12. LINCOLN
I wasn't a fan of Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner's previous collaboration MUNICH, so this "intimate epic" was probably the most pleasant surprise of the year. I went in fearing a slog of a history lesson; instead I got a fleet, funny, and entertaining 19th Century version of "The West Wing" anchored by the most likable and immersive performance of Daniel Day-Lewis' career. Sure, we all admire Lincoln, but this movie actually makes you love the man. I'd love to see a one-man show of Daniel Day-Lewis telling stories as Lincoln for three hours, especially if those stories are written by Kushner.
11. MOONRISE KINGDOM
Wes Anderson transports us to a colorful and whimsical world that may never have existed, but where I'd love to live. Nothing feels real. Not the overly clever dialogue, the overly production designed sets, the brightly colored costumes, the weird story turns, or the bizarre characters. But the whimsy somehow doesn't overwhelm the sweet and hilarious love story between the boy and girl at the center of the movie, played by quirky and lovable newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward. I knew this would be one of my favorite movies of the year the moment I saw the shot with the kid on the trampoline in the background.
10. THE MASTER
Paul Thomas Anderson's THERE WILL BE BLOOD was my favorite movie of the decade, so there probably wasn't going to be any chance that his unsettling portrait of a seriously disturbed WWII vet falling under the spell of a cult that looks suspiciously like Scientology and its enigmatic, charismatic leader was going to be able to top it… and it doesn't. Even though I'm still not sure what the point of the movie is, even after seeing it twice projected in 70mm, I still find it an enthralling, hypnotic experience. I can't even decide which of its three key performances— Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, or Amy Adams— is the most impressive. And the "processing scene" between Phoenix and Hoffman is the single best movie scene I saw all year.
9. WRECK-IT RALPH
I know, it feels like sacrilege to rank a geeky animated kids movie about videogame characters above the latest epics by Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Spielberg, but former "Simpsons" director Rich Moore's sugar rush of a movie is the first Disney computer-animated feature that can rank with the best of Pixar in terms of heart, cleverness, and maturity. John C. Reilly is great as the videogame bad guy who spreads chaos in his quest to become a hero, Jane Lynch's character gave me the biggest laugh in the movie (it's when her character's tragic backstory is revealed), Alan Tudyk does a delightfully spot-on Ed Wynn and provides one of the best plot twists of the year, and Sarah Silverman is both adorable and heart-breaking. Really, did you ever think she could ever make you cry? (Don't answer that if you've seen TAKE THIS WALTZ.)
8. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
With FLIRTING WITH DISASTER and this wonderful and acerbic adaptation of Matthew Quick's novel, David O. Russell seems to be the only filmmaker who can pull off a successful screwball comedy, anymore. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are a joy to watch as they poke and prod at one another with barbed dialogue, and Robert DeNiro does his best work in over 20 years. The movie is just as goofy as it sounds: two people suffering from bipolar disorder and depression fall in love and help one another through the magic of football and ballroom dancing… But it somehow makes us care about its damaged characters and concludes with just about the most perfect climactic scene of the year.
7. DJANGO UNCHAINED
It's Quentin Tarantino. Of course it's in bad taste. Of course it's overlong and overblown and makes a mockery of a deadly serious subject. And of course it's a blood-soaked blast of fantastic fun. Jamie Foxx is a 19th Century Siegfried we can all root for, while Kerry Washington is his gorgeous Broomhilda, a woman worth fighting a dragon to rescue. And beneath it all, I'm pretty sure Tarantino's making a serious point about slavery's terrible legacy, because it sure did make me cringe in horror. Other times, the movie put a big smile on my face with its smarts and unexpected intellectualism, particularly in the scene where Christoph Waltz (never more charming and likable) and Leonardo DiCaprio (never so slimy and despicable) banter about the author Alexandre Dumas.
6. HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE
I have to be honest, I've seen a lot of films and documentaries about AIDS, but it wasn't until I saw David France's profoundly sad, stirring, and ultimately uplifting documentary that I actually understood what a "protease inhibitor" is. That is just one of many things I learned from this movie, along with the fact that playwright Larry Kramer is a serious badass. The documentary chronicles the formation, rise, and eventual fracturing of the activist group ACT UP, whose members had the remarkable foresight to film and record everything they did, allowing the story to be told almost entirely through footage from the height of the AIDS crisis intercut with candid, powerful interviews from both past and present. As its title suggests, and like the documentary WE WERE HERE, it's as much about life and survival as it is about death. You can watch it now on Netflix Watch Instantly here:
Netflix Watch Instantly: How To Survive A Plague
5. AMOUR
Films such as FUNNY GAMES, CACHE, THE PIANO TEACHER, and TIME OF THE WOLF have established Michael Haneke as perhaps the coldest, cruelest, most misanthropic filmmaker working today, but with AMOUR he delivers one of the warmest, most humane and real depictions of a loving relationship in years. It's also pitiless and very hard to watch, made even more difficult by the beautiful performances by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. Georges and Anne are an octogenarian couple living comfortably in their apartment, but when Anne suffers a stroke that slowly destroys her body but leaves her mind intact, Georges' reaction becomes an incredible display of love and devotion. It's equal parts real horror and touching romance.
4. HOLY MOTORS
Leos Carax's fantasia in which Denis Lavant rides around in a limo all day to "appointments" where he has to transform himself into eleven different characters is a giddy and surreal celebration of film and especially of the art of acting. You'll have to watch the movie to see how Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue figure into it. And talking limousines. Don't even get me started on the delightful musical interlude where Lavant is joined by an accordion band playing R.L. Burnside’s “Let My Baby Ride." It's my second favorite single movie scene of the year, and you can watch it right here:
3. SKYFALL
Sam Mendes directing a James Bond movie sounded like an iffy idea, especially after the mediocrity of QUANTUM OF SOLACE, the previous Bond movie also directed by an acclaimed dramatic film director (Marc Forster). Any doubts vanished within minutes. Right from the opening sequence, one of the greatest and most relentless action sequences I've ever seen, you know you're seeing a Bond movie for the modern age. Which makes the ending even more ironic: after all the modern twists, the movie has the balls to reboot the franchise by bringing it all the way back to the beginning, resetting all the pieces to where they were during the Connery era. Cinematography god Roger Deakins raises digital cinematography to a whole new level. Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, and Naomie Harris are all welcome additions to the series. Javier Bardem doesn't appear until midway into the movie, but with a single scene, he establishes himself as one of the all-time great Bond villains. And here was the Bond movie that finally showed us who the true Bond Girl was all along: Judi Dench.
2. ZERO DARK THIRTY
Despite Kathryn Bigelow's bravura direction and Mark Boal's information-packed script, this movie wouldn't even be on this list if it weren't for Jessica Chastain's stunning performance at its heart. As "Maya," the young CIA analyst who doggedly pursued an obscure lead that eventually led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, she is relentless, fierce, and even frightening. We share in her delight, disappointment, frustration, and grief as she deals with breakthroughs, tragedies, triumphs, and setbacks. The debate about whether the movie endorses torture is fruitless; depiction of torture (which one would have to be a fool to claim didn't happen) isn't the same as endorsing it. Since we all know how the story ends, the movie could have been nothing more than a cold, clinical reenactment, but thanks to Chastain, the movie builds to a cathartic, emotional release.
1. CLOUD ATLAS
The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer's glorious adaptation of David Mitchell's sprawling "unfilmable" novel is an ambitious, messy, gorgeous, pretentious, confusing, thrilling, corny, misguided, mind-boggling, passionate three-hour beast… and I loved every last second of it. The movie leaps back and forth through 500 years of human history, intercutting furiously between six interconnected stories that could easily be great standalone movies of their own. Each member of the impressive cast (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, Doona Bae, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Jim Strugess, Keith David, James D'Arcy, and my favorite in the movie, Jim Broadbent) is called upon to play multiple characters, often in make-up, with varying degrees of effectiveness, to change their age, race, or even gender. Ignore the cries of "yellow-face"; this movie has red-face, white-face, brown-face… it all serves the message of the film that everything is connected, and that life on Earth is forever a battle between the powerful and the powerless. I had to see this movie twice in IMAX, and I look forward to seeing it many more times on Blu-ray. There's no question that it's my favorite movie of the year. Here's the 6-minute trailer:
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