Twelve Reasons Why 2012 Will Be an Awesome Year for Movies

Article first published as Twelve Reasons Why 2012 Will Be an Awesome Year for Movies on Blogcritics.

2012 will be an awesome year in movies. I'm not sure everyone realizes just how incredible it will be. When I first started tracking cinema news, I noticed a trend almost from the start: virtually every long-term project that attracted my attention had a release date scheduled for sometime in 2012. As time went, some of these were delayed and others were fast-tracked, but 2012 is still shaping up to be one of the greatest years for movies in my lifetime. Here's why.

1: John Carter of Mars.

The Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of the seminal works in science-fiction writing of the 20th century. Released between 1912 and 1943, its depiction of Mars as a frontier land comparable to the early American West served an inspiration for Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein, not to mention James Cameron (Avatar) and George Lucas (Star Wars).

Now, for the first time, the books are being adapted to screen, by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton (A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, WALL-E). Stanton is a master storyteller, and this film could be one of the defining science-fiction films of the next decade. John Carter is scheduled for a March 9, 2012 release.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

**Article first published as Movie Review: Some Like It Hot (1959) on Blogcritics.**

"Well, nobody's perfect."

If you've seen this film, you will instantly recognize the line I'm quoting. It's one of the most famous lines in cinema history, up there with "May the Force be with you" and "You had me at 'hello'." If you don't know this film, I won't spoil the joke, but you should stop reading this review now. You need to see this movie. In 2000, "Some Like It Hot" was rated by the American Film Institute as being the funniest American comedy of all time. It doesn't disappoint.

The first scene offers an unusual spectacle: a full squadron of police cars, sirens wailing, in hot pursuit of a hearse. We soon realize that "Some Like It Hot" is set in Prohibition-era Chicago, and that the local gangs have been using funeral homes as cover for loud and raucous night-clubs. The film quickly introduces us to the main characters, Joe and Jerry, two musicians who lose their jobs, lose their money, and nearly lose their lives in rapid succession. After inadvertently witnessing the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the two musicians are forced to flee the city and cover their tracks. Joe and Jerry become Josephine and Daphne, and join an all-girl's band en route to a Florida resort. This is where the comedy kicks it up a few notches.

Jay Richards: Money, Greed, and God

When I was fourteen, I was hired as an intern at for a public-policy think-tank based in Seattle. I was encouraged by my supervisor to pursue policy-related work, particularly in my area of expertise: economics. This is how I eventually came to work as an assistant for Dr. Jay Richards, one of the Vice Presidents, who was looking to develop an accessible book on economics.

"Money, Greed, and God" was first developed as an autobiography. Dr. Richards originally intended to cover the course of his life and how his thinking on economics developed from a youthful Christian Marxism to a more mature pro-market paradigm. This kind of content is retained in many of the chapters, but the overarching framework (the organizing principle) of the book is slightly different. Dr. Richards organizes the material around eight myths that Christians believe about capitalism and the market system. They are, in order:

Orson Scott Card: The Memory of Earth

In my opinion, Orson Scott Card is one of the best storytellers of modern times. He conveys the motivations of characters, even villains, in such a convincing way that readers are able to immerse themselves fully in the dynamics of the narrative. He is also a singularly impressive world-builder, drawing us in to new worlds and universes through his story-telling. This was the case with Ender's Game, with Seventh Son, with Pathfinder and The Lost Gate. It was also the case with The Memory of Earth, which introduces the Homecoming series.

I read all five of the Homecoming books and enjoyed every one of them. Afterwards, when I went to prepare these reviews through a bit of research, I was stunned to discover that the entire series is a thinly veiled adaptation of the Book of Mormon: a family called by God to travel from Jerusalem to the "promised land" of America. Joseph Smith may have been a false prophet extraordinaire, but he was evidently a singularly impressive story-teller (that or he simply benefited from the proximity to Card's genius). While the original setting of Homecoming, the city of Basilica on the world of Harmony, is officially a Slavic matriarchy, the feel of the place remains pretty clearly Aramaic in nature, so even such atmospheric details are preserved. More notably, many of the events are the same, and even the names are retained in something like their original form. Where events or names are parallel, I will insert the equivalent from the Book of Mormon in parentheses.

Eusebius: The Church History

Quite simply, Eusebius of Caesarea is the Father of Church History. With the obvious exception of Luke, who gave us the book of Acts, Eusebius was the first person to construct a history of the early Christian church. Though there are rough patches and legitimate criticisms to be made, Eusbeius' work is an almost unprecedented boon to modern historians.

Eusebius' method was far removed from modern historiography. Eusebius did not attempt to reconstruct history from statistical data or from interpolating between multiple competing authorities. He did not have the luxury of either option. Rather, his method was to collate any and all texts from earlier authors, and present them in a largely uncritical and unedited fashion. His ten volumes of ecclesiastical history are thus a treasure-trove of primary-source documentation, many of which would have been lost forever to the dark reaches of antiquity if not for their inclusion by Eusebius.

Modern critics often cite Eusebius for a lack of objective historiography, but they forget that such a standard is quintessentially modern, unrelated to the classical discipline of writing history. Eusebius' goal, informed by the classical tradition of rhetoric, is to educate and persuade. Thus, much of his History is informed by explicitly theological content.

Rodney Stark: Cities of God

Mostly on a whim, I picked out another of his books, "Cities of God," on the urbanization of the early Christian church. The subtitle of the book reads: "The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome." I'm guessing Stark wasn't responsible for the subtitle, because his thesis is 1) Christianity began as an urban movement, and 2) Christianity didn't conquer anything.

Rodney Stark is a professor of Baylor University who specializes in the history and sociology of religion. He is best known as the author of "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success," which is an unabashed defense of the Middle Ages as an deeply rational era. In "Cities of God," he tackles the question of Christianity's early spread, grounded in a statistical-sociological perspective.

I Confess (1953)

Wow.

"I Confess" is widely regarded as a mediocre entry in the Hitchcock canon. Certainly, in terms of the artistry and technical ingenuity, this film cannot compare to the greatest of Alfred Hitchcock's oeuvre. Even so, the film wrestles with issues of truth, morality, honor and the Catholic practice of faith in an almost unprecedented manner. "I Confess" may be my favorite out of all the films of Hitchcock.

The premise is simple enough: a man is murdered and a priest hears the murderer's confession. Under Catholic canon law, a priest is barred from revealing any information disclosed under the seal of confession. To my knowledge, this prohibition covers all confessions, even those that involve a crime... and even if the priest himself is suspected for that crime.

Thor (2011)

Ye gods.  Now that was a popcorn movie.  "Thor" is not a ground-breaking film: it is neither at the vanguard nor the pinnacle of a cinematic genre. It is exactly what it set out to be: an origin story for a superhero, a bridge between the science-fiction and the fantasy elements of the Marvel universe, and a film-length teaser for the coming 2012 blockbuster "The Avengers." Above all, it is an exceptionally entertaining example of sheer spectacle.

Rated PG-13 for stylized violence. This may be the mildest PG-13 I've ever seen.

 
"Thor" begins with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a film-scientist with a specialization in atmospheric astrophysics. Please, don't ask. Along with her hapless political-science intern Darcy (Kat Dennings) and her bemused mentor Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), Jane is in hot pursuit of an Einsten-Rosen Tornado, because apparently wormholes look like giant wind funnels. When they finally see one developing, they drive straight into the cloud and nearly run over a man.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Part courtroom drama, part horror flick, and part biopic (inspired by the true story of Anneliese Michel), "the Exorcism of Emily Rose" is one of the few demonic-possession themed films that's actually worth watching.

Ever since Linda Blair freaked the living daylights out of audiences in the 1973 film "The Exorcist," films based on demonic possession have been a staple of the horror genre. Most of these films are content to rely on cheap thrills and special effects (contorted mannequins, "pea soup" projectile vomit, creative sound editing, etc.) It is a rare film that invests itself in the ideas behind the stories and takes the underlying doctrine seriously. "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" is such a film.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences and disturbing images. This film is not for kids.

The story was inspired by the life of Anneliese Michel, a German Catholic woman who was believed to be demonically possessed. Her first experiences with this began in 1969, when she was 17. She continued to exhibit troubling behavior until 1975, when a close family friend noticed her behavior while on a pilgrimage to an unofficial holy site. In particular, this friend noticed that Anneliese was unable to walk past an icon of Jesus Christ or drink holy water, and began to suspect demonic involvement. She notified the local priests, who examined her and concluded (after consulting with their bishop) that it was demonic possession. The exorcism continued for nearly 70 sessions over ten months. In the end, Anneliese died of malnutrition, and the priests (along with her parents) were tried and convicted of negligent homicide.

North and South (2004)

"North and South" is a miniseries produced by the BBC, adapting the 1855 novel by Elizabeth Gaskett. Initially released with low expectations, it quickly won both an audience and a place in the pantheon of great costume dramas. It certainly deserves its accolades, though I can't help but feel it receives them for the wrong reasons.

As a love story, "North and South" is stellar, though it does seem to tread the same ground as "Pride and Prejudice." Margaret Hale is a clergyman's daughter, a young lady raised in the refined and insular South. But her father begins to question his faith, leaves the parish, and settles as a teacher in the industrial North. It is there that Margaret meets her One True Love: John Thorton, the owner of a cotton mill. She detests him immediately. He obliges by returning the favor. She thinks he's proud; he thinks she's prejudiced. But fate is an unscrupulous fellow, and besides, the crazy kids can hardly keep their eyes off each other.