Movie of the Year: A Cracked 64 ripoff

During the end of December and the beginning of January, there are hundreds of Top [insert number] of [insert year] lists published.  Here are the top four:

4) List-based articles are easy to consume.

3) They allow an audience a chance to catch up on something they've missed.

2) It's fun (?) to judge the quality of the list or to dispute entries.

1) They're a narrative crutch.  

Nothing new needs to brought to the table; with hindsight being 20/20, compiling a list of the best movies, songs, and television from the past year is journalistically easier than writing about what is happening in the present.

I love this time of year for the lists that are published; they're a great read to me.  In addition, what I said about being a narrative crutch also appeals to me this year because, when you're attempting to write a post per day, sometimes it's nice to not have to bring any new material to the table, and to instead retread what happened in 2012.  Like I said, I enjoy "Best of" lists, but for the past two years, there has been a list that is exponentially more interesting to me.  I am speaking of the Cracked 64.

This is #1 in my "Top  Top Lists of 2012" list.

The premise is to select, from 8 different categories, not the best or worst entry, but the one that most typified the year; the most appropriate of 2012.  To quote from Cracked.com, "These picks may not be the best the year had to offer, but they’re the movies, tweets and everything else that 2012 deserves."

If you haven't already read this, then you really should go check it out.  To me, this is far more interesting than compiling a list of the best 2012 had, and as such, I'm going to be offering my take on the eight categories that Cracked wrote on.  If you happen to disagree, feel free to offer your own pick, along with an explanation, in the comments.  Today, we shall be tackling movies.

Movie of the Year: The Avengers

For movies, 2012 was a year all about franchises.  The highest grossing movie that didn't already belong to its own franchise was Brave, which ranked 8th in domestic grosses.  But 2012 is not a year that will be defined solely in terms of which movies made the most money; this was the year that Star Wars was sold to Disney (the same umbrella that The Avengers falls under), and it was announced that three new movies will be made; the same year that the first of three - that's right, three! - Hobbit movies was released; the year that a Justice League movie was announced.  The Avengers exemplifies the trend in cinema of 2012, and it also does it the best.

The Avengers is both the first, and the seventh installment of the series; taking Marvel's Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man franchises, and making a super-movie (no pun intended) that would have seemed an impossible notion a decade ago.  In a year that was all about franchises, Disney, Marvel, and Joss Whedon released a movie that was the result of years of patience; no small feat in today's climate.  Look no further than the announcement about the Justice League movie for an example of no patience, and no build; while it won't be released until 2015, the movie will be trying to introduce several new iterations of super heroes, as well as tell a story that sees the need for them to assemble as a team.  Marvel spent 6 movies introducing characters, and the end result was a well paced, well reasoned story.

The release of The Avengers saw the realization of several years of hard work to bring together many franchises, but it is not the end goal, which brings us to another tenant of 2012.  Finality is not a word that the movie business likes all that much, and this was not a year in which it was abound.  Sure, Twilight and Batman both wrapped up their respective sagas, but the former stretched a trilogy into four movies (a quilogy?), and the latter left the door open for the franchise to continue - which would be entirely unnecessary.  Meanwhile, The Avengers has acted as a leaping off point for its own sequel, is giving birth to a TV series in S.H.I.E.L.D., and isn't getting in the way of sequels for Thor, Captain America, or Iron Man; whether you like it or not that Hollywood thrives on sequels nowadays, that is an impressive feat.

I suppose that it's worth mentioning that The Avengers was also the top grossing movie of 2012, and had the largest opening weekend box office drawing of all time, but I don't want to measure this list based solely on popularity; in this case, The Avengers just happened to be the most successful movie of the year as well as being the one that defines it.

Runner Up: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

2012 continued the trend that began the year prior, of adding a movie to a series for little to no reason.  Harry Potter began the trend, Twilight extended it's final book to two movies, just as will The Hunger Games.  Peter Jackson, not wanting to be outdone, decided to turn one book into 3 movies.  Without wanting to spoil anything for those who have not yet seen it, I will only say that I see no reason for needing 9 hours to tell The Hobbit.