I’ll spare you my rambling thoughts about why I love/hate end-of-year (or even 13-days-after-the-end-of-the-year) lists, and I’ll spare you flowery prose about what a rich/poor/weak/strong/fascinating/frustrating/encouraging/discouraging/“insert-cinematic-trend-here” year 2012 was at the theater. Instead, a few bookkeeping matters: I draw a fuzzy, idiosyncratic distinction between a “great” film and a “favorite” film. In short, the former makes [...]

The Oscars tend to twist us film critics and writers into pretzels of varying paradoxical silliness. There are film writers who truly love the Academy Awards and genuinely embrace them each late winter as a glamorous celebration of the art, craft, and business of (mostly) Hollywood movie magic. There are just as many film critics [...]