2013 wasn't a great year for movies. It had a pretty awful summer too, with no release during the hottest months truly capturing the zeitgeist. However, the fall started a series of movies that were both critical hits and made money too. The Academy won't have trouble picking 10 Best Picture nominees from 2013, nor did I have any real difficulty coming up with a 10 Best List.
Now, picking the best amongst such a year’s slate isn’t all
that difficult. My list has a lot of overlap with the lists of most others out
there making up such things. Even so, as I poured over my list, I noticed a
significant trend in my selections. Most of my picks for the year’s best tended
to be very much of the moment, reflecting the mood of our time.
And what is that mood? Loneliness.
I suppose the theme of isolation is reflective of a time
where so many have lost faith in their government, press, church and community.
A time where Facebook passes for friendship, where used car salesmen have
better reputations than our elected officials, where equal rights are still in
question, and banks make record profits while the middle class disappears. Who’s
got our backs? Makes you feel alone, doesn’t it?
It’s all over our movies this year. Robert Redford is the
man against the sea in ALL IS LOST. Chiwetel Ejiofor loses his freedom and
spends 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Joaquin Phoenix dates a computer in HER. No one can be
trusted in AMERICAN HUSTLE. And Leonardo DiCaprio is such an evil broker conning his customers that he's literally able to throw away hundreds in the garbage can in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. This captures our sense of being screwed, of having to fend for ourselves with no 'wingmen', no one looking out for us.
That sensibility can even be found in fluff like WORLD WAR Z where Brad Pitt is the only one who sees what’s going on. It's there in SAVING MR. BANKS where Emma Thompson has to go up against the Disney machine. It's there as Matthew McConaughey can’t even get the appropriate drugs from his own doctors to fight his case of AIDS in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. These films, and so many more, are filled with tales of the lone individual up against a world that just doesn’t seem to give a crap about them.
That sensibility can even be found in fluff like WORLD WAR Z where Brad Pitt is the only one who sees what’s going on. It's there in SAVING MR. BANKS where Emma Thompson has to go up against the Disney machine. It's there as Matthew McConaughey can’t even get the appropriate drugs from his own doctors to fight his case of AIDS in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. These films, and so many more, are filled with tales of the lone individual up against a world that just doesn’t seem to give a crap about them.
There’s no AVENGERS-style “we’re a team, dammit” theme this
year, even though it was so prevalent last year. We’re so polarized today, with
a viciousness driving every news cycle, that it’s no wonder this year’s roster
feels so much darker and desperate.
Yet, it's made for some truly great films. Our despair is good for drama on the big screen. Here then are my picks for the best in film this past year
- a dark lot, true, but nonetheless stunning.
GRAVITY
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron
Of course its special effects were truly spectacular, its
simple yet dramatic story was as poetic as it was powerful, and its star turn
by Sandra Bullock could net her another Oscar. But what made Alfonso Cuaron’s
masterpiece so enthralling for so many, and why it was one of the year’s
biggest critical and box office hits, was the fact that it was truly transporting.
It put you right there, smack dab in the middle of the stars, lost in space. We
shared in the feeling of being alone in the void with Bullock’s astronaut and
her desperate situation completely. She was tethered to nothing except her own
wits, luck, and a hand from God in the form of George Clooney. Her survivalist
tale was the strongest metaphor for a world where few bother to hear you scream
anymore. It is rare that a film can take us out of our world so completely yet
be grounded in it so wholly too. For me, it was the most vivid film experience
of the year.
AMERICAN HUSTLE
Directed by David O. Russell
Written by Eric Singer and David O. Russell
On the surface, this film is a scathing black comedy about
the Abscam scandal from the 1970’s, with a sharp script, A+ production values, costumes
& makeup, and clever performances by Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley
Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. But what David O. Russell’s comedy of manners is
really about is acting - the acting that we all do to get through the day. His
con artists here hustle to make a living, just as we all do, learning how to
pretend, go along, say the right thing to keep our job, marriage and station in
life intact. This is a period piece, but it couldn’t be more about how we all
have to operate today, doing what we can, faking it when needed, due to the
fact that we’re all too often pushing the water uphill on our own. It’s a cheeky,
timely piece. And it’s got the luminous Amy Adams in plunging necklines
throughout. What’s not to love?
HER
Written and directed by Spike Jonze
This love story, between a man (Joaquin Phoenix) and his
computer’s operating system (the voice of Scarlett Johansson), may take place
in the not-too-distant future, but it is
all about today as well. It’s a mournful commentary on our modern society where
people spend way too much time nattering about in their own head.
Writer/director Spike Jonze is examining how we don’t see friends; we see their
exploits on Instagram. We don’t use our phones to talk; we use them to type. We
use ear buds to keep the world out of the concert going on in our minds. We’re losing
the ability to connect. And how cheeky of Jonze to play out his technological
love story with the exact same beats that every relationship goes through - from
the first flush of intimacy to the last sputters of the breakup.
NEBRASKA
Directed by Alexander Payne
Written by Bob Nelson
Alexander Payne’s latest film is shot in black and white,
and it’s as dry and droll as the Midwestern plains captured by Phedon
Papamichael’s austere cinematography. The story is about loneliness, and Payne
knows his pain. Bruce Dern plays Woody, an old coot that believes he’s won a
million dollars, but that’s really just his cover story. What he’s truly after
is some attention. He’s been an afterthought to his family and friends for
decades so he claims he won a sham sweepstakes to get them to take notice. And when
he finally has their attention, he holds his head high and basks in it, knowing
that it may have come late but at least it has arrived.
BLUE IS THE WARMEST
COLOR
Directed by Abedellatif Kechiche
Written by Abedellatif Kechiche, Ghallia Lacroix and Julie
Maroh
Relationships are messy. Living together, sharing a bed,
sharing a bathroom – messy, messy, messy! And breaking up with someone is the
messiest thing of all. It doesn’t matter if your American heterosexuals or
French lesbians, relationships are tough for all of us. And this film by
Abdellatif Kechiche boasts a brutal honesty about love that is rarely captured by
the movies. His two female stars (Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux) play the
lovers and they give this story their all, with emotionally and physically naked
performances that are startling. It’s a detailed and nuanced examination of all
the moments in the trajectory of a relationship, from the very start to the lonely,
bitter end. And it resonates so deeply because we’ve all been there.
THE CONJURING
Directed by James Wan
Written by Chad Hayes and Carey Hayes
This was the year’s best horror movie and it earned its
scares because it's played as so incredibly real. (And without the benefit of
handheld ‘cinema verite’.) Based upon a true paranormal activity story from the
casebook of 1970’s ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, this frightener kept
audiences on the edge of their seats with genuine dread and not cheap scares. Wan expertly dramatized very good people battling very bad demons without laying on blood or gore. And in the end, good does conquer all, but then again, when has the devil ever taken no for his final answer? It sets the stage for sequels and is a potential franchise that has plenty of stories to tell. After all, the Warrens did investigate the Amityville horror.
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Written by Billy Ray
Another tale of survival like GRAVITY, only this one stars Tom Hanks as a barge captain who's kidnapped and ransomed at sea. He’s more
everyman than Navy SEAL and he has little more than his wits as weapons against
the well-armed Somali pirates. Greengrass is superb at tightening the screws and creates a nail-biter here that is all the
more incredible because it really happened. And when Tom Hanks breaks down at
the end, it’s one of the most moving scenes of the year. Trust me. See it and you'll be
sobbing too.
BLUE JASMINE
Written and directed by Woody Allen
Cate Blanchett plays a Manhattan society dame,
down-on-her-luck after her shyster businessmen husband left her virtually
penniless. She shows up at her sister’s crappy apartment in San Francisco, looking for a place to stay, and soon is driving everyone around her bonkers. She resists all opportunities of kindness that come her way and keeps
everyone at arms length. She chooses her own loneliness. And at the end she's got no one, not even herself as she's gone 'round the bend. It shouldn’t be funny but it
is because Woody Allen is a biting social critic. He reinterprets Blanche Dubois and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with this film that sticks it to all those in the 1% who think that the rest of us have created our own woe in the world today.
THIS IS THE END
Directed by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg
Written by Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg and Jason Stone
Just because actors in Hollywood are rich and live like
kings doesn’t make them special. That’s the lesson that James Franco, Seth
Rogan and their Tinsel Town cronies all come to realize after the Apocalypse
and they’re left waiting for the rapture. This was the most uproarious comedy
of the year, yet it wasn’t mindless frat house high jinks. Instead, Rogan and Goldberg
shrewdly take the piss out of our celebrity culture by indicting not only the
celebrities but the celebrity culture and press that invests too much into
everything a Kardashian does when there are so many more important things going
on in the world outside L.A.
PRISONERS
Directed by Denis Villenueve
Written by Aaron Guzikowski
Two children are kidnapped on Thanksgiving and not enough is
done to find them by the authorities, so macho dad Hugh Jackman takes the law
into his own hands by kidnapping the number one suspect. It’s an ugly film
about coerced justice and the gloomy look of it was perfectly suited to the story.
Everything is ashen, from the stark locations to the gray skies to the distraught
faces of its impressive cast (Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Maria Bello, Terrence
Howard, Viola Davis and Melissa Leo). Again, the themes of helplessness and loneliness play
throughout this taut and tense thriller, the most disturbing one of the year.
And, for the record, I also must mention that DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, BLACKFISH, ENOUGH SAID, SPRING BREAKERS, STOKER, MAMA, THE GREAT GATSBY, ALL IS LOST, THE BLING RING, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, RUSH, THE BOOK THIEF and ABOUT TIME all struck me as quite special too.
And, for the record, I also must mention that DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, BLACKFISH, ENOUGH SAID, SPRING BREAKERS, STOKER, MAMA, THE GREAT GATSBY, ALL IS LOST, THE BLING RING, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, RUSH, THE BOOK THIEF and ABOUT TIME all struck me as quite special too.
So, those are my choices. What are yours? And Happy New Year
to you, my followers and here’s to the coming year at the Cineplex.