“I have to apologize. I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun.”

I can’t believe it’s that time again and have been dreading it to be honest. I’m not sure if it was an exceptionally weak year and some very odd choices but I care less and less each year about what some insane, wizened people consider the best movies of the year. 

 I guess I’m not going to have anything pithy and sarcastic to say about 12 Years a Slave even though I am typically all about Bandersnatch jokes.  It’s the same with Dallas Buyers Club because I did not see it and the world begins and ends with Wooderson and Jordan Catalano as far as I’m concerened. 

 American Hustle was flawed but okay.  It definitely had the best close ups of shoes and belt buckles than any other film this year.  Jeremy Renner and Jack Huston saved it from being 100% miscast and only because it’s impossible to miscast those two.  (Who can we get for the half-faced assassin slash love interest and Jack Keroauc?)

 I loved Captain Phillips but it is another one of those Paul Greengrass movies where you know how it ends and when the lights go up at the end all the menfolk are weeping. 

 Gravity was great in IMAX but I experienced several separate mutinies from people when trying to watch it on a small screen.  Apparently it’s only about immersion and the effects because the Lucy Ricardo in space thing worked for exactly zero people when viewing at home.  One held out until Clooney floated away and then it got really ugly for me. 

 Her is good but long.  I know he was creating a world so maybe it needed the length but to me it felt way too long.  Wolf of Wall Street was absurdly long.  I wish Scorsese would turn all his attention to film preservation and history because I cannot sit through any more of these that make no sense, have nothing to say and yet still use the budgets of a dozen movies that could have actually been good. 

Did not see Nebraska after Payne stood in front of the writers of the Descendants and took all the credit at the Oscars like an asshole.  Blue Jasmine should fuck off by the way.

Philomena was great.  Saving Mr. Banks was great.  Don Jon also great and Mandela was better than everything listed above.  The last three are not nominated for “Best Picture” by the way.

So I guess I don’t have a cohesive-ish menu as in years past because most of these movies inspire exactly nothing in me.  I suggest making Walt Disney’s chili recipe in protest and drinking 12 pints of beer to salute the end of the Cornetto trilogy.  I will race you since I’m hoping I will be unconscious for the ceremony this year.