Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, 2012)

5/10
This is not a very good film, and what makes Rust and Bone even more disappointing is the fact that it has so many strong elements - you get the sense that there's a really great movie just outside the frame, waiting to be put together into something fantastic...and either Audiard lost the plot or I just didn't get it.
This movie has absolutely no rhythm, the tone is consistently messy, and it completely wastes the definitely-there chemistry between its two leads (who both give excellent performances). It's soundtrack is overwrought (figures that it's Bon Iver, a band I always suspected would annoy me), no more so than at the end of the film, when the "slow the action down and hit play on the soundtrack" reaches its height of saccharine stupidity. The movie is completely devoid of humanity or humour when it would benefit greatly from both. Just an ugly, disappointing experience that could have been so much more, and frankly baffling coming from the hand that crafted A Prophet.

La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954)

9/10
Who knows why it takes me so long to watch certain movies. I've owned this forever, finally got to it last night. What a great, sad, tragic, funny movie this is. In the all-time pantheon of "they were made for that role", Giulietta Masina takes top spot. The expressiveness of her face and the way she portrays naive happiness and heartbreaking sadness - incredible. I'll have to scope out Nights of Cabiria next.
One thing that did disappoint me with the movie was the dubbing. Even if standards back then aren't as they are now, it was still pretty poor. I can forgive having Anthony Quinn speak his lines in English and dubbing them in Italian (though I don't love it) but little things like the trumpet sounds not even synching up with the movement of Gelsomina's lips - that kind of bugs me. I kind of wonder why so little attention was paid to these minor details that would have been easy to fix. Oh well.

Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer, 2006)

5/10
Friend wanted to watch this again, I'd never seen it, though I remember the ads for it. With the blues soundtrack as hyped as it was, I was underwhelmed. Not enough of the old, dirty, gritty recordings featured in the movie itself - too many newer renditions and covers (some in-film by Samuel Jackson himself, who does a good job at it). I don't know, overall, this movie felt pretty inconsequential - it has a ludicrous premise and still doesn't do a whole lot with it. Christina Ricci's performance is amped up to high volume and not always better for it, but Jackson is good. Overall, not much here I found worth the time.

Les Miserables (Tom Hooper, 2012)

4.5/10
I knew going in this wasn't my bag - I've never seen a musical I've really enjoyed, and had no prior attachment to the source material. But it'll probably be around come the Oscars telecast, so I figured I'd better see it.
I spent most of the film's running time (just under six days, I believe) trying to decide if this was a bad movie or just a failed experiment, possibly a gigantic misstep from Tom Hooper. I'm leaning towards the latter.
There were two huge surprises from this film - first of all, how it utterly failed to evince any emotion from me whatsoever (excitement, suspense, sorrow, etc) and secondly, how unbelievably bland the whole thing looks. I can't even begin to guess at how many zeroes were in the budget figure, and after all that money I'm willing to wager there have been more memorable performances of the play in small-town theatres. Aside from an impressive opening scene and maybe a couple of scenes of interest towards the end, visually, the film is a total drag - not helping is the fact that 95% of the movie is shot either at night or in grey rain. I know the movie's not called Les Joyeux but I mean, come on...
As far as the always-singing angle, I didn't find it as distracting as I thought I might, but I think it took away from the film as a whole - these stop feeling like characters you can empathize with and just seem more like vessels for songs.
As far as the singers, I'll echo pretty much everyone's thoughts - Jackman is fine, Hathaway is excellent, and Crowe tries his best but just can't get there. The always-tight camera angles were noticeable, but not unbearable.
The movie as a whole is such a grim, drab affair, I found myself perking up every time Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter (two actors who I have no real love for) showed up to at least slap some life back into the thing.
I'd recommend switching off after the first half hour - you've got the opening ship scene and Hathaway's show-stealing number, and that's about as interesting as it all gets.

Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

6.5/10
The biggest surprise about Tarantino's new movie is how...undistinguished it seems. I may have disliked Inglourious Basterds with a passion, but it was certainly a unique vision. Compare with Django Unchained - if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie. I think part of the problem is that Tarantino is no longer a director who has to make movies - I hesitate to use the term "spinning his wheels" but that's definitely what Django feels like.
It's not all bad though. Some have complained the movie is something of a slog, but I never felt the lengthy running time, which is always a plus. Leonardo DiCaprio is very good, but Christoph Waltz steals the show. Almost to a fault, in fact - as soon as Waltz's character isn't on screen, you start to miss his presence. Particularly noticeable in the scenes where Foxx has to carry the movie on his own. Foxx isn't a bad actor, but Django is such a blank slate compared to Waltz and DiCaprio's characters that he needs to be surrounded with some, uh, colour and suffers plainly when it's not there.
Overall, generally entertaining with some ups and downs. Probably my second-to-least favourite Tarantino movie, but nothing overly atrocious or even memorable, really. Which, as I said, is probably the biggest surprise of all.

Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)

10/10
Was it the film itself, or the surprise lack of English subtitles that forced me to hang on to every spoken word harder than I've had to since I was a child? And there was so much silence. Masterfully utilized - with no long, contemplative take ever exceeding its perfect length. It was exhilarating and tragic and painful. I was exhausted after it was over, deciding it was a perfect film I don't want to see again for a very, very long time. When the quiet movie ended we rose quietly with wet eyes and exited into the quiet, rainy, snowy, slushy streets and walked back towards home, quietly ruminating on strength and love and courage, sharing reminisces of our own grandparents. Secretly wondering about our own futures. About our own strength. We should all be so lucky to be moved so profoundly by art at least once in our lives.

Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012)

7/10
The biggest thing about Lincoln, for me, is that it confirms that Spielberg has not in fact completely lost his marbles after last year's unbearable War Horse. Lincoln is, by contrast...well, mature.
I don't really have a horse (eesh) in this race - biopics don't generally appeal to me, and history and politics are not my two main fields of interest. Nor do I have much of an affinity for Spielberg. I was mostly interested in the movie to see Daniel Day-Lewis' performance, which was excellent of course (but still behind Phoenix and Lavant, for me). Sally Fields was great as well. Tommy Lee Jones was a little bit predictable in a curmudgeonly role, but he did fine. Everything was fine, really, to the point of feeling mechanical - there were very few surprises and, in the end, if you had to picture a Lincoln biopic starring Day-Lewis directed by Spielberg, didn't you predict it would turn out exactly like this? The emotion it roused in me was pretty faint - I didn't feel the tension or the catharsis when what you knew would happen, happened. Fine, fine, fine; that was my main impression.