2012 Film Critic Top Ten Lists

im sorry but i cant take any list which omits Moonrise Kongdom and Beasts of the southern wild seriously, with thats said heres my favourite movies,

1. Beasts of the southern wild 2. Moonrise Kingdom 3. holy motors 4. The Dark knight rises 5. Zero Dark thirty

Nolan is both British and American. His mom is American and he spent a lot of time here in the US.

I wonder where all the whiners are this year. It seems every year there is someone calling all critics losers for not naming (fill in popular movie here) as the #1. Are we becoming all becoming more civil or are the whiners taken by apathy?

@MAndersson

"Deluded Americanism," you realize Nolan is British right? And I think the ambiguity in condoning or condemning Batman's behavior comes with the character, that's inherently the moral dilemma that comes with the whole vigiliantism concept. The Dark Knight Rises didn't appear in as many Top 10 lists as say it's predecessor because quite simply it's predecessor was a better film. I don't think TDKR will really be appreciated until a couple years from now when hype, the Aurora tragedy, and other extremism towards the film has kind of died down a little. In my opinion, the "art films" in this list are films like Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Silver Linings Playbook, even Django Unchained to an extent, but Tarantino's "art films" kind of live in their own world. To me an "art film" is a film that clearly is made my the director as a personal, artistic project in which they either seek validation through Oscar nominations or they make it for the sake of the art of film, not necessarily to be seen as by a mass audience or to garner mass audience appeal. That's not to say these films aren't entertaining, Moonrise Kingdom was on my best of 2012 list so far and I found that movie incredibly entertaining. But films of these types aren't made for primarily, entertainment purposes, they're made as artistic projects of personal worth or worth to the art of film. The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, The Avengers, Argo, I don't think these are 'art films', they're more mainstream, blockbuster type fare. These films, because they're considered "mass appealing" just don't get the same critical praise that these "art films" get from the critic community. And when a blockbuster does get "critical praise" it gets a backlash from the public. It's all a weird, contradictory cycle. Critics and Academy voters USUALLY agree, but not always (2008's snubbing of The Dark Knight being a prime example). Maybe I'm wrong, but critics are film viewers just like us, they have their own tastes, but being "critics" it is implied that they have a slightly better and deeper understanding of what makes good film than the common audience member.

it should obviously say "portrayal", and not "betrayal". Not sure what was going through my mind there.

@hplalakrs2001

Is it then the job of the critic to re-affirm the audiences beliefs that they've seen all that deserves to bee seen by choosing the most audience-pandering and advertised films of the season? Likewise, I'd say that your concept of these so-called art-films is much too broad, and only serves in a detrimental way of lumping together many a film that hardly even share any values on the surface-level. Which films in these lists are even art-films, by your standards?

I never mady any such mentions, or arbitrary differentations, between what you label art-films and blockbusters, so I'm not entirely sure why you would even mention that in your argument. My point was in-fact that films beyond the most recent big-budget Hollywood release that gets to be in the limelight due to an overblown media-coverage can be "entertaining". However, I hardly think that films like The Dark Knight Rises or Skyfall needs more coverage, or more "ardent" defenders among the film community than what they already have. These films are not the underdogs. On the subject of TDKR, its "critical dismissal" (you seemed anxious to throw that title into your post, so I can't help but feel that you're slightly disappointed in it not showing up in as many top-10 lists as you had hoped) has more to do with it being a sloppy Mabuse-reboot than it being a "blockbuster", not to mention its deluded americanism and eskewed betrayal of foreginers coupled with a clearly delineated pandering towards the audience, which results in an awfully awkward and tacked-on ending, while Nolan at the same time can't quite make up his mind if he wants to condone or condemn Batman's behaviour.

This was an awesome year for movies, here is my Top 10 list. I have Skyfall at #1 as I see it being the best of all Bond movies to me. TDKR at #2 being the best of the 3 recent takes on Batman as well as it's relation to the real world with it's questions of morality within the movie's plot. I have The Avengers hanging onto #10 as it is a solid superhero movie but in comparison to TDKR, it's more Transformers than anything--mostly popcorn fare. I believe if a movie doesn't leave you intellectually stimulated than the movie has missed it's mark. I'm not a fan of musicals but I like the way Les Miserables plays... not another Chicago where the cast is a collection of actors/actresses doing the movie simply for a notch on their resume saying they were in a musical. (I see that a lot being in the military where duties are picked up by people only to get credit as bullets on an EPR with no intention of fulfilling the actual duties and/or giving a weak or "half-a55" effort.)
1) Skyfall
2) The Dark Knight Rises
3) Lincoln
4) Argo
5) Zero Dark Thirty
6) The Master
7) Flight
Django
9) Les Miserables
10) The Avengers

@MAndersson

I think what JRath is saying is that, most critics' Top 10 lists consist of films that the public typically do not see, they are art films made for the purpose of winning awards at the end of the season, at that films that are typically more "entertaining" get short shrift for being too "mainstream" or "blockbuster-y". That why I admire the work of Christopher Nolan with his Batman films or Sam Mendes with Skyfall, it's an attempt to put some deeper thematic meaning to films that can also be blockbuster crowd pleasers. This explains why a film like Lord of the Rings can win 11 Academy Awards and be both a rich, artistic cinematic experience and be a crowd pleasing fantasy film (although I think that the Weinsteins' influence had a lot to do with convincing the Academy that LOTR deserved the Oscars). Yes I enjoyed The Avengers too, yes I like to be entertained, but I typically don't want to watch too many Michael Bay-esque movies after a while. I'd like to see more "smart" blockbusters or "thematically deeper" or "complex" blockbusters. Who says that a blockbuster can't be art? Who says that an art film can't be entertaining? That's the delusion of mass media there, telling us that blockbusters are all mindless entertainment and that only art films have true cinematic worth.

@ JRath

Talk about misguided elitism. Really, so you just happen to know the every single persons reasons for going to the cinema? Must be swell. Just because you only seek entertainment (whatever that really means anyway) when watching a film, does not mean that everyone is looking for the same thing, but this should hardly come as a surprise to you. On that note, I was far more entertained by a picture such as Amour than The Avengers. Even Holy Motors, with all its overblown razzle-dazzle was a more enrapturing experience. You see, despite what the mass media tries to beat into us, entertainment isn't necessarily universal, so there's no need for you to put on an air of superiority based on your particular likes and dislikes.