Andrew's Top Ten Films of 2012! (And Sarah's Bottom Five!)

Andrew: Hello readers! First off, Happy New Year! Secondly, ymight remember that at two separate points last year we posted articles called Sarah & Andrew’s Top Ten Lists for 2012 So Far. We posted our first at the start of July and we posted our second at the start of October (so the halfway point and three-quarters point of the year). Now that 2012 has come and gone, it’s time to reveal our final lists that includes films that we saw in the final quarter of 2012! In those last three months we saw 17 new releases in the theatre, including a bunch of Oscar contenders.

So here’s the deal – just like the last two times, we have criteria for our lists: the films included have to be films we’ve actually seen and reviewed, and they had to be films that were released in theatres for public consumption in the United States during the 2012 calendar year. This means that a movie like Zero Dark Thirty, which doesn’t get a wide release in the USA until January 11^th, would qualify because it’s been playing in cities like New York for a couple of weeks. Again, these are from among all the movies we've seen and reviewed this year, so if a movie isn't on this list, it's possible we just didn't get around to seeing it.

And one last thing: because I personally found that each of our last two Top Ten Lists were a little lengthy, we’re splitting them up into two different posts. And at the bottom of each post will be the other’s BOTTOM five of the year (the post headline kinda gave that away though, didn’t it?). So check out my personal Top Ten List for 2012 and Sarah’s Bottom Five of 2012 after the jump!

Sarah & Andrew's Top Ten Lists for 2012 So Far! (October Update)

Andrew: Hello readers! So 2012 is juuuuust over three-quarters of the way over and so Sarah and I thought it would be a perfect time for us to update our individual Top Ten lists of the year! As you may recall from our Top Ten list we made at the beginning of July that covered the first half of the year (which you can find HERE), we had some similarities between our two lists but also some noticeable differences. Well this time we’ve seen 27 movies since that first list and so there are some notable names added to our new lists that have caused others to fall out.

Again, the only criteria for our lists are: they have to be films we've actually seen and reviewed and they had to be films that were first released in theatres for public consumption in the United States in the year 2012. So with that said, check out our respective lists and let us know what you think!

SARAH'S TOP TEN LIST OF 2012 (SO FAR!)

1.) The Avengers: This is still (in my opinion) the best movie of the year. It was just so fun and was everything a superhero movie should have been. The action paired with a phenomenal cast shot this movie to #1 for many weeks in a row. This was such a fun movie to go to and it fed into the other Marvel movies so seamlessly. (Read our 5/5 review)

2.) The Dark Knight Rises: The final installment in Nolan's Batman series was epic and left us wanting more! I loved Bane, even though I could have stood to have seen a little more of him. This movie makes me really wish that in two years we would be seeing a fourth Batman movie starring Bale! Alas, it is not to be… (Read Sarah's 4.5/5 review)

3.) Prometheus: This just still goes back to my love of the Alien movies and getting a little more of that back-story was exciting! While it was not exactly a "prequel" it was still so cool and had a great cast that really brought the world that Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley would later inhabit to life. (Read our 4.5/5 review)

Thank Goodness For This Highly Original, Thoughtful and Excellent Sci-Fi Film: Our Review of "Looper" (2012)

Directed By: Rian Johnson 

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels

Rating: R for strong violence, language, some sexuality/nudity, and drug content

Run Time: 1 hour, 58 minutes

Synopsis: In the future, time travel exists but is illegal. Only the mob uses it to send marks back in time to be killed by specialized assassins called Loopers. When they want to end their contracts with their assassins, they send their older versions back to be killed by their younger versions, a practice called “closing the loop.” One looper named Joe (Gordon-Levitt) fails to do so when he recognizes his older self (Willis), accidentally letting himself escape, causing a man-hunt and possible catastrophic changes to the future.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Last night Sarah and I caught an evening showing of this weekend’s highly-anticipated science-fiction movie Looper, directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises), Bruce Willis (Moonrise Kingdom) and Emily Blunt (The Five-Year Engagement).

To quickly set it up, JGL plays Joe, a specialized assassin called a “looper” living in Kansas circa 2044. As Joe says in the movie, time travel hasn’t been invented yet but by 2074 it will have been and will be illegal so the only people who use it are the mafia. They send back their marks to 2044 where Joe and his fellow loopers wait for them and kill them immediately upon arrival.

One day, though, Joe hesitates to kill his mark because he recognizes him as his future self, who then escapes and the film sort of becomes a hunt between the two, though Older Joe ends up having an alternate agenda as well. We don’t want to say too much because the beauty of this movie was that…

Sarah: The marketing didn’t give, really, ANY of the story away. They lead you to believe the film is one way when it’s actually quite different, in my opinion at least.

A: Yeah, so props to people on the blogosphere and the film’s marketing department for not spoil anything. (More after the jump)

One of the best and most pivotal scenes in Looper between Old Joe (Willis) and Young Joe (Gordon-Levitt) takes place in this diner, prominently featured in the film's marketing.

Our Preview of This Week's New Releases (for Friday, September 28th)

Andrew: Hello readers! We're back with another weekly preview (sorry for them being sporadic lately) and boy is this one a doozy. We have a few wide release films coming out such as the new Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis film Won't Back Down; the Anna Kendrick led a cappella film Pitch Perfect; a new animated kids film in time for Halloween, Hotel Transylvania; and most importantly, one of the most highly-anticipated science-fiction films to come along in quite a while - the Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Bruce Willis time travel film Looper.

Sarah, I want to kick things off with the one we're most excited about, and that's Looper. It's directed by Rian Johnson, who isn't very well-known to the general public but he started to make a name for himself with 2005's high school noir film Brick (also starring JGL), 2008's The Brothers Bloom, and a couple of well-received episodes of AMC's Breaking Bad. The exciting thing about Johnson, to me, is that he wrote the film as well and it has a killer set-up. (More after the jump)

Official Trailer for Looper