Best Films of 2013!

[Klep]

I waited a bit longer this year because one of my top candidates wasn't coming to my area until this weekend, and I was not disappointed.

Here's 2013's movies.


So I saw 30 of 2012's movies by the time last year's thread went up, but it turns out that's nothing.  To this point I've seen 56 of 2013's movies - too many for me to just want to list here, so I'll direct you all to my list on Letterboxd, which has been a great site for me over the past few months in helping me keep track of things. I'm planning to write a little something about every film I see there from now on.

Anyway, last year was a great year for film, and it's really hard to actually rank my favorites.  That said, there was a clear standout for number 1.

1. Her - Her is the movie I was waiting for, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you all go and see it.  Spike Jonze's masterpiece does what the best science fiction always does: uses technology to shine a light on humanity.  In this case, he uses the story of a man falling in love with an artificial intelligence to show how relationships affect us and how we deal with our partners.  It's a transcendent, beautiful work with masterful performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson.  It's been suggested that a great movie is one that you can't bear the thought of never being able to see again.  For me, Her is such a film, and moreso than anything else released last year.

The rest of my top 10 fills out something like the following, though any number of these specific rankings could change depending on how I feel day to day.

2. 12 Years a Slave - Steve McQueen's unflinching adaptation of Solomon Northup's autobiographical tale of his time as a slave is truly unforgettable.  Whereas last year's Django Unchained rubbed your nose in the evils of slavery like a dog who peed on the rug, McQueen does a more thorough examination of it, by showing how it corrupted the souls of everyone it touched - free man and slave alike.

3. Gravity - The best big effects blockbuster of the year didn't have superheros or giant robots. It had one woman, stranded in space, desperate to survive.  Alfonso Cuaron's incredible ability to film long takes lent Gravity an unmatched degree of immersion, and Sandra Bullock gives the audience a person to identify with and draw them into the unfolding disaster.  While other films did certain things better than Gravity, none could match it for sheer exhilaration.

4. All Is Lost - This movie didn't get a big marketing push, but if you managed to see it you're one of the lucky ones.  All Is Lost is similar to Gravity, in that it is about a lone man's struggle to survive in a sinking boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  But whereas it's primarily the effects that make Gravity as special as it is (though I don't wish to impugn Sandra Bullock), All Is Lost is defined by the nearly wordless performance turned in by Robert Redford.  Redford is now 76, and you can feel every year of it as he does everything he can to try and stay alive.  It's close between him and Joaquin Phoenix for my favorite performance of the year.

5. Upstream Color - Upstream Color is Shane Carruth's long-awaited followup to Primer, and it's well-worth the wait.  In his prior work, Carruth was primarily interested in the dense and intricate plotting of his time travel story.  This new work, by contrast, hides exposition from the viewer, and forces them to deal almost strictly with his characters.  Upstream Color is about recovering from trauma, and about learning to trust again, and about love, and about --- I still don't know everything about it.  And neither will you.  But you should watch it anyway.

6. The Wolf of Wall Street - Martin Scorsese's 3-hour indictment of Wall Street and its culture, and how we let them get away with it.  This film has caused a lot of controversy because it doesn't punish any of its characters for their monstrous behavior, but those people fail to understand that that is the entire point.  Jordan Belfort did monstrous things, and he didn't suffer any serious consequences, and he's still a respected figure.  That's what happened.  And Scorsese and DiCaprio (in one of his career-best performances) make sure you know it.

7. Captain Phillips - I'd always thought of Tom Hanks as one of the better actors around - always dependable to turn in a good performance.  Captain Phillips drove home for me that he's one of the best actors around, and it only took a few minutes near the end to prove it.

8. The World's End - This is possibly the best straight comedy I've ever seen.  It's a heartfelt examination of nostalgia and male friendship, and it's extremely funny.  And dense!  There's so much going on in The World's End that it's probably going to take me several more viewings to pick everything out.

9. Side Effects - Supposedly Steven Soderbergh's last theatrical production - he's sick of dealing with Hollywood - Side Effects starts off looking like one thing and turns into something else and I may already have said too much.  Early screener audiences were begged not to talk about plot details, and they were right not to.  See it.

10. Europa Report - Another great science fiction movie following a doomed manned mission to Europa to search for signs of life.  One of the few times that a found footage conceit has ever really worked, as it tells its story through the point of view of the various cameras on board the craft.  

There were of course other movies I really enjoyed, but I can't go on forever.  What did you see?

[Smmenen]

Yay!  I'll edit this post more comprehensively later, but here are my rough top 5 picks from 2013:

Movies I saw:
Despicable Me 2
The Butler
American Hustle
Iron Man 3
Man of Steel
2 Guns
Spring Breakers
The Hobbit
FF6
Star Trek
Gangster Squad
The Hangover III
Oblivion
Red 2
The Counselor
Some other stuff I don't remember, and my top 5:

5. Anchorman 2

4. Wolf of Wall Street

3. 12 Years a Slave

2. Gravity

1. Fruitville Station


Notes:

American Hustle was very disappointing.  The film was way too self-conscious and could not be saved by great acting.  It suffered from Adaptation syndrome.  

Anchorman 2 was the funniest movie I saw this year, and the most pleasantly surprising.  Will Ferrill's films almost always entertain, but rarely have a deep satirical bite.   This movie is the exception.  Was more Colbert Report than Anchorman 1.

Fruitville Station and Gravity were some of the most quietly elegant films I saw this year.  Both films were superb, and I have difficulty rating one over the other.  

Wolf of Wall Street was utterly hilarious.  Loved it.  

12 Years a Slave was a brilliant film, but, in my opinion, too brutal.  Rather than evoke verisimilitude, I felt that the film was sadistic in its design and intent.  Great narrative.   Great acting, but too much violence.  

FF6 was the worst piece of garbage I've ever seen.  How did that do so well on rotten tomatoes?

Movies I still intend to see:

* Upstream Color
* Mandela
* Before Midnight
* Blackfish (on my netflix queue)

[Klep]

I actually liked American Hustle quite a bit, largely because it was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be.  It was almost certainly the worst of the movies in its category at the Globes Sunday night (though I haven't yet seen Nebraska or Inside Llewyn Davis), but I wasn't surprised to see it win. It's good enough that it's not a completely ridiculous choice, and the Holllywood Foreign Press Association is renowned for having no integrity when it comes to getting the most stars possible to attend. Remember when The Tourist got nominated?  At any rate, Hustle didn't make my top 10, but it definitely would make my top 20.

Fast and Furious 6 was definitely a hot mess with ridiculous plotting that repeatedly took me out of the film, but I have to admit that it did have individual action sequences which were well-executed and thrilling.  The problem that Rotten Tomatoes has is that it basically gives a binary yes/no value to each film, but doesn't measure the intensity of that feeling.  Fast and Furious 6 could get a good score simply by not being offensive enough for anyone to dislike it without being good enough for people to think it's great.

I've never understood the argument about 12 Years A Slave which says that its depiction of slavery is too brutal.  Are you saying that it's inaccurate?  American slavery was one of the most dehumanizing and awful things to happen in human history.  Anything that doesn't depict it as awful and brutal and sadistic is doing us a disservice.  I would argue that if the brutality made you uncomfortable, then Steve McQueen did his job.

One of my biggest disappointments of the year was definitely Man of Steel, which I thought was more or less garbage.  In addition to the character assassination of Superman, it just wasn't a very good movie.  Amy Adams had nothing to do, and the destruction of Metropolis went on forever for no purpose other than (I guess) to show Superman completely failing to save people.

Still, that was by Zack Snyder and I've come to expect missing the point from him.  Star Trek Into Darkness, on the other hand, was a dramatic shift down in quality from Abrams' first outing with the franchise.  In addition to the contrived plotting to make the film better mirror The Wrath of Khan, it was also rather grossly misogynistic.  The new female character - whose name I can't even remember - served no purpose at all except to be seen in her skivvies, and Uhura was reduced to choosing the middle of a mission to start arguing about her relationship.

So Steve, what did you think of Spring Breakers? I'm really curious to hear peoples' opinions of that movie because it was very polarizing.  Personally, I found it to be pretty great, and I loved James Franco's performance.

[Smmenen]

Spring Breakers was strange and entrancing.  I really liked it, but I wouldn't watch it again.  It was like the underside of MTV spring break.  

Re: 12 Years: My problem wasn't that the film was brutal or even too brutal.  My problem was that it felt as if the intent of the filmmakers was *Not* to convey verisimilitude or the experience of slavery, but to shock the audience.  I haven't seen the movie, but the film that came to mind is the german torture film hostel and the Saw films. That's why I said it seemed sadistic.  Every time I point this out to people, they say "well slavery was horrible."  Duh.  that's not my point.  There are ways to show the full horrors of slavery that do not smack of shock tactics or sadism.  

man of Steel gets the award for best trailer, and most squandered potential.  Michael Shannon is an unreal actor (as anyone who watches Boardwalk Empire can attest).  The film was not bad, but it certainly wasn't as good as it could have been. 

Tell me more about HER. 

[Klep]

Her is sheer poetry.  By making one of the two leads an AI, Spike Jonze is able to get us thinking more about the attachments we form to other people and what those attachments mean to us.  After talking with a couple coworkers about it, I've gathered that some people have gotten the impression that it's a Weird Science kind of thing where some super-nerd writes himself a girlfriend, but it's really nothing like that.  Theodore Twombly is by no means an outcast.  He's a little withdrawn, but he has friends, and is respected by his coworkers.  His main problem is that he recently went through a bad breakup and is having difficulty with the idea of signing the divorce papers, let alone moving on with his life.

What gets the movie going is not a decision he makes out of loneliness or desperation - he's not even looking for a new relationship, it's just a consumer with disposable income purchasing the latest new gadget that catches his eye.  He's curious to see what's up.  Ultimately we see him struggle with starting a new relationship while trying to get over the dissolution of an old one.  It's funny at times, sad at times, suspenseful at times, but at all times it feels real.

Joaquin Phoenix is phenomenal as always, but what's really special is Scarlett Johansson's ability to make Samantha's presence felt even though we never see her.  It's really masterful work from her, and it's a shame the Globes wouldn't consider her performance as eligible. 

[A.-1.]

I have a question for you both since you've been active in these films threads throughout the years - How did you experience Gravity? I've never been a fan of 3-D finding it unnecessary and gimmicky. However, I've heard some say that if you watch just one film in 3-D with surround sound, make it Gravity. Is the film that much better when experienced this way that watching it in a normal theater would do it injustice?

[Smmenen]

I have a question for you both since you've been active in these films threads throughout the years - How did you experience Gravity? I've never been a fan of 3-D finding it unnecessary and gimmicky. However, I've heard some say that if you watch just one film in 3-D with surround sound, make it Gravity. Is the film that much better when experienced this way that watching it in a normal theater would do it injustice?

I saw it in non 3-D and while there were some incredible sequences that would have been amazing in 3-D, it was still amazing even in 2-D. 

[Klep]

Is the film that much better when experienced this way that watching it in a normal theater would do it injustice?

Yes. You should see it in 3-D on as big a screen as possible, preferably IMAX.

That said, you should see it in whatever way you can. It's a unique film, and an incredible technical accomplishment.

[A.-1.]

Unfortunately, I live out in the sticks and am not sure where the nearest IMAX theater is located. I'll have to do some research since you both confirmed what others have already told me.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Hrmmm....maybe my bar is too high.

Her was not special...not even great.
Gravity, I had HIGH hopes for....major let down.
FF6 - I didn't car much for any of them, but the series seems to get worse with each making.
IM 3 - not awful, but not as good as 1 or 2 by any stretch
Hobbit - great book, but making it 3 parts is a mistake.  Where they cut out too much good stuff in LotRs, they stretched out fight scenes way too much in the Hobbit to make it max profits over 3 films where it easily could have been one 4 hour film (or less).
Despicable Me 2 - cute, but meh
Monster University - WAY worse than Inc.

I still want to see Side Effects, Anchorman 2, and Wolf of WS.  Tempering my expectations given this year's "Theros" approach to movies.

[Klep]

Iron man 3.
Most marvel movies have the same plot, this one doesn't. Instead it has a weird plot, an impotent superhero and a really disappointing interpretation of The Mandarin.

Considering that the entire movie is about Tony Stark overcoming PTSD, it's pretty fitting that he's left relatively impotent for much of the movie.  He has to rebuild himself, inside and out.

I actually thought the treatment of The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 was quite brilliant and subversive.  The problem that character has in modern culture is that it's always been a version of the awful "yellow peril" racist stereotype from early 20th century pulp comics.  Now, the character isn't as bad as the actual Fu Manchu, and he's an important part of Iron Man's history so writers have worked to find ways to diminish the inherent racism in the concept, but it's always been an uncomfortable undercurrent.


SPOILERS FOR IRON MAN 3


What Shane Black does in IM3, though, is to turn that around on itself.  The Mandarin of IM3's first couple acts is what our society primes us to think of as being a terrorist, and then that's all revealed to be a sham specifically created to play into our own social prejudices.  By revealing The Mandarin to be an artificial character, the movie forces us to question our assumptions about what makes a terrorist.  It's extremely clever, and despite - as a comics fan - wanting The Mandarin to be as menacing on screen as he is in the comics, I was completely delighted by it.

[Thecheese]

Gravity was THE movie for me in 2913. Ive never been so immersed in a movie. My heart was pounding

[DubDub]

I didn't see too many movies this year (or at least not many new ones).  I mostly saw the superhero/scifi movies, though not all of them, I gave the Wolverine and Ender's Game a pass, while seeing the marvel movies and Star Trek etc.  I saw Pacific Rim but skipped Gravity (mostly because I thought Children of Men was a waste of time, which may be an unpopular opinion).

Many movies I saw through HBOGO, and I enjoyed Game Change the most of those.  At the same time however I re-watched a couple of older movies on HBOGO in 2013 that were much better than anything new on display (L.A. Confidential, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are personal faves).

Looking through the list Klep linked to, I'm already planning to go back to 2013 for The Place Beyond the Pines, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

In fact, since my expectations are pretty low for most new movies, I've decided in 2014 to try to watch some classics, especially in genres that I've only realized I enjoy recently.  However, this is fraught with some difficulty of its own: when I found a copy of Out of the Past at my local video store, which is supposed to be a top-10 film noir, it was a VHS tape!

[MaximumCDawg]

I don't see enough movies anymore.  I did see Desolation of Smaug, so I'll add my input here:  it sucks.

The first movie tweaked the book a bit, but did not go too overboard, and some of the changes actually made sense for the big screen.  You could see the development of Thorin, whose world is based on trust, and his growing acceptance of Bilbo.  You know how that trust will be shaken when Biblo gives the arkenstone to Thorrin's enemies to try to avoid war.  The antagonist orc helped tie Thorrin to things we already heard about, like the wars in Moria, without really requiring much change to the plot.  It also differentiated Orcs from Goblins, which was always something of a question mark between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.  Other than that, the extra stuff was pretty much canon anyway.  All good.

Then, Peter Jackson decided to squeeze out a steaming turd for his encore.  He begins by squeezing five chapters of the book, dealing with Beorn and the journey through Mirkwood and away from the Elves, into like fifteen minutes.  Mirkwood was an absolute joke; wander in, get high.  This is perhaps the most important point in the whole damn book, because it established Bilbo as the groups new protector after Gandalf left.  He does this by wearing the Ring when it makes sense, which is Most of the Time, unlike in the movie, where he inexplicably refuses to wear it even when it would make sense to do so. 

And what do we get in exchange for torpedoing all of Biblo's character development?  One line about how he found his courage and a pointless, painful subplot involving an elf who has a dwarf fetish so strong that she abandons everything she's known for centuries in order to chase after one that flirts with her. 

The barrel ride was asinine.  These dwarfs are mostly craftsmen -- only three of them are soldiers in the book --  and they're certainly not superheroes.  Physics be damned, we need a ride at Disneyland!

Ignoring the continuing elf stupidity, Laketown was actually handled pretty well.  They brought out more of the distinction between the Master and Bard, which was fine.  You think things are looking up, and then you get three more diarrhea blasts in the face in quick succession: (1) Hot elf-on-orc action for no good reason; (2) Gandalf the Super Sayian's beam battle with Sauron; and (3) a ludicrous, rube goldberg battle between 13 fat dwarves and a dragon who inexpicably cannot kill them despite depopulating the entire city by his lonesome earlier.  At what cost?  Again, we totally lose Bilbo in the smoke.  You don't get to see him out-thinking Smaug.  You don't get to see him making decision and plans.  You see him talk to Benedict Cumberdragon once, wet himself, and then run into a battle.  Oh, and the character development of Thorrin?  Tossed out the window in favor of MAGIC STONE MAKE THORRIN MAD. 

Words cannot describe how much of a tub of vomit that movie was.  But I've tried.

[Pomaxx]

do TV series count to? no? i dont care

i recently grinded through "Orange is the new Black" and that was about one of the best things i ever watched

oh and yes, the Hobbit 2 pretty much sucked

[Klep]

It seems to me that you focus a lot on how closely it resembles the book. In my opinion a movie (and a book for that matter) needs to be a work of it's own. A movie based on a book is nothing but an interpretation.

Hear hear!  The problem I had with Desolation of Smaug was not the liberties it took with the source material (love geometry excepted), but rather the length and bloat of the film.  The Hobbit ultimately is not that long a story and Peter Jackson's insistence on turning it into a 9-hour epic is really hurting it.  That said, there are a number of really great sequences in it (Smaug in particular is great), and I it was good enough that I enjoyed watching it.


Anyway, I got around to watching The Act of Killing on Netflix yesterday, and it was really good.  It's a documentary about members of Indonesian death squads from the 60s - how they did what they did, how it affected them, and how they have nothing to fear from the authorities.  It's quite chilling.

[Smmenen]

I forgot that I saw the Counselor, and I really liked it.  I was in the minority, but it was probably my 6th favorite film of the year.  
I enjoy Cormac McCarthy's writing, and this film felt literary.

It probably had the craziest scene I saw in a movie all year -- with Cameron Diaz having sex with a car.  Literally.

[Klep]

The Counselor was definitely an interesting film.  I don't think it quite succeeded at what it was going for - notably I think Cameron Diaz's role was a bit outside her range, and the multiple instances of Chekov's Gun were telegraphed pretty obviously - but it deserves credit for pushing boundaries and defying expectations.  It's decidedly uncommercial; where most films would give you a climactic shootout or confrontation, The Counselor gives you a 10 minute philosophical monologue.  It wasn't one of my favorites for the year, but I'm glad it was made and I got to see it.

[quicksilvervii]

Another resounding recommendation for the Wolf of Wall street for those who have not seen it.

Great dark comedy.

Extra bonus/entertaining if you work in Finance.

[Smmenen]

Just watched Her, and holy shit.  Film was entertaining, fascinating and profound.  Far exceeded my expectations. 

[Soly]

Just watched Her, and holy shit.  Film was entertaining, fascinating and profound.  Far exceeded my expectations. 

My Girlfriend is very skeptical about that movie.  She thinks the idea of a human falling in love with a machine is ridiculous.  However, I tend to find the concept of love based 100% on personality and connection to be a highly romantic idea.

[Klep]

Just watched Her, and holy shit.  Film was entertaining, fascinating and profound.  Far exceeded my expectations. 

My Girlfriend is very skeptical about that movie.  She thinks the idea of a human falling in love with a machine is ridiculous.  However, I tend to find the concept of love based 100% on personality and connection to be a highly romantic idea.

The point is that it's not about a human falling in love with a machine.  It's about two people falling in love with each other, and about how their relationship grows and changes as the people involved grow and change.   It's an intensely beautiful movie.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Just watched Her, and holy shit.  Film was entertaining, fascinating and profound.  Far exceeded my expectations. 

If you thought that was good, you should check out the sequel (already on DVD):

Her (and Her, and Her) - available at the curtained section of your local video store.

[Smmenen]

Just watched Her, and holy shit.  Film was entertaining, fascinating and profound.  Far exceeded my expectations. 

My Girlfriend is very skeptical about that movie.  She thinks the idea of a human falling in love with a machine is ridiculous.  However, I tend to find the concept of love based 100% on personality and connection to be a highly romantic idea.

The point is that it's not about a human falling in love with a machine.  It's about two people falling in love with each other, and about how their relationship grows and changes as the people involved grow and change.   It's an intensely beautiful movie.

Actually, that wasn't what I felt was important or profound about the film. 

I found it to be much more a psychological profile of a hyper sensitive man.  It was his personality that was the catalyst for Samantha's evolution.  His hyper emotional sensitivity gave her the relational context for her trajectory. 

The flip side of this profile was the fascinating point that he can't handle real emotions -- and thus his separation from his ex-wife.  He only seeks to placate other people and make them feel better, but that leaves him a befuddled mess.  I've met people like that, so it was a wonder to see this kind of personality deconstructed in such an amazing film profile. 

Ultimately, the same dynamics that plagued his physical relationships infiltrated his AI one, and Samantha and him started running through the same behavioral feedback loops of passive aggressive behavior, distance, and repressed feelings, thoughts, and emotions to the same doomed end.

On a secondarily level, I thought the emergence of Samantha's personality illustrates something suggested by True Detective, the relational and contextual reality of the Self.  Her personality, as noted, was a product of his.  It was made clear that most AIs don't fall in love with their owners.  It seemed to me that this happened because he was such a sensitive man -- his job was writing love letters for christ's sake. 

Then, Jonze put this story in such an immersive futuristic environment that every scene was fascinating.  I found myself scouring each shot for futuristic technology easter eggs.   

Living in the SFO Bay Area, I also thought it was hilarious how he basically made his key cast members hipsters.  I laughed out loud so many times at the appearance/clothing of the main characters.  It was brilliant. 

I was totaly fascinated by Samatha's end point evolution as well. 

[rpf5029]

Sad that I haven't seen any love for Frozen yet. It's brilliant on several levels -- not only due to the excellent score, but also because of the dialogue it opens with the Disney formula.

[Klep]

I found it to be much more a psychological profile of a hyper sensitive man.  It was his personality that was the catalyst for Samantha's evolution.  His hyper emotional sensitivity gave her the relational context for her trajectory. 

That's all in there too.  That's a good sign of a truly great film: that there's so many layers to be unpacked.

[serracollector]

No love for Movie 43? One of the funniest movies I have ever seen.  I never even heard of Her but sounds quite interesting.

[Klep]

No love for Movie 43? One of the funniest movies I have ever seen.  I never even heard of Her but sounds quite interesting.

You are actually the first and only person I have encountered to have positive feelings towards Movie 43.  It was pretty universally reviled by the critical community.

[Klep]

Ok guys so Short Term 12 is on Netflix now and you should all go watch it immediately.  If I had seen it by end-of-year, it would have easily been #5 or #6 on my list.  It's a deeply affecting movie about a group of people who live or work at a group home for disadvantaged kids with an incredible lead performance by Brie Larson.