Because Everybody Else Has One

I still have a few reviews to get to, but first, a look back at 2012 in film. I have decided to take a slightly different approach to last year and will be looking at some of the year's best and most noteworthy films through an awards format - albeit one that suits my needs, rather than the other way around.  As always, the only films that qualify are those released to South African cinemas in 2012 so, sorry my trans-Atlantic readers, no Lincoln, Argo or The Perks of Being a Wallflower here. For a list of all films released in SA in 2012, check out this link . On with the show with 2012's worst films...

I sense another Tree of Life review coming up... The Master is, on a purely technical level, a masterpiece. It's a sharply dialogued, well crafted tale about the twisted co-dependent relationship between a cult leader (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and one of his most fanatical disciples (Joaquin Phoenix) that features at least two truly exceptional performances, an unforgettable soundtrack courtesy of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood and the kind of cinematography where each and every frame could easily be featured in an art gallery. That doesn't mean I liked it, though. Mind you, that's hardly surprising considering that it's written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, a filmmaker who puts the "challenging" in challenging filmmaking. You know you're dealing with someone who isn't afraid to alienate his audience when a biting look at life in the porn industry is by far his most accessible work. Even within critical circles, his films are often e...

So this is a very big week for films with a number of major and/ or worthwhile releases coming out. Lets starts then, with the biggest and best of them... Like most seemingly unfilmable novels, Yann Martel's excellent, if occasionally slightly tedious, Life of Pi is heavy on theme and character and heavier still on subtext. Yes, the basic plot of a young boy surviving for weeks on a small lifeboat with only a vicious tiger for company is hardly uncinematic, but as anyone who has read the novel can tell you, Life of Pi isn't really about the plot at all. It is above all else a story steeped in symbolism and largely plays out as a fairly brilliant metaphor for humanity's need for storytelling and for religious/ spiritual belief, as well as the way the two are interdependent on one another. It's also a novel steeped in ambiguity and while you can argue for days whether it's ultimately pro- or anti-religion or -  no, that would be telling (insert final revelati...

Ignore the hogwash about Looper being this decade's Matrix... everyone knows it's this decade's Terminator (minus the robots and the Arnie and in reverse, but otherwise...)! Taking its cue from Austin Powers, there's a scene in the middle of Looper where the central character tells his younger self that "I'm not going to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it, we're going be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws," which serves as both one of the film's few truly funny moments and as a smart warning to its audience. Like all time travel movies - especially the great ones, oddly enough - it's better to simply go along with the story the film is trying to tell than to do your head in trying to work out the intricacies of its take on traversing the limits of space and time. And actually, to be fair, Looper's internal logic might not make a lick of sense, but it is at least consistently nonsensi...

This film couldn't possibly be as bad as its awful tagline, can it? "Get pitch slapped?" Yeesh! Pitch Perfect is the kind of genre film that adamantly refuses to stray so much as an inch from its well worn formula - and, you know what, it's all the better for it.  Here we have a musical comedy about Beca, an "alternative", goth-type freshman who, through some typically silly machinations, begrudgingly joins an all-girl acapella group who are in desperate need of a new sound and a new attitude. Absolutely no points to anyone who can guess what happens next.  Pitch Perfect is predictable and formulaic to the point that it feels like an old song for which you already know all the words, but like the best old standards, its familiarity is comforting, rather than irritating. It's a film that knows what it is and knows that its audience knows what it is and takes it from there.    It is, admittedly, a film that would work better for fans o...

Quickly going back to last week's releases, here is something for you art cinema fans to check out: the winner of this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Considering how draconian Iranian censorship is, it's a true pleasure and something of a very pleasant surprise to see a film from that country as artistically uncompromised as Asghar Farhadi's A Separation clearly is. Brilliantly circumventing the Iranian authorities and creating a truly universal humanist tale in the process, Farhadi's humble morality play - a deserving winner at the 2012 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and a smash critical hit - keeps its head in the game by being staunchly apolitical, concentrating instead on its characters and the way they react to an increasingly morally dubious situation. Most of the publicity for the film focuses on the dilemma that the film's central couple faces: to leave Iran and provide a better life for their young son or to stay and ...

It's the Hobbit. What more needs to be said? As a special bonus for readers of this blog though, I have also included a review of the new technology that has been used in the filming and, in some cinemas, projecting of The Hobbit that - spoiler warning - has me longing for the days when crappy 3D was the worst of my problem.  For my tech-free review of the film, check out Channel 24 .   What it's about Set sixty years before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tells the story of Bilbo Baggins' first encounter with Gandalf The Grey as the two join forces with a group of dwarves to reclaim the dwarves' home from the dragon Smaug. What we thought Before diving into the film itself, there is a certain technical detail associated with, and adding to the hype of, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that has to be dealt with first. Admittedly, most screens in South Africa are not equipped for this “radical technologi...

Tis the season... Or is it? Also up at Channel 24 What it's about Santa Clause, The Sandman, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy enlist the aid of Jack Frost to stop The Boogie Man from taking over children's dreams. What we thought Despite its beloved – and not so beloved - children's characters, Rise of the Guardians is basically an animated superhero film; a League of Extraordinary Fables, if you will. The Santa Clause in this film isn't just an old man giving out presents, but is an old Cossack with a pair of Katanas and a kick ass attitude and there's nothing cuddly about this Australian-accented and boomerang-wielding Easter Bunny. Sandman and Tooth Fairy are less radically changed, but they have super powers anyway so it wasn't that much of a leap to turn them into full on super heroes, while Jack Frost is an outsider with icy superpowers and a hero's journey that desperately needs to be fulfilled. And there's nothing at a...

Fell behind again so here's some quickie reviews of a bunch of films that came out over the last month. The Odd Life of Timothy Green. A bit of an oddity, this. It's effectively a simple fairy tale about a couple who suddenly find themselves the parents of a young boy after burying all their wishes for a child in a box in their backyard, but it's one without much point or, more damningly, much magic. It has a nice performance from Jennifer Garner and it's a sweet enough tale but it's not one that will leave much of an impression. (5/10) The Possession. Effectively a Jewish version of The Exorcist in that the demon in question, the dibbuk, comes straight out of Jewish lore and it features a supporting turn from Hassidic reggae-hip-hopper Matisyahu. As a Jewish guy who spent his teenage years in the 90s as an avid X-Files fan, I've long been intrigued by the supernatural forces presented in Judaism - even if I've never been convinced that they literally...