Film review: American Hustle (2013)

Month in review: December films

Due to the holidays and a substantially less demanding workload, I was able to watch more than my usual amount of films, reaching a total of 17 films in 31 days (I actually watched Movie 43 in December, but decided to include it in my previous monthly recap).

The average score for the last month of 2013 was a respectable 2.88. However, I only watched two films that cracked 4 out of 5 or more, with only Reservoir Dogs as a clear candidate to comfortably make my much-delayed Top 250 favorite film list. Worthy of notice is that December was also very 2013-heavy, with 12 films released in the last solar year, and only one film, the aforementioned Reservoir Dogs, that was released before the turn of the 21st century.

Here are the films in the order in which I watched them:

THE FACTORY (2012) [2.5/5]

Top 10 female performances of the last 5 years

Like I did with the men a couple of days ago, I give you my list of favorite female performances of the last five years in lieu of a best films of 2013 list as we are just hours away from celebrating the New Year.I highly encourage anyone reading to make recommendations as to whom should have made my list instead.

Top 10 favorite male performances of the last 5 years

It has been over two weeks without a post from yours truly and I figured I needed to close the year in proper blogging fashion. Being that I will NOT be posting a best films of 2013 list before the end of the solar year, I thought I would gather my thoughts to share my favorite acting performances of the last five years.First, I will give you my favorite 10 male performances in alphabetical order followed, in a couple of days, by my 10 favorite female roles of the half-decade from 2009 to 2013 (warning: blind spots in 2013 abound!)As usual, I expect discerning tastes, and I would love to hear some recommendations as to whom should have made my list.

IMDB Top 250: Mary & Max (2009)

 

Months in review: October & November films

In the last two months I’ve seen 26 films, but only a handful of which I would consider watching again. It was a particularly poor couple of months in terms of quality and quantity that I will hopefully begin to fix with the swarm of great films that have come out to theaters or that will be coming before the year is out. I can’t remember the last time I was as excited as I am today with the group of films that are hitting theaters within the next few weeks.

For now, here is a recap of the 26 films I managed to watch between October & November (in the order in which they were seen), while a great deal of my time was devoted to countless hours of catching up with Breaking Bad (finally got to the last season).

Film review: Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Veteran’s Week film review: The Deer Hunter (1978)

Best Films of 2012, 11 months late

After more than 11 months have passed since the turn of the year, I finally get to posting the list for what I consider to be the best films of 2012.
Out of the more than 60 films from last year that I managed to see, 18 received at least a 4/5 or “very good” rating, which is exactly one more than the amount I rated as high in 2011. The average score at this moment is 2.9, which is also in line with the average from the previous year. Out of these 18, only 5 were given 4.5/5 and no films received a perfect score. My count for 5/5 rated films remains stationed at 14 films total, with the last entry being ‘A Separation’ from 2011.

Here is the list of my favorite 18 films of 2012:

Film review: Holy Motors (2012)