Noah: Aronofsky's Guide to Adaptation.

Singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain.

In many ways, Aronofsky has done with Noah what I've been begging someone to do for a long time.  He's taken a story that everyone's familiar with and adapted it into a twisted nightmare for everyone who was hoping for a faithful adaptation.  Sure, I was hoping for a twisted adaptation of a beloved young adult novel (C'mon, R-rated Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), but this will do for now.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, of Which I Start Writing Four Different Things and Then Forget What My Point Was.

I assume the rule of thirds is applied here by accident.

On a delightfully whimsical day in the throes of 2007, a much-thinner-than-now, pink-haired youth sitting in a quaint classroom in the romantic and mysterious land of East Lansing, Michigan was asked to provide to the classroom his favorite director of films.  To this question, he replied simply—avoiding the tenuous conviction typically associated with the youths of 2007—with "Woody Allen" (Or Takashi Miike, one can't be too sure in a year like 2007).  One after another, the next eleven youths in a row supplied "Wes Anderson" as their most preferred director of cinema.  And the colored girls went, "Doo do doo do doo do do doo..."

The Top Ten Films of 2013

    With the Oscars tomorrow, I suppose it's time to grit my teeth, throw five films randomly in the 6-10 slots and start writing.  The last time I had this much difficulty assigning arbitrary rankings, my girlfriend had just dumped me and I spent twelve hours rearranging my Top 8 on Myspace.  That's not to say I didn't like a lot of films this year, I just liked way too many of them exactly the same.  Ties went to the films I wanted to write about.  As always, documentaries are ineligible and I didn't see any animated films.  Let's start with some honorary awards.

Oblivion: At Least Will Smith Isn't In It.

I'm quite torn on Oblivion.  I'm not sure if I should tell you to avoid it at all costs because it's incredibly bad, or if I should tell you to see it immediately because it is amazingly bad.  Either way, it's the worst movie I've seen all year, except for maybe that Wizard of Oz bastardization.

The Place Beyond the Pines, or How to Ruin a Movie with Bradley Cooper.

Dear Derek Cianfrance,

I think I see what happened here.  I'll bet you had this really great idea for a film, and the whole time you were writing it you were thinking, "Damn, this is good."  And you kept writing it, it kept being brilliant, and then you finished it and realized that it was only forty-five minutes long.

And in this instance, you blew it.  The first segment of The Place Beyond the Pines is fantastic and the rest of it is a sub-par addendum; devoid of any real emotional or thematic connection to its predecessor.

The Top 10 Films of 2012, or Ten Films that Wouldn't Have Made My Top 10 list in 2011.

Accepting the award for best still of the year is Holy Motors, because the still from Killer Joe was NSFW.

There were a lot of films that I liked in 2012, just not very many that I liked a lot.  There's currently a twenty way tie for tenth going on but, by the time I finish this opening paragraph, I promise I'll pick one.  My list is fairly predictable, but I'll try to spruce it up with witty/childish/gangsta commentary.  I had tried to make the list better by watching plenty of non-Hollywood films but, unfortunately for 2012, that meant that I watched twenty bad movies in a row.  As always, the list does not include documentaries, because then this would just be a list of ten documentaries.  Before we get started, here are some personality awards (because fat kids deserve recognition too):

Side Effects: May Include a Fedora Montage.

In case you haven't heard, there's a new C-Tates movie out.  It's called Side Effects, and it stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and everyone's favorite ex-stripper.  Side Effects is directed by Steven Soderbergh, who I always get confused with David Cronenberg, because they're both Jews who occasionally make good thrillers when they're not busy making garbage.  Soderbergh's track record is arguably more consistent, and Side Effects certainly adds weight to his claim.

Side Effects is one those rare films that I won't gut the plot for you, because the less you know the better.  Catherine Zeta-Jones may not dip beneath any lasers, but I can promise you an awkward montage of a giggling, fedora-wearing Channing Tatum.  If that's somehow not enough for you, read after the break.