If, nearly one full month into 2013, 2012 now seems long gone, consider this: the Oscars are still nearly one full month away. Fortunately, what we have here is a pretty good batch of lists and awards. Let’s begin with the Cinema Scope top ten. At #1: Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s Leviathan. CS contributor Michael Sicinski has two lists, one for world premieres (#1: Leviathan) and the other for films that actually saw a theatrical release in 2012 (#1: Leos Carax’s Holy Motors).
Zach Campbell‘s list is alphabetical, and he’s got quite a bit to say about how he watched what he watched last year. Dan Sallitt‘s list of 12 (plus a handful of runners-up) is comprised of “my favorite films that played at least one week in Manhattan for the first time in 2012.” #1: Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives.
David McDougall gives us three versions of his 2012, while at Twitch, Christopher Bourne has two lists: distributed (#1: Holy Motors) and undistributed (#1: Song Fang’s Memories Look at Me). At Septimovicio, you’ll find lists from J.P. Bango and David López.
Then there are the specialty lists. Shelly Kraicer writes up ten of the best Chinese independent films of 2012. Wildgrounds passes along Kinema Junpo‘s and Eiga Geijutsu‘s lists of the best (and worst) Japanese films of the year.
The Skandies list of the best undistributed films of 2010 is out. And Criticwire‘s Matt Singer has asked contributors, “What overlooked festival film from the last couple of years deserves more attention and acclaim?”
Repertory. A wonderfully designed thing at Not Coming to a Theater Near You: “Two-Thousand Twelve in Review.”
And Brian Darr‘s spent two weeks this month presenting his “annual survey of cinephiles’ favorite repertory and revival film screenings at Frisco Bay venues.” Each of his contributors has put a lot of thought and care into annotating these lists, and there’s a lot to be gleaned here, no matter how close to or far away from San Francisco you may be. The cinephiles: Adam Hartzell, Rob Byrne, Ryland Walker Knight, Jonathan Kiefer, Victoria Jaschob, David Robson, Lincoln Spector, Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, Jason Wiener, Michael Hawley, Maureen Russell, Ben Armington, Frako Loden, Terri Saul, Lawrence Chadbourne, Carl Martin, Kurtiss Hare, Mark Wilson, and Brian himself.
Awards. Ben Affleck and Argo had a good weekend: the Producers Guild and Screen Actors Guild awards.
“Michael Haneke‘s Amour won best film at the Lumière Awards, the French equivalent of the Golden Globes judged by the international press community in Paris,” reports Melanie Goodfellow for Screen. But: “Noemie Lvovsky’s Camille Rewinds (Camille Redouble) led France’s Cesar Awards nominations Friday with 13, with Michael Haneke’s Amour getting 10 nominations at France’s equivalent to the Oscars.” Rhonda Richford has more in the Hollywood Reporter.
Writer-director Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die has won Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actress (Nermina Lukač) at Sweden’s Guldbagge Awards.
Lists and Awards 2012: Index. For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily on Twitter and/or the RSS feed. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.