2012 Television Map: The atrocities are in blue

I started your thesis for you. It was a painstaking process of consulting Wikipedia's extensive "List of programs broadcast by..." database and fansites cross-referencing dialogue to tell me exactly where Pawnee is located in the state of Indiana, but after more time than I care to admit, I've finally mapped every single narrative TV show airing and set in the US that I could think of and locate. I'm sure I missed something, but you get what you pay for.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Patriot games

The great mystery of 2011 isn't a flashy, violent thriller but the meticulous, absorbing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Based on ex-MI6 agent John le Carré’s classic novel about a mole in UK intelligence, the film apes the life of a spy as much as possible. It’s got a mean poker face, it only makes sense in retrospect, and it’s a total buzzkill. That is, until the ending reveals George Smiley to be the coolest cat in town.

John Carter: Stranger in a strange land

For better or worse, John Carter is a pulp serial in the form of a feature, more akin to Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean (or Flash Gordon and The Lone Ranger) than the chesty historical adventures of the past few years. Taylor Kitsch may look like a classical era hero, what with his loincloth-and-strappy-leather ensemble, but he’s the very model of a modern reluctant warrior, having disengaged from the world after suffering Civil War losses revealed in some of John Carter’s most stunning passages. You can see where this hero’s journey is headed, but it’s worth remembering Edgar Rice Burroughs has a few decades on Joseph Campbell.

Lockout: Get off my space station

Nice to see a B-flick that doesn't take itself so seriously. Luc Besson's last script was Colombiana, another fun (if moodier—and ultimately more thoughtful) pulp serial. But Lockout doesn't have time to think about what it's done. No kissing, just ass-kicking, courtesy of a tightly T-ed Guy Pearce. Maggie Grace is Maggie Grace and will always be Maggie Grace, amen. But you don't want Meryl Streep for the space-jail movie. You want that spoiled chick from the first season of Lost. They make a decent enough pair, Pearce and Grace. He sells the action and the comedy and the stakes and she sells the irritating righteousness. Pretend it’s the ‘80s and it goes down smoother.

Mirror Mirror: Stuff Snow White People Like

It's best not to expect much from Mirror Mirror, but the prologue is art direction at its finest. In a rapturous animation, it tells the story of Snow White’s doting father, the king, falling for an evil queen and subsequently disappearing in the forest, leaving the entire kingdom not to his daughter but to his enchantress. The sequence draws on all kinds of influences: marionettes, shadow puppets, the zoopraxiscope. Unfortunately, nothing about the rest of the film lives up to this honorable homage, even taking into account that its target demographic is resolutely in the single digits. As with its ostensible narrator, for every moment of magic, the film takes on a blemish, until the final account reveals a shriveled old bag that may have some substance to it anyway.

Immortals: The thunder from down under

The test-tube baby of two lines of modern cinema, the Lord of the Rings relic-fetish and the 300 sword-and-six-pack action-adventure, Immortals is a film of spectacle. It’s not about airtight plot or Julliard acting or deep sociopolitical commentary. It’s about fantastical settings and cool artifacts and, above all, ripped dudes and gorgeous women trying to express their primal desires. Go in looking for phallic symbols and the film becomes a comedy. That’s hardly a bad thing.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 3D: The magic's microscopic

Surprise, surprise, 3D does not save The Phantom Menace, George Lucas’ New Agey, “feel, don’t think,” nonsense guide to awful parenting, now with more racial exaggerations. In fact, for a franchise so profitable that it won’t shut up, the 3D is just muddled, but maybe that’s the point: Anything to distract from Jar-Jar. Underneath the facelift is that same film we saw thirteen years ago, not the dark lord that would destroy all good memories but a poorly acted little boy that nevertheless has his moments.

Man on a Ledge: Golden parachute

Like Sam Worthington doing epic battle with his own accent, Man on a Ledge presents a prime example of a weak director being overpowered by the wild forces of production, with relative newcomer Asger Leth delivering a spotty film that is exactly the sum of its parts. No two actors are playing the same level of heightened realism, from Elizabeth Banks’ almost tragic cop to Kyra Sedgwick’s cartoonish reporter (Susie Morales, her last name spoken with comical precision). The shots are uniformly workmanlike, though a couple interesting touches poke through, like when someone falls off. And the point of all this is some overdetermined story about the one percent twirling their mustaches. Leth would have been better off making a good movie before aiming for greatness.

The Cabin in the Woods: The horror games

The Cabin in the Woods is not a horror film. The anti-spoilerists have gone so radical that even knowing the film’s premise, which we discover way before Janet Leigh dies, is considered too much information for the uninitiated, the better to inform your finances, I’m sure. True, there is the story of a bunch of horror stereotypes visiting a cabin in the woods for an ostensibly frightful weekend, but there is also a bigger story that I won’t reveal, and that supernarrative is the primary focus. It’s creative, but it’s not scary. You go in expecting a horror flick, and you get an hour and a half of a horror buff talking about all his favorites instead. Why make one horror film when you can make 'em all? Whatever the cult of Whedon say, expectations matter.

Keyhole: Ties that bind

The amateur whirlwind of Guy Maddin's worst opening slowly gives way to an absorbing surrealist mystery. It's like a dream that takes place at this family house looming with Freudian symbolism (though with all those perky breasts and ill-fitting wife-beaters, I'd say Maddin could stand to turn up the Kenneth Anger knob of his personality, which thankfully provides at least a scene where David Wontner is naked in ropes). What at first felt the least like Maddin's work due to its community theater acting and Baby's First Editing Suite style becomes as quintessentially Maddin as all the rest, a creepy, hilarious expressionist illustration of the bonds of family.

The Turin Horse: Revelation

Stylistically grueling, The Turin Horse is a creeping, existential nightmare with even its horrors drained of thrill. It's about the slow depletion of every single resource for this working class family until the black takes over and the credits roll. I counted 31 shots—30 if the bit where the lamp goes out is one continuous shot—and they're typically captivating, particularly the rugged opening trifecta. The first two days are a riveting exploration of daily life for this taxi-driver and his daughter, from getting dressed in the morning to eating a one-potato dinner at night. Then the monotony sets in. The fourth day is hell. And it doesn't end. Everything just keeps getting worse.

In The Family: Family values

Patrick Wang multi-hyphenates all over In the Family, about a gay man—not that he's ever defined/confined as such—whose husband dies, throwing into legal turmoil his relationship with his husband's biological son whom he has raised for 6 years. It's neither political jeremiad nor fiery melodrama, though. It's a mild-mannered, naturalistic procedural about a homophobic society—not just the heartland but federal law—working against family values and the integration of non-traditional relationships into extended family groups.