My 2012 in Film

I watched 330 films this year, and this is what I have to show for it. God love the the Trylon, the Walker and the Heights for keeping this town interesting film-wise. 

My top 25 films of 2012, within the machine of US distribution, ranked, with a few notes there at the end:

1. This is Not a Film / Jafar Panahi 
2. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia / Nuri Bilge Ceylan 
3. Tabu / Miguel Gomes 
4. Cosmopolis / David Cronenberg 
5. Neighboring Sounds / Kleber Mendonça Filho 
6. Attenberg / Athina Rachel Tsangari 
7. Consuming Spirits / Chris Sullivan 
8. Deep Blue Sea / Terence Davies 
9. Let the Bullets Fly / Jiang Wen 
10. Elena / Andrey Zvyagintsev 
11. The Day He Arrives / Hong Sang-soo 
12. Wuthering Heights / Andrea Arnold 
13. The Turin Horse / Bela Tarr 
14. The Color Wheel / Alex Ross Perry 
15. Girl Walk // All Day / Jacob Krupnick 
16. Damsels in Distress / Whit Stillman
17. 4:44 Last Days on Earth / Abel Ferrara
18. The Raid / Gareth Evans 
19. I Wish / Hirokazu Koreeda 
20. Post Mortum / Pablo Larrain 
21. Whore’s Glory / Michael Glowogger 
22. Killer Joe / William Friedkin 
23. A Simple Life / Ann Hui 
24. Two Years at Sea / Ben Rivers 
25. Miss Bala / Gerardo Naranjo 

(Why 25? Because I hated the idea of not giving those last 5 a mention. I have yet to see Zero Dark Thirty, so take that for what you will; otherwise, I also feel it necessary to state that I didn't fall head over heels with the cinephilia for cinephilia's sake in Holy Motors - as a matter of fact, I found most of it tedious - and nor was I moved by another man-child's kitschy love for himself - I'm talking about Wes, not young Sam - in Moonrise Kingdom. Sorry about that.)

Best viewing 2012, regardless of distribution and release date, alphabetically:

Beautiful 2012 (2012) / Gu Changwei, Ann Hui, Kim Tae-yong, Tsai Ming-liang
Emperor Visits the Hell (2012) / Li Luo
Faust (2011) / Alexander Sokurov
The Gang's All Here (1943) / Busby Berkeley
Grey Matter (2012) / Kivu Ruhorahoza
Guilty of Romance (2011) / Sion Sono
In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire (2012) / Wichanon Somunjarn
The Land of Hope (2012) / Sion Sono
Laurence Anyways (2012) / Xavier Dolan
Leviathan (2012) / Lucien Casting-Taylor, Verena Paravel
Margaret (2011) / Kenneth Lonergan
Mekong Hotel (2012) / Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Memories Look at Me (2012) / Song Fang
Napoleon (1929) / Abel Gance
No (2012) / Pablo Larrain
small roads (2012) / James Benning
Target (2011) / Alexander Zeldovich
Three Sisters (2012) / Wang Bing
The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012) / João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata
When Night Falls (2012) / Ying Liang

And finally, my two most anticipated films for 2013 are Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters and Matt Porterfield's I Used to Be Darker.