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.

Only God Forgives - DM Review

Stunningly and confidently shot, this film creeped along at a slow pace. This added suspense and made some scenes unbearable to watch.

And this was my main beef with this film. It was too much for me. Both in terms of the violence but also the coldness of the film. Very little characterisation and therefore ultimately, for me, no real reason to watch.

KST was great and brought the film to life. The rest I could take or leave. Although, the aforementioned scenes did affect me at the time, I have not really thought about them since which vindicates the film's vapid impression on me.

On the whole, disappointing. Looks good but left me cold. I applaud the bold direction and NWR making a film he obviously wanted to make. Although, my trip to Bangkok in December looks slightly less appealing now...(note to self) avoid the karaoke bars.

6/10

MD – Only God Forgives

A study of retribution Only God Forgives mixes the aesthetics of Asian cinema with the narrative drive of a western and the arch high-art of European auteurism. Sumptuously red, floral and lit with the precision of an operating theatre and the incisions and amputations to match, Nicholas Winding Refn has created a stark and stylised canvas on which to project a familiar familial revenge tragedy. Whilst Shakespearian in scale and tone it’s the visual language not the prose that drives the plot. Lingering that little bit longer through Mondrian patterns formed by windows, doorways and alleyways Winding Refn gives us time to look behind the eyes before we are exposed to the actions.

Ryan Gosling reduces the word count and increases the ice-blue stare and facial placidity as Julian, leaving the verbals to the flamboyant, vicious tongue of Kristin Scott Thomas as his mother, Crystal. From the moment she lands in Bangkok to bury her first-born son she dominates all around her, most notably her clearly second favourite offspring. It's surprising, immaculate and award worthy support.

Making up the triumvirate Vithaya Pansringarm is avenging angel Chang. Wielding authority and a much more nebulous power, comfortable as torturer and no mean dude on the karaoke machine he plays nemesis, teacher and patriarch to Julian.

As revenge begets revenge and the stakes and body count increase there is seemingly only one way this is going to end. However following an early third-act showdown between the male protagonists, the recognition of their warped reliance takes us in a different direction.

Julian figuratively and literally reclaims himself from his matriarchal dominance in a stunning denouement.

9/10

MD –Frances Ha

It is hard to imagine a more annoying and unlovable screen protagonist than Greta Gerwig’s titular slacker.  And as a supposed dancer she makes Kate Blanchet in ‘Benjamin Button’ look like Margaret Fonteyn. Frances dances and prances through Manhattan, bums her rent as she turns down work, bemoans her lot and spin so centrally in her own orbit that she’s in danger of disappearing up the vortex of her own arse.

Whilst the rest of the world around her makes some attempt to grow and develop Frances wistfully watches awaiting their mistakes whilst never having the courage to make her own. How much the filmmaking director/writer/actor pairing are ‘in on the joke’ is unclear and ultimately irrelevant. Because whatever the knowingness this is an unfunny comedy full of unlikeable people with an expectation of what life should bring them but no inclination to invest their energies into making it happen. They all deserve each other. I'm just not sure what we have done to deserve them.

1/10

MD – The Wolverine

Old snikt-hands is back in town – although this time it’s Tokyo – and as usual he’s a score to settle and an unsubtle armoury of tools to do the job. Much pleasure has come from this character in all forms – but as a movie solo act Wolverine is starting to outstay his welcome. Tedious Jean-dream anxieties, an insipid serpentine villain and a reveal we could see coming 70 years ago make this bland mutants-by-numbers. Like Morrissey, for all his brittle brilliance when he sparks off the rest of the group, his later solo efforts mutate into maudlin self-pity.

It says much that the three minute post credit pay-off is by far the most interesting and exciting moment of the movie.

4/10

MD – Wadjda

Timely playing against the backdrop of Malala Yousafzai speaking to United Nations, Wadjda takes the story of one girl’s desire to own a bike and builds a micro and macro study of the gender politics in Saudi Arabia. Our protagonist is determined to take the path of most resistance with a mix of defiance and innocence being genuinely unable to understand why her simple desire causes consternation. The widening of the story to examine other patriarchal norms - marital expectations and the impact on women’s ability to work without being allowed to drive – lends a fascinating incite into family life and Saudi society. Never preaching but always with a message the film cleverly includes the premise that learning the Koran inside out is a means to an end so as to subvert its interpreted teachings.

Wadjda is wonderfully and joyously acted throughout and satisfactorily concludes at a point of both hope and recognition of the distance left to travel.

8/10