our favorite movies of 2012.

I think all you know that Alexis and I both really like movies. In fact we each took classes in our Humanities degrees learning about film and cinema, and I wrote several research papers dealing with film. That said, we have watched many of this year’s movies and this is our awards list. It is important to note that because we are on a tight student budget we only see movies that have merited out attention, and pass our content vetting (we don’t use the MPAA ratings because they are mainly political and not very substantive, but we do use parental guides from IMDB and other sites). To get our attention movies have to either have over an 80% on www.rottentomatoes.com orwww.metacritic.com. Both of these sites aggregate critics reviews from over 100-200 different publications ranging from Salon to the Wall Street Journal (and other very non-artsy conservative publications). Rottentomatoes aggregates reviews based on qualitative merit, and metacritic aggregates reviews based on quantitative merit. That said, with the law of large numbers we feel our vetting process is pretty sound considering we don’t have the time or money to see everything. Here is the list. 

Best Movie: 
1. Argo (rating PG-14, on our scale, the only objectionable stuff in this show is language. In fact, if it came out in the 70s it would be a soft PG) 
1. Zero Dark Thirty (rating PG-16, potentially objectionable content: “enhanced interrogation” of terrorist detainees, language, dead bodies) 

Note: It has been an awesome year for CIA movies! Alexis and I really cannot determine which of these movies is better, so they both get our movie of the year award! The acting in both these movies is outstanding, the directing flawless, the pacing perfect, the writing is tight and focused, the editing shows the perfect amount to keep things moving but does not drag down the pace of scenes, and the cinematography is great. 

Runners Up for Best Movie in order: 
3. Silver Linings Playbook (rating PG-15, Language, innuendo) 
4. Django Unchained (Rating R, strong racial based violence that scratches the surface when it comes to the horrors of slavery (note this violence is portrayed as being an evil thing), other western violence, strong language: swearing and derogatory racial terms) 
5. Moonrise Kingdom (rating PG-13, references to marital affairs, minor language and a little innuendo (less than you would hear in the halls of a UT school, way less than you would hear in the locker room of a UT school), young teens kissing) 
6. Skyfall (rating PG-13, minor violence, minor language, minor innuendo (for a Bond movie it is very clean))
7. Wreck It Ralph (rating G-PG, minor crude humor like the kind a 4 year old would make) 
8. Lincoln (rating PG-13, language, portrayals of racial discrimination, dead bodies) 
8. The Dark Knight Rises (rating PG-13, minor language, scary scenes, comic book violence) 
8. Avengers (rating PG-13, minor language, comic book violence, flirtation)

Note: We did not see Les Mis, Brave, Hitchcock, Promised Land, and Perks of Being a Wallflower because they did not reach an aggregate of 80%. We did not see The Master because it had sexually explicit material. We have not seen the Life of Pi because the source material was boring and overrated.

Best Directing: 
1. Ben Affleck: Argo 
2. Kathryn Bigelow: Zero Dark Thirty
3. Wes Anderson: Moonrise Kingdom

Best Actress (The movie industry is extremely sexist. There were not enough roles written for strong women characters this year and, as a result, our nominees for both best actress and best supporting actress are limited by our selection from Hollywood. However, the women that we chose did an extremely good job. But there were only 3 performances to choose from and, as luck would have it, they all did well!). 

1. Jessica Chastain, no question: Zero Dark Thirty
2. Jennifer Lawrence: Silver Linings Playbook
3. Noomi Rapace: Prometheus

Best Actor:
1. Daniel Day Lewis, no question: Lincoln
2. Bradley Cooper: Silver Linings Playbook
3. Jamie Foxx: Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actress:
1. Sally Field: Lincoln
2. We haven’t seen Les Mis, but Anne Hathaway is reportedly amazing
3. Jacki Weaver: Silver Linings Playbook
4. Jennifer Ehle: Zero Dark Thirty

Best Supporting Actor:
1. Robert Di Nero: Silver Linings Playbook
2. Michael Fassbender: Prometheus
3. Jason Clarke: Zero Dark Thirty
4. Javier Bardem: Skyfall
5. Cristoph Waltz: Django Unchained

Best Acting as a Cast creating a clear synergy between cast members, basically the sum is greater than the whole of its parts
1. Argo
2. Django
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Moonrise Kingdom
5. Avengers

Best Writing (Adapted and Original combined):
1. Christ Terrio: Argo
2. Mark Boal: Zero Dark Thirty
3. Quentin Tarantino: Django Unchained
4. David O. Russell: Silver Linings Playbook
5. Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, Jim Reardon: Wreck it Ralph

Best Written Scene:
1. Quentin Tarantino: Django Unchained, “The Raid”
2. Tony Kushner: Lincoln, “The Congressional Debates”
3. David O. Russell: Silver Linings Playbook, “Dinner Party”

Most Overrated Writing:
1. Lincoln – the thing that held this movie back from being great was the writing. The focus was spread over 2 very compelling topics which spread the film thin. If the writer had chosen to focus on either just the 13th amendment or just the man, it could have been spades better. 

Best Cinematography:
1. Django Unchained 
1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Argo
3. Zero Dark Thirty

Biggest Surprise (in a good way):
1. Silver Linings Playbook (we were expecting a romantic comedy but found an insightful, funny movie)
2. Wreck It Ralph (we were expecting a love letter to video games but found that it had much more depth, good writing, beautiful cinematography, and strong character development)

Biggest Letdown:
1. Prometheus (we were hoping that Ridley Scoot would reinvent sci-fi again, no such luck)
2. Lincoln (the writing really killed it (in a bad way)/mom and dad Davis used their phones the whole movie)
3. Django Unchained (we both love Tarantino so much that, even though it was one of our favorite movies from the year, we were still slightly disappointed (ie not as good as Inglorious))

Best Movie Moments:
1. Seeing The Avengers after a Constitutional Law final and wanting to “smash” everything
2. Watching Lincoln with mom and dad Davis while they texted and answered phone calls in the theatre
3. Seeing 2 movies to celebrate 2 years on our anniversary

Notable Movies that we happened to see, but didn’t make our “bests” list include The Hobbit, Bourne Legacy, Looper, and Pirates: Band of Misfits. Also, we have yet to see Beasts of the Southern Wild and are planning to do so.