Top Ten Films of 2012: Ensembles upon ensembles

Many have been saying 2012 was a great year for movies. I’m not sure I fully agree. There were a ton of solid 7/10s and 8/10s, yes, but how does that compare with previous years when the amount of 10/10s were also drastically reduced? It took until September for me to give a film four stars and the two I did laud with such a distinction that month were the only ones. Rather than a showcase of masterpiece cinema, 2012 was instead a year of the performance. And I mean…

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REVIEW: God Bless America [2012]

“You guys need extra napkins?” I’ll probably end up on some kind of list for saying it, but Frank Murdoch is my new hero. Here is a guy so fed up with the disintegrating IQ of America turning its rabble into slaves to C-list celebrities and numb to shock value that he’s decided to cleanse the country of its idiocy. Evil role models, entitled millionaires, prepubescent whores, and a new generation so attached to their technologically advanced toys that they’ve lost the concept of personal responsibility and human compassion—all must…

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REVIEW: Savages [2012]

“Money’s not enough. You’ve got to give your heart.” Who’s crueler: a vicious Mexican cartel decapitating men to send a message or a couple Laguna boys willing to do whatever it takes to protect the emotionally damaged girlfriend they share? Being a trick question, the answer is yes. Plain and simply, humanity has forever been plagued by the capacity for evil since the dawn of time, whether a monkey discovering the blunt force trauma capability of a stick or Eve biting that gosh darned apple in Paradise. We yearn for…

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REVIEW: The Killer Inside Me [2010]

“It’s always lightest just before the dark” Nobody is more across the board genre-wise than director Michael Winterbottom. Who else could traverse the broad canvases of Steve Coogan shenanigans, Guantanamo Bay documentation, the human condition of emotion in the face of terrorism, and an unsimulated meld of sex and rock n’ roll? Shake those sensibilities up with screenwriter John Curran’s penchant for thought-provoking material, (this year’s Stone is much more than the cookie cutter its trailer advertises), and the pulp crime styling of novelist Jim Thompson and you’ll need to…

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Top 15 Films of 1994

(short and sweet and to the point; culled from watching 40 releases. constantly updated as i catch up to those i missed. click poster for review if applicable) #15: Bullets Over Broadway directed by Woody Allen #14: Oleanna directed by David Mamet #13: Reality Bites directed by Ben Stiller #12: Heavenly Creatures directed by Peter Jackson.. #11: Quiz Show directed by Robert Redford.. #10: The AdventuresOf Priscilla,Queen Of The Desert directed by Stephan Elliott #09: Stargate directed by Roland Emmerich. #08: Interview withthe Vampire directed by Neil Jordan #07: The…

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