Anne Pick

Yes, it's pretty awesome getting to select my top movies of the year for the Source. And for the second year in a row the process has proven difficult because, as we all well know, most of the “best” movies of the year take their sweet time coming to Bend. Unlike last year, there weren't a lot of obvious, dramatic standouts, but there were a lot of laughs.
1. Bridesmaids
Why give Bridesmaids the number one spot? Because no movie made me laugh harder this year. The female Hangover? Absolutely not – these laughs are for everyone!
2. The Descendants
The best stories have always leaned heavily on the intermingling of comedy and tragedy and in Alexander Payne's first film in seven years, he blends the two with great success. I adore the dynamic between Matt (George Clooney), his daughters, and tagalong Sid.

What you need to know about Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman's new film Young Adult is that it's a dark comedy. I know you saw the trailer, and yes, as advertised, there are parts that will elicit laugher, but this isn't you're average, run-of-the-mill joke fest. While the title may be Young Adult, the humor goes more sinister than Cody's Oscar-winner predecessor Juno. The humor in that film, while edgy, definitely stayed more in the young-adult realm, while Mavis (Charlize Theron) brings out a more sinister, adult side of Cody's humor and psyche.

The Muppets have a long, deep history, and most people on this Earth today can say that these familiar felt creatures played a part in their upbringing. Even those, like myself, who were too young to have regularly indulged in The Muppet Show when it aired on television, are nevertheless familiar with The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island and, of course, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies. And just when it seemed like the Muppets had faded out of the pop culture in recent years, Kermit, Missy Piggy and the rest of the crew surge back into relevance in Jason Segel's resurrection of the franchise.
This big screen Muppet reunion features Gary (Segel), a simple man who spends his time with longtime girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) and his brother Walter. The brothers share an obsession with the Muppets, and Walter (weirdly) actually happens to be one. When the trio discovers an evil oil tycoon’s (Chris Cooper) plans to drill for oil under the old, rundown Muppet Theater, they find Kermit and round up the gang to resurrect The Muppet Show
for a telethon to raise money to save the theater.

I would personally like to apologize for the reviews I wrote for both The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. I don't know what exactly came over me that I would rave on and on about how good both of these films were, but obviously I was under the influence of something. Let's call it Post-Adolescent Vampire Obsession Syndrome (or PAVOS, which coincidentally is Spanish for “turkeys,” and it's what all of us who latched onto this ridiculous series were for having so mindlessly obsessed over it for the past few years).
All I know is that during the height of my Twihard-ed obsession, my 15-year-old self would have seriously kicked my current self's ass. How does one go from making fun of Edward's sparkling skin to giving the last two movies each four out of five stars? I feel as though perhaps my mind melted and my time spent studying and adoring the art of cinema was tossed aside for a teenage vampire love story that throws both feminism and self respect out the window.

Despite always earning A’s in my history classes, I usually avoid historically set programming when it comes to my entertainment consumption. I'm just not into it, which is probably why I fell asleep toward the end of The Kings Speech. I do make the exception for American history and well-made biopics.
Leonardo DiCaprio has played a large number of interesting characters and has, without a doubt, some of the best acting chops of any actor in Hollywood. While he has been known to play a pretty boy or two, he truly absorbed the role of John Edgar Hoover in a phenomenal way. Beneath the layers of latex, which he donned to play Hoover in his 70s, DiCaprio transcended time and physical appearance to become the hard-assed director of the FBI. The skill and talent were all DiCaprio, but beneath the makeup and behind the glasses he became nearly unrecognizable as anyone other than J. Edgar Hoover.

For the past several months, whenever I went to a movie with my mom and we saw the trailer for the new Footloose remake she would grumbled about it. “He's no Kevin Bacon,” she would say to the screen.
For as long as I can remember, my mom has counted the original Footloose among her favorite movies of all time. In fact, one day when I was home for winter break during college she found out I had never seen it and made me sit down and watch it. When the remake rolled out this fall, I knew, despite my mom's reservations, I had to drag her out to see it.
Even as a devoted fan of corny '80s movies, I still I thought the premise of the film was ridiculous. Five teens die in a car accident after a party and in order to prevent this from happening again the tiny town of Bomont, Georgia, outlaws minors from, among other things, dancing. Really? OK, I can understand a curfew, but seriously, dancing?

I had the great pleasure of filling my entire weekend with some truly incredible independent films at the eighth-annual BendFilm Festival. There was, of course, plenty of partying and other fanfare to be seen over the course of the weekend, but for me, it was about the movies. Here's a roundup of what I saw.
How to Cheat
Strangely enough, half of the movies I saw this weekend dealt with infidelity and crumbling relationships. How to Cheat takes an honest approach to showing the insides of a messy modern marriage. The husband in a couple that’s struggling to conceive goes to the internet with hopes of finding a woman to have an affair with. The film, which won Best Narrative Feature and Best Acting (Kent Norton), could have been a bit more polished, but I did like the ending.

As someone in her mid-twenties, I, fortunately, haven't had to deal with one of my best friends being diagnosed with cancer, though I do have a friend who has. It's one of those things you never want to think about, but something we'll all have to deal with eventually. It seems there are few, if any, films for someone in such a situation to relate to. Until now, that is.
I recently read an interview with Seth Rogen and 50/50 writer Will Reiser, whose own battle with cancer became the basis for 50/50. The two admitted writing the movie because when they found out about Reiser's illness they had no movie to reference. If you scan through the Netflix library, you're bound to find films about mothers and fathers, children, grandparents, the very young, the very old and their families dealing with cancer. Reiser's film tackles the concept of how people in their mid-twenties tackle a crisis through a buddy-comedy approach, which may seem like an unconventional way to approach the topic, but it works well.

Taylor Lautner's abs put on an excellent performance in Abduction. Seriously, his abs have never looked better.