CliqueClackMovies in 2012 were all about nerds, sadness, and hope
This last year was filled with arrows, bows, shooting said arrows, and skintight leather outfits. And … more!
My Overly Clever Awards of 2012!
Best Appearance of a Firefly Alumnus
Can’t stop the signal, eh? What with the 10th anniversary and all this year (I’ll come with an excuse every year, don’t worry), let’s consider the alums of the classic Joss Whedon show.
First off, Worst Place goes to The Avengers and The Cabin in the Woods for not including any Firefly folk, despite being Joss Whedon produced and/or directed. Listen, I spotted Alexis Denisof and Enver Gjokaj (he is great, and that is all), and that’s awesome. But come on!
Runner Up: Nathan Fillion reprising his role as the voice to DC Comics superhero Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern in the straight-to-DVD Justice League: Doom (it wasn’t terrible!)
And the winner is … Alan Tudyk in Wreck-It Ralph, nigh unrecognizable but still astonishingly good.
You know — movies with a little bit of thought in them. Or that try to do it, anyway.
Worst Place: The Words, which tried to be meta and pretentious in the right ways — but was actually all the wrong ways.
Runner Up: The Master, which totally knew how to mess with your head with psychological breakdowns and insanely beautiful visuals.
And the winner is … Looper, which was a weird movie about time travel and psychics in the future, and didn’t beat you over the head with it.
The Emma Stone Award for Most Emma Stone (formerly Most Improved Adorableness)
This is a nail biter!
Worst Place: Jonah Hill in The Watch, because he plays his character so badly I almost forgot how good he was in 21 Jump Street.
Runner Up: It’s a tie! Mila Kunis in Ted and Emma Watson in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Mila Kunis is on the rise, and Emma Watson is nipping at her heels. Just don’t go hipster and we’re good.
And the winner is … Emma Stone, for being the only really great part of The Amazing Spider-Man. Man, what an upset! I mean … she’s BLONDE:
I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it.
Best Precocious Performance
Kids are hard to cast. They usually aren’t so good. But sometimes …
This is a nail biter!
Worst Place: Those kids in The Three Stooges in the orphanage that weren’t the younger versions of the title characters. Totally stiff. The actors that did play the young Stooges were actually quite good.
Runner Up: Quvenzhané Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild. She started a bit shaky, but I see great things for this actress if she ever does anything else. She really doesn’t need to.
And the winner is … Pierce Gagnon from Looper. This kid was creepy and vulnerable to a degree I was disturbed. Fantastic performance from this kid.
The Honorary Jude Law Award for Multiple Movies
Remember that year that Jude Law was in everything? Yeah, good times.
This is a nail biter!
Worst Place: Everyone playing multiple roles in Cloud Atlas. That doesn’t count, stop cheating!
Runner Up: Channing Tatum, who was in Haywire, The Vow, 21 Jump Street, and Magic Mike. Romance, action, comedy, stripping. If he had just managed to get G.I. Joe: Retaliation to release this year instead of being delayed, he’d have won. It was almost his year.
And the winner is … Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was in The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper, and Lincoln. That’s some range, JGL! Nobody but me saw Premium Rush, and I’m also the only one that liked it. But everyone saw TDKR, and quite a few saw Looper. This kid’s goin’ places, I tells ya!
Waste of Olivia Wilde
This one’s more a pet peeve of mine. I happen to think Olivia Wilde is a talented actress, but she seems to be in some stinkers lately.
This is a nail biter!
Runner Up: Deadfall, which wasn’t terrible, really. I thought she was pretty good in it, if the movie was a bit formulaic.
And the winner is … The Words, which was terrible. And she was barely in it, except as a hot-to-sleep-with-the-author student. Wish fulfillment much? Not that I wouldn’t write that too if I had the chance.
Hmm … “And then OLIVIA WILDE’s character comes on to the author character.”
Okay, I get it. But still, bad job.
And now the Best overall sorts of categories …
9 Comments on “Movies in 2012 were all about nerds, sadness, and hope”
Can you expand on Whedon “failing” in the Avengers just a little?
And wrong about Premium Rush: I saw it, too
And you’re right about Premium Rush: You’re still the only one who liked it.
I was saying a few things with that comment. One, that despite the relative commercial failure of Cabin in the Woods, it garnered a lot of interest, and Joss certainly was successful otherwise with The Avengers financially.
The other is that despite the many flaws of the Avengers movie, you can’t ignore its appeal or success. It succeeded despite having problems.
I guess what I’m getting at is that I’m not familiar with the argument that there are “many flaws” in The Avengers.
Why, that’s an entirely different discussion. I still liked the movie a lot, but that doesn’t mean I think it suffers due to its forced mass appeal.
That was my original question. I’d love to read your thoughts on that, because it’s an opinion I hadn’t heard much of this year.
Hmm… too late to write a post on it, do you think?
The best thing about Justice League: Doom was the casting, really. But that’s not particularly a slide against it because it’s nearly perfect casting from the plethora of past DCA works (God bless Andrea Romano). Anytime you have Kevin Conroy as Batman I tend to be happy. The story was a little rushed, but honestly we get to see Batman bitterly put down Superman for suggesting they save the earth by moving it slightly to the side. That moment alone was worth the $10ish I spent on the DVD.
The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 wasn’t actually as good as Doom, but still you’re right, they have quite decent releases, and I’m always pleased with the voice casting (for the most part). Peter Weller was… okay.
I haven’t seen TDKR yet. I know it’s one of the better Miller stories, but still…