On the eve of the Academy Award nominations, I offer up my own top ten from the past year, in order:
1) Django: Unchained. Best film of the year. Adam Corolla nailed it on his podcast the other day: “If Scorcese, Spielberg and Tarantino all had movies premiering on the same night, I’d choose to see Tarantino’s, because it’s guaranteed to be the most fun.” And: “I would have paid three times the price to see this, because I got the entertainment of three movies.”
2) Argo. Three of my favorite movies this year are based on true stories, which kinda makes sense; the fact that Argo really happened ramps up the tension that much more, and makes it all the more fascinating. Ben Affleck kept it as accurate as he could – during the closing credits, the actors’ photos were paired up with the real people they played, and it was amazing to see how much they looked alike.
3) Looper. Best sci-fi flick of the year, and the most original one in a couple decades. It’s Blade Runner meets The Terminator. It’s so cool and complex, you may want to go back and see it twice. More of this in 2013, please.
4) Silver Linings Playbook. Bradley Cooper in two of the best films of the year? Heck yeah. If you’ve ever had your heart broken or wanted to beat the living shit out of someone (or both), have I got a recommendation for you.
5) The Words. Two of Bradley Cooper’s friends from Philly wrote this back in the 90s (long before he was famous), and made him promise to star in it if it ever was produced. He kept his promise. I still can’t figure out why this film came and went so fast that I wound up seeing it on a plane three months after it premiered. It’s a classic.
6) Celeste and Jesse Forever. Best comedy of the year. Best soundtrack of the year. Not based on a true story, but for anyone who’s ever had his/her heart broken, it may as well have been.
7) Bernie. There’s no justification for shooting a woman in the back four times with a .22 rifle, but this movie comes awfully close. Shirley MacLaine is a little too good at playing a bitch, if you know what I mean.
8) Moonrise Kingdom. I love Wes Anderson, though some find his films to be an acquired taste. This film, however, is in rarified air: on Rotten Tomatoes, it received a score of 98%. I realized at the end of it that I’d been laughing nonstop for 90 minutes.
9) Searching For Sugar Man. Documentaries have their own Oscar category, but this one could easily compete for best picture. It does what a great documentary should: present a fascinating mystery that sets up a huge revelation, in this case about Detroit musician Rodriguez. And it gives hope to every artist who struggles to make it.
10) Zero Dark Thirty. First we follow the CIA operatives who painstakingly researched intelligence, tortured prisoners and survived suicide-bombing attacks to track down Bin Laden. Then we get to see Seal Team Six do their thing. It opens this Friday, and when it does, every American will get a hardon (or nipple hardon, ladies) when they see it. Also, I was going to say Jessica Chastain is the next Meryl Streep, but (and this is blasphemous for an actor say) she quite possibly could be better than Meryl Streep.
