The Top Films of 2012 According to Some Toronto Cinephiles

David Davidson (Blogger: Toronto Film Review)

1. Tower (Kazik Radwanski)

    Krivina (Igor Drljaca)

    East Hastings Pharmacy (Antoine Bourges)

    Amy George (Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas)

    Many a Swan (Blake Williams)

2. Passion (Brian de Palma)

    Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

3. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)

    Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
    The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

4. Far From Afghanistan (John Gianvito, Travis Wilkerson, Jon Jost, Minda Martin, Soon-Mi Yoo)

    Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)

    Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

5. Greatest Hits (Nicolás Pereda)

    Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

6. Lawrence Anyways (Xavier Dolan)

    Keep the Lights On (Ira Sachs)

    The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (Marie Losier)

7. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
    Promised Land (Gus Van Sant)

    Trouble with the Curve (Robert Lorenz)

8. John Carter (Andrew Stanton)

    Prometheus (Ridley Scott)

9. The Three Stooges (Farrelly Brothers)

    Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)

    From Rome with Love (Woody Allen)

   This Is 40 (Judd Apatow)
10. La Guerre est déclarée (Valérie Donzelli)

11. Savages (Oliver Stone)

12. The We and I (Michel Gondry)
      Girls (Lena Dunhan)
     The Black Balloon (Safdie brothers)

      When You Sleep (Ashley McKenzie)

*****

Arielle Gavin (Tumblr: Dragonaut. Contributed: Honesty Competitions (Part 3))

1. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
2. In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)
3. Greatest Hits (Nicolás Pereda)
4. Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas)
5. Passion (Brian de Palma)
6. From Rome with Love (Woody Allen)
7. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)
8. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)
9. Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos)
10. Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)
11. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)

*****

Nicholas Little
15 titles in alphabetical order.
- End of Watch (David Ayer)
- The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan)
- Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Peter Jackson)
- Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
- Looper (Rian Johnson)
- Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)
- The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)
- Prometheus (Ridley Scott)
- Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
- Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
- Sound Of My Voice (Zal Batmanglij)
- Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

*****

Megan Widawski

My Top Ten films of 2012 in no particular order.

-       Argo (Ben Affleck)

-       Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)

-       Pitch Perfect (Jason Moore)

-       The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)

-       ParaNorman (Chris Butler & Sam Fell)

-       Frankenweenie (Tim Burton)

-       The Hobbit (Peter Jackson)

-       Dark Shadows (Tim Burton)

-       Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)

-       Savages (Oliver Stone)

*****

Blake Williams (Film Critic: Ioncinema, R, and G,and B, Cinema Scope. Filmmaker: Many a Swan)

1. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

2. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)

3. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)

4. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

5. Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu)

6. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)

7. Viola (Matías Piñeiro)

8. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (Alain Resnais)

9. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick)

10. Tchoupitoulas (Bill & Turner Ross)

Honorable mentions: Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine), Life of Pi (Ang Lee), It's Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt).

Best avant-garde of the year

1. August and After & April (Nathaniel Dorsky)

These two films viewed back-to-back, as they are meant to be, may well be a candidate for my Favourite Films of All Time list. At the very least, it's the closest I've come to tears via cinema (still hasn't happened yet folks).

2. Bloom (Scott Stark)

3. Orpheus (Outtakes) (Mary Helena Clark)

4. Reconnaissance (Johann Lurf)

5. The Extravagant Shadows (David Gatten)

6. the war (James Benning)

Favourite Performances: Denis Lavant (Holy Motors), Robert Pattinson (Cosmopolis), Seann William Scott (Goon), Frédéric Bourdin (The Imposter), James Gandolfini (Killing Them Softly), Yu Junsang (lifeguard in In Another Country), Tadashi Okuno (the professor in Like Someone in Love), Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy).

*****

Marco G.

[Unranked] Amour (Michael Haneke)

1. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)

2. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr)

3. Passion (Brian De Palma)

4. Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan)

5. Gebo and the Shadow (Manoel de Oliveira)

6. Elena (Andrei Zvyagintsev)

7. Stemple Pass (James Benning)

8. Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas)

9. differently, Molussia (Nicolas Rey)

10. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)

11. Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

12. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

13. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

*****

Ryan Krahn [read Ryan’s capsule reviews of all of the films on his list website, Aufhebung]

1. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)

2. The Clock (Christian Marclay)*

3. Amour (Michael Haneke)

4. The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg)

5. Paradise: Love (Ulrich Siedl)

6. In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa)

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

8. Passion (Brian De Palma)

9. Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas)

10. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

Honourable Mentions: Tower (Kazik Radwanski), Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino), Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh), Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland), Clip (Maja Miloš).

*all films based on first Canadian (festival or theatrical) release

*****

David Balzer (Assistant Editor at Canadian Art magazine. Author: Contrivances)
Museum Hours (Jem Cohen)
Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
To Rome With Love (Woody Allen)
Barbara (Christian Petzold)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)
Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
Videos for "National Anthem" and "Ride" (Anthony Mandler / Lana Del Rey)
Keep the Lights On (Ira Sachs)
Gerhard Richter – Painting (Corrina Belz)

Favourite repertory discovery: Promised Lands (1974, Susan Sontag) at Early Monthly Segments.

*****

Chris Kennedy (Programmer: The Free Screen, Early Monthly Segments. Filmmaker: Towards a Vanishing Point, Phantoms)

1. autrement, molussie (Nicolas Rey)

I was able to see this three times in three different settings, which meant—since the sequence of the nine reels is determined before each showing—that I saw three different versions. The second, at Media City in Windsor, was ecstatic (partly due to the stunning projection team that the festival pulls together). The order was “perfect” and the graininess of the film-stock came through particularly beautifully then, amplifying Gunter Anders’ moving parables of underground resistance.

 2. Sounding Glass (Sylvia Schedelbauer)

Sylvia got a handful of awards and a lot of well-deserved recognition for this piece, a very bracing merging of found-footage and flicker, with a stunning soundtrack by Thomas Carnacki . This was also a blast to see in multiple settings, as watching each cinema vibrate from the light from the screen was almost half the fun.

 3. Songs About Nothing (Jason Lescalleet)

Not a movie, but an album. Lescalleet, who I also managed to see three times this year (the best seem to come in threes), creates music out of field recordings, tape loops and assorted dying electronics. The results, both live and on record, are cinematic mood swings akin to the most associative free-form poetry of many diary filmmakers-albeit a lot noisier.

 4. Movements of an Impossible Time (Flatform)

A very simple crane shot across a ruined chateau—moving between small microclimates created by rain, wind, snow and fog machines—served as a lucid reaffirmation of the emotional power of the artifice of cinema.

 5. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn & anonymous)

A chilling documentary about the Indonesia genocide of the 1960s. The directors rely on the murderer’s own vanity to recreate the killings. There’s shockingly little remorse, although various murderers react to guilt in different ways (including a scene which implies that the body may expulse guilt even if the mind isn’t quite there yet). The final credits are an extremely moving testimony about the continued reality of this horror—most of the crew are listed as “anonymous”.

 6. Il se peut que la beauté ait renforcé notre résolution (Masao Adachi & Philippe Grandrieux)

The first time I saw this I was extremely jetlagged, so I scrambled to get my hands on a screener to reaffirm what I thought I saw. The night-drenched images worked into my half asleep self-conscious and Adachi’s rich thoughts on filmmaking and revolution – that you can make the plans but never predict the results – were a refreshing corrective against orthodox dogmatism.

 7. Game Plan (Alighiero e Boetti)

An exhibition at the MoMA. Maybe it’s the Italian thing, but Boetti’s work has resonated with me over the last five years in the same way that Pasolini’s work did when I was a film student. Arte povera, the poor man’s conceptualism, seem to match similar threads in Pasolini’s early films. And then you can try and pair up their later orientalisms … Anyway, great to see so much of Boetti’s work in one place.

 8. Mekong Hotel (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) & The Strawberry Tree (Simone Rapisarda Casanova)

I feel like these two films deserve to share a spot, partly due to their effortless and humble reflexivity, especially during a year where other films got so meta on the “meaning-of-movie-making” train (or should I say “limo”).

 9. Friendly Witness (Warren Sonbert, 1989)

It turned out that the Warren Sonbert retrospective that our Early Monthly Segments group were able to put on was a really lovely way to study Sonbert’s dense montages and the cross-referencing of life that his full oeuvre unfolds into. However, nothing had the full gut-punch of his film Friendly Witness, which feels like a pure gift in the face of Sonbert’s then newfound awareness of his diagnosis of AIDS, of which he would succumb to six years later.

10. The In-Person Screening

This was a good year for filmmakers traveling in to introduce their work, providing context to their art. The most notable that I saw may have been Phil Solomon’s screening at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which happened immediately after he got off an extremely turbulent foul-weather commuter flight from Montréal, on which he was sure he would die. The rejuvenated Solomon gave a generous (despite projection difficulties) and funny walk through an evening’s retrospective of his film work. Events like that prove how valuable the in-person is to personal filmmaking, even at the risk of leaving some skin on the tarmac.

Honorable mentions: Nearly a year later, I’m reminded about the emotional power of Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation and Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar. They started 2012 well, modeling how a well-written script, rich yet subtle characters and economic and thoughtful direction can create a beautiful, moving experience. That’s a simple thing to ask for in 2013.

*****

Scott Miller Berry (Programmer: Early Monthly Segments, Images Festival. Tumblr: cineparlour)

Twelve short films first seen in 2012 that I cannot wait to see again on the big screen! (in chronological order with links!!)

- Portrait de la Place Ville Marie (2012) by Alexandre Larose @ LIFT 30th Anniversary programs, Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario

- Depuis que je me souviens (Since I Can Remember) (2005) by Milena Gierke @ The 8 Fest Small Gauge Film Festival, Trash Palace, Toronto

- Qualia Diaries (2009) by Emily Mode, February 12 @ Tate Modern, Barbara Hammer retrospective, London, UK

- Tree Dance (1971) by Gordon Matta-Clark, March 19 @ Early Monthly Segments, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto

- February (2011) by Cho In-Han, May 26 @ Media City, Capitol Cinema, Windsor, Ontario

- Gésine et Dagie vont en bateau (2011) by Dagie Brundert, May 26 @ Media City, Phog Lounge, Windsor, Ontario

- Condensation (2012) by Cha Mi-Hye, September @ EXiS Festival, Seoul

- stillness of the garden (2012) by Lee Jangwook, September @ EXiS Festival, Seoul

- Jalan Tak Ada Ujung (2006) by Maulana Muhammad Pasha, September @ EXiS Festival, Seoul

- Remains (2011) by Louise Bourque @ Planet in Focus Film Festival, Toronto

- The Tuxedo Theatre (1968) by Warren Sonbert, November 15 @ Early Monthly Segments, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

- Un film inédit (1948? / restored 2012) by Gordon Webber, November @ Cinémathèque Québécoise, Montréal

*****

Sean Rogers

My year-end list, despite there being so much I still need to see [Moonrise Kingdom, Bernie, Liz and Dick, Vamps, The Loneliest Planet, 4:44 Last Day on Earth].

Many of the best films I saw on Toronto screens in 2012 have not yet opened commercially (and probably, sadly, won't):

A1. Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (Lav Diaz)

A gut-punch of a movie, beautifully shot, elliptically told. The most hypnotic six hours of my movie-going year.

A2. Two Years at Sea (Ben Rivers)

A3. The Last Time I Saw Macao (João Rui Guerra da Mata & João Pedro Rodrigues)

A4. autrement, la Molussie (Nicolas Rey)

A5. Three Sisters (Wang Bing)

As for films that actually received theatrical release in Toronto: praise be!

1. Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

2. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

3. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

4. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

5. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

6. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)

7. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

8. Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos)

9. The Clock (Christian Marclay)

Or what I saw of it, anyway.

10. Barbara (Christian Petzold)

A placeholder for so many films I've yet to watch: at the least, I imagine 56 Up (Michael Apted) will sneak on to this list when I finally catch up with it.

It's worth keeping in mind, too, all the "2012" movies that didn't actually open in Toronto, chief among which is The Turin Horse -- the best film of this or any other year. Also conspicuous in their absence: Le gamin au vélo, L'Apollonide, La folie Almayer, Elena, Kill List, The Comedy.

*****

Andrew Parker (Film Critic: Dork Shelf)

1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. Life of Pi (Ang Lee)

3. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

4. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

5. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

6. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)

7. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)

8. Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

9. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

10. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)

11. Oslo, August 31^st (Joachim Trier)

12. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

13. Keep the Lights On (Ira Sachs)

14. Barbara (Christian Petzold)

15. Bernie (Richard Linklater)

16. The Imposter (Bart Layton)

17. Compliance (Craig Zobel)

18. Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)

19. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

20. In the Family (Patrick Wang)

21. Goon (Michael Dowse)

22. ParaNorman (Chris Butler & Sam Fell)

23. Premium Rush (David Koepp) & The Raid Redemption (Gareth Evans) & Detention (Joseph Kahn)

24. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)

25. Chronicle (Josh Trank)

Honourable Mentions: Amour (Michael Haneke), Argo (Ben Affleck), Fat Kid Rules the World (Matthew Lillard), Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo), Looper (Rian Johnson), Bestiaire (Denis Cote), Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg), Les Miserables (Tom Hooper), 21 Jump Street (Phil Lord & Chris Miller).

Best undistributed films: This is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi), The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry), The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr), Only the Young (Elizabeth Mims & Jason Tipett), Tchoupitoulas (Bill and Turner Ross), Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold), The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne).

*****

Marc Saint-Cyr (Blogger: Subtitle Literate. Contributed: Marc's Reads. Read comments about the films at the Senses of Cinema 2012 Poll)

-       Casting Blossoms to the Sky (Nobuhiko Obayashi)

-       Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

-       The Egoists (Ryuichi Hiroki)

-       Holy Motors (Léos Carax)

-       In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)

-       Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto)

-       Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

-       Our Homeland (Yonghi Yang)

-       Skyfall (Sam Mendes)

-       Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)

*****

Christopher Heron (Film Critic: The Seventh Art)
I only included films that played in Toronto this year outside of TIFF and two TIFF films I am skeptical will get a wider release next year.
1. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
2. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
4. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
5. The Last Time I Saw Macao (João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata)
Assuming this will not have a theatrical release in 2013.
6. Sleeping Sickness (Ulrich Köhler)
7. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)
8. Barbara (Christian Petzold)
9. Viola (Matías Piñeiro)
Assuming this will not have a theatrical release in 2013.
10. Bestiare (Denis Côté)

*****

Eastern Yoo 
1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
2. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
3. Killer Joe (william friedkin)
4. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
5. Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)
6. Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik)
7. Prometheus (Ridley Scott)
8. Flight (Robert Zemeckis)
9. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)
10. The Hobbit (Peter Jackson)

*****

Adam Nayman (Film Critic: Cinema Scope, Reverse Shot, The Grid, The Globe and Mail. Teacher: Coen brothers at the JCC - Spring 2013)

-       Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos)

-       Barbara (Christian Petzold)

-       Bernie (Richard Linklater)

-       Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

-       The Capsule (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

-       Chronicle (Josh Trank)

-       The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry)

-       Compliance (Craig Zobel)

-       The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

-       Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve)

-       Goon (Michael Dowse)

-       Greatest Hits (Nicolás Pereda)

-       Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters (Ben Shapiro)

-       Haywire (Steven Soderbergh)

-       Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

-       In the Family (Patrick Wang)

-       The Innkeepers (Ti West)

-       It's the Earth Not the Moon (Gonçalo Tocha)

-       Keep the Lights On (Ira Sachs)

-       Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

-       Krivina (Igor Drljaca)

-       Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)

-       Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)

-       The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

-       Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

-       Once Upon a Time in Anatolia  (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

-       Oslo, August 31^st (Joachim Trier)

-       The Raid: Redemption (Gareth Evans)

-       Room 237 (Rodney Ascher)

-       Sightseers (Ben Wheatley)

-       Sleeping Sickness (Ulrich Köhler)

-       Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)

-       Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine),

-       Starlet (Sean Baker)

-       Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

-       Tower (Kazik Radwanski)

-       Two Years at Sea (Ben Rivers)

-       Viola (Matías Piñeiro)

-       Wanderlust (David Wain)

-       Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

Favorite performances: Malin Ackerman (Wanderlust), Carlen Altman (The Color Wheel), Javier Bardem (Skyfall), Jack Black (Bernie), Derek Bogard (Tower), Gina Carano (Haywire), Anders Danielson Lie (Oslo, August 31^st), Ann Dowd (Compliance), James Franco (Spring Breakers), Gina Gershon (Killer Joe), Kara Hayward (Moonrise Kingdom), Dree Hemingway (Starlet), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Nina Hoss (Barbara), Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained), Bedseka Johnson (Starlet), Denis Lavant (Holy Motors), Thure Lindhart (Keep the Lights On), Alice Lowe (Sightseers), Ken Marino (Wanderlust), Matthew McConaughey (Killer Joe, Magic Mike), Robert Pattinson (Cosmopolis), Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), James Ransone (Sinister), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Yayan Ruhian (The Raid: Redemption), Simon Russell Beale (The Deep Blue Sea), Will Sasso (The Three Stooges), Liev Schreiber (Goon), Laura Soveral (Tabu), James Spader (Lincoln), Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street), Seann William Scott (Goon), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Amour), Maria Villar (Viola), Dreama Walker (Compliance), Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea)

*****

John Semley (Film Critic: Cinema Scope, Slant, The Walrus, Now Toronto)

1. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

2. The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry)

3. Kill List (Ben Wheatley)

4. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi)

5. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

6. Bernie (Richard Linklater)

7. Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

8. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)

9. Goon (Michael Dowse)

10. The Comedy (Rick Alversen)

*****

Kiva Reardon (Film Critic: The Loop, Cinema Scope)

1. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

2. Compliance (Craig Zobel)

3. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

4. Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos)

5. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

6. Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

7. Bernie (Richard Linklater)

8. Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

9. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

10. This Is 40 (Judd Apatow)

Honorable mentions: Pitch Perfect (Jason Moore), Haywire (Steven Soderbergh), Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson), Skyfall (Sam Mendes), The Grey (Joe Carnahan).

*****

Lev Lewis (composer: Amy George. twitter: @levlewis)

I haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty and I haven't seen Starlet.  

10. Hope Springs  (David Frankel)

Meryl plays a woman again. For adults.  

9. That’s My Boy (Sean Anders)

Art.  

8. Looper (Rian Johnson)

Blending genres like 1980something.  

7. Kill List (Ben Wheatley)

Killed it. 

 6. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)

Heaven is a place on Multiplexes.  

5. Elena  (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

I liked it.  

4. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Americana revisited.  

3. Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold)

Think about it.  

2. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

The limo’s talk.  

1. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr)

Béla’s the horse.

 *****

Angelo Muredda

1. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
2. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb)
3. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
4. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
5. Killer Joe (William Friedkin)
6. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
7. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)
8. Bestiaire (Denis Côté)
9. The Loneliest Planet (Julia Loktev)
10. In the Family (Patrick Wang)
11. Bernie (Richard Linklater)
12. Barbara (Christian Petzold)
13. Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos)
14. Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve)
15. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)
16. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)
17. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
18. Goon (Michael Dowse)
19. Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos)
20. Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier)

*****

Calum Marsh (Film Critic: Slant)

1. The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry)

2. Neighbouring Sounds (Kleber Mendoca Filho)

3. The Day He Arrives (Hong Song-soo)

4. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

5. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

6. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

7. The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr)

8. Oslo, August 31^st (Joachim Trier)

9. This Is Not A Film (Jafar Panahi)

10. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

11. Kill List (Ben Wheatley)

12. The Miners' Hymns (Bill Morrison)

13. Barbara (Christian Petzold)

14. Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Love)

15. Elena (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

16. The Comedy (Rick Alversen)

17. Sleepless Night (Frederic Jardin)

18. Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

19. Sinister (Scott Derrickson)

20. Green (Sophia Takal)

*****

Tina Hassannia (Film Critic: Spectrum Culture, Not Coming to a Theater Near You, Movie Mezzanine)

1. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

2. Your brother. Remember? (Zachary Oberzan)

3. Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

4. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

5. Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)

6. This Is Not A Film  (Jafar Panahi)

7. Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendoca Filho)

8. The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry)

9. The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr)

10. The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

11. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

12. The Miners' Hymns (Bill Morrison)

13. The Day He Arrives  (Hong Song-soo)

14. Barbara (Christian Petzold)

15. Sleepless Night (Frédéric Jardin)

16. Oslo, August 31^st (Joachim Trier)

17. Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

18. Las Acacias (Pablo Giorgelli)

19. Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Love)

20. Vamps (Amy Heckerling)

*****

Julian Carrington (Film Critic: Torontoist)

1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

3. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

4. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

5. Amour (Michael Haneke)

6. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

7. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

8. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

9. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)

10. The Queen of Versailles (Lauren Greenfield)

Film/Non-film I'm most disappointed not to have seen in 2012: This Is Not a Film.

*****

Alex Huls (Twitter: @alhuls)

1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

3. Oslo, August 31^st (Joachim Trier)

4. The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne).

5. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

6. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi)

7. Amour (Michael Haneke)

8. Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

9. Bernie (Richard Linklater)

10. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)

*****

Thomas Loree

1. The Clock (Christian Marclay)

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

3. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

4. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)

5. Life of Pi (Ang Lee)

6. Passion (Brian De Palma)

7. Student (Darezhan Omirbaev)

8. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

9. Night Across the Street (Raúl Ruíz)

10. In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)

Honorable mentions: Thy Womb (Brillante Mendoza), Gebbo et l'ombre (Manoel de Oliveira), Penance (Kiyoshi Kurosawa).

Favourite Performances: Denis Lavant (Holy Motors), Noomi Rapace (Passion), Yu Junsang (the lifeguard in In Another Country), Irfan Khan (the adult Pi in Life of Pi), Ryo Kase (the psychotic boyfriend in Like Someone in Love), Tadashi Okuno (the professor in Like Someone in Love), the four friends of the victim in Penance, Nurlan Baitasov (Student), Jack Black (Bernie), Nora Aunor (the infertile wife in Thy Womb, Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man), Eddie Redmayne & Clémence Poésy (Birdsong), Laura Soveral & Isabel Cardoso (Tabu), Alba Rohrwacher (Maria in Bella adormentata), Maya Sansa (the suicidal methadone addict in Bella adormentata), Lee Kang-sheng (The Walker), the fox (Deux), “Richard Parker” (Life of Pi), Bruce Willis (Moonrise Kingdom).

*****

David Acacia

1. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
2. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
3. The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
4. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)
5. In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)
6. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
7. Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
8. Katy Perry: Part of Me (Dan Cutforth & Jane Lipsitz)
9. John Carter (Andrew Stanton)
10. Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)

*****

Andrew Proczek

1. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)

2. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

3. Amour (Michael Haneke)

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

5. Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (Lav Diaz)

6. Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu)

7. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)

8. Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

9. Barbara (Christian Petzold)

10. Thy Womb (Brillante Mendoza) & Many a Swan (Blake Williams)

11. Io e Te (Bernardo Bertolucci)

12. Chrashkurs (Anika Wangard)

13. The End of Time (Peter Metler)

14. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

15. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

16. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (Matthew Akers)

*****

Ronald Walther

1. Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
2. Extra Man (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini)
3. Being Flynn (Paul Weitz)
4. Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Love)
5. Beautiful Boy (Shawn Ku)
6. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
7. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)
8. A One-Way Trip to Antibes (Richard Hobert)
9. Byzantium (Neil Jordan)
10.  Edwin Boyd (Nathan Morlando)

*****

Scott C.

*****

Moen M. [Contributed: Hots Docs coverage, BAFICI coverage, Il Cinema Ritrovato coverage]

Favorites of 2012: Misc.

Favorite Non-Film Magazines:

• I picked up the Totally Twilight issue of People (left) as a gift for the girlfriend because I thought that she would like it. She's been taking me for years to see the new Twilight films and I've always been joining her begrudgingly. "These films are for teenage girls," I've always thought. But then I started watching the films and started to "get them," you know? I mean they are actually quite interesting and Bill Condon especially has been doing a great job with the two Breaking Dawn films (I especially like the references to Coppola's Dracula in the former). Since the beginning of the series the movies have been about how it feels for teenage girls to fall in love: the ups and the downs. So if New Moon and Eclipse are the low point of the franchise, it is not to discredit them, as much as the angst and irrationality of that eternal vamp Bella (Kristen Stewart) make for burdening material. So I browsed through the Twilight issue and I concluded: the pictures in it are pretty cool. Well worth the near-twenty dollars price tag. I'll miss Bella and Edward, and the whole Cullens family, now that the series is over but it warms my heart to know that they are happy and I hope that they live happily ever after with their new daughter. 
• The comedy issue of Vanity Fair (right) edited by Judd Apatow is a survey of American comedy in its many incarnations from stand-up, television, podcasts, movies and so on. Apatow, who is promoting his new and great post-Spielbergian film This is 40, is able to get an impressive roster of comedians to take part and contribute to the issue which also includes a hilarious photo spread. Some people that are highlighted include Steve Martin, The Lonely Island, Conan O'Brien, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, Jim Carrey, the Masters (Lear, Brooks, Barr, Milch, Reubens, Shandling), Will Ferrell, the Blues Brothers, David Kamp, Albert Brooks, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and the old gang from Freaks and Geeks. The filmmaker Cameron Crowe, who has always been incorporating rock and roll music in his films, has a good piece Rocking the Role on the subject of the many musicians that have been drawn to film. There is a good e-mail interview with Chris Rock, where in answering the questions of whether he thinks comedians are better now? "Hell fuckin' no. Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby or Joan Rivers." Apatow, who this year also produced Lena Dunham's wonderful television series Girls, is a major force in contemporary American film comedy and is shaping it as it is evolving with the 21st century. This special guest-edited issue of Vanity Fair, the third honor in the magazine's history, contextualizes Apatow's work within the industry (though Woody Allen is conspicuously absent), and gives him the space to share who and what is able to make him laugh, which can be one of the most important of things sometimes.

Favorite French Film Critics:

• Nicolas Azalbert at Cahiers du Cinéma
• It's been a great year at the French film-magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. The films they highlight and their reviews continue to be some of the most insightful writing about cinema and the features are always interesting; this year they included ones on Eastwood, Spielberg, Coppola, Sukorov's Faust, Serge Daney, eroticism, Holy Motors, women filmmakers, Hong Sang-Soo and so on. The chief editor Stéphane Delorme's best and most personal piece is his comments on Philippe Garrel's l'enfant secret in 11 stations, pour une histoire poétique du cinema français ("This film, I could make it, I could have made it, it watches me. This isn't a pretense, it's a certainty."), and the adjoined editor Jean-Philippe Tessé's had great reviews of Cronenberg's Cosmopolis and Coppola's Twixt (N.677-78). But the one writer that sticks out amongst everyone else is Nicolas Azalbert. It's hard to really characterizes Azalbert's writing because there is nothing really similar to it. If you see his name on a page there is a shock of recognition and a preparation as the words on the paper will hit you like a grenade exploding as he devastates established though by arguing for a more unconventional, enlightened perspective. It's a writing that is characterized by its singularity, thoughtfulness and use of polemic. Azalbert's lengthy reviews included Hugo, Tahrir, place de la libération, L'Inconsolable,  Like Someone in Love, 4:44 Last Day on Earth and there were many smaller capsules in the Notes sur d'autre films. 
• Fabien Gaffez and Pierre Berthomieu at Positif.
• The ten films that Positif put on their cover this year include: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Beyond the Hills, Amour, A perdre la raison, The Deep Blue Sea, Vous n'avez encore rien vu, 2 Days in New York, Les Adieux à la reine, The Descendants, and Take Shelter. As I've been arguing in the lively comments forum of one of the great French film blogs, Nightswimming, Positif is championing an artistic cinema: that of a post-Malick generation of filmmakers (Nichols, Zeitlin), that of British cinema and expanding the discourse of world cinema (Romania), and a French cinema that can be either prestigious or relaxed. Where Cahiers is singling out films that are falling prey to a trend in international art cinema of aesthetic-asphyxiation (where style consumes substance) and using their reviews of them as sites of contestation, Positif seems to be putting forth a more comprehensive, authoritative and insightful overview of the year's cinematic output (the Cahiers guys would argue, "what is the point of efficient films if they are without life or affect?"). So Positif continues to impress with the quality of it's reviews - still inspired by the Surrealistic impulse to write about films with jouissance - and the quantity of writing it publishes in each new issue in its Présences du Cinéma (Voix Off, Bloc-Notes etc.) and Dossiers sections. Of courses, there is Michel Ciment's regular editorial that opens the magazine and provides it with its tone, and to name a couple of good writers I have been getting more interested in recently there is Fabien Baumann and Adrien Gombeaud, but for me right now the two most interesting writers are Fabien Gaffez and Pierre Berthomieu. The author of Hollywood moderne - le temps des voyants Berthomieu is more interesting when he's not writing in Positif (his 5 films de Steven Spielberg video for the Cinémathèque française alone puts him in the pantheon) but when he has the opportunity - he shines. Gaffez, who this year was in Toronto to introduce a couple of Jean Eustache films and participated in a lively panel about the state of film criticism, has an identifiable writing style and the film-review of his that comes to mind is for Guillaume Brac's under-appreciated Un Monde Sans Femmes (which still needs to play in Toronto) and his longer pieces in the war dossier Full Reagan Jacket: Du bon usage des sauvages en temps de guerre (N.620) and in the painting dossier, Le rouge et le vert: D'Edward Hopper a Robby Muller (621). What makes the writing of Berthomieu and Gaffez so valuable is that in magazine where the Cimentian line is strictly enforced their writing takes Ciment's ideas and pushes them to the limit and into places that they would not necessarily go - yes, if Kubrick is the greatest, then when he died that title was passed onward to Spielberg - and their writing flirts with these bizarre and the mysterious ideas. It can be troubling. In Full Reagan Jacket Gaffez looks at the lessons of the Kubrick film, Full Metal Jacket (a Positif favorite), and discusses it along with Apocalypse Now, Rambo, Casualties of War and other films, so by the time he reaches the conclusion the traditional parameters of the war genre film has slowly disintegrated and when Gaffez concludes, "Predator has still not finished to enlighten us on matters surrounding war, the reconstitution of the self, and the difficulty and beauty of being of man." You can't help but not be in total agreement.

LOLA and Adrian Martin's "Last Day Every Day"

The online film magazine LOLA, which is edited by Adrian Martin and Girish Shambu, is now publishing its third issue. The first issue is entitled 'Histories', the second 'Devils' and the latest one is called 'Masks' and where the highlight so far is Hail Holy Motors, which is a round-table on the Leos Carax film. As usual the full issue will slowly be published in its entirety over the coming weeks. The online film-zine outlet is a natural extension for film blogger Girish Shambu who also runs a film-blog that is catered towards cinephiles where he posts his observations about films and the literature and lists links to recent insightful film-related articles.

Adrian Martin (Rouge) has also recently published a new book: Last Day Every Day: Figural Thinking from Auerbach and Kracauer to Agamben and Brenez (Punctum Books). The book consists of a short thirty-page essay, based on a talk first delivered at a Siegfried Kracauer colloquium, and is about the idea of the figure which runs through the history of cinema as elaborated by the authors mentioned in the book's title. Martin writes in his signature belletristic prose that mixes an encyclopedic knowledge of film along with philosophy and a Benjaminian knowledge of the bibliographies of its many subjects.

It seems like Kracauer is enjoying a revival in the world of film publishing as, asides from Last Day Every Day, there have been two new books published about him: Siegfried Kracauer’s American Writings and Culture in the Anteroom (which are excellently reviewed by Jim Hoberman at The Nation).

Martin, who writes about his cinephile background in his dialogue with James Naremore in Movie Mutations, is the ideal writer to examine the idea of the "figure" that appears in the writing of the French film-critic Nicole Brenez, especially as he has translated her book on Abel Ferrara.

“In the word figure, as Brenez uses it", according to Martin,

there is exactly what you would figure there should be in it: a notion of drawing or tracing, as in figural or plastic art, a creative shaping rather than a simple mechanical reproduction; an idea of the body, but not only the human body, because there are unhuman figures, object-figures, abstract figures, many kinds of figures; and there is a figuring out, a continual essaying or experimentation. 

For Martin there is a connection between Brenez's usage of the term figure and that of the German-born literary philologist Erich Auerbach, which he describes as a "major source for her theory of the figure." To explain Auerbach's account of the figure, Martin explains, "figuration is a system of prophecy: how certain events or people in the Old Testament, for example, prophesize (or prefigure) events to come in the New Testament." Martin further explains,

Figural prophecy implies the interpretation of one worldly event through another; the first signifies the second, the second fulfils the first. Both remain historical events; yet both, looked at in this way, have something provisional and incomplete about them; they point to one another and both point to something in the future, something still to come, which will be the actual, real, and definitive event.

This is where Martin references Kracauer and his book The Detective Novel, (unpublished in his life, and now only available in French). About it Martin notes,

Kracauer conjures the existence of two spheres which exist in a deformed or inverted mirror relation: the sphere of humans, in their earthly society, and the "superior" realm, which, following Kierkegaard, Kracauer explicitly  calls the religious sphere. […] In a logic that is well known to students of Kracauer, the ruthlessly rationalized, industrialized, bureaucratized world of contemporary society offers a pathetic, degraded reflection of the perfect world, the divine sphere: it is the inauthentic reflection of the authentic, a world without tragedy, the sublime or the ecstatic.

Martin argues that this dual figural set-up can be seen in the films of other figures of the Weimar Republic, Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel) and Douglas Sirk (The Tarnished Angel) where "all the characters, in dramatic terms, will continue to twist and turn in these positions, established (like a ritual, medieval figural procession) at the very start."

As Martin notes, Brenez did not directly derive nor appropriate the term figure from Auerbach and in the book's post-scripts Brenez comments upon Martin’s essay and the latin roots of the term and succinctly concludes, “it's the films themselves, in their singularity, that are enriching the method - so the more they are singular and unique, the more they will offer to the knowledge of figurality.”