the Internet albaze with one of the hottest viral videos of the year (in every sense). There are things on the web, and in life, that are quite overrated. Kate Upton modeling and/or dancing in a microscopically small bikini? Not on that list. As always when it comes to greatness, there will be detractors. In this beauty’s case, haters who criticize – rather than laud – her for not looking anorexic. Upton’s all-natural, All-American girl appeal is one of the huge reasons for her immense popularity … that and her insane good looks and photo shoots. Seriously. This is one of the finest specimens ever created. Overexposed? Maybe. But if anyone’s exposure can be enjoyed time and again, it’s her! So there you have it, 100 bikini babes culminating in the year’s hottest. Well done Kate. Click to enlarge some amazing Kate Upton photos (and videos) below! Kate Upton GQ Photo Shoot Kate Upton “Cat Daddy” Dance Kate Upton Carl’s Jr. Ad Who will be #1 next year? Only time will tell, but the competition is already heating up. We wouldn’t bet on Kate falling out of the top five, that’s for sure.
We’ve arrived at #1. Over the past couple weeks, THG has been counting down the stars that made 2012 such a memorable year, from their sex tapes to their Billboard hits to their nude photos and royal babies. We ranked Kate Middleton at #4, followed by Taylor Swift and then Rihanna at #2 . Who does that leave as our undisputed Celebrity of the Year? KRISTEN STEWART! The actress starred in two blockbusters this year: Snow White and the Huntsman and Breaking Dawn Part 2 . She also established some indie cred via On the Road . But let’s face it: these roles are not the main reason Stewart made so many headlines in 2012. Instead, Kristen’s most buzzed-about accomplishment (perhaps for the rest of her years) will be her affair with Rupert Sanders , a story made for this tabloid age and made even more unprecedented when Stewart actually came out and admitted to the scandal! Her statement and public apology to Robert Pattinson may go down as the year’s most shocking moment. This relationship – previously kept under wraps as much as possible by the duo involved – was suddenly front page news. Would they get back together? What, exactly, happened between Stewart and Sanders? How would it affect the Breaking Dawn box office? In the end, the film fared well and Kristen and Rob appear back together. Other numbers/facts related to Stewart’s big year include: She became the face of Balenciaga perfume in June. She ranked #7 on AskMen’s list of Top 99 Women. She earned $34.5 million, more than any actress over the past 12 months. She was named one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. Without The Twilight Saga, but with Pattinson, what does 2013 hold for Kristen Stewart? Marriage? Pregnancy? Another hit film? THG will be there every step of the way to find out. Won’t you join us?
Top 10s abound, but what the hell, its New Year’s Eve and there are mere hours left (in the Western Hemisphere at least) to look back on the year while it’s still here – Happy New Year Australia, N.Z., Japan and much of Asia. [ Related: Mash-Ups, ‘Moonrise,’ And ‘Miami’ Connections: Jen Yamato’s Top 10 Movie Moments of 2012 and Amy Nicholson’s / Top 10 of 2012 / Written In Haiku ] For those trolling the internet Monday and stumble on this list, I hope it’ll spawn more Top 10s. Either in your own mind or better yet – in the comments below. Or even just give your Top 5 or hell… Just your one favorite. Or even your least favorite. Just go for it, don’t be shy. Below is my ten favorites for 2012. I admit, mine may be loaded with some of the “cold and corny prestige pics and all those ‘respectable’ ‘films’ headed for Oscar gold” as my fab colleague Jen Yamato describes – but there it is… My favorite, Amour , was also the toughest to watch, but it just stayed with me through the rest of the year after having the privilege to see it for the first time in Cannes last May. I saw it again in December and it stayed with me as my favorite even if I was rather numb walking out of the theater. It is one helluva tough one, but so good. Disagree? Go for it and say why in the comments. My top 10 follows with an ever so brief comment and a trailer (admittedly, there are still a couple of ‘key’ movies I still need to see). And what were your faves of 2012? 1. Amour – The toughest movie I, well, loved. 2. Zero Dark Thirty – I knew what the ending would be, but my palms sweat for hours in the lead-up. 3. Silver Linings Playbook – I thought I’d be bored as I was ‘dragged’ to see it at a festival. I completely loved it. 4. Lincoln – I like political intrigue – even of the 19th century sort. Tommy Lee Jones was Amazing. 5. Beasts of the Southern Wild – No stars – fantastic acting and a great new voice in filmmaking in the form of Benh Zeitlin. 6. How to Survive a Plague – It’s hard to hold back the tears watching as these brave people fight for their lives under the scepter of hate. 7. Anna Karenina – Sumptuous. No surprise the Revolution came along. 8. Holy Motors – This movie may go down as one of 2012’s most important. 9. On the Road – Sit down, light up and go for the ride. Garrett Hedlund is a good trip. 10. Argo – Again, you know what the end will be but it still gets the heart racing. The final scenes when the film hits you over the head with how they barely get out is a bit much though.
Before drinking ignorant amounts of liquor and making bad decisions during your last hoodrat activities of the year, ask yourself what you learned in 2012. If none of these valuable lessons come to mind, you did 2012 all wrong. Here are ten lessons you should’ve learned this year. Take a look.
Though a Paramount release, Flight did not take the trajectory of a typical studio concept plucked from an internal idea bin. Screenwriter John Gatins began working on what would become the feature starring Denzel Washington and directed by Robert Zemekis earlier last decade on his own. While still new to Hollywood, Gatins, who first hit the scene as a writer on sports pics including Summer Catch and Hard Ball , sobered up. He took that experience and his fear of flying, to quietly craft the story that would evolve into Flight . The film, which debuted at the New York Film Festival in the fall and debuted in theaters in early November has cashed in with nearly $91 million at the domestic box office on a relatively modest budget – at least for Hollywood with a big star – of $31 million. On the Awards Circuit the film has won some attention including a Golden Globe nomination for Denzel Washington for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and he may well be on the road to a nomination for Best Actor next month when the Oscar nominations are revealed. Gatins has also received some attention including Best Original Screenplay by the Broadcast Film Critics Association and a nomination from the Image Awards. Flight ‘s plane crash makes for good imagery in a trailer, but it really serves as a set-up for one man’s personal struggle with addiction and denial, which forms the crux of Flight . Washington plays pilot Whip Whitaker, who successfully guides a plane that experiences a mid-air mishap to the ground, saving nearly everyone on board. He’s hailed for his heroism by the media, but what eventually percolates to the surface during the investigation is missing on-board alcohol and a cover-up that Captain Whitaker, was in fact, legally drunk. Whitaker is a master at concealing his insatiable drinking and cocaine use and as media attention continues to follow him, he deflects what is clearly a hastening descent in his personal life. M.L. caught up with screenwriter John Gatins about what prompted him to start writing Flight who shared the turbulence his script encountered on the way to the big screen. He shares how he segued his way into “the business” after graduating from Vassar and facing his own fears of flying while making the movie. When I first saw footage of Flight before seeing the film at the New York Film Festival, I wondered if it would be a straight-up plane crash story or if there was more to it. Obviously there is much much more to it and was curious how this came about. Was there a personal element to it? I got sober when I was 25 and that was part of it. I think I was 31 when I started writing [ Flight ] and I did it for me really, I didn’t have a boss. I wrote it on spec and I honestly didn’t think it was a movie that would ever get made. I’m a scared flyer, but was flying a lot for work and shooting in Europe. It’s a personal project I’d pick up and put down and then kept working in my normal life, trying to feed my family. It was after I wrote and directed Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story for DreamWorks that they then asked me what I wanted to do next and then I said, “Well, let me show you what I have been working on and I gave them the first 40 pages of this script and they went, ‘Woah.'” Around when was this? This was around 2004 – 2005. And they thought this was pretty heavy-duty considering I had just finished doing this PG-13 movie for them and has a very complicated central character. And it was also at a time in the business when these kinds of stories weren’t just jumping off shelves onto the screens. R-rated grown-up dramas just became anathema. People kept saying that audiences just don’t’ want to see these movies. But clearly you kept going… Yeah, it was a hard time for it and I was trying to also direct the movie. So Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald came on as producers with me and I continued to work on the script and I finally had a version that we could sneak to a few people in 2007. The script had some big agents respond to it and they said there was some great talent that may be interested in [the starring role], but then the writers strike came along. There were so many things happening to go against this movie, but then it all changed when Denzel Washington got his hand on the script and he wanted to meet me. He told me he wanted a bigger director than me to handle this, which was understandable I guess… Some big actors only have a few guys or gals they want to work with. Then Robert Zemeckis got a hold of the script around the same time and those two connected and then the three of us connected. For everything that had gone wrong for so many years there was a moment in time when everything went right. Bob wanted to be very collaborative with me when making the movie. He said to come to Atlanta and I got to really be there and have a creative voice in it and it really was the best of all possible worlds. Talk about how you three collaborated. Did the script evolve much while you were working with Washington and Zemekis? It was kind of great. Before this, I had only known Denzel as his characters, I had never met him. His characters have this intense presence and in life he also has this presence. He does his homework man – he really does his homework. He was really with the 2007 draft he first received, but with every new draft there was, we kept him in the loop. He’s a guy who definitely started to carry that pain around. He was putting on those shoes so to speak to play the part almost immediately. It was great because for a lot of people this is a small movie, it’s a $30 million movie that we shot over 45 days all on location. It was a bit like making the school play at times, we all rolled up our sleeves to get this done. It was a small ensemble of actors and a small filmmaking crew. So there’s something very intimate about it. Denzel has gone out of his way to give credit to the script. And it’s been really nice for me honestly since I did work so long on the movie and he recognized that. What’s on the screen isn’t much different than what’s in that ’07 draft. Bob did some really smart things making me focus on the point of view. Did that ’07 script portray Denzel’s character as so focused despite his dependencies? I’ll tell you what really struck me about the story was how functional he was at least on the outside. Of course things are going south on the inside, but after the crash he receives notoriety and credit for saving lives and despite being in various states of inebriation all the time, he is able to handle himself in such a remarkable way at least publicly. I’ll tell you a story. my guilty pleasure is the New York Post and one day while doing the domestic junket out here I was reading Page 2 and there was this whole article about this huge rock star Cardiologist in New York who was being sued by his two ex-wives and, among a lot of things, they both alleged that he was high on cocaine all the time and that he failed four drug tests at the hospital and was high 24/7. And you think this is the guy you put your life into and he’s blazing on drugs. I mean, it’s remarkable and there’s this parallel to [Denzel’s character] Whip Whitaker who is so high yet functioning and walks this tight rope. Instinctively he’s the best guy to fly that plane, impaired or not. That’s what helped to create that weird conflicted ambiguity in the plane because you’re thinking, ‘Am I rooting for this character or not?’ If I was on the plane and he saved me and I knew he was the only one who could do that, I’d think I wouldn’t care what his mind was all about at that moment. I think that functionality almost made it more difficult for his character to come to terms with the addictions he was facing… They say for most people to want to make a change they have to hit a bottom in their life. For a guy like that to be able to do heart surgeries successfully or a guy to successfully fly a jet, then people continue to skate along in life. People often don’t change unless they have to. That happens sometimes when people wake up in handcuffs, or in a hospital or in a psych ward and they say, ‘what happened?’ It’s like, well all that managing you were doing with all these issues – it ran out. Your ability to pull it off and manage it just quit on you. And he’s an amazing dude that Whip Whitaker, he can do almost anything. Was there a progression in his personality from the original scripts to the final version? Was that functionality fully there? That functionality was always there because I felt that’s the thing that makes us conflicted. I always watch war movies and I would always think that if I was in a war, I’d have to drink every day with that constant drum of anxiety because I don’t know how I’d get through that experience of knowing someone is constantly trying to kill me. The men and women overseas right now, I just don’t know how they deal with that. I think pills or booze would calm my brain… But I think it would have been so easy to go down that path of Whip just being crazed… Yeah, yeah yeah… There are so many people who function at such a high level of – work hard, play hard. You see them Monday through Friday and then you catch that person on the weekend and you’re like, “Whoa!” How did you work in the mechanics of the crash? You must’ve had to research past incidents… Oh man that was crazy, that was crazy because I’m a nervous flyer. Those NTSB records are public record and they’re pretty dense but also equally fascinating. I also spoke to a lot of pilots and they pointed me toward different incidents. That must’ve been encouraging experience helping you to overcome being nervous flyer [laughs]. It was miserable [laughs] but fascinating at the same time. Denzel said something really funny when we were on a panel and they asked him what he thought about Whip being a pilot as opposed to something else and he said, ‘It’s the most dramatic choice John could’ve made. If he worked at the post office, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. You wouldn’t have gotten your mail. That’s different from being in a plane at 30,000 feet that’s dropping. But the research was fascinating. You can read the black boxes and some of them are very dramatic. Zemeckis is also a pilot and flies so he has a complete understanding. He loves to fly, but I hate to fly. While we were flying to Atlanta and back he’d be like, ‘Let’s work.’ We’d literally be working on the script while on the flight talking about a plane crashing while we’re on the plane. That math is never good for me [laughs]. Was the crash in the film based on an actual accident? There are a couple of accidents that it was based on. But there was a crash off Oxnard, CA in 2000. A pilot told me to look at that and it was fascinating. Air traffic control asked them to take the plane out over [Santa Monica Bay] so as to limit collateral damage on the ground. And they did fly it inverted but they put the plane back over and lost control. It was an un-flyable plane, it wasn’t their fault. They did an amazing job. And this pilot said that had they known what was really wrong with the plane, they might have known their only recourse was to keep it inverted and descend. It was really rough. Is writing one of your first passions? You were a drama major and you mentioned that you did many things including acting when you first moved to California… I think I’ve always been a storyteller. I’m Irish and we like to tell stories and I come from a family of storytellers and in storytelling there’s an element of performance in it. Arguing for ‘air-time’ at big family events requires that performance. So being the youngest of four I felt I had to perform. My first instinct then was that I wanted to be an actor, but when I was at Vassar, it was great because it’s very academic. I read so many plays, which gave me a great foundation which I didn’t realize until I had to access that as a writer. Writing was ‘easier’ because you just write by yourself. It’s not easy, but you don’t need permission. The first script I wrote I wrote on a legal pad, I didn’t even have a computer. What was your big entrée when you first arrived in California that kept you going or encouraged you to maintain that path? I had friends from Vassar who were starting to work in the biz. We were in our mid 20s and we got together for a poker game and this guy said to me, “You’re so funny man you should write a script. I’ll pay you to write this script once you get broke enough.” So the next day I contacted him and said, “I think I’m broke enough.” And he paid me $1,000 – $500 to start and $500 to finish – to write this crazy script about a kid in high school who fakes his own suicide. And that script was sold to Disney and it started it all off. It started my whole career. It was Smells Like Teen Suicide . It was great, it got me into a lot of rooms. People wanted to meet that guy who wrote that dark, dark teen comedy. What other genres would you like to tackle that you haven’t yet? Great question… I want to do a big comedy. It’s funny when I started out, even though Smells Like Teen Suicide was a dark movie, it was a dark comedy reaching for a laugh. Then I got into doing sports movies and was on that road for awhile and there’s comedy in that too. And actually, there’s a good amount of comedy in Flight . Yeah, I’d like to go for a big comedy at some point. I’ve made a family movie, sports movies and perhaps a sort of sic-fi movie. Flight is mostly an adult like grown-up drama. Denzel said, “Look it’s an R-rated movie and there are no guns. It’s different. We don’t make these movies anymore.” But, I have an idea to write a high school movie because I’m about to have a teenager who is going into high school. I feel like I have one more young voice movie in me, so we’ll see…
Coming off like a mashup of Shaun of the Dead and Zombie Land with some manic pixie dream girl nonsense thrown in, the premise of Warm Bodies – after a worldwide apocalypse, zombie boy falls in love with human girl – is interesting, and the book upon which it’s based has been really well received. But in the hands of the wrong studio things could go horribly wrong. Like The Time Traveller’s Wife horribly wrong. Add to this the fact that we’re dangerously close to reaching peak zombie and you feel less like we’re about to get something cool and more like we’re about to see the last drops of fuel extracted from a dried out earth, Mad Max style, before the zombie genre is killed forever. Consider my fears (temporarily) averted. Via Fandango, the first four minutes of Warm Bodies has popped up online, and shocker, it manages to be funny and kind of touching, and reveals a really interesting take on the whole undead-as-a-metaphor-for-something thing. Previous zombie films have used the shuffling undead as a stand-in for things like consumerism and global pandemics like AIDS. Warm bodies treats it note for note like depression. Have a look and see for yourself. Rob Corddry as a middle aged zombie who clearly used to be a heavy drinking business traveller is also a nice touch. Yeah, it does mine rather overexploited territory, glossing over the origins of the apocalypse via heavy references to other well known zombie films, but that’s fine because it looks like we might be getting our first original take on zombies in several years. Just so long as none of them run. Please god, please don’t let them be runners. [ Source: Fandango ]
2012’s lowest-grossing film has been revealed, and people, this one kind of hurts. [ Related: Domestic Box Office Rises In Dollars And Audiences In 2012 ] The Christian Slater horror film Playback gathered an astonishing $264.00 – yes, that’s two hundred and sixty four – in theaters. Well, theater, to be exact; it only showed for one week in a single cinema. The figure gives Playback the honor as 2012’s lowest grossing film of the year. It earned $252.00 on opening night and just 12 dollars more during the following week, after which it was pulled. It has since made its way to VOD via Netflix and Amazon Prime. That has got to hurt, but when your career includes Gleaming the Cube and Hard Rain , at least you’re probably prepared for the emotional toll. Still, it makes me wince, even 20 years later, every time I’m reminded that I once actually liked Christian Slater movies. At least Heathers and True Romance still hold up*! As 2012 comes to a depressingly apocalypse-free conclusion, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing the last, painful lists of ignobility slipping out at the last minute. What better way to prepare ourselves for the new year than by embracing obstacles head on. If yesterday’s news of the most pirated movies proves that a bumper crop (cash-wise) for Hollywood doesn’t mean there still isn’t a problem with pilfered films, today’s offers unexpected confirmation that F. Scott Fitzgerald might have been right about there not being any second acts in American lives. At least for formerly successful actors. So at least we can all take comfort that our English teachers may have been onto something after all. * Well, True Romance, at least.
You can have your Top 10 lists stuffed with cold and corny prestige pics and all those “respectable” “films” headed for Oscar gold, but when I think back on 2012 I remember the movies that wrapped themselves around my heart and brain like a warm blanket made of light and sound and kick-ass jammin’ electric guitars and made me feel excited to be alive, dammit ! (I can also pinpoint with a wistful pang the precise moment when Tyler Perry broke my heart. Still love you, TP.) These are the films, big and small, ambitious and soulful, heart-rending and bone-crunching, about lovers, fighters, time-travelers, masters, closet-dwellers, hermaphrodite basketball players and friends (forever) that made my year at the movies. Join me in celebrating these magical movie moments and let’s hope 2013 delivers even more awesomeness. 10. Moonrise Kingdom Look, I’m not a robot. Wes Anderson ’s nostalgic dip into childhood love pitched its twee kid romance tent in my heart and has stayed there all through the summer, fall, and winter. “What kind of bird are YOU?” 9. Looper That perfect song at the end of Rian Johnson ’s contemplative pic about selflessness and love disguised as a sci-fi time travel movie kills me every time. Also (SEMI SPOILER) the Rainmaker shot of Garret Dillahunt at the end is one of the most perversely beautiful images I’ve seen all year. 8. The Final Member at Fantastic Fest Three men share a penis obsession that anchors this deftly executed, wry and surprisingly poignant documentary — but the delicate, deep-fried veal testicle served up mid-movie by the demented folks at Fantastic Fest made for a truly inspired moviegoing experience. (It tasted… squishy.) Next time I’ll probably pass on the snacks. 7. Pitch Perfect A movie pretty much made for me . Bonus points for bringing Blackstreet back. Side note: I once totally attempted a riff-off in real life, and that shit is hard . 6. The Raid Another movie pretty much made for me . Neck-on-doorway = action kill of the year. 5. The Master Joaquin Phoenix ’s feral turn as the scary, mesmerizing alternate-universe Ed Grimley fever dream demon of a man exploded for me the moment he raged against that prison cell toilet and I realized I was watching something rare, so elementally beyond performance, that I actually felt bad. For the toilet. 4. Holy Motors Speaking of performance: Nothing this year blew my mind as wholly as Leos Carax’s wonderfully whimsical film about film, art, and the incredible range of emotion within Denis Lavant’s play-doh landscape of a face. Not even… 3. Miami Connection To know the magical alchemy of tae kwon do, friendship, biker ninjas, and ‘80s rock ‘n’ roll that is Miami Connection is to love it. After my third viewing, Grand Master Y. K. Kim told me my spirit animal was a tiger. Take that, stupid cocaine! 2. Trapped in the Closet Forever 2012 was the year that R. Kelly answered everyone’s prayers and promised that Trapped in the Closet will never, ever, ever end . Since I had the honor of watching Chapters 1-22 (i.e. the first saga i.e. the best of the urban hip-hopera dramarama) screened theatrically, and since it was one of the most transcendent evenings I’ve spent listening to Kells in the dark with a bunch of strangers in my entire life, and since screw you guys this is my list, it makes my Top 10. I mean, Chuck was there for goodness sake, and even if he didn’t explain what The Package is he spent the night belting out all of his lines from the aisles. That is, when he wasn’t dancing and singing along with the rest of us. What I’m trying to say is, Trapped in the Closet is magic. It’s R. Kelly’s Cloud Atlas AND his The Klumps all at once. 1. Boys Will Be Boys How do I do justice to this Kickstarter project in words? I can’t. Suffice to say the short film about “about a Bisexual Down Low NCAA Basketball Player, who impregnates his secret Gay Friend, a Rare Reproducing Hermaphrodite” has an actually ballsy if f***ing bizarre premise and is the single best internet movie discovery of the year that nobody discovered, and in failing to Kickstart it we’ve only failed ourselves. Eternal thanks to @JimJarmuschHair and @Nickrob for championing the best video of 2012. Consider it a gift to Homo Sapiens . Wind down 2012 with more Top 10 lists and leave your favorite films of the year in the comments below! Amy Nicholson’s / Top 10 of 2012 / Written In Haiku The Masters: Movieline Critic Alison Willmore’s Top 10 Films of 2012 They Turn Us On, Dammit! Movieline Critic Alison Willmore’s Top 10 Overlooked Gems of 2012 Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
