36 comments on “Top Ten Best and Worst Films of 2012”

1. Allison on March 4, 2013 at 12:15 am said:

   Hi Cecil!

   I actually thought of a movie I saw in 2012 that I’m surprised you didn’t include, but I figured maybe you didn’t see it. “Seven Psychopaths” is not exactly a movie I would normally go for, but when my boyfriend and I started dating in October, it was the first film we saw as a couple, and we LOVED it!! It pretty much has set the tone for our lovably goofy relationship, plus we absolutely crack up anytime we talk about Christopher Walken popping out of a coffin and firing two guns. If you haven’t seen it, you need to,

   My brother enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I actually watched his dogs for the afternoon when he went to see it, and came back to my house to pick them up and said it was good. I think he would have some agreement with your top pick list, he also liked the Liam Neeson movie on your list (The Grey I think it was called?). There are a few movies I would like to see from 2012, Ted being one of them.

   Not sure how much animation is up your alley, but boyfriend and I saw Wreck It Ralph and Rise of the Guardians last year too, which were nice escapes as I was preparing for surgery when I saw Wreck it Ralph. It had the Oscar winning short “Paperman” attached to it, and that was absolutely wonderful. Rise of the Guardians was well made too, and we were the only ones in the theater (late movie on a weeknight = private screening).

   I did Expendables 2 as well, I really enjoyed it – so weird to see all those actors in one movie. My favorite movie of this genre still is Commando. How could one not love that?

   Anyway, great list, looking forward to what you have coming!!!! 🙂 Have a good week!

   Reply
   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:50 pm said:

     I’ve had so many people telling me about Seven Psychopaths I’ll have to track it down. It seems every time I do one of these there is always a few that inadvertently get skipped. Not intentional, just running out of time.

     Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter was sitting at #10 for a while until I saw Sinister. As much as I enjoyed ALVH, Sinister just stuck with me more. Both are well worth viewing though. Yep, the Grey was the Liam Neeson one.

     I like animation and even though I had a lot of people telling me about Wreck-It Ralph, I just wasn’t in a hurry to see it. I’ll catch it eventually. Rise of the Guardians looked cool. I did like Aliens vs Monsters from a few years ago.

     Hell yeah Commando! One of the best action/adventure films of all time. That flick delivers.

     Thanks! You too! 🙂

     Reply
2. Josh on March 4, 2013 at 2:32 am said:

   God Bless America….how the hell have I not heard of this before now. Out to go find how I can watch that now. The brief description made me really interested in it.

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   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:52 pm said:

     It got pretty much zero press because it trashes the media. It’s on Netflix Instant if you have it. A great movie.

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   • Josh on March 5, 2013 at 12:43 am said:

     Just an FYI for those like me who are interested in seeing some of these: God Bless America, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, The Innkeepers, VHS, Lovely Molly, Iron Sky, & The Pact all available for Streaming via Netflix.

     Really glad to see Sinister make the list that one blew me away once I watched it. Really creepy and well done.

     Out of curiosity which was your favorite VHS segment? And no [Rec 3] surprised that wasn’t in the list. I loved that series and thought 3 was pretty strong.

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     • Cecil on March 7, 2013 at 2:49 pm said:

       Sinister knocked my socks off. Great horror with a genuine sense of mystery and no hand holding.

       For V/H/S I liked “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”, “Amateur Night”, and “Second Honeymoon” the best.

       Loved REC 1-2 and just didn’t get to the 3rd in time for this episode.

       Reply
3. Jesse on March 4, 2013 at 7:27 am said:

   Surprised to not see Seven Psychopaths on your list. This was a really good black comedy as well that made fun of modern movie conventions. Sounds like a mix of Cabin in the Woods and God Bless America. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already.

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   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:52 pm said:

     I completely missed Seven Psychopaths. I’m going to check it out now.

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   • Allison on March 6, 2013 at 2:19 pm said:

     My boyfriend and I LOVED Seven Psychopaths…totally not the kind of movie I go for, but we saw it on a lark and were soooo glad we did! Christopher Walken popping out of a coffin did it for us. We still talk about it…and this was also the first movie we ever saw together. It has pretty much set the tone for our goofy/geeky relationship. 🙂

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     • john on March 6, 2013 at 9:29 pm said:

       Just watched it very good movie.

       Reply
4. r2d2 on March 4, 2013 at 9:46 am said:

   Wow, someone else watched god bless america, i thought it was so smart, in so many levels, but i never noticed absolutely anyone saying anything about this one, i felt it was just me who watched it.

   Another good one, in the same style, is Small Apartments, i really recommend it.

   I watched almost all the top 10, so thansk for the honorary mentions, i will look for those.

   Reply
   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:53 pm said:

     Awesome! Glad to know at least a few people saw it. Such a well done movie.

     Haven’t heard of Small Apartments, I’ll check it out.

     Reply
5. Nate Winchester on March 4, 2013 at 1:15 pm said:

   AL:VH was WHICH #11? Best or worst?

   Or do you mean… both?

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   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:54 pm said:

     ALVH was the #11 best. Love that movie.

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6. Tallowyck on March 4, 2013 at 8:34 pm said:

   C,

   Have you seen Happy Accidents (2000)? It has some plot parallels to Safety Not Guaranteed. Features Marisa Tomei and Vincent D’ Onofrio.

   T.

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   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:55 pm said:

     Haven’t seen it but I’ll check it out. I remember hearing about it back then but never got around to watching it.

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7. Tallowyck on March 4, 2013 at 9:17 pm said:

   And I thought you would’ve liked John Dies at the End.

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   • Cecil on March 4, 2013 at 9:56 pm said:

     Gah! Totally forgot about this one. I do want to see it, heard it was very good. Sometimes they just slip through the cracks.

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8. john on March 5, 2013 at 12:37 am said:

   What no Rise of the Black Bat? :)You obviously have not seen it or is not available on Netflix 😉

   Actually it is worth watching just for how bad its good quality of the film, bad acting, terrible special effects and a character and story that rips of Batman but mostly Daredevil who doesn’t have any special powers except he has perfect vision in pitch black and is light sensitive which becomes an obvious continuity problem throughout the film when he is in his Black Bat costume.
   So he is like Batman but without the money, gadgets, resources or Batmobile and drives around in his Black Bat gear in a regular car.

   Quite a few major titles that did not make your list most of which came out near the end of the year like the Hobbit, Argo, Life of Pi, Cloud Atlas, Lincoln, etc.

   If the Lincoln movie was controversial with the story focusing on the lead up to the outbreak of the events that lead to the civil war than I would have watched it easily.

   Not a bad list although I would have included Killer Joe and Zero Dark Thirty.

   So Dredd recuperated on its $50 budget?

   Dredd had a pretty good marketing campaign with videos on IGN leading up to its release and given there was no major A list films to contend with on its weekend release with the other films being End of Watch, House At the End of the Street and Trouble With the Curve I don’t know why it performed so poorly.

   One of the reasons it was made was because it was more faithful to the original comic that everybody complained about the 95 version than no one bothers to go and see the film although the instant heal staple glue bullet hole pact was kind of stupid.

   I’ll check out Safety Not Guaranteed movie that has an interesting concept that I have never heard of before and maybe God Bless America that sounded like a dark comedy version of Natural Born Killers so depending on how they handled it could have been good or bad.

   With Prometheus I don’t understand all the hate that I thought was an OK movie.

   I guess they hyped up the whole ancient alien thing as being a huge part of the film that itself was not the underline theme of the film or at least how I read it.

   I hear people when they criticise the film mentioned the fact that Therons characters personal hospital bed machine in her room is set for male that is a big plot point that seems to go over people’s heads.

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   • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 11:19 pm said:

     I saw Black Bat on Netflix, I’ll have to check it out. It looks hilarious.

     Yep, Dredd made it’s money back then some. Not a blockbuster but enough to where they had to have taken notice.

     Outside of IGN I saw next to nothing for Dredd. On the other side I saw a ton of trailers for House, which they pushed heavily since it had a post Hunger Games Jennifer Lawrence. It worked, since that ended up being #1 at the box office despite getting mediocre reviews.

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9. bastardjackyll on March 5, 2013 at 5:23 am said:

   Hey, you forgot Killer Joe!

   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1726669/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

   Oh wait, did you see Killer Joe? Between that and The Paperboy, McConaughey had a pretty good year, really glad he stopped doing those goofy rom-coms, for now at least.

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   • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 10:53 pm said:

     Missed that one but I’ll check it out.

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10. Stampy on March 5, 2013 at 6:24 am said:

    Lena Heady in Dredd reminded me of an ex-girlfriend.

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    • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 10:53 pm said:

      I would be terrified.

      Reply
11. Quippy on March 5, 2013 at 3:19 pm said:

    I cannot believe you forgot to mention Footloose in your “Worst of” list! It’s not one piece of movie garbage; it’s an entire landfill.

    Reply
    • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 11:23 pm said:

      Let us never speak of it again for I fear invoking it’s name may cause it to smother us in its awfulness.

      Reply
12. Fall_to_the_Ground on March 5, 2013 at 9:51 pm said:

    The problem with Ghost Rider was in my opinion one of the same the the 98 American Godzilla movie had, in that they handed the property over to film makers who were not only not fans-but people who had a certain amount of disdain of the character. Reading some articles, it became clear the makers were mostly only taking the broadest elements and familiar names of the series and just making up the rest.

    A Jerry Springer joke in 2012? Pop culture moved away from that more a decade ago.

    And those moments where the screen went all black? That’s one of few things the makers got right from the comics. The villain is based on a character named “Blackout”. He’s refereed too as a “self-made vampire” and one of his powers is a darkness field that shrouds out all artificial light. seeing that he doesn’t do too well in sunlight. The look of the two characters is similar-the the movie completely changes his origin and gives him the additional decay power. I understand that a lot of what works in comics doesn’t work on film, but there does come a point where you’ve gone too far in the wrong direction. Many parts of that film were getting dangerously close to that area.

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    • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 10:59 pm said:

      They clearly just did whatever they thought would look “cool”…which to a certain degree, it did. The look of the Rider was a little more badass but they direction was abysmal. These are the same douchebags that did Gamer, one of the most unwatchable movies I’ve ever seen. Not because the movie was bad but because every single scene, even ones where they were just sitting and talking, had to have this ADHD fueled camera moves.

      Marvel has done such a good job with its other properties, I don’t know why they keep messing up Ghost Rider.

      The scenes where it went black the bad guys wasn’t around. It was just these weird scenes that existed simply for the trailer. I’d go back and watch it again to tell you what scenes inparticular but I really don’t wan’t to ever have to try and watch it again.

      Reply
13. Justin Sprauer on March 6, 2013 at 2:16 am said:

    Maybe do a top 10 of sequels/remakes you actually liked? I did an interview with Lloyd Kaufman head of Troma and he actually likes sequels and remakes and said you wont go to Nerd jail for liking either of them and I think it’s time we all acknowledge that.

    Reply
    • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 11:13 pm said:

      I personally prefer sequels to remakes because with sequels they often will expand the scope of the original story and offer a new insight into various characters. It forces them to try and do new things with the cast and often ends up making you look at the original film in a different light. Remakes, more often then not, take the original film and dumb it down to its core elements and then cover it in lackluster SFX. They remove the soul of what made the original great in favor of looking “now”. Granted, this isn’t all but when you see things like the Footloose remake…

      I could easily come up with a ton of sequels I enjoy. Remakes on the other hand are tough.

      Lets see, sequels: Aliens, Alien 3, Terminator 2-3-4, Friday the 13th 2-8 and then X (skip 9), Scream 2-3 (haven’t seen 4 yet), Phantasm 2-3-4, Hellboy 2, 28 Weeks Later, Blade 2, Die Hard 2-3-4 (haven’t seen 5 but I’m pretty sure I won’t like it), Mission Impossible 2-3-4, Back to the Future 2, Lethal Weapon 2-3-4, Resident Evil 2-3-4-5, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Batman Returns, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness.

      How about some remakes: Dawn of the Dead, The Thing, Ransom, True Lies, Little Shop of Horrors, The Fly, The Blob, Scarface, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Hills Have Eyes, Piranha, Last House on the Left, The Magnificent Seven…and that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

      Reply
14. Lady T on March 7, 2013 at 4:29 pm said:

    Good list and glad to see Abraham Lincoln,Vampire Hunter at least make #11(the book is great fun,too). Out of the ten best on your line-up,have only seen The Avengers and Cabin in the Woods(which I watched two days in a row,because it was that damn good) but heard good things about many of the others such as God Bless America,V/H/S and Safety Not Guaranteed.

    Reply
    • Cecil on March 8, 2013 at 11:22 pm said:

      AHLV was a lock on #10 until Sinister knocked it out. As much as I enjoyed the movie there was something about Sinister that just drew me in more. The movie is a blast and I recommend anyone who is on the fence to check it out immediately. Very well done.

      Cabin and Avengers are the kinds of movies that you can watch over and over.

      God Bless America is grand. Some of the sharpest dialog I’ve heard in ages. V/H/S has a rough start but gets better once it kicks in. Safety Not Guaranteed is just one of those rare movies that wins you over almost immediately. At least, it did for me anyway,

      Reply
15. ThatIsAnAndroid on June 28, 2013 at 5:48 pm said:

    Lawless and Get the Gringo were my two favourites of 2012. Lawless had both Shia LaBeouf and Guy Pearce’s best performances (Pearce so should’ve got nominated for an Oscar) and Tom Hardy is in my opinion the best actor currently working.

    Seen most of your top 10 (just not Safety Not Guaranteed and the Loved Ones) and yeah they were all good moviesI should check the other two out.

    Oh and good call on Total Recall, I mean it’s basically lets make Total Recall and take out everything that made it interesting. The only bit of entertainment I had in the film was listening to Colin Farrells accent constantly slip. Kate Beckinsale did a good job and I’m not usually a fan of hers.

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    • Cecil on June 28, 2013 at 11:43 pm said:

      Haven’t seen Lawless or Get the Gringo but I’ll remedy that. Guy Pierce is awesome, its a shame he isn’t bigger.

      Bingo on Recall. It was so generic and “safe”. Normally Wiseman is a good director but he blew this one. Can you believe it took 12 people to write that?!

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      • ThatIsAnAndroid on June 29, 2013 at 3:58 pm said:

        Oh yeah Guy Pearce is brillaint. He made three films in 2012 and you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s the same guy if his name wasn’t in the credits.

        So generic and safe right down to it starring Jessica Biel. Also I’m calling it Robocops gonna be almost identical to Total Recall.

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        • Cecil on July 1, 2013 at 3:04 pm said:

          Robocop remake is going to be an expensive pile of mediocrity. Everything I’ve seen so far makes it look like they are removing anything and everything that made the original great.

          I’m all for taking the concept of the original film and going in a different direction (that is how I think remakes should be done) but this one seems to be going in some idiotic tangent that just pushes it into “same old” territory. Kind of like how old games are being turned into FPSs, they are taking old films and making them shiny, bland, action. Completely interchangeable.

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