DM's Films of 2013

So here are my film picks of 2013. A little late, but here nonetheless.  First up, I was very remiss in my film viewing last year. I guess you could call it a fallow year and I wasn’t into cinema as much as previous years. I have already turned this around and seen a couple of crackers already in 2014. I have also caught up with a few 2013 films over January.

Like Ian, I found it easy to find films that I did not enjoy, were disappointing or distinctly average. Here are the worst of them:

Worst Films of 2013

Oblivion – I’m not sure why I even went to see this film (I blame PG!). Absolute dross and a complete rip-off of several other much better films. Offensively so. Somebody should stop Tom Cruise or advise better script selection.

The Paperboy – A mess of a film that failed to deliver for me (boom boom). Trashy, but not in a good way.

Les Miserables – worst film for me by far. So long, so boring. Poor direction with lots of close-ups of actors’ faces being sad and emotive whilst singing. This purposeful thrusting of melodrama upon me resulted in me feeling quite the opposite. I wanted them all dead so that the film would be over. I would actively avoid having to see this film ever again.

Top films of 2013 (in no particular order, but I shall pick out my favourite 3)

Side Effects – An enjoyable, cleverly constructed and thought provoking thriller. Successfully steered itself the right side of ridiculous with great pay-offs.

Compliance – A cracking little film from the “truth stranger than fiction” genre. Well acted with relationships subtly built to a chilling climax.

Behind the Candelabra – Interesting biopic. I knew little about Liberace. He seems to me almost mythical…like unicorns! How could something like that exist? Great acting from Matt Damon who surprised and delighted me.

Gravity – Utterly ridiculous plot: Check. Sandra Bullock: Check. Schmaltzy back-story with faux emotions to explain our heroine’s plight: Check. BUT despite all these negative points this still makes it on my list due to my pure exhilaration and the genuine breath-taking moments caused by the direction and special effects. The best 3D I’ve seen to date. I’m not usually taken in by all by that but that is exactly what made it for me.

In A World – Entertaining comedy from writer/director Lake Bell about a female voice-over artist for movie trailers trying to make it in Hollywood (and therefore outshining her dad). Sounds crappy from that description but it was fun. This was classy comedy…more “Bridesmaids” than “Bride Wars” if you get my drift.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa – I was wary going into this but so so relieved at the end. Alan superbly made the transisiton to the big screen maintaining all that I love about the TV character. It felt like a proper film rather than an overextended TV episode…Jurassic Park!

3. Before Midnight – A welcome return instalment from my favourite on-screen couple. Are they too middle class and self-indulgent? Most probably. But the on-screen chemistry is great and utterly believable. Essentially a conversation that lasts for 2 hours but had me gripped throughout. I look forward to catching up with them again in a few more years.

2. Blue Jasmine – A film not entirely without faults but a great film. A woman’s emotional breakdown is documented with pathos, style and a few laughs along the way. Great structuring and use of flashbacks. Cate Blanchett turns in some of the best screen acting I have ever seen and the whole film hangs beautifully around her barnstorming performance. The final scene is a classic.

1. Django Unchained - Slick, almost effortlessly cool and an absolute joy to watch. A relatively simple plot played out chronologically. Great performances from Leo, Waltz and Jackson but the real star (as in all of Tarantino's films) is the dialogue. Another classic from a classic director.

IL's Top Films of 2013

Here's my list for 2013. I only saw 32 films with a 2013 release date, so admit doing a Top 10 feels a bit fraudulent. In fact, looking at my spreadsheet for the year, I found it hard to pick 10 in total that I could really say I wholly liked. Plus I should say that, as I see most films at home via Virgin On-Demand and at my film club, both of which run 3-6 months behind commercial cinema release, it's entirely possible that there are some great films from last year which I'm still to see (eg, going to see Blue Jasmine this week). Or maybe it was just a really bad year? Or maybe I'm a grumpy old git who's increasingly hard to please? You decide!


Anyway, for the above reasons, there's no 'honourable mentions' this year, and I can't really be doing with all the best actor/best director stuff. But you won't be surprised to know that I have no problem whatsoever in picking the films I hated, so in time-honoured tradition (ie, like last year), and in a tragically bad mixed metaphor, let's dismiss the flotsam before diving for the pearls...

Worst Films

3) Star Trek 2: Into Darkness

No cliche goes unflogged in JJ Abrams' second part of the reboot, which amazingly, managed to be worse than the first one by putting all the previous films into a gigantic liquidizer and setting the dial to 'baby food'. A bit like one of those karoake megamix 'tributes' you find all the time on iTunes.

2) Only God Forgives/A Place Beyond On The Pines

In a piece of ornithological freakery, 2013 will go down as the year in which a Gosling begat two turkeys. Nicolas Winding Refn's laughable 90 minute jizz into Ryan Gosling's face at least looked amazing, but was still just an hour and and a half of moody stares and severed limbs, and a film that's supposed to be ridiculously pretentious is, I'm afraid, still both ridiculous and pretentious. Far worse though was A Place Beyond The Pines, which was overlong and bloated with its own misguided self-importance.

And by a country mile, my worst film of 2013 (and most other years) is...

1) Gravity

Please don't get me started again. I mean...really!? Really?? Seriously, I mean, really!!! REALLY????

 

Best Films

10) What Maisie Knew

The conceit of reflecting a marital breakdown through the eyes of a child may not be that new - the source novel is over 100 years old - but this one stayed with me, and full marks to Steve Coogan and particularly Julianne Moore for their portrayals of the wholly unlikeable (ex)-couple.

9) What Richard Did

In what is turning out to be a great year for films whose titles start with 'What', this low-budget Irish tale of a nice middle-class boy who does something really bad nicely highlighted how lives can change in a moment of madness.

8) Upstream Color

Parasitic worms, a symbiotic relationship between humans and pigs, and avant garde electronic music all (sort of) hook up in Shane Carruth's weirdly fractured narrative. Although it can frustrate and occasionally feels like they dropped the script on the floor and put it back together in random order with a few pages missing, it's distinctive for sure, which sort of lets it off (sort of).

7) Side Effects

I was expecting the usual anti-pharma industry nonsense, but this turned out to be an effective, engrossing and twisty thriller. Although, like 'Trance', although albeit to a lesser extent, best you don't think too much about the plot once you leave the cinema.

6) Spring Breakers

I can see why Harmony Korine gets chastised for trying to have his cake and eat it, and there's certainly a lot of teen flesh on display here, but I think some overlook his scalpel-like satire. Unpredictable, with an outrageous turn from James Franco, and with the best ever use of a Britney song in a film, this to me nailed modern America while never quite letting you off the hook for enjoying some of its more prurient excesses.

5) Django Unchained

We need to continue to praise Tarantino when he's good, as I fear he will be taken for granted otherwise. The usual amazing long dialogue scenes, tension and directorial pizzazz, but he's really on form here. Could have been a masterpiece, were it not for flagging slightly in the final reel once Christoph Waltz is despatched.

4) Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley's pseudo-documentary about her own family's secrets subverts the genre by making you keenly aware of the filmmaker's role in fashioning the tale to meet their own agenda, and that alone would make this a fascinating watch. But the story is almost as gripping as the journey to unearth it.

3) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

OK, if I'm honest, this is probably the film I enjoyed most last year. It's certainly the only one I've bought on DVD and watched again. And will watch again and again until I can quote it by heart. Alan is the gift that just seems to keep on giving. It's packed with vintage Alanisms, and Steve Coogan on the big screen proves just proves that he is a TOTAL COMEDY GENIUS!

2) Beyond The Walls

And so, my top 2 films this year are both, er, Belgian. Didn't see that one coming. For some reason this two-act tale of a gay relationship which first comes together, and then just falls apart, has seared itself onto my brain. Much more effective than last year's overpraised fairytale 'Weekend', and improved by the fact that neither of leads are entirely likeable or behave particularly well, maybe this just resonated with my own jaundiced worldview (lol). It certainly seemed all-too believable.

1) Bullhead

I have to say that this was far ahead of any of the opposition as my film of the year. A complete original, this visceral tale of a boy damaged by an unspeakable (and unwatchable) boyhood trauma, seeking redemption but having to face the consequences of his own actions, is a stunning piece of cinema. The grim yet almost bland setting among the flat fields of the Flemish cattle-farming industry only adds to its otherworldliness. Harrowing, unforgettable, but with a strange kind of beauty too, I want 2014 to provide a few more films like this with emotional power and integrity. And a lot less ludicrous arsing about in space.

Ian X 
06/01/2014
 

MD Top Ten of 2103

Here we go then…..

Honourable Mentions

What Richard Did

Blue Jasmine

Mud

The Way Way Back

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Talent

Actor                            Bruce Dern, Nebraska

Actress                        Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Supporting Actor       Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Supporting Actress   Kristin Scott Thomas, Only God Forgives

Director                       Alfonso Cuarón

Worst Movies

3. I’m So Excited. I’m so disappointed. Misogynist unfunny rubbish – and ridiculously indulgent reviews. The Emperors New Clothes

2. Frances Ha. Self -indulgent claptrap from a writer/star who needs to have a word with herself.

1. Spring Breakers. Just horrible in every sense. Cardboard cutouts with no sense of anyone but themselves screeching around with gun, bikinis and terrible dentistry. Foul.

And the Best…

10. No. Innovative 4:3 filmmaking on old videotape for this insightful period piece on Chilean politics and emerging media savvyness

9. Nebraska. Alexander Payne's annual entry. A wonderful and perfectly paced tale of family love pushed to the limits.

8. Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Overlooked. Grainy and dry and potentially unlikeable but packing a heartfelt punch and a fabulous soundtrack.

7. The Paperboy.  An absolutely guilty pleasure where each actor seems keen to out do each other in the humiliation stakes. Camp nonsense of the most pleasing degree.

6. Gravity. To quote Sparks "Looks Looks Looks" - but wow what a looker. Stunning direction taking this type of filmmaking to a new level.

5. Only God Forgives. I may have a Ryan bias but this looks and sounds great and injects just enough substance through the style to hold both the tension and relationships

4. Wadjda. A simplistic tale that opens up a much wider look at life for women in Saudi Arabia. Both thought provoking and charming.

3. Much Ado About Nothing. Shakespeare at its most stripped down and satisfying presented with consummate ease.

2. Django Unchained. Smashing acting – tough and sometimes bordering on cartoon but with some mature Tarantino touches and it looks and sounds great despite the Aussie accent

1. Good Vibrations. A fabulous piece of low budget fun filmmaking with great characters that hits all the right notes (pun intended) and the playing of Teenage Kicks is just spine tingling. Bizarrely echoing Mark Kermode’s choice - Blimey Charlie.