2012 At the Movies Part 1

And thus it was, at each December of each year, the writers wrote "Lo I shall look back, look back upon the many red seats of comfort, the many boxes of popcorn, the gallons of sugary drinks and Lo, the various images of excitement, tension, drama and visual splendor we call the movies."

Yes, another film year has come to an end and with that, the time has come to cast our minds back to the highs, the lows and the disappointments of 2012 on cinema screens.

But before I do that I'm going to look back on my own cinema going year as a whole and spot the good and bad trends that for me defined the year at the movies.

So some of you are surely thinking "How did you find the year as a whole?" well to answer that one I shall quote from A Tale of Two Cities which for me defined it:

"It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times"

The quote goes into two separate parts, the first of which was the Best of times and that was having more access to new release movies than arguably at anytime of my life, it was rare for me to go to the movies as a kid and for the most part I waited until Video before seeing a big film like Jurassic Park to name as an example, this was no doubt helped by the major refit my local cinema got early in the year which made for a much better experience than before and for me, more chances to go to the cinema to see films.

I was also able to do some travelling to see films like The Dark Knight Rises and Argo to name as examples and that is certainly fun to do plus take in 2nd showings of films like the Avengers as I'd really enjoyed it the first time around and it was a chance to take in another showing before it left cinemas.

But sadly this would be short lived as my local cinema would again close its doors in early November, this time probably for good as it was the 2nd time it had close in 18 months, what made this feel worse was that the new James Bond film Skyfall was so close to release as well as a big roster of Boxing Day releases like the Hobbit, Wreck-It-Ralph and Les Miserables, but in small areas it's hard to build a dedicated base of film followers nor can people be made to go to the cinemas these days with downloads becoming so popular.

That said, it was still a sad occurrence for me as I had begun to be convinced that once it got a digital projector then prints would be easier to book and everything would turn around but alas it wasn't to be and I couldn't help but ask myself "Why Me, what have I done to deserve this?" and hence the quote from Tale of Two Cities.

But as for the movies overall, I thought it was a good year but not a great one with many that I saw this year leaving me with that feeling when they were over, that they were perfectly fine, entertaining and enjoyable but in the end I can't say that I found them memorable enough to be a highlight of my year, films like Prometheus, the Grey and the Raid are prime examples of this for me.

With that out of the way, I'll now have a look at the trends that defined the year of movies for me.

Good Trend:

The wealth of Genre films: This year brought about an incredible wealth of genre films to cinemas and disc, films like The Avengers, The Raid, Cabin in the Woods, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, Skyfall and the Hobbit to name as examples and almost all of those mentioned were well received and will probably live on in people's minds much like a lot of the genre films released in 1982 have.

Bad Trend:

Animated Movies: Seriously, what the Smeg happened this year in the animated movies department, almost all of the major ones released landed with a thud, even Pixar's highly anticipated Brave failed to recapture the spark the studio had for so long nor did it do much to quell the questions audiences had about them after last year's Cars 2 left a lot of its fan base cold.

Sadly that tradition continued this year with many animated movies failing to turn the tide around, if only Transformers Fall of Cybertron had been an animated movie instead of a game as I have no doubt that that would've turned things around and given Transformers fans the film they properly deserve after Bay's train wreck of a trilogy.

And thus ends Part 1 of my look back at 2012, keep watching after this break for Part 2 of my look back where I talk about my 3 best, worst and disappointing movies of the year, what will make the list well you'll have to wait to find out.