The only time I reviewed a film and gave it 10, though a retrospective review (I mention I would also give its predecessor a 10 too). The five major films from Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, remained for many years the most undervalued artistic asset in cinema. It would take until the 2010's before either would even be tossed an Oscar and ironically for a film that is an extended version of a scene in this movie. All five are classics and different, here Once is the Illiad to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly's The Odessy. Perhaps as majestic as either man got or as cinema ever has been. I've never given a new release a ten but see the Twin Peaks controversy for the only new release 10/10.

Everything outside of the climactic face-off, in this "true" war film (based on ex-Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell's best recollections) is garbage, the lowest rent flag-waving. But the hour or so from engagement with the enemy is jaw-dropping. Director Peter Berg may have next to zero skill when it comes characters talking but the actually bone-crunching carnage, is some of the most brutal and hopeless to underpin a major Hollywood patriotic exercise.

Writer-director, Spike Jonze, is still undervalued and rightly picked up every screenwriting award going Her, with I think what was my film of the year. Scarlett Johansson is the magnetic, automated love interest for Joaquin Phoenix, that goes from operating system to all too real. Not just a prescient look at technology and romance but love and relationships themselves.

Maybe a shade too high but not much, still amazed four performances like this could walk away without a single Oscar. David O. Russell had a seismic year and followed up Silver Linings Playbook with yet more unforgettable characters and performances, this time with consummate, dynamic, Scorcese-worthy cinematic skill.

It sounds like I was on the right path with this one but 8.5/10 is still too high for a weirdly empty and hugely overrated (and very stiff) film.