Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

There are few movies that I am less inclined to see than the "tearjerker."  I have nothing against tears or jerking, it's just...well, why watch a sad movie, when there are explosions to be had?  Sadly, I did watch Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (not ...Uncomfortably Close, as I have often misquoted the title), because it was nominated for 2011's Best Picture Oscar.  While I am not a big fan of sentimental films, the book this is based on was written by the author of Everything Is Illuminated, which is a decently weird movie.  Maybe there is something more than sad in this film...?  Maybe...?

Oskar (Thomas Horn) is a weird kid.  You might think that he is autistic or something, but apparently the tests came back inconclusive.  Anyways, he's a weird kid dealing with some heavy tragedy.  Oskar's natural weirdness makes it difficult for him to deal with the real world, much less other human beings.  Luckily, his father (Tom Hanks) understands him and goes to great lengths to get Oskar out of his shell.  For instance, dad gives Oskar frequent quests, where Oskar must follow the clues to a hidden treasure of questionable value; Oskar has fun and employs critical thinking while his dad makes sure he interacts with strangers and faces other vaguely autistic fears.

...Like touching the floor --- it's lava, you know...!

Then, everything goes pear-shaped.  Dad is, by a fluke of his schedule, caught in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, which Oskar refers to as "the worst day."  He calls home several times, but his wife (Sandra Bullock) isn't home and Oskar can't bring himself to answer. Dad dies.  A year later, an increasingly isolated Oskar stumbles across a key amidst his late father's belongings.  Believing this to be part of one of his scavenger hunts, Oskar decides to scour New York City for information leading to the destination for his mystery key.  You can't just figure out what a fairly anonymous key goes to without introducing yourself to a few dozen random strangers, though, so Oskar forces himself out of his shell to unlock his father's final puzzle.  In the meantime, I think we can all assume that he'll discover something more symbolic and puppet-stringing, right?

Look, I don't have a particular problem with stories that use September 11th as a backdrop.  It's emotionally inflammatory, but I understand that there are a lot of good stories that revolve around that date.  Honestly, I doubt that World Trade Center and United 93 are great films, but I respect the need to make them. In a way, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a lot like Bruce Springsteen's The Rising; it may not necessarily be about September 11th, but it certainly is flavored by it.

September 11 is one of those moments in history where you are supposed to remember where you were and what you were doing when the shit went down.  Personally, I was lucky enough to be in college at the time, catching the early action on morning television, before being stunned with my friends in a dormitory common room.  For the record, I still went to all my classes that day, although there weren't many that were worth attending that day.

It's not your fault, Max

Once you get beyond the emotional mindfuck that comes from a plot that deals with senseless tragedy, you might find yourself focusing on the actors.  Thomas Horn is the main character, and I completely understand if you found him irritating; he isn't exactly autistic (he's somewhere on the spectrum, though), but he's very peculiar and odd enough to stick out, even in New York City.  I can't say that his peculiarities bothered me, but I understand if they bothered you.

Okay, that tambourine irritated the shit out of me

Tom Hanks was essentially what you want Tom Hanks to be in this movie; he was the perfect dad --- loving, clever, understanding, and demanding all in one Oscar-winning doughboy.  This is the most likable I have seen Hanks in almost a decade.  Sandra Bullock played his loving wife, who balances mind-numbing grief with plot twists bold enough to almost make you think she isn't the worst parent in NYC.

Reading your kid's diary doesn't make you a good parent

Max von Sydow gave a great performance as Oskar's helper/possible relative; it wasn't too difficult of a role, but he made the lack of dialogue seem irrelevant, which is the benchmark of a good actor in a gimmicky role.  Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright also played key small parts, and they were as good as you should expect them to be in supporting roles.  In other words, "very."  The only small role that confused me was John Goodman as the abrasive doorman; he was fine, but I was surprised to see such a fine actor in such a bit part.  I was not, however, surprised to see Chris Hardwick playing a funeral director; I love the guy, but he's not much of an actor.

This isn't Stephen Daldry's first Best Picture-nominated film, you know.  He made The Reader and The Hours, not to mention Billy Elliot back in the day.  For some reason, though, I feel the need to justify Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as an Oscar contender.  This is, without a doubt, a well-made film.  There is nothing technically flawed in this movie.  If you have studied film style, you will find EL&IC a cornucopia of established film styles.  And yet...and yet...this is kind of a dull film.

Don't get me wrong.  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close will make you cry.  I you don't weep, your heart is made of ash and you probably rape penguins for fun.  That doesn't make this a great film.  Instead, it feels a lot like a well-made simulation of human emotion.  The story is a little drawn out and more than a little obvious, but the pacing is excellent and the gradual reveals are expertly done.  At the very least, it makes sure to hit as many broad emotional marks as it can; if you have a strained relationship with your mother, then consider this the reason you call your mom crying this year.  If you are on solid ground with your parents...well, you might as well give them a call, since the inevitable zombie apocalypse is on its way, anyhow...

I happen to have a pretty solid relationship with my parents, so that little guilt trip didn't make Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close strike a chord for me.  Is this a great film?  Absolutely not.  It is a very well-acted and well-directed Lifetime movie of the week.  The loose connection to a tragedy makes it seem more relevant, but the key to this film is that "the worst day" shouldn't influence every single day.  I completely understand if this movie hits home for you, though, since it does strike some very basic chords.  However, if you are lucky enough to A) not be directly affected by this tragedy and B) not fight with your parents, then this film will not provide the Oscar "oomph" you may be expecting from a nominee.

The Help

*** Included in Brian's Best and Worst of 2011 ***

Right before the Oscars, I saw all nine nominations for Best Picture in the theater.  In the span of two days.  Feeling exhausted after sitting the the dark all day is definitely a first world complaint, but it got a bit difficult at times, and ever since, I've had trouble sitting down and gathering my thoughts about those movies.  The nice thing about watching all nine films was that I watched movies that I would have otherwise avoided.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was definitely not on my list of movies to watch, nor was The Help.  But I did see them, even if tearjerkers are not my favorite genre, and each film taught me a valuable lesson.

The lesson: white women are evil

In the early 1960s, Skeeter (Emma Stone) is finally home after four years earning her degree at the University of Mississippi.  Skeeter is different from all the other girls she grew up with; aside from settling for "Skeeter" as a nickname, she also went to school to prepare herself for a job, not to hunt for a husband.  When she came home, she was expecting to be congratulated by the woman who raised her.  No, not her mother (Allison Janney), silly --- Constantine (Cicely Tyson), Skeeter's family's black maid. 

Above: Young Skeeter.  Not Pictured: Constantine's striped socks

Mom tells Skeeter that Constantine quit and moved to Chicago to live with her family, but doing something that would be plausible in any other story sounds suspicious to Skeeter --- at the very least, Constantine would have written her a letter, right?  Even setting aside that unsettling development, post-graduate life isn't exactly what Skeeter had in mind.  Her friends and family expect her to get married and have kids immediately, but she wants a career.  And the only job she could find in her field (writing) is as an advice columnist specializing in cleaning around the house.  Too bad she doesn't know the first thing about housecleaning.  If only Constantine was around, she would certainly help Skeeter by essentially doing her work for her!

"Maybe you can write about having Mommy dress you as an adult?"

But wait just a minute...there are other black maids in Skeeter's town --- perhaps one or more of them could give her helpful advice for her column?  Enter Aibileen (Viola Davis), maid to one of Skeeter's friends.  Aibileen agrees (after being allowed by her employers, of course) to advise Skeeter.  Spending time with Aibileen makes Skeeter more aware of her town's casual racism, and this gives her an idea --- Aibileen should tell her side of things, so people could learn about life from the perspective of "the help."  This had never been done before, so it was novel enough to get Skeeter's foot in the door at a book publishing house --- now, all she needed was a variety of hard-hitting and dramatic stories from dozens of "helpers."  That should be easy enough.  After all, it's not like this story takes place right around 1962 Mississippi, where any African American adult could lose their livelihood or their life just for standing up for their legal rights, right?  Oh, wait...crap.  Writing a book about the dirt behind the closed doors of her hometown might not be the safest idea anyone ever had for a book.

Great.  Now they need a lookout to go shopping.  Thanks, Skeeter.

In any conversation about The Help, the first thing that should pop up is the performances.  Viola Davis was excellent as the film's main character, even if it isn't necessarily the lead character.  Davis carries this film's emotional content, whether it be grief, heartbreak, a feeling of injustice, or pride.  Octavia Spencer is also very, very good as the sassiest maid in town.  I realize that the sassy black woman is not a rarity in film, but it's still a pleasure to see the role done right.  Emma Stone's Skeeter acts as the audience's point of view character, and I thought Stone did a fine job with what she had to work with.  I have my reservations about her character, but I'll touch on that in a bit.  Bryce Dallas Howard was suitably evil as the biggest racist and snob among Skeeter's friends; this wasn't a deep role, but Howard made sure that the character had absolutely no redeeming qualities.  Jessica Chastain was significantly better, balancing a ditzy character's foibles with some solid dramatic points.  I'm a little curious as to how her character's appearance was explained to her, but I guess it underlined her as a social outsider.

"Love that Joker!"

The rest of the cast falls in somewhere between bit parts and extremely brief supporting roles.  It was nice to see Sissy Spacek having fun with  her role; her reactions definitely improved a few scenes.  Allison Janney was solid, but I would have liked to see her do more.  For theoretically being such a pivotal character for Skeeter, Cicely Tyson didn't have much screen time, although she was still pretty good when she was given the chance.  Other actors, like Ahna O'Reilly, Chris Lowell, Aunjanue Ellis, and Mike Vogel showed up and did whatever the script required of them, although some of their characters seemed to make choices that were awfully convenient to the plot.

That convenience is part of what frustrates me about The Help.  While the film goes out of its way to bring up some very serious issues --- racism, domestic abuse, civil rights, etc. --- most of those issues are glossed over.  When the other maids come forward and contribute to Skeeter's book, some of them have very sad tales, but they are only minor characters in this story, and their sole purpose is to say something tragic and then fade out of the story.  The otherwise indomitable Minny is afraid of her husband's rage, and we see her cowering from his blows, but that entire subplot is resolved off-camera.  Other moments, like Chris Lowell's abrupt departure from the film, come out of left field, indicating that their characters are merely props for the main characters to interact with.

Above: three main characters, two props, and a bridge table

I hesitate to blame director Tate Taylor for these deficiencies, though.  This is a film with an enormous cast, most of whom are limited to a few lines and a single costume.  Taylor did a great job with his primary cast, given their roles.  He was able to tell the story simply, without getting sidetracked in unnecessary subplots, and he made sure to hit every possible emotional moment on the head.  The Help is going to try to make you cry, and it will probably succeed.  At the very least, it should disgust you with its (presumably) accurate depiction of racism in the American South in the sadly not distant past.  The camera work is nothing special, but the voice-over and editing are handled nicely.  Given the source of the story, Taylor handled this film about as well as anyone I can imagine, given the limitations of the story.

Don't be confused, though.  The Help is not a very deep or thought-provoking film.  It goes for an emotional response and gets it, but the message probably won't stick with you for long.  Part of this is due to the simplicity of the characters.  This is a film with good people (not racist or sexist) and bad people (racist bullies), with very little grey area; yes, there are two characters who fire their maids because a bossy racist pressures them to, but they're more cowards than racists or evil.  There are working stiffs (the maids and Skeeter) and there are privileged housewives (every other female character).  There are cowards and there are brave folk.

"Bless you, Skeeter, for using my talent to find you a job."

Even the simplicity doesn't explain quite why I felt manipulated by The Help.  This should be an empowering film because the protagonists improved their lot in life and fought a grave injustice.  Instead, I was kind of annoyed by Skeeter.  I know I am supposed to root for her because she's spunky, educated, and wants to fight racism, but she kind of sucks.  First of all, the film depicts her situation as being risk-free; I realize that racists could harm her, but she is never implied to be in danger.  Aibileen and Missy are clearly afraid, but Skeeter never appears worse than socially awkward.  Second, Skeeter shouldn't even be the main character.  The most interesting character in the film is Aibileen --- she is brave, smart, and Skeeter is essentially just transcribing her story --- but we have to sit through Skeeter's tale?  I would much rather have the film focus on Aibileen than deal with the Skeeter's epic romance that boils down to a guy saying "You're different from the other girls."  Maybe Skeeter would have been more palatable as the main character if the fate of Constantine --- which is treated like a mystery throughout the film --- wasn't incredibly obvious from the start and the resolution seemed to be delayed only by the main character making a conscious choice not to pursue the matter until the end of the film. 

The Help left me surprisingly cold.  It has a happy ending, where everyone you care about is moving onward and upward, and yet it just feels like Skeeter used some poor black women to help her get the hell out of podunk Mississippi, while Aibileen apparently plans to put "a white woman anonymously included my stories in an anthology" on her next job application.  This movie simplifies complex matters, almost to an insulting degree.  While I certainly don't advocate racism, I'm pretty sure that it comes in varying degrees; Bryce Dallas Howard was so unsympathetic that she could have passed for a Bond villain.  Thank goodness the racists weren't complex characters, otherwise the audience might have to think about an unsettling issue instead of just being relieved that things aren't as obviously racist today.

...although there is still a risk of tampered food.  Tip your waiters!

The Help is worth seeing for the acting alone.  It's an emotional film, but it is an uplifting one as well, provided you don't put a whole lot of hard thought into it.  Large chunks are predictable, but every so often something or somebody will surprise you. Is this a movie that I liked?  Not especially, but there were enough strong performances to make this worthwhile, at least once.

Brian's Best and Worst of 2011

It is, once again, almost time for the Oscars!  While I am not the biggest fan of the Academy Awards, I do like having some sort of quality barometer in Hollywood, even one that is skewed, political, and often rewards career achievements instead of current ones.  Since so many high-profile films come out at the end of the year, looking to cash in on Christmas vacationers and still make year-end best-of lists, I never get a chance to watch the most critically acclaimed films before the year's end.  But...if Hollywood can wait until the end of February to rate the last year of cinema, so can I, right?  I know, I know...what a jerk I am, stealing Hollywood's thunder!

I don't like doing Top Ten lists, though.  That's too cut-and-dry, and it completely ignores all the truly awful stuff I run across every year.  I like to break the year down into several best and worst categories, and "best" and "worst" are probably more accurately defined as "most favorite" and "most hated" by me.

So exactly what films did I watch in time to consider for this list?

Abduction.  The Artist.  Battle: Los Angeles.  Black Death.  Blitz.  Captain America: The First Avenger.  The Code.  Conan the Barbarian.  Contagion.  Cowboys & Aliens.  The Descendants.  Drive.  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  Faces in the Crowd.  Fast Five.  Fright Flick.  Fright Night.  Green Lantern.  Hanna.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.  The Help.  Hobo With a Shotgun.  Horrible Bosses.  Hugo.  I Saw the Devil.  The Ides of March.  Insidious.  Ironclad.  Kill the Irishman.  Killer Elite.  Limitless.  The Mechanic.  Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.  Midnight in Paris.  Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.  Moneyball.  Ong Bak 3.  Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Red State.  The Resident.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Season of the Witch.  Shark Night 3D.  Source Code.  Sucker Punch.  Super 8.  Take Me Home Tonight.  13 Assassins.  Thor.  Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  The Tree of Life.  Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.  War Horse.  The Ward.  Warrior.  X-Men: First Class.

I wasn't able to review all of these in time for the Oscars, but I did watch them.  There are some noteworthy absences from that list, though.  Here are some of the movies I wanted to see, but failed to in time:

The Adjustment Bureau, A Dangerous Method, 50/50, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Guard, Hesher, Shame, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,  and most of the stupid comedies of the year.

Let's start of with some of the more overlooked moments in film this year, shall we?

Best Bit Character
You know those roles that are very amusing, but aren't substantial enough to actually be called "supporting"?  I love those!  They are sadly undervalued in modern cinema, but not by me.  While I was amused by the Blue F'n Lights in Super 8, I have to give credit to Adrien Brody for his Salvador Dali impression in Midnight in Paris.

And for flicking off Owen Wilson

I normally dislike Brody, but his oddly-enunciated, rhinoceros-obsessed few minutes onscreen amused the hell out of me.  As an added bonus, from what little I know about Dali at the time, the impression seemed pretty accurate.

Best Supporting Actress
This is typically a tough category for me.  I don't watch many "chick flicks," and the films I choose to watch usually don't have well-developed female characters.  This year, though, I found a handful of actresses impressive.  Elle Fanning (Super 8) and Saiorse Ronan (Hanna) were both surprisingly mature, and Octavia Spencer was the prototypical sassy black woman in The Help, which is naturally pretty awesome to watch.  However, my favorite supporting performance this year was definitely Shailene Woodley in The Descendants.

Note: embed flattering photo here

I think she did the best job with the most complex character, at least from the movies I caught.  Granted, that character was a bitchy, rebellious teenager (not exactly avant garde), but I thought she handled the role perfectly.

Worst Supporting Actress
I'm going to go with Marianne Faithfull in Faces in the Crowd.  What makes her any worse than, say, anyone in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, or Melissa Leo's horribly over-the-top performance in Red State?  Well, like the prison food mentioned in The Blues Brothers, they're all pretty bad.  Faithfull just had the least believable character --- a deaf therapist that gives no indication that she is deaf whatsoever --- out of the group.  Plus, she provides some of the worst exposition I saw on film this year.

Best Supporting Actor
There were, as always, a lot of supporting actor roles that stuck out to me this year.  Colin Farrell (Fright Night) and Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class) were pretty bad-ass in some potentially silly roles.  Tom Hardy (Warrior) and Paul Giamatti (The Ides of March) gave surprisingly powerful dramatic performances.  Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) once again gave a spectacular motion-capture performance.  My favorite supporting performance by far, though, definitely belonged to Albert Brooks in Drive.  He was just so deliciously merciless --- he is definitely my favorite villain of the year.

Not the tools of the trade you might expect from Brooks

Worst Supporting Actor
As tempted as I am to crown Tom Felton for being terrible in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, this is a prize that was won with teamwork.  My winner for Worst Supporting Actor is the supporting cast of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  I don't care if you want to focus on Ken Jeong's idiotic character or John Turturro's embarrassing cash-in role, John Malkovich's bewildering presence, or if you just hate Kevin Dunn's "why hasn't he been stepped on already?" turn as Mr. Witwicky --- this movie sucked, and there were simply too many awful performances to not win this award.

A well-placed Autobot foot could have made this so much better

On a related note, Patrick Dempsey is a crappy evil villain, especially when you compare him to giant killer robots.

Best Actress
There wasn't much competition for this, given the films I watched.  Even without any other real contenders, Viola Davis was excellent in The Help.

As manipulative as the film is (and I would qualify it as "very"), Davis did a great job balancing contradicting emotional extremes.  The only reason The Help is up for a Best Picture Academy Award this year is thanks to its excellent acting, and Davis was the film's anchor.

Worst Actress
This was a tight race.  As deserving as Tiffany and Debbie Gibson were in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, Lily Collins was even worse in Abduction.  And as terrible as Collins and her eyebrows were, they cannot compare to the hatred I have in my heart for Emily Browning in Sucker Punch.  The whole movie was handled poorly, but Browning was on screen the most, and alternated between a pouty face and a vacant stare. 

Go to Brian's movie jail.  Do not collect go, do not collect $200

I honestly don't know if anyone could have salvaged the train wreck that was Sucker Punch, but it takes a unique talent to confuse and anger me while playing a rape victim.

Best Actor
I went through most of 2011's films without witnessing an excellent lead acting performance, but that has changed over the last month.  I thought Min-Sik Choi was positively chilling in I Saw the Devil.  I loved Ryan Gosling's extremely peculiar work in Drive.  I loved George Clooney's subtle and complex work in The Descendants.  The performance that I enjoyed the most this year, though, was Brad Pitt in Moneyball.

This is a film that could have easily been deadly dull (to non-statistical nuts like me), but Pitt carried it with consistently good timing and a whole lot of staring and looking worried.  Was it a better performance than Clooney's or Jean Dujardin in The Artist?  Maybe not.  But I responded more to his character than anyone other this year.  Besides, my beloved Cubs will be atrocious in 2012, so I need to enjoy baseball any way I can.

Worst Actor
This race boils down to who I hated more this year: Shia LaBeouf in Trannies 3 or Taylor Lautner in Abduction.  Man, this is a tough one!  Shia was insufferable as an entitled dick in T3, but Lautner was offensively bad.  I think Lautner barely squeaks this one out, but only because he can be out-acted by shadow puppets.

This is his "reading" face

Best Director
I'm going to go with the only director that truly impressed me with his style and competence this year: Nicolas Winding Refn, for Drive.  The only other director that even came close for ballsiness and frame composition was Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), but Refn embraced noir, awkwardness, and extreme violence and made it all work in a taut thriller.

Worst Director
Part of me wants to go with John Singleton for doing absolutely nothing right in Abduction.  Another part of me wants to slap David R. Ellis for not changing his style for Shark Night 3D, despite its PG-13 rating.  But those are just two very small parts of me; 98% of me hates Zack Snyder for Sucker Punch.  My dislike for his recent work is almost Biblical; I wish I could salt the proverbial earth of Snyder's career.  As gorgeous as his films look, Sucker Punch was a confused, soulless rape fantasy, poorly disguised as some sort of extended "girl power" metaphor.  How do you screw up having dragons, steam-powered soldiers, and gundams?  Watch Sucker Punch.  No, wait...don't.

Biggest Disappointment
Runner-up goes to John Carpenter's return to directing, The Ward.  Too bad it was terrible.  I was prepared for that, though, because Carpenter has had his share of misses over the last thirty or forty years.  I was most disappointed by Green Lantern.  It had a lot of promise --- and the space scenes were actually pretty cool --- but the story was horribawful.  I didn't need this to be good to have fun with it, but I would have appreciated less boredom and fewer stupid humans.

Biggest Surprise
I had a few mild surprises this year.  Marcus Nispel made a decent flick for a change (Conan the Barbarian).  Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a clearly unnecessary film, wasn't terrible.  I didn't vomit bile when watching Matthew Lillard in The Descendants.  I would be a liar, though, if I said there was any bigger surprise than the extended Discovery Channel acid trip during The Tree of Life.

Love it or hate it, you cannot honestly tell me that you expected that movie to make that choice at that time.  I'm pretty sure I spent most of this sequence with a confused look and my mouth half open.

Bottom 5 Movies
I could pick on the made-to-suck horror movies I watched this year (Fright Flick and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid), but I didn't expect them to be anything close to good.  These five are bad and have earned my ire.
5. The Ward - Have you ever wanted to watch a really bad version of Identity?  Have you ever wanted to watch a movie like that while feeling sorry for the director?  Well, do I have a movie for you!  You want to know how bad this movie is?  Here's the best scene in the entire film:

4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Here's what it takes to make an awesome Transformers movie: have giant robots fight each other.  It doesn't have to be smart.  It doesn't have to do anything except look cool and have a simple plot.  Somehow, that message never reached Michael Bay.  There were too many humans, too many "jokes," and too many interchangeable robots in this clusterfuck of a blockbuster.  And the Witwicky family still refused to die!  The only reason I can imagine anyone liking Trannies 3 is for putting Rosie Huntington-Whitely in high definition.  Well guess what, teenagers?  She's an underwear model.  You don't have to watch this movie to ogle her, there's a great big internet just waiting for you!

3. Season of the Witch - I don't know what the worst thing about this movie is.  It could be the fact that Nic Cage actually underacted, given how ridiculous the story is.

Stunning, I know

Maybe it is the hilarious parallels it invites to classic films.  Both are good reasons, but I think the biggest one is the complete lack of witches in this movie.  Not even zombie monks could save this.

2. Abduction - I've already touched upon how inept this movie is, but this is truly one of the worst movies I have seen that was widely released.  The hair clogging your shower has more talent than Taylor Lautner.

1. Sucker Punch - Despite looking like it should be made of the dreams of horny teenage boys, this was drab, dull, and rapey.  Maybe that's your cup of tea.  If it is, I assume you are already in prison for committing violent acts against humanity and good taste in general.

More like a donkey punch

Top 10 Movies
10. Hugo -I have a soft spot in my heart for characters that are struggling to find their place in the world, and I believe in the magic of cinema, so Hugo was right up my alley.  Scorsese's direction, while fun to look at (even in 3D), pandered a bit too much toward young children for my tastes, but it was still touching and adorable.

9. Hobo With a Shotgun - Rarely does a movie meet my every expectation.  Hobo... delivered on the promise of its title and added Robocop-quality acting and Troma levels of violence.  Sadly, it was snubbed by the academy this year.  I wonder why?

8. The Artist - Jean Dujardin is charming and is a gifted physical actor.  Who needs to hear him speak?  Along with that talent, director Michel Hazanavicius made an extremely clever film with superb cinematography and (not terribly subtle) symbolism.  It was cute, it was different, but it didn't strike any particular emotional chords within me.

7. Midnight In Paris - I didn't expect to enjoy this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Instead of wallowing in nostalgia, like so many acclaimed films this year (Super 8, The Artist, Hugo), Woody Allen made a film that realized the folly in Golden Age thinking.  I imagine that your appreciation for the film only deepens with your own knowledge of the art and literature scene in 1920s Paris, but even if you are clueless, the supporting cast is extremely enjoyable.  And every word out of Corey Stoll's mouth is pure gold.

Have you ever shot a charging lion?

6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 - Eight movies in ten years, and all of them were good.  I'm going to miss the Harry Potter series, but this last chapter paid off the setups of the past few films nicely.  It could have been more visually imaginative, and there were a literal ton of characters in the film to pay attention to, but this was a quality send-off to an excellent series.  Plus, it didn't have, like, six endings, like Lord of the Rings.

5. X-Men: First Class - Given the debacles that were X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I didn't have high hopes for this one.  Thankfully, Matthew Vaughn saved my favorite comic franchise from movie production hell.  The real credit goes to Michael Fassbender's awesome performance as Magneto.  We need more of that, and soon.

Michael Fassbender face IS...Magneto's Crotch

4. The Descendants - A possibly gut-wrenching concept gets a whole lot easier to handle and more interesting through Alexander Payne's treatment and George Clooney's excellent performance.  It's about as uplifting a film as you're going to see from a movie about death and infidelity.

3. Moneyball - This movie simply should not have been fun or interesting to watch at all.  On paper, it sounds as entertaining as balancing your checkbook, but I was drawn into Moneyball.  I enjoyed Brad Pitt's Robert Redford impression and actually liked Jonah Hill for once (I disagree with his nominations, though).  What I liked most about this movie was its sense of timing, which I suppose means that I liked its editing.  Whatever.  This is a sports movie that can appeal to the non-sports fan because the heroes don't play sports.  That's brilliant!

2. I Saw the Devil - It's hard to find a genuinely disturbing horror movie, so I like the acknowledge them when I find 'em.  Taking the typical premise (bad guy kills my people, I must take the law into my own hands!) to a logical but somewhat surprising end, Jee-Woon Kim crafted a brutal and unnerving film.  I like it when heroes are not heroic, and this movie delivered.

Pretty.  Disturbing.

1. Drive -By far, this was the most peculiar and enjoyable film I saw all year.  It was weird, it was painfully awkward, it was violent, and it was oddly touching.  Better than all that, it was suspenseful.  As awkward and unrecognizable as the Driver was as a human, there is a simple sweetness underneath that amazing scorpion jacket.  Of course, his character is also a psycho waiting to erupt, but that's the price you pay for being so damn cool.