Year in Review: Zach's Top Ten Films of 2013

            Hollywood boasted that 2013 was its best year for movies ever, but because this claim is almost entirely predicated on higher ticket prices rather than actual attendance figures (as well as the timely overlooking of numerous high-profile box office flops), the issue isn’t really about how much money was made, but rather, why people continue to go to the movies.  The answer depends entirely on the movie.  If you ask why people went to see Gravity (#7 highest grossing movie of 2013), the answer is: “Because audiences were awestruck by its groundbreaking 3D special effects.”  If you ask why people saw Iron Man 3 (#2 highest grossing movie) and Despicable Me 2 (#3), the answer is: “Because audiences loved the first one.”  If you ask why people saw Frozen and Oz: The Great and Powerful (#4 and #10, respectively), the answer is: “They are wholesome movies for the family.”  And if you ask people why they saw The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the answer is: “Jennifer Lawrence.”

            So special effects, franchises, family appeal, and star power lay at the heart of most of 2013’s most successful films.  But if that was the case, why did The Lone Ranger fail so spectacularly?  By my count, it meets for three of those four aforementioned qualifiers (and whether Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Tonto is a significant departure from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is debatable).  Yes, it got bad reviews . . . but so did Man of Steel (#5 of 2013) and Oz: The Great and Powerful (#10). 

            My theory?  People didn’t see The Lone Ranger (myself included) because there was always a better option.  Why spend two hours and 29 minutes of your life watching a glorified mashup of Pirates of the Caribbean and Wild Wild West?  In that same amount of time, you could watch the Breaking Bad finale, an episode of Girls, every scene of Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle, most of Frozen, Bound 3, and the magnificent uninterrupted opening shot from Gravity.  I’m not necessarily suggesting that movies need to be shorter, but with the proliferation of personal electronic devices and social media, audiences simply don’t have the patience to sit through boring, perfunctory movies like The Lone Ranger anymore.  Even in movie theaters, where social decorum once existed and has now grossly eroded, the cell phone has now frequently become the superior entertainment option.  Social media has not only replaced human interaction, but even the process of escaping to the cinema to avoid human interaction (this idea may reappear somewhere on my list).

            All of this is really a roundabout way of saying there were a lot of good movies in 2013, and instead of lambasting the industry for continuing to put out crap and expecting audiences to shell out extra money for tickets and 3D gimmicks, we should laud filmmakers for being able to put out a handful of movies that not only entertain us, but manage to keep us off our cell phones.  We are an ADHD generation, and in order to grab the attention of audiences, movies are forced to revert to two options: (A) Enhanced explosions and mindless special effects, or (B) Screenplays, actors and filmmakers that continually strive for originality, fearlessness and intelligence.  My choice of the top ten films of 2013 -- the first year of many without the sage guidance of Roger the Great -- reflects films which opted for the latter.

Films seen: 51

“Thumbs-up” percentage: 64.7%

Lead Actor Performance: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

Lead Actress Performance: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color

Supporting Actor Performance: Ryan Gosling, The Place Beyond the Pines

Supporting Actress Performance: June Squibb, Nebraska

Underrated Films: To the Wonder, Pain & Gain, Jack the Giant Slayer, Don Jon

Overrated Films: The Wolf of Wall Street, The Way Way Back, The Spectacular Now, 42

Worst Movies of 2013: Broken City, Movie 43, Elysium

Worst Final 30 Minutes: The Call, Prisoners, Now You See Me

                                                                                                                            

Honorable Mention: Stories We Tell, The Act of Killing, Fruitvale Station, 56 Up, Jack the Giant Slayer

10. The Hunt (Dir: Thomas Vinterberg)

This was a fascinating, unpredictable take on a taboo subject matter that would never be tackled in mainstream American cinema: The (false) accusation of child molestation.  Mads Mikelsen (AKA Le Chiffre from Casino Royale) plays a recently divorced teacher who takes a temporary job at a preschool before allegations are made which result in his dismissal and banishment from the community.  What is interesting about the movie isn’t really the story (which thankfully never moves into hysterical or exploitative territory), but the relationships between the male characters and the scathing portrayal of how close-knit communities (even in “progressive” Scandinavia) respond to rumors, gossip and groupthink.  We are left wondering how the numerous real-life headlines of rape and abuse that ultimately prove unfounded ever originate in the first place (that is, outside of Tallahassee, Florida).

9. Rush (Dir: Ron Howard)

The best sports movie of the last several years.  Like Amadeus, the movie profiles two real-life rivals -- James Hunt (Chris Hemworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) -- who grow to dislike each other so much that it grows to an odd sort of mutual admiration.  It is also a movie of universal truths -- that the guy just above you who you despise keeps you more motivated than almost anything else -- and although Rush profiles the world of Formula One racing in the 1970s, you do no have to be a racing fan to appreciate the movie.  I do not follow racing and I found the events of the film gripping, unpredictable, and fairly unbelievable.  Howard also displays something we haven't really seen from him since Apollo 13: A key understanding of how special effects in movies should work -- not simply to display, but to give impressions, feelings, and manifestations of the innermost anxieties of characters.  And like all great movies, it only gets better as it goes along.

8. To the Wonder (Dir: Terrence Malick)

“Slow-moving,” “inaccessible,” “obtuse,” and “self-indulgent” were some of the most popular words used to describe Malick’s latest foray into the ephemeral nature of human subconsciousness. Of course, all these words could also apply to The Tree of Life and The Thin Red Line, but for some reason, critics found particular disdain in To the Wonder primarily because (A) its main actors were all incalculably attractive, and (B) there was little clear connection between the Olga Kurylenko/Ben Affleck story thread, and Javier Bardem’s tortured Catholic priest.  All true.  But what got overlooked was how affecting the story was, the truths it revealed about the idealism and volatility of romantic relationships, and how Malick is actually a remarkably clear storyteller.  Like the great silent filmmakers of the 1920s, he doesn’t rely on exposition to give us comprehensive portraits of his main characters.  Instead, we are left with fragments, which are frustrating but also infinitely more poetic and even perhaps closer to us in their ambiguity.

7. All is Lost (Dir: J.C. Chandor) 


All right, so it’s basically a remake of Cast Away, but who cares?  There are worse movies to emulate than Cast Away.  And there’s no desert island and there’s no Wilson (although Robert Redford relies heavily on his handy sextant for geographical and mental direction).  And it’s a lot more nihilistic.  But Redford is phenomenal, taking what would appear to be a gimmick (no dialogue and no other characters) into a riveting, exciting movie about gradually accepting near-certain death (hence, the title).  The movie doesn’t have a message and it doesn’t preach; it simply observes, rendering viewers frustratingly powerless but increasingly sympathetic to Redford’s nameless everyman.  As I kept watching it, I was wondering how the Chandor would end the story without complete and total helplessness, and improbably, he manages to do it flawlessly.

6. Blue is the Warmest Color (Dir: Abdellatif Kechiche)

This was the toughest movie of the year.  How do you react to it?  Is it sexist?  Is it a modern-day example of what Laura Mulvey famously identified as “the male gaze?”  I found the sex scenes absolutely guilty of the criticism they received: They are excessive, distracting, tedious and (because there’s no other term for it) pornographic.  See this movie and tell me those scenes are not pornographic.  But unlike right-wing prudes, I also don’t believe pornography is a universal evil, and the sex scenes are necessary in order to show – in a way no other previous movie has ever shown – how integral sex is for young people who have only encountered it through rumors, misinformation and what society tells us are “appropriate” sexual orientations (it’s also a much-needed relief from mainstream films content to show only nonthreatening, sexless homosexual relationships). The sexual bond created by the two protagonists (Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux) provides the backbone for their entire relationship, which spans over the course of several years.  There are good times, there are bad times, there’s jealousy, sadness, sexual awakening, and deep self-questioning.  It’s probably 25 minutes too long.  But because the movie is French, it refreshingly allows its characters to think and have intelligent conversations.  An American movie would have reduced Blue’s narrative structure to a 90-minute rom-com.  But Kechiche and his remarkable leading actresses have eschewed formula and instead offer us a riveting, engrossing, and frequently sad look at human longing.

5.  Lore (Dir: Cate Shortland)

Like Blue is the Warmest Color, Lore profiles a young female protagonist whose sexual awakening crucially coincides with a rise of political consciousness (and yes, needless to say, it’s European).  But this film takes place in the waning days of World War II, when Lore, the daughter of defeated Nazi cadres, must escape Allied capture in order to transport her younger siblings to their grandmother’s house.  Along the way, Lore (played by Saskia Rosendahl in a remarkable debut performance) encounters displaced war victims who gradually make her question her mindless adherence to Third Reich ideology.  The core question of the movie is at what point are children responsible for their own thoughts and actions (and are no longer the unfortunate byproducts of the way their parents raised them).  In that sense, Lore isn’t really about the Holocaust or bad parenting or even about Nazi ideology, but about the process of becoming an adult.  This makes the story universal, and even though Lore is not always likable, she is a reminder that as adults, we are forced to live with the misguided actions of our youth.

4. Nebraska (Dir: Alexander Payne)

It’s black-and-white, has no A-list actors, features an 80-year-old protagonist, and has no sex or explosions.  How did this film get made again?  Like Sideways, this is a movie that captures perfectly the awkwardness and anxieties of human interaction and somehow manages to be as heartfelt as it is cynical.  It also features the best performance of Bruce Dern’s career as a man who may not be completely mentally coherent (although he may be, we never really know).  There are also great supporting performances by Will Forte, June Squibb, and Stacey Keach, and the final moments of the movie are just about perfect, reminding us that triumphant endings don’t always have to involve grand gestures, but instead, everyday acts of selflessness.  It’s the type of movie that intelligent audiences give standing ovations to.

3. Gravity (Dir: Alfonso Cuaron)

Like Avatar, the first question we have to ask is whether it’s a great motion picture or a great motion picture experience.  And unlike Avatar, it actually manages to hold up to both questions (I saw it both in Imax 3D and on a home theater system).  What else can be said about it that hasn’t already been said?  It’s thrilling to watch, features great performances by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and quietly offers a very intelligent screenplay.  And yes, the special effects are amazing, transporting us seamlessly into outer space without making us skeptical of CGI for a single moment.  The camera movement too doesn’t draw too much attention to itself, as Cuaron has been guilty of in the past, and like the great movie epics of the 1950s and 60s, it transports us to a place we never thought we could see so clearly.

2. 12 Years a Slave (Dir: Steve McQueen)

McQueen’s Hunger was #1 on my 2009 list, while Shame was probably the most disappointing film I saw in 2011.  12 Years a Slave is a return to the incredible potential he has as a director, beautifully balancing artistic ingenuity with sophisticated, compelling storytelling.  In an era in which Django Unchained is the most widely-seen cinematic representation of slavery, this film is a much-needed reminder of the true brutality and horror of life in the Antebellum South (and no, Chiwetel Ejiofor doesn’t get to blow up Michael Fassbender’s house).  Many critics have spoken of the film’s many violent scenes and how difficult they are to watch, but there are also a great deal of more subtly devastating scenes (such as an exchange between Ejiofor and Fassbender involving an unsent letter and every scene with Adepero Oduye in it).  There was no better performance in a 2013 film than Ejiofor here.  He doesn’t have a lot of flashy scenes, but instead, more realistically portrays a quiet, contemplative man who is very nearly depleted to his core during his 12 years of torture and banishment.  The final moments have an emotional power that is rare, and is the only 2013 movie that is virtually guaranteed to be remembered for generations to come.

And the three-way tie for best movie of 2013:

1. The first 53 minutes of The Place Beyond the Pines.

When I saw this movie back in April, I knew I was watching something special, and thought it would unquestionably merit a very high spot on my list.  Unfortunately, the last two-thirds of the movie really don’t hold up to the first third, but that should not prevent you from still seeing it (after all, it was Todd’s #5 movie of 2013).  Ryan Gosling’s performance in the first 53 minutes is absolutely stunning, and the movie offers an experience in a special way which very few other movies can claim: It throttles you.  You have no clue where it is going, and are just thankful to be on board in the backseat.  There are a few images which leave an unforgettable impact (here and here).  It is cinema at its most transcendent.  I know it sounds sort of gimmicky to name your best movie of the year the first 53 minutes of a movie, but you tell me what you think after watching it.

1. The final episode of Breaking Bad.

So OK, it’s not a movie, but taken as a whole, I’d argue that Breaking Bad is better than any movie that has come out the last five years.  The final eight episodes are gripping and feature tremendous performances and marvelous dialogue.  Without giving too much away, there is a scene in a garage that had my heart racing like it did during United 93; there is a gun death in the desert that was equally tragic and inevitable and horrific to watch; and the final episode, which gave resolution and catharsis without being overly preachy or indulgent, contained moments which were painful and true.  The performances were all amazing, but Bryan Cranston was particularly astonishing in the way he balanced being both sympathetic and horrific.  And the choice of the final song to close out the series was perfect, probably leaving David Chase wondering why he couldn’t have done the same.

1. The real best movie of 2013: Disconnect (Dir: Henry-Alex Rubin)

If I haven’t made it clear enough already, I thought 2013 was a very strong year for movies, so putting Disconnect as my real #1 should not be taken lightly – it wasn’t the result of being the most notable film in the midst of a mediocre year (as has possibly been the case in the recent past).  I did not honestly expect much going into it, but I was blown away by how tight, intelligent, and unpredictable it really was.  In weaving a Crash-like narrative involving three intersecting storylines, the movie constantly moves from one interesting character to the other, probing deep questions about the use of social media and technology in modern American life.  Each story uses problems we often hear about on the news as starting points (cyberbullying, online sex trafficking, and identity theft) but brilliantly moves past the veneer of personal electronic devices to examine the human effects of seemingly faceless, humanless actions.  Rubin doesn’t really preach against the bad effects of alienation from face-to-face interaction (in spite of the film’s tagline, “Look Up”) – that would be too easy.  Instead, he accepts the notion that technology can also bring people closer, and in doing so, social media becomes the vehicle for understanding the deeper personal motivations and anxieties of each of the characters.  While watching the movie, you keep waiting for the scene which it will turn stupid or phony or unrealistic – and it simply never happens; even at the end, which could have gone for the conventional “happy” angle, but instead offers something much more realistic and unresolved.  There’s an energy and remarkable clarity that makes Disconnect remind us that movies are still capable of deeply moving us. 

Thoughts?  Disagreements?  Upset that Spring Breakers somehow did not on my list? Let me know below!

Lore (2013) Review

Directed by

Cate Shortland

          Cate Shortland’s Lore offers a portrait of Nazi Germany rarely seen in mainstream films: Told from the point of view of a 14-year-old daughter of a Third Reich official, the film shows the horrific waning days of World War II from the purview of the defeated.  We see a man who has shot himself.  A woman cries to a picture of Hitler, “We broke his heart!  He loved us so much.”  Dead bodies populate the countryside as the girl and her younger siblings journey to reunite themselves with their family.  This naturally begs the question of whether any movie can really be made about the plight of (relatively) innocent Nazi children without apologizing for the atrocities of the Third Reich, even if unintentionally.

            This is one of the many fascinating, unsettling, and ultimately unsolved questions that make Lore a compelling motion picture and one of the best early movies of 2013.  The film stars Saskia Rosendahl in a mesmerizing performance as Lore, the oldest of five children, who is told by her mother to seek refuge at a distant relative’s house while she and her father enter a prison camp.  Thus, Lore, her younger sister, her twin brothers, and a newborn are forced to make their way across Germany peddling whatever jewelry and scrap goods they can find for food and shelter. 

            On one level, Lore is a fairly conventional survival story emphasizing sacrifice and endurance.  Along the journey, Lore learns to adapt to whatever precarious situation she finds herself in, all while trying to maintain her dignity.  At one point, she cajoles a woman into breastfeeding the baby (demanding that she clean herself beforehand) and at another point, she uses her burgeoning sexuality to entice a boorish man to take the family across a river.  But all these situations would be even more conventional for the audience were it not for the fact that, like much of defeated Germany in 1945, Lore continually refuses to accept the defeat of the Third Reich.  She hides her brothers and sister from Allied troops, and keeps in her pocket a picture of her decorated father.  We cannot help but wonder if all the sacrifice and endurance she gains, however admirable, is not simply borne out of a stubborn refusal to accept defeat.  But, in Lore’s defense, maybe the answer has more to do with the misguided fears and rumors she has heard of what American officials will do if they find fleeing Nazis. 

            One question I found myself asking during Lore was at what age do children simply regurgitate the beliefs their parents have instilled, and at what age do they become responsible for their own beliefs.  This question becomes key in the movie when another major character is introduced: Thomas, a young man who follows the siblings and occasionally aids them out of perilous circumstances. (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD) Lore is initially suspicious of Thomas, and her worst fears are realized when she finds out Thomas is a Jew, and a survivor at Buchenwald.  This is the point where Lore differentiates itself from lesser, more obvious approaches to similar subject matter.  Instead of overcoming her bigotry, Lore continually treats Thomas as an inferior being, and this even extends to hints of a latent sexual relationship between the two.  The movie ingeniously connects political and sexual awakening, but only in the subtle, vague ways two teenagers could possibly experience such awakenings.  Like the ambiguous relationship between the white girl and the Aborigine in Walkabout, their bond is defined by the prejudices the two hold about each other and the power dynamics that seem to shift throughout their tryst.  Do either Lore or Thomas ever have genuine feelings for one another?  Or are they simply using each other for survival?  We never really know the answer, which reflects the filmmaker’s reticence to offer the audience too much emotional linkage with any of the characters.  If Lore was a novel, it would be told in omniscient third person.   

            Does Lore really change her beliefs over the course of the film?  There’s certainly no emotional climax as in Schindler’s List where she asks aloud what more she could have done to save the Jews.  The reality is that for a 14-year-old, such feelings and their ideological transformations are ambivalent and hard to pinpoint, which is what I loved about Lore.  This is not to demean Schindler’s List, but it’s not hard to root for a man who saved 1,500 Polish Jews.  It should not be hard to root for a brave teenager girl saving her family from capture, starvation and death, but that is precisely the provocative quandary in Lore.  There are numerous times we cannot root for her.  It is uncompromising – even at the end of the journey, when we expect (and hope) that Lore has learned something from her survival and experiences with Thomas, we get no clear answer. 

            There is only one criticism of the film, which is that the director, Cate Shortland, indulges too greatly in common art house aesthetic foibles.  There are long passages of the film in complete silence and minimal camera movement, which seem oddly disparate from other, more effective scenes using shaky-cam to reinforce the immediacy of Lore’s displacement and fear.  I don’t think it was Shortland’s intention to make a meditative art film, but on the other hand, I cannot entirely condemn her strategy because it is effective at showing us Lore’s innermost alienation.  There are no bombs, tanks or soldiers here, and there is only one scene of gunfire (shown offscreen).  The silence reinforces the fact that Lore and her family have, like many, been abandoned and forgotten in the midst of international political and military chaos.  And while I wanted to criticize those long, seemingly out-of-place sequences, it is somewhat hypocritical for me to do so in a film so upfront with being uncompromising. There are rarely any satisfying conclusions we can have about the existential problem of the Holocaust, even 70 years later.  Is not appropriate that its cinematic interpretations come with aesthetic lapses and inconsistencies?

            Lore belongs on a shortlist of films from the past few decades which probe questions about the actions of youth during the Holocaust (other such films include The Dirty Girl, Europa Europa, Fatelessness, and, to a lesser extent, The Reader).  I was reminded of the Primo Levi quote that more dangerous than true monsters are “the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.”  In the case of Lore, the war has (thankfully) passed and she will ultimately be forced to enter a world in which Nazism has died a horrific death, along with the countless Jews and resistance fighters that suffered because of it.  In many ways, the film is about Lore and Thomas coming to terms with the demise of their respective peoples, and how reconciliation is imperfectly achieved through rising social consciousness.

Rating: 4 stars