You are a Joss Whedon fan. You loved Buffy. You sometimes have dirty dreams about Nathan Fillion. You are okay with the fact that Nathan Fillion was played by Jeremy Renner in The Avengers, because you could be convinced to have dirty dreams about him, too. You considered going to see The Avengers at midnight but you went the next day and even blew off some plans to see it in the middle of the day so you could spend the rest of your night talking about how awesome it was, because (like every other human being on the planet) you expected to find it unbearably awesome. You won’t watch Dollhouse because you’ve heard it’s not that good, and you can’t bear to see Joss like that. You want good things for the people you love.

But the awesome never came, the good things never came. And all that time spent avoiding Dollhouse was for naught.

You didn’t hate it, but you wanted to like it more, and you knew that thinking it “wasn’t terrible” wouldn’t be good enough. Like that time that you saw The Dark Knight and pointed out the badly-choreographed fight scenes to your friend who proceeded to have a hissy fit in the theater lobby. You know that only utter devotion to The Avengers’ awesomeness will be acceptable, so you hope no one brings it up and prey that they don’t. You know that, as a film critic, you will eventually have to write about it and plan to publish it under an assumed name. You will mail that piece from in an unmarked envelope from an unspecified location somewhere near East Timor.

And then you will disappear. You will make up a fake identity and move to one of those island nations where Republicans keep all their escort money and change your face to look like Saddam Hussein. You can start over.

Except that you don’t have the money for that. You barely have the money to eat. So, you find little things to comment on that you did like. “That Hawkeye sure looks good in a tank top!” “Captain America hates chicken shawarma. Hilarious!” or “Scarlett Johansson’s rear end is a terrific actress.” Or you find ways to hint at your dislike of the film, without ever actually saying anything unkind about it. You tell people, “If anything, it showed that Joss Whedon, who gave Robert Downey Jr. all the good dialogue, would be the perfect director for Iron Man 3.” “Considering all the work needed to weave those four different movies together, Joss Whedon made the best Avengers movie possible.” “It was like I was watching four movies! Hey, have you seen Inception!” or “I can’t wait for the sequel.”

You aren’t a good liar, and so you practice lying about the film in the mirror in case people call you out on not liking it. You ready your shocked, aghast, flabbergasted and surprised faces, like you’re in a Spanish soap opera. You buy a glove to slap people with. You work on your I’m-in-an-episode-of-Smash drink throw. You perfect your impromptu yawn that says, “Wow! I am suddenly too tired to finish this conversation” or you go back the gym and hit that treadmill hard, in case you need to flee from your assailant. You watch Runaway Bride, Marathon Man and Chariots of Fire to get tips and old tapes of Walter Payton and Barry Sanders to perfect the perfect stiff arm. If you get trapped by a mob of angry comic book fans, you scream: “Look! It’s Alan Moore and he brought scones!” And then you book it the other direction and don’t look back. Never look back and don’t stop running. Pretend it’s like Speed, except that you are the bus.

You get outed by one of your friends for not liking it and then spend most of your time defending your right to not like things, because you have an opinion. You mention that you didn’t like Forrest Gump, The Prestige, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Artist, Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Full Metal Jacket and couldn’t care about The Usual Suspects because someone already told you the ending. You tell them that not everyone has to like the same things, because the Rotten Tomatoes message boards are not real life, and doesn’t that make life more interesting? You hope this will make it easier for them, to make it okay, to show that my not liking it doesn’t make Joss Whedon a bad director or me a heartless jerk. You mention that even Joss mentioned that he had problems with it, and you tell them how much you respect him for it and how much you were touched by his open letter to his fans.

This has the opposite effect. You will now have to defend not liking The Avengers AND Forrest Gump for the rest of your life. Your name will be synonymous with “stabbing kittens” and posters of you will be put up all over the neighborhood. Children will no longer be allowed to play with you and strangers won’t look you in the eye. This is your life now.

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Here’s a 12-minute interactive trailer for Sound of My Voice, a spooky-looking film written and directed by Zal Batmanglij that’ll hit theaters on the 27th of this month. The trailer isn’t embedded here because the video itself is a full-browser experience with interactive components, many of which lead you into weird associative internet tunnels as seemingly-twisted as the film itself. Following a young couple attempting to document the inner workings of a strange Los Angeles cult led by a woman named Maggie, Sound of My Voice looks like it’ll be a mind-bending and bizarre foray into cult psychology and personal demons. I’m excited for it. Watch out for it in theaters soon.

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I know no one is filming this, but sometimes I like to stare out of my window for too long anyway, I like to imagine that you’re standing on the sidewalk below it and craning your neck and begging can I come upstairs, please? Whenever the bell rings I hold my breath — just for a second — just to imagine that when I twist the lock and turn the knob and open the door you’ll be standing on the other side of it for no reason. You, the male lead — not a deliveryman, not a roommate of mine who’s misplaced her key.

And just when I think we’re reading from two different scripts, our hands meet blindly, neatly. They clasp without hesitation, never questioning for a second that they’re where they belong — these knuckles and joints and nails. I like to inspect the way our fingers lace, searching for the formula or the equation that explains how seamlessly they fit together. And when you catch me studying this marriage of skin, I wish you would suspend reality and look at me like someone has whispered stage directions in your ear: chin up, hand on cheek, smile with your eyes.

But there’s no stagehand feeding me my lines, so I often pause when I’m speaking to you for dramatic effect, as though I’m afraid or nervous or unsure of these sentences I’m stringing together. As though I could forget what I want to say — if only forgetting my lines were that easy. I pretend it’s difficult to tell you how I feel even though the words come naturally as my own name. It’s not difficult at all; this is the easy part.

The difficult part is trying to keep this role I’ve carved for myself, this role I’ve studied and auditioned for and earned. There are accidents and understudies, women who await in the wings, just as capable as I am except younger and tauter and hungrier for this thing than you’ve allowed me to be. I don’t know their names but I know they exist, dormant reminders that I can’t play this part forever.

I’m well aware that we are not stars in some black and white film, that I will not sit on a train with my open palm pressed against glass waiting for yours to match it. I will not look back as I move further and further away from you, shrinking into the distance; and you will not run after me when I make my final exit. When this scene ends, no one will applaud.

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There is a movie called AirBud, about a dog who can play basketball. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that, you’re probably already a fan. I mean, who could resist a tale about a young boy who adopts a homeless puppy, learns the dog is a wiz at human athletics, then teams up with the pup to win his high school’s basketball championship? It’s charming, it’s dramatic, it’s a story we can all relate to. In fact, there’s an entire series of Air Bud films: Air Bud 2, Golden Receiver (football pun); Air Bud 3, World Pup (soccer pun); and Air Bud 4: Air Bud Spikes Back (simultaneous volleyball and Star Wars pun). Sports fans still marvel at Bo Jackson, an athlete so gifted he could play professional baseball and football simultaneously – well, Bud can do all that AND lick his own balls. So, how about we start giving Bud the attention he is due, eh? Why am I telling you this? Because War Horse, the heart-tingling Hollywood epic that’s considered a favorite for a Best Picture nomination is Air Bud as interpreted by Steven Spielberg. And it’s about time everyone knows it.

The essential appeal to the Air Bud franchise is that there is a dog that can do things humans can do. War Horse is the same, exactly the same, in fact, except War Horse isn’t a dog, and Steven Spielberg can cast better supporting actors. War Horse is a tale about a young boy whose father buys a homeless horse (covering his tracks, Spielberg has changed Bud’s name to Joey), learns the horse is a wiz at gardening and human comprehension, then teams up with Joey to save his family’s farm. Sound familiar? Were the film in the capable hands of Air Bud director Charles Martin Smith, it would’ve ended there. But Spielberg being who he is, he had to push things. Not only does Joey save the farm, but he goes on to give a dying girl a reason to live, fight gallantly for both France AND Germany in the first World War, remind both sides of their humanity which no doubt results in the ultimate cease fire, have a (possibly gay) love affair with another horse, and ultimately return to his boy owner, now a man, and help him convince his taciturn father that it is OK to love. Can Joey shoot a free throw with his snout? We may never know. But that other stuff is pretty damn impressive.

Every scene in War Horse is built the same: create a scenario where an almost God-like person saves the day… then replace that person with a horse. It’s manipulative beyond belief, and at a certain point you wonder what might be left for this great horse to accomplish. Can he cure cancer? Perform a c-section of human twins? Present himself as a viable Republican candidate for the Presidency? These are the questions you expect from a movie about a dog playing sports (“The audience is gonna lose it when when Bud saves the winning goal with his tail!”) — but not from the guy who made Schindler’s List.

The most memorable example begins with Joey hauling missiles for the German army with his (possibly gay) horse mate, Topthorn. The two met when they were both serving in the French army, and remained close after being captured by the Germans. Sadly, Topthorn has contracted an unknown horse disease, and is having trouble pulling the missiles that the brutish Germans so insist upon moving about. When a particularly barbaric German tells Topthorn to get to the front of the cavalcade, Joey immediately stands up for (possibly gay) companion. He neighs, pounds the dirt, and does that thing where horses stand up on their hind legs and move their front hooves around in a circle. Joey convinces the Germans that he is stronger and more capable than Topthorn, and takes over the greuling lead role for his (possibly gay) partner. Topthorn returns to the back of the march where he can get some much needed rest. It’s heartwarming and of course, completely ridiculous. You could easily see this happening with a person. A brave, powerful person who’s heart was as strong as his back. Maybe Russell Crowe. Or Elizabeth Taylor. And that’s what makes the scene seem like such a good idea. We’d love to watch a human perform such a valiant act, imagine how great it would be with a horse! The exact same principle that was no doubt going through the Air Bud screenwriter’s mind as he scripted the final game-winning jumpshot as performed by a canine.

For this to work with a horse, however, Joey would have to speak human, speak German human, love another horse, be braver than pretty much every person alive, and be able to do that thing where horses stand up on their hind legs and move their front hooves around in a circle. It’s fun and all, but it’s also deeply formulaic. And manipulative. And cynical about the state of modern audiences. In short, it sucks. And it’s the sort of thing we accept from maudlin movies we let our kids watch while we’re making dinner, but not really the thing of celebrated Oscar contenders. We can still tell the difference, but I’m starting to get the feeling that maybe Steven Spielberg can’t.

It is only fair to point that War Horse was not Steve’s creation alone. It’s based on a children’s book (surprise, surprise), and its subsequent adaptation as a Broadway and London theater sensation. So there’s more than one person to blame. But just because they were doing it, doesn’t mean you had to too, Steven. In the end, I’m not sure what’s more disappointing, that a great director is adopting the approach of a preposterous series of children’s movies, or that he’s going to get an Oscar nomination for it. Am I going overboard? I thought maybe I was. That is until I read this Twitter review from one of today’s great critical minds…

Now I know it was crap for sure.

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It’s been 26 years since the Cheshire-grinning Ferris Bueller whisked away his rodeo jacket-tasseled girlfriend and perpetually angst-ridden best friend for a day out in Chicago, as brush-stroked by John Hughes, and certainly befitting the sausage king of the Midwest, Abe Froman. The day itself was a measuring stick for people who knew that another day spent lamenting amongst disinterested teachers and administrators with daily vendettas as if hot lunch items just wouldn’t cut it. Ferris Bueller taught children of the ’80s and ’90s that a day of fun wouldn’t be spent hot-boxing various rooms with ticklish vapors dubbed kush, crash, splash, dash or Westside OG. Rather, it would be spent absorbing the surrounding cultural flavor through a series of peripheral osmosis. The day off was so thoroughly complete that the trio of northshore explorers left the Windy City truly winded.

It’s easy to look back at yesteryear through sepia-toned eyes and think that what came before was inevitably better because nostalgia sticks to those memories like pinkelponkers do to liquidambar trees. While things in the past were simpler, new world amenities have made life easier for a generation that still plays hookie from work like it was third-period chemistry. But what exactly would Ferris Bueller’s Day Off look like if he took a mental health day in 2012?

The question isn’t “what are we going to do,” the question is “what aren’t we going to do?”

What he did: Took in a ballgame at The Friendly Confines.

What he’d do today: Set his fantasy baseball lineup.

The fantasy sports phenomenon has turned even the most fair-weathered fans into die-hards for the simple fact that they root for a win and loss result as opposed to statistical bukkake. It’s not enough anymore to attend a game and bask in the physicality involved with playing professionally. Instead, we expect these athletes to deliver timely hits and lights-out pitching performances so that our fantasy team can outplay a guy with a single syllable name from accounting in the first round of the playoffs. There was a time when “play ball” truly meant to “have a ball.”

What he did: Took part in a rousing rendition of “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles during the Van Steuben Day Parade.

What he’d do today: Look at videos of people covering “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles on YouTube.

It seems that more and more folks experience the world around them through a screen that is peppered with spittle from gut busting videos of people falling down and kittens so painfully cute that you want to bake them into a orange tabby custard. People consume life experiences in even tinier optical boxes than their predecessors, and children of the ’80s and ’90s were practically parented by the television.

What he did: Observed some of the great works of art at The Art Institute of Chicago.

What he’d do today: Leave anonymous comments on blog posts.

It seems only fitting that Ferris’ romp through Chicago included a visit to The Art Institute where he notably observed George Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which depicted a leisurely day spent along the spearmint shores of the Seine. What made Ferris, Sloane and Cameron’s day so special is that while only teenagers, they weren’t oblivious to the great and wonderful things that had come before them. They didn’t despise things because they didn’t understand them. They didn’t loathe an image because they were shameful that they would never be able to create something like that for themselves. It was their humility that made them transcend being characters and turned them into real people. It seems the same can’t be said for many folks who take it upon themselves to police the internet with the intellect of a tumble weed and the sharp sting of a boot spur. Your opinion matters, but it shouldn’t matter all of the time.

Perhaps Ferris would even use his free time to become a spam emailer. Certainly he’d have more success than his Royal Highness Ibrahim Mbenga from Zimbabwe. Who wouldn’t open an email that was labeled, “SAVE FERRIS?”

What he did: Saw the city from spectacular heights.

What he’d do today: Get high and forget he cooked a Hot Pocket.

Anything is peaceful from one thousand, three hundred and fifty-three feet.

Big cities have the tendency to humble even the most braggadocio individuals with a swift kick to the rump. That’s what makes the survival that much sweeter when your old zip code is as distant in your mind as the thoughts of the individuals 1,353 feet below. It’s hard to imagine that a seventeen-year-old kid in today’s society would dare to think of others when those around them have fluffed their egos and turned them into medicated Adonises.

What he did: Swam in a complete stranger’s pool.

What he’d do today: Tended to an imaginary farm.

Ferris Bueller you’re my hero.

Triumphs in 2012 come in the form of being fictional, yet successful land baron/ baronesses where fatback output proves to be more valuable than real life or death decisions. Would Ferris react, or would he replant a bushel of rutabagas?

What he did: Ate a decadent lunch at ‘Chez Quis’.

What he’d do today: A hundred crunches so he’d have transcendent abdominal muscles.

A carb was nothing but a carburetor back in the 1980′s. Pie holes ran over with intricate sauces and abominable, ice cream mounds, unlike today, when people treat food like it’s been poisoned by Wesley from The Princess Bride. There are two type of people in the world: people who think about the food and people who think about how the food tastes.

What he did: Borrowed a red 1961 Ferrari 250GT California.

What he’d do today: Love his own car more than his friends and parents.

People have argued that there is perhaps a Fight Club/ Tyler Durden element to the John Hughes classic, where in Ferris is merely a figment of Cameron’s imagination. It seems only apropos to offer the following assessment: “the things you own end up owning you.” While it was the car that ate away at Cameron’s very essence in the ’80s, it’s the material nature at which we value our relationships in the present day that would lead one to believe that Mr. Bueller would love his things more than his living, breathing counterparts. As it turns out, Ferris Bueller would still very much need saving in 2012.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

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image – Ferris Buellers Day Off

Less Than Zero (1987)

A novel that revels in and romanticizes the destructive nature of the rich, uninhibited youth of America.

Hollywood’s problems

(1) Teenagers on drugs, especially cocaine, ramble and are emotionally/ physically numb to the vast majority of human experiences despite their enthusiasm about discussing them, and when they witness something horrific, they either express underwhelming levels of disgust or try to photograph it, which, as a motif, would desperately frighten most viewers.

(2) Movies are a medium of passion. If there is no passion, there is no movie. This is what Hollywood thinks about a “true-to-the-zeitgeist intellectual tome documenting the depths of teenage confusion”: if there is no drama, we cannot sell it.

Hollywood’s solutions

(1) Hire actors who convey “numbness” and “drug addiction” convincingly, give their characters just enough emotion to appear to feel shame regarding their lecherousness, and allow this shame alone to drive the plot.

(2) Completely wipe away any semblance of realism by working the quantitatively daunting character count down to five and do not, do not, involve homoeroticism, except in the context of the warm-hearted anti-hero giving BJs for crack, because Gays are frightening.

What we got

_____

American Psycho (2000)

A novel about a demented, homicidal one-percenter who brutally kills people or just elaborately daydreams about brutally killing people. How might Hollywood adapt this meditation on Shakespearean evil for the screen?

Hollywood’s problems

(1) Hollywood is primarily made up of demented, homicidal one-percenters who don’t want their clandestine fantasies revealed to the public.

(2) If this movie is perceived to be a commentary on white-collar psychology (and you for one are not sure whether or not the book is), then this movie could have lasting negative repercussions with the public perception of the concept of “businessmen” and possibly scar the genres of both magical realism and horror in a way that will drive the public to solely desire escapist science fiction for the duration of cinema’s existence.

Hollywood’s solutions

(1) Form a highly unstable human being out of plastic and out-of-control enthusiasm and program him to be the main character, so that empathy is impossible and the audience can easily compartmentalize what they are watching and what their actual thoughts on serial homicide are.

(2) Play the “it’s all just a dream” card.

What we got

_____

The Rules of Attraction (2002)

A book that ignores contemporary ideas of narrative structure. It’s about three college kids: an amoral, suicidal everyman; a guilt-ridden, potentially suicidal, severely lovesick everygirl; a Gay. They attend an Ivy League school, and haphazardly experience promiscuous, mind-altering, and yet somehow, to them, mind-numbingly boring events in a hyper-reality where college is literally just about testing the limits of how messed up you can get.

Hollywood’s problems

(1) A Gay is a primary character. In the early ’00s, is it “hip” to be gay yet?

(2) The Western World desperately needs their teenage population to believe college is about discovery and a sense of securing one’s eternal destiny, not sampling every possible human experience to the point of entering a vortex of eternal horror, which in many ways is the primary substance college provides.

(3) The broken nature of the plot structure would have to be something like a sequel to Memento, or maybe a two-hour, three-wheeled, alternating zoetrope, which is just not marketable in a Hollywood, multi-million dollar business venture sort of way.

Hollywood’s solutions

(1) Hire three beautiful people to act. Have their characters be “searching for something” and wondering when the drug and sex cyclone will end.

(2) Make The Gay kind of the bad guy and the suicidal everyman kind of like Clark Kent, and… yeah, just make Memento II. With sex scenes, we need those, just not gay ones. Okay, maybe one gay one.

(3) Concretize the story in a way that results in a sense of solidarity between these “lost young adults” and sets up for a drawn-out reconciliation in an idyllic setting. Maybe give them some capacity to “move past” this endless cycle of destruction, because we don’t want the suicidal everyman to be every man and woman who walks out of the theater.

What we got

_____

The Informers (2008)

A series of vignettes about severely depressed Angelinos on various tiers of the economic totem pole, and a vampire. Given Hollywood’s track record and BEE’s unquestionably cemented place in postmodern history, can they decipher this? Can Hollywood somehow milk a coherent narrative out of it?

Hollywood’s problems

(1) Vampires aren’t “in” yet, so there’s no way Hollywood’s going to risk trying to explain that through story development. He’s out.

(2) The book is set in the eighties and references all kinds of period concerns and pop culture nuances. What were the eighties?

(3) It’s finally “in” to make a movie sans drama, the independent market is flooded with them. But how do you get people in the theater if the plot is driven by establishing and then immediately disintegrating what would normally set up “plot,” followed by three-to-five minute long meditations on “white people problems” that then resolve in terminal bleakness?

Hollywood’s solutions

(1) Hollywood puts together an impregnable team of beautifully vapid A-list actors. Money in the bank.

(2) Ray Bans! Naked People! Synthesizers! Movie Stars! Drugs! Polyamory! (Subtly inferred) AIDS! Ladies and gentlemen, the ’80s, but like… in the ’00s, but it’s the ’80s! It’s so postmodern it’s crazy!

What we got

_____

Glamorama (????)

A throw-away novel about the fashion industry and espionage that’s more an experimental, masturbatory meditation on popular culture. Whatever.

Hollywood’s potential problems

(1) The idea of Glamorama as a movie is hilarious.

(2) The book is not hilarious.

Hollywood’s potential solutions

(1) There are no solutions.

(2) Ben Stiller needs ideas. Ben Stiller is hilarious. Zoolander.

What we got?

_____

Lunar Park (????)

There are no plans to make a movie about this book — BEE is living this book. This book is his life. Does he have a camera? Can we take part in the horror of BEE?

_____

Imperial Bedrooms (????)

A sequel to Less Than Zero.

Hollywood’s potential problems

(1) The actors are old. Specifically, Robert Downey Jr. has moved past his “drug-addled Loki” typecast phase. Would he even be willing to botch another poorly-interpreted iteration of Julian?

Hollywood’s potential solutions

(1) You don’t do it. You stop writing. Everything is right with the world.

(2) Impending doom.

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image – Name Your Link

1. The Descendants

Did you ever worry that you were dead inside? That a MacBook Pro lived where your heart should be? No worries! If you watch Alexander Payne’s new film, The Descendants, you’re bound to feel something. It’s a film that’s nothing but emotions! It’s about a man who has just found out his wife is cheating on him. He would confront her about it, but oops she’s in a coma! Instead, he just has to yell at walls and his children to get the aggression out. It’s not an enviable position to be in. Nope. I would not be jealous of George Clooney… for once.

Alexander Payne has a knack for making films that are so real and raw that they often feel like documentaries. The Descendants is no exception. There are no explosions, nudity or drugs. It’s relatively quiet, which makes the big “a-ha!” moments all the more powerful. And there’s no happy ending tacked on at the end either. The message is defiantly realistic: Families are screwed up and there’s a lot of resentment next to all the love. Ah, how refreshing!

2. Shame

In all honesty, I’m not sure if I even liked Shame but it stuck with me for days afterwards, which is a lot more than I can say for most films. Everyone’s talking about it because it has an NC-17 rating and, even though there’s a lot of sex and penis in this film, it’s never actually sexy. There is no joy in the sex that Michael Fassbender’s character has. On the contrary, it’s pure misery. It’s a very American thing to do — make a movie about sex and show no joy coming from the act. Sometimes I think our collective head would explode if we showed promiscuity without consequence. What a novel idea! In any event, seeing the agony attached to something that is supposed to bring you ecstasy is interesting. Plus, Michael Fassbender’s dick is huge. So bye.

3. Young Adult

Let me say something upfront. This movie isn’t perfect. In fact it’s quite flawed but somehow the film manages to make that work in its favor. Charlize Theron does an amazing job playing a female character who’s downright unlikeable. It’s a revolutionary concept actually — creating someone who has a vagina with few redeeming qualities — but screenwriter Diablo Cody goes for it in her third feature film, Young Adult. Imagine if the lead character, Mavis, was deplorable and didn’t look like a supermodel. Now that would be truly progressive! But we’re not there yet as a society so in the meantime, we must swallow the bitter pill that is Charlize Theron acting like a narcissist. Patton Oswalt does an amazing dramatic turn as a handicapped nerd and Patrick Wilson plays a DILF so, yeah, go see it. You will have an opinion about it no matter what. Guaranteed reaction!

4. We Need To Talk About Kevin

I haven’t seen this yet but everyone is losing their minds over it so I figured I should include it. The premise seems interesting. A couple raises a boy who turns out to be a murderer and they’re like, “What? Didn’t see that one coming.” This idea that you could give birth and raise someone who becomes a monster seems intriguing. What if you legitimately are afraid of your child? Are you allowed to hate who they are? Some interesting ideas going on in this little indie. Plus, Tilda Swinton is God.

5. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel of the same name, the title of this film irks me but I’m looking past it because I legit tear up every time I see the trailer. From the looks of it, it just seems to be about a young boy running around New York City while laughing, screaming, and crying, but whatever. I’m sold. Sold and already sobbing.

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It’s that time of year, when all of us are forced — via that deceptively celebratory title of “Year’s Best” — to realize how poorly we’ve spent the last eleven months. No one cares that you made it through 928 pages of Murakami’s latest in just a week (or built an impressive 2% of bicep muscle from holding it up), It’s December, pal, so you if you haven’t already listened to every album released in 2011, and previewed a few coming out in 2012, just move to the back, like Stone-Ages back, because you’ve lost your right to participate in the modern human race. Talk about a Homo Neaderthalensis.

“Best of” Lists are to December what mosquitoes are to August, but unlike the panic-inducing insect, no one wants to get rid of the “Best of.” Instead, they feed them, passing them around to their friends, acting aghast when the most fringe author/ artist/ television show has been left out, but smiling in smug recognition at any item that matches up to a notch on their own belt.

I can say this because I do it every year. For a former yearbook editor and perpetual sentimentalist, an annual pass to let my gaze linger backwards long enough to read a 10-point list is better than any gift that could be shoved at me this month. Suddenly my personal mantra to never forget about anything has a culturally-sanctioned purpose. Hallelujiah, indeed.

Perhaps it’s time we stop letting our self-worth be so easily bought and realize what these lists are actually doing. Because they’re not just another page in the adults’ arts and culture yearbook, open for drawing hearts or a million arrows with the word “Hot!” in neon markers. Not anymore. They are cleverly packaged, taste-monopolizing guilt trips that, when properly delivered, make you wonder why you even bothered with trying to seem cultured this year.

I thought we were supposed to be busy gazing at our own navels and adding a lowercase “i” in front of every device we use. Since when did we let other people start deciding what’s best for us?

I’d like to reclaim the year-end best-of lists to give equal weight to everything that could have been important to someone this year. Lists that are as much about the best books we’ve read as they’re about the best books we read halfway, but pretended like we’d read all the way through when people ask us at parties. Just because you missed all of the films Roger Ebert believes were humanly impossible to miss, you must have done some things this year that are worth thoughtfully piling into a ranked list.
Why not stick your heel into authoritarianism and start thinking for yourself? To start, here are some lists you might want to think about:

The Best Tumblrs to make you feel like you’re doing something better with your life than the person who started them

The Best Photos taken on days you called in sick to work and made your friends jealous because you actually went to the movies and ate ice cream instead

The Best Horrifying Craigslist Ads you responded to

The Best Meltdowns to occur after responding to horrifying Craigslist ads

The Best TV Episodes that hinted at, nay, begged to be rewritten by you in your journal

The Best Concerts you would have gone to had you not fallen asleep and slept through your friend’s phone calls

The Best Friends you lost after buying a book they recommended, hating it, and telling them you hated it

Of course, I’d be wrong not to mention the other purpose of these ”‘Best of’ lists, which is to leave future generations with a time capsule of what could be considered some of the highest artistic achievements of the year, to perpetuate any fragment of collective consciousness that may exist, for our own narcissistic posterity. See, I knew that navel-gazing would find its way back in here.

So someday, inquiring young minds spelunking the deepest hidden layers of the Internet will be able to discover the top nipple slips of 2011 as well as the best fiction published that year. That’s some deep King-Tut’s-tomb sh-t.

Crap. Just got an email about the Top Ryan Gosling Moments of this year. Yeah, I’m gonna feel bad missing that one. Who’s up for choosing favesies from that list and calling it a year?

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1. Zooey Deschanel – highly profitable child-like sense of wonder + British-accented HPV = Katy Perry
2. Asher Roth – hair = Mac Miller
3. Britney Spears – rehab + (glitter x Jack Daniels) = Ke$ha
4. Adele + absolutely no sense of restraint over vocal wailing and show-boaty high notes = Christina Aguilera
5. Mariah Carey + terrible life choices – Nickelodeon-approved husband = Whitney Houston
6. Michael Fassbender + the vague sense that this man would kill you silently in your sleep if given sufficient reason = Viggo Mortenson
7. Michael Cera + 50 years + an overly eager support of the adoption process = Woody Allen
8. Lance Bass – life behind the eyes + a 74-hour work day = Ryan Seacrest
9. Daddy Yankee + (CULO! x MUJERES!) = Pitbull
10. Lil Kim – demure, restrained conservative attitude = Khia
11. Kanye West – the last semblance of self-awareness he has about what a massive tool he comes off as = Tyler the Creator
12. Young Will Smith – charm + (Canadian inoffensiveness x the assumption that anyone cares if he banged Nicki Minaj or not) = Drake
13. Kim Kardashian – everything that makes Kim Kardashian even remotely interesting + spawn = Kourtney Kardashian
14. Madonna + exploitation of sociopolitcal movements – a pornographic coffee table book, though we know that’s only a matter of time = Lady Gaga
15. Celine Dion – incredibly creepy husband/ father figure – charming French Canadian bilingualism + incredibly irritating song named after you = Barbara Streisand
16. Marilyn Manson – intelligence + (Faygo x meth) = ICP
17. Reese Witherspoon – cuteness + anti-depressants = Kirsten Dunst
18. Johnny Depp – pretentious pseudo-Eurotrash thing + British accent – any semblance of talent = Orlando Bloom
19. Glenn Beck + the slightest bit of control over political tears/ self-righteousness = Keith Olbermann
20. Luke Wilson + that scene in Brady Bunch where Marcia got hit in the face with a football in the back yard = Owen Wilson

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Hello. I’m James Franco. …Or am I? Yes. …I’m James Franco.

I’m James Franco. The internationally renowned actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, painter, and performance artist. I also teach a class at NYU about transferring poetry to film, James Franco-style. Did you know that? …Have you read my critically acclaimed first book of short stories, Palo Alto: Stories by James Franco? I was in Spider-Man 3 and 127 Hours. I’m James Franco. I might be gay or maybe not, because I’m James Franco. I make performance art out of dildos. If you like, you can pay me twenty dollars for a piece of paper describing a piece of art that I have imagined, or, if you’d like to pay $10,000, I will provide you with a lifetime supply of fresh air. For I am James Franco and through me, all is possible.

Whoa, it’s getting kind of Franco all up in here, am I right?

Did you see me hosting the 83rd annual Academy Awards along with Ann Hathaway? …That wasn’t me. I would never host the Academy Awards, c’mon. That was my twin brother, Frames Janco. We’re everything alike, but we have nothing in common. He has a mustache, but I do not. Frames Janco is secretly one of the richest and most evil men in the world, but I am not. I am James Franco, but he is Frames Janco. …Beware. He was thrown in jail in Tennessee. He robs old ladies for their lunch money. Watch out for Frames Janco.

Here’s a poem that I wrote:

ming up his photo shoot’s thesis, Franco added, “Having sex with dolls with plastic dicks is f-cking great, because you get to examine that act without the onus of people just looking at it and saying ‘That’s pornography.’” Thus satisfied th

I AM JAMES FRANCO

…What’s that? An egg.

By the Brothers Boot it smells fresh.

I am James Franco.

I am the alpha and omega.

I am a gnat.

I am the dog urinating in the corner.

I am every god and hero from the first crack of time.

Where I am not, am I not, but when I am not

People should stand with their arms spread wide

Saying “Where’s James Franco?”

And so on.

…How was that? Good, right? Here’s a joke: I’m not really James Franco. My real name is Oliver Miller, and I’m an underemployed writer living in Pennsylvania. I’m 6’1″, 175, blue eyes, red-blond hair. …What’s that that you’re saying. That’s not true? That’s impossible? Anything is possible, or it would be, if I was James Franco.

Hey. Look behind you. No, I promise you that I’m not messing with you. I know that you’re reading this on the computer, but what’s that, right over your shoulder. Behind you. No, seriously, you’ve got to look behind you right now.

Haaa. I was just kidding. There’s nothing behind you. So, anyway, here’s a real joke:

–Knock, knock.

–Who’s there?

–James Franco is not there, man.

Funny!

No, but I could never fool you. You saw right through me, didn’t you? I am James Franco. Oliver Miller is an alter-ego who doesn’t exist. He is nothing, I am something. Did you know that I used to date Marla Sokoloff, my co-star from the film, Whatever It Takes? I’m the new face of Gucci. I make performance art out of old episodes of Three’s Company. Some of these things are true, some are not. …To play James Dean, I went from a non-smoker to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. We’re working on a film made entirely out of my tears. We’re going to press my tears, dry them, and mount them on celluloid. I’m James Franco. Look into my eyes; my dreamy-weamy brown eyes. My hair exists. Would you like to buy some of it, some clippings from my hair? You cannot.

Know that when you lie there, sleeping comfortably in your bed, that I’m out there, somewhere, being James Franco. …I don’t sleep; I can’t sleep. This city needs me. So I’m out there, Franco-ing it up; running over rooftops, running, jumping, stumbling, fighting crime like I only know how. …I’m not the hero you want; I’m the hero you deserve. For I am… James Franco. 

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