2012 King of the Hill Semifinals

We are down to the last four films of the year for the best film.  Brave swept the entire month.  The Avengers was the only movie in May and has so far stood well coming in as the last seed.  Hanna was the January champion.  The Dark Knight Rises has, well, risen well to be one of the better films of the year.  Today, two of these films will find their downfall.

This project has been an interesting project that has blended a range of classics featuring Maryland Monroe to the horrifically modern film of Snow White and the Huntsman.  Each film, be it good or bad, has gone head-to-head with the other films of the year until only these four remain.

Brave v The Avengers
It is time for a small confession time.  I initially didn't hold The Avengers very high when I saw it the first two times, I have seen a bunch of Tumblr photos that have shown parallels between characters and subtle things might have missed.  For example, Thor tells Tony Stark not to touch him again.  Later in the film, there is a point where Tony Stark pokes (or maybe pats him on the shoulder).  Seeing this pointed out and given the circumstances for the touch, it is clear that Tony Stark is trying to push Thor's buttons.  This isn't obvious and makes for a subtle detail that adds to the film.  There are other areas such as the strong parallel between Tony Stark's story in this film and Captain America's film.  Given that Captain America very pointedly calls Tony Stark out on his lack of heroism, this is very interesting to see in the film.  These discoveries have helped raise the appreciation I have for the film.

Brave has not changed from my initial assessment.  The film is a great one.  I have encountered some parents that didn't take their child to the movie because of how dark it was.  I felt that this was a shame and have tried to explain why it is a great film for children.  The movie still remains highly accessible, despite the dark overtone.  The film has a great story, one that I would encourage everyone to see.  It has a great moral lesson.  The film is also very entertaining, something that is important to remember is a necessity in movies.  There are several movies I've seen over the year that had moral lessons, but lacked entertainment.

Comparing the two films is extremely difficult.  However, there is definitely one thing in The Avengers that sets the movie apart from Brave.  The Avengers team consists of six members.  One of the members of that team is Black Widow.  As the only female in the film, I don't expect to see a lot of moments depicting strong female characters.  What I do expect is to see the depiction of the heroes to be the same no matter what the circumstances.  And there is a scene in the film when the Incredible Hulk is on a rage and is going after Black Widow.  During this scene, she shows true fear.  She could have been fearless.  Someone else could have also shown fear in the film.  Or someone else could have been the subject of the Incredible Hulk's pursuit.  Instead, the one member of the Avenger's team that shows fear is the one female member.  And while I don't think it was intentionally planned, it still mars the film.

Winner:  Brave

Hanna v The Dark Knight Rises
What is going to determine the winner between Hanna and The Dark Knight Rises is going to be based around what makes the movies different.  Both movies are as close to flawless in my mind as a movie can get.  Yes, you could go through the two films and find issues.  But as far as entertainment value is concerned, the movies are as good as they can get.

The first major difference between the two films is the length.  Hanna is a full feature length film.  It stands alone and runs from start to finish in one movie.  The Dark Knight Rises is the third movie of a trilogy.  This allows the movie to take well established characters with previous character development, and go forward with them.  There are new characters introduced, such as Selena, but the movie is mostly old faces brought back.  This requires that I give Hanna credit for doing in one film, what The Dark Knight Rises does in three.

Hanna is a story about the loss of innocence.  The Dark Knight Rises is, well, its a lot of things rolled into one.  There are many stories and messages in the film.  And I think that to a degree, this adds into The Dark Knight's favor.  It isn't quite as powerful of a win as having everything done in a single film, but if you look at just what takes place in The Dark Knight Rises, you can see that there is a lot there.  That is definitely worth something.

The final major difference between the two films is imagery and filming techniques.  The Dark Knight Rises is an action film.  Hanna is as well, but in a different way.  Hanna takes the story of a character and uses the settings and the color of those settings to naturally tell a story.  You could watch the movie without the audio and still notice these changes.  With The Dark Knight Rises, the story requires that you hear the conversations.  I'm not saying that Hanna is a movie you could watch in complete silence, but you can see the major theme of the movie without having to listen to a word.  That trick was wonderfully done, something that I could point out is also found in Pan's Labyrinth.  Hanna wins on this front as well.

Winner:  Hanna

2012 King of the Hill Finale: Round 2

Four movies have been eliminated and eight remain.  This time the winners of Round 1 are up against the movies that were fortunate enough to get a Bye the previous time around.  Can Whip It, The Avengers, Back to the Future, and War of the Worlds survive one more round of elimination, or will Brave, Hanna, The Dark Knight Rises, and Paranormal Activity 2 stop them in their tracks.

This is the second round of the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge.  For the last year, I reviewed every movie that I watched and I have pitted those films against each other to determine the best movie of 2012.  This is the finals bracket where the best of each month is squaring off to be crowned champion.  All movies were seeded based on the number of direct movies they compared with and defeated as well as when I saw them during the year.

Brave v Whip It

Brave was Pixar's release of the year and it was a powerful film bringing one very unique princess to the movies.  Brave and Whip It share a lot in common.  They are both movies about young girls on the verge of adulthood who are struggling with their mother.  The first major difference between the two films is the supernatural element.  In Whip It, Bliss runs away from home when it is discovered that she is defying her mother and going out to Rollerblade behind her mother's back.  In Brave, Merida curses her mother in her attempt to gain independence.

There are other differences between the film.  The question, however, is which of these films is the better of the two.  Whip It, despite it's story of parent/child struggles, is focused more on the aspect of the world of roller derby.  it is a broader picture and less focused on the narrative of family.  Brave is also set to target a younger audience.  This gives Brave a stronger place in my mind.  It gives a great moral lesson to children, particularly young girls, and is more accessible to the audience where as Whip It deals with a darker story and is not appropriate for all ages.

Winner:  Brave

Paranormal Activity 2 v The Avengers

So, let's be honest for a second.  Do you really expect the sequel of a supernatural horror flick to stand a chance against one of the biggest blockbusters of all time?  Marvel planned this out perfectly.  It would be a waste of your and my time to compare these two films.  Let the real comparisons begin in the quarter finals.

Winner:  The Avengers


Hanna v Back to the Future

Hanna is an amazing movie with some incredible stopping power.  Unlike most of the movies I've seen this year, Hanna uses a ton of visual tricks to help carry the story in addition to the story itself.  It is a movie that is both well written and excellently filmed.  Back to the Future is a cult classic and has aged well over the years.  The story is highly entertaining and has put a lot of effort into getting all of the details right.  Comparing the two movies is difficult because I want them both to win.  In the end, Hanna is the better movie.  While Back to the Future is flawless, Hanna carries a better story because below the surface of the film, there is an imagery of the loss of innocence.  And that depth gives it the edge it needs to advance.

Winner:  Hanna


The Dark Knight Rises v War of the Worlds

See my discussion on The Avengers above.  This was the long-planned conclusion to the Batman trilogy.  And while it is great to see a War of the Worlds movie done right, it was even better seeing a Batman series come to an end.  Otherwise, it would have been just another freaking story line reboot.  Yes, I'm looking at you DC Comics!

Winner:  The Dark Night Rises

2012 King of the Hill Finale: Round 1

2012 King of the Hill Bracket Time:  Round of 8

Brackets courtesy http://challonge.com/

It has been a very long, exciting year with movies.  I've reviewed them all.  Now it is time to see which of the twelve best movies is the official 2012 King of the Hill winner.  The highest seeded movie of the year was Brave with a whopping four direct defeats.  The lowest seeded movie was Avengers which happened to be the only movie in May that I watched.  For the single elimination bracket to work, four movies were give Byes to advance them automatically to the second round.  Those movies are Brave, Paranormal Activity 2, Hanna, and, The Dark Knight Rises.

I will be reviewing each movie in this round all in one post.  As I'm comparing eight movies in Round 1, the descriptions will be shorter.  If you want more detailed information on the movie, be sure to click on the matching movie label.  That will bring you to the original reviews involving that film.  It is a great way to get more detailed information.

Whip It v Hunger Games
These two movies have very little in common outside of having a strong female protagonist.  One is a distopian world in which kids are sent off to fight each other to the death.  The other is a contemporary piece in which the protagonist is trying to set out to find out who she is in the world.  What makes this comparison so difficult is that both genres are unique in their own right.  Science Fiction is about exploring the possible and asking the question:  "what if?"  Contemporary creates a slice of life about our modern day society and makes us think about the world around us.

Hunger Games is going to stand the test of time.  Of that I have no doubt.  However, Hunger Games is not the complete story.  It is the first movie of a trilogy.  While some of the "What if?" of science fiction has been asked in the first film, the movie does not fully address the question in this movie.  There are aspects that will come in later movies.  And those movies will bring the full question to a head.  However, when looking at the movies to determine the winner, it is important to look at the movie as a whole.  Hunger Games did not tell the full story.  Whip It did.

Winner:  Whip It

Tucker and Dale vs Evil v The Avengers
This comparison is a pretty easy one to make.  Tucker and Dale vs Evil is a movie that both mocks horror films, but pays homage to them at the same time.  The Avengers is an action packed blockbuster that combines all of the big name super heroes from the Marvel Universe that has been in theaters recently.  While I probably would have had a higher appreciation for Tucker and Dale vs Evil had I been more involved in horror, the movie does not compare to The Avengers.  The Avengers is a movie I have sought out seeing a second time and will definitely seek out again.

Winner:  The Avengers

Back to the Future v The Little Princess
One of these films is a cult classic.  The other movie is a cute movie about a girl who is thrust from one worldly experience into another.  Back to the Future is a classic for a reason.  It is a damn good movie about a boy who accidentally goes back in time and has to fix the future before he ceases to exist.  The film has lots of secrets hidden in.  The movie is extremely accurate.  The movie is great for discussions with friends.  The Little Princess is simply entertaining.  I'd watch it again, but it holds no special strength in my heart.

Winner:  Back to the Future

Super v War of the Worlds
Forgive me Ellen Page.  I love her role in this movie.  I love the movie Super.  It is definitely a cult classic and will stand the test of time.  This movie is about the drive to be a hero and change the world.  It is a dark comedy, and those always do better as time goes on.  However, the story of War of the Worlds is much older and has already survived as long as it has.  Unfortunately, the story has never had a chance to get a proper shining in movie format.  That changed with this version.  And for this reason, this movie will be remembered for being the first War of the Worlds rendition to get it right.

Winner:  War of the Worlds

2012 King of the Hill - May Catch-Up Post

The Avengers Stands Alone

Normally, for the King of the Hill Challenge, I would compare two movies together to see how they stand up. The only problem with this is that in May, I only watched The Avengers. The movie wins, no debate here, but just declaring it a win, isn't really much of a blog post. So, I'm going to weigh in on the movie by talking about the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. And there WILL be spoilers of the very ending of the film, sorry.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

The Good

There was a lot of Good in this movie. The story was great. The acting was excellent. The dialogue was witty and fun. The fight scenes were spectacular. It is really hard to pick out and focus on the good, because there was a lot of good to go along. It was a movie that I actually went and saw twice, in the theater, something that is rare for me to do. So yeah, it had a lot of good qualities. But, it wasn't a perfect movie either and I'll discuss that next. Just know that I liked this film.

The Bad

There isn't too much that was bad about this film. My first time watching the film, I actually had little complaints. The second time I watched it, I wasn't as entertained. Most of what made this movie good was either the action sequences, or this witty, humorous moments that aren't quite as good the second time around. Also, the selective ignorance was a bit more apparent on the second watching.

The biggest example I have of this is in the initial appearance of Loki. Loki appears through the Tesseract with this epic helmet and spear. Orders are shouted for him to put down the spear. Loki begins attacking. Loki pins Hawkeye against a wall and speaks his first line. Hawkeye reacts, but not in the way I would expect. If an alien appeared in front of me, began attacking anyone and then spoke to me, I'd be surprised that he spoke English. Yet, we find that that the idea that the Hulk could have a consciousness is unfathomable.  The movie picks and chooses what it wishes to gloss over.  There are other examples, but for me, this was the most obvious.

The Ugly

The Avengers is a movie about a team of super heroes. There is one scene, however, that really upsets me. On the flying aircraft carrier, the ship is attacked and Black Widow and Bruce Banner fall to another level. Bruce begins to change into The Hulk and the reaction of Black Widow is one of complete horror. This reaction was unsettling and it didn't get better at any point in time during the second watching of the movie.

The movie at no point in time holds back the threats. There are a lot of deaths. An entire base is destroyed in the opening. There is a threat of the world being invaded by aliens that seem to be willing to kill everything. Yet, despite all of this, one character demonstrates true horror. Black Widow, the only female Avenger. Not Tony Stark when he's piloting the nuclear missile to what he believes will be his death. Not Thor when he is trapped in a cage plunging to what Loki ponders might cause his death. Not Captain America, broken and battered as the aliens overwhelm the streets. Not, Hawkeye when he reaches his last couple of arrows. Only Black Widow experiences that fear. And I find it completely and totally unnecessary. Instead of her fighting for her freedom, as a determined hero, she is caught with panic. And, when she escapes, she goes fetal for a time. And that just really damaged the movie for me in a bad way.

Winner: The Avengers (duh)