Another year has passed and that's means another 15 movies you probably missed, totally ignored and maybe didn't hear about. While my list isn't necessarily just only the the underlooked and under appreciated movies of the past year, as there will be a few mainstream and big hit releases on there, they're the movies that came out of nowhere, that did something new or unexpected with film.
Movies I totally missed last year: Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, Argo, Lawless, End of Watch, Coriolanus, The Woman in Black, Wanderlust, This is Not a Film, The Comedy, God Bless America, Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Jeff Who Live at Home, Liberal Arts, Lockout, Silver Linings Playbook, The Sound of My Voice, Not Fade Away, Anna Karenina, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Rust and Bone, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Ruby Sparks, Seven Psychopaths, Klovn, Red Hook Summer, Sinister, The Sessions, Flight, Life of Pi, Hitchcock, The Intouchables, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Smashed and The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure
15. The Grey - Originally sold as the "Liam Neeson punches wolves" movie, The Grey is so much more than that. At times it is a grim and bleak exploration of death with Cormac McCarthy-like aspirations while also being a gripping survival story. The film is a huge leap forward for director Joe Carnahan whose previous two films Smokin' Aces and The A-Team, have been fun diversions while The Grey is filled with an intense low-key sadness and melancholy. The film is the anti-survival story, it is about how cruel and mean-spirited and objective the world really is, but despite the utter hopelessness and desperation pervading the movie , you'll be glad you watched The Grey instead that "wolf punching Liam Neeson movie".
14. The Raid: Redemption - Despite whatever you think of the stupid subtitle, The Raid is a must see action movie in every regard. An intense and brutal experience that makes The Expendables 2 ,Taken 2 and just about every other American action film from last 10 years look like stale boring embarrassments. The speed and ferocity with which lead actor Iko Uwais moves will leave you astonished. Earlier in the year I wrote an article comparing The Raid to a Thai martial arts film from the previous year, while I was a bit harsh and unfair to The Raid, I guarantee you will have the perfect action night double feature with Bangkok Knockout and The Raid. While it might not be ground breaking, it is bone-shattering and will leave you wanting more in the best way.
13. Cosmopolis - There probably wasn't a stranger or more off putting film in 2012 than David Cronenberg's return to the weird; it makes Holy Motors look accessible by comparison. Don't let the inclusion of R-Pat deter you, the movie will probably do that on it's own, at times it feels like it's being weird for the sake of weird and it mostly works in its favor. Cronenberg delivers a slavish effort to the source material by Don Delillo, you will see a giant rat, numerous conversations about capitalism and the economy, people delivering monologues in a robotic manner, a prostrate exam and Pattison getting pied in the face. While you may not agree or understand everything that's going on, the movie is an excellent reminder that sometimes we just need to be perplexed every now and then.
11. Compliance - Compliance is uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable. It has all the tension and mood of a thriller and a horror film. Is it one? Who knows? What makes it special is how the majority of the film takes place in the stockroom of a lowly fast-food restaurant but manages to not make it feel like a gimmick or a stage-play. It's a small film but it's impact will stay with you for days.
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9. Skyfall - Skyfall is a strange film. It is a progressive, modern and stalemated examination of Bond in the current world but manages to do all this while also be campy and fun and everything a solid Bond movie should be. The movie revels and pays tribute to everything we love about Bond while critiquing at the same time. Bond gets his trademark Aston Martin but it is subsequent blown to pieces, the villain has a huge hideaway island but it's deserted and empty. It's sort of slow-moving and actionless before it gets to an incredible final hour once Javier Bardem's over-the-top Raoul Silva enters the picture. Bardem's villian runs away with film and turns a mostly good film into a memorable and iconic one.
7. Killing them Softly - Andrew Dominick's follow-up to his 2007 masterpiece The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a completely different beast entirely. It is an angry and confrontational film that is blunt and as subtle as a sledgehammer. It works as an anti-gangster picture which portrays the criminals as desperate, petty and pathetic refusing to romanticize them in anyway, there is a mean and cynical streak running through the film that wants to shake audience out of their bored slumber and total desensitization toward violence. The performances and the writing are all top notch, with Pitt, Gandolfini, and Scoot McNairy delivering some career-best work. When the movie hits, it hits hard, the violence and cruelty are all impactful, it ain't pretty and you won't feel good about yourself afterward but we should all be damn glad this kind of movie was released.
6. Detention - Joseph Kahn's second film is an exhilarating wonder. Another critic described it as an episode of Community directed by Edgar Wright, it is a balls out, bug nuts film that never stops, it just gets crazier and crazier. A movie like this feels one of kind. There really isn't anything like it and succeeds in its kinetic style, it feels like Kahn pulls off what the Wachoski's have been trying to do with editing since Speed Racer, it's a movie that moves and pushes editing toward to the future, this is the kind of movie that should be influencing future filmmakers. In the least insulting way, Detention is the perfect movie about the internet generation made for them, it's ambitious, insane, and ridiculously entertaining.
5. Cabin in the Woods - Cabin is the kick in the ass horror and genre films needed. Director Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon have literally pressed the nuke button on every tired trope and unscary icon. It never feels overly clever for it's own sake and it never gets bogged down in its own hyper meta-commentary. Cabin in the Woods just works and rewards viewers and horror fans with one of the best third acts in recent memory, one that leaves you exhilarated and the hope that from here on, nothing will be the same.
4. Kill List - Disturbing, unsettling, and nerve-wracking, if Cabin was the best movie about horror movies in 2012, Kill List is without a doubt the best horror film of 2012. The movie isn't really scary but it isn't about that, it's not out to scare you, it's there to make you deeply and horribly uncomfortable, things get weirder, stranger and more dangerous as it goes along. There is a pabable sense of dread that builds and builds until you can't take it anymore just as it reaches its shocking conclusion. If there's any movie on this list you should watch (but really you should watch all of them) , make it this piece of downright mindfuckery.
3. Chronicle - Chronicle is the best superhero film of 2012. There is a scene in the middle of the film when the three teenage leads discover they can fly, it's a moment that is filled with awe, wonder and pure joy. It's a scene that feels totally big and cinematic and inspiring, Chronicle does more in one scene for superheroes than either of those two other movies. And don't let the stupid aesthetic distract, Chronicle is well-shot and doesn't succumb to shakey-cam, while it doesn't do much for the "found-footage" genre it does make it actually watchable. The previews made this look like "Project X or Jackass with superpowers" but what you'll see is a well-written character-driven story where you care about what happens instead of just thinking about how cool everything looks.
2. Detachment - While Detachment made the festival circuit in 2011, it wasn't released in theaters until February 2012 and even then it was only on limited screens, it finally reached dvd in September of last year. With that factoid out of the way, Tony Kaye's second film after almost 14 years is despairing and hopeless. It's the kind of movie that'll make you angry, frustrated, and depressed but it's worth it. Detachment is leagues better than Kaye's first film, American History X, while he still has characters deliver obvious grand-standing monologues, there is graceful lack controversy for controversy's sake. It is a begrudgingly human film that isn't filled with the same over-bearing shock tactics and abrasiveness of his first. He takes on public education in way that doesn't feel like you're being spoon-fed any kind of message, you won't feel insulted, this is not a movie about a heroic teacher who helps inner-city kids with school problems, this is a movie that's much closer to how complicated, depressing and fruitless everything is.
1. The Master - Invigorating. The Master is an incredible reminder of bravura filmmaking, it's confident and big and feels major. It strikes a weird balance between being focused and ambiguous it's a "small" character study while also being a biopic of a major religious figure while also being a study of cults and fanaticism. Paul Thomas Anderson juggles all these things while doing his damn best to emulate Kubrick and Malick. The film isn't as iconic or flashy as There Will Be Blood, but it doesn't need to be. Phoenix and Hoffman deliver enthralling intense performances that captivate you all the way through. Shot on 70mm, scenes taking place in living rooms, and church meeting halls feel just as epic as anything in The Hobbit. The film can almost be summed up in the scene in which Freddie rides a motorcycle across a barren desert, it's a scene that is oddly tense, unsettlingly and utterly transfixing in a way that only a rare few movies ever reach.
