Wait, yep. This is totally Ginger Kid’s grandma. He is the one FILMING THESE VIDEOS. And his videos often talk about discrimination. The tactic of “well, actually its us that are discriminated against, not them” is a particular favorite of Ginger Kid’s, and now we see where he gets it from. I think I’ve seen more than enough from this family. Disgusting people, really.

Can’t believe Louie didn’t make it. If I remember correctly, Videogum said that season 1 of Louie was the best show of last year. What happened between then and now? Was season 2 that much of a drop in quality for you? Cause to me it was even better than the 1st season. I’m confused by this omission.

Drive is a movie about a monster of a person trying really hard to get away from the truth of who he really is. The director said after driving around Los Angeles with Gosling and hearing some song on the radio, he realized that he wanted this movie to be about a man driving around Los Angeles listening to pop music and trying to feel something. At one point in the film there is a reference to “The Scorpion And The Frog”, a fable about how creatures cannot ultimately hide from their true nature. The main character wears a jacket with a scorpion on the back. He is given no name in the story. The whole movie he seems to be restraining himself, until fate compels him to finally let loose and do what he does well, which is inflict harm. In order to hide from that truth, he’s adopted a purposefully superficial relationship with the outside world, as does the film in which he is featured.

I find this movie to be largely misunderstood.

Attack The Block just barely missed my own top 10 this year, as did The Trip. I highly recommend The Guard if you haven’t seen it.

Billy Crystal will once again host the Oscars. Just reported:

http://www.deadline.com/2011/11/billy-crystal-in-oscar-hosting-talks/

Enter The Void should DEFINITELY be here. I also enjoy the title sequence to the following movies. Luckily every one of the movies I thought of had been compiled on this excellent site dedicated specifically to credits sequences. They also do TV show credits. Here’s my selections:

American Splendor
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/31/american-splendor/

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (includes opening scene, but I’m specifically talking about the credits)
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2011/01/03/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world/

Edward Scissorhands (better than Pee-Wee, but that’s obvious)
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/12/26/edward-scissorhands/

Monty Python & The Holy Grail
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/09/14/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail/

Up In The Air
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2010/03/10/up-in-the-air/

Zombieland
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2010/04/05/zombieland/

Exhibit B:

Seriously, those disgusting “sexy” looks she keeps throwing out there during this video make me shudder. Sooooooo creepy/gross!

Granted, this is just based off the first two episodes, which I had to force myself to sit through because FX has been such a reliable place for comedy I figured there’s gotta be a reason why they picked this show up.

Living in Los Angeles, I often have the opportunity to see free screenings of movies that won’t be out for a long time. This year, weirdly, I think I’ve been able to already see every single major comedy that will be released for the rest of the year except for a handful. Here’s what I’ve seen and how I feel about them:

The best comedy of the year for sure is Horrible Bosses. Charlie Day is incredible in this movie. Nuff said. (Well, actually, I will also say that Kevin Spacey is miraculously good in this movie after many years of sucking ass, Jason Bateman is basically Ron Livingston from Office Space in a good way, Colin Farrell is unrecognizable and maybe even a bit under-used in this one, and Jamie Foxx’s character is named Motherfucker Jones)

My second favorite comedy of the year is the criminally underrated and underseen movie Cedar Rapids. C’mon folks, get on this! It is seriously very good.

Third favorite is Bridesmaids, very funny and sweet.

30 Minutes Or Less would be 4th favorite, but mainly because of Danny McBride and Aziz Ansari. It took me about a half hour to buy into Jesse Eisenberg’s character. Something was off about him in the beginning. But Danny McBride fucking OWNS this movie in full Kenny Powers mode. Aziz should (and probably will) get a lot more prominent film work after people see him in this, and that is a very good thing.

5th favorite is a tie between Paul and Wanderlust. Both very funny, and I can’t decide which one is better. They’re very different. Jennifer Aniston is great in Wanderlust, better even than her role in Horrible Bosses, which happens to be great again. Paul Rudd has an epic scene where he talks to himself in the mirror. I was crying from laughing at that scene. Paul (the movie, not Rudd) is also underrated and kind of hated on, but it straight up worked for me. Very satisfying movie watching experience. But it probably would’ve been better if Edgar Wright directed it.

I also saw these movies in advance:

The Sitter (David Gordon Green’s upcoming babysitting movie with Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell and Max Records. Good but not great)
The Trip (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon eat at restaurants and do impressions of people. Its also semi serious. A pleasant, but light helping of comedy)
50/50 (Seth Rogen has really cornered the market on “buddy-cancer movies”. Its good but having Rogen in it made me keep thinking about Funny People the entire time, which hurt the movie for me)

Then there’s the pretty mediocre crop of comedies that have already come out such as:

Your Highness (ok)
The Green Hornet (meh)
The Hangover 2 (wack)
Take Me Home Tonight (whatever)
Hall Pass (no)
Arthur (gross)
The Dilemma (fuck this)
and others that hurt me to type out.

Finally, there are the movies that are funny, but I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as comedies:

Attack The Block is my favorite movie of the year at the halfway point. Its seriously funny, but also seriously intense. Its definitely part comedy, but also part adventure, part sci fi, part fantasy and part horror. This is why I love it, but also why I can’t confidently place it in a list of comedies.

Jason Reitman’s next movie Young Adult is fan-fucking-tastic. Charlize Theron plays a writer of teen novels who spirals out of control while trying to steal her high school sweetheart away from his happy marriage and newborn child. Patton Oswalt is in this, and he’s not just some random dude with a line or two. Also, this is the best script Diablo Cody has written to date. This is not really a comedy though. Dramedy, maybe. Pretty dark actually.

Win Win was great! Is it a comedy? I’m not sure. I laughed a bunch, but its not really something I’d put on if I was looking for laughs. If this counts as a comedy, this is better than every movie I’ve mentioned here except Attack The Block.

Also, Midnight In Paris falls into the Woody Allen category. Woody gets his own stand alone category because he is that awesome.

I still haven’t seen Bad Teacher, The Big Year, Bernie, The Change Up, Our Idiot Brother, Crazy Stupid Love, The Guard, or the Harold And Kumar 3D movie. I’ve had the opportunity to see a few of these and decided to blow em off. I’m sure at least a couple of these will be good.

The Tree Of Life, Super 8, Horrible Bosses, Harry Potter, Winnie The Pooh, 30 Minutes Or Less THAT IS ALL.

I’ve already seen Bridesmaids, Horrible Bosses and 30 Minutes Or Less. I’ve also seen all major comedies released up to this point this year, and I’ve seen a movie called Wanderlust starring Paul Rudd that won’t be out till October.

Horrible Bosses is EASILY the funniest movie of the year unless Hangover 2 beats it (I doubt that). This movie should do for Charlie Day what The Hangover did for Galifinakis. He’s that good in this. Bridesmaids is a solid B movie. Not particularly hilarious, but surprisingly honest and heartfelt, so worth a look. 30 Minutes Or Less is funny if you’re a fan of Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride. If not I would imagine you might not enjoy it. Oh, and Wanderlust was pretty great!

As for the rest, I want to see:

The Tree Of Life
Super 8
Harry Potter 7.5 (yikes!)
Winnie The Pooh
The Hangover 2
Attack The Block
Cars 2
Beginners
Cowboys & Aliens
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Submarine
Captain America
Another Earth
X-Men First Class
The Devil’s Double

I respectfully disagree, Gabe. I thought it was really good! I do kind of agree that Blanchett was a little much, but I was very entertained and satisfied by what I saw. I didn’t have very high expectations though, and I’m gathering that you did, so maybe that’s the issue. It was fun and cool and my girlfriend in particular LOVED it. She said that Hanna looked like her when she was young, so there was built in empathy on her part. My only real knock on the movie is that they didn’t fully spell out the entire plot. But honestly I had enough fun with it that by the end I didn’t really care. I was just like, “Cool!”