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Lou Lumenick: Well, Kyle, it seems ironic to me that in a year when we’ve heard endless whining about the “death of film’’ — meaning those fragile celluloid strips that are quickly going the way of buggy whips — we’ve got probably the strongest lineup of films so far this century.
It’s not as if a cabal of filmmakers — should we now call them “digital directors”? — got together as a group to plan this, but the sheer quality and variety of 2012 is awfully impressive, even beyond the films that each of us has selected for our 10-best lists.
Kyle Smith: Er, really? I had trouble coming up with a 10-best list. I found most of the “prestige” pictures — “Lincoln,” “The Hobbit” (out Friday), “Killing Them Softly,” “Django Unchained” (out Dec. 25), “Anna Karenina,” “This Is 40” (out Dec. 21), “Rust and Bone,” “Cloud Atlas,” “The Sessions,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Hyde Park on Hudson” — somewhere between mildly disappointing and utterly boring.
Lumenick: And yet you chose a prestige picture as your top choice.
Smith: I can think of 10 things that disappointed me about “Les Misérables” (out Dec. 25). Uninspired cinematography, too many close-ups, choppy editing, Hugh Jackman isn’t much of an actor, Russell Crowe isn’t much of a singer. But it’s got as much dramatic glory as “Gone With the Wind” and the story and the songs reduced me to a puddle of tears. You could hear splashing noises as people walked by my seat. It was embarrassing.
Lumenick: It’s a better musical than “Chicago,’’ and no doubt a huge crowd pleaser. But those things you mentioned — especially those endless glimpses of Jackman’s tonsils, and the near-total absence of spoken dialogue — bothered me enough to rank it at No. 12. But my big turnaround this year was “Moonrise Kingdom,” which I awarded just three stars when it came out. After another viewing in a theater a month later, I decided this delightful coming-of-age movie was actually better than the last Wes Anderson movie I loved, “The Royal Tenenbaums.’’ A second watch of Paul Thomas Anderson’s (no relation to Wes) “The Master,’’ which I gave 3.5 stars, was a much less happy experience.
Smith: Heh. Wes Anderson once told me that even Bill Murray didn’t like “The Life Aquatic” till the third time he saw it. Speaking of small pictures, “Magic Mike” was the only movie this year I walked out of thinking, “That was perfect.” It’s an honest, funny but not condescending visit into a derided subculture I’d rank it with the classic “Urban Cowboy.” Matthew McConaughey scales a career peak as the slightly sinister daddy of this oddball clan, promising a more interesting late career as a character actor. Another impeccably researched low-budget effort, “Pitch Perfect,” made me laugh nonstop, as did two raunchy comedies, “Ted” and “21 Jump Street.” “Ted” was both a spoof of movies like “E.T.” and a warm interspecies buddy movie in its own right.
Lumenick: I would never have pegged you for such a Channing Tatum fan, Kyle. I enjoyed both “Magic Mike’’ and “Ted,’’ though I thought the latter pretty much imploded in the sentimental third act. My favorite little movies were Benh Zeitlin’s astonishing “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” with the wonderful Quvenzhané Wallis, Ben Lewin’s deeply felt “The Sessions,” and Richard Linklater’s “Bernie,” a deadpan true-life murder story with Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and the ubiquitous Mr. McConaughey.
Smith: “Bernie” was a lot of fun and I think my many Texan friends would enjoy its wry take on the oddity of the Lone Star state. But I find it mind-boggling that rich white Northern liberals continue to detect something “magical” or “exhilarating” or — cliché everlasting — “vibrant” about poor black people like the ones in “Beasts.” Poverty isn’t any of those things. Poverty just sucks. Poverty is gray and grim and grinding, not sparkly wonder.
A truly emotionally uplifting story about people caught up in harrowing circumstances is “The Impossible” (out Dec. 21). I knew nothing about it going in, and am glad I didn’t, but I’ll just say it’s an astounding true story about a vacationing family (Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor are the parents) vs. the 2004 tsunami.
Lumenick: I found that one a delightful surprise in a year full of them: the devilishly clever sci-fi epic “Looper,” the beautifully done French-language drama “Amour,” and Tim Burton’s return to form in “Frankenweenie,” a standout in another very weak year for animated films.
There are three films on both of our lists. “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty” (out Dec. 19) share a Middle East setting and CIA characters, but couldn’t be more different in tone. Ben Affleck’s “Argo’’ is a pulse-pounding thriller with comic highlights while Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty’’ is at heart the story of a woman’s struggle with her condescending male bosses (while she spends a decade tracking down Osama bin Laden). And then there was the superhero movie that thankfully wasn’t — “The Avengers.”
Smith: I appreciated the moral seriousness of both “Zero,” which to me is centrally about how waterboarding known terrorists for information, while gruesome, may be the least bad option in a dangerous world, and “Flight,” about a flawed man seizing responsibility for his actions and rejecting the easy way out. As for “The Dark Knight Rises,” few political dramas, let alone blockbusters, have more smartly mocked the folly of proletarian revolts. It’s a movie that tells Occupy Wall Street supporters: “Argo eff yourself.”