With a slew of end-of-the-year lists floating around the web, this final Movie News Cheat Sheet of 2012 is dedicated to highlighting the best of the best in ten different categories via my own opinions as well as thoughts from other outlets in the movie news community. Ready for the best in quotes, stars, box office numbers and more? It’s all coming your way in the final Cheat Sheet of the year.
1. Most Pirated: You’d think the most pirated movies of the year would line up with the biggest earners. Sure, bootlegging snags some cash from a film’s box office total, but more people catching something in theaters has to mean more feeling compelled to steal it, right? Yes and no. The top two earners of the year, “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” both cracked the top ten most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, but both were also surpassed by “Project X,” which earned the title of the most pirated film of 2012. Also featured on the list are 2011 entries “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.” Click here to check out the complete chart over at Torrent Freak.
2. Most Memorable Quotes: There’s a big difference between most memorable and most frequent. While many outlets give credit to the used and abused “The ‘D’ is silent” from “Django Unchained” and Matthew McConaughey’s epic “Magic Mike” introduction, I favor the lesser known gems that we’re bound to repeat through the New Year. While any of Hana Mae Lee’s lines of dialogue in “Pitch Perfect” would fit the bill, M Live goes with this lovely recollection, “I ate my twin in the womb.” The National Post pokes fun at “The Dark Knight Rises” honoring Bane’s “unintelligible mumbles” while Vulture offers up a laugh asking Jeremy Renner’s favorite question in “The Bourne Legacy,” “Where are the chems?” Personally, I’ve got to give this one to little Hushpuppy from “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” You’ve got to be pretty creative to come up with “I hope you die! And after you die, I’ll go to your grave and eat birthday cake all by myself!” in the heat of an argument.
3. Biggest Star: The final IMDB STARmeter rankings are in and it’s basically what you’d expect from a year filled with Batman, Katniss and Bella Swan. Kristen Stewart puts “The Twilight Saga” on the board, coming in at #10 while “The Hunger Games” snags two spots, #9 for Josh Hutcherson and #2 for Jennifer Lawrence. Emma Stone gets “The Amazing Spider-Man” some love, taking the #8 position and Johnny Depp takes #7, likely thanks to buzz from “Dark Shadows” and the upcoming “Lone Ranger.” The accolades continue to pour in for People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, Channing Tatum, the “Magic Mike” star taking #6 while Chris Hemsworth, who’s pretty damn sexy himself, takes #3. The big winner on IMDB’s list this year is “The Dark Knight Rises.” Not only did the franchise finale earn over $440 million at the domestic box office, but the 5th, 4th and 1st spots on the 2012 IMDB STARmeter for Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy, respectively.
4. Most Overrated: If you’ve checked out my best and worst films of the year, you can probably guess my two most overrated movies of the year – “Anna Karenina” and “Cloud Atlas,” hands down. Over at Movies.com, David Ehrlich basically takes everyone’s favorite films of the year and trashes them, but as eager as I am to defend “The Hunger Games,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” I’ve got to admit, he makes some good points. “Beasts of the Southern Wild” isn’t getting much love over at The Playlist either, the outlet marking it overrated right alongside “Skyfall,” “Argo” and “The Dark Knight Rises.” “The Dark Knight Rises” takes another hit from Scott Mendelson at The Huffington Post as does “Dredd,” “Django Unchained,” and “Brave.”
5. Best Scene: A sucker for some blood and guts, I’m all for the “Cabin in the Woods” elevator massacre and “The Hunger Games” cornucopia brawl, but Total Film gives Best Movie Scene honors to Joaquin Phoenix’s prison temper tantrum in “The Master” and Bane’s mid-flight scuffle in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Speaking of plane problems, The Playlist gives “The Grey” a thumbs up for the crash sequence and to “Chronicle” for when the superpowered trio goes flying – sans plane. Flavorwire goes for Anne Hathaway’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” in “Les Misérables” and the tsunami hit in “The Impossible” while AV Club opts for the less likely choices –deep space parachuting in “Lockout” and Britt Robertson and Dylan O’Brien’s first time in “The First Time.”
6. Best Film You Likely Missed: Now that we’ve all gotten the chance to see the biggest releases of 2012, how about some of the limited ones that flew under the radar? The Playlist recommends Andrea Arnold’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” and Craig Zobel’s “Compliance” based on the true story of a prank caller pretending to be a detective who convinced restaurant and grocery store owners to strip search female employees. The Huffington Post picks a winner with the hockey comedy “Goon” while Total Film recommends the fire-powered romp “God Bless America” and Ti West’s latest creeper, “The Innkeepers.” Cinema Blend gives some much deserved attention to “Hello, I Must Be Going” and NOLA.com does the same for the charming time travel comedy “Safety Not Guaranteed.” As for me, I’m sticking with my preference for the most outrageous violence the horror genre has to offer and going with the prom-time torture film “The Loved Ones.”
7. Best Unintentional Laugh: An unconventional category, but one that deserves some attention courtesy of a certain big screen unintentional laugh nailed by The Playlist that really is the epitome of the concept. Even as someone who dubs “The Hunger Games” the third best film of the year, still tears up when poor Prim is reaped and cringes when Cato inflicts a certain quick snap of the neck, the sight of Peeta painted into that rock always takes me out of the moment and kicks off a serious case of the giggles.
8. Best Poster: I bestowed best poster honors upon “The American Scream” over at Movies.com while Collider gave the title to “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” EW.com showed off prints for “Hitchcock,” “Savages,” and “Sinister” in their best poster gallery and over at Screen Rant, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “ParaNorman” got top spots. Empire put “Dredd” and “Django Unchained” in the mix while First Showing tossed in a wild card, honor the “21 Jump Street” design.
9. Best Trailer: Slash Film puts the trailers for “The Avengers” and “Zero Dark Thirty” amongst the best, but gives top honors to “Prometheus,” highlighting the piece’s unforgettable sound design. “Prometheus” makes the cut over at Collider, too, but only manages to secure the 8th spot whereas “The Avengers” climbs to #1, taking top trailer honors. Over at Screen Crush the staff looks ahead, putting “Evil Dead,” “Oz: The Great and Powerful” and “World War Z” amongst the best but, so far, it looks like “Iron Man 3” is the fan favorite in their reader poll. While it’s not necessarily a trailer per se, I’ve got to give some love to that mesmerizing “Les Misérables” live singing featurette that played before every single showing at Regal theaters – then again I’d be very happy never to see it again.
10. Biggest Moneymaker: 2012 was the year of “The Avengers,” the Marvel superhero mash-up following up its record-breaking opening and theatrical run with a total of $623 million at the domestic box office. Per usual, the latest installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise opened big, “The Dark Knight Rises” kicking things off with a massive $160.9 million opening and going on to take a total of $448 million. Turns out all the “Hunger Games” hype paid off big time for Lionsgate. The studio will have a bright future should the series’ next installments come close to the first film’s $408 million domestic run. Sony is sitting pretty as well thanks to James Bond. After seven full weeks in theaters, “Skyfall” already has $289.6 million in the bank. “The Twilight Saga” is on its way out, but isn’t going anywhere before taking in another truckload of cash first. The series’ final installment is the third highest earner so far, but with over 1,000 theaters still in play, it will likely trump “New Moon’s” $289.6 million soon. (via Box Office Mojo)
