MOVIES I MISSED THE PAST YEAR: American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street, Her, Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now, Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska, Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear, After Shock, Black Rock, Snitch, From Up on Poppy Hill, The Wind Rises, The Last Stand, Riddick, Elysium, VHS 2, Blue Jasmine, Magic Magic, Through the Never, Before Midnight, Joss Whedon's William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, The Bling Ring, The East, The Iceman, Disconnect, The Hunt, A Band Called Death, A Hijacking, Blue is the Warmest Color, Man of Tai Chi and of course Machete Kills
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Behind the Candelabra, The Heat, Trance, The Way Way Back, Spring Breakers, This is the End, 42, Stoker, Upstream Color and The Conjuring
BEST MOVIE NOT ON THIS LIST: The Act of Killing
2013 was an incredibly solid year for movies even with a fairly lame summer that included some egregious crimes against cinema such as The Purge, White House Down and whatever the hell was going on in Star Trek Into Darkness. With every passing year we will always get some heinous pieces of shit (The Lone Ranger), some bland ones (After Earth), some boring ones (The Counselor), and some extremely disappointing ones( pick most movies from the summer) but even if we see that the bigger studio movies get cruddier and cruddier with some effort, time and patience we'll find the ones that make sitting through the rest of the crap worth it. These are the best damn movies of 2013.
Randy Moore's directorial debut is a strange and truly one of a kind wonder. It's not perfect and very rough around the edges but it's exciting, daring, and ballsy. Already being dismissed as, "just the movie illegally shot at Disneyland and Disney World", it has a lot to say about the modern American family, the general ickyness of theme parks, and the corporatization of happiness. Surprisingly funny and filled with melancholy Escape from Tomorrow is a wonderfully weird gem.
Aided by solid performances by the whole cast, great cinematography by the always excellent Roger Deakins and drenched in a moody atmosphere Prisoners rises above its thriller genre cliches and trappings. Taking after the high drama of Mystic River crossed with procedural crime movies from the late 90s and early 2000s the film manages to avoid feeling like an over-extended episode of Law & Order and instead remains tense, engrossing and entertaining all throughout.
Paul Greengrass' latest is an incredibly intense with Oscar worthy performances from Tom Hanks as the titular captain and Barkhad Abdi as the leader of the pirates. The entire third act is easily one of the most thrilling, engaging and memorable cinematic moments of 2013.
Michael Bay's latest has stuck with me in a way I totally didn't expect. It has all the recognizable aspects of Bay's previous work including music video editing, oversaturated cinematography and a juvenile sense of humor (a big moment is reserved for a warehouse full of dildos). Despite all these obvious and worn out signatures, they come together to add to the satire at the core of the film. It's his most immature mature piece of work, coming closest to resembling an actual film. The cynical mean-spirited frat-bro sensibility works in the film's favor rather than against it. While not as biting or edgy as it wants to be, Bay has obviously much to say about the perversion of the American Dream, a perversion he might've had a hand in. After an entire filmography of giving the audience what they want in the most base way possible, Pain & Gain is a mirror showing pettiness, desperation, and the lengths one would go to achieve what they think they're entitled to. "What happened to the American Dream?" Bay's answer: "this is it, you're looking at it" and that's something to be noted.
Immensely cinematic, poetic, and captivating in every way, Terrence Malick's sixth film is his most personal and deeply emotional but some will still find it frustrating. Using a similar narrative approach as in The Tree of Life, the film is expressionistic to a fault but don't let that deter you from watching it. Feeling more like watching someone's dreams and memories, To the Wonder is a visual experience you'll want to lose yourself in.
The controversial documentary has been getting a lot of attention and deserves every bit of it. Equal parts enlightening and upsetting, it's difficult not to be effected by it in some way. The film covers a lot of ground making strong effective points on animal rights, the artifice of theme parks and everything that's wrong with Sea World. With all the talk surrounding the film, it is too easy to ignore the fact that the documentary is ultimately humanist. Telling the stories of trainers, it gives much needed context and compassion for tragic losses caused by the mistreatment of animals and corporate indifference.
Edgar Wright's third collaboration with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is a furiously funny and poignant effort. A little less of a clear cut genre parody like the previous two films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, it more than makes up for it with a solid thematic focus. Think of it as the antidote to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, confronting head on the downsides of nostalgia, arrested adolescence, and the fears of entering adulthood. It maintains a striking balance between portraying the pain of regret and missed opportunities and just plain awesome sci-fi action.
The blockbuster highlight of the year. Insanely fun and colorful, Guillermo Del Toro's big budget studio effort wears its heart on its sleeve. It's unabashedly earnest and takes great joy in displaying all its influences from kaiju movies of the 1950s to mecha anime. It's everything a giant robots fighting giant monsters movie should be.
Steve McQueen's third film is undeniably powerful and stirring. Filled with fantastic performances by the entire cast and directed with a deliberate self-assuredness, it's no surprise the film has been getting heaps of praise. Not much else to say other than go watch it if you haven't already.
Hilarious, heartfelt and all the other words used to describe indie-esque coming of age films. 2013 saw three coming of age films all cut from the same ilk, the other two being the slight but fun The Way Way Back and The Spectacular Now. The Kings of Summer stands out by truly being one of the funniest movies of last year. The three leads Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso and Moises Arias all play off each other naturally and you believe in and are invested in their friendship and share in the both the joys and pains of adolescence.
While Derek Cianfrance's first film Blue Valentine was self-important, pretentious and filled with contempt about the people it was portraying. His second film is a near masterpiece. Instead of the "look how shitty life is" attitude of his first film, here he finds the humanity of people caught in desperate situations. Tackling large lofty concepts such as the American myth and the hopelessness of working class America The Place Beyond the Pines is not the condemnation that was Cianfrance's previous film but a well done work that is beautifully haunting, ambitious, and epic.
Noah Baumbach's latest is an immensely pleasant surprise. Funny and touching, it truly gets a certain generation's growing pains. Don't the let the quirky tone fool you as that's part of the point. Imagine if the manic pixie dream girl actually existed: She'd be annoying and actually kind of sad. Greta Gerwing is absolutely fantastic as the titular character rounding out to make Frances a fully human character who can be sweet, endearing, idiotic, clumsy and ultimately someone who doesn't have their shit together. Both honest and charming, Frances Ha ends up being one of the better feel good movies of 2013.
Fuck you, it's brilliant.
A stunning debut from director Ryan Coogler and easily the most human, empathetic and tragic movie of the year. Based on the terrible events that happened on New Year's Eve 2009 at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, CA, Coogler tells an intimate story spanning the 24-hour period that leads up to that night. Instead of using the film as a platform itself to discuss the issues of politics, class and race, the story is tightly focused on the human and personal matters. Coogler's aim is something much more complex and abstract, truly showing what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. The movie gives the all important context and story that is never considered when such an event is covered by mass media outlets and received and processed by the general public. It's an astonishing and important film, not only because of what it's about but how confidently and with immense sensitivity that it chooses to portray the story of Oscar Grant. Fruitvale Station is an incredible reminder of not only the power of subtlety but the power of film to educate, inform and portray stories that we find relatable and with a little effort come close to truly understanding.
