Simon, Kailey and Dan (plus guests Graeme Tuckett, Darren Bevan, Sam McCosh, Rachel Taylor and Andrew Todd) look at the year in cinema – their top films, worst experiences, trends and what they are looking forward to in 2014.
Dan, Kailey and Simon are joined by Sarah Watt (Sunday Star-Times), Graeme Tuckett (Dominion Post), David Larsen (NZ Listener) and Glenn Kenny (MSN.com) to sum up the year at the movies.
As usual, the vagaries of holiday deadlines mean that, just as you are arriving back at work to gleefully greet the New Year, here I am to tell you all about 2012. The best way to use this page is to clip it out, fold it up and put it in your pocket ready for your next visit to the video shop – that way you won’t go wrong with your renting. Trust me – I’m a professional.
But this year I have a problem. Usually I manage to restrict myannualpicks to films that were commercially released to cinemas. I’ve always felt that it wasn’t fair to mention films that only screened in festivals – it’s frustrating to be told about films that aren’t easy to see and it makes it difficult for you to join in and share the love. This year, though, if I take out the festival-only films the greatness is hard to spot among the only “good”.
As usual, I have eschewed a top ten in favour of my patented categories: Keepers, Watch Again, Mentioned in Dispatches and Shun At All Costs. In 2012, only two of my nine Keepers (films I wish to have close to me forever) made it into commercial cinemas and one of them isn’t even really a film.
Some lucky people have seen double the number of frames (but some of us haven’t seen any), Sarah Watt returns to help Simon review The Hobbit and David Larsen is guest reviewer as Andrea Arnold takes on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.