Reviews of Super Mario Brothers, Beau is Afraid, Tetris, Air

Super Mario Brothers-Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Seth Rogen, Jack Black

This animated movie isn’t just a filmic homage to the Super Mario Brothers game you grew up with as a kid; it’s hodgepodge of every video game with the Super Mario label. Kind of like Ready Player One except there’s thematic consistency. And that nostalgia factor lights a bulb in your brain. And talk about that score! It’s almost worth the price of admission to see the most memorable tunes of the early 90s outside of the Billboard top 40, to be put to orchestration. As for the story, it’s pretty typical but not lazy enough (from an adult perspective) to have made a negative viewing experience for me.

Air-Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, dir. Ben Affleck

In the mold of films like Syriana, Moneyball, and Ben Affleck’s own Argo, this latest edition of Ben Affleck is simply about a man (or group of men) and his goals. It’s in the tradition of 70s anti-hero films like French Connection, Marathon Man, China Syndrome, and especially All the President’s Men where character development is secondary to action. And Air is definitely worthy of all its predecessors: It’s paced very well and the stakes are high. Sonny Vaccaro is a fascinating rogue of a character who plays a hell of a game of speed chess against bigger companies to land the greatest player of all time. Ironically, for a film that lionizes athleticism vis-a-vis Michael Jordan -- Vaccaro’s big speech is about how no one really matters in that room but Michael Jordan, how much of that entitlement has produced college athletes who skip classes and add to rape culture?—Jordan himself wasn’t evolved. I couldn’t help but feel the film was too afraid to touch a societal golden cow.

Beau is Afraid-Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPonte, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zoe Lister, Parker Posey-Jones, dir. Ari Aster

Not a fan but it wasn’t that far away from working. The film’s marketing describes the movie as about a lonely man’s odyssey home, and the director described it as a “nightmare comedy” on press tours. I would classify it as the kind of ride that amusement park’s convert into a haunt-fest for Halloween. Only it lasts three hours, and it was seemingly co-written by Carl Jung and Franz Kafka for maximum symbolism. Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely man who’s ill-at-ease with the world. It’s kind of justified, however, because, he seems to live among the worst possible humans alive and Murphy’s Law appears to be in hyper-drive around him.  It isn’t all miserable; he’s saved from near-death on a couple occasions and finds the occasional moment of love from a stranger.   The best I can say about It, is that at three hours, it doesn’t feel that long. I was genuinely on the edge of my seat trying to work out where things would go. But at the end of a day, I’m usually not satisfied with the genre of reality-bending films. Perhaps, it was one twist too many.

Tetris-Taron Egerton, Anthony Boyle, Neketa Efremov, Oleg Stefan, Sofya Lebedeva, Tobey Jones –

Without overthinking it, I’d say this is the best film of the year so far. It’s hard to understate how impressive it is to take a subject that bores me to tears and make it a gripping thriller. Of course, it helps that the real-life story is equally mind-boggling: In order to acquire the rights for Tetris, Henk Williams mortgaged his house, risked trouble with the KGB, and was initially dependent on a company that was actively trying to screw him. When he finally broke free and secured the rights with the Nintendo company, he realized he didn’t have the rights because he was lied to. Although it’s easy to root for him in retrospect, movies like these often overlook that these bold risk takers simply can’t be classified as responsible adults. I’d love to see a deleted scene between Henk and his financial advisor. Throughout the film, Hank is in a bidding war with two other parties and the film makes great use of dramatic irony: The narration is omniscient enough to let us know what’s happening with all three parties, but the POV is tilted towards the hero and away from the villain (Anthony Boyle) as he generally knows the least of the three.  My only problem was why that I spent much of the film wondering why cast Taron Egerton when Shia LaBeouf is still alive? Egerton’s makeover here feels like he’s entering a Shia LaBeouf look-alike contest, and who needs him when this is the kind of part LaBeouf would kill?

Who Should Have Been Invited to the Academy's Acting Branch (a Year-by-Year Simulation)

One of the less publicized elements of the Academy Awards is who gets invited to join the Academy every year. Every year, a press release gets sent out and it usually gets pushed down to the proverbial page six of Hollywood trade magazines. It doesn’t really get much more than an obligatory post on corresponding entertainment websites.

From digging up press releases, it appears that about 20-25 are from the actors branch. This often includes people who have just been nominated for the first time (provided they didn’t get an at-large invite).

This is the 2014 list which includes 5 first-time nominees from the year before, a nominee from 2005 (David Straithairn) who’s paperwork must have gotten lost in the shuffle, a variety of people who were hot at the moment (Josh Hutcherson coming off the Hunger Games; Julia Louis-Dreyfuss having the hit movie Enough Said) with people who had been amassing notable roles for a while (Ben Foster, Beth Grant)

Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”, Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”, *Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”,
Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”, Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”, Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”, *Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,” “Happy-Go-Lucky”, Josh Hutcherson – “The Hunger Games,” “The Kids Are All Right”. Julia Louis-Dreyfus – “Enough Said,” “Planes”, Kelly Macdonald – “Brave,” “No Country for Old Men”, Mads Mikkelsen – “The Hunt,” “Casino Royale”, Joel McKinnon Miller – “Super 8,” “The Truman Show”, Cillian Murphy – “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Inception”, *Lupita Nyong'o – “Non-Stop,” “12 Years a Slave”, Rob Riggle – “21 Jump Street,” “The Hangover”, Chris Rock – “Grown Ups 2,” “Madagascar” *June Squibb – “Nebraska,” “About Schmidt”, Jason Statham – “Parker,” “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. David Strathairn – “Lincoln,” “Good Night, and Good Luck.

But what if we made parlor games out of who would get invited each year to the extent that we obsess around predicting the Oscars? Wouldn’t that be fun for us? Well, I can certainly say it was fun for me when I tried this exercise out for myself for the last 15 years.

I’m going to also operate under a few assumptions:

-An actor has to have at least appeared in a film in the past year before the Oscars.

-To squeeze the pressure on the process, 12 per year

-Breakout performances by people who were unknown before will have a harder time getting in because the Academy would want to award people who’ve been at it at least for a little while. At the same time, people who are hot right now, either commercially, or just earned Oscar buzz but didn’t make the cut, would also get strong consideration so there will be a balance between these forces.

-Comedy doesn’t get rewarded at the Oscars so this will be a way that the Academy would be to even the playing field.

-Actors who are successful in another medium like TV or Broadway will get in a bit more immediately once they make a good film

-As with the Oscar nominations, your chances of getting in will go up if you’re attached to a film that gets a lot of awards

-Child actors Hailie Steinfeld and Quevenzhane Wallis were not invited to join the Academy after being nominated. This is probably because they would need parental approval to even watch the other nominated movies and attend Academy-sanctioned events, so I’m assuming the Academy would have a preference for adults

-The Academy would have a need for international diversity to an extent. It would be hard enough for a critical mass to gather around an obscure film from, say, Bangladesh, but the kinds of international films that make dents at the Oscars would gain advantage. After #oscarssowhite, I’m assuming that there was a shift from international diversity to racial diversity

I’ll show you one example of my picks:

2008:

Aaron Eckhart-Eckhart broke out in the 1997 indie film In the Company of Men and had been more of a B-list leading man (someone who might carry an off-beat film) than someone at the top of the casting charts. This pick would be a response to Dark Knight being the biggest hit of the year and spillover from a number of leading roles in less successful films like Thank You for Smoking and No Reservations.

Ann Savage-An 87-year-old actress who dazzled in the 1945 film Detour before languishing in obscurity and being rediscovered at a screening of her film (literally: People didn’t know she was in attendance). She was cast in the indie My Winnipeg.

Brendan Gleeson-Today, Brendan Gleeson is a lot more visible considering his starring role in Mr. Mercedes, his guest role in his kids’ series Frank of Ireland, his lead in the dark morality tale Calvary, and his Oscar-nominated role in Banshees of Inisherin. He had a string of memorable supporting roles but it’s arguable if Cold Mountain or Gangs of New York would have caught the attention enough to meet the threshold.

Dev Patel and Frida Pinto-I’m assuming that the Academy’s love for Slumdog Millionaire also includes a wake-up call that they have few South Asians among their ranks.  

Hiam Abbass-Abbass got some Oscar buzz for the Oscar underdog  The Visitor which managed to land Richard Jenkins one of the unlikeliest lead actor nominations I’ve ever witnessed. She went on to play the mom in Ramy.

James Franco-It’s highly possible James Franco could have gotten earlier considering Spiderman was such a big sensation when it broke the $100 million mark in 2002 and he had a big presence in all three films. He also did headline his first film Annapolis in 2006, but 2008 is when he starred in Milk (garnering significant  Oscar buzz) which was a BP nominee and showed off his comic (pot-smoking) side in Pineapple Express.

Mathieu Alarmic-Rose to prominence the year before with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (hello, indie cred) and then was a Bond villain (ironically, in one of the franchise’s more arty attempts with its en media res beginning and brooding pathos) so the commercial box is checked as well.  

Oliver Platt-Frost/Nixon was a BP nominee that featured four character actors who had not been nominated. Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, and Sam Rockwell. I’m assuming Bacon (who has been acting since the 80s) would have made the cut by now. Although a lot of people like to reverse engineer Sam Rockwell’s career since his Oscar win to suggest he was always hot shit, he was more of a cult figure who was consistently reliable but rarely on the top of the marquee. Sheen’s biggest roles required him to be overshadowed by a bigger personality (Queen, Frost/Nixon). Platt has been one of the Three Musketeers and headlined his own TV show but has he ever had his day in the sun?

Karen Allen-Without checking IMDB, can you name the highlights of Karen Allen’s career outside Indiana Jones? It’s actually not a bad list: Starman, In the Bedroom, Malcolm X, National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Perfect Storm and the Sandlot, although these roles are all pretty small. Still, being a solid working actress for the preceeding 25 years combined with one certifiable pop culture icon as Marion Ravenwood is enough to get her in.

Shia LaBeouf-The only disadvantage would have been youth in 2008. As the heir apparent to Indiana Jones and the leading man of Transformers, LaBeouf was killing it commercially and still made room for a number of smaller films like Eagle Eye, Disturbia, Bobby, and a Guide to Recognizing Your Saints over the past three years.

Thandiwe Newton-Playing Condolezza Rice in W. was a pretty high task even if it didn’t garner Oscar nomination (that director Oliver Stone peaked between 1986 and 1991 all but ensured that none of the actors from W. would never be considered). There wasn’t as much of a push for racial diversity, but there was still some and she was the female lead in Run Fatboy Run the year before and had appeared in the best picture winner Crash. She'd go on to win an Emmy for Westworld.

Runners-Up: Scott Glenn, Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sam Rockwell, Michael Sheen, Omar Benson Miller

 

2009:
Danny McBride, Emily Blunt, James Gandolfini, James McAvoy, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Maya Rudolph, Melanie Laurent, Michael Stuhlbarg, Melanie Lynskey, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Rockwell, Zoe Saldana

Runners Up: Paula Patton, Rachel Harris, Daniel Bruehl, Dianne Kruger, Rachel McAdams, Bradley Cooper, Rosamund Pike

2010:

Andrew Garfield, Daniel Radcliffe, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Emma Watson, Emily Mortimer, Jason Schwartzman, Jon Hamm, Mila Kunis, Paul Rudd, Rachel McAdams, Vincent Cassell, Zach Galifianakis

Runners-Up: Olivia Williams, Michael Cera, Patrick Wilson, Steve Carell

2011

Anthony Mackie, Armie Hammer, Beth Grant, Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Jay Zhao, Justin Timberlake, Ian McShane, Kristen Wiig, Michael Fassbender, Steve Carrell, Tom Hardy

Runners-Up: Olivia Wilde, Wendy McLoven-Coverly, Matt Lillard, Judy Greer, Ed Helms, Missi Pyle, Rose Byrne, Chris Dowd

2012:

Anne Dowd, Amanda Seyfreid, Aubrey Plaza, Ben Whishaw, Eddie Redmayne, Jason Schwartzman, John Ortiz, Kerry Washington, Martin Freeman, Matthew McConaughey, Rashida Jones, Suraja Sharma

Runners-Up: Billy Connolly, Andrew Sachs, Kyle Chandler, Carmen Ejogo

2013:

Benedict Cumberbatch, Channing Tatum, Daniel Bruehl, David Oyelowo, David Warhofsky, Dwight Henry, Jennifer Garner, Lake Bell, Margo Martindale, Michael B Jordan, Michael Kelly, Simon Pegg, Steve Coogan

Runners-Up: Idris Elba, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Sarah Paulson, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Kathryn Hahn, Greta Gerwig, Sharlito Copely

2014:

Chris Rock, Chris Pratt, Gugu Mbuthu-Raw, Kim Dickens, Lindsey Duncan, Neil Patrick Harris, Oscar Isaac, Peter Dinklage, Riz Ahmed, Rene Russo, Scoot McNairy, Timothy Spall

Runners-Up: Kristen Stewart, Charles Dance, Matthew Goode, Paddy Considine, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Strong, Merritt Weaver

2015-2022

I'm going to keep this part of the list under wraps for now because I want to either invite guests or submit this elsewhere

5 Movie Reviews: Zombieland Double Tap, Dolemite is My Name, Laundromat, Honey Boy, and Terminator Dark Fate

Zombieland Double Tap: "Zombieland" is innovative in its special effects and in an era when one out of every three movies has people shooting at people in some form, that's quite a compliment. The film is littered with clever narration and on-screen text but the use of both treads the fine line between additive and cloying.

More importantly, the film has chemistry between its quartet who form a found family and the introduction of Zoey Deutch as a valley girl along with cameos by Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch are comic highlights.

For someone who has no inherent attraction to the zombie genre, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and that's saying a lot.




Terminator Dark Fate- After three extremely underwhelming sequels, it’s pretty miraculous alone that James Cameron and company managed to make something halfway decent. Like “Logan”, a future-leaning genre is given n post-modern Western feel by setting it in the desert landscape of Mexico. While the return of Linda Hamilton’s  Sarah Connor character was hyped up as the missing ingredient, she’s a disappointing straw man, and it’s really Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mellowed-out performance (as opposed to his annoyingly silly performances in “Terminator: Genysis”) that steals the show. The high-water mark of the franchise was “Terminator 2” which combined the state-of-the-art action and novelty factor with a Spielbergian story of a kid and an unconventional parent figure. Although McKenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes have their pluses, this film doesn’t capture that magic from “Terminator 2” but the action is a non-stop adrenaline rush.


Dolemite is My Name-The “film behind the film” genre can get pretty tired but Rudy Ray Moore was such an audacious anamoly (I was planning to use the word “original” until I realized he stole his act and still remained a likeable protagonist) that his biopic is worth exploring. The rags-to-riches rise of Moore is a tale of perseverance, adaptation to the times, and is laced with underlying racial commentary without being preachy. The show boasts a strong ensemble but no one overshadows Eddie Murphy which is the way it should be: His performance needs room to  shine.


The Laundromaut-The film will garner comparisons to “The Big Short” because of the fourth wall devices, focus on financial fraud, and the loose cobbling together of different plot threads. This film is a bit more stylized (the typography is quite heavenly) but it’s a pretty apt comparison. Because “The Big Short” came first, this one’s going to look fairly derivative by comparison, but it also is a film that feels a bit pretentious and uninspired outside of its gimmickry. For an ensemble film, the film seems to put its focus in the wrong places as well. Some of the subplots don’t seem to have a suitably meaty arc and (some are going to differ from me) Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas’ characters are underused here. The two are treated as emcees to tie together the string of events rather when they could be more deeply involved in the story themselves. Still, the cast is rather impressive and the film has its moments.


Honey Boy-The film is difficult to take because it portrays parental abuse so barely, but it is an assured work of art. Shia LaBeouf has been a very unconventional star and this is a culmination of much of his grappling with himself that’s happened in public. He faced the same hurdles of growing up under the limelight that has befallen other child actors and he's been charged with drunk driving, plagiarism, bad relationships with co-stars, concealing on-set relationships, and and misbehaving so badly during a Broadway performance that he got thrown out of a theater and sent to jail. Rather than follow the script during his rehabilitation,his form of damage control in these situations, he used transparent honesty. This resulted in one of the funniest interviews I've ever seen on Jimmy Kimmel, the I'm Sorry Tour, and the thing where he watched his own movies. And now this film.

Capsule Reviews of Olderish Films I've Recently Watched

Welcome back to my blog. I typically take a two-three month hiatus after the New Year and now I'm back with some new content. 

Here are some films that I've recently watched that are at least a couple or more years old:

The Reader (2008)-It's difficult to separate this from the knowledge that it's inclusion as a best picture nominee got everyone in a tizzy and led to the expanded Best Picture field. I had a friend in film school in 2008 who said on Facebook "guys, Reader is the best film of the year!" so I know it had at least one educated fan and I tried to like this film and not think about how it bumped out other films for BP (I didn't even love Dark Knight anyway), but the film just didn't do itself any favors. I love a good courtroom drama as much as the next guy but the film tried to combine three or four Oscar baity genres in one. I still love Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet in anything.

The Kids are All Right (2010)-The high expectations of knowing it was a best picture nominee made me feel a little disappointed. Other character-based dramedies that have gotten BP noms like Lost in Translation or Juno have richer and more defined characters whereas Annette Bening and the younger kid was a bit stereotypical as characters. On the other hand, there was something admirable in the script about being unapologetic about the characters. Bening's character on the outside was a bit unpleasant and phony but Julianne Moore's character loved her for who she was.

Certain character relations weren't developed enough to be impactful. Did the overachieving daughter over achieve because of her family conditions? Because of a nature vs. nurture thing. Moore's attraction to Ruffalo's character wasn't delved into much either. She was confronted and had an explanation for it, but I would have liked to be shown more than told. Julianne Moore's speech at the end tied up loose plot threads extremely well.

A Dangerous Method (2011)-My favorite of this recent batch of films. The film centers around the life of psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his relationship to two foils during a make-or-break-it phase of his career (as well as the future of psychiatry, supposedly): Kiera Knightley plays the trifecta of lover, patient and intellectual peer Sabina Spielman and Viggo Mortensen plays mentor Sigmund Freud (who you might know from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures as well as, you know, actual history). The film is tightly-scripted, demonstrates a clear interest in its subjects, and has some character work that puts nearly everything else on this list to shame.

Black Snake Moan (2008)-A bit of a bizarre film and one that probably is lightyears away from today's standards of political correctness. As long as it's interesting and can keep the mood and tone engaging, I don't mind a film that's a bit outside the norm and this film certainly qualified. Christina Ricci gives one of those "I didn't know she can act" performances for me. The film is made by film maker Craig Brewer who established himself as a distinctive new voice in 2005 with Hustle and Flow and some of that vision is still there, but his career (which has yet to flourish as far as the general public is concerned) could have used a better sophomore effort.

Cocoon (1985)-A reminder that in the 1980s, comedies had an easier time getting greenlit. I doubt you could get any bizarre idea you want greenlit today if your name isn't Todd Phillips, Judd Apatow, Edgar Wright, or Adam McKay. It was pleasant enough, some of it was very weird in a way that's specific to the 80s: Extraterrestrial fascination and subsequent extraterrestrial kissing/sex, a strong desire for a happy ending, clueless protagonist characters moddled after Ted McGinley, etc. The idea of Wilford Brimley acting rather than being an internet meme of geriatric humor is pretty funny in retrospect. Even funnier, Don Ameche won a freaking Academy Aawrd for best supporting actor. His screen time in this film is close to nil.

Bridges of Madison County (1995)-Very emotional and moving film. Romantic films aren't necessarily my genre, but Clint Eastwood gives the film a sort of masculine touch. Meryl Streep kills it and half the reason I watched it was to see her play an alluring Italian ingenue. Clint Eastwood said that this role was the closest to his real-life self, but I have a feeling "Play Misty for Me" hits the mark better. In that film, he sleeps with Jessica Walters then tries to get rid of her so he can move onto a cuter woman and well, I imagine Sandra Locke would agree that that's what Clint Eastwood did to her.

Battle of Shaker Heights (2003)-From the point of view of someone who never watched the season of Project Greenlight that resulted in this film, it seems like a fine film with good front-loading of the action. Shia LaBeouf plays an interesting kind of antihero and there's a certain Wes Anderson theme underlying the film where this is just an outkast trying to belong. The reviews were hard on this because they watched the Project Greenlight Season and felt the director messed up or was arrogant or probably had too noble a vision. Watching it in a vacuum has its advantages

Waitress (2007)-A very sweet film. This and another 2007 film, August Rush, was Keri Russell's big one-two punch to try to get her back on the acting scene to reinvent herself post-Felicity. Tragically the director Adrienne Shelly (one of the few female directors in Hollywood, too) was murdered. Maybe Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings can avenge her.

The Apt Pupil (1998)-One of the rare instances in which I've seen Ian McKellen act not as a superhero or gay pride icon and he doesn't disappoint (not that he was any less impressive in Gods and Monsters which came out the same year). McKellen plays an ex-Nazi riddled with the preoccupations of being super-old and Brad Renfro plays his neighbor Todd. Todd is struggling in school and full of adolescent angst and blackmails his Nazi neighbor into a variety of activities that can best be described as weird. The two form a makeshift relationship marked by a foreboding tension that you can easily identify because it's backed by the same kind of orchestral swelling that marked late 90's young adult films like Cruel Intentions, Teaching Mrs Tingle, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Because it's adapted from a Stephen King book, this is a film that feels more adult and the best thing I can say about this failure of a film is that at least it treats its central character as an adult rather than a high school stereotype. Other than that it's not something that's particularly well-translated to screen.

Top 25 People of the Year

People Magazine made a list of the 25 most intriguing people of 2015. If it didn’t have People’s sensibilities (where people’s ability to sell the front page of a tabloid magazine factored into it), it would have the potential to be an interesting artifact of our times. As far as I can gather, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Garner, and David Beckham made the list because they’re celebrity favorites of the soccer mom audience although they didn’t really do much this year other than look after their kids. I imagine there are at least 110 million people in the US doing just that. 

Still, the magazine got away with a few familiar names (Barack Obama and Taylor Swift) and made the case that these two really were emblematic of 2015 and not 2009-2014. The magazine also made some good choices with people I overlooked like Chris Pratt (who did become a blockbuster star in 2015 if you consider Guardians of the Galaxy a fluke), Tracy Morgan (you have to admit, he had quite the comeback), and the three Americans who prevented a terror attack in Paris. 

In the end, this is all subjunctive.

When I asked some people on a message board to chime in their own opinions, one commenter chimed in with a Boston media sensation called Baby Doe I’ve never heard of but must have been a big deal for someone in the Boston area.  

Another person countered with what might be considered an anti-People list with a lot of intellectual entries. Here are a few examples of some of them:

Juhari Idusuyi - This 23-year-old African-American woman read Citizen: An American Lyric throughout a televised Donald Trump rally. On camera. She was seated so that she was visible just over Trump's left shoulder for the entire event. Simple nonviolent protest at Trump's lack of ideas about governance.

Rotana Tarabzouni - A 26-year-old Saudi Arabian woman, terribly scandalous in her homeland for singing about taboo subjects, like driving and crises of faith, and performing unveiled and immodestly (meaning she dresses mildly sexy by 1980s American standards). She's getting buzz around LA - she might be one to watch out for on the national airwaves in a year or two.

Robert Epstein - A psychologist whose research suggests and explains how Google could rig the 2016 elections. By modifying which results come first for a given result, a search engine can determine which candidate one votes for, all other things being equal.

Another person posted a list which the board moderator called the best list he’d seen:

Serena Williams, Megan Phelps-Roper, Ava DuVernay, Ijeoma Oluo, Rowan Blanchard, Amandla Stenberg, Ahmed Mohammed, Edward Snowden, Johnetta Elzie, DeRay McKesson,
Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, Patrisse Cullors, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxane Gay, Bree Newsome,
Saladin Ahmed, Michael Ian Black, Natasha Vargas-Cooper, Sean O'Neal, Don Lemon, Aziz Ansari, Rabia Chaudry, David Simon, Oscar Isaac

I asked him about Sean O’Neal (a senior editor at the AV Club) and he replied that he was just surprised that O’Neal just had a kid (reproducing really does get you points it seems). He also conceded that Michael Ian Black’s comedy was starting to strike a chord with him so subjectivity creeps in pretty much everywhere.

My list would go something like:
1. Eddie Redmayne-The first person under 35 to win a Best Actor Oscar since 2002 and THEN followed it up with an equally daring role that will likely net him another nod if not a lot of admiration for his gutsiness.
2. Amy Schumer-The buzziest comedian out there AND runs the buzziest sketch show on today. She certainly has something original to say, a hilarious way to say it, and 12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer was one of the landmark TV shows of the year. In previous years, Key and Peele would have definitely had this spot
3. Pope Francis-Here's an idea: Let's not be assholes to gays, divorcees and people with a history of abortion for the first time in our 2000 year history. Yeah, buddy, you got a spot!
4. Ted Sarandos-Netflix CEO is a complete game changer. So many genres of TV shows you didn't even know you wanted (a realism-infused living single show for seniors in Grace and Frankie, a new Daredevil, a parody cartoon with deep psychological leanings in BoJack Horseman, a racially diverse Seinfeld in Masters of None, A global soap opera with superheroes in Sense8 marking the Wachowski Brothers first success in over a decade, etc) are being done here and they might just get the first Oscar nominations for something outside of the theater distribution model ever
5. American Pharoah-With the way horse racing has turned into an Arms Race since the 1970's when the last horse won a triple crown (horses winning the Belmont stakes are generally resting through the other legs), American Pharoah's win was deemed pretty impossible after so many people who won the first two legs sputtered
6. Shia LaBeouf-He continues to have success (yes, I'll call it that) and spark discourse about the nature of fame with his experimental art projects and continues to rebound from failure in an exciting way
7. Serena Williams-Winning late in her career with grace maturity and garnering attention for her brand and social causes along the way.
8. Elon Musk-Well on his way to winning the space race, Space X became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the international space station in 2015. Other projects under his tutelage include building a self-funded solar city, developing artificial intelligence and searching for extraterrestrial life. Very few science fiction films are covering territory that Musk isn’t doing in real life.

9. Taraji P Henson-Empire was certainly among the 2 or 3 most buzziest things on TV and this character actress really found her groove and was a big part of that show. Her personality and quotability are definitely becoming iconic. It also helps that Empire debuted in 2015
10. University of Missouri Football Team-By refusing to play until the U of Missouri president resigned, it was probably the most effective thing anyone's done in the race wars going on this year. Their story touches on a lot of things: the privilege athletes are afforded, the disaster that is higher education, the unique geography of Missouri as a place which shouldn't be (you'd expect it to be the deep south) but is probably the most unresolved state in the country in terms of racial tension, and the aforementioned racial tensions these days
11. Lin Manuel Miranda-Combined history and rap and making it a smash success on Broadway. As Obama said during a post-performance speech, very few things can make Dick Cheney and Obama agree on anything. Hamilton being a great musical is one of those things.
12. Paul Ryan-I would be equally comfortable giving this spot to John Boehner who announced the death of partisanship in the House of Representatives by stepping back. Ryan is going to step in and clean up the mess.
13. Rachel Dolezal-Certainly a fascinating story about racial identity and politics these days
14. Jason Day-A golfer and sports person of the year candidate.
15. Francois Hollande-His leadership either caused further complications in the war on terror or presented a step forward in it
16. Ridley Scott-Interstellar and Gravity both had their strengths but his film was the kind of optimistic and imaginative sci-fi adventure that the movies were made for and that we don't see enough of these days. Apollo 13 inspired my sister to study astronomy in college and this could be it for a new generation. Additionally, Scott has been at the forefront of film making since 1979 and this is his introduction to a new generation
17. Kim Davis-Some will call her an idiot, but I kind of admire her at least on the level of doing effective civil disobedience. At the same time, I'm listing people regardless of whether I like them or not and I think she's the 2016 version of Joe the Plumber in the way her story is already being coopted by everyone in the Republican party as a litmus test for their voters' values
18. The election outsiders-Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson-There's too much focus on the election so rather than use up a bullet point on each one of these guys, let's just group them all in one. These three are surging in the polls at various levels despite probably being unelectable if the voters eventually care about experience.
19. Trevor Noah- This was a big year of talk show hosts, but James Corden, John Oliver and Seth Meyers really belonged on last year's list. I also love Stephen Colbert but I don't think 2015 is the year in which he's found his niche. Meyers has found his niche this year, but I'm not sure if he's making that much of a splash at 12:35 AM and he can no longer take ownership of the SNL era he presided over since he left last year. Trevor Noah is one change-up that has been working by my subjective opinion and his stand-up is pretty spectacular (also by my subjective opinion).
20. Joe Biden-His political capital is at an all-time high this year as evidenced by Stephen Colbert and everyone else practically begging him to run for president. His heartbreak with another family death resonated throughout the nation
21. Stephen Curry-Most of the time (in my experience), the upstart team in the regular season (Sacramento Kings in the early 2000s, Dallas Mavericks in the mid-2000s, the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers in the early 2010s) loses to the experienced team, but Curry's Warriors surprised everyone by not being busts. Curry dominated over reigning king LeBron James, showed a media friendly personality (partially due to his daughter), and matched his regular season record with clutch during the post-season.
22. JJ Abrams-If sequels and reboots are the currency of Hollywood in 2010, than this guy is the established master having turned both Star Wars and Star Trek into must-see events.
23. Justice John Roberts-Continues to frustrate anyone expecting him to be political by voting his conscience and he deserves recognition in a big year in which the Supreme Court upheld Obama care, ruled on freedom of speech laws (the confederate license plate case, the Gilbert, Arizona case), pollution regulation, gerrymandering and same sex marriage. In  a generation or two, the only notable supreme court cases that will appear in a history textbook will be Obama care and same sex marriage: One of which was upheld this year and one which was ruled upon.
24. Amy Poehler-Leslie Knope started out as one of the most awkward characters on a TV show that seemed doomed to wither out. Seven seasons later, Poehler has turned her into one of the most iconic and rootable characters on TV and that’s not all. She’s also written a biography, produced Billy Eichner’s comedy shows as well as Broad City, and is attacking the big screen again with Sisters. The only thing she didn’t do in 2015 was agree to host the Oscars and that’s our loss.

25.Justin Trodeau-I know Canadian politics aren’t worth worrying about to most Americans, but to the degree that they are, Trodeau’s election marks a major shake-up in a system that many feel had gone stagnant. Failing that, he’s dreamy-looking enough to sell a cover.

Every Film Ive seen in 2007 II: Films 23-44

This is a continuation of a lengthy exercise in which I ranked every single film I saw in 2007 from best to worst. Here's Part I.

23. National Treasure 2-If you buy the ridiculous premise that another archaeological gold mine that would fall into Ben Gates's lap, then this is a reasonably entertaining film with some top rate action scenes and lots more fun with history. Otherwise, it's the kind of film that makes plot hole enthusiasts' heads explode with possibilities. The president can easily be kidnapped, Buckingham Palace has laxer security than your local library, and you can break as many laws as you want as long as you want as long as it's in the name of a dead relative who passed away 150 years ago. Helen Mirren joins the cast which is always fun and Ty Burrell (before "Modern Family") can be spotted here like Where's Waldo,

24. Transformers - While there certainly wasn't enough creative juice to merit a good sequel to this film and the film was highly Michael Bayish in its love of explosions, superficial human interaction, hot girls, and general coolness, there was a Spielbergian element in the middle of all of it too (common themes: boy needs a friend, boy needs a daddy figure, girl and boy unite over lack of respective daddy figures) that made the film charming at times. 

25. My Brother -A small independent film screened at a film festival I attended, this film tells the story of an African-American kid who watches over his disabled brother as a grown-up. It's highlighted by a great performance by Vanessa Williams and Tatum O'Neal who slum it in the indie world but get some good results.

26. Music and Lyrics-Hugh Grant straddles a thin line between charming and boring and has failed to carry many a film, but he succeeds here because, like Blades of Glory, this is a film that doesn't aim particularly high and delivered on lower ambitions. One caveat: The whole film does rely on you buying the premise that a reasonably intelligent professional songwriter can't string basic rhymes out of words and has never heard of a thesaurus.

27. Ocean's 13-Ocean's 12 was such a self-indulgent mess that in press conferences preceding the film, cast members (Matt Damon on Inside the Actor's Studio comes to mind) were saying that while the cast was enjoying each other's company and the exotic locations, they were being professional and working. And the funny thing is they weren't even being asked: They just volunteered this information as if anyone would doubt that actors would do anything but act on a film set. With the disaster behind them, the Ocean's 13 crew had a respectable third outing in that it had a coherent plot but trying to lower the yelp rating (oops, excuse me, diamond rating) of a casino is not as exciting as a classic heist and I found the franchise's choice to reduce the stakes rather then up the level of excitement baffling. On the upside: Ellen Barkin, David Paymer and Al Pacino were all inspired casting choices.

28. The Hoax-For such a grand premise (a guy fooling the world into thinking he's a biographer of Howard Hughes), The Hoax was moderately uneventful which made the film feel a little pretentious. On the positive, it had some nice character moments here and there.

29. Lucky You-Curtis Hanson is a great director (LA Confidential, Wonderboys, In Her Shoes, 8 Mile) and this film has his trademarks of quiet moments, self-reflexive characters, immersion in a subculture, but this film felt a little dreary and the plot lacked forward movement. Wasn't necessarily a bad film but not Hanson's best work

30. Evan Almighty-If you're wondering why this ridiculously tenously connected sequel exists the answer is twofold: 1) Bruce Almighty grossed north of $200 million. For a comedy, that's pretty damn good, and even if it came with a neatly packaged ending, Hollywood economics supercede story: A sequel had to be made 2) Jim Carrey didn't want to do it and, fortunately, Steve Carell had became a star in the interim. Because they built an elaborate ark (fun fact: the ark was constructed and shot in Virginia, a casting call went out to my college and a couple friends were extras) , this was technically the most expensive comedy to date. Some critics ripped on the film for unwisely spending all that money for a superfluous ark but I think they missed the point: plus or minus an ark, the entire film was a grand piece of superfluousness. Evan was a one-note villain who only merited a film of his own unless you sweep it all under the rug and retcon him as a deeper character. If you can get past all that, then it's an, at times, moderately decent comedy.

31. Walk Hard-The best parodies tend to be more subtle. Walk Hard tended to hit you over the head with a grand announcement that it was a parody.

32. Charlie Barrett-I find it interesting that Iron Man was touted as Rob Downey Jr's comeback when here he was in a film the year before. Not one that anyone saw, but still. This film is a high school dramedy about a new transfer (Anton Yelchin) who goes from selling his adderroll to becoming the unofficial school psychologist and sports star. It's kind of a thin plot but has its moments.

33. Fantastic Four Part II-I can't tell whether Fantastic Four came along at an earlier point in the development of comic books or it was the movie's fault but this quartet of superheroes seems oddly one-dimensional: You have the womanizer who won't settle down, the big lug of a tough guy, the dweeby scientist and Jessica Alba's invisible heroines who is, surprisingly, the only character who feels like more than one-and-a-half dimensions. The best I can come up with for a compliment to this film is not awful.

34. Shrek 3-I have literally no memory of this film. How often does that happen five years later that you can't recall a single detail of a film? I clearly remember the Shrek universe and distinctly remember the plots of the first and second installments but this must have been a very unremarkable film. On the other hand, a truly awful film gets burnt on my memory which is why this doesn't have lower placement.

35. Invasion-A remake of the 1950's sci-fi classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" or possibly a remake of the 1976 Donald Sutherland-Brooke Adams remake, who can really keep track of this unorigiality anymore? The film felt uninspired (because it was) but made for a halfway decent action film.

36. Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium-After so many remakes and sequels, I'm glad to finally get to an entry on the list that's original. Zach Helm, who wrote the screenplay to the highly inventive "Stranger than Fiction", approaches this film with the same sense of whimsy but it still feels like a second rate version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with an admirably odd turn by Dustin Hoffman as a Wonkaesque stand-in.

37. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry-Adam Sandler's usual mixture of heartfelt emotion and juvenile humor barely worked in its favor in this slightly misguided but ultimately tolerable take on the gay marriage debate. The film was met with some criticism for being outwardly homophobic. Like all Adam Sandler films, the film treats its subjects with underlying warmth but tackles human complexities (in this case, a delicate subject such as sexual orientation) with the emotional maturity of an eight year old, which is what Adam Sandler essentially is. It's not his fault: When he first broke out his guitar and started singing as a prepubsecent boy on SNL, we encouraged it, and enabled him to never grow up emotionally or comically.

38. No Country for Old Men-Cinematography was top-notch but was there a point to this film? I'm sure someone out there could watch this film and read some thematically coherent message from it, but I'm guessing most of the film's fans (including the Oscar voters for some odd reason) just liked it because it included a cool weapon, a villain with a weird haircut and dialogue so vague he became interesting, and a couple cool action scenes. I love some of the films by the Coen brothers but when they don't resonate with you, they feel like you're presented with a series of superficial objects and tricks with nothing beneath the surface.

39. Golden Compass-Rule #1 when delving into heavily complex mythological tale: Make it interesting. Otherwise, it feels like you're just reading the rule book to some complicated board game.

40. Pirates of the Caribbean III-Once upon a time, Disney brilliantly revived the pirate genre with a film that was a little bit long-winded but ultimately a lot of fun. Then, in attempting to stretch the series into a trilogy, some terrible decisions were made: Rather than simplify the mythology (this is, after all, a film based on a ride) they added entirely new plots on top of unresolved ones. If you remember, the first film ends with Depp an outlaw and Bloom trying to clear his name. That would be a good movie in itself, but they decided to add some entirely new mythic octopus on top of everything that kind of nullified the first film (Why would Jack care about fighting for control of the Black Pearl if both the souls of he and Barbosa were owned by a giant octopus anyway?). The second film ends with no resolution to the first film and Johnny Depp being taken prisoner by the octopus. The third film bloated things into a gigantic mess by conveniently introducing the fact that the tertiary character played by Tia Dalma happends to be enormously powerful and brings some dangerous spell of her own. Oh and Chow Yung-Fat is some Asian sea captain who imprisons Elizabeth and Keith Richards shows up because, why not at this point?

41. Nancy Drew-I saw this film with a couple younger cousins and while I get that the film appeals primarily to kids, there's no harm in making it presentable to an older demographic. This film suffered because there was a clear need to dumb down and simplify basic plot elements to be digestible. On the bright side, this film is responsible for keeping former Mango/Antonio Banderas SNL stalwart Chris Kattan employed for the year of 2007.

42. License to Wed-Imagine a romantic comedy starring Jim from The Office in full smugness mode without the endearing romantic backstory that made the Jim-Pam relationship work and you're only at the start of the list of problems with this poorly thought-out disaster. See, faux-Jim is engaged to an annoyingly cheery woman (Mandy Moore) and must get permission from pastor Robin Williams to proceed with marraige. Only, Robin Williams is a troublesome creep who seeks to sabatoge him. Or maybe he isn't and faux-Jim's overly suspicious. It doesn't really matter because by the third act, both these plots are bafflingly forgotten and everyone celebrates matrimony on the beach. It's one of the most abrupt endings I've ever seen. If that's not bad enough, the movie features Brian Bumgartener playing an even dumber guy than Kevin Malone and easily the most cringeworthy line of dialogue of 2007: When Mandy Moore suggests they abstain before the wedding, faux-Jim responds "but I want to play tickle my pickle with my girlfriend." Oh the horror.

43. Superbad-Yes, I got the memo that this film became somewhat of a classic. Still, the general populance gets things wrong sometimes. This film is crass, sophomoric, and worst of all, uneventful. I don't mind a film being low-brow if it goes somewhere but it appears that they set the record for number of f-words in a film for no other reason than it sounded cool. Yes, two high school senior boys on an average Saturday night are gonna be thinking about sex a lot and they're going to stumble their way through a party or two in search of it, but that doesn't mean it's an interesting thing to put on film.

44. 1408-I probably made a mistake by watching this one as horror really isn't my genre. Not getting the appeal of the film before I begin the viewing experience isn't a good place to start. 1408 felt like an ameteurish b-movie.