Well, folks, I'm only about a month overdue, but I'm ready to share my favorite films and biggest disappointments of 2013.
For the longest time, I was disappointed in what 2013 had to offer. 12 Years a Slave was the obvious front runner, but everything else seemed like it could be pulled out of a hat. Compared to 2012, which was an amazing year for movies, 2013 seemed to be pretty weak tea.
However, in the past month I've seen some excellent films and feel a little more balanced. Without further ado, here are my picks for best films of the year.
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10) Frances Ha
Rarely do we see female protagonists who are screwed up, but not irredeemably so, portrayed on the big screen. Female characters tend towards extremes: the perfect woman, wife, mother who has it all/does it all/is wise and courageous beyond words...or...psycho bitch. In Noah Baumbach's beautifully shot, awkwardly funny Frances Ha, we finally get a heroine who is imperfect in a realistic way, yet is also a woman worth rooting for. Co-written by and starring Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha is a quirky, feel-good film about being adrift in your twenties.
9) Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Nearly everyone who has seen Catching Fire says it's better than the first film in the Hunger Games trilogy, and I have to agree. Catching Fire is darker and more cynical than its predecessor (which is saying a lot for a series where kids kill kids), but it also seems to have more meat to it. More emphasis is placed on the society of Panem and the revolution roiling within its citizenry, and Katniss Everdeen (played by everyone's crush, Jennifer Lawrence) begins to come into her own not just as a strong young woman, but as a leader.
8) Much Ado About Nothing
Times change, but Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Using slick black and white cinematography and his own house as the setting, director Joss Whedon brings Will Shakes into the 21st century. With strong performances by leads Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof as Beatrice and Benedick--lovers who begin as fighters--Much Ado About Nothing is a romp with humor that feels surprisingly fresh for a play written 400 years ago.
7) Gravity
Certainly the film with the most fantastic visuals of 2013, Gravity has a heart and soul as well. There were many things I found imperfect about Alfonso Cuaron's intense flick (George Clooney's performance was too Cloonian and the movie was wildly unrealistic to the point where I couldn't really suspend my disbelief), but Sandra Bullock's performance as a grieving mother set adrift in space was just too powerful to deny. Her physical journey may not have been up to Neil deGrasse Tyson's expectations, but her emotional and metaphorical journey as a woman who feels she has nothing to live for and chooses life anyway, is heartwrenching and beautiful.
6) The Conjuring
In previous years, I wouldn't have dreamed of ranking a horror film above an Oscar bait film such as Gravity, but damn, everything is just SO GOOD about James Wan's retro ghost story. Every single performance--from Lily Taylor as the terrified mom of five girls to Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as the married couple who dedicate their lives to ghost hunting--is excellent. The movie is frightening without resorting to gimmicks or gore. And the costumes/furniture are retro-fabulous and definitely make the movie feel real and lived-in (it's based on a true story, by the way). Hundreds of horror films come out each year, but only a few qualify for critics' "best of" lists.
5) The World's End
How, how, how is it possible for a movie to feature robots, aliens, alcoholism, and the apocalypse and not be a complete mess? The team behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, who are masters of genre-mixing, managed to create a film with desperately depressing plot lines (crippling alcoholism, the disappointment of middle age), science-fiction elements, and an end-of-the-world scenario that is also one of the year's best comedies. Starring Simon Pegg as pathetic man-child Gary King, who rounds up his buddies to relive an epic pub crawl of the their youth, The World's End offers something for everyone.
4) This Is The End
Speaking of the apocalypse, the OTHER great end-of-the-world comedy this year features satanic creatures and a demon-possessed Jonah Hill instead of robots and aliens. While The World's End has slightly more emotional oomph to it, This Is The End beats it out in the laugh department (well, in my opinion). Basing its humor in irreverent self-awareness (the actors, including Seth Rogen and James Franco, play versions of themselves) This Is The End requires you to come into the theatre already knowing who these actors are, their "reputations" in Hollywood, and the content of their films. Well, maybe it's not a requirement, but it definitely adds something to the movie. Yes, yes, there's a nice message about friendship and self-sacrifice in there, but I was too busy laughing so hard I couldn't breathe to pay much attention to it
3) The Wolf of Wall Street
And speaking of laughing so hard that one risks wetting herself, Martin Scorsese's over-the-top, greed-is-not-only-good-it's-fucking-awesome ode to Jordan Belfort, the titular Wolf of Wall Street, features the funniest scene in a movie this year. When Belfort and his business partner (played respectively by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill) take expired quaaludes and end up rolling around on the kitchen floor and trying to communicate despite a complete loss of vocal and muscle control, you'll think you're the one who's high. The morality of The Wolf of Wall Street can be debated ad nauseum, but there's no arguing about the sheer balls-out, drugged-out, out-of-their-minds performances by Leo and Jonah.
2) Her
As a study in contrast, Leo's aggressively macho role in The Wolf of Wall Street could be compared to Joaquin Phoenix's vulnerable, gentle performance as Theodore Twombly, a lonely man who falls in love with his operating system, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), in Her. A film with a premise that could have easily been laughable or atrociously sexist is so much more. It asks big questions: what makes something "real" or "human"? Can you fall in love with something not human? What is love anyway? And, to director Spike Jonze's credit, it offers no easy answers. Her is a brave movie in that it dares to rip our ideas about love and connection wide open.
1) 12 Years a Slave
In a year of challenging, confrontational, courageous films, no film packs such a gut punch as Steve McQueen's brutal exploration of American slavery. Race relations in the United States have been explored in cinema many times before, with mixed results. Sometimes we get noble, yet overly sentimental films (Lee Daniel's The Butler). Sometimes we get sarcastic revisionist history (Django Unchained). And sometimes we get the black experience filtered through the lens of a privileged, white person (The Help). But has there been a film that is serious, un-sentimental, based solidly within the perspective of a black person/slave, and without cheap, two-dimensional caricatures? Some critics have pointed out that since director McQueen and lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor are both black, British men, they have the proper amount of distance to American slavery mixed with the knowledge of the black experience to create exactly the film we Americans need and deserve about our nation's greatest shame. McQueen's previous films have been good, but not great. Truly, his magnum opus will be 12 Years a Slave--a film both tender and torturous, agonizing and transcendent.
Honorable mentions: Inside Llewyn Davis, American Hustle, You're Next, Behind the Candelabra, Blue is the Warmest Color
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Biggest disappointments of 2013
Readers of this blog with keen eyes might notice that I very rarely rate films less than 3 stars. Is this because I simply enjoy ALL movies? Of course not! My reviews sway positive because I tend to see movies I think I will like. Unlike some movie buffs who will see anything, I limit my time and money to films I am genuinely interested in watching. And sometimes those movies disappoint. So here they are, the biggest disappointments of 2013.
7) Kill Your Darlings
Kill Your Darlings is last on the list (thus, the "best of the worst") simply through the sheer force of my desire for it to be good. And despite a wonderful performance by Daniel Radcliffe as a young Allen Ginsberg, it isn't good. Kill Your Darlings has everything I love: poetry, men kissing each other, Michael C. Hall...and yet I found it to be a real eye-roller, with tedious melodrama out the wazoo.
6) The Great Gatsby
Baz Luhrmann's interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel about unrequited love was another movie I desperately wanted to like. With every inch of the screen crammed with beautiful things and people, and an anachronistic Jay-Z led soundtrack, The Great Gatsby had "cool" written all over it. But something just wasn't right. It was miscast (Leo as Jordan Belfort I'll buy, but as Jay Gatsby? Nope.), cheesy, and insincere. I can't blame Luhrmann too much, since the material he was working with is so good that any adaptation of it is bound to pale in comparison.
5) Anchorman: The Legend Continues
Anchorman 2 is a disappointing film that gets a little bit of leeway because, come on, was anyone expecting it to be good? Lightning rarely strikes twice, and the first Anchorman was less a successful film when it came out than a cult movie that slowly and surely grew on people. To try to capture that magic again was a fool's errand. Sure, there are laughs in Anchorman 2 (bats = "chicken of the cave"), but overall I was underwhelmed.
4) Mud
Now here is an interesting turn of events. Usually I am on the critics' side when it comes to movies. Mud, however, was an exception. Mud currently stands at a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 98%!! And yet, I found the movie very boring and slow. Matthew McConaughey is ok in it, I hated Reese Witherspoon's character, and not a whole lot happened. Many viewers found Mud heartwarming. I found it toothless.
3) The Way, Way Back
Another movie I felt like I was "supposed" to like and just couldn't care less about. This coming of age movie, despite its extremely impressive and talented cast, felt sticky and sentimental. I don't do well with sentimentality--probably because it strikes me as a very false emotion. While The Way, Way Back isn't exactly phony (if anything, it's overly earnest), I just didn't buy what it was trying to sell me.
2) Elysium
More like E-boring-um, amirite?! In this un-impressive futuristic sci-fi flick, Matt Damon wears a exoskeleton that he can use to download information directly into his brain. That's the sole interesting thing about this movie. I saw it months ago and haven't thought about it once since then. Next!
1) Gangster Squad
And now, for a truly BAD movie. From the dredges of Jan/Feb theatrical releases (a dumping ground for shitty movies) comes a film whose worst crime is having Ryan Gosling utter the line "Who's the tomato?" in reference to Emma Stone. I don't know about "who", but I'll tell you what the tomato is: rotten. Wasted talents, a predictable plot, characters that wouldn't be out of place in a Bugs Bunny cartoon for all their stereotypical silliness, and ridiculous "retro" slang: Gangster Squad hardly qualifies as a disappointment. It's merely a bad film.
***
That's all folks! Thanks for reading, and here's to a whole new year of great movie-watching!
9) Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Nearly everyone who has seen Catching Fire says it's better than the first film in the Hunger Games trilogy, and I have to agree. Catching Fire is darker and more cynical than its predecessor (which is saying a lot for a series where kids kill kids), but it also seems to have more meat to it. More emphasis is placed on the society of Panem and the revolution roiling within its citizenry, and Katniss Everdeen (played by everyone's crush, Jennifer Lawrence) begins to come into her own not just as a strong young woman, but as a leader.
8) Much Ado About Nothing
Times change, but Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Using slick black and white cinematography and his own house as the setting, director Joss Whedon brings Will Shakes into the 21st century. With strong performances by leads Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof as Beatrice and Benedick--lovers who begin as fighters--Much Ado About Nothing is a romp with humor that feels surprisingly fresh for a play written 400 years ago.
7) Gravity
Certainly the film with the most fantastic visuals of 2013, Gravity has a heart and soul as well. There were many things I found imperfect about Alfonso Cuaron's intense flick (George Clooney's performance was too Cloonian and the movie was wildly unrealistic to the point where I couldn't really suspend my disbelief), but Sandra Bullock's performance as a grieving mother set adrift in space was just too powerful to deny. Her physical journey may not have been up to Neil deGrasse Tyson's expectations, but her emotional and metaphorical journey as a woman who feels she has nothing to live for and chooses life anyway, is heartwrenching and beautiful.
6) The Conjuring
In previous years, I wouldn't have dreamed of ranking a horror film above an Oscar bait film such as Gravity, but damn, everything is just SO GOOD about James Wan's retro ghost story. Every single performance--from Lily Taylor as the terrified mom of five girls to Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as the married couple who dedicate their lives to ghost hunting--is excellent. The movie is frightening without resorting to gimmicks or gore. And the costumes/furniture are retro-fabulous and definitely make the movie feel real and lived-in (it's based on a true story, by the way). Hundreds of horror films come out each year, but only a few qualify for critics' "best of" lists.
5) The World's End
How, how, how is it possible for a movie to feature robots, aliens, alcoholism, and the apocalypse and not be a complete mess? The team behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, who are masters of genre-mixing, managed to create a film with desperately depressing plot lines (crippling alcoholism, the disappointment of middle age), science-fiction elements, and an end-of-the-world scenario that is also one of the year's best comedies. Starring Simon Pegg as pathetic man-child Gary King, who rounds up his buddies to relive an epic pub crawl of the their youth, The World's End offers something for everyone.
4) This Is The End
Speaking of the apocalypse, the OTHER great end-of-the-world comedy this year features satanic creatures and a demon-possessed Jonah Hill instead of robots and aliens. While The World's End has slightly more emotional oomph to it, This Is The End beats it out in the laugh department (well, in my opinion). Basing its humor in irreverent self-awareness (the actors, including Seth Rogen and James Franco, play versions of themselves) This Is The End requires you to come into the theatre already knowing who these actors are, their "reputations" in Hollywood, and the content of their films. Well, maybe it's not a requirement, but it definitely adds something to the movie. Yes, yes, there's a nice message about friendship and self-sacrifice in there, but I was too busy laughing so hard I couldn't breathe to pay much attention to it
3) The Wolf of Wall Street
And speaking of laughing so hard that one risks wetting herself, Martin Scorsese's over-the-top, greed-is-not-only-good-it's-fucking-awesome ode to Jordan Belfort, the titular Wolf of Wall Street, features the funniest scene in a movie this year. When Belfort and his business partner (played respectively by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill) take expired quaaludes and end up rolling around on the kitchen floor and trying to communicate despite a complete loss of vocal and muscle control, you'll think you're the one who's high. The morality of The Wolf of Wall Street can be debated ad nauseum, but there's no arguing about the sheer balls-out, drugged-out, out-of-their-minds performances by Leo and Jonah.
2) Her
As a study in contrast, Leo's aggressively macho role in The Wolf of Wall Street could be compared to Joaquin Phoenix's vulnerable, gentle performance as Theodore Twombly, a lonely man who falls in love with his operating system, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), in Her. A film with a premise that could have easily been laughable or atrociously sexist is so much more. It asks big questions: what makes something "real" or "human"? Can you fall in love with something not human? What is love anyway? And, to director Spike Jonze's credit, it offers no easy answers. Her is a brave movie in that it dares to rip our ideas about love and connection wide open.
1) 12 Years a Slave
In a year of challenging, confrontational, courageous films, no film packs such a gut punch as Steve McQueen's brutal exploration of American slavery. Race relations in the United States have been explored in cinema many times before, with mixed results. Sometimes we get noble, yet overly sentimental films (Lee Daniel's The Butler). Sometimes we get sarcastic revisionist history (Django Unchained). And sometimes we get the black experience filtered through the lens of a privileged, white person (The Help). But has there been a film that is serious, un-sentimental, based solidly within the perspective of a black person/slave, and without cheap, two-dimensional caricatures? Some critics have pointed out that since director McQueen and lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor are both black, British men, they have the proper amount of distance to American slavery mixed with the knowledge of the black experience to create exactly the film we Americans need and deserve about our nation's greatest shame. McQueen's previous films have been good, but not great. Truly, his magnum opus will be 12 Years a Slave--a film both tender and torturous, agonizing and transcendent.
Honorable mentions: Inside Llewyn Davis, American Hustle, You're Next, Behind the Candelabra, Blue is the Warmest Color
***
Biggest disappointments of 2013
Readers of this blog with keen eyes might notice that I very rarely rate films less than 3 stars. Is this because I simply enjoy ALL movies? Of course not! My reviews sway positive because I tend to see movies I think I will like. Unlike some movie buffs who will see anything, I limit my time and money to films I am genuinely interested in watching. And sometimes those movies disappoint. So here they are, the biggest disappointments of 2013.
7) Kill Your Darlings
Kill Your Darlings is last on the list (thus, the "best of the worst") simply through the sheer force of my desire for it to be good. And despite a wonderful performance by Daniel Radcliffe as a young Allen Ginsberg, it isn't good. Kill Your Darlings has everything I love: poetry, men kissing each other, Michael C. Hall...and yet I found it to be a real eye-roller, with tedious melodrama out the wazoo.
6) The Great Gatsby
Baz Luhrmann's interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel about unrequited love was another movie I desperately wanted to like. With every inch of the screen crammed with beautiful things and people, and an anachronistic Jay-Z led soundtrack, The Great Gatsby had "cool" written all over it. But something just wasn't right. It was miscast (Leo as Jordan Belfort I'll buy, but as Jay Gatsby? Nope.), cheesy, and insincere. I can't blame Luhrmann too much, since the material he was working with is so good that any adaptation of it is bound to pale in comparison.
5) Anchorman: The Legend Continues
Anchorman 2 is a disappointing film that gets a little bit of leeway because, come on, was anyone expecting it to be good? Lightning rarely strikes twice, and the first Anchorman was less a successful film when it came out than a cult movie that slowly and surely grew on people. To try to capture that magic again was a fool's errand. Sure, there are laughs in Anchorman 2 (bats = "chicken of the cave"), but overall I was underwhelmed.
4) Mud
Now here is an interesting turn of events. Usually I am on the critics' side when it comes to movies. Mud, however, was an exception. Mud currently stands at a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 98%!! And yet, I found the movie very boring and slow. Matthew McConaughey is ok in it, I hated Reese Witherspoon's character, and not a whole lot happened. Many viewers found Mud heartwarming. I found it toothless.
3) The Way, Way Back
Another movie I felt like I was "supposed" to like and just couldn't care less about. This coming of age movie, despite its extremely impressive and talented cast, felt sticky and sentimental. I don't do well with sentimentality--probably because it strikes me as a very false emotion. While The Way, Way Back isn't exactly phony (if anything, it's overly earnest), I just didn't buy what it was trying to sell me.
2) Elysium
More like E-boring-um, amirite?! In this un-impressive futuristic sci-fi flick, Matt Damon wears a exoskeleton that he can use to download information directly into his brain. That's the sole interesting thing about this movie. I saw it months ago and haven't thought about it once since then. Next!
1) Gangster Squad
And now, for a truly BAD movie. From the dredges of Jan/Feb theatrical releases (a dumping ground for shitty movies) comes a film whose worst crime is having Ryan Gosling utter the line "Who's the tomato?" in reference to Emma Stone. I don't know about "who", but I'll tell you what the tomato is: rotten. Wasted talents, a predictable plot, characters that wouldn't be out of place in a Bugs Bunny cartoon for all their stereotypical silliness, and ridiculous "retro" slang: Gangster Squad hardly qualifies as a disappointment. It's merely a bad film.
***
That's all folks! Thanks for reading, and here's to a whole new year of great movie-watching!
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