When we come across some of the most extraordinary people or find ourselves in the most fortunate situations, we are least looking for those. At times we are presented with the greatest of gifts that, at one point, we could never have imagined and, the next, you can’t imagine how you ever functioned prior. I imagine this is how you might feel when you know you have found your lifelong partner or when you have a child. I’ve had three of these moments in my life. While I have discussed these other two moments very, very infrequently with anyone, there is one that I will share often. It involves my wonderful niece Jessica. Today (February 17, 2013) is her birthday. She just turned 25. She recently married her high school boyfriend. She’s a teacher. Besides me, Jessica is the only teacher in either of our extended families. She is as wonderful of a human being as you will ever meet. She is and has always been so sweet, kind, and intelligent. She’s wise beyond her years but still has this youthful appreciation for life’s little gems. I love her so much and am so proud to be her uncle. I was asked to be an usher at her wedding this past fall, which was one of my life’s great honors. With only a 12-year age gap between us, I do think of her as a little sister as much as I do a niece. I’ll touch on more of this later in this review.
Continue reading The Sessions (2012)
Category Archives: Top 10 Movie of 2012
Life of Pi (2012)
Life of Pi is a visual masterpiece that film purists should not miss. If this movie is all intriguing to you, I recommend seeing it as quickly as possible. To experience the true value of this movie, it must be seen in the theater. The 3D effects are superb, but just as important is experiencing this movie on the largest screen available. As I told a friend, if you only go to the cinema a handful of times per year, there might be better movies to see. I might even recommend a film that isn’t as good as Life of Pi based on your preferences. But if your goal is to see as many great movies as you can in one year, this is not to be missed.
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The Impossible (2012)
The Impossible is flat-out the best movie of 2012. I went into the movie thinking it would be one of the ten best of 2012, but I didn’t think it would crack the top five, let alone take over The Dark Knight Rises. As I’ve stated many times, a great movie has an advantage over other great movies if it is based on a true story. Not “inspired by a true story” or “based upon true events” but “based on a true story.” A great movie can lose a lot in my book if it turns out that much factual information is exaggerated or incorrect. Remember The Titans went from being in my all-time top 25 to fall out of the top 150 because of how factually incorrect it had been. Rather than winning the state championship on the game’s final play, as depicted in the movie, the TC Williams Titans won that game handily 27-0. And while I haven’t sought out any discrepancies between what was shown in The Impossible and what happened, I haven’t heard anybody say that the events were untrue.
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Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Silver Linings Playbook was a great movie I would have seen if I had done more research ahead of time. I have known for months now that Jennifer Lawrence is a candidate, if not the favorite, for this year’s Best Actress Academy Award and that Bradley Cooper could snag one of the five nominations in the Best Actor category. The movie might land a spot in the Best Picture category, though it would have little chance of winning. So the Oscar buzz was one reason that got me to the theater. The other was that the movie centered on mental illnesses and broken relationships. Those movies often, but not always, engross me. I saw drama and comedy as words associated with this movie. Perhaps naively, I did not see a romantic comedy. While there was a bit of drama and some attempts at comedy (which I found to be weak), this slowly but surely turned into a romance. By the movie’s conclusion, I was very, very okay with that. Though flawed at times, it came together nicely and felt reasonably original to me. If ten movies are nominated for Best Picture this year, Silver Linings Playbook will and should be one of them.
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Argo (2012)
Ben Affleck continues to hone his craft as a masterful director while re-establishing himself as one of Hollywood’s leading men on the screen. After some misfires (Pearl Harbor, Daredevil) and downright flubs (Gigli, Surviving Christmas) during the early part of the decade, Affleck stepped to the other side of the camera for the first time and directed the critically acclaimed Gone Baby Gone. In 2010, he directed and starred in the stirring action-drama The Town. As great as both of those movies were, Affleck was not recognized for either with an Academy Award nomination. That will change this year as Argo is destined for Best Picture and Best Director Academy Award nominations.
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