Top Ten Movies of 2012

It's common in these year end retrospectives to try to find some sort of narrative through-line  a nice little bow to succinctly wrap around the year, in order to sum up just what this year was all about. In terms of cinema, 2012, for me, was a year of surprises.

Coming off what I felt was a relatively lackluster 2011, 2012 was one of highly anticipated releases. With new films from some of my favorite directors like Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, and Paul Thomas Anderson on the horizon, you could say I had my hopes up for a strong year on the silver screen. Interestingly though, out of the four directors I have just cited, only one of their films made my list for the ten best movies of the year.

It's not to say that I disliked any one of the movies made by these fine directors, they all turned in solid work (if somewhat subpar compared only to their ridiculously high standards they have set on their previous cinematic excursions), but personally, I felt most of them were surpassed by people I have always considered "second-tier" directors. These are auteurs whose films I usually like and respect, but directors whose films I've never loved with the passion I have felt for the films from the quartet of directors mentioned above. This is why I say then 2012 was a year of "surprises".

Overall, I felt it was a pretty solid year at the movies. If I was to give it a grade, I would mostly likely give it a B+. While no film blew me away to the extent that The Tree of Life did last year, or even The Social Network the year before that, there were a plethora of really smart, concise films in 2012. I had no problem filling out a list of ten movies this year, and there were even a handful or so of films I had to leave off the list that I could easily see making my "top ten" in a weaker cinematic year.

It was also a special year for me in the fact that I attended the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time. In fact, four of the films that made my list I first laid eyes on in one of the beautiful theaters of Ontario's capital city. The festival was a wonderful experience and one that I highly recommend to any film fans considering making the trip north of the border.

Finally, before I get to the list, I must issue a disclaimer of sorts. Not living in either New York or Los Angeles, I do not have the benefit of seeing as many films as I would like to in a timely manner (although this year has been much better than usual). This means that some films, especially foreign films, I was not able to see before the writing of this article. In particular, Michael Haneke's Oscar-nominated Best Picture hopeful, Amour (which doesn't reach my part of the world until February 8), is one I would have liked to have seen before compiling this list (it ranked all the way up to #2 on RU's own Marc Eastman's top ten list). I would have also liked to have seen the much ballyhooed Cannes film festival entry, Holy Motors, but I suspect it will be some time before I will be able to see that surrealist treat.

I was also put in the peculiar position, because of my Toronto attendance, of having seen a few films that won't be released to wider audiences until 2013. In order to make my list as relatable to the general movie-going public as possible, I decided to disqualify these films from my list. I will say though, that one film in particular, Noah Baumbach's Francis Ha, would have made it very high on my list (maybe even at the top spot), so when it does make it to a theater near you, take the time to check it out. Undoubtedly, unless 2013 is the greatest year in the history of film, it will feature on my top ten list next year.

Top Ten of 2012

10. 21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street was the first movie officially a part of the 2012 "release window" I saw this year, but it has stuck with me more than many of its compatriots that followed. I must say though, I'm kind of shocked that it made the list, not because of the quality of this hilarious action/comedy hybrid, but because I never would have predicted it going into the year. Yet another movie cash-in, based on some mildly liked 1980's sitcom, brought to you by the team that directed Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and starring the boy toy from the Nicholas Sparks' adaptation Dear John, frankly I'm surprised I even saw this movie. After reading numerous good reviews and ratings though, my curiosity was peaked, and I reluctantly, but thankfully, gave it a shot.

In terms of pure laughs, 21 Jump Street was the funniest movie of the year. Fashioning a solid story and script out of the late 1980's television show about a pair of undercover cops infiltrating a high school, co-writers Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall (co-writer of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) were tasked with no easy feat, but passed with flying colors. What makes the film (and by extension the screenplay) so brilliant is how it plays with, and subverts, audience expectations.

The film openly mocks the concept of itself, pokes fun at the conventions of the action/comedy genre, and throws caution to the wind on where it allows itself to go. The film also has an amusing running theme of contrasting the vast generational differences between Gen Y-ers and the Millennials. With strong co-lead turns and bro-mantic chemistry from Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, as well as an underrated performance from Dave Franco (James' younger brother), 21 Jump Street is the funniest studio comedy since 2008's Tropic Thunder, as well as one of the biggest surprises of the year.

9. Lincoln

Everybody loves to rag on Steven Spielberg, and why not, he's an easy target. Too mainstream for the high-brow types, too many weighty departures for the average action-adventure fans, and way too much child-like sincerity for almost everyone living in the 21st Century, Spielberg has become the whipping boy for far too many a fanboy out in Moviedom. While you can't feel too badly for a multi-billionaire who has enjoyed the level of success that Steven Spielberg has, a lot of the hate steered at Mr. Spielberg's way is unfair and seems motivated simply by the enormous amount of success and influence he has attained over the years.

As you can tell then, I view myself as somewhat of a defender against the reactionary hate guided at Spielberg's way. To me, he is unquestionably one of the greatest figures in the history of the medium, from Jaws all the way to last year's luke-warmly received War Horse (a film that I was an ardent champion of). Despite all of this though, I have to admit I had my reservations going into Lincoln.

The one area of criticism against Spielberg where I most side with his detractors is when he takes on "Serious" material. Ultimately, as much as he may want to be a man of intellectual importance, it is not in Spielberg's nature to be austere and earnest. He's too much of a humanist for that, but after being shunned by the Oscars for years for making brilliant adventure films, it took until Schindler's List before the Academy acknowledged his work with an Oscar victory. This is a lesson he has not forgotten and every so often since then, Spielberg has done "important" films with very clear, on-the-nose moral messaging, and Lincoln seemed right up that alley.

Surprisingly though, Liocoln is not a straight up hagiography. Now don't get me wrong, it's clear throughout this movie that its makers feel that the ends justified the means in Lincoln's case, but it is presented in a fair enough way to let the viewer make up their mind. The script from Tony Kushner is surprisingly spy and entertaining, even if it does indulge in self-righteousness on occasion and is a little too transparent in its parallel to current affairs. The film also sports a terrific ensemble, anchored by another astounding performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, but backed up with a myriad of fantastic supporting performances as well (although the most touted of these, Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field, are overrated in my book).

Pulling off a bio-pic is not an easy accomplishment, in fact it's one of the toughest assignments to have in cinema. Lincoln though does so with much aplomb, and while it's not perfect, Spielberg manages to restrain his reverential tendencies just enough to pull off this tricky task. Lincoln may not be the best film of the year, but it's easily one of the most likable.

8. Cloud Atlas

If you're a regular listener to AreYouScreening's Instant Reaction podcast (and if you're not, shame on you), you'll know I part ways pretty drastically with host Marc Eastman and co-host extraordinaire Shane Leonard (who placed Cloud Atlas as his second worst movie of the year) on this one. Despite the vast gulf between out opinions on Cloud Atlas, I can actually understand their criticisms, to a point.

Cloud Atlas is an undeniably ambitious film, which for many, is a big sticking point. The film promotes its themes of universality and interconnected-ness in an extremely plain faced, simplified manner. At the same time, it also maintains an almost goofy tone in segments, playfully mixing earnestness with silliness  and it is this dissonance that appears to be at the heart of the criticism my RU colleagues have against the film.

This is a very valid and understandable point of view, but the reason I depart from this understanding is, regardless what the filmmakers may say, I don't think the message is treated as all that profound. The idea that love conquers all, and all living things have effects on all other living things, is a well-worn idea that has been around the block a few times in the world of cinema. I have no doubt that the Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer, the directors of the film, feel it is an important message, but I don't believe they feel it's a message they suddenly discovered themselves, and the film doesn't treat it as such. In fact, the notion of an interconnected-ness throughout space and time is essentially equivalent to that of "the Force" in the Star Wars series, except it is presented here in a slightly more historical setting.

This is the key though to avoiding what may otherwise feel like a very pretentious film. Despite its historical settings, Cloud Atlas is strictly a fantasy film, not an existential understanding of the nature of human life on Planet Earth. Based on the novel by David Mitchell, the film flawlessly juggles six slightly connected story lines, ranging from the mid-19th Century all the way to years after a post-apocalyptic event. This sort of ambitious narrative undertaking is a lot fun (something I wish more fantasy films would try), and despite its lengthy run time, the pacing in the film is expertly crafted. (The fact it missed out on an Film Editing Oscar nomination is one of the worst snubs of the year.)

It may come off as heavy-handed to some, but for me Cloud Atlas was an old-school swashbuckling adventure film in vein of the original Star Wars trilogy and some of the samurai films of the great Japanese auteur, Akira Kurosawa. Putting aside its aspirations, in many ways it is actually much less earnest than most recent fantasy fare who treat their own lore like words written from God on high. It's also a hell of a lot more fun than those films in my book, and a movie I would much rather watch again than say... Pirates, Transformers, Harry Potter, or even The Lord of the Rings... just to name a few.

7. The Paperboy

Even more than Cloud Atlas, I would suspect to find The Paperboy popping up on "ten worst" lists from critics this year. With a measly score of 45 on Metacritic and 39% on Rotten Tomatoes, I think it is fair to say the Lee Daniels' follow up to Precious was not well received by critics. In fact, the most hate-filled, vitriolic reviews I read all year were for this film. Why then did so many have such a negative reaction to the film?

This lurid, sleazy Southern Gothic neo-noir set in the racially charged Floridian panhandle of the late-1960's showcases some none to pretty examples of humanity, and without a single good character to root for in the whole film, I suspect it was too much to take for many (or maybe watching Nicole Kidman pee on Zach Efron was too much for their constitutions to handle). Personally though, I ate it up, and found it to be, stylistically, one of the best movies of the year.

The Paperboy, which premiered at the Cannes film festival and which I caught at Toronto, is closely akin to some of the crime/suspense films of the late 1960s. After I came out of the film, the first thing to come to my mind in trying to describe the film was that it was a "darker, raunchier version of In the Heat of the Night". Subsequently, I have read an interview with director Lee Daniels where he compared it to two other films of the era, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Cool Hand Luke, both fair comparisons as well. What he made clear though is that he was trying to make modern day homage to this era and genre of film, and boy did he ever.

The look of the film is scarily close to those films from the late 1960's (kudos to cinematographer Roberto Schaefer and Production Designer Daniel T. Dorrance) and aesthetically, it may be the greatest achievement of the year. Admittedly, I am a huge fan of this era and genre of film, so the look plays a big part in my effusive praise of the movie, but beyond the alluring cinematographic accomplishment, the film also has an intriguing pulpy story adapted from the novel by its author Pete Dexter and the film's director Lee Daniels.

The film has a fantastic cast as well, in what is one of the best ensembles of the year. Nicole Kidman (who received a Golden Globe and SAG nomination for her work), playing a white-trash queen in love with jailbirds she has never met, is perfect. John Cusak, in one of the creepiest turns from any actor I have seen, is horrifically mesmerizing. Matthew McConaughey, who has had a stunningly good year reestablishing himself as one of the best character actors working today, is terrific as the "detective" protagonist with skeletons of his own in his closet. David Oyelowo is superb channeling a more radical, righteous version of Sydney Poitier. Even Zac Efron, of High School Musical fame, is pretty decent.

Many will hate this film, but if you have a strong stomach for the grotesque of human nature, and appreciation for dark subject matter, there really is a lot to love about The Paperboy.

6. Rust and Bone

Jacques Audiard's A Prophet was one of the most heralded films of 2009, and though I enjoyed some of that film's performances, overall I found it to be overrated. You can suspect then, despite it's appearance at the Cannes film festival, I wasn't all that pumped for his next film, Rust and Bone. Given all the hype around Marion Cotillard's performance though, and considering the difficulty of seeing foreign films in the area where I live, I made it one of the ten films I picked to see at the Toronto Film Festival. To my surprise, Rust and Bone not only surpassed my relatively low expectations, but it proved to be one of the highlights of a significantly strong year of films. What makes this accomplishment even more impressive is that the film operates in a genre, melodrama, that I usually can't stand.

Based on the short story by Craig Davidson, the narrative follows the life of Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), a whale trainer at whatever is the French equivalent to Sea World, and Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a single father living with his sister and jumping around from odd job to odd job. The two serendipitously meet at a night club and have a brief, but genuine moment of friendship. When Stephanie then loses both of her legs from the thighs down in a tragic accident involving killer whales during one of the theme parks performances, without anywhere else to turn she contacts Ali out of the blue, and the two form a beautiful relationship that proves to be beneficial to both.

If this sounds like material for a Lifetime movie, it did to me too (which is partly why my expectations were so tempered), but the execution of the material is spot on. What makes Rust and Bone succeed where so many other melodramas fail is that, unlike its peers, this film doesn't accentuate the tragic moments. In fact, when the traumatic events occur, they are accompanied with an eerie, almost serene, silence. Audiard is smart enough to let these moments play out as they will, letting the audiences' emotion eat them up from the inside, instead of artificially hyping up these tragedies in a contrived manner in order to wring every last teardrop from the audience.

What the film does decide to spend its dramatic credit on instead is the smaller, intimate moments between the two leads. We see how each person fills the holes in the other person's personality, creating a stronger whole when the two are working for the same purpose. This is all done in beautiful, natural way, that never feels manipulated or pedantic.

 Of course, much of the credit belongs to the two terrific performances from Marion Cotillard and Mattias Schoenaerts. Schoenaerts never really got the attention he deserved, but Cotillard, now a major cross-over star, managed to get a BFCA, a Golden Globe, and a SAG nomination, but missed out at the Oscars. It's a shame, because I feel her performance was vastly superior to those of Naomi Watts (The Impossible) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), but despite the lack of Oscar recognition, it's still a great achievement.
Rust and Bone will be expanding over the next few weeks, so when it comes to your area, despite what apprehensions you may have, I urge you to give it a chance and check it out. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

5. Killing Them Softly

This without a doubt is the most acidic, acerbic film on my list. Like Rust and Bone, Killing Them Softly also premiered at the Cannes film festival, but that's about all the similarities the two films share. In terms of tone, they are about as polar opposites as you can get.

Based on the novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins, Killing Them Softly transplants the source material's location and time from 1970's Boston to 2008 New Orleans in order to make a point about the current state of society in the USA, and boy does it ever make that point. Interjecting political speeches and statements from the likes of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, you could definitely fault the film for its bluntness (and many have). What I enjoyed about the film though was not these overt political overtures, but its succinct understanding and dressing down of the absolute permeation of corporate culture in all aspects of American life, even things as previously informal as the mob.

Brad Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a for-hire hitman called in to investigate and knock off the culprits responsible for the heist of a mafia sponsored poker game. Cogan reads the situation correctly right off the bat, but the mafia higher ups, who Pitt only makes contact with through a liaison (Richard Jenkins), don't have the conviction or foresight to make the decisions that need to be made, leading to a much sloppier situation than need be.

The decline of an empire is slow, sad, and pathetic, not abrupt, grandiose, and tragic. This seems to be the point at the heart of the film, but even more than its message, its characterization is where the film shines. With sterling, visceral dialogue from it's director/writer Andrew Dominik, there are a profusion of fascinating characters, whether it be the aforementioned corporate liaison, the worn out middle-man (James Gandolfini), or the younger, work-ethic deficit gangsters (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn). Coming off of the underrated The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Dominik has proven his chops. If he could only learn to tone down his excesses a bit, and we would have maybe the best auteur working today.

4. Bernie

Keeping with the theme of surprises, Bernie is a movie, for me, that totally came out of the blue. It's director, Richard Linklater, has had one of the most awkward filmographies of any director in recent memory. From the brilliant (Waking Life), to the fun (School of Rock), to the totally unnecessary (Bad News Bears), you're never sure what you are getting with a Richard Linklater film. His last three films, Fast Food Nation, A Scanner Darkly, and Me and Orson Wells barely made a peep (I haven't seen even one of them) and I have to be honest and admit he had totally fallen off my radar. When I read the synopsis of the film and the players involved though, it seemed interesting enough to give it a try, but I was in no way anticipating the sharp-edged, "true-life" dark comedy (the best comedy of the year) that is Bernie.

The subject matter feels very akin to that of a Coen Brothers movie, but stylistically it is unquestionably Linkalater's. Exploring the real life murder case of Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) at the hands of her younger best friend/confidant/care taker/servant/slave (in that descending order), Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), the film is an interesting mix of fiction and non-fiction. Acting out events as they are believed to have occurred are Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine, both who give stunningly real performances. It's easily the best performance of Black's career (topping his previous best in School of Rock), and although he did receive a Golden Globe nomination for his work (in the Comedy/Musical category), it's a shame he did not receive more traction in the Oscar race. At least in that category they had the excuse of it being a very competitive year, but I do not know what is the reasoning behind the lack of buzz for MacLaine, who gives one of the best performances of her illustrious career as well.

As great and well-done as these fictional sequences are though, the best part of the film is the documentary-esque interviews with the real towns people. The murder case took place in the small town of Carthage TX, a town located in a rural part of East Texas. If you have ever driven through this part of the country (I've gone through the town myself), or even if you haven't, its hard not to be entertained by the homespun stylings of this eclectic group of Texas.

These interviews are made more interesting by the fact that the town was pretty split about their feelings on the case. Marjorie seems to be an almost universally hated figure, and Bernie did a lot of good in the town that many of the locals really appreciated, even if Bernie's flamboyant personality (his sexuality is a topic of discussion for one whole segment of the film) didn't exactly blend well with the culture of the area.

Bernie isn't the first film to do the documentary/movie hybrid thing, but it is still an ingenious decision on Linklater's part and it is expertly executed for the highest comedic potential. Some of the "talking heads" interviews are some of the funniest things you'll see all year. My particular favorite is one elderly man's partitioning of Texas into five segments, discounting the panhandle altogether by saying something to the effect of, "nobody cares about it". This is the type of gold you could never write.

3. Cosmopolis

Until about two weeks ago, when I caught second viewings of the next two films on my list, Cosmopolis was my favorite film of the year. And who knows? If I watched Cosmopolis again, it might just reclaim its spot as my favorite film of 2012, and I do plan on watching Cosmopolis again. In fact, as I was coming out of the theater, that was one of my first thoughts, "I need to see this movie again".

Cosmopolis is a very dense film, with lightning-quick dialogue on very heady subject matter that gets into the minutia of the finer details of contemporary economics and society. The film is unquestionably didactic  pedagogic, cerebral, and academic.  In fact, it reminded me of a lot of the conversations that occurred in my Philosophy of Technology class I took in college, which likely explains the film's lackluster box office showing and mostly poor reviews (although it did end up in the top ten list of the prestigious cinematic magazines of Cashiers du Cinema and Sight & Sound).

Cosmopolis, even more than Killing Them Softly, is a movie of our times. Particularly, the film is impressively prescient in its vivisection of the Millennial generation. Adapted by David Cronenberg from the novel by Dom DeLillo, Cosmopolis is centered around its protagonist's, 28-year old billionaire Eric Parker (Robert Pattison), attempt to take his limo across Manhattan in order to get a haircut. If that sounds like a weird plot synopsis of a movie to you, that's because it is. Cosmopolis is a very surreal movie (not surprising coming from Cronenberg), and it's Alice in Wonderland vibe is one of my favorite aspects of the film.

What really makes Cosmopolis such a brilliant movie though is its almost methodical diagnosis of youth culture, whether it be celebrity worship, technological servitude, or phony moral outrage and the reactionary response to that. With no where else to go from Gen X's cynical apathy, the Millennials retreated so far into an abstract meta-ness, that they are desperate and, simultaneously, mortally frightened to feel any thing that is substantially real. We see through Parker how much of a meaningless game life is to him, and his futile attempts to feel something of actual substance, (including ordering someone to taze him, shooting himself in the hand, and purposefully putting his life in danger), only serve to illustrate how disconnected he is from reality.

One of my favorite scenes in the film is when he actually arrives at the barber shop. Parker watches the barber, the barber he has had since he was a child, and his driver discuss old times. As they banter back and forth, Parker devolves back into a child, in utter awe of these two adults talking about real things and about real times.

Pattison is perfectly cast in the role, and proves he has talent outside of being a mopey vampire. There is also a cadre of terrific supporting performances from the likes of actresses such as Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton, and Sarah Gadon. Despite these wonderful performances, Cosmopolis is certainly not a film for everyone, but if you found any of this discussion even slightly interesting, you would do yourself a favor to find this movie.

2. Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino is an amazing director. What is particularly fascinating about Tarantino to me is how he unites so many disparate elements of film fans. Whether you're a highbrow intellectual espousing the genius of the French New Wave movement, or a young twenty-something who thinks The Avengers is second coming of Christ, or anywhere in between, almost everyone can agree (except for the prude) that Tarantino's films are awesome. Male, female, black, white, old, young, it doesn't matter, and that's Tarantino's genius.  His films are such pure expressions of cinema, using what is expressly unique to this art form, that they are almost impossible not to like.

Tarantino is the king of cinema mash-ups, and in the case of Django Unchained, we have the mix of spaghetti western (Tarantino's favorite genre), blaxploitation, and political/social commentary, with a good bit humor thrown in for good measure. In RU's podcast review of the movie, Marc Eastman mentions how Django is a movie he can see himself watching whenever he happens to catch it on television, and I couldn't agree more. Django Unchained is easily the most rewatchable movie of the year because it has the classic patented Tarantino dialogue and a sense of the cinematic that make the scenes so memorable. Whether it be the opening sequence that takes place, "Somewhere in Texas", the shoot out to the James Brown/2Pac mix "Unchained", DiCaprio's phrenology speech, or even something as little as the montage sequence to Jim Croce's "I've Got a Name" (probably my favorite moment at the movies this year), the great scenes are abound in this movie.

As always in a Tarantino movie, the performances are mesmerizing. Jaimie Fox, playing the titular role of Django, Leonardo DiCaprio, playing the villainous role of plantation-owner Calvin Candie, and Samuel L. Jackson, playing the sinister "head house nigger" Stephen, all give wonderful performances, some of the best work of all three actors' careers. It is Christoph Waltz though, playing Django's mentor and accomplice, Dr. King Schultz, who just totally blew me away. In just two collaborations with Tarantino, this man has already become one of my favorite actors. From the slightest inflections in his speech, to the tiniest twitch of facial features, this performance is pitch perfect (literally in this case).

The mix of music and images in the film, being a Tarantino film, is sublime. In addition to some of the aforementioned tracks, there are a lot of great scores sampled from Spaghetti Westerns, and in the first for a Tarantino movie, four original tracks that are all great (my favorite being John Legend's "Who Did That To You"). The music is a perfect fit for the movie and endlessly fun to listen to on its own right (I'm listening to it as I write this article).

Django Unchained is a little bit sloppier than some of Tarantino's previous work, and I do feel it missed Tarantino's long-time collaborator, film editor Sally Menke, who tragically passed away in 2010 at the age of 56. It doesn't quite then reach the highs of Tarantino's best work, but even when Tarantino isn't quite working at the top of his game, he still makes one of the best movies of the year.

1. Silver Linings Playbook

My number one film of 2012 is a movie I never would have suspected to even make my list, much less top it. The first time I saw Silver Linings Playbook was at the Toronto Film Festival. I had decided to see it because I knew it would be getting a lot of awards buzz at the end of the year and thought it would be kind of cool to see the movie before the hype machine got a hold of it, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to the film. David O. Russell's previous feature, The Fighter, had left me kind of cold, and I definitely wasn't as enamored with it as many seemed to be judging from all the accolades that movie received. I was absolutely stunned then to find that Silver Linings Playbook was the most complete, crisply assembled release of 2012.

Silver Linings Playbook, based on the book by Matthew Quick, is centered around one Pat Solitano Jr. (Bradley Cooper), a bi-polar, middle-aged, former school teacher who was recently released from a mental institution after he nearly beat the man to death he caught cheating with his wife. Determined to win back his spouse, his laser-like focus is distracted somewhat when he runs into Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recent widow who isn't exactly a pillar of mental stability herself. The two initially partner up for mutual advantage, but, as will happen in romantic comedies, the two quickly fall for each other, fulfilling their inescapable destinies.

It may not sound like the stuff of Shakesepeare, but the film is more fully realized than countless other movies that aspire to be much more. With a blistering pace, sharply humorous dialogue, and genuine emotion and chemistry, the film reminds you of the days when "romantic comedy" wasn't synonymous with shit.

In fact, Silver Linings Playbook hearkens back to the tone and style of the classic screwball comedies of the late 1930's and 1940's (one of my favorite genres), just in a contemporary understanding and setting. The legendary duos of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, William Powell and Myrna Loy, Carey Grant and whatever flavor-of-the-month actress he partnered with, now have another pair to join their ranks in Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

In addition to similarities between Silver Linings Playbook and the classic screwball comedies, the movie, especially in its finale, also has a bit in common with the films of Frank Capra, my favorite director of the "Golden Era of Cinema". Capra had an uncanny ability to pull off incredibly sentimental scenes without coming off as a complete schmuck, and in the current hyper-cynical times we live, that type of sincerity has only gotten exponentially more difficult to execute. That's why I am always on the look out for films that successfully make this fait accompli, and this is the best film to do so since Little Miss Sunshine.

The performances in the movie are also tuned to perfection. Bradley Cooper, an actor I never even respected before, much less liked, totally shocked me in a career-altering performance that stands out as one of the best of the year. Jennifer Lawrence is as charismatic as hell (it's easy to see why she's such a rising star) and illustrates how a female can actually create a compelling character in a romantic comedy. Robert De Niro is great too, in his best performance in years as Cooper's father, a gambling addict who has a few quirks himself.

With a superstitious Eagles fan who does whatever it takes for his team to win (something I sympathize with as a die-hard Patriots fan) and a terrific, grand dance finale (I also teach tap dance classes), it's safe to say, this movie had me at hello.