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    Mondo Cinema

    Django Unchained, Argo and Bernie lead parade of 2012's most memorable movies

    Joe Leydon
    Jan 5, 2013 | 10:45 am
    • Jamie Foxx and Franco Nero in Django Unchained
      Courtesy photo
    • Ben Affleck in Argo
      Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
    • Denzel Washington in Flight
      Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
    • A scene from Moonrise Kingdom
      Photo courtesy of Focus Features
    • Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook
      Photo courtesy of Lone Star Film Society
    • A scene from Paul Williams Still Alive
    • Bernie movie poster

    To begin, as I do every year, with my standard disclaimer: This may be my list of the Top 10 Movies of 2012 – but it’s not necessary a rundown of the year’s 10 Best Movies. Because, quite frankly, I haven’t seen every single movie released anywhere in the US during the past 12 months. (For starters, I haven’t yet seen the heavily hyped Zero Dark Thirty, due to its being press screened on two evenings I was indisposed.)

    But this most certainly is a list of my favorite films to open in U.S. theaters in 2012.
     
    (To be sure, at least one hasn’t yet opened in a Houston theater – but that will change soon.)
     
    These are, of course, purely arbitrary and totally subjective choices. And I’ll freely admit that, a decade or so hence, I might look back on the following lineup and want to make additions or deletions. At this point in time, however, I can honestly state these are the 2012 releases that impressed me most. And best. So there.
     
     Django Unchained

    Let the nitpickers carp, let the politically correct cavil. Quentin Tarantino’s splendiferously unhinged mash-up of Spaghetti Western homage, historical revisionism, movie-buff fabulism and neo-Jacobean revenge play is, minute for minute, scene for scene, the year’s most flat-out, over-the-top entertaining movie.

    And the most audacious one, too.

     Argo
     
    Ben Affleck’s sensationally smart and suspenseful fact-based film works brilliantly as both a persuasively detailed, edge-of-your-seat political thriller, and an in-jokey, smart-alecky riff on Hollywood-style dreamweaving.
     
    Everyone involved deserves kudos, but Alan Arkin's inspired portrayal of a movie producer who’s savvy about showbiz and geopolitics merits more than a few glittering prizes.

     

     

     Flight

     

    Every so often, Denzel Washington trudges out to the plate, slams one out of the park, and dutifully trots around the bases, leaving his awestruck fans in the bleachers to murmur to each other: “See. That is how it’s done.”

     

    This year, Washington scored in Robert Zemeckis’ matter-of-factly astonishing drama about a self-deluding alcoholic who displays miraculous proficiency while piloting a disabled airliner – only to discover that, no matter how high or far or dazzlingly you may fly, you cannot get away from who and what you are.
     
     Moonrise Kingdom

     

    Another distinctively stylized fable from Wes Anderson, and arguably the Houston-born filmmaker’s most affecting offering to date. At once amusingly droll and achingly sincere, it’s a melancholy comedy of bad manners about two unique adolescents who instinctively accept each other as soul mates, and the obstacles placed in the way of their happily-ever-aftering by the variously unhappy adults in their orbit.
     
     Silver Linings Playbook

     

    Unpredictability always counts for a lot for me, especially when I view a movie that pivots on a question – will two damaged souls gain the strength to mend through the therapeutic properties of love? – I’ve seen answered all too predictably, all too many times before.

     

    What I enjoyed most about David O. Russell’s romantic comedy of mounting desperation is that, for lengthy swaths of its running time, I really had no idea what would happen next, or even whether anything that logically could happen would be enough to help the central characters winningly (and fearlessly) played by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.
     
     Lincoln

     

    Steven Spielberg illuminates history with a sense of urgency and a flair for showmanship in this remarkably compelling period drama. Definitely not your garden-variety biopic, but rather a fascinating account of how a larger-than-life but troubled-by-doubt master politician (a flawless Daniel Day-Lewis) oversaw a campaign of backroom browbeating, tit-for-tat deal-making, and strong-arm power-playing to achieve a greater good.

     

    I mean it as high praise indeed to say that, while watching this film, I couldn’t help wondering whether our current POTUS went to similar extremes to pass Obamacare. (And not just because co-star Hal Holbrook looks so much like an aged Ted Kennedy here.)
     
     Paul Williams Still Alive

     

    Director Stephen Kessler and singer-songwriter Paul Williams aren’t always in sync as collaborators in this idiosyncratic documentary about Williams’ unlikely rise, precipitous fall and dogged endurance as a pop-culture celebrity. But their occasionally conflicting intentions only serve to enhance this one-of-a-kind film, which finally gets its H-Town premiere next month at 14 Pews.
     
     The Dark Knight Rises

     

    Throughout most of 2012, it was hard to discuss, let alone fully appreciate, Christopher Nolan’s immensely exciting and emotionally satisfying conclusion to his “Batman Trilogy” without thinking of the unspeakable real-life tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. For better or worse, however, memories fade – even memories of unspeakable tragedies – but movies are forever in the present tense. Time is on Nolan’s side.
     
     The Fitzgerald Family Christmas

     

    In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll concede that seeing Edward Burns’ ruefully insightful and unpretentiously ingratiating dramedy a second time during the current holiday season – a period when I’ve been reminded again just how spectacularly untidy my own family is – may have made me appreciate it all the more. But so what? As I said, this is a list of the 2012 films that impressed me most.
     
     Bernie

     

    The sort of true-life, only-in-Texas story few scriptwriters would dare invent, recounted with perfectly calibrated measures of sympathy, skepticism and straight-faced absurdism. Director Richard Linklater and co-screenwriter Skip Hollandsworth, working from Hollandsworth’s 1998 Texas Monthly article, provided lead player Jack Black with the role of a lifetime – a sweet-natured small-town mortician who remains beloved by friends and neighbors even after committing homicide – so he played it for all it was worth. And more.
     
     Runners-up: End of Watch, Rust and Bone, Arbitrage, Savages, Magic Mike, Jack Reacher, The Avengers, Killer Joe, Darling Companion and The Sessions.
     
     Honorable Mention: Les Misérables, because Anne Hathaway broke my heart in a zillion pieces; A Late Quartet, arguably the best film to have only a five-day commercial run in Houston during 2012; and The Sapphires, which was showcased at the 2012 Houston Cinema Arts Festival, but won't have a commercial run in H-Town (or, evidently, anywhere else in the U.S.) until 2013.

     

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    news/entertainment

    weekend event planner

    These are the 14 best things to do in Houston this weekend

    Craig D. Lindsey
    Jul 16, 2025 | 6:30 pm
    Goo Goo Dolls
    Photo courtesy of Goo Goo Dolls
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    This weekend, it’s all about music, comedy, celebration, and getting free chicken.

    The Goo Goo Dolls and Kam Franklin will have live concerts. Mo Amer and Kym Whitley will be doing back-to-back stand-up shows. Little Jewford will pay tribute to Kinly Friedman with a live show. Karbach Brewing is bringing back Frida Fest. And Nando PERi-PERi will salute Nelson Mandela Day by giving free chicken and fries to whoever donates some canned goods.

    So, let’s ease on down the road and see what’s popping this weekend.

    Thursday, July 17

    Little Jewford's Sentimental Journey: Remembering Kinky Friedman
    Little Jewford's Sentimental Journey will highlight songs from Kinky Friedman's catalog and the Great American Songbook. Little Jewford will also share a few of his favorite memories of Kinky and stories from their travels. Little Jewford was eight years old when he met Kinky Friedman at Echo Hill Ranch in 1958. They began a friendship and musical pairing that would last more than 60 years. Little Jewford is also an accomplished pianist with a unique, entertaining style all his own. 7 pm.

    River Oaks Theatre presents Film Strip: Barbarella
    Grimm and Ghoulia, headmistresses of The Sisterhood of Lili St. Cyr, present another monthly screening of a cult movie, preceded by a rotating cast of burlesque beauties. This time around, we have Jane Fonda starring in this erotic, space-age, comic-book adaptation from 1968, where she’s a space traveler tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. BTW, quoting and singing along with the film is encouraged. Surprise gags and performances may take place during the film. 8 pm.

    Goo Goo Dolls in concert
    You can go back to the 2000s this weekend, as rock band Goo Goo Dolls will be performing in Sugar Land's Smart Financial Centre. Currently on the road for their Summer Anthem Tour, the Grammy-nominated, diamond-certified rockers (best known for “Iris,” one of many millennial pop ditties guitar-playing frat guys played for sorority girls at parties back in the day) are also at work on their 15th studio album. Dashboard Confessional, another rock outfit who rose to prominence during the Bush II era, will be the opening act. 8 pm.

    Friday, July 18

    Nelson Mandela Day at Nando’s Peri-Peri
    In honor of Nelson Mandela Day on Friday, Nando’s Peri-Peri is turning compassion into action with a nationwide food drive, rewarding guests with free flame-grilled chicken and Peri Chips in exchange for non-perishable food donations. At the Houston locations in Post Oak and Katy, donations will go to Second Servings, the city’s only perishable food rescue organization. Second Servings is also collecting donations to support those affected by the devastating floods that recently impacted Central Texas. 3 pm.

    Mo Amer: El Oso Palestino Tour
    Palestinian-American stand-up comedian (and hometown boy made good) Mo Amer may have wrapped up the second and final season of his acclaimed Netflix show Mo this year. But that doesn’t mean the man hasn’t stopped bringing the funny. Before he heads off to do two back-to-back shows at the Dubai Comedy Festival, he’ll do an early show right here in H-Town, as part of his El Oso Palestino Tour. As of press time, only a limited number of standing room only tickets remain. 7 pm.

    Punch Line Houston presents Kym Whitley
    Kym Whitley knew she was blessed with the gift to make people laugh after Redd Foxx told her she had “the comedic goods.” The comedienne and former host of BET talk show Oh Drama! has appeared in such movies as The Nutty Professor and Next Friday. She’s also done guest shots on My Wife and Kids, Two Broke Girls, That’s So Raven, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, on an episode that saved a man from going to death row. She even appeared in a Netflix documentary about it. 7:30 and 9:45 pm (7 and 9:15 pm Saturday).

    A.D. Players presents The Wizard of Oz
    Since we’re all still in a Wicked frame of mind, A.D. Players presents a stage version of the L. Frank Baum classic. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto travel the universe of Dorothy’s imagination, crossing over the rainbow to the beautiful land of Oz. To find her way home, Dorothy must follow the yellow brick road to find the Wizard. But the Wicked Witch of the West threatens to destroy these newfound friends as they make their journey. Through Sunday, August 10. 7:30 pm (2 and 7:30 pm Saturday; 2 pm Sunday).

    Saturday, July 19

    Houston Pets Alive! And Trust Guss Injury Lawyers present Puppy Palooza
    Houston Pets Alive! and Trust Guss Injury Lawyers team up for Puppy Palooza this weekend, at the Houston Pets Alive! headquarters. Houstonians are invited to a family-friendly adoption event where attendees can meet up to 50 adorable puppies of all sizes, breeds, and personalities, looking for their forever homes. The event not only offers a chance to welcome a new furry friend into your life, but also supports Houston’s local shelters by helping reduce overcrowding and giving at-risk pets a second chance.

    Moody Center for the Arts presents Summer Jam
    Moody's annual Summer Jam will feature art activities, galleries to explore, an indoor farmer’s market, local food vendors, and more. The event includes access to Figurative Histories and Collective Memories as well as programming with Black art/culture reference library The Reading Room. In addition to a scavenger hunt, face painting, and bubble play, Red Bird Press will lead a printmaking activity for the duration of the event. Noon.

    Karbach Brewing Co. presents Frida Fest
    Karbach Brewing Co. is bringing back its annual Frida Fest, a two-day celebration honoring art icon Frida Kahlo through art, fashion, and community. In partnership with nonprofit MuXerhtx, Karbach’s biergarten will transform into a vibrant cultural hub. Saturday’s festivities will include an art show, a fashion show, and a lookalike contest, while Sunday will have a mariachi performance, a flower-making workshop, and a DJ playing beats. Saturday attendees will get first access to exclusive Frida Fest glassware. 1 pm (11 am Sunday).

    The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Houston presents Iolanthe
    The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Houston, Houston’s longest-running opera company, will present Iolanthe, a hallmark of Gilbert and Sullivan’s signature satire that cheerily blends fantasy and pointed social commentary. It skewers the British legal system, the House of Lords, and Victorian sensibilities with clever wit and a charming score. Iolanthe (pronounced "eye-oh-LAN-thee") is a comic opera sung in English and is enjoyable for all ages. Through Sunday, July 27. 7 pm (7 pm Friday, 2:30 pm Sunday).

    Sunday, July 20

    National Ice Cream Day
    National Ice Cream Day is this Sunday, and these are just some of the several places around town marking the occasion with deals and specials. The Sunrise House in Montrose has both an ice cream-topped waffle and an affogato. Both locations of The Pit Room will take $2 off any creation made with Blue Bell ice cream. Asian American diner Agnes and Sherman will be serving root beer floats and banana splits. Houston-area locations of Lick Honest Ice Creams will donate 10 percent of sales to Buffalo Bayou Partnership. All four Houston-area locations of Jeni’s will add its new sundae fudge sauce for free to any scoop. (Times and locations vary.)

    The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
    Marlee Matlin became the first deaf actor to win an Oscar for her performance in Children of a Lesser God. In this new documentary, she discusses her personal and professional struggles — including her meteoric rise to fame in a predominantly hearing industry, a tumultuous high-profile relationship, getting sober, and years of being overlooked by Hollywood. Through split-screen interviews with both deaf and hearing contributors, the film weaves a poignant narrative of Matlin’s career, highlighting her tireless fight for inclusion. 5 pm.

    Dan Electro’s presents Kam Franklin & Friends
    Kam Franklin and a bunch of her musical pals will be performing this weekend at Dan Electro’s. Best known for belting powerful vocals as the lead singer of Gulf Coast soul band The Suffers, this dynamic interdisciplinary artist is also a passionate activist for justice and equity — amplifying Black, queer, femme, and non-binary voices across the arts. She’ll be joined by Sergio Trevino, Louis Morales, Sara Van Buskirk, Uncle Tino, and Blacknintendo. 7:30 pm.

    Goo Goo Dolls
      
    Photo courtesy of Goo Goo Dolls

    Goo Goo Dolls will play in Sugar Land July 17, 2025.

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