Favourite Films Of 2012

This is the first part of my review of the year, my favourite films of the past year.

10. The Woman In Black

Sort of scary and Daniel Radcliffe even actually rather good.

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9. Moneyball

Not as good as they say but still not bad. Mr Pitt on song again.

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8. Shadow Dancer

An intelligent, suspenseful and well-acted IRA thriller.

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7. Dark Horse

I have no idea what was real and what wasn’t in this film but still loved it.

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6. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

OMG a remake I liked. I would almost say it was better than the Swedish version but for Daniel Craig. So overall it’s still the rawer original for me, I think... maybe... I'm actually not sure.

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5. Margin Call

A film about the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the collapse of the Mortgage Backed Security market... zzzzzzzzz. No seriously it's actually rather good.

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4. Martha Marcy May Marlene

Another film where you're not really sure what's real and what's imagined but I do like a film that poses more questions than answers. This poses plenty.

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3. Silver Linings Playbook

A film that ripped up the rom-com rule book but (sadly) still managed a happy ending, as two damaged souls heal each other through dancing... sounds dreadful doesn’t it.

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2. Headhunters

A film that is full of surprises and at times leads you a right merry dance. You think one thing but then you think something else. It also turned me into an instant Jo Nesbø fan. Beware Hollywood remakes... because there’s no way on earth Hollywood could better this.

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1. Shame

Perhaps an odd choice as my number one as it was perhaps a little disappointing at the time but we were still talking about it days later, so here it is - an orgasm addicted Michael Fassbender, a naked Carey Mulligan and no connection between the two, it's my number one.

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Hearty Lunches

Another lazy Saturday. I’ll miss these when the dog show season starts.

The boys have a hearty late lunch after I finally get up and take them on the park. Doggo has a proverbial feast, as we now top his dog food with bran as well as his joint treatment. We have a hearty late lunch ourselves which begs the question when are we going to carbo load for tomorrow’s race.

It will have to be after tonight’s film ‘Moneyball’.

In 2001 the Oakland A’s baseball team lost to the New York Yankees in the divisional playoffs. This wasn’t surprising considering the payroll of the Yankees was triple that of the A’s. It’s a situation that isn’t going to change either and the A’s are set to lose three of their star players to teams who can afford to pay more for their services.

The general manager of the A’s, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), and his scouts start debating who they can recruit to replace them.

Beane is not impressed with any of the options and realises that in order to compete, they need to totally re-think the way they recruit players. Then, by chance, he stumbles across Pete Brand (Jonah Hill), an economics graduate working for another team who believes he has a better system. A system purely based on statistics. A system that didn’t care if a player was too old, spent all his time in strip clubs or if his girlfriend wasn’t photogenic enough, provided he got the runs.

Beane recruits Brand to be his assistant and then much to the annoyance of his scouts, they go about recruiting new players based on data not scouting, even the ones who frequent strip clubs and have ugly girlfriends.

Another person who was unimpressed by this was Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) the team's head coach and he refuses to pick the players that Beane and Brand have bought for him. When the club embark on a disastrous start to the season, everyone blames Beane’s purchases but the two of them refuse to be diverted from their strategy. Instead Beane sells a couple of the players the coach is picking to force his hand. I don't quite understand why he didn't just fire his coach but selling the players has the correct effect and the team embark on an all-time major league record of 20 consecutive wins.

They top their division and again reach the playoffs, only to lose at the same stage again. The point though has been made and Beane is headhunted by another team, although ultimately he decides to stay in Oakland.

It’s an interesting film and a true story. I love all the statistical stuff, but it does uses jargon that only baseball fans would comprehend, so an understanding of the game would be useful. I feel a lot of the actual results were glossed over but as this is all factual, if you’re in America you probably know the details of what happened.

Pitt is good and I'm a bit of a Pitt convert over the last few years. Although I can't see anything in this that warranted his Oscar nomination but he is as good in this as has been in most of his recent work. Recommended.

(Saturday 3rd March)

You Can Always Rely On A Run

You can always rely on a run. Today I feel slightly worse than yesterday morning but better than Saturday. The coughing has eased... at least.

It was the Oscars last night. This year, unlike in previous years, I felt totally underwhelmed by it all. The nominations were just so tame. Whereas last year we had films for grown-ups:- Black Swan, the Fighter, The Kids Are Alright, Winter’s Bone, True Grit, Social Network, Kings Speech, 127 Hours etc. This year they’re all family friendly, films about kids, horses, baseball and mythical things... Where for instance is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Drive, Shame, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Margin Call, The Iron Lady, even The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’m not saying they’re all good but at least they’re grown-up and a bit taxing on the brain. They didn’t even use the full ten nominations that were available, choosing to only pick nine films. Very poor guys.

So it’s hardly surprising that The Artist won, amongst such company as War Horse, Moneyball, The Descendants, The Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Hugo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, it looks positively risqué, even I was rooting for it.

The weather’s not great here as L wishes me a ‘good run’. It’s very unlikely to be ‘good’ in this rain. Good job I’m not ill.

I survive another five miles, boxed ticked. Half marathon coming up on Sunday.

No dog training tonight, our trainer is in Orlando. It’s alright for some. She’s actually doing a half marathon while she’s there. I repeat, it’s alright for some, as I dry off after my run.

(Monday 27th February)