This is part one of our adventure, that like Peter Jackson, I thought would be better in cut in half. Oh, and that movie is nowhere on the list. And I promised I won't cut it into thirds at the last second.
I know 23 seems like a lot. This started as a top 15 but I
felt there were still films of note to give some props to. So there is still a
top 15 with a lead up of good movies you should check out beforehand. This
wasn’t a great year. A lot of ground rule doubles and triples. This year
Hollywood was Billy Beane and basically Moneyball’d its way to relevance. Let’s
begin.
10 YEARS
A sorrowfully non-promoted film that was probably only in
theaters for a week with an ensemble and premise that didn’t exactly have the box office albatross quality of AMOUR.
Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Ari Graynor and Andy from PARKS
& RECREATION (among others) all gather back at their own hometown for their
10 year high school reunion. Funny and poignant, it stands up there as a decent
entry to one of my favorite subgenres, the One Night Only movie. Movies
happening over the course of one night. Also it features an awesome cover of
Tonight, Tonight by Passion Pit. Rent it, please.
FLIGHT
A lot has been said about the plane crash that Denzel
Washington’s substance abusing pilot character gets out of that spurns the
events of FLIGHT, but it’s the intense emotional build up to one of the final
scenes that blew me away. It’s refreshing to have Robert Zemeckis make good movies
again and not spend years putting Jim Carrey’s face on a freaky looking candle.
MAGIC MIKE
I think this will go on as one of the most criminally
misunderstood movies of our age.
It was a big hit because ladies filled our local theaters drunk off
their duff because they thought they were going to see a strip show. Men stayed
away because we are still not secure in our sexuality. If either of them had
cleared the crust from their eyes, they would have been treated to an awesome
throwback to 70’s new Hollywood cinema that is shockingly not Tarantino. It even had the
Warner Bros. worm logo. It even had the Warner Bros. worm logo… I guess having the best marketing campaign of the year didn't help things.
CLOUD ATLAS
The Wachowski people have a lot of red in their ledger. They
botched one of the most universally loved franchises of recent times. But in
the midst of Powerade tie-ins and video game companion pieces, and all other
manner of studio infused merchandise were bold ideas. Ideas that were not
afraid to fail (and they often did). Here, they are offered without pretense
and allowed to be weird on their own merit and even after the lights came up, it ended up
sticking with me muchly. They somehow managed to craft a movie that was
impervious to boredom and that’s only one of the gems left to discover in this
massive multiplayer online role playing game of a movie.
DAMSELS IN DISTRESS
Films are rarely made about teenagers that don’t exploit the
angst and sexual discovery for emotional manipulation. Here you won't find anyone solving
crimes or finding treasure. DAMSELS chooses to focus on the innocence and
optimism of being an the adult but not really that we all were at the wise old age of 19 and the hilarious naiveté that we all
purposefully forget but secretly want back. Greta Gerwig continues to elevate the material she's in.
SLEEPWALK WITH ME
One of the best films about stand up comedy ever made.
Highlighting the wonder of booking a gig and staying in a shitty motel room and
eating horrible local pizza like it was a victory. Showing the efforts of a
comedian’s act going from legitimately terrible to legitimately funny and all
the troubles of the road that corrupt the show biz performer. Lots of movies
and television shows have a hard time when they have to show off the talent of
a character with the exceptionable hype they build up. What you get is
often subpar but here it is genuine. And it managed to not demonize the lead
when his path leads to darker actions because of how well it makes you like him
in the beginning. Quite a feat. For some reason I have to give major kudos to Mike Birbiglia for coming up with a name for his character that sounds exactly as confusing as his while not being his.
PEOPLE LIKE US
Impossible to decipher with trailers and any sort of plot
summary. Chris Pine plays a man
who discovers that his father secretly had a daughter played by Elizabeth Banks with another family and his attempts to get to know her without
actually telling her who he is. Sounds cheesy and dumb but it’s just a good
example of writing and performances and one of the most tear jerking
embarrassing moments for me with it’s final moments. Again, by
appropriately earned build up. I only saw it because it was by the STAR TREK guys and what a reward I got. No rewards for the public, who didn't see it. Nanny nanny boo boo.
STARLET
The second amazing dramatic film that no one has seen from
the creators of GREG THE BUNNY. A young girl lives in the valley and purchases
an item at a yard sale from a crotchety old woman and finds ten thousand
dollars in it. Trying to determine whether or not the old woman deserves to
keep it, she strikes up a relationship with her which is no easy feat. You’ll
never watch it, but the movie unfolds from here as each of their pasts slowly
starts to reveal themselves to each other and a common and yet unsettling human
truth is revealed by the time the credits roll. The ending was so moving and I needed to discuss it with SOMEONE, but alas therein lies the burden of seeing tons of movies that no one else wants to. I resorted to emailing online movie reviewers that saw the movie. Thanks, Capone at Ain't It Cool News.
THE REAL DEAL:
15: THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES
One of the richest families in the country attempted to
build the most expensive private residence in the US. Their vast fortune came
from the husband’s company Westgate, largest seller of timeshares to the
American people. Then 2008 happened and the housing market collapsed. And the
poetic justice of having a half built palace that was too expensive to complete
yet too boorish to sell off is well documented. It’s kind of hard to feel bad
for millionaires but you get to know the wife and family so well and see that she’s not
that different than any other mother heading a household that you’re left
flummoxed when you actually feel bad for her getting rid of all the Grecian
antiques she had planned to fill her home with. Films offer us views of lives
and people we will never know. The real trick is getting the viewer and the
subject on the same level, no matter where the point of origins come from. This
one pulls off one of the hardest versions of that trick.
14. LOOPER
Rian Johnson is a genius. His previous two films, BRICK and
THE BROTHERS BLOOM harken back to films that haven’t been made in decades.
That’s not a bad thing but mainstream success eluded him. When this happens,
your chances of making more movies gets slimmer and slimmer each time. With
LOOPER, he finally got the right logline to get Sony to dump money into and the
world finally gets in on the fun. A lot has been said of the logistics
of time travel. There are many sci-fi nerds out there that swear by one of any
number of different theories. But it’s important to remember one pivotal thing.
Time travel does not exist. Therefore, it doesn’t have to stand to any
scrutiny. To focus on that, is to distract yourself from the real theme of
fate. In LOOPER, a young man comes into contact with the older version of
himself. Being that they are both in different places in their lives, their
agendas are completely different and have come into conflict with each other. In
the middle of it all, is a small boy who’s destiny could conceivably go on to
become a very powerful form of evil. LOOPER forms great characters with great
performers, an exciting setting that enhances the plot and raises a lot of good
questions. First and foremost being, why do they call shotguns blunderbusses?
13. COMPLIANCE
Based on the true story of a small town McDonald’s who’s
manager was called by someone identifying themselves as the police and made
them do a forced strip search on a young female employee. It’s weird that the
best nudity is often in the most creepy of circumstances in the most fucked up
of movies. It ALMOST takes all the fun out of it. If this wasn’t a very
detailed and surprisingly accurate reenactment of a real event, you’d dismiss
this as bullshit. No one would ever go as far as these characters did just
because a vague shadow of authority was telling them to do so. But they did. Horrifyingly so.
12. 2 DAYS IN
NEW YORK
Julie Delpy writes, directs
and stars in the story of a French woman and her husband (Chris Rock) dealing
with a visit from her zany French family, included is her real father and
sister. As it stands, Delpy’s character has become Americanized enough that
when a wave of French whimsy invades her life, not even she is ready for it.
This is a sequel to 2 DAYS IN PARIS that features the same characters but none
of the joy or comedy. I guess even the French are at their best when they are
somewhere else being intensely French. That’s the only way to appreciate the
Frenchness.
11. HOPE SPRINGS
Here’s where the two best performances of the year lie.
Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep play a couple who have been married for
decades and the wife is finally realizing that some drastic intervention is
needed if she is to ever feel fulfilled by her relationship again. Tommy Lee
Jones who woodenly got through his 10 minutes in MEN IN BLACK 3 plays the perfect
stubborn curmudgeon that is completely content with his stagnant ways and finds
all manner of spicing up the marriage to be offensive and disingenuous. It
takes a lot to keep up with the chameleon known as Streep, and even more to
outdo her. But she rises to the challenge and you get the feeling that you’re
creepily watching one of a million marriages in this situation. What was
marketed as a romantic comedy is really more of a light drama driven by
character and performance rather than accidentally opening up a glove
compartment that a rabid hamster flies out of. Steve Carell would have been
good as the hamster though.
Tune in Christmas 2013 for the exciting conclusion!
- D
