The top 10 best movies of 2012...

2012 for me was notable for a few things. For one, this was probably the best year for horror movies in a very very long time. Sinister, Cabin in the Woods, The Woman in Black, The Innkeepers; all really solid movies, with two of those making my top 10 list to which, I don't recall the last time two horrors made it into my list.

The overall quality of movies is a tad bit weaker this year than in 2011, though my pick for #1 is better than any 2011 release as well. So yeah, it's my #1 movie of both 2011 & 2012.

2012 was also a pretty bad year when it came to movies that didn't live up to the critical praise they received. Argo, Skyfall, Life of Pi, Silver Lining Playbook, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Master...I left all those movies feeling quite let down. Every year has over-rated movies, but this year seemed to be worse for that. Or maybe I'm just turning into a philistine? I think this year's list has the least amount of arthouse movies of any year...in fact, my pick for #2 has maybe the shittiest plot of any movie this year. Yes I much prefer watching Abraham Lincoln open up a can of whoop ass on vampires than watching Pi Patel co-exist with a tiger on a boat...except for the part where Pi trips crazy balls. That part was cool! Why couldn't that go on for like 10 fucking minutes?

Perhaps the only movie to transcend the critical over-praise curse is my pick for #9 which I really hope wins for best picture at the Oscars. Let's move on.

Honorable mentions: Samsara, Cloud Atlas, This is 40, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Lincoln, Frankenweenie, Looper, Ted, The Woman in Black

10. Paranorman  **** (out of 5)

While as a stoner, I went into this movie wanting to trip crazy balls, I got something very different. While not as trippy as the likes of Coraline or Monster House, Paranorman ended up being a much deeper movie than I ever expected out of a movie about a little kid that sees ghosts. The movie's big climax is some of the best dramatic material I've seen out of any animated movie of the past few years, and the moral of the story about accepting people for their differences is very well delivered, un-heavy handed, and also leads to a great comedic twist near the end. People who didn't like the comedic twist obviously didn't get the moral and a bit on the bigotted side. ParaNorman is a good movie to show to your close minded friends; definitely the best animated movie of 2012.

9. Zero Dark Thirty **** (out of 5)

I talked a lot about the majority of movies with huge critical praise being letdowns. Zero Dark Thirty on the other hand is an exception; a movie that is fully worthy of being covered in movie critics' jizz. Zero Dark Thirty comes off especially strong when compared to the hugely over-rated based on a true story thriller Argo which really comes off as a cheap, very Hollywood-ized thriller (might I add that Zero Dark Thirty has a far more fascinating and well developed protagonist). I don't know how much of Zero Dark Thirty is true, but the movie feels very grounded in reality with very few moments that feel fake and are there just to amp up the suspense. I hope Zero Dark Thirty wins the Oscar for best picture.

Jessica Chastain who plays the most tenacious, confident, obsessive, and ballsy CIA agent is one of the most bad ass girls of any movie, and all the Oscar buzz around her performance is fully warranted. Here is a character who's entire purpose in life is to find Bin Laden. There is no time for any kind of personal life outside of her goal.

At 2 hours 40 minutes, the movie flies by very quickly and its long run time is fully warranted. All the clues, the controversial use of torture to get information, the false leads, the sacrifices made and the danger faced by the CIA to find him, the brilliance of how well the taliban hid him, and the clues that eventually lead to him, might I add the uncertainty of the final attack is all extremely fascinating stuff. Even with the audience knowing how it all ends, the movie still manages to do a masterful job of being suspenseful. Arguably the most difficult man hunt in human history makes for a very captivating movie.

8. End of watch **** (out of 5)

In a tiresome genre of cop buddy action/comedies where the police turn into unrealistic action heroes and blow lots of shit up, it's so refreshing to get a movie like End of Watch which is grounded in reality with great dramatic depth and presents two very realistic cop characters who take their jobs of protecting the streets very seriously. They may bend a few rules here and there, but you'd overall be glad to have cops like this patrolling your streets.

 Jake Gyllenhall and Michael Pena have such a natural chemistry together. There are many hilarious conversations between them, poking fun at each other, knowing how to push each other's buttons, but there is no doubt in the audience's minds that these two guys will die for each other. They are truly brothers from different mothers. The camerederie between them is so well done that when the big climax arrives, it is far more intense than just about any other cop movie out there. That's why taking time to develop your characters is so important, might I add having a script that doesn't follow conventions either. When you have no clue whether the protagonists will live or die, it makes for a much more gripping experience. The way the movie ends is perfect.

7. The Cabin in the woods **** (out of 5)

What a movie of batshit insanity! This is definitely one of the most original horror movies in a long time...though whether it should be classified as a horror is questionable, as the movie has a lot of fun with parodying the horror genre, taking horror movie cliches and turning them on their heads. Some people may argue this movie is more of a comedy, or perhaps even a postmodern stoner comedy/horror, as it not only has the best horror movie stoner character of all time, but I would bet anything that the people who came up with the idea for this movie were baked out of their minds; maybe they go to the same dealer as the creators of the Adult Swim show Superjail (though Cabin doesn't quite match the insanity of Superjail).I love how the movie feeds all the familiar cliches of a "teens going camping horror"  and goes in a completely different direction that is pretty much impossible to guess.

When I complain about the horror cliche of having mind numbingly dumb horror movie characters, it's nice to get The Cabin in the Woods that takes the cliched characters ie: the virgin, the stoner, the jock, the slut, but adds dimensions and depth to them. If you're a film nerd, you will totally nerd out to the way this completely fucks with the horror genre. If you're not, just enjoy the very unpredictable road the movie takes. Horror movies like this one are very rare. And yeah, I recommend getting high for this movie.

6. Premium Rush ****1/2 (out of 5)

Wow, talk about a movie trascending its very mediocre trailers. Who knew that a movie about bicycle messengers would turn out to be the 2nd best action movie of the year?! These bicycle chases kick the shit out of just about every car chase in every other Hollywood movie. Premium Rush is an exhilerating movie, that's so alive, so full of energy, and directed with such a fresh style that at times reminded me of Run Lola Run. Kind of like how Lola shows the fate of a character due to being at an exact place at an exact time (chaos theory I believe?), Premium Rush has a fun play on that, showing 3 different scenarios of what kind of death and pain will happen to the main character  or other pedestrians depending on what path he takes down a busy intersection, whether he goes left, goes right, or speeds right through.

David Koepp understands what goes into making a great chase scene. Part of it is making the audience able to see everything that goes on, and not using the very irritating shaky cam approach and shots lasting 2 seconds each where you can't see what the fuck is going on. The chase scenes are varied, with a good dose of slapstick comedy added in, which includes a cop who's biking skills are not nearly up to par as the protagonist. The last scene involving that cop character is easily the best comedic pay off of the movie which received a huge laugh and applause from the crowd.

Joseph Gordon Levitt once again proves why he's one of the most talented young actors out there, while Michael Shannon is my pick for the best villain of 2012. For an actor who's the go to guy to play a totally fucked up role, he has so much fun in what might be his most normal role to date, might I add he is absolutely fucking hilarious! He hams his performance up just right, and his angry outbursts make for great comedy. Somebody, make a movie about anger management and cast Michael Shannon! While not as good as Run Lola Run, I think a Premium Rush/Run Lola Run double bill would be a lot of fun.

5. Sinister ****1/2 (out of 5)

After a very impressive horror movie debut with Exorcism of Emily Rose, and an even more impressive follow up with Sinister, director Scott Derrickson truly is the name to look out for in the horror genre. If Sinister is not him in his prime and he ends up making an even better horror movie in the future...who knows, there's a good chance that movie will end up #1 on my top 10 list of whatever year that movie comes out. I'm getting totally off topic here, enough of this bullshit tangeant.

Yes, it's not the most original movie, it does resort to a fair amount of horror cliches, and it's not as original as The Cabin in the Woods. However, Sinister is simply horror movie filmmaking at its best. This is the best horror I've seen since The Descent, and it takes a massive demonic shit all over every other haunted house horror. 

Sinister tells a fascinating horror story that is really dark, fucked up, and surprisingly uncompromising, and it also uses the found footage approach intelligently and never comes off contrived (most horror movies use it in a ridiculous way...who the fuck would still be holding a camera when being chased by a ghost?). What would you do if you moved into a house, found a box of films which were footage of the camera man murdering people in different, brutal, fucked up ways? I think there were 5 different films, and they get increasingly more and more fucked up.

Sinister most strongly succeeds at doing what horror movies should set out to do, which is to scare people. Very few horrors have held me in suspense, made my heart pound like a motherfucker (this was seriously the best simile I can come up with) and delivered phenomenal pop ups that are a lot more than just loud sounds in quiet moments. Yes, some may argue that pop ups are not that difficult, but when they stay in your memory well after the movie's over, then you know the filmmaker has done something right. Mark my words, Scott Derrickson will be known as one of the best horror movie directors of this decade.

4. The Impossible ****1/2 (out of 5)

This movie is simply the most visceral experience of any movie this year. The true story of a family's survival in the devastating Tsunami of 2004 that killed over 200,000 people in South Asia is captured in such gritty, realistic, haunting detail.
The movie does such a good job of putting you in the survivors' shoes and experiencing what a daunting ordeal it must have been to be there. While most disaster movies are content on simply having CGI orgies of special effects and cool explosions, The Impossible's tsunami scene is perhaps the most harrowing 10 minutes of any movie this year. Instead of marvelling at cool effects, you can't help but feel nothing but sheer horror. The way the movie's shot makes gives you a more "You are there" feeling than any 3-D movie I saw this year. I think the director of Children of Men would approve of this movie's shooting style.
It's an absolute testament to the director Juan Antonio Bayona filmmaking that the movie can take you on the same emotional roller coaster the real family must have been through. When a character's head pops out of the water, seeing nobody, terrified and feeling hopeless, I felt that hopelessness. When Lucas who assumed that his brothers were dead re-unites with his 2 brothers, and the 3 of them cry tears of joy, I couldn't help but cry my own tears of joy. Before calling me a pussy, I'll just say that weed makes me more emotional. Really though, this may be the biggest tear jerking movie of 2012, but I think it's well earned, and I didn't feel like I was being manipulated by the director. 

Most of all, it's a beautiful movie despite all the carnage and tragedy. It's a movie about a disaster bringing out the best in people. Henry (Ewan McGregor) knows that his two youngest boys are okay, but he has no clue whether his wife (Naomi Watts) or oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) are alive or dead. His unrelenting search until he finds them is very touching.

Despite Naomi Watts putting on the best performance by far (for the best actress Oscar, it's a really tough call between her and Jessica Chastain), Lucas (the oldest son) is the most fascinating character, and the person who grows and matures the most out of the whole ordeal. The scenes of him running around the hospital and helping parents find their kids are really touching and you can't help but believe that this person will grow up into a truly amazing human being and maybe change the world for the better.

I watched Life of Pi a few days after this one, and Pi really came off as such an underwhelming movie in comparison that left me feeling...really nothing at the end. Maybe I would have liked it more had I not seen The Impossible a few days before? The Impossible is a movie I have to urge everyone to go see in a theatre unless you have totally bad ass home theatre with surround sound. Out of every movie that's out right now, this is the one that you must watch in the theatre. Do it!!

3. Stories We Tell ****1/2 (out of 5)

Note: This movie was only released in Canada last year. I hear that it will eventually get a release in the U.S hopefully this year.

Sarah Polley truly is one of Canada's most talented directors. Away From Her and Take This Waltz are both very good in their own ways, but this documentary Sarah Polley made about her own life and the shocking family revelations she discovered late in her adult years is easily her best work; it's fascinating, very moving, and some of what she uncovers about her own family is some crazy ass shit. This low key documentary has more twists than an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the key difference being that the twists in this movie are actually good. This documentary is a big jigsaw puzzle that slowly gets assembled piece by piece, little bits of information here and there being assembled to form the big story. Movie critic Eli Glasner called it the Rashomon of home movies. For how self reflexive the movie is and how much of the filmmaking process is mentioned within all the family drama, I'd maybe call this the ADAPTATION of documentaries (I'm referring to the brilliant Charlie Kaufman written movie starring Nicolas Cage where Kaufman writes himself into the movie, showing the agonizing process of writing the movie that you are watching). There's so much going on in the movie that it really had potential to fall into massive clusterfuck territory, but it manages to stay organized despite so many different ideas being explored. In fact, this review is probably more clusterfucked than the movie itself. On a deeper level, I'll quote Eli Glasner's review, "The film is about all of us: how we remember, how we self-edit our own lives and what gaps in the narrative say about us." Here's his review if you want to read it:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/the-buzz/2012/10/film-review-stories-we-tell.html
This is the best movie to come out of Canada in quite a long time. I went in to the theatre not all that excited, worried that it might be slow and kind of boring; documentaries in general just don't excite me hence why I've never stepped foot in Hotdocs. However, close to the end of the movie, I didn't want it to end. I could have spent 3 hours with Sarah Polley's extremely fascinating, insightful, and really intelligent family. Seriously...every single person in Sarah's family is fucking brilliant...it's no wonder why she herself turned into a brilliant filmmaker.

I knew walking into the movie that Sarah Polley's mother died when Sarah was just a kid and that Sarah later learned that her mother had an affair. She also learned that her father is actually not her biological dad (the fucked up part being that her father has no clue about this at all, and we get the scene where Sarah spills the beans to her dad). The dad's reaction and reflection about the whole thing and the way he puts it all into perspective is truly the most beautiful part of the movie. Or how about the scene where...okay, maybe I should end it there. There's quite a few more revelations that I just shouldn't give away.

One thing I've always liked about being in the arts, whether you're a director, author, screenwriter, an emo band, whatever...you can take the pain in your life and turn it into art, and sometimes the best art possible. Sarah Polley has taken a massive clusterfuck of shocking revelations and conflicting emotions and turned it into one of the best documentaries I've ever seen with far more emotional resonance than any of her fiction movies (which is a huge compliment, seeing that her movies are fucking good). Despite all the tears that are shed, the confusion, and interpersonal conflicts, Stories We Tell is full of comedic moments that come from the sadness (Sarah Polley's dad breaking down crying from one her questions then criticizing her for being a ruthless filmmaker is fucking hilarious!), and overall ends on an upbeat note. This may be quite a tear jerking movie, but I think you'll finish the movie feeling uplifted. It's a really beautiful movie.

2. The Raid: Redemption ****1/2 (out of 5)

My pick for #2 is not only the weakest script of my top 10, but also has the shittiest plot. Those shortcomings however are incredibly minor with action scenes that are this good! Best martial arts movie of all time? I think so! While I wouldn't go so far as to call this the best action movie of all time, I sure as hell wouldn't argue with anyone who did.

This was probably the most fun movie to watch with a big audience of people laughing, cringing, and screaming, "Holy shit!" at so many gruesomely violent moments, or just martial arts moves that were so fucking bad ass. I love how the movie progresses...first the plot is explained in the first 2 minutes of the movie. A bunch of cops are trapped in a building full of a myriad number of cold blooded gangsters with machine guns and awesome martial arts skills. BAM. That's all you need.

Then there's lots of cool gun fights (including a close up shot of one guy getting shot in the face like 4 fucking times), followed by people getting fucked up by machetes, then the majority of the movie being totally bad ass hand to hand combat (very well filmed and choreographed), with a certain someone's throat being sliced by the broken glass of a light bulb along the way, or the protagonist grabbing someone by the head, jumping backwards and impaling his throat with the bottom of a door frame. It's nice when every single actor in the movie is an awesome martial artist as opposed to Jet Li kicking the shit out of a bunch of jobbers who look like they'd lose a fight to your average street thug or pimp.

The award for the most bad ass henchman of all time goes to this movie. We get a villain who puts a gun to a cop's head, leads him into a room, empties the bullets out of a gun and makes a speech about how guns are boring and murdering people with his hands is way more fun. That villain later on tortures the protagonist's brother, and when the protagonist comes in to save the day, what does he do? He unchains the brother and decides to fight both guys at the same time. That leads to maybe one of the best fight scenes of all time. (Though if I have a minor nitpick, these guys really outta learn some basic Brazilian jiu-jitsu. There were like so many arm triangle opportunities they never jumped on.)

Yes, call me a philistine for picking this as #2. Being the best martial arts movie ever...I think that deserves a very high spot in an end of the year top 10. For those who haven't seen the movie yet, here's one fight scene...my favorite part is definitely around the 1:43 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ohqoc6BTsU&feature=player_embedded

The Oscars suck for not giving this movie a best foreign film nomination. Okay, maybe the script sucked and the movie had no substance, but I think martial arts choreography this good is more impressive than watching an old woman slowly die in Amour and the husband being all like, "Oh shit!! What do I do?!?!"

1. The Grey ***** (out or 5)

I saw this movie in the theatre back in February and when I walked out, I was almost 100% sure that this would be my #1 at the end of the year. If I was a critic who's opinion mattered, I would have done a Gene Siskel type quote saying, "You won't see a better movie this year" (trivia: What movie in the 90s did Gene Siskel say that for?)
Talk about a movie absolutely transcending expectations...I thought I was walking into a movie about Liam Neeson karate kicking wolves in the face...directed by the same dude who did directed the incredibly stupid and lame A-Team re-make...forgive me for having low expecations. What I got was an intense, emotionally powerful, and surprisingly deep, existential, thought provoking, and poetic movie about coming to terms with death, and what truly matters in life. To quote Wael Khairy's review, "The Grey explores man's most frightening questions, the reason we're on this planet, if there's an afterlife or if "dead is dead". What makes this film so scary to me aren't the wolves, but the fact that it encapsulates so much of what we fear as human beings, our fear of heights, flights, drowning or dying alone."

For film nerds out there who saw the movie, I recommend reading this analysis by Wael Khairy. It analyzes the movie's subtext really well, bringing up points I had never thought of, but really seem to make sense. I hope that one day my film criticism writing will be as smart and well written as this dude's:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/foreignc/2012/10/they-grey.html

This is not to say that The Grey is some slow paced art film. What makes it so good is that it works on every level it tries to achieve; as an entertaining survival action thriller, as a comedy (it's not a comedy, but it has some really funny moments), and a movie with really powerful drama that also leaves a lot of room for debate and interpretation. This movie needs to be studied and dissected in film schools. The movie is packed with action and horror, and the wolves are some scary, menacing motherfuckers. The completey dark shots with the wolves' eyes glowing are haunting.

The Grey also gives us 3 dimensional characters with very different personalities and differing ideologies on life. Due to the fact that the movie does take its time to develop its characters, it makes the audience actually care whether each person lives and dies, and it also makes the deaths far more dramatic than your average survival movie. 90% of survival movies out there, do we really give a shit if the characters live or die?

The way that this movie sidesteps cliches is also very nice. There's one character Diaz who's a wannabe tough guy, constantly giving Ottway (Liam Neeson) a hard time. Most survival movies would have had Diaz being the protagonist's antagonistic force, or the guy who eventually becomes the villain, putting everyone's lives in danger. That's at least what I predicted would happen, but The Grey is too good for that, and the direction they go with Diaz's character at the end absolutely blew me away; I hate to over-use the word poetic, but it really is.

I hate to keep shit all over cliches, but one annoying cliche is that the protagonist of every survival movie must be absolutely fearless in the face of the most horrifying danger. I love the way The Grey looks at his notion of masculinity, and this dialogue that the protagonist Ottway has with Diaz is brilliant. Thanks again to Wael Khairy's review:

Diaz: Cause I wanna live, motherfucker. Do you understand that? I don't want some Timberwolf shittin' me out on this mountain.
Ottway: You're scared.
Diaz: What?
Ottway: You don't need all that nonsense, all that chest puff bullshit. What's wrong with being scared?
Diaz: I'm not scared.
Ottway: You're not?
Diaz: No.
Ottway: I'm terrified.
Diaz: I can tell.
Ottway: And not an ounce of shame in saying it. I'm scared shitless.
Diaz: That's because you're a punk. I don't walk through this world with fear in my heart.
Ottway: You pick that up in the pen? Somebody scribble that in the day room wall?
Diaz: You better take it easy, motherfucker.
Ottway: Talking tough means jackshit now. You're not scared? You're a fool. Worse, you're a fucking liar.

I'm not sure how else to approach this review? Should I mention individual powerful moments? After the plane crash, Ottway (Liam Neeson) walks around the wreckage, seeing dead bodies everywhere and finds a man who's on the verge of dying. He's lost a lot of blood, and he's in tears. Ottway sits with him, looks him in the eyes and says, "Here's what's happening. You are going to die." He then talks him through the death, asking him who he loves the most, the man's answer being his daughter, and Ottway calmly tells him to think about his daughter and let her take him away, leading him to a peaceful death. This is the single most powerful scene in a very long time and one that I will never forget.

This is not only Liam Neeson's best performance ever, but easily the best performance of this year, and it baffles me how the Oscars and Globes ignored his performance. The image that still haunts me is the opening 10 minutes when we see Liam Neeson walk out into the cold and stick a gun into his mouth (pretty morbid way to begin a movie). We see the face of someone who's life is completely void of any kind of joy and how ironic it is that the movie ends with this suicidal man with nothing, fighting for his life.

There have been a lot of stupid complaints about the movie, the most obvious one being the unrealistic depiction of wolves as savages. THE MOVIE IS NOT ABOUT THE WOLVES, MOTHERFUCKERS!! The wolves are simply devices to ask a lot of philosophical questions. At the theatre I was at, one guy screamed, "Bullshit!" at the ambiguous ending. That person clearly didn't get the point of the movie. If you understand the movie's subtext, the ending is perfect. The Grey is the most criminally under-rated movie of the past few years, and hopefully what happened to The Shawshank Redemption years after its underwhelming theatrical reception will happen to The Grey.

RANDOM MISC. AWARDS:

best stoner movie of 2012:
Samsara
(this movie has to be seen in HD. Don't settle for a DVD. If you have to bring a blu ray disc to someone else's house because you don't have a blu ray player, then do it. Maybe offer to bring the weed/shrooms/LSD for that night. If you could watch the movie with a buddhist that might increase your mind trip even more. I was watching it really stoned, and my buddhist dad walked in and explained certain buddhist philosophies for certain scenes, and added to my head trip. Just watch the trailer and you'll understand the movie's trippyness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcEj1m6YIDc

Best ending to a movie:
No huge stand outs this year...I think I'll go with Zero Dark Thirty. No, not Bin Laden dying, but the way the movie concludes the story of the protagonist. What's next for her when Bin Laden pretty much became her life?

Best 3-D:
I'm not going to give it to any movie as I was not really impressed with any movie's 3-D this year. I'll just give to one scene in Life of Pi when Pi trips crazy balls. That was awesome in 3-D. Why couldn't the rest of the movie's 3-D be that awesome?

Most Intense do it yourself abortion scene of all time:
Prometheus. That was some crazy ass shit. This was no do it yourself coat hanger abortion like in American Horror Story, she had to use some really complex machinery to get a fucking alien out of her womb. That's probably the only thing I remember about the movie. This is one abortion case that I sure hope Republicans would be okay with, but who can really understand the brains of those batshit crazy people.

Biggest tear jerking movie of the year:
The Impossible

Best performance of the year:
By far Liam Neeson in The Grey. How he didn't get nominated by the Oscars or The Globes...I don't fucking know.

Best villain:
Michael Shannon in Premium Rush

Best duo:
Easy choice: Jake Gyllenhall and Michael Pena in End of Watch. Their camerederie is really what makes the movie. Probably my favorite duo of any cop movie.

Best Documentary:
Stories We tell...though it might be the only doc I saw this year, so maybe it's not fair, but fuck it! We need to support Canadian cinema damnit!

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My letter/pitch to James Cameron to let me write the sequel to Avatar

Dear James Cameron,

Avatar was arguably one of the most epic movies ever made. I understand that you are planning a sequel, but you must be scratching your head thinking, "How do I top part 1? How can I make it even more epic?" I have your answer and this pitch just may blow your mind. I present to you Avatar 2: Fear and Loathing in Pandora.

Fade in to Pandora, 1 year later. Everything is back to normal, but Jake…he ain’t doing so well.

Jake Sully is not happy in Pandora. His relationship with Neytiri is not going so well. He’s having trouble satisfying Neytiri, because as a human he had a premature ejaculation problem which has carried over to his avatar body. Right when Jake and Neytiri hook up their hair tentacle thingies…BAM!...he’s blown his load. And, blue splooge? Ewww, gross! That is something Jake still has not gotten used to. He loves Neytiri, and he starts on a quest, to learn from the other Na’Vi how to satisfy his woman.

Jake misses his life as a human. He just can’t relate to these na’vi. However, when the calendar hits April 20th there’s a celebration. It turns out both humans and Na’Vi celebrate 4/20; the key difference being that the Na’vi don’t get high on weed…they get high on eywooaah: plants which they hook up their hair tentacle thingies to. The way that humans trip balls on shrooms is absolutely nothing compared to the way Na’Vi trip balls on eywooaah. What would happen here would be the absolute craziest 3-D scene ever put on film. This scene would be shot in the POV of Jake Sully, where through his eyes you see what it’s like to trip out on eywooaah. I’m talking crazy 3-D tunnel sequences, really trippy objects in fully gimmicky 3-D mode flying at the audience. Jake Sully tripping balls should be a 10 minute scene. While I’m sure it’d be tempting to make the entire movie Jake Sully tripping balls, we do need to tell a story rather than just entertain stoners (not that there is anything wrong with wanting to make a movie for the sole purpose of entertaining stoners). I know I’m not the only person who wondered what it’d be like to trip out on Na’vi drugs.

Jake can’t handle this high, and he jumps on to the dragon and flies around. You know how drinking and driving is not cool? Well getting high and flying a dragon…that is sooo not fucking cool at all! Jake gets wreckless, and crashes the dragon into the tree of souls, demolishing it. The Na’Vi close in on Jake and as they’re about to beat the shit out of him, here comes Neytiri to save him. She pleads with them to not touch him. They figure out that the tree of souls has metaphysical powers, and they could potentially connect with Eywa in a metaphysical way, but it involves having to reach nirvana. The only way to reach nirvana is to do 5 plant hits of eywooaah which is insane. Neytiri steps in for the challenge to save Jake, but Jake insists that they must do it together.

On Earth, a nuclear bomb is accidently activated. Its mutation is so bad, dead humans rise from their graves in zombie form. However, these zombies are no joke. In fact, they make 28 Days Later zombies look like pussies; what makes them scary is that they can walk, talk, and function like human beings. Anyways Pablo Escobar’s zombie and his gang of zombies all stumble into the avatar control centre and maul everyone there. They then discover the avatar technology and they find out about the Eywooaah. Pablo Escobar’s zombie must have this drug! Think about how much money can be made. They grab all these awesome weapons and make avatars of themselves. There’s no explanation for how Pablo Escobar’s gang of zombies know how to operate this complex avatar technology…you just have to suspend your disbelief. Anyways, they all transport into Pandora and what a time to capitalize…when they‘re all tripping balls on 4/20.

Because they’re zombies turned into avatars, their avatars are deadlier and more evil. They can shoot blue lava out of their eyes. The Na’vi put up their best fight, but they are no match for these evil zombie avatars run by Pablo Escobar. Tied up and captured, Pablo’s gang take their time stealing their eywooaah plants. They laugh at how easy this takeover was. Unknown to them, they have forgotten about one person they should not be fucking with: Jake motherfucking Sully!

After Jake’s colossal fuck up, he must right the wrong by saving the day. The hallucinations are too much for him to handle. They’re controlling him. He just wants those hallucinatory rainbow colored flying spiders to leave him alone. He stops, breathes, postures up and says, “My hallucinations won’t control me. I control them!” and right there he all of a sudden can control his hallucinations. Deciding that he needs to one up himself on this rescue mission, he does the most bad ass thing he has ever done in his entire life. He gets his dragon high on eywooaah; him and his dragon, united, high out of their fucking minds are going to save the day! He flies in with his dragon and Pablo Escobar starts to laugh at Jake’s pathetic attempt at a rescue. Jake closes his eyes then…his really trippy hallucinations appear. Giant multi colored flying spiders attack the gang, shooting spider webs made out of a lava/sulfuric acid mix. All the Na’vi are shocked at Jake’s amazing feat. Jake frees them all, as Pablo Escobar’s gang retreats. They’ll be back!

While this goes on, Neytiri stays behind to try to reach Nirvana. She meditates, hooks her hair tentacles thingy to the fallen tree and starts having conversations with The tree of Souls. As she’s hooked in, her body starts shaking like crazy and convulsing. This is very intense. In another trippy 3-D scene, we go into Neytiri’s head as she’s haunted by trippy, metaphorical representations of anger, attachments, and obsessions that chase her all over the place. She tries to get away, but they consume her. This is where Avatar 2 can turn all avante garde. How about that? A little avante garde in a biggest epic blockbuster movie ever.

Back on Earth, Pablo Escobar seeks help from another dangerous gangster; Al Capone’s zombie. As Pablo, Al Capone and all their gangster zombies form together, ready to attack, Jake Sully is getting everyone on Pandora ready for the attack. This is their land, damnit and this is their eywooaah. Jake says urges them to step it up a notch; all the Na’vi must do 5 hits of eywooaah, and learn to have control over their hallucinations. He tells them, “You are Na’vi! You are strong! I know how you’re all thinking, hallucinations…they aren’t real. But guess what? They can be! Do 5 hits of eywooaah, and just believe in yourself. Be in control of your hallucination, show it who’s boss, and you know what? They’ll come to life. Just believe!”

The whole tribe cheers. The energy is electric! Someone says to Jake, “Maybe if you just believe in YOURSELF, Jake…you could satisfy Neytiri in bed.” Jake thinks about this and contemplates.

Cut to a montage of the Na’vi getting ridiculously ripped on eywooaah.

The gangs of zombie avatars are back! The fight is on. The Na’vi aren’t doing so well. They can’t tell the difference between real and hallucination. They are fighting the zombie avatars and their own hallucinations. This is too much. They can’t handle this! They are getting slaughtered. Jake’s hallucinations are fighting back, but getting destroyed.

As things get more and more hopeless, we go back to Neytiri. She is now in a calm, meditative state. In her mind she is having a conversation with Eywa on the meaning of life, what it means to be Na’vi, and finding her place in life in Pandora. As another 3-D sequence goes back into her head, all the metaphorical representations of anger, temptation and obsessions attack her, but they do nothing to her at all. She closes her eyes, as her body lights up and makes everything explode into a beautiful paradise. Neytiri has reached nirvana, as the Tree of Souls slowly starts to re-erect.

The whole Na’vi tribe look in awe as the tree of souls is erecting itself back into its original shape. They smile. Things will work out just fine.

All the Na’vi scream, “Hallucinations, we control you!” as the most fucking bad ass hallucinations come to life and beat the living shit out of the zombie avatars. Their blue lava shots aren’t doing shit. Jellyfish made out of lasers, the dark unicorns of death, giant killer pink rabbits…an epic battle commences, but the hallucinations win. As Pablo Escobar tries to escape, Jake Sully and Neytiri beat the living shit out of him. Like, they beat him up…to death…WITH THEIR FISTS. If you have this shot in 3-D, it should be from Escobar’s POV, and having the fists coming out in 3-D, so the audience can feel what it is like to take a Jake Sully and Neytiri ass whooping.

Everything is back to normal. Jake sweeps Neytiri off her feet and says, “Ready for your first orgasm?!”

She nods, but then stops. She has an even better idea.

Next thing, they are doing another 5 hits of eywooaah. Not only will they be making love, their hallucinations will be making love as well. Then…

THE END.

Does Jake Sully end up satisfying Neytiri? Find out in Avatar 3!

I bet that when you were reading this, you envisioned this entire movie in your head, then when you got to the end you were like, “Wow…that is an awesome movie!” Please, let your voices be heard! Tell James Cameron, you want Jeff Ching to write the screenplay for Avatar 2.

Thanks for reading.



Jeff

The top 11 best movies of 2011...

Almost every year I've done one of these lists, my pick for #1 has always been a really easy choice. This is the first year where I've actually gone back and forth between my #1 and 2 choice. They're both amazing in their own ways, and I hope people take my #2 recommendation just as seriously as #1. And maybe fuck the rest of the list. Just kidding, see every movie in my entire fucking top 10 list and every single honorable mention, god damnit! Otherwise, you'll be doomed to a shitty life! MANIACAL LAUGH! MANIACAL LAUGH!

Moving on...speaking of The Muppets...it will not be in my top 10 list, though it was a pretty enjoyable movie.

To those who say, "Where's Martha Marcy May Marlene, motherfucker?" my answer is, "Sorry, I missed its theatrical run, fuckface." I found a workprint download of it, but I'd rather wait for it on DVD than to watch that.

Honorable mentions:

Hugo, Incendies, Limitless, American: The Bill Hicks Story, Hanna, Midnight in Paris, Beginners, Submarine, Bridesmaids, A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas, We Bought a Zoo, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

11. Born to be Wild Imax 3D ****1/2

Yep, I've once again put a 40 minute Imax movie in the top 10. Here's an Imax movie about the scarred lives of elephants and orangatangs who need human guidance, and it's suprisingly quite touching. This movie not only has some of the best 3-D of any movie I've seen this year, but it's also quite possibly the cutest movie ever made! I think this movie might even get "Awww" reactions out of serial killers.

10. Horrible Bosses ****1/2

Here is a movie that shows that when it comes to comedies, casting is everything. Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis as the 3 lovable and mistreated employees who all hate their bosses have absolute perfect comedic chemistry together. Kevin Spacey, and Colin Farrel are great as evil asshole bosses with no morals, but Jennifer Aniston easily steals the show as the horniest dentist of all time; this should be what she's remembered for as opposed to Rachael in Friends. I hope Judd Apatow casts her in his next movie.

Horrible Bosses has a Knocked Up type thing going for it as every single character is funny. There's a nice mix of raunchy, dark humor, but every once in a while the movie will give you those really clever one liners that'll make you grin from ear to ear. Horrible Bosses at times reminded me of the greatness that is "It's Always sunny in Philadelphia" and that's a big compliment.

9. The Ides of March ****1/2

If people are shocked at the non-stop shit show that is American politics, The Ides of March presents a fascianting, cynical political drama that's a behind the scenes look at a race for who will represent the Democrats in the presidential race. The movie begins with optimism, with characters who are so idealistic at how their actions may change the world to a cynical, ironic ending that is bound to send chills down your spine. The usual Hollywood character transformation of going from bad guy to good guy is in reverse in this one; it studies how these politicians full of integrity slowly sell out everything they stand for until they become what they hate.

Ides of March feels so realistic in its depiction of all the mind games, mind fucking and shady deals that go on. It's the kind of movie you watch and wish that everything in it was complete bullshit. I didn't say anything about the acting yet...uhh, absolute top notch cast from Hoffman to Giamatti to Clooney, and Ryan Gosling fucking rules! Nobody steals this motherfuckin movie from him.

8. Moneyball ****1/2

Moneyball is easily my pick for the best baseball movie ever made. It's sort of an inspirational based on a true story movie, but done in a cool indy anti-Hollywood way. Who knew that a movie about the mathematical and nerdy statistical way of putting together a baseball team would be so fascinating? Who knew I'd get so into this GM character that I find myself actually hoping the Oakland A's win a world series so that this real life character will get his moment of joy.

Moneyball is so refreshingly different than every other baseball movie, where the all the backstage stuff is so fascating, fast paced and frequently funny. While I wish the movie could have gone into a little more detail about the statistics behind assembling a cheap, but awesome baseball team, it's enjoyable in every way, crackling with witty dialogue from beginning to end, great comedic chemistry between Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, a really charming father - daughter relationship, and of course those moments of joy and elation when the under dog Oakland A's pull off something extraordinary that had never been done before in its 20+ game win streak. What a nice and funny tongue in cheek metaphor that happens close to the end of the movie.

7. The Adventures of Tintin ****1/2

Speilberg has officially been forgiven for raping Indiana Jones (South Park's "The China Problem" episode...look it up if you haven't seen it). Tintin is not only by far the best animated film of 2011, but it's also the best action movie of the year. This is a rare Hollywood movie where the critical/analytical side of my brain just shut off and I simply got completely lost in the movie's world. The action scenes are so full of excitement and exhileration, with so much creativity and imagination to them. The animations, the back drops are simply gorgeous to look at, and sometimes so realistic, you may forget at times that you're watching an animated film. While the two main characters aren't exactly 3 dimensional, the comedic chemistry is very good between them, and having an alcoholic as a main character in an action/adventure movie makes for some great comedy, and very creatively implemented into some of the action scenes. You don't have to be familiar with the source material to enjoy this. I had never heard of Tintin before I saw the movie, and here it is on my top 10.

6. Attack the Block ****1/2

The difference in quality between Attack the Block vs. every other alien movie of 2011 (there were a lot of them) is like the difference in quality between an expensive steak house vs. the grade F dog shit meat you get at Taco Bell. While every other alien movie was content on doing the exact same shit that's been done over and over again, leave it to the Attack the Block to do something refreshingly different. And hey, they had the lowest budget by far of all the alien movies.

Attack the Block is a hilarious movie that instead of doing a global alien invasion, it isolates it to one small location, exploring how street thugs and stoners would deal with an alien invasion. What a concept! In midst of all the alien action is also a really funny stoner comedy.

To that, I have to say, whoever the casting director was that found all these no name actors...give that person a special honorary Oscar. The acting is absolutely top notch from everyone, even the little 10 year wannabe street thugs. If I was to teach how to write good memorable characters for genre pictures, this would be the movie I'd show. The gang of thugs all have such funny, interesting personalities and the comedic chemistry between them is amazing. How much of their dialogue is improvised vs. how much was written is something I'm very curious about. The way the thugs try to make sense of their situation makes for great comedy. For example, how do you fit everything that's transpired into one text message?

The action scenes are fun, and it's interesting that you never fully see the alien, as they're black ominious creatures with really bright teeth and eyes, or as the characters describe them as, "Big gorilla wolf motherfuckers". One of the black characters remarks that the alien is even blacker than his cousin.

For all the alien movies released in 2011, the only one you need to see is Attack the Block. All the other alien movies can fuck off with their unoriginality.

5. The Descendants ****1/2

The release of an Alexander Payne movie truly is an event as opposed to just a movie release. After the wonderful human comedy Sideways, his fans were left in the dark for 7 years and returned with an even more accomplished movie in The Descendants. Let's hope the wait for his next movie won't be when I'm at a "must have a prostate check up" age...which seemed like the average age of the audience in this movie. The Descendants is really heavy dramatic material which is nicely balanced with some wickedly dark comedy.

You can be crying one minute, and that same scene can hit you with something hilarious within an instant. There are certain moments that make you laugh, but cringe at the same time. Certain moments are just downright painful to watch. The Descendants is a great character study, with George Clooney giving the best performance of his career as Matt King which is like a dramatic odyssey about a man's emotional journey and how he deals with life shitting on him in every way. One day he learns that his wife will never wake up from her coma and must figure out how to break the news to everyone including his kids. How does he now handle the task of being a single father? To top it all off, he soon learns that his wife had been cheating on him the whole time.

You see him go from despair and hopelessness to grief to anger and bitterness to acceptance. Through it all, he becomes a better person and better father. Especially his relationship with his daughter (played by Shailene Woodley who really deserves an Oscar nod for this wonderful role) is great to watch, seeing them at each other's throats all the time to becoming a team and helping each other through all the misery. The scene of the two of them confronting the man cheating with their wife/mom is so wonderfully done and very unpredictable.

Hawaii provides a nice back drop for the movie. As Ebert points out, the Matt King character seems kind of closed off from the rest of the land, but the more he embraces where he lives and gets connected to the land, the more he connects with his family. I really enjoy movies like this where the worst imaginable things in life bring out the best in someone and change them forever.

4. Life in a Day ****1/2

This cinematic experiment...people around the world were asked to film one day in their lives (July 24, 2010) and send it in, with an editor going through 4500 hours of footage to put together into a 90 minute time capsule movie of what life is like today around the world. I think this movie is the best piece of editing ever accomplished. Here is a movie that truly encapsulates the human experience all over the world.

To quote kerick08 on imdb, "This film is ultimately about connection; the connection of humans to one another and all of the mundane, regular, everyday things that we share despite our differences in culture, location, and upbringing. The fact that we all sleep. We all wake up in the morning. We all eat breakfast. We brush our teeth. We walk around. We smile. We love. We fear. We breathe. This film is an affirmation of the simple joys and sorrows that we experience merely as a result of living on this earth and being human. It is an affirmation of life at its rawest, truest, grittiest, and loveliest."

The experiment went well as the movie has plenty of great footage with such a wide range of human life from pain, grief, despair and fear to moments of exhileration and excitement to some truly hilarious moments.

Despite many poignant moments, this is one of the most life affirming movies I've ever seen. Chance is, the movie may change your mood for the rest of the day. Life in a Day will make you feel fortunate for the life that you currently live, maybe not take things for granted so much. It may also make you feel like a whiney bitch for bitching about the trivial aspects of your life.

3. A Separation ****1/2

Kudos to Roger Ebert for making a great pick for #1 best movie of 2011. I had never heard of this movie before and wasn't all that excited to watch it. What I got is one of best foreign language films ever made. It's a movie that is amazing, but so hard to describe in words what makes it so great. It has so many layers to it. Repeated viewings of this movie is definitely necessary, as there's so much to wrap your head around. I think for the upcoming Oscars, there will be no upset. Without having seen any of the other nominees, A Separation will take the best foreign film Oscar, no doubt about it.

Here is my best attempt at doing the movie justice with my words. A Separation is one motherfucking intense movie. Once the inciting incident takes place, I found myself fully involved with every twist and turn of the story. It's a part mystery, telling a story, but hiding certain details from the audience. When more is unraveled later in the movie, our perceptions of the characters shift as we slowly learn the truth. We see the same events from different eyes.

A Separation starts off with a wife wanting to divorce her husband. She wants to move the family to Europe out of Iran to live a better life, especially for the daughter. The husband can't do this, his dad has Alzheimer's and he feels the need to stay and look after him. They both have good points, and this is just one of many moral conundrums the movie has to offer.

The movie revolves around one big incident which I won't reveal. The mystery is interesting, but the movie's more about exploring these very well written 3 dimensional characters and how the incident and the following court case affects them. The characters are so realistic, and flawed. We get frustrated with some of their decisions, but we can understand why they act the way they do; it's often out of principle and stubborn emotion. However, soon the main character's stubbornness gets the worst of him. The court case fully consumes his life to the point that he's blind to how much everything is hurting his daughter.

This movie takes place in Iran, but it's a movie any of us can watch and constantly ask ourselves, "What would we do in this situation?" When is it time to swallow your pride and forget about being right? It's a movie that's morally complex, intense, very subtle with its character observations, and interesting in its study of Iranian culture and the role of Islam in their lives, but also at times emotionally devastating without cheap Hollywood trickery. The movie never loses sight of the separation of the parents and the affect it has on their daughter. Although she's not the main character, she really becomes the heart of the movie, and unintentionally the biggest target of pain as this young girl's idealistic view of life is shattered. There's a court room scene where she breaks down into tears, and it is so hard to watch; odds are anyone in the audience with a pulse will cry for her too.

2. Cold Weather *****

"God damn it, dude! How much Sherlock Holmes you been reading?"

Cold Weather is the ultimate testament to low budget filmmaking. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes you don't need hundreds of millions of dollars...all you need is a good script...sorry typo there, a brilliant script, and great actors who are just so natural in their roles, it never feels like they're putting on a performance. The movie's big climax is a car chase and despite a lack of explosions, car crashes and special FX, I found myself far more absorbed and at the edge of my seat in this low key car chase than 90% of big budget Hollywood movies. Most of all, I have so much respect for the comedy writing in this movie. Once again, it feels so natural and a lot of humor is found in the eccentricities and quirks of the characters and their relationships with each other. This is a movie that should be studied for how to write 3 dimensional characters. Even indy writers should study this for figuring out just the right amount of quirkiness to put into a character.

I love the film's transition from mumblecore to a low key detective mystery. Just like other mumblecores, we get a slacker characters who seem to go through life aimlessly with no real direction; In Cold Weather, we get a protagonist who seemed driven to get into forensic sciences, but soon dropped out, went from random job to job then moved in with his older sister, sleeping on her couch. He puts very little effort into a job search, but finds work at an ice factory. However, he is obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and dreams of being him one day. It's unfortunate that impatient viewers will get restless for the first 15 minutes that depict the characters' aimless lives, but it's very necessary for the rest of the film.

Soon enough, the protagonist's ex-girlfriend mysteriously disappears and he's thrown into a mystery. He finds himself playing the role of a slacker version of Sherlock Holmes. For a change, we get a detective movie that's so grounded in reality and where the detective really isn't larger than life. He requires his sister to drive him from place to place to find clues, stealing books from the library, or even to take him to buy a pipe to see whether smoking it like Sherlock Holmes will make him any wiser.

While this seems like an annoyance to her at first, she soon finds herself just as involved in the mystery as her brother and they work together amazingly well to solve all the clues. While the mystery is interesting, it's the interactions between the two siblings which is an absolute joy to watch. Both characters are very eccentric, but brilliant in their own ways. When the movie ends, you get a sense of a bond between the brother and sister that's never seemed stronger, and perhaps a clear sense of what the characters should be doing with the rest of their lives, conveyed with such subtlety. As I type this, I'm struggling to think of any detective mysteries that I'd pick over this one. Where mumblecores are concerned, I pick this one movie over In Search of a Midnight Kiss. (Note to everyone, seek out In Search of a Midnight Kiss as well. It's one of the funniest romantic comedies ever made.)

1. 50/50 *****

I debated giving #1 to Cold Weather for a little bit, but I decided to stick with my initial gut feeling of giving it to 50/50. It's a perfect example of how to tackle a subject matter as depressing as cancer with integrity, authenticity, and lots of humor. It's unfortunate that the screenwriter Will Reiser had to battle cancer at such a young age, but he survived, and turned his experience into one of the most powerful dramatic comedies in a long time. It's interesting to find out that Joseph Gordon Levitt was actually not the first choice for the role and had stepped in last minute. Looking back, who knows if the movie would have been this good without him?

Laura Linney discussed the role comedy on the daily show, calling it a form of catharsis to battle the worst shit in life. Sometimes the best you can do when steaming piles of shit are thrown at you is laugh at it. 50/50 finds just the right balance between comedy and drama. The first half of the movie is absolutely hysterical, and this movie makes you want to see Joseph Gordon Levitt and Seth Rogan paired up more often. Rogan does some of his funniest work since Knocked Up, but Levitt is a great straight man to make Rogan funnier.

There's also the relationship between Levitt and his rookie shrink played by Anna Kendrick which strikes just the right balance of comedy and drama. Kendrick is really charming playing the young therapist, and I like how the movie covers the stress that therapists have to endure. It's tough knowing that they can easily fuck someone's life up if they don't do their jobs properly. It's the fact that she's so young and inexperienced in her job that makes her relationship with Levitt's character believable and not feel like bullshit. There's even some room for stoner comedy where the main character enjoys the joys of medicinal marijuana with other fellow cancer patients.

While the first half of the movie makes a great comedy, it's a few key dramatic scenes in the 2nd half of the movie that really stuck with me moreso than the humor.
The scene where Levitt is sitting on the bed, about to be operated on and realizing he may never wake up is unforgettable and the single most powerful moment of any movie this year. He breaks down in tears, and grabs on to his mom, and various people at imdb's messageboard who also went through cancer have all admit to reacting in the exact same way as the character; no matter how old you are, you turn back into a little boy and need the comfort of your mommy.

50/50 is real tearjerker, but not a single minute of the drama feels like emotional manipulation. The drama is handled in a very raw, non-mainstream Hollywood way and the tears are well earned. It's the authenticity that makes the drama work, as the movie depicts all the physical, emotional, mental pain and feelings of hopelessness so well. Cancer doesn't just affect the sufferer, but everyone around him too, and the relationships with his best friend, his mom, and therapist are very well handled. His ex-girlfriend...okay I can see where some people have issues with this, but I didn't think it took too much away from the movie.

There you go. 50/50 is my pick for the best movie of the year. As a comedy it's one of the funniest of the year and as a drama, no other film was more moving than this one.

Other Misc. Awards:

Trippyest movie:A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas 3-D (isn't it nice that a stoner comedy is also the trippyest movie? Other honorable mentions are: Enter the Void and Limitless.

Best ending to a movie:Life in a Day (simply one of the most poetic endings I can ever remember and a great existential speech that any of us can relate to) Runner up: We Bought a Zoo (absolutely beautiful ending). Other honorable mention: The Ides of March.

Best Opening Credits:Many might say Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. I'll go with The Adventures of Tintin with honorable mentions to: Limitless and once again...Enter the Void.

Best duo:
The brother and sister teaming up as detectives in Cold Weather. The chemistry between these two actors is simply amazing! It's one of the best sibling relationships ever in a movie.

Best 3D: Most will say Hugo and it was very good, but I have to go with Born to be Wild 3-D. The 3-D turned a cute movie into the cutest movie ever made.


Click here to go back to The Ching of Comedy webpage

The top 5 best movies of the first half of 2011...

Yep, I do this every year, so here it is. Now maybe it's a little past half of the first year, but ya know...despite my ethnicity, math was never my thing.

Alright, so let's start off with The Honorable mentions:
American: The Bill Hicks Story, Hanna, Midnight in Paris, Thor, Beginners, Submarine, Bridesmaids

I'm a little surprised that Midnight in Paris, Submarine and Beginners all didn't make it into my top 5. I thought going in they'd for sure be top 5 material. I don't know. Looking at my #5 and #2 pick, maybe I'm turning more into a philistine.

5. Limitless **** (out of 5)

Now THIS is an entertaining movie! While I agree with the critics who felt let down that a movie with this intruiging a premise could have been so much smarter, while there are some massive gaping plot holes, and the structure is a bit of a mess, this movie is just so much fun that I didn't care. While I'm usually not one for turning my brain off to enjoy mindless entertainment, this was a case where I fully embraced it. That's not to say that it's a completely mindless movie, as it does present an intruiging premise about a drug that can completely open up your brain to its full potential.

Limitless is surprisingly one of the trippyest movies of the year. The film is directed with such vibrant energy and exuberant style. The action scenes in this movie are for the lack of better words...fucking awesome. I fully understand some of the bad reviews this movie received, but to me, this was one of the biggest surprises of the year.

4. Incendies **** (out of 5)

This movie really should have gotten Canada yet another Oscar for best foreign language film. I really thought it would happen, as best foreign film is the category that the Oscars very often get right. However, this year was not the case and the incredibly underwhelming and rather corny In a better World took the Oscar.

But, enough with my bitching at the Oscars. While this is not a conventionally entertaining movie, it is a very disturbing, shocking, amazingly powerful and unforgettable movie that will shake you. Anybody that spoils the brilliant ending for you is a fucking asshole.

It's part mystery, part thriller, part social commentary on the senseless violence and hatred sprung up by conflicting religions. The movie starts with two twins dealing with their mother's death. They are given a letter which from the mother that reveals to them that they not only have a father, but also a brother and are asked to travel to the Middle East to find them and give them certain letters. Through the journey to the Middle East, the kids learn about their mother's incredibly sad, painful life and the mystery slowly unfolds about their family to which I once again will say...just watch it for yourself. How this movie lost to In a Better World, who the fuck knows?

3. Born to be Wild 3-D ****1/2 (out of 5)

Yep, I've once again put a 40 minute Imax movie on to the top 5. I think this being the cutest movie I've ever seen can warrant this making it on the top 5. Morgan Freeman takes on the narrating duties, and holy shit this movie has some of the best 3-d I've ever seen. Certain shots, animals appear to be right in front of your eyes, and you can reach out and touch them.

What could have been a really schmaltzy movie, it surprisingly is not. The story of the lives of elephants and Orangutans, who's lives had been so troubled that they needed the care and nurturing of humans to take them in before setting them back out into the wild is surprisingly touching. You movie does a better job of making you feel the animals' pain than many HOllywood movies do of feeling human pain. I learned that elephants are actually really emotional animals, they aren't just the kings of the jungle that bitch slap other animals with their trunks. Their sense of camerederie among elephants is actually kind of beautiful.

Orangutangs continue to prove that they are by far the most cinematic animals. I think the scenes of these monkeys would even get "Awww" reactions out of serial killers.

Of course there's the relationship between the humans and animals. When the humans after caring for the animals release them back into the wild, you can feel their bittersweet emotion of letting the animals back in. It's not quite as good as Hubble, but maybe the 2nd best 40 minute Imax movie.

2. Horrible Bosses ****1/2 (out of 5)

This is by far the biggest surprise of the year. I was expecting something funny, but I wasn't expecting was perhaps the funniest movie I've seen since Knocked Up. Here is a movie that shows that when it comes to comedies, casting is everything. Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis as the 3 lovable and mistreated employees who all hate their bosses have absolute perfect comedic chemistry together. It's really hard to pick out the best performance of the 3, because they all work off each other so well. I don't know, maybe I'll say Jason Bateman, just because I think good straight man performances are under-rated.

Then you have the horrible bosses, yes they are 1 dimensional characters, but who cares when they're as funny as these over the top, completely evil people. It's how ridiculously immoral these characters are that make them so funny and also can't help but make you as an audience root for the protagonists to succeed in their murder plans. As good as Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrel are, the funniest performance definitely goes to Jennifer Aniston, playing the hottest, and horniest dentist ever. I wonder if Judd Apatow immediately contacted Jennifer Aniston's agent after seeing this movie. It's one of the funniest female performances in a long time.

Then you have a hitman consultant character named Motherfucker Jones, to which the joke about his name never gets old. Maybe with a less competent comedic cast it would have.

Horrible Bosses has a Knocked Up type thing going for it, that there is not one unfunny character in the movie. At times the humor reminded me of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which by no means is a criticism (I like Charlie Day a lot more in this than on the show). Horrible Bosses is R-rated comedy at its best. It's dark and raunchy, doesn't pull any punches, and it has a lot of great dialogue exchanges between the cast who all work so well together, and even some great Toyota jokes in there too. When the main characters realize how much deep shit they're in, Jason Sudeikis and Jason Bateman still have time to argue over the question of who of them is likely to get raped more in prison.

While the 2nd half of the movie's jokes aren't quite as clever as the first half, watching these bumbling idiots screw up over and over again in their murder plans makes for some great comedy. Horrible Bosses is what I want out of an R-rated comedy. Bridesmaids was a very funny movie, but Horrible Bosses stands tall as the funniest movie of 2011.

1. Life in a Day ****1/2 (out of 5)

Note: I'm pretty sure this movie comes out this Friday. People in Toronto, it's playing only at the AMC Yonge/Dundas theatre.

This stands tall as my clear cut favorite of 2011 so far. This cinematic experiment ...everyone being asked to film a day in their lives (July 24, 2010) and send it in, with an editor going through 4500 hours of footage to put together a 90 minute time capsule movie of what life is like today around the world could have lead to disastrous results. But, luckily they got a lot of good footage, and Joe Walker did an absolutely phenomenal job of putting it all together; I think Joe Walker deserves an Oscar for best editing. This is a movie that truly encapsulates the human experience all over the world.

To quote kerick08 on imdb, "This film is ultimately about connection; the connection of humans to one another and all of the mundane, regular, everyday things that we share despite our differences in culture, location, and upbringing. The fact that we all sleep. We all wake up in the morning. We all eat breakfast. We brush our teeth. We walk around. We smile. We love. We fear. We breathe. This film is an affirmation of the simple joys and sorrows that we experience merely as a result of living on this earth and being human. It is an affirmation of life at its rawest, truest, grittiest, and loveliest."

While some people may have an issue with the approach of the movie, or the fact that the people who submitted footage didn't get paid, people should just watch the movie for what it is. Through all the footage is a both visually and thematically beautiful movie; a deep, moving film about the human condition. I should also add, sometimes it is fucking hilarious as well. Despite many moments of sadness and poignancy, this is one of the most life affirming movies I've ever seen. Chance is, the movie may change your mood for the rest of the day and perhaps a changed person. This is the type of movie that will make you feel fortunate for the life that you currently live, maybe not take things for granted so much and may also make you feel like a bitch for bitching about the trivial aspects of your life. I very often found myself watching someone else's life saying, "Man, I'm glad I'm not living that person's life."

Just like how leaving a typical Hollywood movie, where it's fun to discuss memorable set pieces, Life in a Day has some of the most memorable moments of any movie, and I'm sure everyone will have their list of favorite momemts. There are moments of sadness, hope, love, exhileration, humor, and so on. A teenager shaves for the first time, and it actually looks like a horrible painful ordeal. Boy am I glad I'm incapable of growing facial hair. A scene of an old couple renewing their wedding vows is surprisingly funnier than anything most R-rated raunchy comedies can come up with (though maybe not Horrible Bosses). One family is revisted quite a few times in the movie, where the mother had cancer and is recovering from surgery. You see how this sickness has put a huge strain on the family, but the final scene that you see of this family with the father revealing his fear is absolutely beautiful. The best moment involves an existential speech made by a girl in a car, which is such a well delivered speech which I'm sure we've all thought of. While generations before us constantly struggled for survival, our modern day struggle in life is often just killing time and that's all really, and the idea of disspearing into obscurity with people having no clue of your existence...that is scary. I challenge people to find me a more poetic ending of a movie than the one this one has.


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I've got a bone to pick with Miller Lite's "Man up" commercials...

If you're not familiar with the commercials I'm talking about, here's one of them:



The typical formula of these commercials: a guy asks for a light beer, he's asked if he cares how it tastes to which he replies no. The bartender then insults his manhood and tells him that she'll give him a miller lite once he stops being a little bitch. They'll have some lame joke about how this man is also carrying a purse, or wearing a skirt.

For one, if you're a bartender and love miller lite and want to expose everyone to it, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU BOTHER ASKING IF THEY CARE HOW LIGHT BEER TASTES? WHY NOT JUST GIVE THEM A FUCKING MILLER LITE WHEN THEY ASK FOR LIGHT BEER?!

That logic already seems very illogical. There's another commercial which bothers me even more, which I unfortunately can't find on youtube.

It has a bunch of guys on a camping trip. Everyone is drinking miller lite except for one guy who's drinking a can of light beer. They all make fun of him. The commercial ends with him drinking miller lite just like the rest of his buddies.

These commercials are subtly sending a bad message about peer pressure and conformity. All it takes is a little teasing and then the one oddball conforms to the gang and drinks Miller Lite just like the rest. That's all it takes...a little teasing. These are the kind of people that probably became smokers because their smoker friends in school called them a pussy and they're like, "Oh God, I don't want to become a pussy! I'll poison my lungs and get addicted to a product that kills hundreds of thousands of people a year to show how much of a pussy I'm not!"

As far as I'm concerned, these characters aren't liberated for drinking miller lite. They are simply showing how weak they are. Who knows what happens after that one person has been converted to Miller Lite? Maybe his friends are like, "By the way, we want to re-start the Nazi movement and rid the world of Jews. Can I get a Heil Hitler?" That character with a skirt probably ended up in a tattoo parlour getting a Swastika on his arm, while downing a miller lite.

Some of you may be like, "Oh God! Don't be like Fox news with Nazi analogies"...well, in my case I'm trying to use a Nazi analogy to be funny, so STFU!

I can personally attest to being that guy in the Miller Lite commercial, but in my case it's guys drinking beer and me drinking Smirnoff Ice. (Note: I no longer drink Smirnoff Ice because my stomach can't handle it anymore. Maybe I'm not woman enough for smirnoff ice?)

I constantly got, "What the fuck? You're drinking a woman's drink, woman."
Well...hey asshole, Smirnoff Ice has 7% alcohol a bottle while your Coors Light has 4%. I'm gonna get drunk way faster than you do...4 bottles of smirnoff ice is the alcoholic equivalent to 7 bottles of Coors Light.

If Shake Weight was around back then, I would totally be downing a Smirnoff Ice with one hand, while working out with the shakeweight with the other hand simulatenously. I don't care how unmanly that looks. I'm getting drunk while having a good work out at the same time.

Anyways, Miller Lite needs to stop telling people to "Man up" by doing what everyone else is doing. There is absolutely nothing manly about conformity. Conformity is for the weak-minded. Independant thought is way under-rated.

To quote a very wise white man, Vanilla Ice: "Be true to yourself! If you ain't bein true to yourself, YOU AIN'T BEIN TRUE TO NOBODY!!"

So if you find yourself at a bar asking for a light beer and the bartender starts to insult your manliness for not wanting miller lite answer with, "You know what? I change my mind. Get me a Shirley Temple with Vodka, motherfucker!"


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The Most over-rated movies of 2010

If you haven't yet read my top 10 best movies of 2010 list, check it out:

http://thechingofcomedy.blogspot.com/2011/01/top-10-best-movies-of-2010.html

I've decided to make the most over-rated movies blog its own thing and not lump it with the "Shit stains of 2010". In most cases, these over-rated movies are good, but simply not the masterpieces that many people think they are. Plus, it's more challenging to start shit with actual respected movies. Picking on Megan Fox for being a shitty actress isn't particulary challenging. We all know the only reason she's casted is because she's hot.

Prepare for long reads, as I'm sure people who love these movies (to which there are many) want good, concrete reasons as to why I think these movies are over-rated. Admittedly, my write up of Despicable Me isn't as complete as I wanted it to be, but that's because it's not as fresh in my mind as some of the others.

Without further ado, here is my list. 2 of the movies have showed up on just about every critic's top 10 list.

Inception
Rating: ***

Before I go on with my own reasons for this movie's over-ratedness, I very highly recommend reading this absolutely hilarious spoof script someone wrote of Inception which hilariously highlights all the flaws of the movie:

http://www.the-editing-room.com/inception.html

I will tell you right now, what you will read from me is not nearly as clever as the link above. But, if you're here to read what I think, then keep reading.

I gave this movie 2 viewings before writing this. On my 2nd viewing, I was actually very into the first half and thought maybe I was wrong about the movie the first time. Then the 2nd half of the movie rolled around, and I was surprised at how unengaged I was.

I wish someone travelled into Christopher Nolan's head, stole the idea of Inception and planted it into the brain of Charlie Kaufman or Richard Linklater. While I enjoyed Inception, I couldn't help but think there was potential for so much more. A movie with such a creative premise just doesn't really deliver all it could have.

A movie about dreams should have a more surreal, free spirited feel to it. Inception's treatment of the dream state just feels very mechanical and wooden. It's like, "5 minutes of real time calculates out to exactly 1 hour dream time." No, it doesn't! Shut the fuck up! To quote Jim Emerson's blog titled, "Has Christopher Nolan forgotten how to dream?, "The emotional components of dreaming (not to mention the universal archetypes) are nowhere to be found. No shame, lust, embarrassment, exhilaration; no flying, nakedness in public, pop quizzes, "actor's nightmares," quicksand floors, teeth falling out... There are lots of guns, and even those aren't anything but... guns."

It's also because Christopher Nolan has such an impressive resume that the movie left me feeling disappointed. Was expecting a Nolan movie to blow me away expecting too much? Was expecting a sci-fi movie with this creative of a premise to be better than The Matrix which came out 11 years ago expecting too much? People who say Inception is better than The Matrix, that just perplexes me. Both movies set up very fascinating premises in the first half, and then turn into all out action movies in the 2nd. Compare the two. At least The Matrix's action scenes are directed with such creative style. The Matrix truly transcends your typically Hollywood blockbuster making its action so unique and different from everything else.

While Inception has that really cool hotel action scene that everyone remembers, the rest of the action in the entire 2nd half comes off flat. Especially the snow fortress dream level is nothing but the main characters shooting and beating up a bunch of random dudes in winter coats...oh yeah, those people in winter coats represent the subconscious.

a.) Couldn't Nolan more creatively represent the subconscious than just a bunch of random dudes with guns...who have horrible aim might I add? Where is the imagination here? He could have done some very abstract or twisted stuff. Nolan seems content with conforming to the old Hollywood rule that if someone shoots at you with a gun, all you have to do is duck and cover your head, and he'll miss.

Remember the movie The Cell? A serial killer is in a coma, and they need to access information in his head, so Jennifer Lopez is hooked up to a machine, where she gets transported into the serial killer's mind. Now this is an example of a director who thinks big and comes up with some really creative imagery to represent what goes on in someone's brain.

b.) These action scenes are just boring! There's no intensity, no excitement. Random dudes we know nothing about get shot, the main characters plant explosions...lots and lots of explosions, oh right and then there are lots and lots of explosions too. I had to check the credits to see if the movie was co-directed by Michael Bay.

We could see this shit in James Bond movies, or even Vin Diesel fuck people up while snowboarding in XXX. This is a movie about dreams, give us something different! You teased at some cool shit, like Ellen Page having a city fold like a taco...why not incorporate that shit into your action scenes in the 2nd half?

Ellen Page...I am such a huge fan of hers, but what a flat, hammy performance she puts on, and what an empty character she plays in this movie. As others have pointed out, the sole purpose of her character in the movie is to ask questions about the plot that the audience has in mind. That's it.

For a brilliant architecture she's supposed to be, she's not really that smart. She's all like, "Oh my god! Cobb tells us not to do certain things, and then he does them himself! Oh my god!" or "These aren't your dreams! These are your memories!!! You're trying to keep her alive!"...wow, it sure took you long enough to figure that one out! Woah, people who lost loved ones trying to keep them alive in memories...how shocking!!

Many people have pointed out that the dialogue in the movie...it sucks. Here's an example which I'll quote from A D Jameson's brilliant criticism of the movie "17 ways to criticize Inception. Here's the link if you want to read it, it's a very long read:

http://bigother.com/2010/08/08/seventeen-ways-of-criticizing-inception/

Here's the exerpt from his blog:

======================================
The worst example comes late in the film, during the assault on the snow fortress-hospital. Cobb finally starts gunning down random bad guys, and Nolan interrupts the action to have Ariadne cry: “Are those projections part of his subconscious?“

(How has Ariadne forgotten this basic principle, one of the first things that Cobb explained?)

Cobb coolly replies, “Yes” (probably thinking, “I should have explained this two more times to her”).

Ariadne then cries: “Are you destroying those parts of his mind?“

Now, this is a fine question to ask, while they’re three dream states deep, and hours into a perilous mission (which followed weeks and weeks of planning).

But: “No, no,” Cobb assures her (and therefore the audience) “—they’re just projections.”

…What is this dialogue doing here? Why did Nolan find it necessary to write, and shoot, and edit in this exchange?

My guess is that the following conversation occurred during pre-production:

WARNER BROS. STUDIO EXEC: You have Cobb shooting and killing projections here. It’s really the first time in the film, in fact, that he’s killed any of them.

NOLAN [distractedly—he's busy planning an explosion]: Mm-hmm.

WARNER BROS. STUDIO EXEC: Well, the audience might think now that he’s a bad guy—that he’s destroying Fischer’s memories, or something. (Cillian Murphy’s eyes are rather blue, and rather soulful.)

NOLAN: …I hadn’t thought of that. [Puts down his models, thinks a second.] It’s OK. I’ll throw in some dialogue that clarifies he’s not doing any harm.

That’s Nolan’s solution to nearly every writing problem: throw in some dialogue!

=========================================================

Of course I have to mention the storyline involving Dicaprio and his wife, which is actually really dark and could have been done well, but...doesn't really work. The first time I saw this movie, I couldn't figure out why I had no emotional attachment whatsoever to this storyline.

Second time watching it, it was even cheesier. Dicaprio seeing his wife show up in a dream and being like, "No! You're not real!" brought back memories of Lui Kang in Mortal Kombat being like, "No! You're not my brother"

Here's a really funny blurb from the satirial script I mentioned above:

==============================================

EXT. CGI-LAND

LEONARDO and ELLEN find CILLIAN, but also encounter MARION.

MARION COTILLARD
Leonardo, stay here with me. I know I’m just a figment of your imagination, but I’m all you’ve got.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO
My entire memory of you is as a vindictive, mean-spirited, violent, self-centered pile of bitch. Christ, why did it take me the entire movie to stop giving a shit about you? Fuck off.

ELLEN PAGE
And now that you’ve finished risking the lives of your only friends in the world for the sake of a little catharsis, we can finish the mission!

LEONARDO DICAPRIO
You’re right! We’ve got an innocent person’s memories and relationships to completely ruin!
=====================================================

This blurb points out why it doesn't work. All you see of his wife is this mean bitch who loves to go around stabbing and shooting people. Why should we give a shit about her?

They even give her cheesy horror movie pop up music when she sees Ellen Page invading Dicaprio's dream space.

Dicaprio's character...what a selfish piece of shit for risking all his friend's lives just so he can be with his kids. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that you're so heavily sedated that if you die in the dream, your brain and turn into mush and you can spend eternity in limbo. Whoops. My bad. Forgot to tell you that. But, somehow I know how to get out limbo, while the rest of you don't."

Inception is an entertaining movie and despite how much I've been shitting all over the movie in this blog, I still do like it. It is a better than your average Hollywood blockbuster, but calling it one of the best movies of 21st century is absurd. Saying that this movie is mind blowing is also absurd. Maybe if I had never seen movies like: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Waking Life, The Matrix, Dark City, and The Cell (which are all way better movies at exploring alternate realities) my mind would be blown. I think even South Park's Imaginationland trilogy and Superjail's episode about dreams were more mind blowing and creative.

Finally, if you haven't seen the hilarious parody at college humor, check it out:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1939332

Black Swan
Rating: ***1/2

Black Swan is a good movie, but it's the weakest effort to come from Darren Aranovsky. After seeing the movie show up on just about every critic's top 10 list, I expected more. This ballerina could be the most 1 dimensional character ever directed by Aronovsky. A psychological mind fuck this movie is not.

To quote this review from Soergel:

http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/matt-soergel/2010-12-17/story/movie-review-black-swan-dark-odd-bird-indeed

"For all of Natalie Portman's impressive angst as a tormented ballet dancer, all you need to know is that she's sexually repressed, sleeps only with the big stuffed bunnies of her childhood, and that her creepy ex-ballet dancer mother (Barbara Hershey) still tucks her in at night."

To add in my 2 cents, she then trips crazy balls for the 2nd half of the movie. I guess the scene of her accidently taking crazy amounts of LSD got cut.

I was very into the first half of the movie. It shows the world of ballet, the skill and precision it requires, the toll it can take on the body, and the ridiculous amount of pressure that can be put on someone. The pursuit of perfection can be too much for one to handle. This was good.

But, the 2nd half of the movie turns into really campy horror movie territory as Natalie Portman trips balls and sees shit that isn't really there! It feels like the movie turns into a campy horror movie, to which I'm really disappointed to say, I expected more creativity out of Aronovsky in this territory. I'm shocked to say this as I don't like David Lynch at all...but the 2nd half of the movie would have been a cooler mind fuck had David Lynch handled it. Some horror moments seemed so campy, I thought I was watching a Sam Raimi movie...where the camp is intentional.

The movie's entertaining and seeing Pormtan lose her mind is fun to watch, but I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed. I thought it would be a more psychologically complex movie. It's not. The pursuit of perfection drives her to madness. That's all. Have you seen the movie Bug? That's a much better movie about showing a fragile character's descent into madness.

Of course the movie has the whole "life imitates art", with the happenings in Swan Lake being reflected in the ballerina's life, with lots and lots and lots of mirror shots. Yes Darren, we get the symbolism of the mirror! Enough already! Not only is the mirror an extremely obvious metaphorical device (when symbolism is so obvious, I don't like it), but it's also the most over-used, horror movie cliche.

The movie turns into an, "oh my god! I'm not sure what's real and what's not?" guessing game which isn't really that fascinating, because I found no reason to give a shit about the character. She's 1 dimensional, she has no personality whatsoever...especially compared to Randy the Ram from The Wrestler. Natalie Portman is amazing in this role, but it's the script which makes her character feel rather incomplete. The tragedy brought shoulder shrugs to me as opposed to some sort of emotional response.

Get Low
Rating: **

Get Low? More like Get Slow! (Thanks Matty G, for that one).

Because this movie will likely not be getting a best picture nomination, it's probably the least under-rated of this list. This also happens to be the shittyness movie of the 3. Get Low struck me as an Oscar bait movie. Everyone will be saying how awesome Robert Duvall is, and close up shots of Sissy Spacek crying a lot will probably get her an Oscar nod as well. The movie tries really really really hard to get the audience to cry, but emotional manipulation this forceful doesn't work.

For a movie which explores guilt as its central theme, as in how do you live with yourself knowing that you fucked up someone else's life, it comes up short and isn't really that deep. Compare it to another slow paced drama that also deals with guilt in Ordinary People, now that's a movie with a lot of psychological complexity to it and many interesting relationships revolving around a central tragedy.

I really liked the premise of an old hermit throwing a living funeral for himself (as in he is alive and gets to see what everyone at the funeral says about him). To this, I was really surprised at how ineffective it was as a drama, and at elliciting any kind of emotion.

Duvall is good, and Bill Murray is funny as a funeral director, but the movie focuses more on his assistant, the Buddy character (Lucas Black) who puts on a weak, dull performance. He ends up spending more time with the protagonist of the story, and a meaningful friendship between the two that could really change them both really could have made this a more memorable movie. Or maybe the filmmakers thought they had a good central friendship...after all, the close up shot of Buddy looking on reflectively after the living funeral shows that...apparently the whole experience of organizing the funeral and working with Felix changed him...as the audience, I didn't feel this at all. It makes me wonder whether the film would have worked better had they casted someone better. I looked up Lucas Black...he was in a Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift as an inferior Paul Walker and Legion which was probably the worst movie of 2010. I don't remember if he was good, but I think I recall every performance in that movie being garbage.

Most of the movie, we get Duvall being hard-headed, spending such a long time arranging the funeral, leading up to the big climax where he tells his tragic story about what's caused him to be a hermit and alienating himself from society for his entire life. Had the climax delivered, I would be glad I sat through the first boring 80 minutes of the movie, but it doesn't. It's forceful drama, where the characters tells us a story we sort of already figured out on our own.

A drama like this needs to be deeper to be effective. Although most of the performances are very strong, I'm getting tired of movies that only have good acting associated with it.

Despicable Me
Rating: **1/2

This is like another case of Dante's Peak/Volcano, Deep Impact/Armageddon, Paul Blart/Observe and Report. Two movies in the same year with very similar premises. Too bad Despicable Me came out first, as it seemed like the fresher concept. Megamind ended up making a lot less money, due to perhaps seeming less fresh. Too bad, as Megamind is the much superior movie of the two. Its more unpredictable, and a much funnier movie.

I don't really get why this movie was such a hit. In fact, when it comes to animations, it really takes a far step back the way that X-men Origins: Wolverine was a step back in the superhero genre. Pixar and Dreamworks started making aninamted films that truly were for the entire family. There was humor that kids would get, and there was humor for the adults that would go over the heads of kids.

Despicable Me is really just for the kids. The humor feels very uncreative and uninspired, might I add it goes down a completely predictable path. The 2nd half where the adorable children turn the evil man into a kind, decent person is very corny and cringe inducing. A long time ago, this animated film would have been more acceptable, but with the standards set by Pixar, Despicable Me is a step in the wrong direction.