Top Ten Films of 2012 (Helen Geib)
by HELEN GEIB
In the final analysis, every “best of” list is a list of favorites. These are the ten movies that made me the happiest in 2012.
The Avengers
The final Marvel origins story is the year’s top juggling act. Read more 
Top Ten Films of 2012 (Geoff Geib)
by GEOFF GEIB
Ten Best Films of 2012, in no particular order.
1. The Grey
a/k/a Punches With Wolves Read more
Top Seven Films and Other Bests of 2012 (Nir Shalev)
by NIR SHALEV
The general population attests that 2012 ended up as one of the most mediocre years in film. Personally, it’s been the worst year ever. Most of the films I watched are bad and the rest are just average. As an example, The Dark Knight Rises (an entirely average and mostly uninteresting film), The Avengers, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey were the biggest moneymakers but stand merely as equivalents to generic summer, popcorn blockbusters. And those were the films that most were looking forward to! Read more
Best Performances of 2012
by HELEN GEIB
There’s nothing like putting together a year-end best performances list to throw into stark relief the disparity between the sexes when it comes to plum roles in Hollywood movies. When there is a good part for a woman it’s usually as co-lead or part of an ensemble. What’s really sad is the proportion of those good roles that are in fantasies. Yet while I couldn’t fill out a top five for women in either category, my lists for the men might have been significantly different on another day.
Movie Year in Review, Part 1 (for my watched-list for 2012, and thus the universe from which these picks are drawn)
Top Ten Films of 2012
ACTOR
Jack Black, Bernie Read more
2012 Movie Year in Review, Part 2
by HELEN GEIB
Part 1 of 2012 Movie Year in Review
As a precursor to best of the year lists, which will be published in separate posts, some movie year odds and ends.
First Movie I Saw in 2012: Contraband
Most Charismatic Lead Performance: Denzel Washington in Flight
Most Charismatic Lead Performance, Runner-Up: Guy Pearce in Lockout Read more
2012 Movie Year in Review, Part 1
by HELEN GEIB
For years I attempted to operate in the same viewing universe as the professional critics and awards societies when it came to the year in review. I tried waiting until March to make my list, by which month most of the acclaimed films had made it to Indianapolis- if they were ever going to. For an exercise in mental gymnastics I tried parsing my list, creating a separate category for the best movies from the year prior to the year at hand that I hadn’t had the opportunity to see until after publication of the previous year’s list. I tried ignoring the problem by refusing to make a list at all. Read more
My Idiosyncratic Guide to Movies to Watch on New Year’s Eve
This post was originally published in anticipation of New Year’s Eve 2009. Substitute 2012 for 2010 in the second paragraph and the old recommendations still hold good.
by HELEN GEIB
Christmas is here and with the coming of Christmas our thoughts turn inexorably to the last great decision of the year: what to watch on New Year’s Eve. Read more
Favorites Corner: Films of Billy Wilder
by HELEN GEIB, GEOFF GEIB and NIR SHALEV
An occasional feature where the writers compare their five favorite films by some of the greats of world cinema. A change in format for this edition because there was, predictably, considerable overlap: instead of three ranked top fives a combined chronological top eight.
Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
THE LIST
Double Indemnity (1944)
Geoff’s #1, Helen’s #1, Nir’s #5
(GEOFF) Barbara Stanwyck at her very best, playing a woman who is, in all fairness, a bit of a bad seed. The clever plan hatched by Stanwyck and genial sap Fred MacMurray to murder her husband naturally falls to pieces once Edward G. Robinson’s intuition enters the picture, but after so many viewings, it’s less the construct of the story/scheme that stays with me than the realization that each of these characters’ actions are based on a false premise. Read more
The Ten Most Influential Directors
by NIR SHALEV
1) Sergei M. Eisenstein
Orson Welles once said that a film is completed in the editing suite. By that he didn’t mean editing is the final step in the filmmaking process, but rather that editing is the most important aspect and that a film is made and completed in its entirety in the editing suite. And when it comes to film editing, no one did it better, or had perfected it earlier than Eisenstein. He set the standard for editing techniques that are still being utilized today. Christopher Nolan wouldn’t have expository dialogue punctuated by montage-style editing if it wasn’t for Eisenstein’s revered Odessa Steps sequence from his early masterpiece Battleship Potemkin (1925). And we wouldn’t have Tarantino’s violent (although he never actually shows the violence) Pulp Fiction (1994), either. Then came Strike (1925), October (1928), Alexander Nevsky (1938), Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 and 2 (1944, 1958), etc., etc…. Read more
Two Lists, Ten Favorites: Films of David Mamet
by HELEN GEIB, GEOFF GEIB and NIR SHALEV
An occasional feature where the writers compare their five favorite films by some of the greats of world cinema. This edition should properly be titled “Three Lists, Fifteen Favorites” as Helen, Geoff, and Nir all weigh in on David Mamet.
David Mamet (b. 1947)
HELEN’S TOP FIVE
5) The Untouchables (1987) (writer) Read more
