Gazing into the crystal ball for 2012

Now that I’ve done my required looking back at the year that has been, it’s time to look forward to 2012 and make some predictions. Some of these will be bold, while some while fall more into the “well, duh” category. I suspect a lot of these will not come true, but that will solely be blamed on the crystal ball being flawed rather than any perceived incompetence of the fortune teller. These are not thing I necessarily want to see happen, I should add.

The Dark Knight Rises will of course be a juggernaught at the box office and will receive plenty of praise from both critics and movie-goers alike. There will be no massive love for any particular performance a la Heath Ledger, however. General consensus will be that Anne Hathaway‘s Catwoman is vastly inferior to Michelle Pfeiffer‘s in Batman Returns.

The Artist will not win Best Picture at the Oscars.

Despite a strong marketing push, Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus will underperform business-wise. Noomi Rapace‘s Hollywood career will be off to a rocky start, and she’ll return to Sweden before the year is done.

A film premiering at Sundance will be showered with critical acclaim, and by the end of the year, it will be considered one of the leading contenders for the Best Picture Oscar.

The Hunger Games will do respectable numbers at the box office but will not become a mega-hit, because the main character is a girl and it’s not Twilight. Jennifer Lawrence will start heading towards mediocre romcom hell, following in the footsteps of Kate Hudson. Winter’s Bone will seem a lifetime ago.

Ryan Gosling will be able to maintain his fame and prominence from 2011 better than both Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain.

The Avengers will be torn to shreds by critics. Words like “bloated” and “overblown” will be thrown around. American cinema audiences will flock to it regardless, but international reception will be lukewarm.

Daniel Day-Lewis‘ performance in Lincoln will be hailed as one of his best ever. The film in general won’t fare as well.

Pixar will bounce back from the critical failure of Cars 2. Brave will be a major hit and restore everyone’s faith in the studio. The Best Animated Feature Oscar will seem imminent.

The surprise hit of the summer: Rock of Ages. “The musical is back!” review quotes will proclaim in ads.

Michael Cera will do nothing to show versatility and make himself more respected in the world of film. He’ll still rake in money doing his usual schtick, though.

Norway will emerge as a major player in the field of international cinema. Swedes will groan and moan.

Mel Gibson will go a full year without any PR catastrophes.

Lars von Trier won’t, despite his self-imposed vow of silence.

The Amazing Spider-Man will do about as well as Superman Returns did, in all fields.

The ratings for the Oscars broadcast will be up a bit from previous years. Billy Crystal will be announced as returning to host the 2013 ceremony as well. Bloggers will cry out about how the Academy are a bunch of old phogeys scared of change. Then AMPAS will change the rules of Best Picture nominations again.

News will emerge that Jason Statham has signed on for a family comedy in which he will play some form of child caretaker. When questioned about this, Statham will debunk the rumor with harsh words not fit for print. To drive home the point, he will then announce plans for seven new action films to be released in 2013, including a third Crank movie and his directorial debut.

Speaking of third films in a series, a sequel to Before Sunset will be formally announced.

Last but not least: lots of great films will be released. Some expected, some not. 2012 will be a good year.

Have a great New Year’s Eve, everyone! See you in 2012!

 

The Films I Watched In 2011 Awards

As the year is approaching its end, it’s customary for bloggers and critics alike to do a top ten list of the best movies of the year. I won’t be doing that, because I haven’t seen nearly enough films of 2011 yet. A list like that from me is still a good half year away from meaning anything. So rather than reflecting strictly on the films released this year, I’d like to reflect on all the films I saw this year.

Thus, I present A Swede Talks Movies’ The Films I Watched In 2011 Awards! Or ASTMTFIWI2K11A, if you’re into the whole brevity thing. A bunch of random categories will be conjured for whatever films I feel like singling out for one reason or another.

This year I watched 229 movies I hadn’t seen before, from 19 different countries with release dates spanning from 1925 to 2011. A lot of it is from recent years, but I did check out a couple of older “you haven’t seen that one!?” flicks too. I saw my first ever films from Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Russia (Ben X, City of God, Dogtooth and Night Watch, respectively). I saw my first ever Charlie Chaplin movie (The Gold Rush) and got my first glimpse of Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark. I watched highly regarded classics like Casablanca, The French Connection and the Alfred Hitchcock films Vertigo and Rear Window, as well as newer stuff like the brunt of the Best Picture Oscar nominees from the last ceremony. I saw great films like Man on Wire and A Single Man, and I saw crap like Season of the Witch.

For these awards, I’m only counting films I saw for the first time in 2011. Rewatches need not apply.

And now, on with the show!

Most Eyebrow-Raising “And Introducing” Credit Award
Winner: Kate Winslet – Heavenly Creatures

It kind of feels like Kate Winslet has been around forever, always turning in great performances. And yet there she was in Peter Jackson‘s teen murder drama Heavenly Creatures, her arrival on the big screen loudly heralded in the opening credits. As for the performance itself? A bit rough around the edges perhaps, but full of energy and enthusiasm.

Best Use Of A Urinating Baby Award
Winner: Hard-Boiled

Hard-Boiled was pretty kick-ass all around and could have gotten a shout-out for plenty of different things. But that baby putting out a fire by wetting himself really stood out. Patently ridiculous, but so good.

“What’s The Big Deal?” Award for A Beloved Film That Left Me Underwhelmed
Winner: Carrie
Runner-up: Withnail & I

While I did like Withnail & I less than Carrie, that one seems to be more of a cult classic than anything. Carrie has more wide-spread acclaim, which made it all the more disappointing to me. I’ve had more fun discussing the film with people afterwards than I had watching it.

 

My Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2003

Would it be unfair of me to say that 2003 sucked movie-wise? Yes, of course it would. Not even going into how I’ve only seen a small percentage of all films released all over the world during the year, just looking at what I have seen tells me that there were plenty of good movies out there and no disproportionately large number of stinkers. I’m sure the average 2003 movie I’ve seen isn’t much worse than the average of most other years.

But this list is still… weak? No, not weak. These are all very good films. That might be the problem, though. Most of these are indeed very good. It’s just that there are few truly great ones on here. Movies I love. Compared to most other years from the decade, 2003 was a bit lacking at the upper section. Some of these films would have a hard time finding spots on previous top 10 lists I’ve made.

It’s all good, though. I’ll gladly take more years like 2003 as long as I get one film as good as what’s at #1 here.

As usual, to avoid international confusion, I go by years listed on IMDB to determine what is and isn’t “a 2003 movie”.

10 – AMERICAN SPLENDOR (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini)

“Why does everything in my life have to be such a complicated disaster?”

Two things are key if you want to make a good biopic. 1: Find an interesting character to make a film about. 2: Find the right actor for said character. American Splendor accomplishes these two steps with gusto. Paul Giamatti plays Harvey Pekar, notorious underground comic book writer. A complicated character with plenty of odd quirks and a vitriolic personality, Giamatti nevertheless finds the human being within and offers a nuanced and believable performance. A lot of the film’s success is due to the actor. Without him, the movie might have been just as interesting, but probably not as good.

9 – MATCHSTICK MEN (Ridley Scott)

“She said you were a bad guy. You don’t seem like a bad guy.”

Of course Roy (Nicolas Cage) doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He’s a conman. It’s his job to appear trustworthy. And he’s doing good for himself, despite having to combat his OCD and other mental hang-ups. But then his daughter (Alison Lohman) whom he has never met before enters his life, and things get complicated. Matchstick Men tells an entertaining story with twists and turns a-plenty and features one of Cage’s better performances of the decade. Also: Pygmies!

 

Some of my favorite Ebert quotes

There are times when I’m discussing films online or writing a blog post that I hesitate to say something really apt and true about the movie. Not because it wouldn’t be a great thing to say, but because I know I didn’t think of it myself, at least not consciously. More often than not, it’s from the mind of Roger Ebert.

I’m a big fan of Ebert’s writing, due in equal parts to what he has to say and to the way he says it in. His long experience working as a film critic has given him a keen analytical mind and he’s always able to effectively argue for why he thinks the way he does about a movie. He’s not afraid to go against the grain (he was one of few critics to enjoy Speed 2: Cruise Control, and he has a noted aversion to Stanley Kubrick‘s well-regarded A Clockwork Orange) but doesn’t do it just to be a contrarian (compare with the infamous Armond White). Do I always agree with Ebert? Certainly not. Our views on film differ on numerous occasions. To name but one example, he enjoyed 2012, which I found to be a complete snoozefest. But I still like that review, because in it I sense a similar kind of child-like enthusiasm towards the film as what I have towards, say, Crank (which he sadly didn’t review. I’d love to hear what he’d make of that one). So while I don’t agree with him, I can see where he’s coming from.

After I see a movie, there is a certain ritual I go through. Rate it on this and that site, tweet something about it, rank it on Flickchart, etcetera. The last step in said process tends to be to see what Ebert had to say about it (being of the mindset that the less known about a movie beforehand the better, I rarely read reviews until after I’ve seen a film). For a while, I’ve been saving snippets of his reviews into a document. Quotes that I’ve enjoyed, either because they’re wonderfully worded, insightful or just plain funny. Here are some of them, along with one or two I’ve discovered through other quote collections online.

“Timecrimes” is like a temporal chess game with nudity, voyeurism and violence, which makes it more boring than most chess games but less boring than a lot of movies.
~ Timecrimes

There is also a cute blacksmithess named Kate (Laura Fraser), who must be good, as she has obviously not been kicked in the head much.
~ A Knight’s Tale

This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
~ Freddy Got Fingered

And although we are treated to very nice shots of Neptune, the crew members never look at the planet in awe, or react to the wondrous sight; like the actors standing next to the open airplane door in “Air Force One,” they’re so intent on their dialogue they’re oblivious to their surroundings.
~ Event Horizon

 

New page: Films I’ve Seen In 2011

For those of you who don’t notice the little things, there’s a new page on the blog to be found. It’s right up there. See it? To the right of About The Blog? Well, I just wanted to bring it to your attention. It’s a list of all movies I’ve seen for the first time this year, along with number ratings. It will be updated with whatever films I see for this last leg of the year too.

Or you can click here: Film’s I’ve Seen In 2011.