one Asian under a groove

1. The Social Network (David Fincher): Jesse Eisenberg and bros warn both nerds and wearers of “I love nerds” paraphernalia to take care, lest you end up billionaires.
2. White Material (Claire Denis): As violence nears, a plantation owner is determined to continue business-as-usual, as if her family’s whiteness made them invulnerable.
3. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga): All a lead needs to do is to play low-key and high-strung scenes as they lie, instead of mumbling through until the Oscar-bait breakdown scene. I hope Mia Wasikowska isn’t praised so much that she forgets this.
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy): It takes some nerve to make shit art that closely resembles one’s own putatative non-shit.
5. Bright Star (Jane Campion): There’s nothing wrong with saying “I love you”, but, unless you have the good fortune to be Natasha Bedingfield, other words may be more eloquent.
6. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul): Isan, present day: where the ethereal is more mundane than the physical. Isan, the past: where princesses like fish sticks.
7. Love and Other Drugs (Edward Zwick): Performer of the year: Anne Hathaway’s mouth, expressive and terrifying.
8. Night Catches Us (Tanya Hamilton): Anthony Mackie is the thinking man’s thinking man, cogitating even when fighting or male-gazing.
9. Vengeance (Johnnie To): French pop star with Desert Eagle can’t prevent Anthony Wong from being the coolest guy in the movie.
10. Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat): Just because you’re feminist doesn’t mean you have to do the decapitation yourself.

Ten flawed movies you should watch anyway:

• Wild Grass
• The Help (for Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer)
• Somewhere
• I Am Love (for Tilda Swinton and her wardrobe)
• Wah Do Dem
• The Tourist
• Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
• The King’s Speech (for the stiffness of Colin Firth’s upper lip)
• Bad Teacher (for Cameron Diaz obv.)
• I Love You Phillip Morris (for Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor)

The fourth-best Harry Potter movie:

• Harry Potter 7B

Decent-to-good movies that the kids for some reason think are all-time greats (blame auteur theory):

• Inception
• The Black Swan

Lifetime achievement award for overacting in quixotic attempts to save bad movies:

• Nicolas Cage

Most putrid:

1. The Mechanic
2. The Switch
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: We’re Not Even Trying Anymore