Best of Half-Decade: Pimping, Shilling and Bribing Thread

[caley]

Compliance is something that could sneak in at the very bottom of my list, just because it gets a reaction.  It's nearly impossible to see it and not want to talk about it with someone afterwards.  I saw it in a theatre, and I remember seeing one person just completely give up on the movie (not walk out, but have a "gtfo" reaction).  I'm not sure they knew it was a true story.  Even I came out thinking "Well, it says based on a true story, but clearly some of this was just made up," and then, yeah, looked it up and that's how it happened.  If I'm remembering right, the movie actually made an effort to make things more believable by having the husband be drunk.  Oh, and the movie also threw in that the young girl hates her boss, so I thought there was a very slight implication that the girl might have gone along with things at that point to break up her boss' marriage.

 

I thought the actress had breast implants, which kind of took me out of the moment, because I don't think they're too common among high school students.  Anyway.  :/

 

There's a totally unrelated French movie called In The House about a high school student in a creative writing class who's writing stories based on his real life.  At one point his teacher criticizes one of the student's stories, saying it's not believable.  The student says "But it really happened," and the teacher shoots back "Doesn't matter, it's not believable."  I'm not sure I agree with that standpoint, but it makes you think.

I feel like there was a similar line in the movie 'Storytelling' but it's been so long since I've seen it that the only things I can remember is the writing teacher telling the student with CP "The story was a piece of shit".  I'd rewatch it, but it's such a harsh little film.

[Chaos]

Compliance is something that could sneak in at the very bottom of my list, just because it gets a reaction.  It's nearly impossible to see it and not want to talk about it with someone afterwards.  I saw it in a theatre, and I remember seeing one person just completely give up on the movie (not walk out, but have a "gtfo" reaction).  I'm not sure they knew it was a true story.  Even I came out thinking "Well, it says based on a true story, but clearly some of this was just made up," and then, yeah, looked it up and that's how it happened.  If I'm remembering right, the movie actually made an effort to make things more believable by having the husband be drunk.  Oh, and the movie also threw in that the young girl hates her boss, so I thought there was a very slight implication that the girl might have gone along with things at that point to break up her boss' marriage.

 

I thought the actress had breast implants, which kind of took me out of the moment, because I don't think they're too common among high school students.  Anyway.  :/

 

There's a totally unrelated French movie called In The House about a high school student in a creative writing class who's writing stories based on his real life.  At one point his teacher criticizes one of the student's stories, saying it's not believable.  The student says "But it really happened," and the teacher shoots back "Doesn't matter, it's not believable."  I'm not sure I agree with that standpoint, but it makes you think.

 

I would agree that it definitely works from the aspect of getting a visceral reaction. I guess the big question is whether that reaction has more to do with the story/film making or if it's more tied to just the story playing out exactly how it did in real life. You could argue that it's the latter and that requires little to no craft outside of knowing how to place the camera, and a lot of Zoller's choices there (as Caley noted) were on the nose. I had read about the story before the movie was released, and I remember thinking it was a bizarre, frustrating story at the time that I read it. Also, it was hard seeing Ann Dowd in that role given the role she has in The Leftovers. She has a trend of working with super bleak characters. The difference between the two roles is that you find her to portray a character with minor qualities to make her somewhat sympathetic. 

[Jingus]

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is awfully damn stylish. So damn stylish, in fact, that the style alone will put it on my list. (Well, two really good lead performances also helped.) It's a good damn thing that it's so damn stylish, because the movie itself kept reminding me of a thousand different things: put together Jim Jarmusch, some French New Wave crime films, some American 1990s indy crime films, a little bit of David Lynch, and a surprisingly large amount of Let the Right One In and you've got this film. It especially doesn't help that the whole "disaffected, downbeat love story involving vampires, in which not very much happens between two people with amazing cheekbones who spend a lot of time puttering around a deserted urban wasteland" deal was already done recently and done better in Only Lovers Left Alive. But still: damn it's stylish, enough so to make it really enjoyable.

[Swift]

A couple of recent watches that qualify here...

 

Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan, 2012) Dolan was 22 (!) at the time of this film's release and yet it looks like the work of a confident, self assured director both in terms of its narrative structure and visual choices. If anything, at almost 3 hours, it's somewhat overlong and probably could have done with some trimming. The film deals with three different periods in the lives of Laurence and his girlfriend Fred(erique). In 1989, Laurence confesses to Fred that he has always felt like a woman inside. At first angry, Fred accepts his decision and decides to stick with him throughout as Laurence begins dressing as a woman. Eventually, the stress on their relationship becomes too much and they split. Fast forward 6 years and both are in relationships, but they end up reconnecting and running away for a weekend together only to argue the whole time. 1999 has them catching up again at a bar. Like I said, the film could do with a trim, and honestly, the 1995 segment could've been left out and I don't think much would have been lost. Where the film succeeds is it's style, with one memorable party scene set to Visage's Fade to Grey.

 

Route Irish (Ken Loach, 2010) Fergus and Frankie are childhood friends who both go off to Iraq to work for a private security contractor. Fergus comes home, but his friend comes home in a coffin. Fergus receives a mobile phone which shows footage of the deaths of innocent civilians killed by the contractors, and proceeds to investigate a potential cover up which may have ended up in the death of his friend. While the incident portrayed in the film is fictional, it's not hard to imagine that there have been many, many incidents like it and for every Mahmudiyah, there are probably a hundred others that have never come to light during this state-sanctioned criminal bullshit.

 

The Muppets (James Bobin, 2011) I didn't grow up with the Muppets, so the nostalgia factor wasn't big with me for this one. There are some fun meta jokes, and overall, the film was nice and breezy and inoffensive. I have to say though, that some of the cameos seemed low rent, particularly when Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez and the kid from Modern Family show up.

 

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Lasse Hallstrom, 2011) Another pleasant, inoffensive film with Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt slowly falling for each other. Unfortunately, it's let down by a sub plot involving Kristin Scott Thomas as press secretary to the Prime Minister which is played for broad laughs, but which is ultimately just silly and annoying.

 

Top Five (Chris Rock, 2014) I feel like we've seen a lot of films recently featured a fictional comedian actor who has been making lowest common denominator movieplex thrash but wants to try their hand at something more worthy. This time, it's Chris Rock's turn to comment on his own career. I like Rock, and I like Rosario Dawson and and much of the film is quite good, but there are a couple of really juvenile sex scenes played for laughs that I really hated (one a foursome involving Cedric the Entertainer, and the other involving Dawson sticking a hot sauce covered tampon up her boyfriend's ass) It also didn't help that when Rock's character makes his supposedly amazing stand up comeback at a comedy club, not one of the supposedly amazing jokes is actually funny. In fact, for a film about comedy, I think I only laughed out loud once (paraphrasing - "Everyone talks like if Tupac was living, he'd be the President. Nah, more likely, he'd be starring in Tyler Perry movies")

 

Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012) I was enjoying this slow paced film about an elderly academic man and a call girl who form a relationship after he pretends to be her grandfather, and then at the highest point of tension in the movie, it ends abruptly. It's Kiarostami, so I trust he is saying something about audiences and our expectations by giving us Act I & II, but denying us Act III. An interesting exercise, but it wouldn't make my list.

[caley]

 

Top Five (Chris Rock, 2014) I feel like we've seen a lot of films recently featured a fictional comedian actor who has been making lowest common denominator movieplex thrash but wants to try their hand at something more worthy. This time, it's Chris Rock's turn to comment on his own career. I like Rock, and I like Rosario Dawson and and much of the film is quite good, but there are a couple of really juvenile sex scenes played for laughs that I really hated (one a foursome involving Cedric the Entertainer, and the other involving Dawson sticking a hot sauce covered tampon up her boyfriend's ass) It also didn't help that when Rock's character makes his supposedly amazing stand up comeback at a comedy club, not one of the supposedly amazing jokes is actually funny. In fact, for a film about comedy, I think I only laughed out loud once (paraphrasing - "Everyone talks like if Tupac was living, he'd be the President. Nah, more likely, he'd be starring in Tyler Perry movies")

I recognize that I like this much more than anyone else, but I have to take umbrage with your line of only laughing once without mentioning

DMX! Singing!

[Swift]

Wow, how did I forget about that? That scene actually did get the biggest laugh out of me, particularly with the well timed interjection of a fellow inmate with "Rap, motherfucker! Rap!"

[Jingus]

Hanna: ...I dunno? Probably not. What a schizoid movie. It's got plenty of great highlights, when it's being a character study of a particularly fucked-up young woman, and doing that Luc Besson thing where it's poking around inside the head of someone who's been made into a living weapon. That shit is great, just watching Hanna being the basketcase that she is and having no idea how to deal with the everyday world, and the actors (aside from a lot of silly accents) are all on point. Too bad the boilerplate spy-chasing thriller stuff is so rehashed, and they didn't even bother to finish microwaving it before splatting the mess onto a plate in front of us and expecting us to eat it. The fight scenes are all shot in that Christopher Nolan style where it seems like the camera angles and editing are actively trying to prevent you from getting a good look at the action, and the chases seem laughably implausible; the final climactic showdown is especially misjudged, handled in such a goofy manner that it almost seems to be asking for us to snicker at it. And Hanna's secret origin seem like it belongs in a completely different movie, it's practically some scifi bullshit from a Van Damme flick from the 90s. This needed to be a lot more Hit Girl: Psychologically Realistic Edition and a lot less Jason Bourne: Universal Soldier.

[Execproducer]

If you only vote one Saoirse Ronan film, make it The Grand Budapest Hotel. Or Byzantium.  Or Violet & Daisy. Or all three!

[S.K.o.S.]

Geez, I've seen Hanna, Byzantium, Grand Budapest and Brooklyn, but for some reason I never put together that it was the same girl in all of them.  Weird.

[Jingus]

If you only vote one Saoirse Ronan film, make it The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Having just watched this: yep, I'mma vote one Saoirse Ronan film. What a marvelous, precious little experience The Grand Budapest Hotel is. It's like a dollhouse made of faberge eggs, inside a snowglobe. I think I prefer my Wes Anderson films rather the same way I do my Coen Brothers joints: the more stylized and further detached from reality, the better. It's the sort of movie which can end with "and then all these good people died horrible pointless premature deaths" and not feel nihilistic, but also set up the goofiest shootout this side of a Marx Bros movie (the one in the hotel at the end) and it does so in a manner which feels completely logical and justified. A perfect cast of actors whom are all posed and worked like puppets, to great effect; and oh lordy, but is this one of the most visually beautiful experiences I've seen in a while.

[Jingus]

Whiplash: yes, and for two specific reasons. #1: JK Simmons really deserved that Oscar. He is on motherfucking fire in this movie, giving a titanic career-best performance which outshines and overshadows everything else in the entire film. #2: this is an incredibly rare thing, a movie about genius which actually focuses on how much fucking work it is to be a genius. The majority of the film is devoted to the backbreaking grind of rehearsal, showing the performers practicing their parts again and again and again until it feels like we could play the fuckin' piece. Most movies never do that, they show all the inspiration and none of the perspiration; at best, learning how to do something might get its own minute-long montage. Whiplash is the polar opposite of that, showing us how the protagonist even spends most of his spare time just watching videos of famous drummers at work.

And it's a good thing that the movie has those two key winning qualities, because it's got a bunch of various flaws to counterbalance them. Simply put, no matter how brilliantly Simmons enacted the material, I did not believe the character of the teacher as he was written in the script. He's impossible. He's a cartoon. He does things which would never, ever be okay in real life. In the 21st century, you canNOT get away with slapping the shit out of your students in the middle of a crowded classroom with a ton of witnesses, period. Football coaches aren't allowed to do that shit to the athletes, let alone music teachers to their artistes. And really, when a member of your band shows up literally covered in their own blood from head to toe, would you let them walk out on stage and try to perform?

It doesn't help that I kinda hated the main character and largely didn't give a shit if he succeeded in his quest to become a great drummer or not. In the music scenes, he's a cipher with no personality; and in the non-music scenes, he's a total dick to everyone else he ever meets. His treatment of his family and his girlfriend was so awful that it made me want to see the kid get smacked around some more. (And how the hell was he old enough to rent a car?)

And the last act made NO sense at all:

Why the hell would the teacher do ANY of what he did at Carnegie Hall? The kid's career is already over, he's working in a sandwich shop and never touched a drum again after getting kicked out of school. And Fletcher's childish act of revenge 1.would make his big musical comeback project look like an embarrassing failure to the people in the audience, while 2.the other musicians onstage would quickly realize that Neiman had been sabotaged because he'd been given the wrong music pages. There's no way Fletcher could possibly look good or hide his guilt in any of this, he just looks like a monster who deliberately ruined his own band's performance. And furthermore, what was his brilliant plan to continue on with the performance after Neiman stomped off, considering that the band apparently doesn't have a backup drummer? Finally, when he goes back out there: why the hell does the band start taking orders from the drummer and ignoring the conductor?

Now, the movie is admittedly pretty stylish; the music is great (I guess, I don't really know enough about it) and I dunno if the editing and sound mixing totally deserved their Oscars, but they were above-average at the very least. But still, in terms of "stylish portrayal of a genius performer losing their mind", this is maybe a 6 out of 10 on the Darren Aronofsky Scale. Black Swan did basically all the same shit as Whiplash and also managed to be a fuckin' creepy horror film at the same time.

...but I still woulda voted this for Best Picture over the goddamn Birdman.

EDIT: and oh yeah, who stole that one sheet music folder?

[Jingus]

It took me all of five minutes to decide The Grandmaster wasn't for me and turn it right the fuck off. This is one of my least favorite ways to film a fistfight: everything is so stylized, so precious, oh-so-carefully lit and with SO much goddamn slow motion. The camera angles are smacking you in the face with how Innovative~! they are. "Anyone can film a spinkick, but only WE can put the camera thirty feet up in the air, pointed straight down at the actor forming a glorious Yin-Yang symbol with the curvature of his body, and of course it's all in extreme slow-motion and in a heavy rainstorm!" Fuck you. Just film the goddamn fight and let us watch your stuntmen doing cool moves that regular people can't do. I've come to have very little patience with this House of Flying Daggers style of bullshit.

Frozen: no, not THAT one, the other one. The one with the people trapped on a ski lift. Probably won't make my list; which is a shame, because it feels like something which SHOULD make my list. It's made by Adam Green, a fellow whose work I'm usually quite fond of; and it was filmed under appallingly rigorous conditions. There's no studio set, no greenscreen; those actors were legitimately sitting on a real goddamn ski lift in a real goddamn winter, fifty real goddamn feet in the air above a real goddamn mountain. The whole thing was filmed through long zoom lenses, with the director and DP sitting in the next cable-car on the line. The cinematography is beautifully stark, the concept is horribly bleak, and even the overachieving score feels like it's something more suited to an Oscarbait period piece rather than a grimy little horror flick. It's told with absolute sincerity, and is basically the answer to the question "what would Open Water be like if it didn't suck?"

So it pains me that the overall results left me cold. (Mwa ha ha C Wut I Did Thar!) The movie doesn't really make any mistakes per se; well, aside from the wolves, anyway. They acted like generic horror-movie-monsters, you could've replaced them with acid-spitting alien xenomorphs or jungle cannibals or anything else and their scenes would've still happened pretty identically. Really, the concept itself is terrifying enough without them; much like when a gigantic deformed necrophiliac serial-killer suddenly invades the house in Gerald's Game, it's a feeling of "oh, come ON, you're trying too fuckin' hard". The movie could've done entirely without the wolves (what the hell is a feral pack doing on a heavily-populated commercial ski slope, anyway?) or at least used them better.

But really, it comes down to the characters. While they're not as awful as the jackasses in the aforementioned Open Water (who made me actively cheer for the sharks), it's hard to identify with these bastards. They're utterly self-entitled Ugly American Tourists of the highest order, who never would've even gotten into this trap in the first place if they hadn't REPEATEDLY broken the rules and insisted on going where they knew damn well they shouldn't go. (And really, you're gonna cast the guy best known for playing Bobby ICEMAN Drake as one of the lead heroes in your snow-based movie called Frozen?!) The only time I was entirely on their side was during the girl's monologue about her dog, and honestly it made me care more about the dog than it made me care about the girl. And when the horrifically gory parts inevitably happened, it just left me more bummed out and feeling queasy in general than feeling bad about these specific individuals in this specific situation.

Although, I will say one thing: fuck all the haters who claim "well, I would've just Done This and gotten down easily!". Horseshit. There's no fucking way that any average joe could've just magically gotten off that chair without any problems. Y'all are NOT David Blaine, Spider-man, or any of the three people who've ever won Ninja Warrior. Even the simple act of climbing the cable was shown to be nearly impossible, and they had absolutely zero special equipment to help them with any of that, and they weren't goddamn MacGyver who could taken his underwear and his wallet and somehow made a bungee cord.

[Chaos]

I'm going to post this in both forums and update the main info.  Caley has the 2015 poll going until 3/9 (one week from now). I want to give everyone some padding in-between, so I am going to push out 2 weeks, but I am going to give you until the weekend of that 2 weeks to get it in, so let's say March 27th.

 

Does this sound like a fair date for everyone?

[Jingus]

so let's say March 27th.

 

Does this sound like a fair date for everyone?

Yarp.

[S.K.o.S.]

Yes

[caley]

I'm going to post this in both forums and update the main info.  Caley has the 2015 poll going until 3/9 (one week from now). I want to give everyone some padding in-between, so I am going to push out 2 weeks, but I am going to give you until the weekend of that 2 weeks to get it in, so let's say March 27th.

 

Does this sound like a fair date for everyone?

Crap, I didn't see your post and just pushed the 2015 list back to March 29th...is that a big deal?!

[Chaos]

 

I'm going to post this in both forums and update the main info.  Caley has the 2015 poll going until 3/9 (one week from now). I want to give everyone some padding in-between, so I am going to push out 2 weeks, but I am going to give you until the weekend of that 2 weeks to get it in, so let's say March 27th.

 

Does this sound like a fair date for everyone?

Crap, I didn't see your post and just pushed the 2015 list back to March 29th...is that a big deal?!

 

Not at all. I was buying myself time. If everyone is okay with doing both at the same time, I have no problem with it.

 

I'll get to see some just releasing 2015 stuff that way (Carol, Anomalisa, Heaven Knows What).

[The Natural]

 

so let's say March 27th.

 

Does this sound like a fair date for everyone?

Yarp.

 

 

Liking the reference. Will make a mental note for the deadline.

[caley]

Caught two flicks for this the past week

 

Prisoners: Man this was harrowing stuff.  I'm a grown-ass man, I don't have any kids, even any nieces or nephews, really, but this unsettled me so bad that when I took the dog out for a walk after dark, I got all spooked by a guy sitting in his car with the lights on down the street.  Hugh Jackman is fantastic in this and it's the kind of showy, emotional performance that it's staggering he didn't an Oscar nomination for it.  He's just soooo good, as are the supporting cast of Jake Gyllenhaal (Really good), Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard (Probably my favourite non 'Hustle and Flow' performance from him).  Stunning cinematography, too.  That last stretch with Gyllenhaal driving at night through the rain is alternately beautiful and intense.  Really good.

 

Hello I Must Be Going:  I looooooooved this.  Melanie Lynskey is a thirty-something Amy who is depressed after the end of her marriage.  Her parents (Blythe Danner and John Rubinstein) are trying to get her up and out and her act together as the father is trying to put together a business deal that will allow him to retire, and they need her to look/act nice while they entertain the other party's family, including 19-year-old Jeremy (Christopher Abbott) whom Amy promptly falls for.  They have a forbidden summertime fling, aware that their romance might endanger her father's deal as well as the age difference between the two.  It didn't go exactly where I expected it to, and it was so nice to see Lynskey in a leading role because she's one of my very favourite actors.  It was funny, empathetic, romantic and it has a nice little appearance from a bit character that will amuse 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' fans.

[jaedmc]

Beyond the Hills is on Netflix Instant. I don't remember if You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is still on there, but do check that out if you can find it.  Both are amazing in their technique.

 

Beyond the Hills has some brilliant shot compositions that sometimes happen with in the same shot. It also has an exorcism in it - but, like, if it was for reals and not if it was a demonic monster spewing pea soup.

 

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is Alain Resnais messing with time and space like only he can. You get two generations of actors who played the same parts in Euydice watching another generation of actors performing it on a movie screen. Then it all blends together. Glorious.

[Chaos]

Beyond the Hills is on Netflix Instant. I don't remember if You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is still on there, but do check that out if you can find it.  Both are amazing in their technique.

 

Beyond the Hills has some brilliant shot compositions that sometimes happen with in the same shot. It also has an exorcism in it - but, like, if it was for reals and not if it was a demonic monster spewing pea soup.

 

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is Alain Resnais messing with time and space like only he can. You get two generations of actors who played the same parts in Euydice watching another generation of actors performing it on a movie screen. Then it all blends together. Glorious.

 

I believe Beyond the Hills was on my "to watch" list. If it isn't, then I need to remedy that and put it on there.

 

I also finally saw Act of Killing. I will probably go into great detail about it at some point, but I think it is a lock for my top 10. It's interesting how visually the film shows these reenactments that aren't too gruesome by themselves, but the disturbing aspect of it is how calmly most of these people can talk about wiping out thousands of people.

[Chaos]

I noticed that Netflix subtly removed a lot of stuff on my to watch list that was there a month or two ago, and I don't recall most of those films making any of my "leaving soon" lists. Anyways, I caught up with a few films over the last few days. I'm not sure if any of these make my list, but I'm happy that I watched them for this. I still have a few other films I will try to watch in the next few days as I try and round this out and put some thought into my picks:

 

Undefeated: I remember that the buzz for Undefeated came out of nowhere shortly before Academy Award season a few years ago. After the Academy Awards, I recall there being some backlash lavished at the film that is common for a film that quickly grows in notoriety. I can sort of see where both camps come from in this films praise and backlash. The Undefated starts off as a "run of the mill" sports/inner-city school documentary that does very little with form and aesthetic that some of today's more praised documentaries capably accomplish, but the film has a way of washing over you and accomplishes a lot of what I loved about Friday Night Lights. Football is merely a backdrop for these relationships and for showing the limitations placed upon many of the men in this documentary, and that's where it is its most affecting.

The Undefeated works because it washes over you emotionally to the point that it may get a little dusty toward's the film's third act, and you begin to care about the fates and misfortunes of a couple of the young men represented. Great documentaries provoke its viewers in ways they don't expect to be provoked. The viewer has to digest what is presented to them on camera while also asking questions that are far reaching beyond the core subject material. The Undefeated does that in spades in defining character, recognizing the deficiencies of modern education, and (in some ways) showcasing the generational challenges we face in reestablishing the American Dream for as many people who want to achieve it.

13 Assassins: Admittedly, this is a film that I probably will not appreciate to the level of some others, but I can definitely see why this resonates in some circles. Miike remains a director among my many blind spots. I have had Audition and some of his others queued through various variations of Netflix Instant and By Mail for years but have always bumped those films down the list for whatever I was favoring at that given moment. Despite Tarantino being my favorite director, I largely do not sprint towards shock violence and shock gore blended with a little camp except when the mood hits maybe once or twice a year. It's why my blind spots for stuff like this and cult horror films is much larger than it probably should be.

The first hour spends much of its time establishing the plot's core motivation and all of the important players. While being so quickly introduced to these characters is initially difficult to follow, the film does a wonderful job of expressing the motivation, purpose, and end goal very well. These 13 individuals must eliminate a power hungry, blood thirsty evil future leader in the Shogun to prevent much of the country from exploding into chaos. It's this that makes the almost hour-long final battle sequence feel important and intense. From a visual and set-piece perspective, this lengthy battle balances violence, camp, comedy, and the relationship of these characters while always being mindful of the movie's stakes, while showcasing the destruction of both many lives and this small Japanese village.

Two Days, One Night: Of these three films, this might be the one that has the best shot of making my list. Marion Cotillard remains an actress who deserves our attention. She delivers another amazing performance that balances the right amount of understatement with visceral reaction as she plays a woman that is overcoming a bout of depression and has to fight for her job after her return is placed in an employee vote for her return or a significant bonus for many of these workers. It's a very timely and prescient story during a time where we face constant global economic strife and are faced to combat both the fear and uncertainty of tomorrow. I regret that this is my first foray into the work of the Dardennnes and I hope to remedy that in the coming months.

[The Natural]

Glad I checked the deadline yesterday as I forgot it's due soon.

[Jingus]

Today, people.  TODAAAAAAAAY.  

 

Weirdest thing I noticed about my ballot: all of my top 5 somehow came from the same year.  

[S.K.o.S.]

I sent mine!