Ok. Fine. I’ll do it. Here ’tis. My five favorite movies of 2012. But I’m gonna do this differently. This is the first in a (probably short) series of Best Ofs.
These are the best movies I saw in 2012 that weren’t made in 2012.
So, there!
RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES (2011)
Directed by Jon Foy
Written by Jon Foy/Colin Smith
You may have seen these things around the internet or, if you’re lucky, your own hometown. They’re these crazy tiles that someone laid down in the middle of streets all over the world. The main text is “Toynbee idea in movie ‘2001 resurrect dead on Planet Jupiter.” WTF, you say? So did Jon Foy and his buddies. They kept seeing these things in Philadelphia, but they found out that they were elsewhere, too. Somehow, whoever was embedding these things in the asphalt had made it all the way to South America.
Who did this? Was it one guy? Or some kind of international conspiracy of people? And are they still doing it? Foy and his friends do their best to get to the bottom of a mystery that has been haunting the internet for about two decades.
Resurrect Dead is a fascinating documentary that is at turns creepy and heartbreaking in ways that you really wouldn’t think it could be.
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964)
Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Charles Beaumont/R. Wright Campbell
Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe
When you think of Roger Corman, you don’t usually think of lavish sets, great acting and thoughtful scripts. Strangely enough, though, that’s often what you got form his Poe films with Vincent Price. The Masque Of The Red Death is the best of the seven films that the two made of Poe’s work. (Ok, The Haunted Palace was actually VERY loosely based on Lovecraft, but the title was Poe’s!) It’s not only beautiful to look at, but the film actually seems to MEAN something.
Price is Prince Prospero, a horrible man who will turn women and children away from his castle just to make sure that the Red Death doesn’t make it past his gate. He does, however, invite his upper-class friends to a masquerade. He also brings in the beautiful Francesca (the Paul McCartney dating Jane Asher), a young peasant that he wants to torture, erm, tutor. He separates her from her father and lover, enticing her with, well, life. That’s when the stranger in the red mask shows up. Who is he? Could he be Prospero’s master, Satan?
One of the best horror films of the 60s, this is a must see and I can’t believe it took me so long to finally see it.
For more of the best of Corman/Price/Poe, check out the last film in the cycle, The Tomb Of Ligeia. It’s almost as good as this one.
MARY AND MAX (2009)
Written and directed by Adam Elliot
This Australian Claymation film revolves around two very lonely people. Mary (Toni Collette) is a chubby young girl in Melbourne who can’t even find love from her family. Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an obese man in New York who also has no love in his life. The two become pen-pals completely by accident, but they form a bond that they can’t seem to find with anyone else. For twenty years they write back and forth, sharing their losses and triumphs, being there for each other, pissing each other off…basically being best friends without ever having truly met each other.
Mary And Max is the story of a sweet kind of love that only two lonely people can truly share. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s a nearly perfect movie.
THE INTRUDER (1962)
Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Charles Beaumont
Based on a novel by Charles Beaumont
Speaking of Roger Corman going against type, this is his favorite film of his. It’s about a rabble-rousing young man named Adam Cramer (William Shatner) showing up in a small town just as desegregation is happening across the South. The townsfolk aren’t happy about it and Cramer knows it. He’s going to use his skills as an angry young man to get segregation back in the law books. If it takes a few lies and lynchings, so be it.
This movie is dark, hard to watch and absolutely riveting from beginning to end. And, of course, it’s the only movie that Corman ever lost money on. No one in 1962 wanted to see this film. It’s a shame, because they probably should have had their butts in theatres, forcing themselves to look at themselves. Hell, this movie should be required viewing even now.
All of this and the performance of Shatner’s career. If you love him as Captain James Tiberius Kirk, you’ll hate him as Adam Cramer, a man with a chip on his shoulder so big that only a really long rope could pull it off. As his plan unravels and the people he’s “leading” start to turn into a mob, he becomes more and more desperate. It’s amazing to watch a man known for over-acting be this good.
SHERLOCK, JR. (1924)
Directed by Buster Keaton
Written by Jean C Havez/Joseph A Mitchell/Clyde Bruckman
With all of the hype around the new Sherlock series (which, by the way, it well-deserved) I decided to go back to the source material. That being, of course, a Buster Keaton film.
Ok. Not so much. It is, however, the inspiration for Woody Allen‘s Purple Rose Of Cairo, and that’s good enough for me. That, my friends, is a great film.
Sherlock, Jr is also a great film. It’s about a young man (Keaton) who is madly in love with a young lady (Kathryn McGuire). When he’s accused of stealing her father’s watch and pawning it, he’s rejected and dejected. Kathryn isn’t really sure that she believes the accusation, but she has to do what her father says, even if it means marrying Buster’s rival.
Meanwhile, Buster goes on his sad way to his job. He’s a projectionist at the local movie theatre where they’re showing a new mystery. He falls asleep while it’s showing and dreams himself into the movie. (For a 1924 comedy, the effects are pretty awesome.)
As always with Buster Keaton, the movie is hilarious and heartfelt. It’s only 44 minutes long, and you truly do wish that it was longer. If you’ve never seen a Buster Keaton film…well, shame on you. You should probably start with The General. But Sherlock, Jr. shouldn’t be too far behind.
