|
50%
|
The Great Gatsby (2013)
|
"As Carraway's depicted in the movie, I can finally see why Hemingway thought Fitzgerald was such a pussy. Carraway is writer as observer-eunuch, the antithesis of Hemingway's phallus-brandishing lion killer."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
78%
|
Iron Man 3 (2013)
|
"Watching a Shane Black movie is like listening to a noisy garage band, where no matter how sloppily they skronk through a verse, when they tighten up and hit that sing-along chorus, the lack of polish somehow makes it sound even better."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
8%
|
The Big Wedding (2013)
|
"Their idea of a minority is, in all seriousness, a British dude painted orange. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
55%
|
Oblivion (2013)
|
"I'll forgive a lot for an IMAX film this pretty, and Oblivion is an artful mish-mash of older sci-fi that borrows from just enough sources that it doesn't feel like a ripoff. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
68%
|
Trance (2013)
|
"Like a beautifully elaborate origami weave of story strands I didn't believe for even a single second."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
82%
|
The Place Beyond The Pines (2013)
|
"A technically brilliant film, but a bummer that's more about inevitability than possibility. Sidenote: the baby actor's name is "Anthony Pizza Jr." "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
67%
|
Stoker (2013)
|
"Stoker is symbolism in search of a story. It's like Breaking Bad if it was a show about Walt killing flies, and only tangentially concerned with the meth business."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
——
|
A Band Called Death (2013)
|
"Takes its time getting there, but when it hit, it packed an emotional punch that knocked me on my ass so hard I left a skid mark on the floor."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
88%
|
Upstream Color (2013)
|
"If it's something different you're after, Upstream Color is your movie. But be careful what you wish for. It's a film about having pig dreams, and the courage to follow them. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
——
|
Mr. Angel ()
|
"A movie about a man with a vagina that kicked me right in the emotional nutsack. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
66%
|
Spring Breakers (2013)
|
"A movie in which many f*cks are spoken, but few given."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
59%
|
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
|
""We are what we pretend to be" is not only one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes, but a surprising sentiment to be found in a Disney movie for kids. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
16%
|
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2013)
|
"There isn't much interesting about delving into the psyche of a broad, meaningless caricature. Ooh, tell us about your rich internal life, Joe Camel! "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
85%
|
Side Effects (2013)
|
"No spoilers: Side Effects is damn good at being a movie. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
37%
|
Stand Up Guys (2013)
|
"Al Pacino's chemically-induced boner that has to be drained with a needle in the first act is a nice metaphor for the whole movie. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
59%
|
The Last Stand (2013)
|
"Reminds me of Metallica in Some Kind of Monster, where they'd just kind of all play loud at the same time and occasionally stumble upon an okay-sounding bit that they'd then record. The Last Stand is kind of like the St. Anger of Arnold movies."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
93%
|
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
|
"This isn't a bad movie, it's just too easy. This is a movie for people who want to eat their fish without having to gut it first. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
32%
|
Gangster Squad (2013)
|
"I don't mind not thinking too hard if I'm going to get something out of it at some point, but this is more like a self-perpetuating Ouroboros loop of not thinking too hard."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
88%
|
Django Unchained (2012)
|
"When we look back at history, we tend to put evil up on this pedestal in a way that unfairly flatters people like Hitler, et al. Tarantino pulls evil men down from their dignified perch and allows you to laugh at them as the actual clowns they were."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
69%
|
Les Misérables (2012)
|
"Review formatted to Smash Mouth's "All Star." SooomeBODY once TOLD me, the SOOONGS were gonna BORE me, I AIN'T a cultured DUDE just a GUUUUUEST/Anne was LOOKin kinda GLUM with her HAAAAIR up in a BUN, and some DIRT on her FACE, yeah she's POOR, now "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
61%
|
Jack Reacher (2012)
|
"A movie that never pretends to be a film, it's like a puffed-up Law & Order episode done well - the kind of guilty pleasure popcorn movie people always tried to convince me Bourne was. Why hasn't Werner Herzog played a bad guy before?"
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
65%
|
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
|
"It's all fight scenes, and the fight scenes have no arc. You just sit there waiting for some inevitable deus ex machina to save the day whenever Peter Jackson feels like it. The characters have no agency. It's like watching a kid play with his GI Joes."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
86%
|
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
|
"When you live in the city and you buy your meat wrapped in cellophane, it's a pleasant fantasy to believe that people who sleep in the dirt and gut their dinners are possessed of a spiritual richness that you've always felt you're somehow lacking."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
75%
|
Killing Them Softly (2012)
|
"An oppressively cynical cinematic Motörhead song about the scum-covered nutsack of society. What it lacks in nuance it makes up for in brutal purity. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
88%
|
Life of Pi (2012)
|
"Going into a religious allegory like Life of Pi, you expect an abundance of meerkats, and Life of Pi, sadly, has only a moderate amount of meerkats. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
92%
|
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
|
"David O. Russell is screwing with us. He's seeing how many indie rom-com tropes he can juggle at the same time and still make it work, with one big twist: Brad Cooper is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a penis."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
89%
|
Lincoln (2012)
|
"Spielberg's entertaining and bravely esoteric tale of 1860s politics comes with an unfortunate side dish of contrived family drama that's as hokey as it is dull. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
78%
|
Flight (2012)
|
"If you leave after the first 20 minutes, you'll see a great nude scene and a harrowing plane crash without being subjected to the after-school special about alcoholism that comes later."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
67%
|
Cloud Atlas (2012)
|
"...like a three-hour, constantly shifting contradiction. You want to give it credit for all its dazzling imagery, but almost every actual idea it presents it eventually contradicts or leaves incomplete."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
94%
|
The Sessions (2012)
|
"That exceedingly rare combination of sexy, clever and sweet, a winning tale of one charming disabled man's quest to get some stank on his hangdown."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
82%
|
Seven Psychopaths (2012)
|
"On paper, a movie I should love. In practice, like watching two grad students pee on each other for two hours."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
39%
|
Here Comes the Boom (2012)
|
"To see MMA marketed once again to the Truck Nutz Energy Drink Crowd is, yes, predictable, but still disappointing. It's impossible for me to see Henry Winkler singing an acoustic version of a POD song in an airport as anything but an embarrassment. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
96%
|
Argo (2012)
|
"Clever, competent filmmaking with lovable characters and catchy dialog, the kind of movie Aaron Sorkin might make if he was just a smidge less of a smarmy prick. And obviously, Affleck's beard is the bomb."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
93%
|
Looper (2012)
|
"Looper is like a Christopher Nolan movie with a sense of humor. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
78%
|
Dredd (2012)
|
"A good B-movie makes the grade with retard strength, not by acing math tests, and Dredd has a plot like a sledge hammer."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
86%
|
The Master (2012)
|
"I knew The Master would be beautiful, but I was pleasantly surprised by all the fart jokes and boobs."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
64%
|
Cosmopolis (2012)
|
"I don't know if DeLillo's fetishized doubletalk ever works in a visual medium like film, but I can tell you that Robert Pattinson sure as hell isn't up to it, at least not without better direction than this. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
87%
|
ParaNorman (2012)
|
"Incredible animation unfortunately paired with a preachy, recycled story and unpleasant character design. "
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
78%
|
The Ambassador (2012)
|
"The closest I've ever seen to a real-life Heart of Darkness, but funnier."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
95%
|
The Queen of Versailles (2012)
|
"A well-told tale about having to atone for sins of the sub-prime era."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
|
87%
|
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
|
"Enjoying TDKR requires messiah-like trust in Nolan that he'll eventually reward us, as long as we don't get too hung up on all the plot holes and leftover genre tropes."
|
Vincent Mancini
|
76%
25%
72%
85%
46%
40%
