Here’s a review of a beer that quite probably takes the mantle of Best Beer We’ve Ever Brewed. The genesis of this beer can almost certainly be traced to a beer tasting session with Sam, Rich and me, where we opened an unassuming bottle of beer from Illinois: Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout.

This, in fact, turned out to be my first real experience with bourbon-barrel aged American Imperial Stouts, and I fell in love. I actually gave it my very first five-out-of-five in my review on BeerAdvocate. (Incidentally, my only other 5/5 since then has been for another bourbon-barrel aged imperial stout, albeit one from Denmark).

Since that moment, we’ve been trying to replicate it, or something like it. This was, in fact, the third attempt to do just that. We started with a rather timid “oaked vanilla stout” we termed the “Vorpal Stout”, a name I liked in connection with our brewery, then an oaked coffee stout we called… hem hem… “Dr. Jabberwock’s Famouse Stout - A Patented Tonic for the Relief of Acute Beer Deficiency”. Neither really matched what we got with the BCBS, although both were decent in their own ways.

It took, as it usually does, us turning everything up to stupid levels of weirdness before we managed to replicate something similar. Amazingly (I say now), this recipe was a pretty much an extract brew, in that we had no mash. We did, however, steep a kilo of roasted barley for colour, and all the extract we used was the darkest varieties we could fine. We also soaked our oak chips (100g of them) in the finest bourbon we could find (Booker’s), and added the whole lot, bourbon and all to the secondary fermenter. What we ended up with was wonderful, and has been a success with others besides ourselves.

We took it along as an “open class” entry to one of the Local Taphouse’s BrewShare evenings and won that class, then (fortuitously) to the next BrewShare, where the selected genre was indeed Dark Beers, and won that as well. Better than actually winning was everyone telling us how much they enjoyed it. One guy even compared it to Deschutes The Abyss, one of the most highly rated beers in the world (personally, I like the comparison to the Bourbon County Brand Stout more, but that’s just me…)

In any case, we were exceptionally happy with how it worked out. We’re also exceptionally happy with the name too, as I hope you’ll see:

Jabberwock Midstength (Batch #1) - 10% ABV Bourbon-Oak Aged Imperial Stout

Pours in a sinuous, silky funnel of black down the inside of the glass, forming a very solid deep brown head, but almost silently; there’s no crackling of carbonation through the immensely thick body. Head is solid and slightly bubbly (oh, how I’d love to see this on a cask pulled from a handpump), leaving partial lacing when tilted. Boody is full and rich and thick. Overall, it’s just a damn-good looking beer.

Nose is just what you want in this style. It’s big, it’s boozy, but sweetened and leavened by the big vanilla oak characters, and a touch of desiccated coconut. There’s darkness to it, but never an astringency, there’s depth, but never overwhelmingness—the bourbon and oak caress the base beer and make it accessible despite the complexities inherent in it.

Taste is also good, with that sweet lingering bourbon and wood character through the centre, and a hint more roast on the back. In fact, the booze is much less prominent here, and is supported and masked by the chewy, rich body and the supple sweetness which surrounds everything in this brew. Slight liquorice characters and a touch of mineral bite have developed since this was brewed (this batch is actually over a year old, but really doesn’t feel it), but otherwise it’s just mellowed and integrated with age. Feel is divine, chewy and rich, but totally appropriate for the flavours it carries.

Overall, this is clearly, the best beer we’ve yet brewed. In some senses, it’s not as experimental or exciting as say, the S’mole (Sorachi Ace Oak-aged Peated IPA) or our True Gruit (Hopless Australian Native Spiced Beer), but I’m still genuinely proud of it as an achievement.

If I were to brew it again, I would change:

We have brewed it again! To the same recipe! And it was equally good (in fact, so similar that I’m actually questioning whether reviewing Batch #2 is warranted). However, the fact that the best beer we’ve ever done is an extract brew kinda grates on me. I believe the next time we churn out a batch of the Midstrength we’ll try to adapt it to a full all-grain batch, and just try to replicate what we did here. This may, in fact, be difficult. There are a raft of complications that come with getting such high gravity directly from grains (as opposed to just adding more malt extract, which is effectively just easily fermentable malt sugars). But it’s something that we’re going to definitely have to come to terms with if (when) this becomes a staple of our professional brewery =)

Disclaimer:

Remember, I review the good *and* the bad Jabberwock beers here, so I hope you’ll forgive my indulgence in wallowing in this particular success story. If it all feels a little self-congratulatory to you, please feel free to go and read my post on the Jabberwock Chocoholic Stout.

jakeweismanyay:

:jake - My name is Jake Weisman and I’m a Gemini and I have lots to offer a romantic partner

:> - I’m an Aardvark

;M – I’m in love with my neighbor, the silky-haired & mysterious “Sarah”

:k – I suffered through a botched tongue-ring procedure

:)-80k – I’m pregnant and beautiful and also…

My month of movie-watching, or what became known as #movmon on Twitter, is finally over, and I’m happy to report that I not only succeeded in my original goal, but I actually smashed it out of the park.

You’ll recall the original plan was to watch 80 movies during the month of April, with no fewer than 2 films on any one day. In reality, I managed to watch a huge 110 films during the month, also maintaining my goal of watching at least 2 films every day.

Somewhat dichotomously, I found it both easier and harder than I expected. The part that I found surprisingly easy was the mental focus required to dedicate a large portion of my time to one particular thing. In this instance, in fact, I found that this single-minded attitude was so powerful that I found it difficult to spend any spare time *not* watching movies. This is perhaps one of the reasons I so convincingly beat my original goal.

However, this single- (some might say bloody-) mindedness also contributed to the part of #movmon that was particularly difficult. Indeed, it took a lot of mental energy to sustain this dedication, and I found myself exhausted for much of the month. It also left me with little emotional energy to deal with normal social interactions. In reality, this wasn’t such a big problem, because of the movie schedule itself, which didn’t really allow for much socialising. I also often lacked a lot of energy to do other basic things like cook dinner, do housework or walk the dog.

Of course, the person who bore the brunt of this side of #movmon was the long-suffering Sarah, who I have to say was just wonderful during the month. She took up most of the slack I left behind by my absence from regular household life, and was generally supportive of my crazy mission—in fact, I feel as though there was a sort of morbid curiosity from her about how this month would affect me.

On the movie front, I feel like I have done a great job of knocking over a large proportion of those films I feel like I “should have seen”—those movies that people go “Oh, you know, it’s like that scene in CHINATOWN…” or “How can you not have seen FULL METAL JACKET??”. I’ve now seen 99 of the IMDb’s Top 100 films (the missing one is Lawrence of Arabia), more of the recent Best Picture Academy Award nominees, and a whole bunch of other films that for one reason or another have been on my “to see” list.

I learned a number of things about my preferences and enjoyment of films. For example:

• Jack Lemmon is a champion and I want to have his babies. If only he weren’t dead.
• Billy Wilder is a champion and I want to have his babies. If only he weren’t dead.
• Lars von Trier is a frustrating and brilliant guy. Watching Melancholia was one of the most interesting experiences of #movmon.
• War films range from the banal, but well-produced like Saving Private Ryan, to the black comedic intensity of Full Metal Jacket, the fantastic horror of Apocalypse Now, the adventure and irony of The Bridge on the River Kwai, the uplifting tragedy of Das Boot and the atmospheric wank-fest of The Thin Red Line. I don’t believe I will be able to ever lump together all “war films” in one category every again. (As an aside, there were a really disproportionately large number of war films during the month, due to the fact that I never in the past really chose to watch them, and so a large part of my “catch up” involved watching the films I’d always shunned in the past).
• I think I prefer Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin.

For completeness, and to reflect reality rather than the scheduled order I’ve posted previously, here’s the list of films I saw during #movmon, in the order in which I saw them:

1. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
2. Birth of a Nation
3. Star Trek: Generations
4. Batman
5. Schindler’s List
6. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
7. Jean de Florette
8. Ran
9. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
10. The Fountain
11. Fight Club
12. The Kid
13. Three Colours: Blue
14. Spartacus
15. Lolita
16. The Fisher King
17. In the Name of the Father
18. Fitzcarraldo
19. M
20. The Crying Game
21. Scent of a Woman
22. C.H.U.D.
23. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
24. Catfish
25. Soylent Green
26. The Apartment
27. Robin Hood (Disney animated version)
28. In the Mood For Love
29. Shame
30. A Streetcar Named Desire
31. Full Metal Jacket
32. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
33. The Fugitive
34. Dogville
35. Animal House
36. Gangs of New York
37. Dangerous Liaisons
38. Stand By Me
39. My Neighbor Totoro
40. Mr Smith Goes to Washington
41. Monster
42. Modern Times
43. The Exorcist
44. Il Postino
45. Raiders of the Lost Ark
46. Saw
47. Apocalypse Now
48. Batman Returns
49. The General
50. Star Trek: First Contact
51. Thelma & Louise
52. Wild Strawberries
53. Star Trek: Insurrection
54. Barry Lyndon
55. Blue Velvet
56. The Graduate
57. Das Boot
58. Saving Private Ryan
59. Chinatown
60. Judgment at Nuremberg
61. Boogie Nights
62. Howards End
63. JFK
64. Do The Right Thing
65. Bring It On
66. Secrets & Lies
67. Some Like It Hot
68. The Killing
69. The Clock (partial viewing of this 24hr film)
70. The Bridge on the River Kwai
71. Manon des Sources
72. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
73. Scoop
74. Kind Hearts & Coronets
75. Mad Max
76. The Princess Bride
77. Three Colours: White
78. Carnage
79. Vanilla Sky
80. Oldboy
81. City Lights
82. Downfall
83. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
84. Once Upon a Time in America
85. The Man from Earth
86. The Third Man
87. Rashomon
88. Double Indemnity
89. The Prince of Tides
90. Top Gun
91. It’s A Wonderful Life
92. Sling Blade
93. Melancholia
94. All the President’s Men
95. The Thin Red Line
96. The Pianist
97. Clerks
98. Unforgiven
99. Clueless
100. The Royal Tenenbaums
101. Paths of Glory
102. Ladri di Biciclette
103. Aliens
104. Three Colours: Red
105. Chocolat
106. Platoon
107. Caché
108. The Great Dictator
109. Jackie Brown
110. The Conversation

Wow, seeing them all arrayed like that make me feel exhausted.

Of course, I had favourites and least favourites. My top ten films from #movmon were:

1. Dogville
2. Sling Blade
3. Some Like It Hot
4. Thelma & Louise
5. Kind Hearts & Coronets
6. The Apartment
7. Do the Right Thing
8. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
9. The Fountain
10. Once Upon a Time in America

But I think it’s fair to say I “loved” the top 30 films from #movmon. I probably “enjoyed” the top 70, was “indifferent to” 70-90, and then actively disliked or hated the bottom twenty. The films I heaped the most dislike upon would have been: Star Trek: Insurrection, Batman, Chocolat, Mad Max and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas at the bottom of the barrel.

My next challenge for the month of May involves watching no video of any kind. That is: no TV, no movies, no YouTube etc., plus no video games of any form. This is going to require some adjustment: it’s like going cold turkey after a binge.

I’ll let you know when the delirium tremens sets in.

A number of people now have asked me how I selected exactly which films to see during my Movie Month. It was a question I asked myself, of course, when I came up with the idea of doing a month of movie bingeing.

And like any good software engineer, I came up with an immensely complicated answer, albeit one which will allow me to do the same thing again with minimal effort.

Firstly, there was a process to create a long list of potential movies. This was not automated, and was rather ad hoc. I put together a list of movies from numerous sources, the major ones being:

• Movies I haven’t seen on the IMDb’s Top 250 List
• My brother’s list of his top films he’d seen in 2011
• The list of Oscars Best Picture nominees I haven’t seen
• IMDb’s recommended movies (based on my votes for other movies

I also included a fair few films that I’d always been intrigued by, but had never actually got around to watching. The classic example is C.H.U.D., which I remember as a trailer on the rented copy of A Nightmare On Elm Street I watched when I was around 10.

For each of the movies I selected, I recorded some data about the movie:

• Its IMDb rating (out of 10)
• Its running time
• Whether Sarah wanted to watch it with me
• Whether I considered it “important”—i.e. I’d really like it to be included.

The next step in the process was to run these movies through a program to select, day by day, the movies for any particular day.

There were constraints on what I could see when, however. Ideally I would like the schedule to reflect the following:

• All the “important” films should be included in the schedule, but they should be spread throughout the month, rather than in clumps.
• The average ratings of the films selected should be slightly above the average of all films, to preferentially select for “better” movies.
• I set a hard limit on how many films to select for a certain day, and this should always be followed.
• I shouldn’t end up with too many long films, or too many short films on a single day.
• There should not be more than a predefined number of films which Sarah wanted to see on the same day. (As much as she admires my tenacity in this undertaking, she doesn’t share my madness).
• There should be some element of randomness to the process, such that there is a possibility of breaking all of the above constraints, that really crappy films can still be selected, and that running the program twice will yield different results to the first instance.

This, of course, becomes an optimisation problem: selecting the optimal schedule of movies over a month, given certain constraints. There are countless methods of doing this (my preferred method is genetic programming), but I settled on a method which would allow for the relative ease of adding further constraints to the problem as the need arises.

Basically, I set up a set of what I’m going to call Selectors, each of whose job was to select a film based on a single constraint, e.g. ensuring the average rating of all films is close to our target, or that we don’t have too many “Sarah” films in one day.

For example, the ratings-based Selector would get initialised with a “target” average rating, which let’s say we set slightly above the average of all ratings of movies on the long list. If this Selector was asked to pick a movie, it would look through the long list and find the film which would make the overall average closest to its target. I.e. optimising for that one constraint.

Each of these Selectors was also given the ability to assess the current schedule of the day in question, plus overall. At the assessment step, all of the Selectors are asked to assess the current day, and the list of movies overall, and return a numeric value representing how much this Selector would like to select the next film. For example, if the average rating overall is pretty close to the target, the ratings-based Selector would give a low value (i.e. we’re going pretty well with regards to ratings, so I don’t really need to step in). If however, we have a bunch of really crappy movies in the schedule, and the rating is well below the target, the Selector might give a high value.

Instead of selecting simply the Selector with the highest value, instead these values are put into what is effectively a weighted roulette wheel, and one is selected at random, with higher-value Selectors more likely to appear.

For example, if the ratings-Selector gave an assessment rating of 9, and the time-Selector gave a rating of 1, the ratings Selector is 9 times more likely to by selected. Think of it as though the roulette wheel is nine-tenths “rating Selector” and one tenth “time Selector”.

This has the advantage that if a particular constraint is falling out of sync with its target, if the selector associated with this constraint can increase its assessment value proportionally or even exponentially with how far out of sync, thus vastly increasing its chances of being selected.

The actual selectors I used for this movie month were as follows:

• A “ratings Selector”, which ensured the ratings overall are close to a given target.
• An “important Selector”, which ensured that the “important” movies are selected at a suitable rate to ensure they will all be seen by the end of the schedule.
• A “Sarah Selector”, which ensured that we never got too many movies Sarah wanted to see on a particular day.
• A “random Selector”, which would randomly select a film from the list, ignoring any constraints. It would also return a random value as its assessment.

As you can see, although I mentioned the movie length as a key constraint I didn’t actually take this into account when devising the schedule for April; I added it at a later date. But fortunately, because this approach allows the addition of new constraints simply by writing a new Selector, this was trivially easy to do once the Selector was written.

(The reason I didn’t re-run the program once I had the running-time based Selector was that I happened to quite like the schedule it came up with on the first pass, even though this leaves me with two 3-hour movies and a 2.5-hour movie to watch this coming Friday. Yeesh…)

An example of the output of the program follows, which should give you an idea of how this all fits together in practice:

Movies for Sunday 01 April:
---------------------------
J. Edgar (Rating 7.1, 137m) (Important) via selection to improve ratio of important movies
Fargo (1996) (Rating 8.3, 98m) via selection to improve average rating of movies
Pusher (Rating 7.4, 105m) via random chance
Avg movie time today is 113 minutes (target 116) 
Current avg rating: 7.60 (target 7.71) 
Current percentage of important films: 33.3% (target 44.0%)

Movies for Monday 02 April:
---------------------------
The Man from Earth (Rating 8.0, 90m) (Important) via selection to improve ratio of important movies
Arizona Dream (Rating 7.3, 142m) via selection to improve average time of movies
No Country for Old Men (2007) (Rating 8.2, 122m) (Important) via selection to improve ratio of important movies
Avg movie time today is 118 minutes (target 116) 
Current avg rating: 7.72 (target 7.71) 
Current percentage of important films: 50.0% (target 44.0%)

As you can see, on the first date, it:

1. selects a film to increase the percentage of “important” films (originally, this would be 0%, and after this films selection is is 100%)
2. selects a film to increase the average rating (originally, this would be 7.1, afterwards it would be 7.7, very close to the target of 7.71)
3. selects a film by random chance (at this point, both the “important” Selector, and the ratings Selector are pretty happy, so it’s more likely the random Selector would get a chance.

And so on. Another advantage of this approach is that it “streams” output, i.e. selects one movie at a time, rather than trying to optimise globally over the whole month at once (as, say, a genetic algorithm approach would do). It’s also much, much quicker to process.

Overall, I’m really happy with the way the program works, and the schedules it produces. And, I love how extensible it is: if, in the future, I decide that I really should have a quota of movies with “cop” in the title, it’s as easy as can be.

Remember those month-long challenges I was planning on doing this year? FebFast is done and dusted, and probably the less said about March’s abortive attempt at exercising 60m a day the better. But April is coming up, and with it comes another month-long challenge.

For the month of April, I’ve given myself the task of watching movies. A lot of movies. In fact, the baseline is that I must watch at least 2 feature films every day of April. No exceptions. On top of this, I need to watch a total of 80 movies or more during the month.

Got it? 80 movies in April, and no fewer than 2 per day.

Hopefully, this will give me a chance to watch some classic movies that have always passed me by, for one reason or another, as well as some recent films I omitted to see, and some films I love but haven’t seen for a while, and some films which I’ve always been curious about, even if they’re not classic.

For example, in the first category are films like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Schindler’s List and The Exorcist. Films that are iconic, and well-regarded, but which I’ve never actually sat down and watched. In the second category, we have a bunch of films which I had on my list to watch for Oscars, but which missed out on a nomination: Shame, Carnage and Melancholia spring to mind. Some films I love, but which I’m re-watching include Fight Club and The Princess Bride. And finally we have films like C.H.U.D., Sliver and Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

To schedule all my films, I wrote a programme which selected particular films from a longlist, based on a number of factors, such as running time, IMDb rating and others, so to get an even spread of good/bad films, important/less important films, and ensuring I don’t have too many extremely lengthy films all on the same day.

I still have an exceptionally long list of films on my list that are yet to be scheduled, but assuming the success of this particular month, I’m hoping I can schedule another one in the near future.

For the sake of interest, here’s my schedule of movies for April:

Sunday 1st April

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Birth of a Nation

Star Trek: Generations

Batman

Monday 2nd April

Schindler’s List

Fight Club

Tuesday 3rd April

Jean de Florette

Ran

Wednesday 4th April

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Fountain

Cinema Paradiso

Thursday 5th April

In the Name of the Father

Spartacus

Lolita

Friday 6th April (Good Friday)

The Fisher King

Three Colours: Blue

Fitzcarraldo

M

Saturday 7th April

C.H.U.D.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

The Apartment

Sunday 8th April

The Crying Game

In the Mood for Love

Shame

Monday 9th April (Easter Monday)

The Fugitive

Dogville

Animal House

Gangs of New York

Tuesday 10th April

Mr Smith Goes to Washington

A Streetcar Named Desire

Wednesday 11th April

The Exorcist

Il Postino

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Thursday 12th April

The General

Star Trek: First Contact

Scent of a Woman

Friday 13th April

Barry Lyndon

Boogie Nights

Saturday 14th April

Apocalypse Now

Thelma & Louise

Sunday 15th April

Smultronstället

Star Trek: Insurrection

Monday 16th April

Blue Velvet

Chinatown

Tuesday 17th April

Batman Returns

Das Boot

Wednesday 18th April

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Saving Private Ryan

The Graduate

Thursday 19th April

Manon des Sources

Howard’s End

JFK

Friday 20th April

Mad Max

Do The Right Thing

Bring It On

Saturday 21st April

Judgment at Nuremburg

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Sunday 22nd April

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Secrets & Lies

It’s a Wonderful Life

Kind Hearts & Coronets

Monday 23rd April

Three Colours: White

Carnage

Tuesday 24th April

City Lights

The Princess Bride

Wednesday 25th April (ANZAC Day)

Once Upon a Time in America

Rashomon

Oldboy

Thursday 26th April

Double Indemnity

Downfall

The Prince of Tides

Friday 27th April

Sling Blade

Top Gun

Melancholia

Saturday 28th April

Sense & Sensibility

All the President’s Men

Clueless

Sunday 29th April

Paths of Glory

Ladri di Biciclette

Three Colours: Red

Chocolat

Monday 30th April

Jackie Brown

The Conversation

Phew!

This is awesome. Watch it.

(via thegoddamazon)

Yes, it’s that time of year again: Oscars. As usual over the past 7 or so years, this year I’ve attempted to watch every feature film nominated in any category of the Academy Awards. This year, there were a total of 46 feature films nominated, of which I failed to see only 5, which is the best record yet. And, I believe for the first time, none of the films I missed were up for more than one award. As usual, the Foreign Film category was the most difficult to source, what with Australian (and indeed, this year, American) release dates being after the Oscars. I only saw two of the five Foreign Film category, missing out on Monsieur Lazhar, Footnote and In Darkness. I also missed out on the documentary Undefeated and the Madonna-directed period drama W.E., which was up for Best Costume Design.

With all that in mind, I feel like I’ve done the bulk of the work that any Academy member would be expected to do, and that being the case, I feel justified in spouting my Oscars opinions on the world. So, without further ado, here is my rundown, from best to worst film, of the 2012 Oscars.

1. Beginners
   I’ll preface this entry by stating that I had an incredibly difficult time separating the top three films on this list. At one stage, I almost considered calling it a three-way tie, and all three of the films have held the top position at some iteration of this list. But I’ve finally settled on Mike Mills’s Beginners, which I feel is the film I most enjoyed, which resonated most for me, and which I’d most call my “favourite” however nebulous the characteristics of that term are. Telling, in parallel, the relationship of a young man and his father, who has decided at 70 to come out of the closet, and the young man’s first romantic relationship after his father dies, it is a movie filled with hope, pathos and joy, told in a way that makes you celebrate life. Christopher Plummer is rightly deserving of his favouritism to take out the Best Supporting Actor award. It was such a wonderful film that was just so enjoyable to watch, and which filled you with a sense of optimism by the end.
2. A Separation
   Another film which could easily have been at the top of my list, A Separation was a gripping and taut piece of storytelling. It being the first Iranian film I believe I’ve seen, there were themes that were fascinatingly culturally unique, and others that were universal, and it kept this balance between the specific and the general perfect. The story itself is fascinating, and the layers of the relationships in the family or three, and the way they develop during the break-up of the unit are so expertly laid and revealed that I was gripped throughout. To look away was to miss a significant gesture, an expression that would increase my understanding of this world. And it was a world I felt I needed to know intimately.
3. The Artist
   I had also strongly considered this year’s overwhelming favourite, The Artist, for my top spot as well. There are many reasons to; it’s unique in its time, it was a risk, and it had the potential to alienate an audience used to the likes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. But despite this, it manages to be utterly engaging, accessible and of its time, while still managing to evoke the overwhelming nostalgia of the silent era. Indeed, despite the impression that it might be nothing more than a pretentious experiment, it manages to feel almost like a guilty pleasure&emdash;I felt as though I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am. Director Michel Hazanavicius does such a splendid job capturing the style of the silent cinema (the technical skills alone are boggling), while subtly adapting and updating it, so a modern audience doesn’t sense anything dated or twee about it. It’s such a wonderful (and more importantly interesting) achievement. I truly hope this does, as the bookies suggest it will, take out the award for Best Picture.
4. Moneyball
   Phew. We’re out of the territory where I feel the necessity to distinguish between films that really are indistinguishable in quality. That’s not to take anything away from Moneyball, which was a truly excellent and surprisingly excellent film. Knowing not more about the film than that it was about baseball, and had Brad Pitt in it, I was pleasantly surprised at how engaging and evocative it ended up being. Yes, yes, there’s obviously a good dose of the exciting “underdog comes good” to the plot, but more fascinating is the distance put between us, the characters that make it happen and the results they achieve. We are never particularly emotionally attached to the players, who are treated like statistics for most of the film; instead, we become emotionally attached to the cold, hard statistics themselves, and to the methodology adopted by Pitt and Hill. Added to this is the frenetically clever dialogue, penned by none other than the great Aaron Sorkin, and you have the makings of a truly remarkable film.
5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
   Yes, I’m as surprised as anybody that this film ended up so high on my list. Indeed, it crept up the longer I left it, just because the imagery, the performances and the story stayed with me long after others from other films had dropped away. Having not read the book, or seen the Danish version of the film, I went in with no expectations, and found myself brutally captivated. The story is strong, and well told on screen here; it kept me well enough engaged to comprehend the byzantine family structure and dynamics, and the style was bleak and beautiful. Most importantly, this film marked a phenomenal return to form for David Fincher, whose early work on Fight Club, Seven and even The Game, far, far outstrips his recent outings like The Social Network (Sorkin’s script notwithstanding) or the god-awful The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Please continue in this vein, Mr Fincher.
6. Albert Nobbs
   Ah, now here comes a film that people will at best not have seen, or at worse froth at the mouth at my positioning of it. Heavily panned by almost everyone I’ve read, except for its Australian distributor, this film tells the story of the eponymous Albert, a woman passing herself off as a man in the late 19th century. But it’s more than Glenn Close in drag. I found the character of Albert so fascinating. His apparent emotional detachment hinted at everything he’d had to sacrifice in his life thus far, and his naivete revealed the rigorously structured niche he had created for himself, and Glenn Close does a phenomenal job of presenting the facade, while giving the implications of the deeper emotional issues Albert just doesn’t have the capacity to express. It also presents a fascinating look at the way Albert’s life becomes fractured and dangerous with the arrival of Hubert Page, played brilliantly by Janet McTeer, a character who shakes Albert right out of that rigidity which has held his life together. A much and unfairly maligned film, in my opinion.
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
   Ha! Another surprise? It certainly was for me when this popped out so high on my list. I’ve always been averse to the film adaptations of the Harry Potter books in this series, but as the stories and hence the films have become darker and more adult in their themes and execution, I’ve found myself more and more accepting. Indeed, this film is probably so successful because it follows the path of the book most closely of any Potter film thus far. But more than that, it uses the spectacular element judiciously, letting the story and the conclusion to a long journey be the true star of the thing. It also helps that the actors have matured much from the early days, and now actually provide a credible creation of the characters. Indeed, the main strength of this film was that I felt just like I was taken along the same ride as the book would have me take; it felt like a faithful adaptation, both thematically and emotionally. Others in the series have felt like a gaudy pastiche.
8. Warrior
   I’d like to say I’m not a fan of fighting movies, but dammit if there aren’t some truly exceptional ones. Warrior is much more than a film about the burgeoning sport of Mixed Martial Arts: it’s a film about relationships, and characters. I was so drawn in by the portrayal of the Conlon family, especially the brooding ex-marine played by Tom Hardy, and their fractious history that the fighting just became a vehicle for more of the pow-wow between father and son, brother and brother. There was, of course, something of the heartstring-tugging underdog tale to the film, but the true power came from the family dynamics, and its eventual emotional release was extremely cathartic.
9. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
   I was always planning on calling this film my favourite “blockbuster” of the year, but it turns out that many of this year’s blockbusters have been good. Rise of the Planet of the Apes however is justifiably highly placed on my list in any case, being a truly tautly controlled and fascinatingly believable tale of science-gone-awry. It helps that the film is grounded by the excellent James Franco, who lends a believable sincerity to the film, and the surprisingly good John Lithgow as his Alzheimers-suffering father. Compare this, say, to the repellant Shia LaBoeuf in Transformers, and you see what a different category of big-budget sci-fi action film you have. The visual effects are also astonishingly good, and if the chimps fall somewhere in the Uncanny Valley, it’s for good reason: that human-like intelligence in their eyes is the most telling and most chilling part of the film.
10. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
    Another film seemingly panned by everyone, I found this a fascinating excursion into the mind of a young boy. It tells the story of Oskar, a boy with (probably undiagnosed) Asperger’s syndrome, who sets off on a journey across New York’s five boroughs searching for the lock opened by a key left to him mysteriously by his father who died on September 11. Oskar is such a fascinating character, really quite well realised by the young Thomas Horn, and I never quite knew where the film was going. In fact, the ending was perhaps a little too convenient and satisfying. I almost feel as though I would have preferred an ambiguous and unresolved conclusion to the tale; it would have perhaps not closed the chapter on Oskar’s grief, but would have provided a more harrowing exposition of the event that took his father from him. Still, it was a rather captivating film, filled with subtle humour and emotional depth. Much better than you probably have heard.
11. Margin Call
    A tautly scripted piece of cinema, Margin Call provides a fascinating, if fictional, glimpse at the genesis of the GFC from inside on of the companies responsible for it. Told pretty much as a series of meeting between increasingly senior executives over the course of a single night, it presents a high-pressure and almost exhausting picture of the men and women who have such an impact on the world economy. While there were some parts that seemed a little preachy (such as the scene on the roof of the building where the characters talk about what they end up spending their appallingly obese salaries on), overall it was told with efficiency and without emotion. The scene stealer was Jeremy Irons, who I can’t recall seeing in anything for many years. He prowls around the screen as the CEO of the firm, and provides the most memorable lines. Overall, a film that caught and held my attention right to the end, and worthy of its Screenplay nomination.
12. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
    The best of this year’s crop of documentaries (or at least, the documentaries nominated for the Oscar), If a Tree Falls follows Daniel McGowen, an ELF activist charged with terrorism for the ELF’s arson attacks on corporations charged with destroying the environment. It does a good job of tracking the genesis of the ELF, from disillusionment with the concepts of peaceful protest and passive resistence, through to the trial and sentencing of McGowen and other ELF members. It’s a quite fascinating tale, in fact, and the filmmakers do a good job of keeping their distance from either side—they don’t glorify the works of the activist organisation, nor do they sympathise with the administrative response to the ELF’s actions. It’s a story to be told, and it is done well.
13. The Help
    In some sense I’m a little cynical about this film: it’s quite clearly the sort of film that Oscar nominations are attracted to, much in the way mosquitos are attracted to a deadly, deadly electronic bug-zapper. But despite everything that you could say about the “white woman helping sassy black women out from oppression” plot, the film was actually extremely good, and had a really good cast of well-realised characters. And sure, the main plot was a tad stilted, and you pretty much knew where it was going from the get-go, but the little interludes and relationships which popped up as side-stories were where the strength of the film lay. Octavia Spencer’s laid-off maid, and her relationship with the equally excluded Celia Foote, played by Jessica Chastain is one of the highlights, as is the eventual confrontation between protagonist Skeeter Phelan and the bigoted and blandly sinister Hilly Holbrook, played with verve by Bryce Dallas Howard. I’m a little bit hesitant to support it wholeheartedly, because there are better films more deserving of honours this year, but it was a truly good film nevertheless.
14. A Cat in Paris
    Now we have a film which really has no true weight behind it whatsoever. This animated film has a running time of just over one hour, which I believes only just puts it in “Feature Film” contention, and tells the rather one-dimensional tale of a cat who escapes its family at night to accompany a burglar on his nightly raids. On paper, it’s easily dismissable. But there was such charm to the animation, to the dialogue, to the story itself and the way it was told, that you overlooked the caricature and the tweeness of it all. There was something warm and comfortable about the tale, almost something nostalgic that reminded me of the innocence of childhood stories. No, it wasn’t a groundbreaking piece of animated cinema, but it was genuinely enjoyable.
15. The Ides of March
    Here we have a film that should have been catnip to me. A taut election-based political thriller, starring my man-crush (no, not Clooney) Ryan Gosling. Indeed, what is delivered is exactly that. And while there was intrigue, backroom deals, tension, and the dichotomy of behind-the-scenes/in-front-of-the-camera to provide all of the drama requisite of such a film, the more time goes by since I’ve seen it, the less I think about it, the less I recall what was good about it, and the less I truly believe it was as good as when I first saw it. Perhaps a rewatch would allay all of these concerns. Indeed, I recall Clooney’s charismatic leader as being a particularly magnetic screen presence, but in the manner of all politicians, perhaps when the presser is over, the speech is done and the audience has left, there’s just a certain cynicism remaining. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good film, but it was perhaps just a good film, and only a good film because it was always going to be a good film. It didn’t do anything to excite or surprise me. Perhaps there lies the disappointment.
16. The Muppets
    This was a really interesting, and yes, just plain fun, film. Taking place after the “retirement” of The Muppets, who have gone their separate ways, it follows Walter, who has always felt like he should be a member of the Muppets (possibly because, hem hem, he is a Muppet), and his attempts to reunite the group to save their old studio. Yes, after the structuring of the initial concept, the film’s plot is somewhat predictable, but the humour and the nostalgia are well integrated into the story. Sure, it had all the tell-tale scars of a script put through the Hollywood formula machine, but there was something truly and blissfully enjoyable about the slapstick, the new songs (written by Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie) and the characterisations. And Kermit singing The Rainbow Connection really managed to tug at the heartstrings.
17. Jane Eyre
    Knowing this was likely to be up for some award at the Oscars (at the very least Costume Design, which it ended up being), I quickly read the book prior to the end of the film’s run in Australian cinemas, and then saw one of the last sessions in its final week. Having read the book so recently, albeit it being my first read of the book, I found it to be a pretty good adaptation. There were obviously concessions that need to be made whenever adapting such a lengthy novel, but I feel as though the mood of the book was captured rather well, the naivete and desperation of Jane Eyre was well presented by Mia Wasikowska, and her attraction to the brooding and somewhat terrifying Rochester believable. It didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but did present a solid adaptation of the novel.
18. A Better Life
    This is certainly one of those films I would have missed in the past, it not having an Australian release date for some time yet. However, thanks to the US iTunes store and an American credit card, relief was available. And I’m pleased it was in this case, as this is quite a compelling story of a Mexican illegal immigrant and his efforts to forge a, well, A Better Life for his young son in America. Layered on this is the disconnection his son feels for his native Mexico, and the challenges he faces in the ethnically diverse school world he finds himself in. Demian Bichir is a worthy, if surprising nominee for a Best Actor nod, and the film is a pleasantly realised piece of cinema. I’m very glad I got to see it.
19. Drive
    Much was said about this film, in which very little was said. Some people ate up Ryan Gosling’s taciturn performance as a getaway driver-for-hire and the relationship he forges with his next door neighbour and her son. I found it a little stilted, and missing some of the true genius Gosling has shown in other recent films, but the film was compelling enough, if a little bit dry and a little forgettable. If anything, I just feel as though it had more promise than it actually delivered, what with the somewhat wasteful use of Gosling, and the at times excruciatingly slow pacing. I still enjoyed it, but there’s a reason it’s ended up near the bottom of my “films I enjoyed”.
20. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
    Hmm, I believe I have similar reservations to this film as I had to the film above. Here, quite obviously, the drawback is its dawdling and dilatory pace, which at the centre of the film caused my attention to wander. This is combined with the fact that the plot and characters are respectively complex and numerous, making dips in attention a dangerous proposition. Still, Gary Oldman was good, if deliberate as John Le Carre’s protagonist, and the ending gave a pleasing sense of payoff, but unfortunately, the film felt a little as though you were meant to have read the book first. And that’s something of a shame.
21. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
    This was a thoroughly engaging documentary, telling of the background, history, prolonged imprisonment and eventual release of the so-called “West Memphis Three”, who as teenagers were accused and convicted of the murder of three children in West Memphis. This documentary follows on from two others made soon after the convictions, in which questions were raised about the legitimacy of the verdicts, the evidence and the real murderers. This one, however, shows the addition of new DNA evidence, and the introduction of legislation into Arkansas law which allows appeals based on such evidence. The drawback of the documentary, however compelling the story, is that I felt like there were gaps in the story (perhaps gaps filled by the previous two documentaries), and while, by the end I was in no doubt that these three people were innocent of the crimes they were convicted of, I felt like I had been tricked into thinking this. As though there was no other way one could see it after watching this documentary. As a result, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to draw my own conclusions, and felt (perhaps unjustly) that there was systematic bias in the documentary itself. The ending was good, though…
22. The Descendants
    I was very disappointed in this film, even though on the surface it really had much of the impact and ingredients that I was expecting from Alexander Payne. It had the interesting family dynamics, subtle character-based humour, and engaging enough plot, but just didn’t tie together as a package. There was something really unbelievable and slightly unlikeable about George Clooney’s character (and that’s a hard task given it’s the ultra-likeable George Clooney portraying him), and the humour wasn’t poignant and pointed enough like it was in Payne’s last great film Sideways. The humour was just under-utilised, or perhaps separate to the main thrust of the tale, whereas I felt like it should have been the glue which held the film together. Quite possibly one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
23. My Week With Marilyn
    I only saw this in the last week, and I’m amazed at how quickly it has dropped out of my consciousness. I came out of the cinema with nothing but good things to say about the film, but even after seven days I have lost interest in it. Well, that’s not entirely true; I still find Michelle William’s haunting portrayal of Marilyn Monroe captivating, with the way she managed to wield fragility as a weapon, and sensuality as a tool. There was something that drew you in beautifully to this purposeful innocence. I feel as though Williams really got under the skin of Monroe, rather than just providing us with a bleak impression of the woman. Also worthy of note is Emma Watson, who plays the wardrobe assistant spurned for Monroe, a performance that while small, was mature and sophisticated enough to make me believe she’s got a career after Harry Potter.
24. Hugo
    The common theme of all reviews of Hugo that I’ve seen is that Scorsese seems to have made truly good use of 3D, indeed, showing the slew of other 3D-producing Hollywood directors how it should be done. Perhaps, then, my seeing it in 2D just allowed me to focus entirely on the story, which is weak and predictable, and the rather poor work of its lead actor Asa Butterfield who plays the eponymous Hugo Cabret. Better are the turns from Chloe Moretz, and the absolutely scene-stealing Sacha Baron Cohen, who is the brightest light in the whole film. While it is undoubtedly gorgeous in terms of scenery, staging, costuming and general production design, there is almost nothing supporting it: all style, no substance. This isn’t necessarily a problem if that’s the film’s goal, but Scorsese seems to take the films plot and message so seriously, and so heavily that I was left with a curled lip and a subtle roll of the eyes.
25. Midnight In Paris
    I’m perhaps being a little too harsh on this film, and almost certainly because I felt a little betrayed by it. I have a great admiration for Woody Allen’s films (increasingly, in fact, for his recent films like Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and I’d seen the preview so many times that I thought I knew just how charming and captivating it was going to be. But in fact, I found it woefully disconnected and flabbily told, with the ridiculousness of the premise not providing the whimsical magic I expected, but rather a bawdy silliness. It also didn’t help that I found Owen Wilson as annoying in this as in, say, Wedding Crashers, try as he might to channel Woody Allen’s neuroses. Really, I expected so much more of this film, and it deserved to be so much better. And yet, I’m still excited to see what Allen comes out with next. So go figure.
26. Pina
    This was an interesting film that never really captivated me, but one in which you could see the craft behind it. Ostensibly, this was a biographical documentary about choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch, told almost exclusively through the dance pieces she choreographed. It was an interesting concept (and one, apparently, which also made excellent use of 3D), and the pieces themselves were visually and technically spectacular, but the film didn’t hang together particularly well as a whole. I’m probably again being a little bit harsh on a film I’m perfectly willing to admit is better than its position in this list would have you believe, but it just didn’t forge the connection it needed to.
27. Bridesmaids
    I found it difficult to rate this film, which I found something like a frat-boy comedy, only with women. In some senses, it really had no more artistic merit than, say The Hangover, as it was effectively an over-the-top, somewhat scatalogical excess-of-stupidity comedy dump, and I found it hard to look beyond the ribald humour. Indeed, the film as a whole really didn’t feel like it dragged itself out of these depths, with two notable exceptions being the great performances from the awesome Melissa McCarthy (obviously the stand-out, but not necessarily Supporting Actress Oscar worthy though), and the loveable Chris O’Dowd. For the rest, it was either exaggerated silliness (worthy of a guffaw or two), or forgettable faff.
28. Chico & Rita
    A rather dull and somewhat laboured tale of two Cuban performers who make bautiful music together, have a tumultuous Latin love affair, grow apart, and then together, then apart and then together, all set to the burgeoning interest in Latin music in the USA in the mid 20th century. The story is the weak point here, but the animation is excellent, creating a lovely technically tight, but flowing and free-form jazz like visual experience. It’s telling that the two traditional animation films this year have ended up above the three CG-animation films nominated for Best Animated Feature. There was something much more visually pleasing about the animation here.
29. Bullhead
    The second and last of the Foreign Film category I saw this year. Bullhead tells the tale of a strangely and confusingly disturbed rural Belgian man, whose life is intertwined with criminal elements crossing the Flanders-Wallonia language divide. This was a messy film, and one which required a great deal of knowledge of the cultural nuances extant in modern Belgium, and the disconnect between the rural Dutch-speaking population, and the more sophisticated French-speaking citizens of Liege. I must admit that much of the significance was lost on me. While the film make an interesting crescendo towards the end, I felt perplexed and a little bit irritated by it at the end. And yet, I still think about it more than many other films, which probably is a good sign for its longevity in my mind.
30. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
    I’m quite surprised this didn’t get up for a Best Animated Feature nomination, having to settle instead only for a Best Original Score nod. This was certainly a loving and reasonably sensitively treated tribute to the books of Hergé, while simultaneously being mindlessly and at times mind-bogglingly stupid action adventure. It perhaps needed a little more humour than the out-of-date bumbling of Thomson and Thompson, but the scenes were impressively staged, even when they were over-the-top. I don’t believe it helped that The Secret of the Unicorn (in my opinion) is one of the weakest of the Tintin stories. But maybe it was just the only one they could find that didn’t involve some sort of hideous racial stereotyping.
31. Rio
    Surprised? I know I sure was. Having seen the woefully unfunny teaser trailer for this numerous times before regretfully hiring the DVD, I expected nothing less than an hour of painful cliche and unfunny pseudo-jokes. OK, there was a fair bit of this in the film, but I found a certain joy in it as well, largely from the joy and colour of Rio de Janiero itself, which didn’t seem as caricatured as I thought it might have been (probably due to having a Brazilian director at the helm). There were also a cast of memorable and genuinely funny characters, including Tracy Morgan’s turn as a slobbering bulldog, and Jemaine Clement as the sinister antagonistic cockatoo. OK, I don’t want to build this up too much. It still did have the cliche, the formula, the pseudo-jokes and childish slapstick, but considering I expected this to be pretty much at the very bottom of my list, I was surprised.
32. War Horse
    Now what film was it that I was talking about being cynical Oscar-bait? Oh, yes, I recall. While The Help was actually an engaging and memorable film, War Horse was tedious and melodramatic. Overdone and overblown in every respect, from the whiny acting to the over-produced war scenes, to the soaring, nauseating score, this was a big bag of whingy crap. There was a certain charm to seeing the various connections the horse, Joey, forms with his long string of owners, the best being the grandfather played by Niels Arestrup. But there was also the soreness of your buttocks and lower back for having to sit through two and a half hours of it, and the film doesn’t make it feel like this is a worthy transaction. Listen up Steven Spielberg: the day of this type of epic is over. It has to be really good to make it worthwhile. And War Horse sure doesn’t make it worthwhile.
33. Real Steel
    Eh. I don’t really have a lot to say about this film, except that it was quite predictable, had quite pedestrian performances, a not-that-interesting concept and moderately good, but not overwhelming effects. Yep, in fact, it was pretty much grey all over. Telling the tale of a father and his estranged son who put together a robot-boxer to take on the world, etc, etc, eh, I’m just kind of bored talking about it, to be honest. Hugh Jackman plods through his lines, Dakota Goyo bucks the trend of recent good child acting prodigies, and the movie as a whole lurches towards an inevitable conclusion with all the excitement and enthusiasm of a dead slug. The more I think about it, the less I like it.
34. The Tree of Life
    Ah, here I am courting controversy, by putting Terrence Malick’s cerebral meta-film The Tree of Life below the notedly low-brow Real Steel. But this was a messy, convoluted and exceptionally and unwarrantedly pretentious piece of film-making, almost comparable to David Lynch’s abstruse Inland Empire. Mixing images of the creation of the universe and life on earth with the story of a slightly dysfunctional 1950s American family, it lurches from scene to scene with admittedly beautiful cinematography and an absolute pained disregard for the sanity of the audience. It was laboured, brutally recondite and unsatisfying, and while Real Steel at least gave you what you paid for, I felt like The Tree of Life was content to spit in my face.
35. Kung Fu Panda 2
    Oh, there were so many films that I thought could have been bottom of my list, prior to seeing them, and Kung Fu Panda 2 was certainly a strong contender in this regard, given that its predecessor took out that dubious honour some years ago. But in fact, while there are still many of the aspects which harmed the first, notably the fact that effectively having six protagonists means there’s not enough screen time for any of them, the film itself manages to pull off quite a decent story. It still requires much in the way of immaturity for its humour, but the fight scenes are pleasingly staged, and there are many visually interesting points in the film. It’s probably worth noting, however, that perhaps the best of these are the parts done in traditional 2D animation. Counter-intuitively, there is a much better connection with the characters in 2D than in the CGI animation. I’d be interested to see how this trend continues.
36. Anonymous
    Wow, this surely had the potential to be much, much higher in my rankings. Look how much crack it has for me: political intrigue, period drama, Shakespeare… But oh, my, god, what a mess this was. The concept was interesting enough, drawing on the revisionist theory that in fact Shakespeare’s plays were written by someone other than the historical Shakespeare himself, and the juxtaposition of this with the intrigue surrounding the line of succession after Elizabeth I should have made an interesting film. Indeed, you got the sense that there was a worthy film lurking in here somewhere, but there was a lackadaisical hand at work in the direction of this film, and the performances were at best stilted, and at worst offensive, particularly in the portrayals of Queen Elizabeth. Really, this needed a firmer hand on the tiller, and I place most of the blame here squarely at the feet of Roland Emmerich, who really had no business directing such a film in the first place.
37. Hell and Back Again
    OK, I’m going to say it. I’m really, really sick of war documentaries. That’s perhaps not entirely true, but I’m certainly sick of ones like this one, which interspersed the war-time and post-tour story of Sargeant Nathan Harris, who is wounded in Afghanistan and returns to American with PTSD. He’s a thoroughly dull character, however, and the scenes of the war are pedestrian and inarticulate compared even to recent efforts, such as the wonderfully claustrophobic Restrepo from last year’s awards. Yeah, we get it. War is bad, mmkay. Getting injured sucks. Some people join the army because they want to kill people. Time to find something new to make films about, people.
38. The Iron Lady
    Ooh, I really wanted to put this at the very bottom of my list. I really, truly did, but unfortunately, while I hated this film, it had just enough merit to warrant being above some of the truly bad films below. There was something really, truly appallingly cynical about this film. Much in the vein of “Comic book adaptations are hot right now? Great! That gives me an idea for a film: how about a comic book adaptation!”, this film has taken the recent trend of dramatising the life of a character from recent modern history, staked around an uncanny impersonation from an established actor or actress. But this was an abysmal film, told without structure or nuance, coming across as a series of disconnected and ultimately emotionally distant vignettes from the life and career of Maggie Thatcher. There was no true insight into the character from Streep, no sense of narrative arc, and no sense of having a better understanding of the woman after seeing the film than you had before. A truly pointless film, and one that actually made me angry.
39. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
    It was never any surprise that this film was going to be down near the arse-end of my list, was there? Yet another chapter in Michael Bay’s continuing mission to become the least intellectual person on the face of the Earth, this latest addition to the Transformers realm had almost certainly the most nauseatingly stupid concept ever, notably that the true mission of Apollo 11 astronauts was to investigate an alien craft which had landed on the dark side of the moon. Add to this the traditionally bad acting from Shia LaBoeuf, and the effects-heavy kludge to make up for plot or drama, and you have a pretty bad movie. There were times, undoubtedly, that you could just ride the action without engaging your brain, but then someone would say something unbelievably asinine and bang! you’re back to holding your shaking head between your hands. Absolutely appalling, and a film that fits in well with its brethren.
40. Rango
    Perhaps it was this film, and not indeed the film that is bottom of the list, that makes me realise just how little computer animation makes a movie. There was very little in the way of true or engaging characterisation in this movie, despite having Johnny Depp at the helm of the lead, who has made a name for himself in creating engaging characterisation. The tale was dull, and forgettable and the animation, well, yes, the animation was good, as was the design and look of the film in general. But perhaps that’s what annoyed me the most: this had so little going for it otherwise that the animation just annoyed me. It just made me realise how much this movie was relying on its look, on the detail some graphic artist spent in designing one of Rango’s eyes. Time better spend making the fucking movie better.
41. Puss in Boots
    It’s uncanny how often a computer animated film is at the dead bottom of my Oscars list. In the past we’ve had Cars, Surf’s Up and Kung Fu Panda, and this year we have both Puss In Boots and Rango, with Kung Fu Panda 2 not far behind. Indeed, it seems as though this trend is growing, not slowing down, even as the animation itself becomes more and more sophisticated. And I’ll reiterate: perhaps that’s the problem. As production studios spend more and more time ensuring that a cat’s fur reacts more and more realistically to the complex dynamics of the air currents around it, they put less and less time into the story or characterisations. This is a particularly cynical example, it being a spin-off of the increasingly bad Shrek franchise, as Dreamworks see just how much more cash they can squeeze out of a dying film concept. But this even manages to beat the latest Shrek movies for wincing unfunniness. Its painful attempts to draw on the fractured fairytale motif revolve mainly on the non-sequitur of Puss In Boots’s best friend being Humpty Dumpty, and their attempt to steal a magic bean from Jack (and Jill). It just gets confused, meaningless and lazy. It’s as though a committee got together with a book of nursery rhymes and an industrial shredder, and created the script by introducing one rather violently to the other. Really, people, this was an appalling effort, and worthy of the bottom place in this list.

There are a number of films I saw this year that I feel were unfairly not awarded any nominations at all. Probably my favourite non-nominated film was the excellent Win Win, which did a much better job than The Descendants of examining the fractious family dynamic, and really managed to produce some emotional impact. Also great was We Need To Talk About Kevin, in which both Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller gave superb performances. It was really hard to see how this missed out on every category. I also saw two excellent documentaries that were much better than some of the other nominees: Senna, a fascinating look at the career and death of Brazilian F1 driver Ayrton Senna, and Project Nim, the compelling and tragic tale of one of the first chimps taught sign language. I guess these things happen, however…

And so, for another year, I’m done with the Oscars, the only task remaining, I guess, to, um, actually watch the Oscars. But before the actual winners are revealed, here are my picks for each of the categories (that is, who I would vote for, not who I think is actually going to win), given the limitations of the actual nominees:

Best Picture: The Artist
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Best Actress: Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
Best Supporting Actress: Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Best Original Screenplay: A Separation
Best Adapted Screenplay: Moneyball
Best Animated Feature: A Cat in Paris
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Cinematography: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Art Direction: Hugo
Best Costume Design: Hugo
Best Makeup: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Best Original Score: The Artist
Best Original Song: “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets
Best Sound Mixing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Sound Editing: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Best Documentary Feature: If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

One of the main things I miss about not drinking during FebFast is not being able to review beers. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’ve reviewed a lot of beers, and missing out on sitting down and objectively looking at something while describing its characteristics is one of my great joys.

So, on the final Friday of this FebFast, I thought I’d sit down with my non-alcoholic substitute of choice, and review three of the root beers easily obtainable in Sydney.

They were: USA-imported A&W (made with High Fructose Corn Syrup), Singapore-imported A&W (made with sugar), and USA-imported MUG Root Beer (made with HFCS). I got Sarah to pour the three cans into three different glasses for me, and serve them to me blind. These are my notes:

MUG Root Beer

Appearance: The only of the three that retains a head, and even this is only in a fine filmy ring around the glass. Body looks solid enough, and the colour is deep dark brown. Fine carbonation when tilted. Looks very nice.

Aroma: Sweet and smooth, with cherry acidity and a touch of vanilla. Some refined earthy characters almost give a hint of oak. A slight hint of plasticine

Taste: Almost completely flat and devoid of character. Very little sharpness, no hint of sassafras or Listerine, and just a tingle of vanilla and raw sweetness. It tastes a little like flat Coke.

Overall conclusions: Much more smooth and flat than the other two, and the most devoid of the sharper characteristics. Missing what makes Root Beer Root Beer in my opinion.

Singapore-made A&W (made with sugar)

Appearance: Quite a light-coloured brew, with quite a thin body. Looks rather insipid compared to the other two, also with a seemingly lower carbonation. I can’t say I’m overly impressed.

Aroma: Pleasant, and rather sharp plasticky sassafras character giving a medicinal bite to the nose. Quite spicy, in fact, and very clean; it feels like it’s clearing my sinuses as I inhale it. Not bad.

Taste: Very mild compared to the nose, with way too much sweetness, and very little of the promising spicy sharpness. Some medicinal hints make this the sharpest on the palate (the other two are woefully inadequate), but not as sharp as the nose suggested. Also indeed feels rather flat and uncarbonated. Tastes a little unrefined.

Overall conclusions: Doesn’t look of much, but it’s the best of the three, capturing more of the spicy, medicinal core. 

USA-made A&W (made with HFCS)

Appearance: Rather lifeless and thin, but with a pleasant deep reddish brown colour. Pretty persistent, fine carbonation. Not bad.

Aroma: Sharper than the MUG, but not as sharp as the Singapore A&W, with a moderated medicine and sassafras character, offset by a slightly savoury, almost smoky character. Sharp but round, like a dusty attic.

Taste: Light and sweet, but too round and flat, giving little sharpness and only hinting at the medicinal notes on the back palate after the rest has been swallowed. It’s probably the second best of the lot, after the Singapore A&W.

Overall: Middle-of-the-road. It’s better than the MUG, but missing out on some of the best characters.

The two A&Ws were similar in flavour, but the sugar-based one actually had more of the sharper notes that distinguish root beer from any other type of sweet soda. I was surprised, because of the three, this was the one which most reminded me of being in the US, and amusingly it was the only one not from the US. The MUG was clearly inferior in everything apart from appearance. Perhaps the reason why I’ve never seen it anywhere in the US besides the fountain machines at Burger King.

Anyway, that will hopefully tide me over the last little hump before my (real) beer reviewing can being in earnest again next Thursday.

Until then, cheers!

It’s been easy.

The end.

Addendum: OK, I still miss beer a little bit, but it’s more that I miss trying new beers and reviewing them. Fortunately, with the Oscars on the horizon, I’ve found a surrogate for my beer reviewing in watching all the nominated films. This seems to be what has really distracted me so much that I don’t even really notice the fact that I’m not drinking.

In real terms: I’m distressed that once again I’ve lost weight by merely giving up my beverage of choice; approximately 3kg since starting two weeks ago. This is, once again, despite the fact that I’ve been eating more unhealthily since giving up beer.

Last time I did FebFast I found myself sleeping more poorly than I usually do. This time, I notice no difference. Indeed, I don’t feel much different at all, physically. I just miss beer.

And root beer is no substitute.

I’ve decided this year to challenge myself to do something each month. I used to do this sort of thing a lot: Polyphasic Sleep, Vegetarianism, or watching every game of the FIFA World Cup to name a few. I always enjoyed the challenge.

So this year, I’m doing one per month, starting in February with an unofficial FebFast. That’s right, I’m giving up all booze for the month of February.

I’ve done this before, two years ago, at a time which holds special memories for me, as it was the time that Sarah and I started going out (indeed, I drank tonic water throughout our first date). I thought it was worthwhile doing again, as part of the larger year schedule, in February in particular because I have some friends also fasting from booze in February, not to mention that February is the shortest month of the year, and beer is one of the things I like least to give up.

Last time round, I noticed a few things about FebFast:

1. I slept much worse than I usually did.

This is counter everything that the FebFast organisers told me would happen. To be honest, I feel like I sleep pretty well anyway, but without booze I felt often like I wasn’t actually that tired, would toss and turn, and often had some pretty bad insomnia.

2. The first Friday is going to be the hardest.

I almost punched things on the first Friday, when I went out and saw people drinking. I wanted some. In fact, the urge was so strong that I was *craving* a bottle of Corona that someone had on the table next to ours. Corona! That’s how bad it was.

3. I lost weight.

*Despite* the fact that I countered the loss of beer by eating junk food more. Indeed, I feel as though I really compensated myself way more than I should with the amount of fatty, fried and generally bad food I put in myself. And yet I still lost weight! That scared me a little. We’ll see if it happens again this time around.

4. After the first week or so, it’s not that hard.

It’s just a habit, like anything else, and if drastically changing routines has taught me anything it’s that habits are easy to break and easy to form, albeit easier to keep.

With that in mind, some of my other months I intend to do, with the idea that I might form better habits out of them:

1. Do 60m of physical activity every day—I’m a pretty sedentary person now, but I wasn’t always. Again, my inactivity really seems to just be a habit I’ve gotten into.

2. No TV/Movies/Video Games for a month—this is actually more to do with the fact that I don’t read as much as I’d like to. But I sure do spend a lot of time playing 10-pin bowling on my phone…

3. Vegetarian for a month—last time around, this was probably one of the easiest of tasks, the only difficulty being the lack of truly smoky things to eat. I remember getting through a lot of smoked cheese.

4. Many movies a month—and this is to do with the fact that I spend a lot of time playing 10-pin bowling on my phone, but still have a lot of “classic” movies I have not seen. I’m thinking the rule is that I must see at least 2 movies every day without fail.

5. Minimal use of electricity at home—kinda like the No TV/Movies/Video Games one on steroids. The idea is to not use anything electronic, or anything that requires electricity with a few necessary exceptions (such as the fridge). Gas cooking will be allowed, but other modern conveniences such as the washing machine, the laptop, the lights, the electric hot water are not. (This is the most intense one I’ve come up with yet, and may not actually happen in its current form.)

So, anyway, here’s to a booze-free month for February.

And here’s to making the last day of it suitably boozy that I won’t feel like drinking for the next 28 days anyway.