Meanwhile, American television continued to ramp up its high-quality output, continuing established great series like Breaking Bad, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Justified, and Louie, while introducing a plethora of promising new shows. Game of Thrones has firmly established its front-runner position, but Homeland, Enlightened, and Boss each offered solid value in their first seasons, while holding varying degrees of promise for the future.

My very favorite films of the year are quite boring in their utter predictability: The Tree of Life and Drive are coming out on top of most major lists right now, and I’m sure I’ll also love Thomas Alfredson’s universally praised new take on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy once it finally reaches these shores. I’ll limit my own picks for the year then to the most pleasant surprises yielded by otherwise generic Hollywood fare: the films that stood out in ways that somehow defeated inherently mediocre expectations.

Sci-fi movies that weren’t completely stupid: Rise of the Planet of the Apes / Attack the Block
Two genre films benefited hugely from the ‘political turn’ that seemed to catch most people off guard this past year: 20th Century Fox’s cynical-sounding reboot of the age-old Planet of the Apes franchise offered a social and political allegory about protest and revolution that seemed to jibe with the year’s geopolitical changes, while the ways in which Attack the Block reflected the London riots and Britain’s big-city race issues was downright uncanny. After decades of science-fiction being dominated by conservative, mostly downright conservative fantasy, it’s great to see the genre rediscovering its political roots again.

A superhero movie that wasn’t a complete waste of time: Captain America: The First Avenger
The once-lively genre has been treading water for the past few years, increasingly descending into purely by-the-numbers franchise exercises that give us something nobody was asking for (The Green Lantern) or that serve as extended trailers for something yet to come (Thor). All the more surprising therefore that Joe Johnston’s workmanlike but perfectly serviceable tribute to Marvel’s Captain America works as well as it does. It suffers from the usual origin story problems –great setup, lazy payoff– but it musters up the nostalgic spirit of fondly remembered 1980s action films like Johnston’s own The Rocketeer.

Animated movies that didn’t suck: Rango / Puss in Boots
We have known for years now that the only animated films worth seeing (let alone exposing your children to) are the ones produced by Pixar, while the rest are generally mindless collections of poorly-executed fart jokes, homophobia, misogyny, and lazy pop-culture references. But this year, Pixar’s only offering was the foregone conclusion of cash-cow sequel Cars 2. And although there wasn’t anything to rival exceptional animated features like Ratatouille or even Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Rango at least gave us some clever genre riffs and an astonishing visual look, while Puss in Boots was miraculous simply for being a Shrek spin-off that managed to transcend its woeful roots in every conceivable way.

A romantic comedy that was funny and romantic: Bridesmaids
Putting the lie to the offensive prejudice that women can’t be funny, the comedic team of Bridesmaids gave us the kind of sleeper hit that refuses to patronize its primary audience. While overlong and overly formulaic in its narrative arc, it did put together the most hilarious comedy set pieces in recent memory by letting its team of comédiennes do what they do best. In a genre dominated by coarse, unfunny bromances and appallingly misogynistic time-wasters, Bridesmaids is nothing short of miraculous with its wit and charm.

The film is often cited (if it’s mentioned at all) for its historical value, its defenders pointing out that journeyman director Bob Clark was way ahead of John Carpenter’s 1978 hit Halloween with his innovative holiday-themed slasher film. But although there is a kernel of truth to that statement, it should also be obvious that the things that made Halloween such a popular and influential blockbuster are absent in Black Christmas. First of all, there is none of the ostentatiously virtuoso cinematography that makes Halloween the masterpiece of stylization that it remains to this day. Instead, Clark’s film has a naturalistic quality that hinges on moments of atmosphere and stillness. It contrasts the increasingly fragile sense of community among the female students who are stalked and threatened with the isolation that defines the unhinged killer.

Secondly, Black Christmas keeps the viewer’s sympathies firmly aligned with the women whose lives are threatened by this maniac, and -crucially- with the first victim’s relatives, whose increasingly desperate search for their daughter lends weight to the first death, which thereby comes to loom large over the rest of the narrative as it develops. By contrast, Halloween and its many, many imitators tend to transform the intended victims into objects for us to stare at as they are being stalked, pursued, and threatened by the killer, thereby aligning us with the aggressor’s point of view. The implicit misogyny of the resulting formula was parodied most effectively by Brian de Palma in the opening scene of his masterpiece Blow Out (1981), where every sexist cliché in the genre book is thrown at us. As early as 1981, it was apparently obvious to someone as astute as De Palma that slasher movies were all about ogling women as fetishized sex objects before taking sadistic pleasure in seeing them suffer.

Black Christmas then offers a fascinating road not taken for the slasher film: a thriller in which it becomes all but impossible to identify with the killer, who is presented within this narrative as an entirely twisted, ultimate “Other” whose actions have devastating consequences for the very human (if hardly innocent) group of women he targets. By penetrating, infiltrating, even desecrating the safety of their home, he is neither transformed into a mythological figure, a status that characters like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger quickly claimed, nor are we able to identify with his point of view. Instead, we react along with the all-too-human main characters played by Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey and Andrea Martin, who find that existing tensions in their group become magnified once they realize they are being treated as prey by a male hunter. In other words: it becomes a metaphor for the way in which friendships between women are systematically sabotaged by the male gaze that creates envy, distrust and hostility.

But metaphors and symbolism aside, Black Christmas is also a film that never fails to surprise with its many tiny moments of human observation and its quixotic, playful attitude. Expectations that have since become ingrained by years of reductive genre exercises are consistently defeated, and even if the resulting film isn’t the kind of auteurist exercise in which every aspect of the film has been constructed with an eye for absolute symmetry and formal precision, it is the kind of classic that deserves more credit and wider acknowledgment. And since the film is available in an absolutely gorgeous blu-ray edition for next to nothing, there’s no reason why this Christmas wish shouldn’t come true.

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But even the worst films can yield nuggets of comedic gold, and thanks to House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, Max von Sydow’s voluntarily mute character has become the basis of one of the funniest memes in recent memory. Using three frame grabs from the trailer, His Royal Swedishness has been transformed into a kind of online Magic Eight-ball that answers whatever question one submits. I was naturally just tickled pink to see my own question being answered by ol’ Maxie, although my favorite ones involve an infamous line from Shark Attack 3 and Von Sydow’s response to a request from Garry Marshall. What do you think, Max von Sydow?

At this point, both authors seem increasingly removed from contemporary politics and comics, Moore’s latest project Neonomicon having been received with bewildered indifference, and Miller’s atrocious Holy Terror being discussed only in terms of its beyond-offensive islamophobia. But while Moore’s anti-corporate politics seem to gain relevance as well as credence over the years, Miller’s raging homophobia, misogyny and general insanity cast an increasingly negative light over his back catalogue. In what seems like a somewhat delusional attempt to either get some public attention or vent some built-up rage over the universal panning of his latest book, Miller recently wrote a short piece decrying the Occupy movement. Coolly demonstrating his total awesomeness, Moore responded to Miller’s piece in this recent interview:

I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason whyFrank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.

In this short interview segment from a few years back, Moore (predictably) shows us how far ahead of the curve he usually is, although he talks about the “0.000001%” rather than the single percentile that has now become the standard term to indicate the ruling capitalist elite.

As you may notice, all these (more or less) iconic characters are pictured to their best advantage, coming straight towards the viewer in aggressive, dare I say somewhat phallic poses. All but one, that is, as Scarlett Johansson’s character seems more interested in showing off her backside than facing what must undoubtedly be a redoubtable foe head-on. Not only do we get a detailed view of her nicely rounded posterior, but this particular pose also casts into telling relief her voluptuous bosom, emphasized by the traditional skin-tight outfit. Cartoonist Kevin Bolk picked up on this rather unsubtle way of representing superhero characters on the basis of gendered stereotypes, rightfully feeling that the male characters in this shot were being treated unfairly by denying them similarly cheeky poses:

Meanwhile, protesters in New York are finding other ways of maintaining visibility after being booted out of Zuccotti Park by comic book super villain Bloomberg, including most recently the spectacular occupation of Brooklyn Bridge. The movement’s message may still be too plural and diverse to yield a coherent plan of action, but as it continues to grow into a force that even the mainstream media can no longer deny or ignore, its force is incontrovertible. As Slavoj Žižek has already written: “Occupy first. Demands come later.”

Of course Christopher Nolan, overrated director of several popular films that celebrate the values of benevolent capitalism, has been eager to ride the growing popularity of a critical social movement in order to generate some extra free publicity for his next multi-million dollar Batman movie. Having first announced his intention to film scenes among the protesters, he ultimately opted for the more controllable option of a location shoot before the New York Stock Exchange, where a massive fight scene was staged last week between Batman, the police, and the new film’s villain Bane. Needless to say, the city was all too happy to shut down this part of the city for the benefit of a major Hollywood production.

And then there’s Frank Miller, who is at this point so desperate to get any kind of attention that he will stoop to writing a personal response to the #Occupy movement that merely demonstrates to the rest of the world how far the once-celebrated comics author is now removed from reality. If there was anybody left out there who still played with the idea that his abysmal Holy Terror was actually a clever hoax that was meant to be read ironically, all such doubts will now be gone.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is by no means a total disaster. It lumbers to life occasionally, especially in those moments when Andy Serkis cuts loose with his lively, rarely-sober Captain Haddock mo-cap performance, or when Spielberg gets his act together for a moment and treats us to an action set piece that actually feels both organic and coherent (which happens far less frequently than one might expect from him). But without fail, these moments are cut short by awkwardly written, inconsistently performed scenes that go to show that the combination of Hergé’s famous ligne claire and the action-oriented Hollywood blockbuster are a marriage of convenience at best.

The Tintin comic books are finicky, densely designed, word-heavy comics without very much action, featuring a quaint sense of humor that is simultaneously silly and understated. As the well-known Simpsons episode that spoofed Tintin’s creaky Gallic adventures accurately showed, it’s not the kind of thing that lends itself easily to incorporation into the standard-issue big-budget blockbuster – even (or perhaps especially) in the hands of Steven Spielberg. Numerous scenes in the film overflow with unsubtle references to the source material, illustrating quite obviously that the production team was infatuated with the comic books and wished to do them some kind of  justice.

This issue of fidelity however ushers in many of the screenwriters’ worst decisions: Tintin for instance narrating all his thoughts while the action takes place (“What can this be, Snowy? It’s a map!”) may have been necessary on the page, but too often this clumsy device comes across as if we’re listening to some strange audio track for the blind. And as the film continues to shuffle uncomfortably back and forth between re-enactments of scenes from the comic book and wildly over-the-top action sequences, one continues to wonder who exactly the audience for this whole exercise is supposed to be. Much of the inconsistently written screenplay is extremely childish, lacking the kind of sophistication that Pixar routinely brings to its G-rated productions, while the dizzying action and often baffling plot seem geared towards a decidedly adult audience.

Perhaps the key problem with the whole premise of a mainstream Tintin film is that the character and his adventures are just hopelessly archaic. The blank-slate protagonist embodies some kind of postwar Gallic ideal of androgynous masculinity: entirely uninterested in women (who rarely appear at all in the comics; the only female character in the entire film is the ostentatious and briefly-seen opera singer Bianca Castafiore), he represents the spirit of rational inquisitiveness and ingenuity, while also playing straight man to captain Haddock’s excessive and out-of-control clowning. It would have been interesting to see an attempt to adapt this fundamentally colonial figure from a more contemporary point of view. But alas, Spielberg and his team of screenwriters instead preferred to leave Tintin mired in a nostalgic, poorly defined nostalgic but decidedly ahistorical world. As in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tintin’s brief visit to (colonial?) Morocco serves merely as an excuse to indulge in the worst kind of Orientalist stereotyping. But while Indy at least got to spar with Sallah (played by a portly caucasian actor, but never mind) on more or less equal terms, everyone wearing a turban in the Tintin movie exists only to get out of the way of our hero, or else to serve as the butt of a poorly conceived joke at the Moroccans’ expense.

But earlier this year a trailer appeared publicizing an upcoming book now entitled simply Holy Terror, a book that wasn’t published by DC Comics and that didn’t feature Batman or any other DC characters or properties. Instead, it features a new character called “The Fixer”, who is accompanied by a decidedly feline partner/nemesis/love interest and starts torturing, maiming and slaughtering Islamic fundamentalists after a sudden terrorist attack wreaks havoc on the Gotham City-like New York stand-in Empire City. Miller’s own version of the story would have it that he decided at some point during the process that the project had “moved past Batman”, and that it would instead feature a new character more suited to our current real-world conflict. Given the end product, which was published a few days after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in a poorly-judged attempt to capitalize on the publicity, it seems more likely that DC Comics preferred not to have one of their most successful franchises associated with Miller’s plan “to offend just about everyone.” I don’t blame them: at this point, who (besides Robert Rodriguez) wants to be associated with anything created by Frank Miller?

Considering the author’s work over the past decade, it should be little surprise that Holy Terror is simple-minded, sloppily executed, misogynistic, and racist. Those remembering The Dark Knight Returns as being cut of a similar political cloth as Alan Moore’s late-1980s graphic novels would do well to re-read this formally brilliant but deeply reactionary comic book: its digs at Reagan’s neo-conservative government are really just about finding his policies too liberal. What this world of pussies needs, according to Miller, is a Real Man to come forward and defeat all those postmodern wimps with heroic and unambiguous violence. Miller’s celebrated choice to introduce a female Robin meanwhile seems to me more likely based on his blatant homophobia than on any feminist tendency in his work.

Speaking of which, Holy Terror attempts to sustain its rampant xenophobia and racism by appealing to that old standby: the evil perpetrated on women by muslim societies. Someone like Frank Miller trying to mobilize a feminist argument in favor of his rabid approach to this material moves beyond any definition of irony and enters the realm of the absurd; and anyone who wishes to argue that his obscenely sexist objectification of women throughout his oeuvre is a knowing, post-feminist joke should try listening to the audio commentary that accompanies his universally reviled film The Spirit.

If the author’s intention was indeed to write something that would offend just about everyone, Miller has succeeded to some extent. But on the other hand, one must care about something to be truly offended by it, and the most pathetic thing about Holy Terror is how irrelevant and out-of-touch it feels. If Miller’s longtime readers were concerned about the prospect of “a vulgar, one-dimensional revenge fantasy,” as Spencer Ackerman writes in his review, Holy Terror delivers something even worse. For whatever else one might say about The Dark Knight Returns, it is very much a product of its time, and can be used in wonderfully productive ways to think through some of the Reagan-era debates. As a work of graphic literature, it was innovative, thought-provoking, and it engaged with superhero mythology in ways that opened it up to stimulating discussions and revisions. Likewise, Miller’s Sin City books (or at least the early installments) broke new ground in comic book aesthetics, and engaged with the hard-boiled noir genre in interesting ways. Holy Terror however comes across as the work of a confused old man whose attempts to engage with contemporary issues seem to be lagging about ten years behind the times. If DC Comics did indeed bow out of the project, it may just as well have been because they correctly assessed not so much that everyone would be offended, but that nobody would care. Obviously, that’s even worse.