It is a more intriguing and complicated question than it seems, 'why does Michael Bay (and clones like Berg, Verbinski, or Scott) make these movies objects of ridicule while Del Toro gets a pass? Much of what everyone above seems to be saying indicates that part of the root lies in an ostensible lack of jingoism (and yet, white american soldier lands asian butterfly geisha in the end, as usual), a lack of contemporary camera movement, and a self-awareness not seemingly shared by the other filmmakers.
Is it simply execution, or is there something more ideologically zeitgeisty about Bay et. al.'s representations of explosions and militarism that strikes a different cord than does Del Toro's vision? There seems to be something undergirding these divergent narrative and visual thrusts that resonates differently with us than it seems to en mass, and yet the trajectory of recent filmmaking seems to be in favor of the furthered reproduction of the former over the later. The artifice of the merger of the two poles of a Bay/lumpin-vs.-Del Toro/artistic dialectic into the deformed form of Abrams/lindeloff becomes clear in the dissatisfactiory nature of these texts to both audiences.
Favorite Movie of 2012 was really hard to find in a theatre, but if you can find Iron Sky, watch it. A ton of fun and a lot going on structurally undergirding it.
Gotham always seems to be portrayed less like a city that is a part of a larger country, but than a city-state by itself. As in, the rules that apply to Gotham don't work in Cleveland or Rapid City (the only not-Gotham cities i remember being mentioned in the film). Crime and the rule of law and the police aren't connected to the laws and rules of the larger body politic of the United States in the same integral way that they are in, for example, real-life New York City.
There is something jarring about seeing an armed group assault the stock exchange- the heart of a global interconnected network, not a local one- and then just take off on some dirt-bikes with stockbrokers holding on to the back. Not jarring-as-unsettling, but jarring-as-unrealistic. There is no way that an event like this happens that it doesn't galvanize the nation around the stock-exchange, that politicians in Washington and the everyman, joe truck driver in main street don't nationalistically rally around that space as we've seen in the past.
This narrative improbability is only compounded when it comes time for the Banians to take over the city- something they might be able to accomplish as seen in the film quickly but that would not last long. The financial, cultural, and political capital of the nation that Gotham seems to represent would not be acquiesced by the rest of the nation so easily, even with the threat of the weapon. It wouldn't be a month before special forces were in the city; they would have neutralized the threat within hours, days at the longest. The multi-month occupation stands out as another strange aspect to the film, as one could imagine the action playing out over the course of a shorter period, but several months (necessitated obviously by the need to repair Wayne's back as well as moral authority, but cinematically unwieldy as filmed) seems too long to be realistically maintained.
These issues dissipate to some degree if we imagine Gotham as a City-State like Hong Kong or Singapore, but come with their own problems.
Picture: The Artist
Directing: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Actor in a Supporting Role: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Actress in a Supporting Role: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris
Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
Foreign Language Film: In Darkness
Documentary Feature: Undefeated
Animated Feature Film: Rango
Documentary Short: Saving Face
Animated Short: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Live Action Short: Tuba Atlantic
Film Editing: Hugo
Art Direction: Hugo
Cinematography: Hugo
Costume Design: Hugo
Makeup: The Iron Lady
Score: The Artist
Song: "Man or Muppet," The Muppets
Sound Editing: Hugo
Sound Mixing: Hugo
Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Bellflower was my #1 film of 2011. A lot to say about the film but a review on Counterpunch does the best job;
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/11/into-the-wasteland-of-la/
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