We saw five Channing Tatum movies this year. Five.
In the past year Katherine and I saw 50 films released in 2012, a record of cinematic achievement, and also a devastating reproach to the couchbound complacency of married life. Is there a fiercer enemy of the class struggle, or a greater impediment to a healthy sex life than Netflix, Inc.? I do not want to know.
Every year in film brings with it a new set of concerns, as fresh cultural anxieties and appetites surge to the cinematic surface with the fierce urgency of Channing Tatum's abdominals. In 2010, for instance, movies explored the crisis of American manhood, the oppressive claustrophobia of family life, and the joys of cunnilingus (yes, really). 2011 was a year of planetary collisions, Ryan Gosling's fast cars and shooting stars, and depressing appearances by ex-Wire legends (If you act now, you can still buy your very own DVD copy of Commissioner Burrell in Mayor Cupcake!) 2012 treated us to a different set of issues, many of which will only unfold themselves slowly, delicately, after a leisured contemplation of all the movie lists we are about to unload on you poor people. At least two themes, though, are obvious at the outset.
Every year in film brings with it a new set of concerns, as fresh cultural anxieties and appetites surge to the cinematic surface with the fierce urgency of Channing Tatum's abdominals. In 2010, for instance, movies explored the crisis of American manhood, the oppressive claustrophobia of family life, and the joys of cunnilingus (yes, really). 2011 was a year of planetary collisions, Ryan Gosling's fast cars and shooting stars, and depressing appearances by ex-Wire legends (If you act now, you can still buy your very own DVD copy of Commissioner Burrell in Mayor Cupcake!) 2012 treated us to a different set of issues, many of which will only unfold themselves slowly, delicately, after a leisured contemplation of all the movie lists we are about to unload on you poor people. At least two themes, though, are obvious at the outset.
Chris Pine, of course, is locked in a long term bromance with his own hair.
It might seem to you that 2012 is a bit late for Hollywood to discover the idea of the "Bromance." (I mean, really: is 2013 going to be The Year Of The Metrosexual? It's embarrassing). And yet how else can we describe the tense intimacies and tender ties between the men of Magic Mike, End of Watch, 21 Jump Street, and Django Unchained? From the charged partnerships of Lincoln to the erotic rivalries of The Master and This Means War, the Bromance was an inescapable feature of 2012's cinematic landscape. I mean, even Looper is essentially an extended meditation on the idea of sharing an epic Bromance with yourself, culminating, of course, in the masturbatory act of suicide.
Wait. That doesn't even make sense. But the Bromance is real! It is a real and important thing! It is not just a hackish media coinage for a centuries-old theme of artistic expression! Go on and shut it, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick! Unless you want to contribute a Top 10 of 2012!
Wait. That doesn't even make sense. But the Bromance is real! It is a real and important thing! It is not just a hackish media coinage for a centuries-old theme of artistic expression! Go on and shut it, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick! Unless you want to contribute a Top 10 of 2012!
Kidman v. Efron: The unquestioned cinematic highlight of 2012.
And yet there were other and more urgent themes this year: urination, for instance. All over America, and indeed all over the world, millions of people spent 2012 watching other people pee. Nicole Kidman's strictly-Method showering of Zac Efron in The Paperboy (left) was only the most prominent of many such adventures in self-spillage. The narrative of Michael Haneke's Amour turns on a painful bedwetting episode; in Julia Loktev's Loneliest Planet, the emotional climax is built around a campfire pee break.
Bad Michelle Williams! Bad girl!
On their first night together, the Khaki Scout Romeo of Moonrise Kingdom warns his paramour that he may wet the bed; the title character in the Life of Pi shortens his name so it won't be pronounced as "Pissing." And in the indie sleeper hit Take This Waltz, Michelle Williams pees in the pool, much to Sarah Silverman's displeasure. Additional images of this momentous occasion, I have learned, are available at a website that calls itself "the world's most complete guide to urination scenes in the mainstream cinema." I could tell you that I had never heard of The Pee Movie List ("compiled by Wet Wayne"!!) until this very afternoon, but what if you didn't believe me? Close your office doors and say this with me, three times in full: MATT KARP IS NOT 'WET WAYNE.' MATT KARP IS NOT 'WET WAYNE.' MATT KARP IS NOT 'WET WAYNE.'
Long ago, in the 20th century, Diane Keaton was a great actress.
Fifty movies is a lot of movies: double our count from 2010, and eleven more than in 2011. And yet of course it was not nearly enough. Most weightily, we missed Holy Motors, Barbara, and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, an especially sour omission since we loved Fish Tank so much and the trailer looked fierce. We gratefully dodged the high-concept drudgery The Turin Horse, the cynical void of The Avengers, and that embarrassing aged-yuppie thing about Kevin Kline losing Diane Keaton's dog. Unaccountably, twelve months passed without us watching a single film of Liam Neeson killing or being killed. We saw many previews for Quartet but somehow never quite made it to the theater. We totally fucking dropped the ball on Katy Perry: Part of Me. And we saw a lot of movies with pissing but we didn't even manage to catch the drunken emissions of Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Smashed.
Starting tomorrow and not ending until Friday -- THE FRIDAY BEFORE OSCAR WEEK OMG OMG -- Katherine and I will lob our Official Iron List Top Fifty in your general direction. (This year we've composed our own rankings, but blended them into a single and thus deeply unsatisfactory list.) Meanwhile, and also starting tomorrow, we'll unveil a range of even less satisfactory rankings compiled a number of other people, including, at minimum, Tom Isler, Miya T., Will K., and yes, even David Goldfarb, who all contributed lists last year.
Now if you'll excuse me, I really have to pee. Where the hell is Zac Efron?
Starting tomorrow and not ending until Friday -- THE FRIDAY BEFORE OSCAR WEEK OMG OMG -- Katherine and I will lob our Official Iron List Top Fifty in your general direction. (This year we've composed our own rankings, but blended them into a single and thus deeply unsatisfactory list.) Meanwhile, and also starting tomorrow, we'll unveil a range of even less satisfactory rankings compiled a number of other people, including, at minimum, Tom Isler, Miya T., Will K., and yes, even David Goldfarb, who all contributed lists last year.
Now if you'll excuse me, I really have to pee. Where the hell is Zac Efron?