2012 poll

[Lencho of the Apes]

Choose your favorite films from 2012 (according to IMDb).

– Each person votes for up to 20 movies. Do not feel compelled to fill the maximum allowable number, if you're enthusiastic about fewer than twenty.
– Do not rank the films except the number 1, it gets two points..

Users are urged to post their provisional lists as soon as possible so that others may use them for recommendations. You may, of course, revise your lists at any point prior to the deadline.

Ballots posted by new members who have not participated in other parts of the forum will not be counted.

Deadline for 2012 lists will be Monday, Feb 3rd at approximately 1 PM Pacific Time. Or a couple hours later, because this winter it has been very hard for me to adhere to this schedule.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Seen and didn't reject

Eega - Rajamouli
Fogo - Yolene Olaizola
Halley - Sebastian Hofmann
Here Comes The Devil - Adrian Garcia Bogliano
In The Fog - Loznitsa
El mundo fantastico de Juan Orol - Sebastian del Amo
Nightfall - James Benning *** It was 2011 when we did 2011, but it's 2012 now.
Post tenebras lux - Reygadas
La Sirga - William Vega

Watchlist posted elsewhere, as always.

[greennui]

1. Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)

Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)
Amour (Michael Haneke)
Fragments (Franco Piavoli)
In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)
Stemple Pass (James Benning)
Barbara (Christian Petzold)
No (Pablo Larraín)

[Silga]

Provisional list:

1. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

Anna Karenina (Joe Wright)
Prometheus (Ridley Scott)
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)
Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski)
Flight (Robert Zemeckis)
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)
Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
Argo (Ben Affleck)
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)
Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
Blancanieves (Pablo Berger)
Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard)
Seven Psychopaths (Martin McDonagh)
Caesar Must Die (Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani)
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland)
Ernest & Celestine (Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar, Stéphane Aubier)
Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik)
Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta)

Watchlist:

Mud
Chasing Ice
The Queen of Versailles

[rischka]

a woman's revenge!

spring breakers
romancing in thin air
neighboring sounds
stemple pass
viola
de jueves a domingo
like someone in love
gangs of wasseypur
drug war
eega
dredd
walker
fatso

stuff i have to watch

the act of killing
amour
barbara
inside
never die
museum hours
stories we tell
tabu
something in the air
you ain't seen nothing yet
36
winter nomads

anyone for the master?

[Lencho of the Apes]

Jai Bhim is now 2011 on imdb.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Post Tenebras Lux - Reygadas
Like Someone In Love - Kiarostami
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet - Resnais
Frances Ha - Baumbach
Holy Motors - Carax
In Another Country - Hong
Drug War - To
The Master - Anderson
Walker - Tsai

[rischka]

thx lencho

is the danish film the hunt worth watching for mads mikkelsson? lol looks like a bitterly divisive love/hate film

[Silga]

is the danish film the hunt worth watching for mads mikkelsson?

Definitely worth watching. Great performance by Mads Mikkelsen and a poignant, important story as well. It nearly made my list too.

[DT.]

1. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)

Anna Karenina (Joe Wright)
Drug War (Johnnie To)
Eega (S. S. Rajamouli)
Fill the Void (Rama Burshtein)
Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen (György Pálfi)
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg)
In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)
Lore (Cate Shortland)
Mystery (Lou Ye)
Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas)
Romancing in Thin Air (Johnnie To)
Southwest (Eduardo Nunes)
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)
Stemple Pass (James Benning)
The Taste of Money (Im Sang-soo)
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet! (Alain Resnais)

Want to watch:

After the Battle (Yousry Nasrallah)
Antiviral (Brandon Cronenberg)
Dormant Beauty (Marco Bellocchio)
Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (Lav Diaz)
Gangs of Wasseypur (Anurag Kashyap)
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel)
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)
Student (Darezhan Omirbaev)
Three Sisters (Wang Bing)
Thy Womb (Brillante Mendoza)
White Deer Plain (Wang Quan'an)
White Elephant (Pablo Trapero)

[ofrene]

definitely

Drug War
Florentina Hubaldo
Gangs of Wasseypur
Gebo and the Shadow
Holy Motors
It’s Such a Beautiful Day
Leviathan
Like Someone in Love
Tabu
The Kirishima Thing
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

also...

Barbara
Cosmopolis
Django Unchained
Flight
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Moonrise Kingdom
Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man
Penance
Romancing In Thin Air
Skyfall
Spring Breakers
Stories We Tell
The Master
The Room Called Heaven
Wadjda
Walker

etc...

[brian d]

very roughly ranked:
goltzius and the pelican company (greenaway)
a woman's revenge (azevedo gomes)
farewell my queen (jacquot)
estrada de palha (areias)
un héritier (straub)
celestial wives of the meadow mari (fedorchenko)
blancanieves (berger)
tricket (verhoeven)
jai bhim comrade (patwardhan)
lines of wellington (sarmiento)
the artist and the model (trueba)
in the house (ozon)
masquerade (choo)
gebo and the shadow (oliveira)
passion (gil)
a royal affair (arcel)
you ain't seen nothing yet (resnais)
to the wonder (malick)

detested:
holy motors (carax)

to see:
gangs of wasseypur

[Umbugbene]

1. The Last Time I Saw Macao (João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata)

2. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
3. Prometheus (Ridley Scott)
4. Lines of Wellington (Valeria Sarmiento)
5. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
6. Dormant Beauty (Marco Bellocchio)
7. The Watchtower (Pelin Esmer)
8. Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (Lav Diaz)

I have reservations about voting for Florentina Hubaldo; I don't think it's a good movie, but I find the lizard scene spooky and beautiful.

[...]

Oof! Not a good year for me so far. Only have 66 films viewed according to Letterboxd and most weren't that great. Change that to formerly not a good year for me, but getting much better as I see more. The best 20 so far:

Romancing in Thin Air

The Act of Killing
Three Sisters
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty
Eega
Rowdy Rathore
Drug War
Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2
Cosmopolis

Thale
Anna Karenina
The Master
Lincoln
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie I & II
Ernest & Celestine
Resident Evil: Retribution
Safe
Vera '68
Heleno


And to be honest I didn't even exactly like a few of those, just giving 'em points for effort, and would probably skip including all the bottom 10 or more if I saw anything better..

Would very much like to see:

Berberian Sound Studio
Spring Breakers
Gangs of Wasseypur
A Woman’s Revenge
Something in the Air
Casting Blossoms to the Sky
Midnight's Children
Dreams for Sale
and/or enough others to have a good list of 20

And as it appears The Act of Killing is on youtube, I guess I'll start there.

Holy fuck! Even the first ten minutes of that movie are incredible. Both beautiful and seriously disturbing. Getting those who participated or ordered the deaths of roughly one million "communists" to show what they did by having them script it out as if for a Hollywood/Bollywood style movie is brilliant and bonkers as the lure of the camera gets them to join in with relish.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

1. Jerry and Me (Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa)
Point de Gaze (Jodie Mack)
How to Survive a Plague (David France)
Bestiary (Denis Côté)
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
Johnny Carson: King of Late Night (Mark A. Catalena)
The Guilt Trip (Anne Fletcher)
Hitchcock (Sacha Gervasi)

Hope to see Johnnie To's Drug War this January, otherwise my final list.
Saw Drug War, 'twas not for me. My final list above.

[thoxans]

EEGA (S. S. Rajamouli / J.V.V. Sathyanarayana)

barfi! (anurag basu)
drug war (johnnie to)
in another country (hong sang-soo)
like someone in love (abbas kiarostami)
magic mike (steven soderbergh)
mugamoodi (mysskin)
student (darezhan omirbaev)

*sure is a shame that netflix's search function fuxkin suxxx, and i can't simply search '2012'

[nrh]

*sure is a shame that netflix's search function fuxkin suxxx, and i can't simply search '2012'

go to instantwatcher dot com, click search, and set the range from 2012-2012. not perfect but it mostly works.

[rischka]

Would very much like to see:

Romancing in Thin Air

greg i'm very much surprised you haven't seen this! it's an update of 'my left eye sees ghosts' which i remember you praising back in the (mubi) day!

[...]

I know! It's been on the top of my want to see list forever, but somehow I haven't had a chance to see it yet. I've always been keener on To's work outside the gangster genre, not that I don't like those as well of course. And it stars Sammi Cheng!

Now I'm depressed again that I've missed out for so long.

[thoxans]

instantwatcher dot com

bookmarked! spotted a few flicks already on my watchlist under that search criteria

unrelated sidenote: i'm waiting for the day lencho intros his prelim list with 'Seen and hated less than I hate other stuff'

[rischka]

I know! It's been on the top of my want to see list forever, but somehow I haven't had a chance to see it yet. I've always been keener on To's work outside the gangster genre, not that I don't like those as well of course. And it stars Sammi Cheng!

Now I'm depressed again that I've missed out for so long.

no need to be depressed; i wish i was watching it for the first time. i can hook you up if you need it

[...]

I would be giddy if you could!

[rischka]

i'll get right on it

[...]

Thanks!

[rischka]

sent you a pm

[therouxxx]

Not a ballot, just some interesting stuff imo

Jab tak hai jaan - yash chopra, SRK and Anushka Sharma parts of this kinda like a not boring version of Hurt locker
Rezeta
Tricked - verhoeven
Flight - zemeckis
Pizza - karthik subbaraj, got some serious KK vibes in earlier act of this
The hunt
Barfi!
Viola
Passion - de palma
Andala Rakshasi
Pelotero - maybe niche pick, but Miguel Sano plays for my fav baseball team unf 2011 on imdb
Lore
Kahaani
Sister - ursula meier
Room 237 - always found this more interesting than the actual film

To see:
3 - directorial debut of Aishwarya R. Dhanush, starring husband Dhanush

[...]

3 - directorial debut of Aishwarya R. Dhanush, starring husband Dhanush

Ooh, that sounds like something I might like to see as well. I'll be looking forward to an update on how you liked it if you see it and I haven't gotten to it yet myself.

Jab tak hai jaan - yash chopra, SRK and Anushka Sharma parts of this kinda like Hurt locker but not boring

I was actually a bit put off by Sharma, or at least the character, but thought Katrina Kaif was kinda ideal for her role because she seemed just right for someone deeply invested in superstition. She isn't the most emotive actress, to be kind about it, but for that role it seemed a good fit.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Rezeta

I really liked the way Rezeta showed couples bonding over shared interests instead of pheromones, or... just... "OMG You're a girl! And I'm a boy!" ... which seems to be all it takes in most movies.

[therouxxx]

I was actually a bit put off by Sharma, or at least the character, but thought Katrina Kaif was kinda ideal for her role because she seemed just right for someone deeply invested in superstition. She isn't the most emotive actress, to be kind about it, but for that role it seemed a good fit.

Interesting.. I love the SRK-Anushka stuff, but find the SRK-KK stuff quite dull--except for that wonderful dance scene. Not sure why, probably just prefer AS as a performer. Unshaved SRK w/ demons tips the scale that way too.

[nrh]

Ooh, that sounds like something I might like to see as well. I'll be looking forward to an update on how you liked it if you see it and I haven't gotten to it yet myself.

it's an interesting movie, well worth watching - dhanush is great as always, it's a rare film where shruti is actually good, and you get one of the defining songs of the decade in why this kolaveri di.

and as a film it becomes even more interesting when you think of it as a kind of sideways analysis of the "dhanush type," or at least the dhanush type as it existed in 2012.

it's an interesting year for tamil film though, with 2 of the major figures of the decade making debuts (pa. ranjith with attakathi, karthick subbaraj with pizza, both introducing santhosh narayanan who is more important composer of decade by far) and the breakout indie success of naduvula konjam pakkatha kaanom.

and i'm very fond of mysskin's mugamoodi even though it's probably his only real misfire.