Well, I finally have time to write something about The Avengers. But what to say about a movie so massive? Something everybody’s already nattering on about? A film that easily took the record for the best opening weekend of all time?
I thought maybe I wouldn’t bother, but considering that it was my most anticipated film of 2012 and its colossal gross is likely to be the year’s biggest (though The Dark Knight Rises may put a pin in that), it seemed silly not to say something. So here it is.
As a film school graduate, I’m afraid I have an obligation to take entertainment way too seriously. That’s why, when awards season rolls around, I can’t help but partake in the senseless, arbitrary, and totally nerdy critic’s pastime of ranking all the films I saw and compiling a Top Ten List.
And since 2011′s award season has already come and gone (catch “Best Of Film 2011″ for more on that), why not retroactively look back at movies from other years that were just as good?
Why, there is no reason not to!
Since it was my Most Anticipated Film Of 2012, I obviously am riled up about this.
Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.
Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Cinema has always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, it’s taking us backward rather than forward.
(Films discussed in this post: Margaret, Putty Hill, The Myth Of The American Sleepover, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, A Better Life.)
“It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.“
