Aside from a bunch of big budget blockbuster animated features, 2012 had a surprising amount of voice over performances in film. It seems like voice overs are back in a big way. This does not mean that films are lazily relying on narration to cover for plot holes. It means that screenwriters are creating characters that communicate to the audience even when they aren’t onscreen.
Here are the best voice acting performances of 2012. Each film can only have one nominee in the actual ranked category; otherwise, Brave, Paranorman, and Wreck-It Ralph could have filled up the whole thing.
Movie 43 is an anthology comedy film with an odd framing device. A man walks into a film studio and demands to have his pitch for a new film heard. The studio executive agrees, becoming more and more disgusted and frustrated with each passing chapter of the story.
It’s not hard to imagine how Movie 43 was made. Anthology films with big name stars have been doing really well at the box office. Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and What to Expect When You’re Expecting turned in good numbers on star power alone. It’s easy on the actors–they only need to be on set for a day or two–and allows for a flexible production schedule.
The difference here is how disjointed the entire feature is. Each of the shorts within Movie 43 was written, directed, shot, and even produced by different people. This means that each of the 12 different stories was brought to life by completely separate teams. The only crossover is Elizabeth Banks directing one short and starring in another. Everything else is the doing of director/producer Peter Farrelly.
Put aside the juvenile gross out humor and shock value of big names like Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, and Naomi Watts signing on for this project. The problem with Movie 43 is that there is nothing to hold it together. It’s 90 minutes of poor quality sketch comedy with 12 completely different styles and tones. The film is jarring not because it’s edgy or inventive but because the content is so radically different from scene to scene.
Looking at the individual segments doesn’t help matters. The best one is Beezel (James Gunn directs) and that’s a really stupid spin on the live action/animated hybrids. A maniacal gay cat named Beezel plots to get rid of his master’s girlfriend so he can finally have his master for himself. The quality that puts it above the rest is actual production standards. The animation is good and it is edited into the live action footage very well. It’s just not very funny. It’s also not actually included in the framing device of the film; it airs after a long set of credits but before the actual even longer set of credits at the very end.
It’s only downhill from there. From the terrible prosthetic makeup in Truth or Dare to the shock value without substance or even an attempt at humor in Veronica, Movie 43 doesn’t even offer up one short that is well-made and actually funny. Never before have I sat in a theater during a comedy and heard nothing but deafening silence. I guess there’s a first time for everything.
If I like a song, I’m going to listen to it a lot. It’s part of how my brain works. I like deconstructing music and figuring out how it ticks. The best songs hold up under such deconstruction.
I can’t say there were many songs in 2012 that held up to such scrutiny, but I can say these 12 did, no problem. It’s a good blend of indie and mainstream, with a little YouTube humor thrown in for flavoring.
Here are the Best Songs of 2012. You can jump to the fourth page for a YouTube playlist of all the songs.
Honorable Mentions:
Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra, “Bottomfeeder”
Bruno Mars, “Locked Out of Heaven”
Fiona Apple, “Hot Knife”
MIA, “Bad Girls”
Reformed Whores, “Rush Limbaugh Calls Sandra Fluke a Slut: Response”
Willam Belli featuring Detox and Vicky Vox, “Chow Down (At Chik-fil-A)”
These are the one or two scene wonders or ensemble performers who really stand out. The films wouldn’t be the same without them, but they sadly do not have a lot to do. They’re the could-be heroes and villains of someone else’s story that stole the spotlight for a brief moment in time.
Here are the Best Performers in Limited Roles in 2012.
Honorable Mentions
Elizabeth Banks & John Michael Higgins, Pitch Perfect
2012 was a really interesting year for music videos. A lot of great videos came out from independent and international artists that became far more popular than anything put out by the major labels in the US. Many times, these were low budget affairs with excellent execution. Other times, they were elaborate collaborations with animation studios and large casts. And then there’s a Korean rapper dancing like a pony to mock a certain cultural stereotype in his country.
These are the Best Music Videos of 2012. Six honorable mentions followed by a ranked top six. You can also click on over to the fourth page for a YouTube playlist of all the videos.
Honorable Mentions:
Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra, “Want It Back”
How far would you go to provide comfort and care for the person you love most in the world? Would you sacrifice your own independence to take care of them full time? Would you go against the will of your family and friends to fulfill your love’s biggest desire? Would you stand by their side as they slowly fade away due to medical problems that surface overnight and only get worse?
Amour is a film about coping with death and the end of life. The title is not a misnomer, but a device to help you invest in a very bleak story.
A bad dream is the least of Georges’ concerns once Anne falls ill
Anne and Georges are retired music teachers living a beautiful and fulfilling life together in their gorgeous apartment. After watching one of their former students perform a piano concert, Anne suffers a stroke at the breakfast table and has to undergo a low risk procedure to hopefully correct the damage; it fails, leaving her paralyzed on the right side of her body. Georges is now Anne’s full time caretaker and does everything he can to make his wife comfortable and happy in her final days.
Writer/director Michael Haneke, probably best known in America for Funny Games or perhaps The Piano Teacher, creates his least sensational film to date. Amour is a quiet, slice of life drama that just happens to focus on a catastrophic time in a married couple’s life. The effect is very Modernistic in the Virginia Woolf style, immersing you in a world that rises and falls in gradations of human experience like waves breaking on the shore.
With the exception of the concert scene (a beautiful piece of minimalistic action where the patrons all sit around in private conversation waiting for the performance to begin, never once showing the act onstage), Amour takes place entirely in Anne and Georges’ apartment. The design and layout is stunning. There are secrets in the design slowly revealed as the film goes on that really enhance the struggle of the characters. From the narrow doorways that barely allow Anne’s wheelchair to pass to the unending procession of elaborate chairs, the home slowly transforms from a spacious palace to a claustrophobic prison for retirees.
When Anne is unresponsive at the breakfast table, Georges knows something is terribly wrong.
Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant carry the film as Anne and Georges. Riva has a beautifully expressive face that makes the damage from the stroke all the more tragic for the couple. In early scenes, she doesn’t even need to say a word for you to know what she is thinking; as the film progresses, communication becomes more and more of a struggle. Riva clearly shows this frustration throughout her whole body.
Trintignant has the harder role as the support figure in the family. He doesn’t get flashy makeup or increasing physical odds to help convey his character arc. His role is deeply physical, requiring him to brace, feed, and cater to his partner’s every need. The beauty of Trintignant’s work comes out in his interactions with the outside world–the landlords, his daughter, his son-in-law, his former student, the nurses–that allow him the briefest moments to escape from the woman he loves and all of her struggles.
Amour is bold in its refusal to be anything louder than a whisper once the story is underway. It’s adventurous in its choice of subject matter and its refusal to conform to traditional narrative structure. It is beautiful to watch and heartbreaking to think about. None of us make it out of this life alive. It is the people who we love and choose to be with that make life worth living until the bitter end.
I watched a lot of films to put together my best of 2012 lists. There’s only so much time in the day to spend with these features and still be able to function in the real world. As such, I’m condensing a bunch of the films into shorter capsule reviews. If I don’t act fast, my notes won’t make sense anymore. Better to give a short and accurate review than pad each film to a longer review as the memory quickly fades to gray.
Vile
Plot: A group of friends are abducted just outside of a gas station for a twisted medical experiment. They have been implanted with viles in the back of their skulls that collect the chemicals produced during intense pain. They have only a few hours to fill every vile and the only way to do it is to torture each other.
Thoughts: Vile manages to have a lot of heart for a film with such a grotesque concept. The actors really commit to their various roles, especially McKenzie Westmore as a traveling perfume saleswoman. The problem is that the level of gore and suffering in the film is not balanced at all by the concept. Vile is well-executed but ultimately unfulfilling.
Rating: 3/10
Bachelorette
Plot: Three best friends are reunited on the occasion of their fourth friend’s wedding. The three friends are terrible, destructive human beings who humiliate the bride at her bachelorette party and then destroy her dress while making fun of her weight. They have only a few hours to make everything right for their friend’s big day.
Thoughts: Bachelorette is a very mean-spirited film. Writer/director Leslye Headland adapts her own stageplay into a very bitter and nasty concoction of terrible people misbehaving. The cast puts in very strong performances–especially Rebel Wilson as Becky, the bride, and Lizzy Caplan as Gena, the damaged junkie–but watching the film is just a bad experience. These characters show no remorse for their terrible actions and actually revel in the chaos dthey create. Their only reason for acting at all is fear of finally getting in trouble for a lifetime of terrible behavior. That’s not a very welcoming story.
Rating: 2/10
Brave
Plot: Merida, a princess, is forced to chose between three potential suitors by her mother, the queen. Merida breaks tradition and rides into the forest for some time to think. Will-o’-the-wisps lead her to a witch who promises she can cast a spell that will change Merida’s fate.
Thoughts: Brave has a beautiful screenplay and excellent voice acting. The quality and realism of the animation is admirable. The big problem is that the animation is at odds with itself. The backgrounds and props are photo-realistic while the actual characters look like they were pulled straight out of a low budget Saturday morning cartoon. The look of the people (and that horse that makes My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic look like Seabiscuit) is a huge distraction to a very strong and important story. They move like real living beings but look like Sunday morning comics.
This week on Face Off, the 13 remaining makeup artists were challenged to design original superheroes for the DC universe. The winner’s original character will be included in an upcoming issue of Justice League Dark. The contestants also had the opportunity to work on their initial designs with actual DC comic artists.
Sketching with DC artists should have clued the contestants into the real criteria for the challenge.
The DC issue is a key component of the challenge. Many of the contestants missed the mark because their superhero creations weren’t appropriate for the DC universe. Most of the safe contestants designed Marvel-style heroes, which really have a different aesthetic. The winner was the only well-executed makeup that could fit into a DC comic without much alteration. The loser also would have fit into the DC universe, but there were major technical problems that gave the judges no other choice on the elimination.
The top looks for the superhero challenge were Anthony, Eric F., and House.
Anthony’s hero was The Infernal Core, a crackling character filled with the power of the Earth’s core. He looked DC, but only by chance. The big leathery tunic and dark aesthetic work. The tunic was only included because he couldn’t get his chest and back prosthetics molded in time. This might be the first time in the history of the show that an improvised solution was far better than the original design. Comics are all about unique silhouettes and The Core stands out from most of the DC characters at this time.
Eric F.’s hero was Dick Gritty, a techno-throwback noir detective with visible but contained organs. This cyborg concept was very well executed given the time constraints of this show and featured visible working lungs. The clear plastic covering the lungs and exposed brain read very well. It was a bit dark, like a Dark Horse horror title, but it still read superhero.
House’s hero was Robot Girl, an anime-styled cyborg fighter. The styling was very Tank Girl meets low-budget monster movie and it looked great onstage. It was off-mark for this challenge solely because of the anime aesthetic. The backstory, the sci-fi elements, even the styling choices were all anime. The judges warmed up to the design close-up when they realized the head was not bloodied but actually showed off exposed musculature and wires in the body.
Anthony was named the winner because he had the only DC-styled hero in the top group. Autumn probably had the most superhero looking creation on the stage, but it was straight up Marvel, down to the cut of the costume. Alam’s design was great, but her back prosthetic wouldn’t stick and her quick paint job covering for the mistake didn’t hold.
The bottom three looks were Katie, Meagan, and Michael.
Katie’s hero was ReVolt, a punk rock vigilante who could shoot electricity. The concept was cool. She just had poor execution on everything. Her facial prosthetics for scars and injuries distorted the face like a bad Halloween mask and the mask she made for the costume was way too floppy to look right. A sewn fabric hood would have had the same effect without looking like a rubber dog treat.
Meagan’s hero was Freedom Fighter, a man with armor constructed from the remains of the Twin Towers. Poor subject matter aside, the execution was terrible. The facial prosthetic was really uneven and she used duct tape to fasten her prosthetics. The saving grace here was a really cool collar piece that showed where the rest of the design should have gone.
Michael’s hero was Elijah: Bringer of Plagues, a mythical hero who could absorb and shoot out disease. It felt very DC to me. It was just really poorly executed. Michael struggled in the work room to create the signature plague mask of his character and barely put any makeup on his model. That’s bad. This is a makeup competition. How do you do a design without real makeup work on it? The character was screaming for some disgusting face and body paint but only a few random squirts of green could be seen.
Michael was sent home for not doing makeup on a makeup reality show. Simple as that. It’s just really odd that SyFy has used this makeup for weeks to tease the show and it’s the worst in the challenge.
The difference here is how disjointed the entire feature is. Each of the shorts within Movie 43 was written, directed, shot, and even produced by different people. This means that each of the 12 different stories was brought to life by completely separate teams. The only crossover is Elizabeth Banks directing one short and starring in another. Everything else is the doing of director/producer Peter Farrelly.
Plot: A group of friends are abducted just outside of a gas station for a twisted medical experiment. They have been implanted with viles in the back of their skulls that collect the chemicals produced during intense pain. They have only a few hours to fill every vile and the only way to do it is to torture each other.
Plot: Three best friends are reunited on the occasion of their fourth friend’s wedding. The three friends are terrible, destructive human beings who humiliate the bride at her bachelorette party and then destroy her dress while making fun of her weight. They have only a few hours to make everything right for their friend’s big day.
Plot: Merida, a princess, is forced to chose between three potential suitors by her mother, the queen. Merida breaks tradition and rides into the forest for some time to think. Will-o’-the-wisps lead her to a witch who promises she can cast a spell that will change Merida’s fate.
