You are correct, sir. I had a mental fart. 

**
Ishtar (Elaine May, USA, 1987) Ben Livant: I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking,  Ben , for Kevin's Gate - Waterworld you doing... Ishtar nothing better to watch at your house?  In fact, I have a fairly large stack of post-60s Godard and a fair few...

**
Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, USA, 2013) Damn!  How many times do I have to watch
"Wallace" get shot? I joke to protect
myself. Next month, my
older boy will be 22-years old.  Oscar
Grant III was 22-years old the day a cop killed him.  So... 
you know......

**
Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron, USA, 2013) Dan, when I badgered
you to tell me your Oscar picks so I could pick the same picks, I had not yet
seen Gravity .  You may
recall that after you selecting Gravity for all the technical
awards, I went back and reversed you...

**
Her (Spike Jonze, USA, 2013) Ben Livant: The
Matrix for
chicks.  That's a compliment.  HER is science fiction for women that men
need just as much, maybe more.  Granted,
there is actually no scientific-sounding 
business in this fiction, let alone genuinely...

**
My Name is Joe (Ken Loach, 1998, UK) Ben Livant: I know I am supposed to live up to Pete Townsend's lyric, but damn if I
didn't get fooled again.  You would think
that I would have seen enough Loach by now. 
But no.  My Name Is Joe (1998) made it not so.  R...

**
Margin Call (J.C. Chandor, USA, 2011) I feel obligated to comment on this film and I don't know why.  I guess it's because I wrote a review of  Ides of March  and since I did that labour, I reckon I should extend the same effort to  Margin Call .  For it's ...

**
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2013) Ben Livant: Well, it's
frustrating if you care and irritating if you don't.  I don't. 
So it's irritating.  Mind you,
it's frustrating that I don't care.  But
how can you?  Post Tenebras Lux is not impressio...

**
All is Los t (J.C. Chandor, USA, 2013) I feel awkward
writing about this film.  I mean, in just
a few more sentences, I will have used more words than Our Man does in all of All
Is Lost .  Not that I think the
film is some sort of sacred church, a work of a...

**
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, Canada, 2013) Post-post-modern.  Yeah, that's
right, the negation of the negation.  If
someone in the audience comes away from viewing Stories We Tell thinking
it is yet another riddle meant to render futile any sort of episte...

**
Nebraska   (Alexander Payne, 2013, USA) Ben Livant: Having just slapped around The Wolf of Wall Street for not being funny enough to compensate for being amoral, I now turn about face to poke at Nebraska for not being funny enough to compensate for being so...

**
American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013, USA) Ben Livant: Ya gotta
like this movie.  Me and three other
people happened to find ourselves out on the town looking at a theatre
marquee.  Our other option was The
Wolf of Wall Street.   We agreed
on American Hu...