I know that I haven’t been writing lately. But I’ve been busy watching movies and reading and smoking cigarettes. I also have been working harder than Mitt Romney, which is pathetic in its own right. Anyway, if there’s anyone out there, here’s what I considered the Best of 2011, in order.

Best Films

“The Tree of Life”

“Drive”

“Shame”

“Melancholia”

“Hugo”

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

“A Dangerous Method”

“Beginners”

“The Descendants”

“The Iron Lady”

“Bloodworth”

“Captain America”

“Contagion”

“Midnight in Paris”

“Carnage”

“The Artist”

“The Last Rites of Joe May”

“The Ides of March”

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

“Passion Play”

“Sucker Punch”

“Moneyball”

“X-Men First Class”

“Warrior”

“Thor”

Best Director

Terrence Malick

Martin Scorsese

Nicolas Winding Refn

Lars von Trier

David Cronenberg

Best Actor

Michael Fassbender, “Shame”

Gary Oldman, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

Hunter McCracken, “The Tree of Life”

Ryan Gosling, “Drive”

Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

Best Actress

Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”

Kiera Knightley, “A Dangerous Method”

Kristen Dunst, “Melancholia”

Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Melancholia”

Jodie Foster, “Carnage”

Best Supporting Actor

Albert Brooks, “Drive”

Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life”

Robert Forster, “The Descendants”

Christoph Waltz, “Carnage”

Best Supporting Actress

Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life”

Carey Mulligan, “Shame”

Melanie Laurent, “Beginners”

Carey Mulligan, “Drive”

Kate Winslet, “Carnage”

Best Ensemble

“Tree of Life”

“Carnage”

“A Dangerous Method”

“Melancholia”

“Hugo”

Original Screenplay

“The Tree of Life”

“Midnight in Paris”

“Shame”

“Beginners”

“Melancholia”

Adapted Screenplay

“Drive”

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

“A Dangerous Method”

“Carnage”

“Hugo”

Best Television Programming

“Californication”

“George Harrison: Living in a Material World”

“Breaking Bad”

“Homeland”

“Too Big to Fail”

“Are you smoking this shit so’s to escape from reality? Me, I don’t need this shit. I am reality.”

• Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), “Platoon”

After a weekends worth of thoughts, here it is…

50. Wayne Newton, “National Lampoons Vegas Vacation”

“Would you like some pasta? It’s Steve Martin’s recipe.”

49. The Great Danton (Hugh Jackman), “The Prestige”

48. Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me”.

47. Bernie Rose, “Drive”

46. Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), “Cliffhanger”

45. Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), “Lone Star”

44. Aaron (Edward Norton), “Primal Fear”

43. Colin (Matt Damon), “The Departed”

42. Drill Sergeant (R. Lee Ermey), “Full Metal Jacket”

41. Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges), “The Jagged Edge”

40. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford), “What Lies Beneath”

39. Noah Cross (John Huston), “Chinatown”

38. Alex Frost (Glenn Close), “Fatal Attraction”

37. Private Detective (M. Emmet Walsh), “Blood Simple”

36. Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), “The Graduate”

35. Barbra Covett (Judi Dench), “Notes on a Scandal”

34. Senator Shelly Runyon, R – IL (Gary Oldman), “The Contender”

33. Richie Cussak (William Hurt), “A History of Violence”

32. Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), “Network”

31. Vic Vega (Michael Madsen), “Reservoir Dogs”

30. The Overlook Hotel, “The Shinning”

29. The Man with No Eyes (Morgan Woodward), “Cool Hand Luke”

28. Max Cady (Robert DeNiro & Robert Mitchum), “Cape Fear”

27. Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), the Star Wars films

26. Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), “Ordinary People”

25. John Doe (Kevin Spacey), “Se7en”

24. Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), “Body Heat”

23. The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), “The Wizard of Oz”

22. Scar (Jeremy Irons), “The Lion King”

21. Sport (Harvey Keitel), “Taxi Driver”

20. Frank Black (Henry Fonda), “Once Upon a Time in the West”

“Is it safe?”

19. Szell (Laurence Olivier), “Marathon Man”

18. Glen Whitehouse (James Coburn), “Affliction”

17. Jack Wilson (Jack Palance), “Shane”

16. Minnie Casavet (Ruth Gordon), “Rosemary’s Baby”

15. Dr. Hannibal Lector (Brian Cox), “Manhunter”

14. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), “Wall Street”

“Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”

13. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), “Die Hard”

12. Ernst Stavro Blofed (Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Grey) The James Bond films

11. Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), “Gangs of New York”

10. The Joker (Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger), “Batman”, “The Dark Knight”

9. Little Bill Daget (Gene Hackman), “Unforgiven”

8. Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), “Platoon”

7. Keyser Soze (Kevin Spacey), “The Usual Suspects”

6. Anton Chigurn (Javier Bardem), “No Country for Old Men”

5. Captain Dudley Smithe (James Cromwell), “L.A. Confidential”

4. Frank Boothe (Dennis Hopper – RIP), “Blue Velvet”

3. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

2. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), “Night of the Hunter”

1. Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), “Schindler’s List”

With Tim O’Kelly, Boris Karloff, Nancy Hsueh and Peter Bogdanovich

“Is that what I was afraid of?”

• Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff)
  

Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) is the All American Boy. He’s blonde, handsome, has a beautiful wife and a wonderful family. He has a sporty mustang convertible that was very much in vogue at the time. Then something happens, something makes this guy snap and buy a bunch of ammunition and begins shooting random people, committing random acts of violence that has a final showdown at a local drive-in movie theater where a retiring actor Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) is attending the final showing of his latest film.

Byron Orlok is an iconic actor who is extremely well established and wealthy. His final film is going to be his last, though he hasn’t told many anyone but his assistant Jenny (Nancy Hsueh). Something has made this well established legendary actor snap, and decided enough is enough – I’m done.

These two men meet together for a final exchange at a local drive-in movie theater where the term “bitch slap” was conceived and born. This film is masterfully guided by novice director Peter Bogdanovich (who also takes on the roll of Karloff’s young and dream-filled director) who made this film for practically nothing for accidental genius Roger Corman.

Tim O’Kelly is magnificent as Bobby Thompson; who on the outside is the perfect mold of an American, but inside he’s hollow – even empty. He’s a returned Vietnam veteran (although the film does a marvelous job of not even slightly using Vietnam as an excuse) and he breaks, he begins killing people who a long distance rifle, sniping them from their cars on the expressway, and then moves to a crowded drive-in. I’ve not seen O’Kelly in anything else, and I don’t know why.

The film ends with one of the most climactic endings to any film I’ve seen. The sniper is on the run from the police; Byron Orlok has spotted the sniper and begins walking him down, the sniper sees Orlok on the gigantic screen behind him, and the towering actor stomping towards him – he doesn’t know what to do! He begins shooting – this does not stop our hero. He approaches the young killer and – I’m not going to give it away, see the film as soon as you can (it’s on Netflix instant!).

Oh, and Boris Karloff is fucking amazing.

Review: 9/10

With Robert Downey, Jr., Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Clark Gregg, John Slattery with Samuel L. Jackson and Garry Shandling.

“If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come.”

• Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke)
  

Yes I was one of the people who saw this at the 12:01 showing at IMAX (and still went to work the next morning). The much anticipated “Iron Man 2″ starts off pretty damn good. We are in Moscow and seeing an old man watching Tony Stark’s press conference (from the end of “Iron Man”) and he lays there moaning and grunting. He keeps calling for Ivan. We cut to a dark hallway where a man leans up against a wall in the shadows. The name Ivan is repeated by the old man, and the hulking mass turns and faces the camera – it’s Mickey Rourke in all his tooth capped, crazy hair, and tattoo covered glory.

Don’t fuck with Mickey.

Ivan (Rourke) goes into the room and holds the man, the man (Ivan’s father) tells Ivan that he should be building the Iron Man suit – not Tony Stark. The old man dies and Rourke screams. He begins constructing his own Iron Man exoskeleton and the credits roll as Rourke works.

I don’t want to dig any deeper into the plot because I don’t want to leak out any spoilers to those of you who read this and haven’t seen it yet. I’ll essentially break the film down a little bit and tell you what I thought worked and what I thought didn’t.

A problem that arises with “Iron Man 2″ is that we were so, so very spoiled by Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”. “The Dark Knight” forced all these other superhero movies to be better, to be taken more seriously. A big fault of “Iron Man 2″ is that it tries to be too smart and too witty and it sometimes comes across as really contrived and arrogant. The film introduces us to a slew of Stark gadgets that reminds us of how the James Bond franchise used to be.

Mickey Rourke is good in the film, but doesn’t have a chance to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor (which I called after seeing the trailer – I’m eating my words once again. Fuck!). The character of Ivan Vanko/Whiplash is so underdeveloped it makes me upset. Scarlett Johansson really adds nothing more to the film except T & A and some slightly perverted lines of dialogue.

Robert Downey, Jr. is well Robert Downey, Jr. in the film and the character of Tony Stark is almost too witty in the film, in almost every scene with Stark there is a spoken line, or an action taken by him that is supposed to make us laugh. A few of them do, but it becomes so very redundant.

Don Cheadle is a much added bonus to the film, he’s so much better than Terrance Howard and the climactic battle with Iron Man and War Machine is very sexy. Sam Jackson plays Sam Jackson; as the slightly angry black man who gives us his signature Jules Winfield from “Pulp Fiction”.

The two really special treats of the film are Garry Shandling playing a Senator on the Armed Services Committee who is trying to get the Iron Man suit turned over to the United States government so they can mass produce it and use it in their military. It’s really fun to see Shandling in this film, he’s always been so funny and it is way cool of Favreau to cast him in this.

The second is Sam Rockwell playing Justin Hammer (essentially the evil Tony Stark). Rockwell is on fire in the film, and remains to be the biggest highlight. He’s wickedly funny and goofy and delivers the best lines of the film. This film just displays the capability of a wonderful actor. The only problem I have with his character is near the end of the film, it feels like there is unfinished business with him.

I’m sure most of you know to stay until after the credits for a special extra scene. As the credits rolled my friend Peyton and I were excited, talking about what we were going to see. We’re both really hip to the Marvel universe and are familiar with The Avengers and the other Marvel films coming out to work towards the ultimate Avengers movie. I was personally insulted by the clip after the credits. I just expected more.

Another distracting factor in the film was the pushing of AC/DC. Just let it go.

This film is your above average summer blockbuster. It falls out of line with the first Iron Man film by pushing a lot of different story arcs on you. It fails to reach the magnitude of the first film. What the film is really lacking is that of a performance of Jeff Bridges in the first film. Rockwell comes close to Bridges’ performance but his character wasn’t developed as well as Bridges’ was.

But Jeff Bridges is one of a kind isn’t he?

Review: 6/10

With Stevan Seagal, Stephen Lang, Levon Helm, Randy Travis, Marg Helgenberger with Harry Dean Stanton and Kris Kristofferson.

“Do you want me to take him out?”

“Son, you couldn’t take out a cheeseburger from a drive-through”

    I own a majority of Seagal’s earlier films. I think they are so bad they are good (aside from “Under Siege” which is actually good). In “Fire Down Below” we find Seagal now an EPA Agent who gets sent to some small town in Virginia to investigate a millionaire (Kristofferson) who owns coal mines or something and has been dumping toxic waste into a river or a lake.

    Seagal enters the town undercover as a Missionary through the town’s church to help people fix up their homes. The town’s preacher is Levon Helms (The Band’s front man) who introduces Seagal to the townsfolk. He takes a liking to Sarah (Helgenberger) who lives with her brother Earl (Stephen Lang) who had molested her as a child. Kinda intense for a Seagal film…

    This movie is so fucking bad it’s awesome. The cast alone is sweet. Harry Dean Stanton who is always worthy of a good performance, plays the town “retard” – although he’s sharp as a tack and just plays that so Kristofferson and his goons leave him alone.

    Stephen Lang is enjoyable in the typical cliché bad man role, Randy Travis is cool as a quick drawing dirty FBI Agent and Kristofferson is tough as fucking nails as the heavy. He’s so smooth and cool he rivals Dean Martin. Kristofferson just has the aura around him that just makes him so fucking cool.

    The writing is vintage Seagal film – it’s so fucking campy and filled with slap yourself in the forehead one liners. I don’t know whose idea it was to have Seagal as a leading man in action films but it did work for quite a while. He had a nice little run…until he hired personal assistants as sex toys.

Review: 6/10