The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - ★★★★½

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: Terence Winter (screenplay), Jordan Belfort (book)
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Rob Reiner, Kyle Chandler, Joanna Lumley, Jean Dujardin, Jon Bernthal

The Wolf of Wall Street is easily one of the best films of 2013. Scorsese's newest flick is a breath of fresh air! It's an electric, roaringly fun movie that manages to make its 3 hour running time just fly by. It's nice to see DiCaprio shake a leg and play an eccentric, despicable man. What was even better for me was seeing Jonah Hill flex his acting chops and establish himself as a big player in the world of supporting actors. I'm not gonna lie, movies like this usually aren't my sort of thing. I go for substance, character development, and true portrayals of the human condition. Here we mostly see Scorsese's signature flare for the dramatic and a penchant for over-the-top entertainment. Wolf of Wall Street one-ups American Hustle by paying equal attention to its story and characters, making it a consistently brilliant work of cinema.

The Artist (2011) - ★★★★★

Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Writers: Michel Hazanavicius
Stars: Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle

The Artist is a gift that I'm sure the whole world can appreciate, which is the gift of bringing silent films back into the public eye. It's quite a revolutionary film in the way that it did something that hasn't been done for a long, long time. It was nice to watch a new movie where people acted with their faces rather than using their voice to accentuate how they feel. As the great Gloria Swanson once said in her legendary role as Norma Desmond, "We had faces then." This movie shows that we have faces now, and may continue to have faces if the silent movie trend does indeed catch on. I very, very much hope that it does.