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I swear if somebody tells me that it’s the Golden Age of Television one more time…

Look, I’m not saying that this isn’t an amazing time for TV. All I am saying is that labeling one year as a golden age sets you up for future failure and disappointment. For instance, people who label the 1930s and 40s as the golden age of film completely disregard the amazing work done in later years. Plus, Gone with the Wind is sort of racist and Citizen Kane is kind of boring.

Earlier this year, some critics said the golden age of television was over. Really? Then how do you account for the fact that over half my list is freshman shows? As everything migrates towards cable and the web, TV is changing and currently on a curve of exponential growth. This is my first TV top ten list, because this is the first year that I feel like I watched enough shows that I could list ten and have a few honorary mentions.

It is amazing how diverse this year’s TV selections are. My list contains fantasy lands, New York during multiple different time periods, and a lot of talking animals. I don’t want to say that television is currently better than film, but I understand what the whack jobs who say that are talking about. Without further adieu, here is my list of the ten best shows of 2014:

10. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver In an incredible hot streak that lasted from May through November, Last Week Tonight provided the sharpest political satire on television. John Oliver took on everything from dictators to FIFA and managed to shed light on a lot of stories that actual journalists were doing a terrible job reporting. Oliver’s greatest gift is that he can take complex issues (net neutrality, civil forfeiture) and make them both funny and digestible. Oh, and every once in a while space geckos and supreme court justice dogs appear.

Best Episode: Episode #1.6

9. The Knick While you were busy covering your eyes during every insanely grizzly surgery scene, The Knick was busy closing the divide between film and television. It is an unflinching look at America at the turn of the twentieth century. It’s a history lesson that never feels like one because it doesn’t gloss over the squalor and the prejudice. Every episode is directed by Steven Soderbergh; slums, brothels, and ruptured body parts have never looked this pretty.

Best Episode: Method and Madness

8. Review The premise of Review is simple: a man hosts a show and instead of reviewing art or food, he reviews life experiences. At first, this show is about how far this premise can go before going horribly wrong. But then, around episode three, it becomes something else. Andy Daly turns the character of Forrest MacNeil into a sociopath disguised as a nerd. There is something always so wonderfully playful about Review, even as it dives deep into the darkest depths of the human soul.

Best Episode: Pancakes, Divorce, Pancakes

7. Game of Thrones Game of Thrones has reached that level of popularity that makes you want to punch every person who tells you that you have to watch it. Right now, every person in America (including myself), is that person. Epic in scope and scale, Game of Thrones has earned every bit of its popularity. And while splitting adaptations in half never seems to work (see Mockingjay), season four was only half of a book and yet it felt complete. This season felt the need to kill off as many characters as possible. Hey, anything George R.R. Martin can do to give us constant anxiety attacks.

Best Episode: The Mountain and the Viper

6. True Detective I still have no idea what True Detective is about, and that is precisely the point of it. After months of hype and scrutiny, now is the perfect time to look back and appreciate the sheer beauty and ballsiness of True Detective. It is very easy to get lost in the story, but that is part of the point. While figuring out who the Yellow King is can be fun and all, being just as confused as the main characters are is truly the best way to watch it. True Detective is already an instant classic, with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey doing the best work of their careers. McConaughey might have won the Oscar earlier this year for Dallas Buyers Club, but his performance as Rust Cohle in True Detective is what he will be remembered for for the rest of his life.

Best Episode: Who Goes There 5. Orange is the New Black Season two of the show that changed Netflix was a vast improvement on a first season that was already very strong. By taking a lot of the focus off of Piper, season two gave us backstories for a lot more prisoners who were just in the background in earlier episodes. We also got to mingle with wardens and security guards much more this season, and we got a larger sense of the history of the prison. It is always nice when a TV show takes time to actually explore the world it inhabits.

Best Episode: We Have Manners. We’re Polite.

4. Kroll Show Season two showed a much more focused Kroll Show. This is not so much sketch comedy as it is a series of overlapping vignettes. From the Oh, Hello guys to Publizity, Nick Kroll has created a genius comedic world in which reality stars and bouncers are the heroes. Recently, Kroll announced that season three of Kroll Show would be its last. This is a show that has had a vision since day one, and the fact that it has already picked out an expiration date shows how committed it is to the promises it once made. Imagine if The Office or The Simpsons did that. The world would be a better place and there would be no Ebola and stuff.

Best Episode: Sponsored by Stamps

3. Broad City Finally, a TV show about broke New Yorkers who don’t live in unrealistically huge apartments. Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s popular web series was adapted into a half hour show by Comedy Central in what is arguably the greatest achievement in the network’s recent renaissance. Broad City is often described as a female Workaholics. A more accurate comparison is to Louie. While a lot of the humor is broad (that’s a compliment), Broad City typically borders on surreal. On any given day, you can get your dreams crushed and still do something amazing. Broad City is hilarious, heartfelt, and relatable on so many levels (running to catch a train at Grand Central; trying to get people to come to your art exhibition).

Best Episode: Destination Wedding

2. Fargo A televised adaptation of a Coen Brothers classic sounds like a bad idea waiting to happen. Hollywood is a town that is filled with bad ideas, but it is good execution that makes all the difference. Less a remake and more a continuation, Fargo flawlessly imitates the voice of the Coen Brothers. It is an acting tour de force for everybody involved (especially Allison Tolman and Colin Hanks). While it is an hour long drama, I am going to go ahead and classify it as a dark comedy. Fargo creates fanboys where you didn’t know they existed. You know how comic book fans get so psyched whenever a Captain America movie references Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or something else in the Marvel universe? That is exactly how I felt whenever Fargo made a reference to A Serious Man or No Country for Old Men. This is brilliant fan fiction for cinephiles.

Best Episode: Who Shaves the Barber?

1. Bojack Horseman I have spent the better part of the past few months trying to convince people to watch Bojack Horseman. A normal reaction I get is, “I couldn’t get past episode one.” To that I say, “seriously, just be patient.” Bojack is both everything I have ever wanted from a TV show and everything I thought a TV show like this could never give me. If you haven’t watched Bojack, it’s about a washed up 90s sitcom star (Will Arnett), who just so happens to be a talking horse, and his attempt to make a comeback. Think of him as a much more despicable version of Valerie Cherish.

In the world of Bojack Horseman, talking animals co-exist with humans, and nobody questions this. While the animals wear clothes, drive cars, and get married, the tortoise is still slow and the dog still loves to chase the mailman. For years, I have fantasized of an animated show like this. So, watching this show was partially like seeing my dreams come true. The biggest miracle that Bojack pulls off is matching silliness with sincerity. Bojack is a serious study of depression, and the best portrayal of loneliness I have ever seen.

Among the many great portrayals of Hollywood that I can think of, few of them do this good a job of showing a town where perhaps everybody is working real hard to hide a deep pit of sadness in their life. In just one season, this show has established a singularly unique and dark point of view. Oh yeah, and there’s also a running gag where three kids are standing on each other in a trench suit, and nobody catches on. Bojack Horseman expresses all of the feelings, and tells all of the jokes, that you always wished you did.

Best Episode: The Telescope

Honorable Mention: The Mindy Project- This is the show I most look forward to watching every week. This smart and hilarious workplace comedy is the closest thing network television has to 30 Rock right now. Plus, Chris Messina’s glasses are the funniest prop on all of television.

Other Contenders: The Comeback, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Rick and Morty, Mad Men, Louie, Veep, Silicon Valley, Bob’s Burgers, Parks and Recreation, Inside Amy Schumer

Still Haven’t Seen: Transparent, Hannibal, You’re the Worst

“Well actually, the best TV show of the year is Serial” -The idiot you’re never going to invite to any of your dinner parties ever again

“Hey, this isn’t where I parked my car!” Image via Hollywood Reporter

This review MIGHT contain some spoilers. I am not sure. I am very careful when it comes to revealing plot details in a film and I do my best to only reveal details that will create a better understanding of the film without ruining the possible intrigue of it. However, the rules of spoilers are a bit different when it comes to Nolan. So…POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT. Proceed if you’re not gonna be a jerk about it.

There are a lot of different sci-fi movies out there, but in truth, there are only two: those that want to be Star Wars, and those that want to be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Interstellar falls into the latter category. 2001 is probably the hardest to emulate, given that it starts with a bunch of dudes in ape suits playing with a skeleton and ends with a star baby floating in the sky. If anybody could at least come close to attempting this task, then it’s got to be Christopher Nolan. Or at least, that’s what you would think.

Unfortunately, Interstellar is a little bit like I thought it might be: a parody of a Nolan film more than a Nolan masterpiece because it has everything you would expect one of his films would have. Layers! Abandonment issues! Michael Caine! Husbands who won’t take off their wedding rings even though their wives are dead!

Matthew McConaughey stars as Cooper, another of Nolan’s heroes who is psychologically scarred by a mysterious past event. Cooper once flew a rocket into space. Now, he is grounded on Earth. In this vision of the future, the Earth is dying, as humans have depleted most of their resources. There is a constant drought and heavy, dirt-filled winds that make America look like The Dust Bowl. Also, space exploration is a thing of the past. Everybody is too focused on this little corner of the universe. It is almost as if they are using an allegorical dystopian future in order to tell us about the present. Crazy, right?

Nolan spends a lot of time setting up this world, and the dynamics of Cooper’s family. Cooper has a relationship with his son that is mostly stagnant, and an even more complex relationship with his daughter Murph, who dreams of going into space. Interstellar seems like Nolan’s attempt to go full Spielberg. Few blockbusters actually explore human elements such as family, so it is refreshing to see how much thought Interstellar puts into this.

One of the first issues with Interstellar is that its plot often feels like an accident. Additionally, it feels like various sci-fi stories sewn together to make an uneven whole. At one point, Cooper sneaks into a top secret government site. Literally, minutes later, he is being blasted into space. It doesn’t take very long for him to go from “some random dude who got caught sneaking on private property” to “the man who is chosen to save mankind.” It’s like they forgot the buildup to the film’s most important event.

Before we know it, Cooper is on a mission to find a new planet where mankind can live. He is joined by fellow astronaut Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and the two of them disagree on a lot of ideological issues because grrr deep space conflict. They are also joined by a robot named TARS. TARS offers some much needed comic relief, something that is rarely seen in most of Nolan’s films.

Let’s go back to the Space Odyssey thing. The reason that Interstellar never reaches that level is because Nolan the filmmaker interferes with that vision too much. As always, Nolan loves explaining everything down to the very last detail. Inception somehow turned exposition into an art form. In Interstellar, Nolan wants to explain quantum mechanics to us, and make it completely inaccessible at the same time. There are stunning images here. They are few and far between, but they are there. I just wish that at times, the characters would shut up for a few minutes, and let us take in the vast beauty and mystery of a wormhole. I looked back in my notes and saw that I scrawled “stop talking” across several pages.

There are times when Interstellar lands. And when it does, it makes the extra money you shelled out for IMAX worth it. The final stretch of the film is often stunning. It portrays the constraints of time in a way that I never thought possible. Interstellar is also filled with some moments that would work on any screen. The film’s most powerful scene comes after McConaughey has been stuck in space for much longer than imagined. He comes back to watch videos that his much older children have left him. McConaughey makes this scene feel real. He has gotten to a point where he no longer has to impress us; McConaughey is the real thing and we’re all going to have to deal with that.

Interstellar is overstuffed with ideas. That could be a positive thing, if all of these ideas felt like they had more of a home. It just made me yearn for more. I wanted to know more about the people on Earth; the people who actually believe the moon landing was staged. I also want to see more of these barren planets that we barely got a glimpse of.

At its worst, Interstellar is exhausting. At its best, Interstellar gives us a glimpse inside the insane mind of Christopher Nolan, a man who is clearly not happy with any theory of nature until he has deconstructed it every way imaginable. I just hope next time he makes that journey a little more satisfying and fun for his audience.

Brain Farts From The Edge: The Holy S**t I’m Lost In Space Edition

• A lot of critics have given Interstellar points for ambition. That’s totally fair. However, you’ve got to rate a film for what’s onscreen, not for what it was supposed to be. If we rated it that way, then we would all have to give Kevin Smith a million stars because he worked hard on Tusk.
• A lot of people are complaining about the accuracy of the film’s science. Come on guys, were you really expecting a film about evil sandstorms and time traveling wormholes to be scientifically accurate? Plus, inaccuracies can often make for compelling stories.
• I’ve been reading a lot about sound issues in various theaters. I experienced them in mine. Sometimes, a jet blast would completely obscure some (possibly) important dialogue.
• For some reason, TARS just kept making me think of Abed from Community. Also, it might be a problem when a robot seems like the most human character in your film.
• In general, I have noticed how much the portrayal of artificial intelligence has changed in film lately. In Interstellar, the robot was comic relief. In Her, a computer was capable of falling in love and breaking hearts. In the upcoming Chappie (this is the impression I get from the trailer), a robot is capable of emotional and intellectual growth. Come on people! We’re going back to the future!
• I haven’t seen Gravity since I saw it in theaters, but Interstellar made me appreciate it much more. I really wish Interstellar captured not just the look, but the feeling, of deep space. There were times during Gravity where I actually felt like I was floating through space and running out of oxygen.
• This had less villains than The Dark Knight Rises, I’ll give it that.
• “That’s what I love about the space time continuum, man. You get older…I stay the same age.”
• “Time is a flat ci—ahh f**k it I give up.

Pictured: Dr. Tim Whatley and Elaine Benes

Well, the Emmy Awards happened again tonight.

My thoughts are about as predictable as most of the winners. In a year of excellent new shows, the common theme was to tread the same ground. However, that is not saying that some of those winners were not deserved.

Overall, with a great host and some memorable moments, the Emmys reminded me why TV is so great right now, and why film needs to catch up. However, many of the winners last night did not reflect the greatness of television right now. Hold the phone, you’re telling me that an award show is out of touch with what is popular and innovative right now? I don’t believe it.

Without further adieu, here are the highlights and lowlights of last night’s ceremony:

Seth Meyers As expected, Seth Meyers gave a fantastic monologue that makes me miss his presence on Weekend Update and also makes me wish I put in some effort to watch him on Late Night. NBC must be pretty chill, because he mostly just made fun of their poor ratings (30 Rock is over, so somebody has got to do it). Meyers also spent most of his monologue reminding everyone that network television still exists. Speaking of which…

Network vs. Cable vs. Streaming The big theme of the night was that network and cable are now just pawns in a game that will one day be dominated by streaming. Voters decided to teach Netflix a lesson, as they walked home empty handed. Yeah, how dare they take risks and try and elevate the format!

Modern Family Just a few short minutes after Bryan Cranston encouraged everybody to take more risks, Modern Family won the Emmy for Best Comedy for the fifth time. Modern Family was once a great show that is now past its prime. The fact that it wins every year makes me dig deep into the conspiracy theory handbook. As Matt Zoller Seitz said, “Modern Family has dirty pictures of everyone in the Academy.” Sure, you could debate whether or not Orange is the New Black is a comedy, but like it or not, it was far and away the best show nominated for Best Comedy this year. I am starting to realize that the Emmys might not know anything about comedy.

Billy Eichner It wasn’t all bad news for comedy. The amazing Billy Eichner got to showcase his talent with a special edition of Billy on the Street. It is so great to see how far he has come. He deserves all the success he gets.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Bryan Cranston They are the king and queen of television.

Fargo It is a shame that Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, and Billy Bob Thornton went home empty handed. However, I am thrilled that Fargo won Best Miniseries. It is my favorite show of 2014 so far. Fargo did exactly what the film version did: showed me that the world is a horrible place, yet it still managed to warm my heart. For the first time ever, I actually gave a crap about this category. The Coen Brothers might not pay attention to the Emmys, but I hope they know that Noah Hawley did them proud.

Best Joke You Didn’t Hear While engaging in awkward yet endearing banter on stage, Woody Harrelson told True Detective co-star Matthew McConaughey that “[he's] grateful that [McConaughey] got all the plagiarized lines.” This is in reference to the recent controversy surrounding the authenticity of True Detective. The line didn’t get too big of a laugh, but it was a great little bit of self-deprecating humor.

Best Gaffe: Gwen Stefani referred to The Colbert Report as “The Colbort Report” (with “report” pronounced properly). On a scale of 1 to Adele Dazeem, I give it a 7.

Cary Fukunga: Bro of the Century Fukunga’s win for Best Director for True Detective was well deserved. The guy became a sort of star in a very short period of time. It doesn’t seem like Hollywood has gotten to him yet because holy crap, what a bro. He seems like a way less competitive version of Otto Rocket. After the show, Fukunga reportedly called some friends and asked if they wanted to catch some waves at Pismo Beach.

Film: A lot of jabs were made at the expense of movies tonight. Fair enough. However, TV should be nice. Without film, there would be no TV. There would be no Louie, True Detective, or Fargo. So maybe the popcorn is overpriced, but hey, it’s a great excuse to leave the house. Now, give us Matthew McConaughey back.

Broad City You’re still the winner in my heart.

Some of you might already know how I feel about horror films. What you might not know is that I don’t know how to feel about rom-coms. It is a genre that I have greatly enjoyed during a few very brief occasions, and then hated on most others. It is a genre that is already a subdivision of one genre, yet there are so many subdivisions within it as well.

Rom-Coms are not as simple as they may seem. When it comes to rom-coms, I guess you can say that It’s Complicated (Thank you! Thank you very much! I’ll be here all week).

There was a time when rom-coms weren’t necessarily associated with guilty pleasures. “Annie Hall” is the genre’s undisputed champ. It is not just a love story as much as it is about the meaning of love. “When Harry Met Sally,” meanwhile, might contain a big final chase, but it is far from formulaic. That one, too, was deft at being insightful without being annoying (“As soon as you find somebody you want to spend the rest of your life with then you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!”). I will also include “The Wedding Singer” here, because that movie is goddamn delightful.

Then, rom-coms started to turn. I am not a historian, so I can’t attach an exact date, but it seems like it was in the early 2000s when they found a formula and stuck with it. Suddenly, they started to become something associated with just one gender. With some rare exceptions (“500 Days of Summer”), rom-coms lived in a fantasy land where a pilot would stop an entire plane so you could tell someone on board that you loved them.

Sometimes, I feel like my hatred can be a little unfounded. Maybe it is because I have never been in a serious relationship or because sometimes I am bad at expressing feelings (even though I am a generally loud person) that grand romantic gestures don’t phase me very much. Pair that with the fact that I take my film watching a little too seriously, so any cliches or actions that are completely implausible will throw me off. But I have been trying lately to be a little more open to different forms of entertainment and if watching some rom-coms means that people will stop calling me a hipster, then I am fine with it.

I have two sisters so finding a rom-com worth watching wasn’t hard. They actively encouraged me to watch “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” If you haven’t seen it, here’s the basic premise: Kate Hudson plays an ambitious journalist who wants to make a man fall out of love with her in 10 days for an article. Matthew McConaughey plays an ambitious advertising executive who needs to make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days so he can nab a huge account. Of course, the two of them meet and wacky antics ensue.

Now, that is a really solid premise that feels faithful to the days of screwball comedy past. It leaves a lot of room for funny misunderstandings and third act drama. A studio executive would be stupid not to buy into this pitch. I know what will happen in the end, but I still want to see what happens when people with two contrasting goals inevitably have to fall in love. Unfortunately, it also displays everything I hate about rom-coms. People buy into rom-coms so easily, yet they exist in a sort of fantasy world where everybody is white and really successful. All of their homes and apartments look like they could belong to any character in any movie. In “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” we are expected to believe that somebody owns a nice beach house in Staten Island that offers a stunning view of all of New York’s landmarks. Realistically, most buildings in New York offer a view of a brick wall.

Another big problem I have with most rom-coms is the absurd divide between the sexes. Bros just want to be bros and play poker and smoke giant cigars and watch basketball. Don’t you know that some of us have asthma? Meanwhile, the girls just want to gossip and go out to brunch all the time. To this movie’s credit, it does a pretty decent job at skewing gender politics. Hudson’s character loves steak and sports, but she has to pretend that she’d rather go to a vegan restaurant during a Knicks game because apparently that is a deal breaker for most guys. “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” is only self-aware sometimes. This seems like a common feature in most of today’s rom-coms. As pointed out in FilmDrunk’s excellent review of “That Awkward Moment,” that particular film was so bizarrely meta that “[the sequel to "That Awkward Moment"] is just going to be a series of zeroes and ones that you ingest via feeding tube.” Sounds about right for the fate of the whole genre.

“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” might not have worked if it didn’t have such a stellar cast. The reason I referred to the characters by the names of the actors is because the characters are so transparent that the actors are all I can see. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. This movie would probably be pretty flimsy if not for Kate Hudson’s hilarious hissy fit, or the fact that McConaughey has a Texas accent for no apparent reason. The two of them are funny on their own, but even better together. There are also some great supporting players. In a lot of rom-coms, the friends are just there to say “that’s a bad idea,” but the scene where Kathryn Hahn pretends to be a couples therapist is one of the movie’s highlights. Basically, rom-coms are often so interchangeable that what separates a good one from a bad one is whether the actors and actresses have chemistry.

I could get angry at “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” or “Failure to Launch” or “27 Dresses” or many others in the genre, but I feel like films like these teach a valuable lesson. For a hardened cinephile, sometimes a movie can actually be entertaining if you just let go of all of the little cliches. And if you are a realist, accepting the fact that rom-coms are more about what love should be than rather what love actually is, then rom-com logistics won’t bother you as much. Yes, I hate that “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” ends with the two leads closing down an entire bridge to declare their love for each other. In the real world, if you close down an entire bridge, then you have to resign from office.

What I am really trying to say is that if you are going to make a derivative rom-com that doesn’t annoy me, then you should probably cast Matthew McConaughey in it.

Can somebody come and save Kate Hudson’s career? Please and thank you.

Because it is Oscar season, that means that by Constitutional law, there must be at least one movie about homophobia and AIDS. “Dallas Buyers Club,” an interesting and important true story that deserved to be made into a film, does just that. While it stumbles sometimes, it works exactly when it needs to.

There are a lot of boobs and a lot of rodeos in “Dallas Buyers Club.” But the film also has a lot of heart, and there is absolutely no nuance as to who is the good guy and who is the bad guy here. Based on a true story, “Dallas Buyers Club” is set in the year 1985, fittingly not long after Rock Hudson‘s death from AIDS. Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) is an electrician some of the time, and a hustler for the remaining amount. His bad habits lead to the discovery that he has HIV. Given his fervent homophobia, he doesn’t immediately take too kindly to this news.

Woodruff doesn’t give up easily. After all, this wouldn’t be a movie if he just decided to lay down and die. It turns out that the medication that the doctors give him and other AIDS patients doesn’t actually work, so he decides to get better treatment through illegal means, and by that I mean that he listens to the first doctor that he meets in Mexico. Never one to resist good money, Woodruff illegally distributes the helpful drugs from over the border into the hands of suffering AIDS patients in America. He does a good thing while simultaneously becoming a very rich man.

Along with “American Hustle” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Dallas Buyers Club” is part of a trend of American films that came out in 2013 about the lengths people will go to just to make it to the other side, preferably with a lot of cash in their pockets. The only difference here is that “Dallas Buyers Club” feels absolutely no ambiguity as to who was on the right and wrong side of history. For those who know very little about government bureaucracy and the FDA’s history with AIDS, “Dallas Buyers Club” will be eye opening. For those who already know the story, it won’t make you want to go out and protest anymore. In fact, much of the jargon between doctors makes up for the weakest parts of the film. While it is interesting, it is often a little bland, and it just means less time that gets to be spent with the film’s standout stars.

After watching this film, all of the Oscar hype surrounding McConaughey makes absolute sense. The guy isn’t so much giving a performance as he is giving a commitment. With that loud, proud 80s mustache, he looks like a gaunt Brian Fantana who’s had all of the confidence and Sex Panther drained out of him. It is one thing to endure a physical transformation and shed a lot of weight; it is another thing entirely to convincingly embody the emotional state of having literally nothing less to lose. Woodruff isn’t even likable from the get go, as he is incredibly homophobic. Then, when he pulls over in his car and desperately bursts out in tears, you want to cry with him. “Dallas Buyers Club” is partly about watching somebody crawl out of denial and then just keep on livin’, man. L-I-V-I-N.

The other highly praised performance in the film is Jared Leto’s work as Rayon, an AIDS positive transgender woman who becomes Ron’s business partner. As much as Jared Leto seems like a real-life “Entourage” character, his talent, as well as how selectively he chooses his roles (past films he has been include “American Psycho,” “Fight Club,” and “Requiem for a Dream”), is outstanding. His performance never feels tasteless or Oscar begging because the character is both genuine and undeniably flawed. And if only there was an Oscar for chemistry, then McConaughey and Leto would definetly get it. Their dynamic reminded me largely of the one that Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman had in “Midnight Cowboy.” In both cases, at least one of the characters are doomed, but when they are together, hope actually seems like a possibility.

While the performances are so great, it often feels like director Jean-Marc Vallee is trying to undermine his own film. Visual storytelling is a gift, but it can be a problem when a film doesn’t know when to stop. While this is a low budget film, buying something to keep a camera still for just a brief moment is completely feasible. Meanwhile, the buzzing sound motif and the constant quick cuts are intrusive in a film that would have benefited from just sitting still and letting the camera roll.

Yet, “Dallas Buyers Club” is still effective in what it sets out to do. This is a film about “going out with your boots on,” and by the end that is exactly what it does. It never loses its scrappy underdog vibe; on-the-nose metaphors and all.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• Most annoying, on-the-nose symbol: Grabbing life by the horns. This is Texas, and there are rodeos in Texas. Get it?
• I strongly appreciate McConaughey’s pronunciation of “Isrul.”
• Rule of the Thumb: If somebody’s performance mostly consists of mumbling, then it is automatically safe to assume that it must be good.
• I know that the point is that Jennifer Garner’s character is kind of plain, but she didn’t have to be THAT plain.
• Tried to track all of Ron’s homophobic slurs. I got “daisy puller” and “faggot” ( a lot).
• Kevin Rankin is faux Steve Zahn. Speaking of which, it is nice to see Steve Zahn is still around.
• Is “Dallas Buyers Club” a good movie? Yes. Does it deserve a spot that could have gone to “Inside Llewyn Davis” in the Best Picture category? Guess.
• Watching people doing research in a library > Watching someone Googling something
• The exchange between Rayon and his father is devastating to watch. “God help me” “He is helping you, I have AIDS”
• LET’S GET INTELLECTUAL: Even many of the most progressive films have been charged with the White Messiah Complex, in which an oppressed group is only able to overcome adversity through the help of a straight, white male. Some examples include “Dances with Wolves,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Avatar” (BLUE PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, TOO), and “Django Unchained” (Note: I will defend this film to the death). Here, it is a straight, white male who suddenly becomes the martyr for every member of the LGBT community who has AIDS. I am not trying to go all Slate on you by bringing this point up, but I think it is a really interesting thing to mull over.