OSCAR 2013 - Pre-Show Thoughts & Predictions & Rants

"Why yes, that Anne Hathaway was quite good. But Daniel Day Lewis, now there's a *real* actor. Also, Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed. Oh, and why didn't Spielberg put any vampires into his movie about me?" - Abraham Lincoln

2013 OSCAR PRE-SHOW THOUGHTS AND PREDICTIONS:

- Well, it's once again almost Oscar time, and as usual all anyone can talk about is the politics behind the awards, rather than the actual merit of the films, actors, and directors that are nominated. Personally, I found this year's nominees an odd mix of deserving talent peppered with some truly jaw-dropping omissions. The reason I say jaw-dropping is that you would think that Kathryn Bigelow getting a Best Director nomination, for example, would be a no-brainer - not just as a movie fan, but also if you're going by the Academy's usual tendencies. Sure, last year, many of my favorite films like Drive and Young Adult were snubbed altogether from the Oscar race. But that, at least, was somewhat expected (and it was similarly but sadly expected that some of 2012's most incredible movies - like CLOUD ATLAS - would get excluded). But this year, the Oscars don't even necessarily seem to follow any sort of internal logic. Zero Dark Thirty up for Best Picture, but no Bigelow for Best Director (despite the film's incredible direction)? Okay ...

Again, it comes down more to politics and cult of personality - in terms of nominations, winners, and in the public discourse. Example #1: Ben Affleck. Look, Argo was a fantastic film, and Ben Affleck's transition from actor-in-bad-movies to director-of-awesome-movies has been really cool to watch. But is it reasonable to say that there were at least five other films in 2012 that were better-directed than Argo? Yes, very reasonable in my estimation. Is it also reasonable to say that there were several films in 2012 that were, overall, even better and more impactful than Argo? Yes, also reasonable. So, people, stop talking about Ben Affleck. The man will get his due in due time.

Of course, there are many great films and great performances that I would have loved to have seen recognized at this year's Oscars. To that end ...

MY TOP 15 SNUBBED OSCAR PICKS:

1.) Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director (Zero Dark Thirty)
2.) Moonrise Kingdom for Best Picture
3.) Wes Anderson for Best Director (Moonrise Kingdom)
4.) Quentin Tarantino for Best Director (Django Unchained)
5.) Dwight Henry for Best Supporting Actor (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
6.) Frank Langella for Best Actor (Robot & Frank)
7.) Jim Broadbent for Best Supporting Actor (Cloud Atlas)
8.) Tom Tywer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski for Best Director (Cloud Atlas)
9.) Doona Bae for Best Supporting Actress (Cloud Atlas)
10.) Safety Not Guaranteed for Best Picture or Best Original Screenplay
11.) Rian Johnson for Best Director (Looper)
12.) Liam Neeson for Best Actor (The Grey)
13.) The Grey for Best Picture
14.) Jason Clarke for Best Supporting Actor (Zero Dark Thirty)
15.) Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio for Best Supporting Actor (Django Unchained)

No doubt, many of the Academy's picks this year are "safe." Even a movie like Zero Dark Thirty, which in past years would be a shoe-in, may end up getting penalized for the political controversy surrounding it. And of course, despite efforts to make the Oscars feel a little younger and fresher, with indie picks like the very-much-deserving Beasts of the Southern Wild, there is still a pretty wide gulf between what is and isn't considered an "Oscar movie." Suffice it to say, the big exclusion this year in that regard was clearly Moonrise Kingdom - one of Wes Anderson's best-ever. But several other notable indies with quirky sensibilities - Safety Not Guaranteed and Robot & Frank, for example, were also left off the list completely. So too goes it for 2012's big action flicks that were deserving of consideration. Movies like The Avengers, The Grey, and The Raid: Redemption were all pulpy and over-the-top in their own way, sure - but all were also absolutely impeccably-made and deserving of awards consideration (The Grey, in particular, was really overlooked by critics in general - it's a future cult classic, no question). Similar sentiments could be shared about the superlative Cloud Atlas. It's a big, epic, sweeping, emotionally-charged movie - with Oscar-friendly actors like Tom Hanks and Halle Barry and Jim Broadbent. But I suppose that the future-shock sensibilities of the Wachowskis are still a bit too much for most people (especially when removed from the confines of hard sci-fi a la The Matrix), most especially Oscar voters. I know that opinion was divided on Cloud Atlas, but man, to me it was the year's most epic cinematic tour de force.


With all that said ... that still doesn't make it cool to hate on great films just because they *were* showered with golden Oscar love (hmm, that sounded wrong -- oh well). Chief example - LINCOLN. Okay, so perhaps Spielberg flubbed the ending a little bit, but still - this was a phenomenal film, and certainly one of the year's most towering cinematic achievements. I'll be very happy for actor-supreme Daniel Day Lewis should he win Best Actor, and for living legend Spielberg if he were to win for Best Director. Honestly, after the disappointing War Horse, Lincoln was a great return to form for him. Silver Linings Playbook is another one that certain people have been hating on. I'll defend the movie to anyone - it's just a fantastic film, and it's got everything - amazing lead performances, knockout direction from David O. Russell ... And trust me, it's such a well-done, fell-good movie - part of me really *wants* to hate on it, just because. But again, forget the cult of personality stuff, forget misgivings about anything labeled as a romantic comedy, and just watch the movie with an open mind. I did, and I loved it. Has part of me loved it not-as-much after it seemed to inspire hundreds of annoying Facebook posts stating stuff to the effect of "ZOMG NEW FAV MOVIE EVS!". Yes. Ugh. Please, go away. And was Jackie Weaver's part really substantial enough to deserve an Oscar nom? Probably not. But my point is: don't hate on Lincoln just because it seems ready-made for Oscar love, don't hate on Silver Linings just because you find Bradley Cooper annoying from making the godawful Hangover movies (it's a hurdle to get over, I know), and hey, don't even hate on Amour because you haven't seen it yet and/or the idea of a movie about two old people slowly dying makes you want to run and hide and cry.

So here we go, here are my picks:

DANNY'S OSCAR PICKS 2013:

BEST PICTURE

Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
Will Win: Argo

- This one annoys me, because I feel like an Argo win is going to have more to do with politics than anything else. No question in my mind: Zero Dark Thirty was the better film of the two. Whereas Argo simplified its story by packaging it as a Hollywood-style thriller, Zero Dark Thirty had zero pandering - it was challenging, smart, and thematically ambitious. But Argo is a story about how Hollywood saved the world. Therefore, there's probably no beating it.

BEST ACTOR

Should Win: Daniel Day Lewis
Will Win: Daniel Day Lewis

- There are few things that movie fans of all stripes can agree on, but one of them is this: Daniel Day Lewis is a beast. The man can do no wrong, and when he's got a role this good, this iconic, this well-written (kudos, Tony Kushner) ... there's no stopping him.

BEST ACTRESS

Should Win: Jessica Chastain
Will Win: Jessica Lawrence

- I'm actually a huge fan of both Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty and of Lawrence in Sliver Linings. Personally, I give the slight edge to Chastain, because her role in that film was subtler, more nuanced, and ultimately more powerful and iconic. But Lawrence was also fantastic - both very funny and very fearless - and she'll probably be rewarded for it. This was one of those "I just made America fall in love with me" roles - and Lawrence's real-life lovability probably also doesn't hurt her chances.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Should Win: Tommy Lee Jones
Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones

- TLJ was just a firecracker in Lincoln, and it's one of those incredible roles that quite simply brings the house down. It was a reminder of why Tommy Lee is such a damn fine actor - I mean, he steals the show in a movie that's basically bursting at the seams with A-level actors. My only regret is that this award will come at the expense of the always-awesome Christoph Waltz. But the weird thing about his role in Django is that it's really the lead role. Same goes for Philip Seymour-Hoffman in The Master (and that movie's mixed reactions will hurt it - justifiably so in my opinion - despite its two incredible lead performances)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Should Win: Anne Hathaway
Will Win: Anne Hathaway

- Hmm ... I don't really like the nominees in this category, which is quite weak this year overall. That said, Anne Hathaway unquestionably tore the house down in her part in Les Mis. But my feelings about the film as a whole were very mixed, and it makes you wonder about how Oscar votes should be considered. It's like picking the NBA MVP ... can you really give it to the player with the best points-per-game average if his team has a losing record? Not really. So, personally, I don't like giving Hathaway a prize if the film as a whole was only okay (though, somehow, it's nominated for Best Picture). But Hathaway will win, and unfortunately, there are no other nominees who make a strong enough of a case to knock her out.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Should Win: Frankenweenie
Will Win: Wreck-It Ralph

- Man ... Frankenweenie was one of my favorite films of 2012, and in my opinion one of the most unfairly overlooked. People have apparently so soured on Tim Burton that they decided not to pay attention to a film that was a true return-to-form for him. No question in my mind, Frankenweenie should win. But what movie did Oscar voters' kids and grandkids love most this year? No question on that one either - Wreck-It Ralph FTW.

BEST DIRECTOR

Should Win: toss-up
Will Win: David O. Russell

- This is easily the hardest major category to call and in which to pick a favorite. Spielberg may be the favorite in some respects, but Lincoln is also not really a director showpiece (it's an actor showpiece). Spielberg could still win, but I think ultimately David O. Russell will take it for the way he skillfully framed Silver Linings Playbook, to get the most out of his actors, and to really take the audience on an emotional roller-coaster ride. I also really like Ang Lee's work on Life of Pi. But I wonder if some of the more controversial creative choices he made on the film (the sometimes-awkward framing device, for example) will hurt him. And ... I also give incredible props to Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild. In some ways he might be my personal pick here for what he accomplished on a low budget and with a cast of mostly untrained actors. The whole category feels off without Kathryn Bigelow though - she was my clear #1 pick as Best Director of 2012 ... how is she not here? But ultimately, Russell, I think, takes it (and if he does, I expect a huge backlash from film geeks, to whom I say in advance "stay calm").

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
Will Win: Zero Dark Thirty

- I have a feeling that ZDT will win this category as a sort of "we really did love ya', but hey, our hands were tied" sort of make-up prize. It also helps that writer Mark Boal has a great reputation, and is known as the rare screenwriter who does true journalistic-style research while crafting his scripts. I will say, this is a loaded category. Tarantino and Wes Anderson are two heavyweights and personal favorites, and would be more-than-deserving winners.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Should Win: Lincoln
Will Win: Lincoln

- Lincoln had a phenomenal screenplay, packed with memorable moments and quotable lines. Tony Kushner nearly topped his previous collaboration with Spielberg, Munich, and delivered a definitive account of Lincoln's presidency and the passage of the 13th amendment.

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Should Win: no opinion
Will Win: Amour

- Amour - also nominated for Best Picture, making it a seeming shoe-in for this award. Have also heard great things about films like Kon-Tiki, but seems like Amour's got this one locked.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Should Win: Life of Pi
Will Win: Les Mis

- To me, Life of Pi was the most visually-beautiful film of the year. But Oscar loves a period piece, and Les Mis is likely this year's winner in many of these categories.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Should Win: Lincoln
Will Win: Les Mis

- See above.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Should Win: "Skyfall"
Will Win: "Skyfall"

- Come on now, "Skyfall" is the only legit song in this category - and it's a pretty excellent song too from no less than beloved songstress Adele. Plus, it's an acknowledgement of the quite-good latest Bond flick, which many feel was snubbed from other categories.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Should Win: Lincoln
Will Win: Lincoln

- John Williams ... the man is a legend and an institution, to the point where you almost want to discount him just because, well, been-there, done-that. But let's be honest, the score for Lincoln literally gave me chills ... DURING THE TRAILER. On a sidenote though, how in the heck was Cloud Atlas not nominated here?! Whatever else you think of the film, its score was incredible. Damn you, Oscars.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Should Win: no opinion
Will Win: Searching for Sugar Man

- Man, there are a couple of films on this list that I've been dying to see - most of all The Gatekeepers and Searching for Sugar Man, which I've heard universally great things about. It seems like this story about a long-forgotten musician who finds he has a following across the globe is the one to beat.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Should win: Life of Pi
Will Win: Life of Pi

- Life of Pi, again, looked stunning. I've got to go with it here. Skyfall is perhaps a close second, and a Skyfall win would mean a win for the great Roger Deakins, who's somehow never won an Oscar. But still, Life of Pi is my pick. I mean, come on - that flying-fish scene? Incredible.

BEST FILM EDITING

Should Win: Argo
Will Win: Argo

- Here's one where I give it up for Argo - the film was impeccably edited. The way the movie creates tension and builds up to its harrowing finale is incredible, and deserves to be rewarded (and also, for its amazing opening sequence with the raid on the U.S. embassy).

BEST MAKEUP

Should Win: The Hobbit
Will Win: Les Mis

- The Hobbit has Gandalf and Bilbo and Orcs. That, to me, makes it worthy (even if the movie does use too much CGI, in places it should have stuck to practical f/x). But Les Mis will take it.

BEST SOUND EDITING

Should Win: Argo
Will Win: Argo

- Argo wins this, and deservedly so. On a technical level, the movie is top-notch - and its mixture of real-life news footage with new footage (particularly in terms of audio) is also aces.

BEST SOUND MIXING

Should Win: Les Mis
Will Win: Les Mis

- Here's where I do give Les Mis props - the way they captured live singing and somehow made it work in the context of a film is actually a pretty amazing trick.

BEST VISUAL F/X

Should Win: Life of Pi
Will Win: Life of Pi

- Part of me wants to give at least a shout-out to Prometheus. Script issues aside, it was one of the most visually-stunning films I've seen, well, ever. That said, Life of Pi creates a CGI tiger (as well as an entire menagerie of wild animals) that are utterly convincing. That tiger becomes not just one of the year's most impressive visual effects, but also one of the year's most compelling characters. Now that's award-worthy.

BEST SHORT FILM - ANIMATED

Should Win: Paperman
Will Win: Paperman



- There is a SIMPSONS short nominated here. The Simpsons could win Oscar gold, and hey, that would be sort of awesome. But Paperman ... I mean, it's incredible. I think it got a round of applause in the theater when I saw it. It's one of those pieces that makes you just smile and think "wow, animation kicks ass."

BEST SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION

Should Win: ???
Will Win: Asad

BEST DOCUMENTARY - SHORT

Should Win: ???
Will Win: Redemption

- And that's it for now. Feel free to leave comments or picks of your own. Or just go watch Cloud Atlas and cry about it not getting any nominations. Or watch The Grey, and be awesome. But hey, no matter who wins or loses, just, you know, don't be mean. Because as Lincoln said ..."shall we stop this bleeding?" Yes, Mr. President ... we shall.

It's 2013 and It's Time To Stop The Madness! A New Year's RANT OF DOOM.

- Well, here we are, and it's 2013 ... guess that whole Mayan apocalypse thing didn't quite pan out.

After a string of exhaustive 2012 Year-In-Review posts, I was a bit blogged-out. At the same time, I wanted to kick off 2013 with some good material, and was trying to figure out what to write. As often happens though, the subject matter found me (as opposed to the other way around), and here I am with a lot to say as we find ourselves midway through January.

Basically, my question of the moment is: HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY?!

Now, this is largely a pop-culture blog, so I ask that question through a pop-culture-tinged lense. But still, the question remains, and it invariably ties to a larger socio-political context. It's no wonder that post-apocalyptic fiction is so popular right now ... sometimes it really does feel like the end is nigh. Not even the end of things on a material level, but the end of reason, sanity, and level-headedness.

I will start with the macro-view of things and talk about something that's obvious: America has a problem with violence. This past year, there were scores of horrific shootings that made one wonder what the hell was wrong with people. There was an added dimension of horror to these incidents because they largely took place in places that we regard as safe havens: movie theaters, malls, and most of all, schools. Incident after incident occurred, with the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back being the Sandy Hook school shooting in my home state of Connecticut. The fact that innocent children were gunned down - kids under 10 years old - it was almost too much to bear. Still, even thinking about it is almost impossibly sad, and hard to wrap one's brain around.

As I (and most rational people, I think) see it, there are two main addressable issues here. One is gun control. Many of these incidents were perpetrated by assault rifles and other weapons far too powerful to be available for civilian use. Few are advocating the ban of guns altogether, but many want to see sensible regulations on what kinds of guns can be sold, and to whom. For years, I've found it frustrating that this issue has been tossed aside as a political minefield not worth addressing or spotlighting in national debate and discourse. It's a shame that it took such horrific incidents to finally get the conversation going again. The second issue is mental health. There seems to be a real issue with the identification and treatment of mental illness here in America. It's too hard and too costly for many families to have mentally ill sons or daughters properly treated or cared for. And as relates to gun control, the fact that people with mental illness had such easy and free access to guns is maddening.

The fact is - certain people and factions in America just have ridiculously backwards and asinine views of guns and their rights as relates to them. The gun culture in America is harmful, problematic, disruptive, and just plain misguided. Too many people fancy themselves to be soldiers, vigilantes, and cowboys - and are living in a fantasy world in which one must stockpile bullets in the event that the US government turns on its people.

In any case, there was a moment after the Sandy Hook shooting in which the one silver lining seemed to be that we were, finally, going to turn a corner. But now, I worry that, as often happens, we are letting the moment pass us and get buried under an avalanche of distractions, politics, and sound-bytes designed not for reasonable discussion, but to feed the beast of a 24-hour news cycle.

And that brings me to the micro view. As I look around, I see intelligent discussion about violence in America being swallowed up by brainlessness. I see the hard conversations - the ones about gun control and treatment of mental illness - being undermined by the same old easy conversations, where pundits and politicians blame things like movies and videogames for all of our problems.

The sudden resurgence in attacks against the videogame industry really bothers me for how misguided it is. For one thing, last time I looked, none of the attackers in the major shooting incidents in 2012 were children. All were adults. So why then is there the constant need to talk about the effect of media on them? Lord knows - any work of fiction or nonfiction, be it the Bible, Shakespeare, Die Hard, or Call of Duty - has the same ability to warp a mentally unstable person's mind. There's nothing new here, and there's no reason why we should condemn STORIES for real-life actions. What I am seeing now is a movement towards the worst possible thing in a free society: censorship. In Connecticut, residents of the town of Southington are getting together to BURN violent videogames. Are you kidding me? How is this any different than burning books, movies, or music? This is Farenheit 451 come to horrific life. There always has been and always will be media that is inappropriate for children, and it's the responsibility of parents to ensure that their kids are exposed to age-appropriate material. But to limit what stories adults are exposed to because of fear of the story's content? That, my friends, is crazy. So how about if instead of burning / destroying games, the parents of Southington actually do their jobs and parent, rather than act like savages in their own right?

This same madness extends to the world of television, where the recent TCA event - in which networks show off their new series for critics and journalists - was riddled with accusations of too-violent content. Again, why should series aimed at an adult audience concern themselves with such things? Furthermore, to reduce media to base-level labels like violent and nonviolent severely undermines questions of context and quality. In the world of TV, this is especially true. Over the last decade and a half, we've seen a renaissance in quality on television. We've seen dark and mature shows - from The Sopranos to Breaking Bad - that are more intelligent, more nuanced, more complex - than most of what used to be churned out. TV has become challenging and adult - no longer just a pacifier, no longer just an idiot-box. So of course, people are now coming out of the woodwork to criticize it.

The truth is that there will always be art that revels in violence for the sake of violence. We have a primal part of us that is excited by violence as the ultimate life-or-death challenge. Drama is best when the stakes are high - and no stakes are higher than life and death. This is literal and metaphorical - after all, what is the fascination with professional sports if not as a microcosm of life and death. Isn't the warlike strategy of football basically warfare in miniature, the tackles a stand-in for killing blows? Don't we all enjoy the drama of all-or-nothing, winner takes all? That is always going to be reflected in our culture. At the same time, there is also always going to be art that celebrates life, goodness, friendship, love, and the human spirit. We all have a need for those kinds of stories, and they will always be there. Sometimes, an outwardly violent tale can actually turn out to be uplifting and good - take Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. Sometimes, an outwardly sweet story can actually end up being soul-crushing - look at the stories of Charlie Brown: a cute cartoon character for kids whose adventures are actually almost nihilistic in their negative outlook on life. Point being: you can't just label something as violent-bad or peaceful-good. In fact, I think there's a strong argument to be made that people who live lives in which they repress their minds to violence and sex and anything that challenges their worldview ... those are the people who often end up with the most problems. How many politicians, Catholic priests, and other would-be role models have turned out to be hypocritical people who act out on the very things they preach most loudly against? It's why the people calling for censorship - either self-censorship or imposed-on-others censorship, often strike me as the craziest of all.

At the movies, you've not got journalists ganging up on guys like Quentin Tarantino and his latest film, Django Unchained. The criticisms are not new for Tarantino, but they seem to be heightened due to the recent anti-violence, anti-everything-that's-not-100%-politically-correct hysteria. Now, Django is unquestionably a complicated film from a tonal perspective. It's got a pulpy, over-the-top, often comedic style that references Spaghetti Westerns, grindhouse cinema, and blaxploitation flicks. But it also has some real social commentary beneath the surface, and its portrayal of slavery in the pre-Civil War south is starkly brutal and disturbing. And yet, people are fixated on the movie's use of the n-word. People are reducing the movie to over-the-top pulp - even though there's much more to it - and therefore taking issue with a supposedly silly movie's use of a very serious word. Again, it's an issue of reductivism - people are too lazy to really examine the film's themes, its contrasting tones, its genre influences, and what it's saying about slavery and race - and are instead framing criticisms in sound-bytes ready-made for FOX News. The exact same reductivism is happening with regards to the movie's violence. Obviously, Tarantino is a guy who enjoys the visceral, subversive thrill of a great action scene. He is a great storyteller, and a master of building up narrative tension that culminates in violent climax. But rather than have intelligent discussions about the movie's narrative beats, people seem to want to simply label it as violent, and that's that. How many Oscar-winning movies could have just been labeled as violent - and therefore not worthwhile - and that's that? How many great books could be labeled as violent - and therefore not worth further analysis or cultural merit - and that's that?

This same logic applies to videogames. After all these years, too many mainstream critics and "journalists" fail to engage with the medium on any level except with regards to violence vs. non-violence. There is a whole world of aesthetics and craft that don't get discussed outside of enthusiasts. Gameplay, graphic artistry, control, precision, immersiveness, challenge, and yes - story and theme. I think about The Walking Dead videogame that I named as game of the year for 2012. There is violence and horror in it, yes. But it also put you in the role of protective father-figure, group leader, and redemption-seeker. And yet, in the spewed-out non-discussion of games, in which "violent" games are being burned in Southington, a game brimming with artistic merit might be thrown into the flames.

But back to movies, the most prominent example of small-minded reductivism has to be the recent "controversy" around Zero Dark Thirty, which I find sort of shocking. Here is one of the most intelligent, well-crafted films of 2012 - a movie that never talks down to its audience - that is being attacked from all sides for no reason except, again, to stir the pot. At the least, it was reassuring to know that the movie still did solid box-office this week despite all of the crazy complaints. It makes me wonder if we live in such a sound-byte oriented society that we no longer know how to process nuance or complexity. It's the same way in which everyone yelled about the "fiscal cliff" without knowing a damn thing about it, except that it was coming and it was bad. With Zero Dark Thirty, there is now a controversy about the depiction of torture in the movie. How is this possible? What's true is that the movie opens the floodgates for discussion and debate about America's use of torture in the war on terror. What isn't true is that it endorses torture. In fact, the most prominent theme of the entire movie is the psychological toll that torture takes - on those directly involved in administering it, and on the country as a whole. The depiction of torture in the movie is never cathartic or exploitative - instead, it's hard-to-watch and almost makes you sympathetic for the prisoners. But what's brilliant about the film is that it doesn't really lean one way or the other - it presents torture in a way that forces you as a viewer to think about its benefits vs. its consequences. Key words being: "forces you to think."

Somehow, complaints about the film's exact accuracy morphed into a meme stating that it was controversial because it endorsed torture. First of all, these criticisms are not the same at all. Second, I don't see how it's fair to criticize a movie that represents still-classified events as being not wholly accurate. The movie is journalistic and real-feeling in its broad strokes, but I don't think most expected it to capture the entire hunt for Bin Laden in minute detail. It disappoints me that politicians would so forcefully condemn the movie for this reason. But this all goes back to what I was talking about earlier: not paying attention to a story's broader themes, instead focusing only on details that might prove offensive if taken out of context. Let's look at Zero Dark Thirty as a whole - the entire movie is clearly a fictionalized amalgam of real people and events, put together in order to tell a story about a specific moment in American history, and the slow and scar-tissue laced road to healing post-9/11. Jessica Chastain's character is based on some real people in the CIA, but isn't a direct representation of any one person. The same goes for most of the film's other characters. So already, from Moment One in the movie, we as viewers know that this isn't a documentary, but an approximation of real events, assembled in dramatic fashion in order to make a broader thematic point. Argo used the same sort of artistic license. As did Lincoln. AS DID EVERY FICTIONAL MOVIE ABOUT REAL EVENTS EVER MADE.

And so, in the discussion about what - exactly - is truth vs. fiction in Zero Dark Thirty, the real discussion that the movie *should* be prompting conveniently gets totally lost. The movie should be inspiring meaningful conversation about to what lengths America should go to preserve its safety and its freedom, about what lines we should draw to distinguish us from our enemies, about the symbolic importance of finding Osama Bin Laden and the work that still needs to be done even after his death.

But America seems to be having a moment where intelligent conversation is being totally washed out by reactionary outrage. We are better than this. And I know that because we count among us intelligent and gifted storytellers like Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Spielberg who have been telling the story of America in interesting, thought-provoking (and - gasp! - sometimes violent) ways. My sincere hope for 2013 is that we stop the madness and stop the calls for censorship. That we stop confusing the real issues with the imagined ones. That we tackle what is practical and pragmatic instead of what is baseless. Let's embrace those ideas and those voices that challenge us, make us think, and make us smarter, and tune out those that reduce everything to sound bytes and dogmatic us vs. them fear-mongering. Let's remember that there's nothing wrong with being different, or thinking different, or being an individual - in fact, that's what makes America great in the first place. When everything becomes Blue vs. Red, side vs. side, we lower ourselves to the reductivism I've been rallying against. Let's start using our brains again, and remember that the world is a weird and complicated place - but that that's what makes it great.

THE BEST OF 2012 - The Best MOVIES Of The Year

THE YEAR IN MOVIES - 2012

- 2012 was a really, really good year for movies. A lot of readers of the blog have commented to me that my reviews of late have been overwhelmingly positive - and that's true. Part of that is, as always, that I actively try to avoid watching movies that I anticipate will be crap. But a big part of it is also that, remarkably, this year, movie after movie turned out to be good. Movie quality was remarkably high this year.

A lot of films I was personally looking forward to in 2012 matched or exceeded expectations. I think the biggest big movie of the year, the one that became a sort of standard-setter, was THE AVENGERS. At the end of the day, The Avengers didn't make it into my Top 10 list, but it remains one of the most important and precedent-setting films of 2012. It was blockbuster filmmaking that finally broke away from the origin-story template we've seen ad nauseum in the last decade. It was a fun, joyous, over-the-top movie that embraced the wackiness of its comic-book universe wholeheartedly - a great counterpoint to Christopher Nolan's increasingly wearisome real-world take on Batman. Suddenly, I wanted every new big blockbuster superhero movie to be like The Avengers (and/or written and directed by Joss Whedon, who also helped write this year's great CABIN IN THE WOODS), and ultimately, many of them may go in that direction. But more than that, the success of The Avengers - creatively and financially - gave 2012 an anything-can-happen feel. Marvel had pulled off the impossible - so maybe others could as well.

There were a wide-range of satisfying surprises this year. Wes Anderson rebounded from a minor slump to do MOONRISE KINGDOM, one of his best films ever. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, and ROBOT & FRANK came out of nowhere and delivered indie awesomeness. Kathryn Bigelow continued her incredible second act career resurgence with ZERO DARK THIRTY. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was actually really good. DREDD 3D was badass as hell. Ben Affleck continued to make great movies with ARGO. An Indonesian action movie with a British director blew people away, quickly climbing up the list of best action movies of all time. Yep, THE RAID is that damn good.

What wasn't good? Two untouchable bastions of quality faltered a bit, in my opinion. BRAVE was a fine film by most measures - most, except Pixar's. This was one of the first times that an original Pixar movie didn't wow me, and it was a little disappointing. In terms of animated films, I much preferred the return-to-form for Tim Burton via FRANKENWEENIE - a movie that reminded me why I became such a fan of Burton in the first place. The other franchise that showed some chinks in the armor was Christopher Nolan's Batman. I know, I know - this is a divisive one. Some still maintain that THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was a masterpiece. For me, it just didn't work in the same way as The Dark Knight or even Batman Begins. I'm not taking anything away from what Nolan did with the franchise as a whole. But my mixed reactions to TDKR made me ready for new takes on the character and the superhero film in general. To that end, I'll again mention the uber-satisfying comic book adaptation DREDD 3D, which perfectly captured the over-the-top, darkly satirical, dystopian feel of the Judge Dredd comics.

I also had mixed emotions this year about several movies that were very thematically ambitious, but that lacked the ability to properly follow-through on the sorts of thematic and philosophical questions that they posed. This is why, as much as I admired the stellar performances and film-craft of THE MASTER, I just couldn't fully get behind it, and don't count it as one of the best movies of the year. As much as I thought about the central relationships, elements of socio-political commentary, or personal philosophy in the film, I just wasn't able to extrapolate anything meaningful from it. Sometimes, I think critics are so eager for movies that seem to tackle these sorts of grand themes that they stop short of actual critical analysis. The Master is a movie that clearly has a lot on its mind. But what is it actually saying? I was left with a similar feeling of emptiness after seeing PROMETHEUS. That movie was so visually stunning that I sort of loved it on that level alone. But it had an emptiness to it, that left it feeling like the start of a conversation that goes nowhere. I felt similarly about the commendably ambitious KILLING THEM SOFTLY. It might have worked smashingly as straight-up crime noir. But Andrew Dominik's desire to make the film a political allegory derailed it a bit. Point being: the storyteller's job isn't simply to pose questions, but to tell a story. I'm all for ambiguity and stories that are open to interpretation (and I really loved the sorts of tantalizing questions posed by the narratively ambiguous LIFE OF PI, for example). But those questions have to have a point, and you should feel like the filmmaker is guiding you towards answers. Even if answers aren't simple, or aren't there altogether, the filmmaker should be guiding you. The splatter-paint approach doesn't make for great movies.

And that is why I loved CLOUD ATLAS so much. It was a huge, messy, complex film - ambitious as hell. But some very simple thematic threads tied it all together beautifully. Cloud Atlas wasn't a question, it was a thesis statement. And it made the Wachowski's time-spanning epic feel both cosmic and personal. On the other end of the spectrum is ZERO DARK THIRTY. The movie tells the story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden with pulse-pounding intensity and white-knuckle drama. It presents all sides of what happened in a relatively dispassionate, almost journalistic manner. And yet, there is an undercurrent of emotion between the lines of the movie that occasionally boils to the surface. The film doesn't tell us what to think of torture, or religious fundamentalism, or the war on terror, or patriotism. But it gives us all the tools we need to think about these big, relevant themes intelligently and make our own judgments. It's part of what makes the film so electrifying - it shows us a stark view of the world we live in, and forces us to confront the harsh realities we often allow ourselves to ignore (but that those in the film cannot).

LINCOLN, on the other hand, told its story with classic Spielbergian flair. While Spielberg's tendencies towards feel-good drama have at times limited him, his collaborations with writer Tony Kushner seem to bring out his best. And hey, sometimes there's nothing wrong with a movie that expertly sends an audience home happy. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK was one such film - mixing dark comedy with such well-earned emotional payoffs that it made you want to stand and cheer. Meanwhile, KILLER JOE made me want to cheer for altogether different reasons. Rarely have I seen a movie so gleefully twisted and depraved. Killer Joe is one of those movies that will be passed down in college dorms for years to come. By the same token, I suspect THE GREY will be one of those great movies that sort of develops its own legend and following over time. It's one of the most badass, gravitas-infused dramas I've seen - the kind that gives you chills, makes you cheer, makes your jaw drop, and that puts some hair on your chest. Like I said ... badass. Certainly, between The Grey, The Raid, and Quentin Tarantino's brutally awesome DJANGO UNCHAINED, there was no shortage of badassery in 2012. There was also no shortage of funny. Silver Linings Playbook, Killer Joe, Safety Not Guaranteed, Richard Linklater's BERNIE, and others were darkly funny. But for straight-up laughs, 2012 delivered as well, with comedies like THE DICTATOR, 21 JUMP STREET, WANDERLUST, and Danish import KLOWN all proving to be fairly hilarious.

I saw dozens of excellent movies in 2012, and very few bad ones. Movies from all-time favorite directors that hit the mark (Spielberg, Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Tarantino, Peter Jackson), and new voices that really sort of blew me away (Rian Johnson, director of the incredible sci-fi film LOOPER, is a guy I suspect film fans will be keeping an eye on).

So here's my list of the best movies of the year. As always, I can't see everything (only almost everything), so I'm sure there are some notable omissions. Feel free to comment and let me know what's missing.


DANNY'S BEST MOVIES OF 2012:


1.) Zero Dark Thirty

- Ultra-intense, eye-opening, and directed with thunderous momentum by Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty is my pick for movie of the year. The movie hit me in the same way that The Hurt Locker did - it felt like a state of the union of America over the last decade. And not just America - but the American Dream. It made me think about the things we have to do to defend our country, and about the emotional and spiritual toll that takes on those on the frontlines, and on all of us as Americans. No other movie this year felt more relevant, more necessary, more must-see. Kathryn Bigelow has done it again.


2.) Cloud Atlas

- Cloud Atlas was the most emotionally-gripping movie of the year for me. It tackled the Big Questions - "What does it all mean?" "Where are we going?" "Where have we been?" - in epic fashion. It showed what it means to be human, taking us across time and space to show the commonality of the human experience, to demonstrate our capacity for good and evil throughout time. The Wachowskis outdid themselves - blending genres and conventions so that the movie was sci-fi, fantasy, crime drama, comedy, romance, and historical epic all rolled into one. This was a movie about movies, a movie about life, a movie about human potential. Haters be damned - I loved it.


3.) The Grey

- "Once more into the fray / Into the last good fight I'll ever know / Live and die on this day / Live and die on this day." That poem at the heart of The Grey says a lot about the completely epic nature of this film. It's not so much man vs. nature as it is man vs. himself - the movie is about pushing oneself to fight, to live for something, to die for something. It's Liam Neeson in one of the best performances he's ever done - a role that he clearly put his heart and soul into. Few other movies this year left me as floored.


4.) Moonrise Kingdom

- Wes Anderson's movies used to wow me. Rushmore, The Royal Tannebaums, The Life Aquatic. Of late, the wow-factor hadn't been there ... until Moonrise Kingdom brought it back. This was Anderson in top-form - the knack for visual stylization never left him, but Moonrise had heart and characters and smarts to match. While the weakest of Anderson's work can feel almost alien, Moonrise uses the quirkiness to speak to the outsider in all of us, telling a tale of two crazy kids who find each other and are willing to do whatever it takes to stay together. This is one of Anderson's best-ever films.


5.) Django Unchained

- Tarantino's Django Unchained is, of course, badass as hell. But there's also a lot of thought put into its tale of a slave-turned-bounty hunter in the pre-Civil War American South. The movie artfully plays with genre conventions and with history. It is a tribute to Spaghetti Westerns, blaxploitation, and many of Tarantino's personal movie heroes. But beneath the violence and over-the-top humor, the movie also has a lot to say about the evils of slavery, the price of that evil on the American psyche, and the way that that atrocity paved the way for the world we live in today. It's easy to dismiss Tarantino as a mere purveyor of pulp fiction, but there's always more to QT's films than meets the eye.


6.) Beasts of the Southern Wild

- I was fairly blown away by Beasts of the Southern Wild. Visually striking, powerfully acted by a cast consisting largely of non-professional actors, and thematically rich - a haunting tale of isolationism vs. encroaching civilization ... this was a cinematic shocker. The tale of Hushpuppy has stuck with me in the months since I first saw the film, and I'd encourage those who have not yet seen this one to give it a look.


7.) Lincoln

- A landmark performance from Daniel Day-Lewis. A masterful supporting turn from Tommy Lee Jones. A stacked cast of some of the finest actors working today. Wonderfully staged by Steven Spielberg, sharply written by Tony Kushner. A great portrait of one of our greatest Presidents. A classic bit of history that is also incredibly relevant to the times we live in. One of the best movies of the year.


8.) The Raid: Redemption

- The Raid is just so kickass that it hurts. I have seen many action movies, many martial arts movies, but few have left my jaw on the floor as did The Raid. The movie is quite elegant in its simplicity. The story is simple but effective. The characters are archetypal, but get the job done. That leaves plenty of room for the movie to focus on the most insane action set-pieces I've ever seen - heart-pumping gun battles, hand-to-hand combat that will leave you breathless, and mano e mano fights to the death that must be seen to be believed.


9.) Safety Not Guaranteed

- A charming, uproariously funny film, Safety Not Guaranteed totally won me over. This tale of a possibly-crazy man who purports to own a functioning time-machine is funny, quirky, and poignant. It features fantastic turns from faves like Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, and New Girl's Jake Johnson. The script is one of the year's best - weaving absurdist humor with emotionally-involving characters and genuinely interesting mystery at the movie's core. This is the perfect example of a cool indie flick that very much should be Oscar-nominated left and right, but probably won't be because it's not Oscar-y enough. That's lame - this is an awesome and hilarious movie.


10.) Silver Linings Playbook

- David O'Russell's latest is getting a bad rap as a cheesy rom-com, but I found it to be anything but. The movie impressed me by being strange, dark, and occasionally disturbing. And to me, the dark depths that it reached in its exploration of two mentally ill characters made the late-movie payoffs that much more rewarding and applause-worthy. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are both phenomenal in this one. It's great filmmaking, and for me one of the best surprises of 2012.


THE NEXT BEST:


11.)  Looper

- A twisty time-travel yarn with great performances, standout scenes, and "whoah, where did this guy come from?" writing and direction from Rian Johnson ... Looper was one of the best sci-fi films in a long while.


12.) Robot and Frank

- This underrated and underseen gem features an incredible central performance from Frank Langella that's both hilarious and heartbreaking. The movie has some cool sci-fi elements, but at its core it's just a great character piece about an aging thief looking for one last big score.


13.) The Avengers

- The Avengers was a triumph for those of us who love superheroes in all of their tripped-out, cosmic, brightly-colored glory. Joss Whedon captured the spirit of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and infused the mighty Marvel heroes with just enough modern edge to make them feel fresh. This is the new template for all superhero movies to come.


14.) Argo

- A riveting thriller from Ben Affleck, Argo is so cool because its real-life story is so fascinating. Affleck deftly brings this slice of recent history to life by mixing political intrigue, wry humor, and action-movie thrills. The result is Affleck's best film to date, and a serious sign that this guy is the real deal.


15.) Life of Pi

- Visually, Life of Pi was one of the richest, most eye-popping movies I've ever seen - with some of the best and most you-are-there use of 3D I've experienced in a live-action flick. Ang Lee creates a film that is stunning to look at but also alternately scary, harrowing, uplifting, and serene. The film also surprised me with some of its twists - I came away from the film turning it over in my head and thinking a lot about its central mysteries.


16.) The Hobbit

- The distraction of 48 fps presentation aside, The Hobbit proved that the magic was still present in Peter Jackson's Middle Earth. With stunning set-pieces, wonderful performances from returning favorites and newcomers alike, and themes that resonate and stir the soul, The Hobbit is a welcome return to the world of Tolkien from Jackson and co.


17.) The Cabin in the Woods

- One of the most purely fun movies of the year, The Cabin in the Woods is a geek-out worthy deconstruction of the horror genre that was so cool I had to see it twice. The movie starts out as a jokey riff on classic teen horror flicks, but there are hints that something else is up. When the pandora's box is eventually open, the resulting carnage is pure awesomeness, and a huge treat for fans of horror flicks.


18.) End of Watch

- One of the best cop movies I've seen, End of Watch is gritty, funny, and utterly immersive in the way it uses handheld cameras and a you-are-there visual style to put you in the shoes of its central characters. Jarring at first, the film soon becomes totally engrossing. You feel like you're hanging with your buddies during the quieter moments, which makes the intense action and carnage that comes later that much more involving.


19.) Frankenweenie

- My pick for Animated Film of the Year, Frankenweenie is Tim Burton at the top of his game (very welcome after the disappointing Dark Shadows). The film uses stop-motion animation to create a grimly gothic black-and-white world that pays homage to the great horror films of old. But what starts out as a small-scale story about a boy and his dog soon becomes a big and gleefully chaotic tribute to monster movies that recaptures the sort of heartwarming horror that Burton built his rep on.


20.) Killer Joe

- A pitch-black, morbidly funny neo-noir, Killer Joe also happens to be one of the most shocking, weird, disturbing, and just-plain-wrong movies I've ever seen. A cult classic in the making, Killer Joe features an iconic central performance from Matthew McConaughey as the titular killer, who is surrounded by a great cast. An awesomely depraved film.


21.) The Perks of Being a Wallflower

- A moving, funny, wistful ode to teenage wasteland, this is a film that captures the drama and all-or-nothing feeling of being in high school to a T. Emotions run high in this one, but it fits - the highs are high and the lows are lows. Just like high school. Superbly acted and artfully directed, this is teen-angst at its most entertaining.


22.) Cosmopolis

- Director David Cronenberg isn't known for making accessible films, but Cosmopolis might be one of the most difficult and challenging movies he's ever made. A hyper-stylized, surreal jaunt into the heart of darkness, this apocalyptic film felt like a truth-in-madness meditation on the 99% vs. the 1% politics of the past year. If you stick with it and go with it, there's a lot to like here.


23.) The Dictator

- Some were put-off by Sacha Baron Cohen's foray into scripted comedy, but man, I loved it. Incredibly funny, The Dictator also contained some absolutely biting social commentary of the same sort that made Ali G, Borat, and Bruno so great.


24.) Klown

- Who knew? I had no idea that a Danish riff on Curb Your Enthusiasm-style improvisational comedy would end up being one of the year's funniest films. Based on a Danish TV show, Klown follows two man-children as they drag their ten-year-old companion on a trip of oh-so-wrong debauchery and mayhem. There were things in this movie that positively shocked me, and that also made me laugh harder than almost anything else this year.


25.) Dredd 3D

- An ultra-badass action flick, Dredd 3D erased all lingering memory of the 90's-era Stallone flick and delivered a streamlined adaptation that captured all that is awesome about Judge Dredd and his post-apocalyptic world. Karl Urban was perfect as Judge Dredd, and the film had just the right mix of satire, action, and sci-fi to become an instant fanboy favorite.


HONORABLE MENTIONS - MOVIES THAT JUST MISSED THE CUT:

Wreck-It Ralph
21 Jump Street
The Master
Killing Them Softly
Wanderlust
Hitchcock
Chronicle
Bernie
The Amazing Spider-Man
Skyfall
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter


HONORABLE MENTIONS - OTHER RECOMMENDED MOVIES FROM THIS YEAR:

Rise of the Guardians
Paranorman
Prometheus
The Dark Knight Rises
Taken 2
Ted
Sound of My Voice
Safe House
The Five Year Engagement
Les Miserables


INDIVIDUAL AWARDS:


BEST LEAD ACTOR:

1.) Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln
2.) Frank Langella - Robot & Frank
3.) Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook
4.) Joaquin Phoenix - The Master
5.) Liam Neeson - The Grey

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

1.) Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln
2.) Dwight Henry - Beasts of the Southern Wild
3.) Jason Clarke - Zero Dark Thirty
4.) Jim Broadbent - Cloud Atlas
5.) Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

BEST LEADING ACTRESS:

1.) Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty
2.) Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
3.) Quvenzhané Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild
4.) Halle Barry - Cloud Atlas
5.) Kara Hayward - Moonrise Kingdom

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

1.) Sally Field - Lincoln
2.) Doona Bae - Cloud Atlas
3.) Emma Watson - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
4.) Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables
5.) Juno Temple - Killer Joe

BEST DIRECTOR:

1.) Tom Tywer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski - Cloud Atlas
2.) Kathryn Bigelow - Zero Dark Thirty
3.) Ang Lee - Life of Pi
4.) David O'Russell - Silver Linings Playbook
5.) Tie: Rian Johnson - Looper, and Gareth Evans - The Raid: Redemption

BEST SCREENPLAY:

1.) Zero Dark Thirty
2.) Silver Linings Playbook
3.) Django Unchained
4.) Safety Not Guaranteed
5.) Lincoln
6.) Looper
7.) Cloud Atlas
8.) Moonrise Kingdom
9.) The Avengers
10.) Argo


- And that's all she wrote - my picks for the best films of 2012. An overwhelming amount of great movies this year ... it's been a lot of fun writing about and reviewing them all. Hope you've enjoyed reading.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ZERO DARK THIRTY Is a Riveting Account of the War On Terror

ZERO DARK THIRTY Review:

- Zero Dark Thirty is one powerhouse of a film - a riveting mix of CIA procedural, real-life recent history, character-based drama, and ultra-intense actioner. Between this and The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow is having one hell of a second act. She's making damn good movies - films that are ultra entertaining narratives that also have an immediacy, a relevance, an of-the-now electricity, that is unrivaled. What's so amazing to me about Zero Dark Thirty is that it serves as both a fact-based account of a landmark moment in recent US history, and as a smart, measured, non-politicized examination of that moment - of its implications on the national psyche, and on the psyches of those directly involved in the op. The op, of course, is the years-long hunt to find and kill Osama Bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It's a remarkable story on a number of levels, and Zero Dark Thirty brilliantly captures the many facets of what unfolded. Featuring several incredible performances, a no-nonsense yet still-multilayered storytelling style, and a pulsing intensity that leaves you on the edge-of-your-seat, Zero Dark Thirty is one of the year's best films, hands-down.

Bigelow's film focuses in on Maya (Jessica Chastain), a spitfire CIA agent who was recruited directly out of high school. Her whole career has been focused on one thing - finding Osama Bin Laden. And now, as she's shipped off to Pakistan - where Al Qaeda prisoners are kept in lockdown, tortured for any intel they might possess - she finds herself at the epicenter of that search. Bigelow opens the film on a haunting note - playing audio feeds of phone calls from the WTC on 9/11, playing snippets of news reports - reminding us of the horror of that day. With one fell swoop, she sets the stakes for this film. The evils perpetrated by Bin Laden and his agents are now fresh in our mind as we flashforward a few years, where the hunt for the terrorist mastermind continues.

But that hunt is going poorly. The CIA keeps coming up against dead-ends, and their methods of information extraction - cringe-inducing torture among them - are producing few useful results. In Pakistan, Maya meets Dan (Jason Clarke) - the site's chief torturer and information-gatherer. She also begins working with Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) - a world-weary analyst. They're all under the purview of Joseph (Kyle Chandler), their supervisor, who has grown cynical and short-tempered after so many of his efforts to decimate Al Qaeda have fallen flat. However, the arrival of Maya gives the group a new spark. Dogged and determined, she becomes obsessed with a potential lead that she believes is the key to finding Bin Laden - a courier named Abu Ahmed, who is said to be Bin Laden's personal messenger. Find him, and find Bin Laden. Easier said than done, sure, but Maya refuses to back down or give up. And her persistence and force of personality ends up sending shockwaves all the way to Washington, where the intel she uncovers, eventually, leads to the now-famous nighttime raid on a walled Pakistani compound.

Jessica Chastain is phenomenal as Maya. It's one of my favorite performances of the year, because it's somehow both naturalistic and hyper-dramatic all at once. Maya feels like a real woman, a fully-fleshed-out character, who has plenty of quirks and flaws but who you can't help but admire and root for. Chastain gives her the essence of the down-home girl-next-door who's also sort of a genius, and also just a tad crazy. But man, when it comes time for the big, dramatic scenes ... Chastain is also able to go big and knock 'em out of the park. If this was any other actress, we'd probably be complaining about overexposure of late. But Chastain is so good that you can't fault Hollywood for casting her whenever possible. Another big revelation here though is Jason Clarke as Dan - one of the most subtly interesting and complex characters in the film. Dan is, on one hand, a laid-back, friendly, easygoing dude, who calls everyone "bro" and amuses himself in the Pakistani desert by affectionately playing with monkeys he keeps around the CIA base. And yet, he wearily partakes in savage sessions of torture, inflicting great harm on his prisoners even as he buddies up to them. It's a fascinating dynamic, and Clarke plays it to perfection. It's funny, because in Chastain and Clarke we sort of get an microcosm of America in a post-9/11 world. Conflicted, filled with a mix of rage and empathy, left with lingering fears, and consumed by a desire for closure. Both characters also embody the film's naturalistic, non-judgemental storytelling style. Bigelow never tells us what to think of these people, never hits us over the head with judgement. She simply presents this story and these characters as is, and lets us take away from them what we will. That said, she also gives us a lot to chew on. The big issues - the politics of torture, the hopelessness of winning over religious fanatics, the debate of whether to use the carrot or the stick - it's all here. The movie makes you think, deeply, about these issues. But it doesn't do your thinking for you, and never talks down to or lectures the audience.

There are a ton of other standouts in the cast. Mark Strong brings heavy-duty gravitas as a CIA bigwig who reams his lieutenants for not bringing him enough terrorists to kill. James Gandolfini is the been-there, done-that old hat who sees in Maya the kind of vim and vigor that, perhaps, he once had. Joel Edgerton is badass as a gruff Navy SEAL, and Chris Pratt of Parks and Recreation provides some comic relief as a SEAL who gets his kicks from well-timed gallows humor (he blasts Tony Robbins on the way to kill Bin Laden). The previously mentioned Jennifer Ehle is also a standout, especially as she begins to form a sisterly bond with Maya and becomes a confidante. Kyle Chandler is a good foil for Chastain, and Harold Perrineau - of Lost fame - is also solid as a CIA techie.

I mentioned Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt as two of the Navy SEALS from the squad that raids that Pakistani compound. I should also mention that, as intense as the movie is for much of its running time, Bigelow and team take it to another level during the last-act SEAL raid sequence. Even though we know the end-results, it's an incredibly-shot, white-knuckle ride that is exciting and terrifying, while also being strikingly un-glamorized and stark in its realness.

Bigelow and writer Mark Boal divide the film into titled chapters, and it's an effective tactic. The chapter structure allows the film to jump from year to year, location to location, in a seamless manner. Despite a long running time, the movie zips by with a relentless pace. And the tension builds and builds - as the spycraft, interrogations, backroom politics, and personal struggles mount ... culminating in that breathless raid in Pakistan. Boal and Bigelow attack the story from all angles - we see the war on terror as fought from the halls of Washington D.C. to the deserts of Afghanistan to the streets of London to the villages of Pakistan. We see the techies, the suits, the muscle, the soldiers, the SEALS, the moles, the spies, and everyone in between. This is sprawling, epic storytelling. But it's also of-the-moment and journalistic. The movie leaves a lot unsaid, but everything is in there - sometimes between the lines, sometimes on the expression of a character's face.

As for the debate on the movie's depiction of torture - to me, it's a non-issue. Some in government are criticizing the movie for implying that torture led in some way to the discovery of Bin Laden's location. In my view, the movie keeps things open for interpretation, and also goes to great pains to show that torture alone does not tend to yield actionable results. In fact, two of the key pieces of intel that propel Maya's hunt  forward come from bribes, not torture. That said, I also think it's silly and naive to act as if torture never works as a means of extracting information. Do I support it in most instances? No. But I'm also not going to claim that it can't ever be effective. In any case, ZERO DARK THIRTY handles the issue deftly - showing the emotional toll the practice takes on those who utilize it, and those who condone it as accomplices. It also shows torture in a brutal manner that makes us see it for what it is. There's no fantasy-revenge element in the torture scenes (as you might find in more over-the-top fare like "24"). It's brutal to the point that we sympathize with some of the victims, and hope for them to divulge information and be cooperative so as not to put themselves through such cruelty.

This is a movie that smartly opens up the debate on torture, on national security, on counterterrorism, on foreign policy - but not in a biased or judgmental manner. Instead, it looks at the cost that the war on terror had and has on the lives of the people in the trenches, and on the national psyche over the course of the decade since 9/11. This is a movie that shows us the world as it was and is. It's exciting, riveting, intense-as-hell ... but it also hits at a level of truth that few movies do, combining the thoroughness and intelligence of a great magazine expose with the drama, intrigue, emotion, and action of a great cinematic thriller.

Kathryn Bigelow is on fire right now, making the best, hardest-hitting real-world dramas in the biz. ZERO DARK THIRTY is a gut-punch of a film - a must-see nail-biter and conversation-starter - bad-ass, thought-provoking, smart, and poignant. A highlight of 2012.

My Grade: A