Boy was this year a doozy. So much so that I took it upon myself to double-up on my trips to the theater and go to multiple films solo just to make them all in time. My love for film aside, many critics and movie-goers alike noted that this year has been something of a golden year for film. While many years have passed with only a dozen or so Oscar-worthy films breaking the surface, this year has garnered dozens and dozens of films easily worthy of Oscar gold. I could spend paragraphs discussing my thoughts on the competition, my weigh-in on who I think will take the ranks this year, but I'd rather share with you my favorite films of the year. Some of these movies are a tad impromptu, and while I saw a lot of the best films of the year do note that I missed out on some gems, (or so I hear).
Blue is the Warmest Color, Captain Phillips and
Her are three films that are not being snubbed, I just didn't make them in time! That being said, enjoy what I put together. As always criticism is welcome.
15. Blackfish is probably the most popular documentary of the year and also the most important. Going into
Blackfish I expected something more of a sympathy-driven tearjerker and was taken completely by surprise to see a riveting analysis of a major corporate ploy.
Blackfish starts off on the subject of the agitation of confined Orcas and explores the lies that put those animals into the tanks in the first place, and on a much more interesting note the multi-layered lie that SeaWorld has developed to keep these animals. All the while burying the actual facts and the eventual tragedies that came with keeping these violent animals entrapped. It's really great documentary filmmaking to boot.
14. Spring Breakers is a movie I'm never not going to get shit on for liking. Yes it's all just one giant music video. Yes it's probably the dirtiest, ugliest, most disjointed narrative film of the year. Yes the only person acting in the entire movie is James Franco. And that being said, it's goddamn hypnotic stuff. There are scenes in this movie that I won't ever forget, including the sun-bleached opening of spring breakers being drenched in beer to the sounds of Skrillex. While the use of repetition annoyed a lot of the film's audience, it really shined when moments of tension were repeated for the sake of building up to some of the more dramatic scenes of the film, making the movie feel at times it was throwing its viewers through a vicious cycle. Spring break foreverrr.
13.
This is the End is one of those great movies where you end up questioning whether you had more fun or
The End it doesn't matter. With an almost unbelievable bevy of comedians doing things you would never have imagined seeing (Michael Cera's cameo anyone?),
The End plays most of its laughs off of the brilliance of its cast and their performances. The general story however, without spoiling anything, drives itself down a much heavier and self-deprecating plot that really peels back the layers on Hollywood and the Apocalypse scare in general. That being said, it's never too mature to avoid the occasional dick-joke.
This is the End is about a joke a second, and while not every joke was a hit, I can't say I laughed harder at any other movie this year.
12. All is Lost in the latest film by J.C. Chandor a newcomer director who took the wheel on one of the most astonishing film accomplishments of the year. Hollywood is no stranger to the castaway story. In fact the amount of films released per year featuring an A-list actor out of his/her element is almost exhausting at this point. So
All is Lost manages to pull off telling a great story following the same general set-up and still manage to pull out some key tools to reinvent the genre. And its primary tool is the very seasoned Robert Redford, pulling out an incredibly physical and emotionally demanding performance nobody would've denied he had in him but is still moving to see at his age. This could be an Oscar-winning performance for him. The rest of the film manages to excite and perplex, with tons of mysteries and challenges arising without any dialogue or unnecessary plot exposition thrown in the mix to drag the simple storytelling down. At the end of the day, will the film be remembered any more than Redford's portrayal of its unnamed character, and the larger message it presents about the importance of our older performers? Probably not, but you gotta respect a movie that knows to let its true captain take the reins.
11. The Rambler is both grossly underrated, and also flat-out gross.
That's what I originally summed up about the biggest head-scratcher of the Milwaukee Film Festival (MFF) this year, a festival I was lucky enough to attend for many of its showings. The last showing I caught
Rambler, a road-trip movie in the most surreal stretch of that genre. Let's just say there are films that claim to weirdness and others that flat out commit. David Lynch would be proud (assuming he's yet to see it). The movie starts with Dermot Mulroney, it's mostly silent guitar-wielding, ex-con protagonist, who's about the closest to a normal character in the film you'll get. He's made witness to many strange encounters and occurrences: from a bar fight with a man with a literal left hook (in the form of a hooked hand) to a doctor doing his best to get his dream-viewing machine to work despite its habit of causing the subjects' brains to explode. The movie also dabbles in a mysterious romance that plummets deep down the rabbit hole without ever boring the viewers. Is it confusing? Yes, it's also really fucked up. I may not have a complete grasp on my interpretation of the story (my buddy Michael Viers has got a pretty good one) but I went away from it entertained and repulsed. And if that ain't cinema I don't know what is.
10. You're Next is a part of one of my favorite film movements at the moment: Mumblegore cinema. If you don't know what Mumblegore is first of all shame on you and secondly Google it or something. A lot has already been said about the genre and its modern day presence so I'm just going to go ahead and explain why I love this movie.
Directed by Adam Wingard and starring a ton of young horror film directors including Joe Swanberg and Ti West, the movie is basically Independent Horror Heaven. The movie's dark and edgy, with a twisty story that transcends the home-invasion tropes it begins with. The movie also benefits from the strength of its female lead played by Sharni Vinson, who refuses to become a victim despite the genre's unfortunate habit of dumbing down its female leads. Sharni's character kicks enough ass to make up for decades of underwritten female characters. The film sadly did not make nearly as big of a ripple as it should because of its late summer release. It was released shortly after
The Conjuring, smart and heady in its own right, but because of that it was pretty forgotten by the end of the year. Don't let that steer you away from what I think personally is a much stronger horror film. It's got a hell of a bite.
9. American Hustle is one of the most legitimately entertaining films of the year, and its a film teeming with fake schemes and cons. It's a movie coated in period detail with the finest amount of detail that probably required its designers and editors to go over it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure everything was perfect. Movies like these feel the most legitimate, you can tell David O. Russell wanted the feeling of the 70's era to trigger nostalgia in even its viewers too young to know anything about the decade.
The plot of the film starts about as simple as the small time cons the two leads are pulling off (played by Christian Bale and Amy Adams) and then grows into an out of control spiral when groups such as the FBI, IRS and eventually mob get tied up pushing the characters into binds. The journey of these characters is also often quite comedic, because frankly none of these people are too like-able and the actors playing them are giving their best performances showing them melt and squirm under the rising pressure. My personal favorite performance was probably Bradley Cooper's as the lead detective "in charge" of the two con-artists, whose coolness in the field eventually breaks with his desperation and hilariously uncontrolled lust for Adams. There is no fear in the ridicule suffered by these actors, and it makes for an entertaining and speedy two plus hours. On top of that
Hustle totes one of the best soundtracks of the year, some incredible cinematography by Russell and the award of the best hair-styling of the year.
8. Ain't Them Bodies Saints is the best film I had the pleasure to catch this year at the MFF.
I had the pleasure to meet the film's director and screenwriter as well, David Lowery, a newcomer who hit the ground running with this film and explained his story which included the opportunity to work with heavyweights Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck. It's a rare story to hear; a great film was made by a brand new director who managed to make an incredible Independent feature with enough buzz to be one of the most talked about movies of the year. The film is Americana to its bones, with quietly brilliant performances by Mara, Affleck and Ben Foster as the films crossed heroes and antiheroes. Lowery mentioned wanting his film to feel like an old song, or tale, so that it has the feeling of timelessness. He accomplishes that confidently. The movie takes its characters through a story that separates its two criminally wanted lovers by years and miles, and tells that story elegantly, relying on powerful imagery and the unspoken scenes between its characters primarily. The movie's mood changes from melancholy to haunting and eventually the dangerous sense of doom that's heralded by traditionally evil bounty-hunter characters introduced. Some might argue that these characters are unnecessary and I wouldn't disagree. But that's a compliment to a film that manages to carry itself so gracefully with its themes that it feels not just timeless, but classic.
7. Drinking Buddies would probably fall under the term "indie-darling", which tends to seem like a label thrown on fine, breezy Independent films that are easily forgotten.
Drinking Buddies has a lot of the conventions and cast to qualify for this title, but there's nothing forgettable about this film that edged its way easily into my top ten.
The movie stars two TV actors, (Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson), who step out of their small-screen comfort zones and give two of the most natural performances I've seen all year. I mean these guys make it look easy. The movie follows a plot so un-cliche that it knocked me back a few times in surprise and kept me hooked until the end. The story involves the two lead characters teetering on the edge of romance because of their questionably close friendship that always seems to circumstantially avoid any sort of hookup. The two grind at the audience with judgmental mishaps and moments of social weakness that leave the characters so confused that the idea of even their own friendship becomes foreign to them before too long. I won't delve into the plot specific moments but there's a fantastic scene in the movie that's one of the most literal take on Murphy's Law affecting a simple day's task I've ever seen on the screen. It's realistic pain. Sometimes the movie is almost too much to watch, but because of the likeability of the characters its never a chore.
Drinking Buddies is one of the biggest surprises of the year. An Indie gem of a movie that you're guaranteed not to forget.
6. Inside Llewyn Davis is the latest film by the Coen Brothers, and that should be enough said to make you go. Alright, it's more than that. It's one of the best Coen Brother's movies in years, maybe their best movie since
O Brother! There are certainly a ton of similarities between the two. With a soundtrack worked on by T. Bone Burnett (and produced by Marcus Mumford)
Davis is a movie about music told by the some of the most knowledgeable musicians on the big-screen and off. I've never considered myself a huge Mumford and Sons fan, but if there was any question as to whether Marcus Mumford knew his way around a folk song before that myth's been deflated.
Taking a note from the decision to cast a nobody (positively speaking) in
A Serious Man, Oscar Isaac is the actor chosen to play the lead Llewyn. Some may play of his performance as too slight or unimpressive to carry the weight of the movie, but pay no attention. Isaac wears weariness on his face from the first minute of the film when he's on stage performing a folk song for a decently engaged audience and all the way downhill from there. The movie is very much so a Coen Brothers film in that its dark and dreary while maintaining its black comedy through moments of worse and worse luck for Llewyn. Isaac kind of floats around each of the movie's many characters, keeping a mask of disinterest and avoiding engagement with anyone who isn't trying to help him back on the stage where he feels he belongs. He's a solo man cut tragically short from a life including a home, loved one and on-stage partner. The movie keeps the comedy light to stay focused on its heavier themes and the changing landscape of the folk genre. It's a tragedy, but its also a love letter to folk music. It's a record that won't gather dust.
5. The Spectacular Now just feels like your adolescence and high-school was recorded and is being repeated in front of a larger audience.
Okay it's not quite that awkward. But it's definitely rough viewing.
Now is an adaptation of a fantastic YA novel by the same name, something of a cautionary tale to young readers about the high risk of a high-school romance. I'm rarely one to say that a movie is better than its book counterpart, but
Now manages to pull off that feat in my opinion. The story is about a young stud by the name of Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) who has his game down among the party crowd of his school and small town. He's not doing well in his classes and he's got his fair share of problems at home, but simply put, he's popular. Where boring, plain Aimee (Shaileene Woodley) comes into this story is not by intention, but by the accident of Sutter literally stumbling into her yard and waking from a night of heavy drinking. And from then on, the two gravitate towards another, for all the wrong reasons.
Miles Teller plays Sutter as the wildcard he is, and while the book delves into the psychological reasoning behind his decision to romance the nobody from his school, the film leaves an air of mystery to it. Shaileene Woodley bravely plays a character who's masked by awkwardness and is fair out of Sutter's league. The movie examines their relationship as a metaphor for the fading temporariness of high-school and the friendships lost after it ends. Sutter symbolizes something innocent in intention and yet extremely dangerous. He loves living in the spectacular now, not thinking about school or what comes after the highs (both natural and substance-abused) end. Aimee on the other hand represents the often unrealistic idea of preserving the future while trying to hold onto a partner who has no potential to join her in that future. The film is rarely funny, and usually painfully realistic. But that's a good thing. It's an Independent film that manages to tell one of the truest stories about high-school ever. It's wild, romantic, messy and sometimes ugly. Just like high-school.
4. The Wolf of Wall Street is Martin Scorcese's return to form in the gangster genre.
It's not even a gangster film. Well not in the literal sense. The film retells the original Goodfellas-esque tale: "All my life I wanted to be a gangster". Just substitute gangster for stock-broker and all the onscreen violence for the implied violence of the dog-eat-dog setting of Wall Street. Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his best performance to date), is a gangster down to his heart, and he's constantly pulling the trigger on deals and schemes to get himself and his "misfit gang" of brokers to the top. And in the style of on-screen asides and inner-monologue, Belfort explains to us that nothing he's doing is legal, or particularly justified, it's just getting him richer. And that's the point. Leonardo DiCaprio struts, dances and even crawls through his performance with ease, oozing scummy charisma and absolutely encapsulating the role even when the character becomes the wolf.
Wolf is an absolute thrill-ride. It's already been categorized as Scorcese's longest film, but it doesn't feel anything like three hours. Within the lengthy running-time, Scorcese crams enough drug abuse and sex to give the entire MPAA an overdose (the movie fought for its R-rating.) And that's the point. The film has beem criticized with untrue allegations that it defends Wall Street or Belfort by using black comedy and showing gratuitous scenes of their antics in a fast, funny light. Scorcese certainly has taken some of his biggest risks with this film, pushing the envelope on decency itself with some of the movie's most shocking moments. But the film offers no sympathy for its characters and doesn't turn away from any of their ugliness. If you're disgusted by Belfort after the credits role, Marty's done his job. Kudos to Scorcese, after decades of owning the genre, to be able to crank out a film that can still push the envelope as much as Wolf does. I think that earns a round of applause.
3. Before Midnight takes place nearly a decade after the events of
Before Sunset, Richard Linklater's second film in his now classic relationship trilogy.
Before Midnight also may be the strongest of the three. Without a doubt
Midnight manages to be the broadest, with a more traditionally filmed style that varies from its one-location, two-character format of the first two films.
doesn't shy away from the beauty of its Grecian setting for a minute, letting the film's couple, (famously played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) walk through its plazas and gardens and coasts. The relationship is what's far from beautiful at this point in the trilogy, tragically. Here are two characters who met on a train twenty years prior, falling in love within
Before Sunrise's real-time focus on one day of their lives out of country.
Before Sunset flirts at the possibility of second chances, looking at the couple nine years after their original brief fling and questioning whether they've grown up since or just grown away from their original desires. Within the day and similar shooting style of
Sunset, the two reveal as much about their lives if not more than we would get in any other romance film. It's the highest form of romance you'll get from film.
Fast forward to
Before Midnight, a perfectly scripted movie that bravely decides to lose the format of the first two and puts the couple together (at last?) and on their honeymoon in Greece. After watching the first two films, seeing the similarities and passions that these two characters share, and the forbidden nature of their idea of a romance despite their outside responsibilities,
Midnight could have played off as the satisfying celebration of their decision to settle down with one another. But Linklater brilliantly deconstructs the idea of a forbidden romance finally consummated. He creates the disaster honeymoon out of the original perfect couple. It's also one hundred percent accurate. It realistically pines the two and their flaws against each other, weathered by the concept of time and age. And Hawke and Delpy, who have aged considerably themselves, fit perfectly into these roles of tired lovers that they become the characters. The honeymoon period is over, and life caught up.
2. Gravity is the reason I started writing a movie blog in the first place. Chances are you may have already read my essay on the importance of catching the film in the theatres, and I've written endlessly on my take on the movie along with my original title of it being the best film of 2013. Unfortunately it's been knocked down a notch, but that's not an insult to the movie or a complaint of how it holds up upon second or third viewings.
Gravity is an instant classic. It's simply the best science fiction movie made in years.
Gravity doesn't attempt to follow any standard narrative. Much like
All is Lost it breaks a lot of rules of storytelling, and suffers its protagonist without the use of flashback or over-laden exposition. That's not to say that Dr. Ryan Stone (played Sandra Bullock who's born for this role), isn't given a story on Earth. Her story is just of a much more desolate nature; her only daughter has passed away and she has next to nothing to live for. So why should she fight when gravity and the powers of the universe themselves seem hell-bent on killing her?
Gravity beautifully and thrillingly answers those questions and creates one of the greatest survival stories ever brought to the big screen.
Visually speaking, Gravity takes the cake for the year's best film. Alfonso Cuaron has never shied away from taking on more varied and complicated projects and
Gravity feels like his turn to win an Oscar for direction. The film starts on an extended almost twenty minute long single take that is choreographed so perfectly it seems like Cuaron is teasing us with his technical skill. The visual effects themselves have led plenty of critics and fans to jokingly wonder if the movie itself wasn't shot in space. While some critics have applied science to their reviews and poked holes into a few of the scenes take on astrophysics, even the harshest trolls couldn't deny that the team behind this film had done their research. It's thrills far outweigh is few inaccuracies.
And underneath the special effects showcase of thrills and near-misses that make Gravity the "over-to-soon" roller-coaster ride it is lies a performance that I can almost guarantee will win Sandra Bullock an Academy Award this year. I've never been the biggest fan of her work, and simply never gave in to believe she had the acting chops to carry a dramatic performance like this one, but I've been proven one hundred percent wrong. She owns this role. Every panicked breath, scream and tear is absolutely felt to the core. If Bullock decides to quit acting after this role, her career will be idolized by this final incredible bow. But for the sake of Hollywood let's hope this incredible woman doesn't let go.
Which finally brings me to...
1. 12 Years a Slave is the best film of 2013 and one of my new personal favorite films of all time.
It showed be clarified that I rarely classify a film as perfect or flawless. 12 Years a Slave is as close to a flawless film as I've seen all year. It's a movie experience, and its by far the most important film of the year. The film was directed by Steve McQueen, a fairly new African-American director who has already earned the title of one of the best directors currently working. His first two films Hunger and Shame both brought light to the struggles of their protagonists; Hunger followed the Irish Hunger Strike, while Shame documented a man fighting his sex addiction. Neither of these movies hit quite as hard as 12 Years though, a movie that felt like a really personal project for the director. 12 Years pulls off the feat of being the best film ever made on the subject of slavery, but also manages to portray the events in such a way that doesn't guilt its audience or make too many judgments. This is an unexpected and difficult task for a film of this matter, but 12 Years is far more beautiful than it is ugly, and while it contains some of the nastiest characters I've seen in a film in years, it balances them with those who fight for freedom and keeping peace. Even the violence and torture of the film (which is present and rough) is never used for the sake of exploitation, and is filmed in such a way that makes it so you won't be able to turn away. Your stomach may turn, but your brain will be hooked.
In an all-star cast, these characters are plentiful, with actors including Paul Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt to name a few showing up and representing both the bad and the good side of the upper-class in the era. Meanwhile the movie is heralded by a heart-wrenching turn from Chiwetel Ejiofor, playing the lead character based on an actual slave: Solomon Northup. Nothing is crueler than seeing Ejiofor, a handsome young actor, become weathered and hurt and broken physically and emotionally as the film goes on. I can't imagine any of the scenes in the film being shot out of order simply because the physical appearance and emotions that Ejiofor wear as the film goes on are so visibly damaged. It's rough, but even rougher for the newcomer Lupita Nyong'o who plays Patsey. Patsey is the hero of the film, and her actor beautifully depicts this young enslaved woman caught in between the passion of her owner Edwin (played viciously by Michael Fassbender) and the hate of his wife. Her cries out for mercy are somehow less disturbing then the moments she says nothing and hides within a shell of detachment from her oppression.
On top of its bleak performances comes the balance of soft, beautiful imagery of the Southern surroundings the film is set within. The marshes, plantations and fields are shown to be incredibly still and at peace while the slavers are away and nobody is inhabiting them. It's so effective that the setting of the film becomes its own character, and a cruel one. The heat beats down on the slaves and owners alike that the audience will start to feel dehydrated just watching certain scenes. On top of that is a simplistically used soundtrack that only builds up to match the doom of the narrative and otherwise stays quiet so not to drown out any of the dialogue. Steve McQueen puts us there, even more so than we feel there during the duration of Gravity. We are a witness to the harsh reality of something that is blown so realistically and unflinchingly onto the big screen that we cannot avoid the truth of it. But the point is not to condemn the present for the wrongs of this past, or try to make the audience members feel like the bad guys. The point is to tell this amazing story of freedom through a perfectly casted, impeccably shot powerhouse of a movie, while meanwhile shedding light on this horrible period. I've made my own personal judgment after leaving the theater: 12 Years a Slave is a masterpiece.
And that wraps it up! I took a lot of time revising and rethinking about my decisions on this list and I'm pretty settled on my final rankings. This post took many-a-hour to write, but it got me juiced to start blogging again weekly, so please if you enjoyed this, comment, like it or share it so I can be motivated to keep on keeping on. Thanks!!
