Time for a film

We’ve finally reached the end of my Top 50 films of 2012! Thanks for your views and thoughts and I’ve loved sharing my favourites of the year. The following 5 films are those I’ve loved of the last year and I’ve seen them all at least twice to ensure they are of top quality!

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#5 – The Raid
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There is a lot to love about this hard hitting, energy packed Indonesian martial arts film, wonderfully directed by Gareth Evans. The Raid is one of the most brutal movies I have ever had the privilege to see. It’s full of violence, intense fighting, knives, guns and non stop action. If it didn’t have a storyline it wouldn’t matter, but it has a decent one of those as well. Never before have I seen such exhilarating, fascinating, unique and thrilling action. It’s often extremely violent and not for the faint hearted, but it’s just so well done you can’t help but be glued to the screen. If you didn’t get a chance to see this one in the cinemas, the experience was still great on a 2nd viewing at home, however nothing will top seeing it in a packed, enthusiastic cinema. The perfect film to watch with a few mates, sit back and marvel at the great action.  Read more

We’ve finally arrived at my Top 10 movies of 2012! Hopefully your patience won’t be tested as I split them into two days of 5 movies, truly commemorating and recognizing some awesome films. I would love to read if any of these are in your top 10 and what you think will be in my Top 5 tomorrow

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#10 – 21 Jump Street
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Comedy is probably the hardest genre there is in filmmaking yet 21 Jump Street managed to keep the laughs flowing consistently with two hilarious characters, who are performed brilliantly by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Since Superbad, Hill has always been one of my favourite actors and this film exemplifies why I find him to be so funny and charismatic. Tatum on the other hand totally surprised – almost shocked me, as he provides just as much, if not more laughter than Hill. Together they are a perfect duo but they are also supported by the film’s great dialogue and set up, as well as some of the best running jokes I can remember in a while. The car explosion gag is priceless as well as other unexpected lines including “37 Jump Street’ which still has me smirking now. The humour doesn’t rely on crudeness and stupidity (although there is a bit of that chucked in too) but rather the two lead’s who both bring some individuality to the characters. The film doesn’t lose anything on a rewatch and it’s not often I find a film to be so entertaining, unforced and funny.  Read more

Into the top 20 now, these are films I truly enjoyed! I have a couple of guilty pleasures in this bunch so I look forward to your comments of shock, disapproval or maybe praise!

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#20 – Ruby Sparks
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Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan provide amazing chemistry in this charming, creative love story, perhaps due to the fact that they have actually been dating in real life for 5 years! Some of the humour in this was great, I remember laughing a lot during a couple of scenes and it’s just an enjoyable, well made film. It never feels forced and somehow has the magic to draw you in. I also found it’s message to resonate, maybe due to the connection I felt with the characters.

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#19 – The Dictator
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The amount of fun and laughter I got out of The Dictator was so high, especially on the first watch, where I found the jokes were unexpected, clever and over the top to a perfect level. It’s so offensive and I couldn’t help but feel guilty laughing half the time. Sacha Baron Cohen is just hilarious, his character is his best since Borat with his crude, sexist and racist behaviour. There are many moments I have taken out of this film, the Aladeen gag was priceless as well as some of the female jokes (sorry, ladies). I don’t get offended in movies so I really had no issues, but I can see why many would find the film to go too far. I would strongly recommend the theatrical version over the unrated DVD version, which seems to drag on a little with it’s extra 15 minutes in length. One of the comedies of the year in my eyes!  Read more

Entering the top half of the countdown and it feels like it’s a very indie 10 with no blockbusters, 3 documentaries, 2 animations, a foreign film and the first and only Aussie film in my 50.

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#30 – Frankenweenie
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I haven’t seen many Tim Burton films so I wasn’t too sure what to expect coming into Frakenweenie but what I ended up with was a unique animation that combined humour and horror well. It’s animation is lovely on the eye and combined with some creative characters it fills the 87 minutes perfectly, knowing when to wrap up a great story. I had a couple of logic faults that threw me off occasionally, but otherwise it’s arguably the best animated film of the year.  Read more

Another day, another 10 films of my Top 50. As always, would love to hear your thoughts on if you liked, loved or hated any of these! Here’s #40-31:

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#40 – Looper
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In my top 5 anticipated films of the year, Looper underwhelmed me on first watch and on 2nd watch I moved it down a little further too. I found the final act to not hit, with the pace changing dramatically from the feel of the first two thirds of the film. Enough with the negatives though, Looper has a lot going for it as well. With one of the coolest sci-fi concepts of modern times, the world Rian Johnson takes us into is exciting and new. Time travel is always an interesting concept, but with added loops to ponder it becomes even more fascinating. There’s a strong life message and some cool effects as well. I enjoyed Willis + JGL, although I’m still not sure if I liked the make-up effect to make them look similar, did it possibly distract from the film?

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#39 – Indie Game: The Movie
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I’m not a big gamer but I found this documentary to be so insightful into what actually goes on in the indie gaming world and it was rather cool. With moments of nostalgia from my younger days, it presents the viewpoints of multiple stories well and was largely entertaining. I’m sure anyone with an interest in gaming would get so much out of it and as a casual gamer I appreciated and enjoyed it rather than being blown away.  Read more

Welcome to my Top 50 films of the year! Thanks for all the comments, views and film discussion over the last 12 months and I hope you enjoy the countdown. Please bare in mind these are my favourite movies of the year, I’m not attempting to judge a film’s quality, but more-so how much I enjoyed or appreciated the fantastic films of the last 365 days. I think it’s been a stellar year as a whole.

Here are the first 10 picks, all films I truly enjoyed, even at #50!
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#50 – ParaNorman
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Sneaking in at #50 on my list, this was one of my favourite animations of the year, a year in which I felt they weren’t that strong overall. ParaNorman manages to combine some cool animation together with a meaningful story, as well as truly embedding some dark topics. I also enjoyed the charismatic characters, with memorable voices from John Goodman, Christpoher Mintz-Plasse and Anna Kendrick. As my third favourite animation of the year, it’s a winner for kids and adults as well (although probably not for younger kids with it’s darker material!)

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#49 – Django Unchained
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I should probably mention I’m not a huge Tarantino fan, I loved Inglourious Basterds and enjoyed Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Vol. 1. QT’s newest film Django Unchained surprised me in ways, with some truly memorable moments and performances, primarily from Christoph Waltz who I thought carried the movie. There’s some hilarious scenes, I adored the one where Jonah Hill appears, it’s just so creative, genius and funny. The supporting cast were good with a decent story at hand, as well as a fabulous soundtrack that is a definite highlight. I couldn’t completely get past the long run-time though, as I felt it was slow in parts, especially the final act. That being said, I took enough out of it, leaving me with a good experience overall.  Read more

The Top 50 is nearly here! Today’s final pre-countdown post looks at some notable absentees that I’ve seen from the year but haven’t made the final cut. I love end-of-year lists but one of my hates is eagerly anticipating your favourite movie of the year on a list, getting to the #1 spot and realising it was left out completely!

For this reason I’m going to mention a few 2012 films that for one reason or another I didn’t like quite enough to make my 50, but still wanted to recognize as films I’ve seen from the year. It will also help me avoid the “You need to see this movie!” when I already have, I just didn’t quite dig it. After the Top 50, I will make my letterboxd list public again so you can the full rankings of the 136 films I’ve seen. Interestingly, 4 of the 9 Best Picture nominees didn’t make my 50!

Without further ado, the notable absentees:

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#131 – Margaret

#130 – Cosmopolis

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#129 – Holy Motors
#1 on a lot of people’s lists, Holy Motors did very little for me unfortunately. I really loved the accordion scene though, as well as the closing scene! Perhaps I will give it another watch one day…  Read more

Welcome to my favourite time of the year, where I countdown my Top 50 films from the year before! I’m really excited to share fifty movies that I thoroughly enjoyed and hope you find a gem or two that you mightn’t have watched otherwise. From the 20th until the 25th I’ll release my best picks, 10 at a time, until we reach the Top 5, the movies I considered to be the pinnacle of 2012!

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I’ve seen 135+ films that I’m considering 2012 releases, films that were released worldwide last year. Many of these weren’t released in Australia until 2013, but I try to stick to the Oscar calendar year hence I waited a few more weeks to catch up on some important films including Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook.

So, before I kick off the actual Top 50 on Sunday, I thought I would get the eligibility out of the way and identify some movies that won’t be being considered for the list.  Read more