My favorite flicks of 2012

The Hunger Games – This was one of those rare book adaptations that was potentially too faithful to the source material whose end result was a damn fine flick. Most of that success rides on the shoulders of the cast, particularly Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen. While Lawrence was no stranger to audiences after her award-winning turn in Winter’s Bone, 2012 was the year that she proved that she could carry a big-budget, tentpole film as well.

The Dark Knight Rises – The final film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy almost didn’t make this list. It suffered, at least in my eyes, for not being as good as The Dark Knight was, an assessment I finally gave up on for being unfair. Plus, I found that I enjoyed it a great deal more the second time around, probably because I was able to enjoy it without forcing the film to carry around the expectations that came with it. More plus? Anne Hathaway. She’s kinda awesome.

Looper – The best thing that I did this year was not to be spoiled on what Looper was, or how the story played out. Most science fiction tropes have been played out to an immeasurable degree, but Looper was different, presenting ideas and concepts that might seem familiar to fans of the genre in a fresh way. Solid performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt didn’t hurt, either.

Dredd – Chuck’s list had a couple of flicks that he thought people wouldn’t understand and, like my friend, I present one here. Dredd was 95 minutes of unadulterated violent fun. I get that it wasn’t for everyone, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

So that’s it: just eight flicks. I decided not to be tied down to the standard number of ten, and even knocked a couple films off the top tier at the last minute (for those who might wonder, the next tier included Argo, Red Dawn (WOLVERINES!!!), Haywire, Cabin in the Woods and others).

Disclosure: As with every year, there were more films released that I missed than I was able to see. All told, I caught about 55 new flicks this year, but missed a couple that would have contended for this list that were released late (Django Unchained) or haven’t yet been released yet in my area (Zero Dark Thirty).