*Scoff*...WOMEN...tsk tsk...smdh

Can we stop creating race/gender/sexuality based tests for movies and shows? Ultimately they're utterly meaningless. Those works are what they are, good or bad on the merits of themselves. If they include minority characters in some capacity or another and do so in a moderately positive manner, then good for them.

I'm not saying we need to praise every film that comes out simply because it features a female character doing something other than having sex nor am I saying that we need to damn every film that doesn't or doesn't do so under overly idealistic circumstances. I'm just saying consider a movie on its own. Don't compare and contrast its theoretical socio-political strengths or faults or distinctions as the be all and end all of the film or work itself. It's a component, nothing more, nothing less. Judge everything by its own standards and with the same specific criteria. If those aspects are overwhelming in the given work or they are a significant theme being explored or addressed and they legitimately lend themselves to analysis, then by all means, analyze and critique away.

But every summer blockbuster and every giant award winning film doesn't need/deserve/necessitate the kind of repetitive, vaguely defined, and ultimately futile haranguing they get. Movies, at the end of the day, are just that- movies. They aren't definitive tent-pole landmarks by which our sociological tendencies should be judged. They are only indicative of those attitudes and ideas in a broad way as it is. Films more often than not are such specifically focused entities, giving off notions and perspectives and opinions that are usually nothing less than the given point of view a select number of individuals (i.e. the cast and crew). If those ideas are ones that you don't necessarily agree with or if they aren't executed in a manner you find particularly effective or positive or ideal then you have every right to address those matters however you see fit. But to act as though the latest Michael Bay flick or the newest Star Wars movie will be the definitive end to the positive depiction of women on screen seems a bit much. Is the argument you're making that those films are inherently or theoretically sexist in some small or large way invalidated? No. But we do tend to live in an age where we use hyperbole and exaggeration far too heavily. These arguments have been made for years and more often have been done so in a manner much more accurately and legitimately critical than in the stuff you so often read in modern op-ed pieces and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. We speak in such broad and vague terms that we never actually get to the heart of the matter. We use an abundance of overly fancy language to make it seem as though we saying something much more important or relevant than we may be.

A decent example of this arose in my Simpsons class during my final semester. We were discussing an extended excerpt from Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble which details her analytical perspectives on they very concept of gender and sexuality. Our teacher admitted that while Butler's points are at the very least interesting and allow for a great deal of discussion on the issues she raises in the course of the book and especially that she does argue and support herself well enough- the prose and the language that is used is almost impossibly difficult to get through. If at the end of the day you're making a more or less valid argument about a legitimately controversial and an enormously complex issue, why hinder yourself by using word choice that distances your readers or at the very least is only really understood by academics?

If your point is that a recent film is bad because it represents a minority in a poor light, that's a completely valid and accurate criticism. In theory. But if all you do in the course of your review/article/discussion is rant in unsupported ways of how this one film specifically can and should be used as the quintessential pinnacle of what's wrong with Hollywood's perspective on _____________ (insert minority group here) then you're kind of missing the point.

These issues are so enormous in their scope and so (essentially) complex in terms of the ways they've been represented over the years in our media that it's simply not adequate to break them down into one film and say "This is the movie that should be used as a point of reference." The issues themselves are just that- issues. They are inherently and aggressively complicated and appear in such a multitude of forms and guises that it's nigh impossible to say that Sucker Punch or Pacific Rim are good or bad because of how they represent women as characters. Far too often I've seen critics and online bloggers discuss these matters in such one-sided ways and with such (surprisingly and laughably) limited perspectives and terms. Entire books have been written on the treatment of African-American and/or female and/or LGBT and/or any minority really characters over the years and they have attempted to encapsulate and carefully define the rise and fall of the various issues attributed to any of those kinds of characters. To just arbitrarily announce that a recent superhero or sci-fi flick or minority-centered drama is the worst thing ever to happen to someone/something is just absurdly inflating the issue to a level it doesn't exist at.

How I Learned to Hate Quirky John Hughes Smiths Songs and Other Random Crap

There's this really bizarre trend I've noticed in recent fiction books I've been reading. Keep in mind, I read a fair amount of YA stuff mostly b/c that's where a decent number of my intended works fall subject-matter/audience-wise. Point is this though- the books are either incredibly long or incredibly short. And yet regardless of their length, there are whole sequences that seem to be missing from these novels. Like the narrator (usually in first person/from the protagonist's point of view) will just describe the events of an entire conversation or a given day's/week's occurrences. And not just once or twice in an intentional way on the part of the author to show a clear and necessary passage of significant amounts of time, but just huge chunks of potential story seem to be cut out. More and more I'm noticing this lame tendency of authors/editors to simply excise enormous parts of the text to keep the pacing quick and to make it an easy read and (more often than not) to create this obvious message to readers that "this book should be a movie." I can't tell you how many recent books I've read that feel like Love Story (all the character bits and narrative oomph and pretty much everything that makes a book...a book have been eliminated for the sake of a selling point for a future screenplay adaptation).

It's been such a long while that I've read something and felt "yes, this is a well-done actual book book." And on one level I get it. All the cult-oriented YA stuff is trying desperately hard to be the next Twilight or Hunger Games (and frequently both the books and movies fail b/c they just don't understand the literal appeal of character or story). It's the same bullshit Hollywood flicks go through as they're re-written and re-shot to appeal to more audiences. And yet on another level, it just seems so bizarre to me that an individual author of a solitary work is apparently so singularly hellbent on creating a work of fiction that is purely intended for mass marketability and franchising. Like- didn't it used to be incredibly hard to get published regardless of what you were writing? Is it then necessary too for pretty much all authors to just sell out and create trade paperback bullcrap because they'd rather make some money than craft an original work?

And I don't even mean this on a "wah, wah, no one's noticing my brilliance" level either. I mean this on the purely basic level of all that is good. Is there really nothing original in this world anymore? Even writers like John Green are pissing me off, because they're inspiring more pseudo-intellectual, "cool" (still incredibly male-centered) authors to write crappy, vaguely well-intentioned, spiritual, semi-realistic (though not really), John Hughesian-as-an-author claptrap books that sell like hotcakes. Everything has its own niche market and super specific subgenre. Look on the back of every new book and you'll see someone compare the author to someone else who is better known. We need constant points of comparison and context apparently in order to get validation on our supposed interest in a work. We can't simply listen to an excerpt from a song or watch a trailer for a movie that doesn't have a plethora of voiceover work. We need multiple trailers. And TV spots that slather on all the highlighted good reviews from Rotten Tomatoes. Seemingly everything has become product now. Movies, TV shows, music, and...books. And whenever something daringly, genuinely, actually new and interesting and original comes along we brush it aside and call it a fluke or don't give it a chance at all because the numbers simply aren't impressive enough. Seriously- everything has become about the box office and sales numbers. Not a newsflash I'll grant you. But still- EVERYTHING. Not to say it isn't important or a necessary component of these kinds of things, but at some point enough has to be enough. Writers actually get chastised nowadays by their overlords- the producers and agents and teachers and anyone else in the upper echelon who holds apparently more significance and money and power for...whatever reason...because there's simply not enough marketability to their work. Granted, these things are products that need to be sold. But somewhere someone needs to say yes. And take a risk. And just have faith that maybe a writer or the creator of an original story is on to something, even if it's...dare I say...a bit outside the box.

With all the hundreds of thousands and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars we throw into the making of sequels and reboots and remakes and prequels and reimaginings and what have you, you'd think Hollywood (as it did in the old days) would have enough/save enough to spend a couple million here and there on the good old-fashioned non-franchise films. This used to be an actual thing believe it or not. Before the rise of Weinstein and independent movie companies and the like, the big producing teams like Warner Bros and Paramount and MGM would save some money and spend it on the production of a select few less expensive films which would inevitably be made by incredibly talented directors who wanted to work more or less outside the giant generic Hollywood system for themselves. To create small, intimate, and original films that were a bit more daring in terms of their subject matter or their tone or the actors used. And these almost always became the big Fall and Winter films, the ones that would go on to be the Oscar nominees and winners.

Instead, today we get a complete crapshoot of unpredictable movie-making. Everyone's vying to do this or that, to make the next big film series, or to produce independently their own little egocentric film. Just because these films can be made or do get made doesn't mean that they should. Is independent movie making a good thing and an excellent starting point? Yes. But it's also a very, VERY slippery slope and can often end in disaster. Take for instance- Joey. He's a businessman. He makes a ton of money. But he's always dreamed of making movies. He has enough to hire a bunch of people to shoot his 250 page script and to create his own indie project that he thinks will inevitably launch him to stardom. Not knowing much, a handful of film students (most of whom are extremely eager to get any and all work) latch onto the production and give a helping hand. And there Joey stands at the center of it all making his movie. But he's running out of money. He thought he had enough. But filmmaking is apparently harder than it looks. And takes longer. Especially because Joey bought some shitty camera and lighting equipment that his best friend recommended. Do you see where I'm going with this? Of course this isn't always the case. There are many, many well intentioned and talented young filmmakers who go on to have stellar careers after a few hiccups. You learn from your mistakes and all that jazz. Every situation is different, etc. My point is, we've made making movies simultaneously far too easy and far too difficult. And the same applies to books. And TV shows. And music. We've all been given the ease of creating these things which are incredibly hard to create even on the best of days. And we all foolishly assume that because something is popular or will potentially sell well, there is a specific quality to be had in the product. And we all doubly foolishly assume that because we are given the means to create such a product with such enormous ease and without the training or at least with any earlier trial and error experience that our given product will be a success. And then those sad fools, led inevitably by Joey, are left scratching their heads with an unfinished film or an unpublished book, wondering where they went wrong.

Or...much worse...they are given the rest of their money or the means to self-publish because a bigger bunch of wayward fools with even worst tastes in art and products have to decided to buy in. They wanna see Joey's film. They wanna read Fifty Shades. Because something in those works appeal to the lowest common denominator. Because Hollywood has taught and manipulated so many to just accept it all. Every last explosion, every last crude joke, every sappy line. It's rare that there are unmitigated disasters anymore. Even the lousiest of books and films make huge amounts of money because people will pay for anything. Even when they know that what they will be getting is crap.

I'll end on this one shining example- and I think it summarizes more or less what I mean. I had a friend in high school for a couple of years (we're not friends anymore because she's kind of a bitch). We saw a few movies together over the summer one year. And more than anything else in the course of viewing movies with her, I can vividly recall one incredibly fascinating thing she'd do. At the end of virtually every trailer (throughout which she'd ooh and ahh at every special effect and explosion) she'd insist that we go see that as well. I, being a seasoned film goer, could more or less sniff out the real dogs from the good stuff (not always, but no one's perfect). And when I say every movie trailer, I mean EVERY movie trailer. It was laughably bizarre if I do say so myself. And that takes me back to the books. These damn books. At some point in the past, when they were much different and probably longer (or shorter, I don't know, maybe length has nothing to do with it), they were probably much better or at least much more interesting. But instead they've become like most modern movie trailers. Filled to excess with the constant bombast of Hans Zimmer Inception-like BRRM BRRM's. And chock full of endless, cryptic narration. And fleeting cuts of cool special effects and explosions. Books have become the teasers for their own movie adaptations. And the result is sad. But mostly weird.

But seriously, here's an example of how a given book's scene might read:

"And then I got home and had a long conversation with my dad about everything that'd happened the night before. We were both very sorry about what we'd said and instantly made up and decided to never speak about the argument ever again throughout the course of the rest of this book because readers can't comprehend any form of long lasting conflict that isn't wrapped up by the novel's end."

or in the case of a John Green-esque book:

"Snarky comment, snarky comment."

"Cliched reference to an 80's movie or a Smiths' song that's supposed to be endearing."

"Angst, angst, angst. Relate to me!"

"I love you. I don't love you."

"Let's have chaste sex."

"Ok."

"Btw, I'll probably die by the end of the book so the reader can cry a shit ton and learn about 'life'."

"Ok, that's fine. Your death will be the inevitable spark that'll make me love myself and force me to understand how women's brains work because we all know women can't figure shit out without some kind a guy's influence on them. Especially if that guy's quirky or dies after we fall in love."

"Cool. Now say hi to my inevitable Black and/or Asian and/or some kind of non-white person and/or gay best friend that doesn't have an actual story arc other than being gay or having...a race...to show how tolerant I am of gay people and/or people of color."

"I sure am glad this story is realistic and people can say how much it changed their lives!"

"Me too. Uh oh, if you'll excuse me I've gotta go die conveniently yet shockingly off screen because we're roughly 85% of the way through the book/at the 75 minute mark of the movie."

"Don't forget your letter to me that you'll read to me via voiceover during your funeral while your best friend plays some fucking 80's song on a boombox because- QUIRKY."

Really though. Don't ever use quirky to describe a character ever again. Or a movie. Or anything. I hereby banish quirky as a thing in this reality. Also- fuck John Hughes. And overused Smiths' songs.

COMING SOON TO A BLOG NEAR YOU-

A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The 86th Academy Awards- If I Picked the Winners

I present to you what my personal picks would be for the Oscars this year. I've seen the majority of the main nominees and being a judgmental jerk I've predicted what movies won't win because they're either bad or simply don't have a chance in hell. For example, I haven't seen Philomena with Judi Dench, but my limited knowledge of that movie tells me it probably features a solid performance from her as always, but probably not truly Oscar worthy this time 'round. Ditto for its best picture nomination.

I'm gonna skip a couple of the lesser-known awards like for Documentary and the Short Subjects mainly because I have next to no interest in them as films (not to be too disparaging of course).

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that these selections have ANY chance of winning, they're just my personal picks. And I'm only going to include names of people when I think they're significant or important. Also, I'm not gonna give super specific blurbs about any one of them, I'm just making a list. It's that simple.

Best Visual Effects

Gravity

Best Film Editing

Gravity

Best Costume Design

12 Years a Slave

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Dallas Buyers Club

Best Cinematography

Gravity

Best Production Design

Her

Best Sound Mixing

Gravity

Best Sound Editing

Gravity

Best Original Song

"Let It Go" from Frozen (Sung by Idina Menzel)

Best Original Score

Gravity by Steven Price

Best Animated Feature

Frozen

Best Writing- Adapted Screenplay

12 Years a Slave

Best Writing- Original Screenplay

Her

Best Supporting Actress

Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)

Best Supporting Actor

Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Best Actor

Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)

Best Director

Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

Best Picture

Gravity

The Best Films of 2013- According To Me

I've seen a lot of people post stuff about not having many films to love this year. In fact I seem to see that almost every year, but the point is- they're morons. Or maybe I'm just too forgiving and love to call movies masterpieces and supremely great regardless of their moderate flaws or problems (both of which are terms I abhor in the discussion of movies and try my best not to use). I don't know. I'm willing to overlook a lot and sometimes I'm willing to slam a movie on the basis of just a few nitpicks. Movies, like all art, are very subjective. We all like and enjoy and appreciate what we do, other people's opinions be damned.

This year's list of my top films was fairly easy to rank, some of these movies are far from being perfect, but I still give them all five stars (warts and all). Though technically numbers 20 and 19 only got four stars from me in my rating of them. The only reason they're included here is to pad out the list to an even number. There were a couple other four star movies and several more films I saw that I enjoyed enormously, but these are the ones that stuck with me the most for some wacky reason or another. So I'll describe briefly what I loved about each one and you all can enjoy my incredibly arbitrary and perhaps relatively hypocritically chosen and deeply subjective and personal selections.

20. 42

Wonderfully acted and directed nicely, this movie was surprising in a lot of ways thanks to the very strong performance by Chadwick Boseman. But I can definitely see why it's not getting very much recognition in the various film awards. It's fairly formulaic in its structure and its over adherence to praising Robinson as little more than a moderately complex saint prevents a true connection to him as a human being. His restraint and the uniqueness of how he emotionally handled the enormous obstacles set before him are impressive and inspiring, but there's not much else explored about him as a person. The film is also a bit overlong and drawn out in spots. Still a strong and stirring movie however.

19. The Bling Ring

Ah, Sofia Coppola, how I love thee. This is far from her best work, but I don't think she can make a legitimately bad or uninteresting movie. Her methods are often criticized as being empty-headed and overly showy but I couldn't disagree more. There is such a unique quality to her execution and focus on every cinematic level- the cold, stark remoteness of the cinematography, the almost distressingly bright and cheerily colored production design, and the inability for her characters to ever truly express their honest emotions- in every one of her movies it comes across as this very original and kind of audacious perspective on humanity and the reality of the world. She's practically Kubrickian in her carefully chosen points of view. So it sounds like I loved this one, right? Well...sort of. This movie in particular is ultimately not edited or structured coherently enough to understand what the point of it all is. Really it seems like even Coppola can't make up her mind who the main character is or what primary theme she's exploring is. For her, it's a slight misstep. But Emma Watson's incredibly funny and kind of creepily accurate performance more than makes up for the semi-wonkiness of the narrative.

18. Star Trek Into Darkness

I'm gonna keep this simple- I love Star Trek. I love this movie as a Star Trek film. Is it, like its predecessor, detached from the original vision of what Trek means? Maybe. But that's kind of the point. Star Trek was completely run into the ground with Nemesis and with the failure of Enterprise. The vision of original Trek just doesn't apply anymore to our world or our culture. It simply HAS to do something new. Is this new thing better or worse? Well that's up to the viewer. I like it. It's fun, it's exciting, it's...different. And refreshingly so. I've also argued ad nauseam with several people about the matter of Khan and his iteration here, but I shan't discuss the subject on this blog post because I'm here to have fun and not get drawn into another pointless argument. It's a good old fashioned, melodramatic, action-packed adventure. What more could you ask for?

17. Man of Steel

This is probably the most 'controversial' selection on the list. I don't care. I'm not gonna justify its placement in any way. It's my favorite of all the Superman movies.

16. Pacific Rim

This is what Michael Bay dreams of doing with Transformers. But he'll probably fail every time. Because he'd never dream big enough to include Godzilla-like monsters for his Autobots to fight against. And I say all that with love because I enjoy his Transformers movies as big, brawny, stupid-fest movies full of cool explosions. But del Toro knows what he's doing when he has his Jaegers fight against the different Kaiju. The visual effects and the colors and the design of this film is insane. It's even more gorgeous in 3-D believe it or not. The action is stupendous as and the scale is beyond epic. There's one shot in particular that got me and that's when just the leg of a Jaeger collides with the side of a highway overpass and completely collapses it. The entire action takes up maybe a few seconds of screentime but it very simply emphasizes the enormity of the movie itself. Script be damned, the film is a wonderfully entertaining time at the movies.

15. Dallas Buyers Club

This movie convinced me that Matthew McConaughey is here to stay as a legitimate actor in Hollywood. I was sure his recent bout of solid performances in other films was just a giant practical joke on audiences and that he'd soon release another lame rom-com and that'd be the end of him. But this film is extraordinary from a performance perspective. Both he and Jared Leto (let's PLEASE not forget him either come Oscar nominee season) play off one another in a series of incredibly well-written and directed scenes. They both breathe life into these two rather bizarre individuals who attempted an even more bizarre scheme to desperately try and prolong their lives and the lives of others with illegal meds as they combat AIDS in the 80's. And it's even more incredible that the story is true. The movie is both painfully funny, and I mean that literally because both characters are wicked cruel to each other in the most endearing way, as well as incredibly moving and depressing. I really only have two issues with the movie. Jennifer Garner's performance is very meh to me. She seems both out of her element and a bit lost in the scenes that demand fairly raw emotions and she also seems slightly out of place and confused in her doctor's coat. The stuff they have her describe medically is a bit of a mouthful and she's just not very convincing in the role. The other problem is with the shifts in tone between scenes, which I attribute more to the rather indifferent direction by Jean-Marc Vallee. Maybe he was out of his element or the material just didn't fit him well stylistically, but some of the sequences just don't flow as well as they should because of the somewhat confused perspective the audience is given on what's happening. Still an impressive movie and featuring some of the best acting of the year.

14. The Lords of Salem

THIS is how you do a horror film. Rob Zombie pretty much pushes aside what was becoming his trademark brutally graphic and disturbingly realistic visual aesthetic. And he replaces it with an almost Kubrick-like style. Or maybe it's Argento mixed with some Lynch. And a little Jodorowsky. It has everything in it and it's kind of a masterpiece in my opinion. Or at least the ending is. Because there's still that touch of Zombie's unique brand of dialogue in various scenes and sometimes it just doesn't quite mesh. Not to any horribly detrimental degree, but just enough to throw the mood off a bit. I think mostly it comes from the editing which was apparently shorn down from various other parts of different subplots and side stories. It'd be interesting to see a Director's Cut of the film or a behind the scenes doc that explores some of the justifications of what was taken out and what was left in. It's still a deeply unsettling and very trippy little movie and so very and wonderfully effectively so. 

13. Stoker

It's Hitchcock unhinged. Had Alfred still been making movies today I have the feeling he would've embraced his desire to emphasize the sexual aspects of his characters even more and the result might have been something akin to Stoker. Granted this movie is a bit more melodramatic than his kind of fare, but the intentions and homages are clear and one of my very favorite directors, Park Chan-wook, making his American film debut, is able to really show his chops by visualizing the fuck out of what's ultimately a remarkably simple, yet still very twisted little thriller. The performances are all very grand and overcooked from an acting perspective, but it's clear everyone's having fun, especially Kidman, who, more than once, gets to chew some of the scenery. It's all very absurd and you wanna take a shower as soon as it's over, but there's so much creepy fun to be had with the rather unsettling story.

12. Lee Daniels' The Butler

Probably one of the most striking and appealing aspects of The Butler is that Daniels is able to utilize an enormous ensemble cast to its utmost advantage. I can't think of another movie other than maybe Gosford Park, where virtually every relatively big name actor gives a really solid performance, regardless of how many lines they may have. Example- Mariah Carey, yes THE Mariah Carey, as she did in Precious, shows off her genuinely good acting chops with only a couple scenes. And in this case she's given no dialogue. And yet she makes a pretty good impression. A number of other actors do the same- Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan, Clarence Williams III as an older butler who takes Cecil Gaines under his wing and shows him the ropes, and even dear Vanessa Redgrave, who has a wonderfully underplayed and quiet moment of solemnity in her last scene that makes one wonder what her character's perspective may actually be on the matter of racism and the servants that work under her. The point is- virtually every performance, in some way, and on some level, leaves a bit of an impact. It may be stunt casting and a way to entice movie-goers to see the film, but it's still effective. It also helps that The Butler, as a story, is kind of remarkable too, and that Daniels shows once more that he's the real deal when it comes to directing, especially in the sense that this time he's showing off some versatility to style and genre. All that aside there is also the matter of how race and racism is handled in this movie and I can say with all honesty that it's refreshingly and fascinatingly original in the way that it discusses such matters. Gone is the awkwardness of The Help or the semi-Magical Negro-ness inherent to Michael Clarke Duncan's character in The Green Mile. Instead we are given something more akin to The Color Purple, which I will argue in favor of every time in terms of genuine quality, and yet in this instance there is an even deeper awareness in The Butler of how difficult it can be to address such enormous and controversial subjects as racism and civil rights even within the African American community itself. Case in point, and possibly one of my favorite scenes in the movie, is a brief family discussion of what Sidney Poitier meant to the civil rights movement in the 60's with his winning an Oscar for Lilies of the Field and his later films In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.

11. Inside Llewyn Davis

I can honestly say this film is, thus far, the only Coen Brothers movie I've truly loved. I usually hate their movies. Passionately. People who know me are aware of this. I don't like their dialogue or their style of humor or their subject matters. They always seem incredibly obnoxious and full of themselves. Except this time. This movie is, weirdly, along the same lines as Saving Mr. Banks (which you'll see next on this list). It dramatizes perfectly the exact nature of the struggling artist, the young individual desperate to prove their originality in the midst of so many other talented people. It shows, unabashedly and precisely how impossibly frustrating it can be to watch so many others soar to new heights of professional success while you flounder in a sea of mediocrity. Davis tries so very hard to make a solo name for himself and this film is practically a documentary of that struggle. It's sad beyond measure, but accurate, and there are the briefest of moments that are so painfully true of life that it makes me wanna cry just thinking about it. About how close poor Llewyn comes to being in the right place at the right time, but just misses the mark through sheer lack of luck and because of his own stubborn nature as a cynical, unyielding realist. I hate Llewyn as a person, but I sympathize so deeply with his desire to be someone that I readily overlook his incredible flaws. The movie is incredible. But it's still a Coen Brothers film so there's naturally some bizarre little side characters that make little to no logical sense as human beings. Some are interesting and relevant like Garrett Hedlund's monosyllabic-speaking character who drives John Goodman around for no apparent reason and some are annoyingly undeveloped like the rich Bohemian couple that Davis relies upon for a place to stay and always take him in regardless of his incredibly cruel behavior towards them. There's also an awesomely important and symbolic cat in the film who features in several scenes and steals every one of them. I really like this movie despite it being made by those whom I despise.

10. Saving Mr. Banks

I love Mary Poppins both as a film and as a book. I was well aware of PL Travers' dislike of what Disney did to her beloved novel but, like everyone else, I was very unaware of what was really behind that dislike on her part. Much has been said and discussed over what has or hasn't been altered in terms of the true story the film is based on, but as with most true story films I don't give a flying fuck what's real and what's not. Or rarely I do. In this case I was in a quandary as to how to feel about how the movie treats Travers' side of things. Primarily with the ending. She cries upon viewing Mary Poppins. But what I think is most important to remember here though is that she cries at the ending scenes with Mr. Banks' going to get fired from his job. Had they shown her sobbing throughout the entire film and congratulating Disney on a job well done with his adaptation of her work I wouldn't have bought it. But the movie waits to give Travers the closure she needs and has always been seeking in regards to recovering from the death of her beloved father. But there is enough of an implication with her continued disdain of the inclusion of animated scenes in the movie that the audience gets the impression that though Travers may not have been satisfied with the actual film as an adaptation of her own work, she at the very least appreciates the decision on Disney's part to include an ending that Travers herself needed. The film is solid gold for the most part, the performances are excellent, even Hanks gets by and I usually don't give him a pass. But I found the editing and the direction sometimes lacking in places, the narrative flow of certain scenes felt off at times and the tone shifts abruptly one too many times. I attribute most of this to the director, John Lee Hancock, who I don't think is the most nuanced of filmmakers. There's nothing particularly unique about his style and smaller parts of the movie suffer because of it. But ultimately the honesty with which the story is told is incredibly refreshing, especially considering it was produced by Disney as well, a production company not TERRIBLY well known for its maturity or ability to handle more adult and complex subject matters. All in all, it's an amazing, funny, and moving movie, and I can't ask for much more than that.

9. The Wolf of Wall Street

I have a rather odd respect for Martin Scorsese. In the sense that I love and adore him as a director and filmmaker. His knowledge of movies is insane, just watch pretty much any interview with him and you'll see his awareness of pretty much everything cinematic is just off the charts intelligent. So why then has it taken me this long to find one of his movies that I truly and completely enjoy? I have no idea. Really. I love many of his movies on different levels and for different reasons but something about practically each and every one of them has always left me wanting a bit more, they always seem to be missing that extra element that will make them truly a masterpiece for me. They're always teetering on the edge of brilliance and then some small aspect will tip it out of favor for me- a performance that just didn't work. A structural choice in the narrative that doesn't pan out. The Wolf of Wall Street I think has solved whatever problems I've had with his movies before. Because this one has everything. And I mean that almost literally. This movie scrapes the bottom of the barrel of pretty much every emotion- it's funny, it's scary, it's gross, it's exciting, it's sexy (well...kind of). And it's stuffed to the gills with such giddy and batshit crazy characters and rapid-fire dialogue and sequences of such wonderful originality in their construction I had to wonder why they hadn't been conceived of before in some other movie. The production is equally impressive in its luxuriousness, as is the crisp and clean and startlingly beautiful cinematography. And really that's what Scorsese does, he always finds some new angle, some inventive and fascinating way to look at some of the most remarkable stories. His movies have pretty much spanned every genre and style you can think of and I'm fairly certain he'll die at 100 making yet another stupendously overdone and awesomely stylized attempt at yet another masterpiece. He just won't stop.

8. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Yes it gets silly at times and is overlong. But it's an improvement over the last film by a great deal. A fair amount of the humor is downplayed and this time around the story feels more focused. I love me some ambitious filmmaking and as usual Jackson delivers with an awesome recreation of a world we've seen before, but not necessarily like this. It further establishes how much fantasy there is to be had in Middle Earth and how much exciting adventure there can be there as well.

7. Blue Jasmine

This is a welcome return to form for Allen who creates his best movie since Husbands & Wives. And even then it's superior to that film because it's more well focused and features a marginally more sympathetic group of characters. Instead of piling on the sweet nostalgia and wispy, feather-thin characterizations like he has been in recent films (I'm looking at you Midnight In Paris), Allen is once again razor-sharp in his criticisms and darkly cruel, yet at times funnily so, and yet at other times poignantly so, to the lead character's plight. She's a rich New York woman who's lost everything, including maybe even her mind. She tries oh so hard to get back on her feet and yet maybe she doesn't really. There's a wonderful sense of a balancing act in the script and the performances where you can never quite pinpoint exactly whether or not Jasmine is being completely honest in her emotions. She lies a great deal to pretty much everyone and daydreams even more of the life she had with her husband while she endeavors to get a job and a man. So she sounds like a complete bitch that we'd normally hate in any other movie, right? Well yeah, we do in a sense, but thanks to Blanchett's bizarrely compelling performance which is pretty much a tour de force of watching a single person unravel over the course of ninety minutes because she features in virtually every scene, we kinda feel sorry for poor Jasmine. But only kinda. Blanchett should certainly get a nomination for Best Actress, if not win it, as this is her best performance I've ever seen. The film is the perfect melding of a script that intentionally hates upon its protagonist because she deserves it and a performance by a wonderful actress who knows the key to keep us watching and involved is to never let up on playing the emotions we inherently recognize as human beings. Jasmine may be a selfish bitch, but there are moments where we laugh at her refreshingly brutal honesty, cringe at her mistakes, judge her for her egocentrics, and cry at what I suspect is actually something of an unfair life (because the script NEVER, and I mean this in a nice way, lets us in on the details of certain things, it's remarkably ambiguous).

6. Captain Phillips

It's Hanks' best performance in years (if not ever in my own personal opinion). I say this with a great deal of happiness because I'm often not taken with Hanks' acting in most movies, but this was definitely an exception. His last scene is gut-punchingly good and extraordinarily well done on virtually every level and much praise goes to the individual playing the character interacting with him, it's remarkably subtle and wonderfully underplayed in a very effective and starkly realistic way. Which is true for the rest of the film as well, of course, it being a Greengrass movie. But I wanna especially mention the quietly ferocious performance by first-timer Barkhad Abdi as the lead Somali pirate, Muse. Words can't describe how superb he is. All in all, it's a harrowing and incredibly exciting film virtually from start to finish and it all feels incredibly real, which is naturally the key.

5. Nebraska

I love Alexander Payne. As a writer. Now I appreciate him even more as a director as well. Because Nebraska is the first film he's done that he's not fully written on his own. Someone unknown screenwriter named Bob Nelson penned this film. And boy is he the real deal. The dialogue in this movie is razor sharp and wickedly cruel and funny and heartbreaking and yet so weirdly realistic. I love it. And the performances- whether it's Bruce Dern or Will Forte or June Squibb- they're all incredible. The nuances that Payne is able to emphasize through simple body language choices or gestures or the look in a glance at someone. It's incredible. This movie is the perfect combination of the basics of writing, directing, and acting- because the story is so wonderfully simple, and yet tso awesomely original and refreshing. The stakes aren't terribly high and nor is the conflict, but there is this underlying complexity to every word said and every look given that speaks volumes about the nature of these people. Many have complained that Payne is making fun of these characters. But he's not. You have to pay attention to every last moment, every last intake of breath, and every last shot to truly understand the movie. And that's true of every film. Ignore the naysayers who believe every last aspect of a film needs to be spelled out in bright neon lights in order to be understood. Audiences are smarter than that. If I recall correctly everyone in the theater I was in laughed at all the jokes and was painfully quiet during the scenes of utmost poignancy. There was a hesitation in the air in those moments where we all waited with bated breath, hoping that these characters would finally get what they wanted, regardless of their flaws. It was like we all understood what the movie was about and not ever because it was telling us how to feel, it was because we understood these characters as real people and these events as some strange form of reality.

4. Blue Is the Warmest Color

It's sexy. It's raw. It's emotional. And above all it's real. I read the graphic novel the movie is based off of and it was kind of dreadful. Maybe it was a shitty translation, it doesn't matter. The point is- this epic of a romantic, tragic drama could only ever have been a movie. And oh what a movie. The ups and downs, the ins and outs. This is a movie about a relationship. Any relationship. Every relationship. Regardless of gender or sexuality, this is what life is. It's ugly and beautiful and complex and simple and wonderful and horrible all at the same time.

3. Her

The best and greatest film I've ever seen on the subject of love. 43 on my now Top 105 Films List.

2. 12 Years a Slave

I was gonna do my usual breakdown and describe all of the different aspects that I found flawlessly perfect about this film. But I don't know that it'd be appropriate. This movie is indescribable. I mean it when I say you owe it to yourself as a human being to go out and see it. This is more than just a direct, simplistic narrative film that addresses the subject of slavery as little more than a thematic concept to be explored within the span of a couple hours. It's an experience unto itself and breaks virtually all of the traditional methods of cinematic storytelling. That's not to say it's experimental or that it has no plot to speak of, simply that I was caught off guard by virtually every scene in this movie. I couldn't predict what was going to happen. I was genuinely moved and terrified by it. This is more than a stylized look at a difficult topic. This is a recreation of a time and a place, of people and their lives. And everything's there in excruciating and startling detail. The environment and the events as depicted on screen live and breathe in such an extraordinarily real manner. 

And for the second time this year I was met with a film that altered my perspective on what cinema can do to a person, to their mind, to their way of thinking, to how we view fictional movies. The other is described below. This is one of the absolute best films I've ever seen. It rose through the ranks of dozens of other movies on my current Top 100 plus list. It's an unforgettable journey and one I'm proud to have said I've witnessed.

1. Gravity

How to properly explain this without spoiling any major aspect of the film...um...it broke my Top 101 List, making it 102. That says something I think. It ranks in currently at 7. That's greater than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That means I consider it the greatest film I've ever seen in a movie theater. Suffice it to say it's arguably, in my opinion, one of the best movies ever made. It's completely flawless on every level- acting, direction, screenplay, cinematography, visual effects, production design, use of 3D, and score. No joke.