#25 Amour (2012)

#14 Django Unchained (2012)

Quentin Tarantino.

Definitely the best Tarantino movie I've seen in just about 18 years. Yes, I rank this one above Inglorious Basterds. Jaime Foxx plays Django Freeman the best bad-ass since Jules Winnfield. The return of Samuel Jackson to a Tarantino movie was another great highlight. DiCaprio is very good. Christoph Waltz is excellent. The story is well-written and the soundtrack is awesome. At numerous points in the movie, Tarantino's control over the tension between slave-owner and former slave, overseer and free man, slave and black slaver highlighted with the right music at just the right time made me feel shivers down my back. A feeling I hadn't had in a movie for a long time. There are too many good things about this movie to write about. 5 stars. 

#11 Holy Motors (2012)

By Leos Carax.

This is a difficult movie to write about. It really needs to be seen. I tried to choose several different photos to try and convey the variety of bizarre sequences in this movie, but the few I've selected only represent a small fraction of the total. It is a french movie that essentially deals with acting. The main character, Monsieur Oscar, played by the versatile Denis Lavant (I think "versatile" is an understatement), is an actor who is ferried around in his limousine/dressing room to the various "jobs" he has to do during a typical work day. From a street-begging old maid to a trained assassin, to a sewer-dwelling elf, to an elderly man on his death bed, to an action-movie star in which his job entails performing fight scenes and love-making scenes all in a motion-capture suit. The movie definitely could be interpreted to delve into the question "what is acting?" or "what does creating cinema really mean?" However, these arguments only barely entered into my perception of this movie, as there doesn't appear to be an opinion or point of view that is being forced on the viewer. The viewing experience, for me, involved a lot more appreciation for the varying scenes and images, the strange interactions between the characters, and the great amount of creativity that went into the making of this movie. The result is a great feeling of "I wonder what is going to happen next!!!" I guess whether or not that makes it enjoyable or "entertaining" is up to each individual viewer.

4 stars.

#5 - Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

By Alfred Hitchcock. Starring the lovely Teresa Wright who is rapidly becoming my favorite actress. I've only also seen her in The Best Years of Our Lives, which I saw sometime last year and was instantly captivated by her. After seeing Shadow of a Doubt, I didn't realize it was the same actress even though the character definitely reminded me of someone I had seen in a similar movie. Once I looked her up and saw her filmography, I was instantly reminded of how I had fallen for her in the Best Years. Quite an interesting Hollywood persona, as well. One of the only actors (if not the only) to be nominated for an academy award for her role in each of her first three films.

"Are they? Are they, Charlie? Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?"