Your Sister's Sister (2011)

I didn't like this much. It is really cute and sweet, and the characters say all the right things after doing really stupid things.

Mark Duplass plays Jack, who is in love with Iris (Emily Blunt). She's in love with him, too, but neither acknowledges it. Jack goes to Iris's family home, supposedly empty, to clear his head, and finds Iris's sister there. Hannah, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is a lesbian who just walked out of a seven year relationship.

Hannah and Jack have drunken sex. Iris shows up to tell Jack she loves him, and it's all pretty stupid. It gets more stupid than I've described, but you'll have to watch it yourself for that surprise.

Ruby Sparks (2012)

This is not my favorite romantic comedy - not by a long shot - but I don't think it wants to be. It has an interesting premise, probably because it was written by a woman. Zoe Kazan wrote and starred in this movie (she plays Ruby Sparks) - which is one way to solve the problem of finding good roles as an actress.

Paul Dano plays Calvin, an author who found incredible success as a 19 year-old. Ten years later he is alone and lonely, and not exactly what he seems. His shrink (Elliott Gould) tells him to write a page of a novel, and further suggests it be a bad love story.

Calvin starts a bad novel about his dream woman (really - he saw her in a dream) and enters a state of writing bliss - until the woman appears in his house. His writing made her real. Other people can see her and talk to her, but she does exactly what he writes - as soon as he hits the return bar on his typewriter.

Ruby doesn't know she is fiction, and she finds out in a horrifying scene that demonstrates Zoe Kazan's abilities as an actress. The supporting roles are also fantastic - in particular I liked Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas as Calvin's mom and step-dad. 

I recommend this - and I'm curious if you feel that the first part of the movie is ridiculous and sweet. I did, but that was the build-up, and it eventually worked for me.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

In terms of technical ability and skill, this is probably the best movie of the year, yet Kathryn Bigelow was not nominated for Best Director. How frustrating and confusing. What was the Academy thinking?

This topic is complicated, yet the movie is not hard to follow. The pacing is excellent, the tension builds to a fantastic level, and she covers ten years of time without weird editing problems and bad decisions about where to focus. She gives us a character to root for, even if we are not able to understand that character's motivations all the time - which actually makes the character more interesting, I think.  There is one ending and one beginning. There was one line I felt to be out of place (how picky am I?), but it was supposed to be comic relief.  So ok.

And yet she did not get nominated. What the fuck are you supposed to do to get nominated?

This is about the ten year hunt for Osama Bin Laden. It is told primarily from the view of an agent who follows down leads in this search over ten years. That agent, Maya, is played by Jessica Chastain, and she is a cypher. It's a great perspective for the story, and Chastain deserves the Best Actress nomination. And considering that Marion Cotillard did not get nominated, she might deserve the win.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

About this time of year, you will find endless "best movies of the year" lists out there. Some of them will blow you away because you'll disagree with the picks so much.

I believe my favorite reviewer in the country is Manohla Dargis from the NY Times. I enjoy her top ten for the year, even though I usually haven't seen half the films. This is frustrating, but half the films critics see are not available to the regular viewer, unfortunately. Also, Manohla usually has some surprises on her list. This year, she listed The Pirates! as one of her picks for Best Picture, and Hugh Grant for Best Actor.

I hadn't even heard of the movie. But I have now - and it's awesome. This is animation of the Wallace and Gromit style, which is cool. The dialog and humor are pure British, which is fantastic and refreshing. (The best thing about being a pirate is Ham Night, for example.)  I watched it twice.

Hugh Grant is the Pirate Captain, who desperately wants to be Pirate of the Year. He's been nominated and denied for 20 years or so. The problem? He's not a very good pirate, even though he loves "running people through" and making them walk the plank. Adventure takes precedence over gold. But this year he is determined, and trouble follows.

Pick it up.

Footnote (2011)

The best movies about family dynamics that I've seen over the last couple of years have been A Separation (Iran) and Footnote (Israel). Both these movies show how complicated relationships are - how one person can be both good and bad, and how impossible it can be to do the right thing. What is the right thing? Would you know it if it bit you in the butt?

In Footnote we meet two male Shkolnick family members - father and son - Eliezer and Uriel. Both teach Talmudic studies, but the father has toiled in obscurity and the son has become a star. The father is obviously bitter and jealous of the son. The son loves being a celebrity. When the father mistakenly gets a call informing him he has won a hugely prestigious prize, he starts to celebrate. Unfortunately, the call was supposed to go to the son. What's the right thing in this situation?

This is a great story, well-filmed and well-acted. It has a jaunty attitude and excellent pacing, and I really loved the ending. Pick it up. The director is Joseph Cedar, and I need to see what else he's done.

The Impossible (2012)

This is a solid movie that chronicles one family's vacation turned hell during the December 26, 2004 tsunami. The family is by the pool when the water hits. The dad, Ewan McGregor, is in the pool with their two younger sons. Mom, Naomi Watts, and the oldest son are both standing in different places outside the pool. 

Amazingly enough, the entire family survives, which means they had a pretty good vacation if viewed from the distance of several years. The movie shows many families who do not fare as well. Most of the movie chronicles the path of Maria, the mom, and the oldest son. They both emerge in the moving water within sight of each other, manage to get close and hold on. Maria is injured badly, but they get to a hospital. The chaos of the hospital, the kindness of strangers, the desperate search for family members, the upheaval all around - that's what the movie is about, and it is is well portrayed.

The movie is not perfect, but it is really good. The kids' performances blew my mind. It's tense, though, and hard to watch at times. I recommend it. 

Killer Joe (2012)

This movie is twisted. Disturbingly twisted - but good (not excellent). If you don't mind twisted, and you want to see a couple of good performances, pick this up.

The good performances are by Matthew McConaughey and Juno Temple, playing very odd roles. Matthew M is blowing my mind this year. I'm very glad he is halting the rom-com action.

So here's the deal - there's a family in this movie. Gina Gershon is stepmom to the son, Emile Hirsch, and the daughter, Juno Temple. The dad is Thomas Haden Church. The son is a loser, and he and stepmom dislike each other intensely. Dad is a loser, and he probably knows it. Most of the family dislike each other, but they all like and care for the daughter / sister, Dottie. Dottie is impaired in some way, but it's not discussed. She is out in the world, and can buy food, and cook, but she doesn't work, and she's not all there. She lives in a trailer with stepmom and dad.

The son, Chris, is in trouble with drug dealers, and needs some money. Dad doesn't have it, but is open to the idea of killing his ex-wife for a life insurance policy supposedly listing Dottie as beneficiary. Nobody wants to do the actual killing, so they decide to hire Killer Joe, a cop who does contract kills on the side. Joe (Matthew M) is one twisted fucker. Joe doesn't work on a percentage - cash up front only. This family doesn't have cash up front, but Joe has taken a shine to Dottie, and takes her as a retainer. Dottie does what her family wants.

And then things get really ugly. The end of this is movie is very interesting. If I ever meet this family, or a cop like killer Joe, I really hope I recognize it. Because I will run.

One major beef - two females here show full frontal nudity, but not Matthew M. I am sick of this shit! Why the hell aren't the guys stepping up? Matthew M appears to have all leg and chest hair removed. I want to see more.  What's he got going on that he doesn't want us to see?

The Wedding Banquet (1993)

I love Ang Lee, and yet I had never seen this film. And it's awesome. How did that happen?

This film is not evidence of pure mastery like some of his later work (Crouching TIger, Brokeback, Life of Pi), but it's great on several fronts. First, as a non-Chinese person, I really enjoyed learning about and watching traditional Chinese culture meet American life. It's fascinating. The wedding banquet scene alone is priceless, but watch the various scenes to see who carries luggage at the airport - this is shown to us multiple times for a reason.

The basic story is about a gay Chinese guy living in American with his American partner. His parents in Taiwan do not know he's gay, and they want babies. So he marries a tenant who needs a green card to get them off his back - and of course that doesn't go too well. There is nothing mean in this film - everybody is basically good, and sometimes that's a fun thing to watch. Maybe when the director is Ang Lee and he knows what he's doing.