If someone ever makes a documentary on my life, I want it to be the people behind The Queen of Versailles. Anyone that can make me feel empathy for the subjects of this documentary has got a fair amount of talent. The documentary begins following the comically ostentatious lifestyle of timeshare real estate moguls as they live out the worst nouveau riche stereotypes and build the largest home in America.

Halfway through filming the documentary, though, the stock market crashed and it becomes something much different. The family vacillates between being totally oblivious to the extent of their privilege and occasional moments of brutal self-awareness, making it impossible to completely write them off as evil one-percenters, even as they eat caviar by the $2000 tub-full. I recommend the documentary both as an intellectual explanation for the housing bubble and crisis, as well as a character study of people that most of us despise--and with good reason--but who are still more complicated than we give them credit.

Over the weekend I caught up with Django Unchained. Like every other Tarantino movie, it was a supremely enjoyable watch. It retreads a lot of the ground from Inglourious Basterds, but I'm really starting to enjoy the whole "historical revenge fantasy" genre Tarantino is creating.

Christoph Waltz and Sam Jackson give great showy performances, and for a while Jamie Foxx almost gets lost in his own movie. Still, the only out-of-place performance was Tarantino himself. At this point, he's gotta be trolling us. For as great a director he is, he has to know he's not a very good actor, so giving himself accent work just seems like another "in-joke" of his at this point.

Since watching this, I've added Shaft and Coffy to my Netflix queue. It's time I watched those.

Despite having heard Mike Birbiglia's story multiple times on This American Life, I was still entertained by its film adaptation. The movie shows its radio/ standup comedy roots on its sleeve with frequent narration, but the performances are good enough and there are enough interesting visuals (including a nice long take of an exhausted Birbiglia checking in to a La Quinta hotel) to warrant a film adaptation. I also found it to be pretty funny, too, despite having heard most of the jokes before. For a newcomer, I can only think it'd make an even better impression.

While I was watching the movie, I couldn't help but compare it to Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture, another movie about an aimless twentysomething surrounded by problems of their own creation (or at least exacerbation). In fact, I hear Birbiglia and Dunham are friends and Birbiglia did a guest spot on Dunham's HBO series Girls. While I really disliked Tiny Furniture, Birbiglia's character in Sleepwalk with Me is far more likeable and at least shows some ambition, so when he does make self-destructive decisions, you end up laughing and sympathizing with him rather than judging him. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough to get the satire in Tiny Furniture. Maybe I prefer the simple Hollywood character arcs of Sleepwalk with Me. Or maybe I'm just a chauvinist pig.

Recommended.

While some people take the end of a year as an opportunity to reflect on how awesome and successful they are, I prefer to look back at all of the media I've consumed over the past year.

Without further ado, here's how I wasted my time: