TOP TEN 2013

It's the end of the year, and you all know what that means. Time for the top ten movies released not this year but the previous year! I am nothing if not timely.

I've been meaning to write this list for a long time now, but I couldn't bring myself to do it earlier because I had missed out on many of 2013's critical new releases. Even still, I haven't seen a bunch of potential contenders like:

The Conjuring, The Wind Rises, Blue Jasmine, Captain Phillips, 12 Years a Slave, The Counselor, Dallas Buyers Club, Blackfish, The Bling Ring, Spring Breakers, etc.

I have an assortment of excuses for this negligence. The first Post-Credit Coda post being published on December 31 of 2013, 2014 was my first year of writing about movies. Seeing new releases in 2013 had not been a priority for my college self. But I've finally watched my way through forty movies from 2013, enough material for a hearty if not comprehensive top ten.

Looking over my list, I can't help but call 2013 disappointing. Shame on you, 2013. Summer blockbuster season felt like a dry spell and the Oscars didn't blow me away. Despite this, picking ten movies proved a bit confounding. That's why lists are fun! Time warps impressions, and self-imposed limits force you to confront what you find valuable in your favorite and not-so-favorite films. Not every movie can be a big fat winner. Some movies are big fat losers. With that in mind...


Untoward Awards

Most Disappointing: Man of Steel
Most Inane: Drinking Buddies
Most Nonsensical: Proxy
Most Generic: Monsters University
Most Infuriating: The Great Gatsby
Most: The Wolf of Wall Street

Can't Remember: The Machine
Can't Finish: Filth

Sophomore Slump: Elysium

Kindred Spirits: Gravity + All Is Lost
Kindred Names: Mud + Filth


Best Names: 1. Upstream Color  2. Big Ass Spider!  3. Only God Forgives
Worst Names: 1. 500 MPH Storm  2. Star Trek: Into Darkness  3. Thor: The Dark World

Worst Superhero: Thor: The Dark World
Worst Adaptation: World War Z
Worst Sequel: Star Trek: Into Darkness
Worst: 500 MPH Storm




Honorable Mentions

Side Effects - Know as little about this medical thriller going into it as possible. Treat yourself with the unexpected. Soderbergh's last film before quitting Hollywood proves how much Hollywood has lost with his supposedly permanent departure for television.

Pacific Rim - Some people sneer at the mention of it, while others are psyched out of their minds about the franchise-to-be. I'm stuck square in the middle. It's far from Guillermo del Toro's best, and I didn't appreciate the character work. But the big moments are big, well deserving of the difficult-to-earn title of quality summer popcorn entertainment.

The Butler - An admirable attempt at telling history from a subjugated perspective that was likely hampered by the stunt casting of the presidents. Seriously, this movie deals heavily with the black experience of the civil rights movement, and all people could talk about were the brief cameos by the rich white guys.

Philomena - It would have been easy for Philomena to churn out a milquetoast message about family, friends, and togetherness on its way to an inevitable Judi Dench Oscar nom. Instead the writers crafted a thematically delicate story about an old woman's search for her long lost child, and the way it complicates her ideas about religion. Meanwhile Steve Coogan cracks wise and struggles with his identity as an asshole. It works.

Frozen - I'm no willful contrarian so I can't call Frozen grossly overrated. More that it swung for the fences and got a ground rule double. My Review.

Short Term 12 - This is one of the better films that missed my list. How hard must it be to make a story about a halfway house that doesn't feel maudlin, cliched, or overwrought? Nonetheless, we have here a movie that never condescends, and teaches us a lot about depression, privilege, and the lack thereof. A lot of that issues from the powerful central performance by Brie Larson. She kills it.

Nebraska - I badly wanted Nebraska to make my list because it resonated personally with me in some surprising ways, but it has a few significant flaws. Inconsistent visuals, inconsistent performances, inconsistent screenplay. But when it works, Woody and his faux-epic journey provide a perspective on the American Dream that we hardly ever see. My Review.

Mud - The plot may spin its wheels, and the climax may be an egregiously tone deaf action setpiece, but a Bildungsroman is first and foremost about the characters, and these characters are brought to life by a whole slough of really top notch performance work. McConaughey is mesmerizing and all that, but I'm a sucker for good child acting, and the two kids at the center of Mud carry the movie.

The Wolverine - I skipped out on The Wolverine due to a total lack of interest. That held true until I learned that it was set almost entirely in Japan and directed by James Mangold of 3:10 to Yuma pedigree. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a movie with a handful of moments that are tonally antithetical to typical Hollywood blockbuster fare, while still delivering sure-handed action that far surpasses anything Wolverine has done since X2. Unfortunately, the plot doesn't make a lick of sense and the third act goes to hell in a computer-animated handbasket.

The Double - Based on a Dostoevsky novel of the same name, The Double fully commits to its fable-like purgatorial atmosphere. The main character wastes away in rusty archaic mechanisms, claustrophobic cubicles, and yellow phosphorescent lighting. The visuals are beautiful, and the doppelgänger plotline disturbs. Some outdated vestiges from the source material manage to barge their way into the adaptation--Mia Wasikowska's character has one monologue that hints at contemporary feminist sensibilities, then remains trapped in cliche for the rest of the film--but for the most part it succeeds in crafting the best kind of adaptation: an inventive one.

The Wolf of Wall Street - SOLID. That's the most apt way to describe this three-hour showcase of Leonardo DiCaprio getting smashed out of his mind. This movie is three hours long and not once did my attention wander. Props go to DiCaprio, Scorsese, and especially editor Thelma Schoonmaker for that feat.


See last year's top ten HERE.

Now for my top ten movies of 2013!

10. Catching Fire

I was no fan of 2012's Hunger Games adaptation. Every aspect of the movie induced little more than a shrug and admission of competence from me.

Imagine my surprise when Catching Fire rolled out and managed to capture my imagination despite adapting an inferior source text! I credit much of the improvement to the director swap. Francis Lawrence had yet to make it big, partially because his filmography has been rife with mediocre-at-best scripts. Nonetheless, he has consistently managed to make visually inspiring films despite that limitation: see Constantine, I Am Legend.

It should be no surprise that, given a solid script, Lawrence actually managed to elevate the source material. And he's not the only Lawrence to thank. The engaging visuals combined with Jennifer Lawrence's typically superior performance managed to make Catching Fire the incendiary tale of a burgeoning war that we could hardly have hoped for.

9. Computer Chess

I spent a great deal of my childhood immersed in chess. It may appear to be a social game, but at the core of chess is solitude. You practice alone, you strategize in your own head, and the entirety of a competitive chess match occurs in a dense fog of silence. Anything that you might call human contact happens on a level of abstraction far beyond the kind of everyday communication we're used to.

This is the world of Computer Chess, a period piece set unspecifically (and a bit fantastically) during the era when computers and chess collided. Freaks, introverts, nerds, and borderline sociopaths--otherwise known as programmers--bring their machines to this chess tournament. Computer Chess is about a lot of things, the simplest of which is the joy of watching a room full of awkward people attempt something resembling human interaction. The most complex of which... let's just say it gets very existential.

8. American Hustle

David O. Russell's freewheeling story of con artists and love affairs ended up being an awards darling that won no awards. That's probably for the best, as you won't find so much as a drop of profundity in this movie.

All the better, as far as I'm concerned. American Hustle is little more than a zany period thriller buoyed by kick-ass performances and a whole lot of this little old thing called FUN. How rare a quality is that in an Oscar contender? Hustle's got its problems--lightweight themes, a curious lack of consequence, a third problem I can't really think of--but damn is it a blast to watch. When your dullest character is Louis CK you are absolutely doing something right. 

My Review. 

7. All Is Lost

Gravity got all the hype, but All Is Lost is survivalism at its finest. For those of you who wanted to like Gravity more than you did, check this movie out. Robert Redford portrays a sailor about whom very little backstory is known. When his sailboat gets punctured by a shipping crate gone adrift, Our Man (as he is named in the screenplay) must navigate a series of nautical survival situations. Far too pensive to be called a simple thriller, All Is Lost strips away all that messy dialogue and exposition and instead presents a visual, visceral fight for life.

My Review.

6. Inside Llewyn Davis

How can a new Coen Bros. movie be met with anything short of heightened expectation? In a lot of ways, Inside Llewyn Davis confounds that expectation. We have grown used to a certain hyperviolent sort of spectacle from the Coens--an examination of the seedy underbelly of humanity. Llewyn provides none of that, instead presenting to us the dour character study of a young folk artist who didn't quite make it. Inside Llewyn Davis is restrained, thoughtful, depressing, beautiful. Featuring the best onscreen musical performances I've seen in 2013, Inside Llewyn Davis asks a question somewhat askew from the "what if you're not good enough" theme of Tim Burton's Ed Wood: What if you're good enough, but nobody cares to notice?

5. Only God Forgives

More than any other movie on this list, Only God Forgives has caused bitter dispute among those who have seen it. One critic will call it a brooding triumph of tone and texture, another will call it an insufferable slog about infantile themes. One Netflix review will say that the pace and music are gripping, another will say, "Should be called No Talking with Ryan Gosling" (actual review).

Since the title of this movie has a big fat five right before it, you can guess where I stand. I understand the complaints, but my first viewing of Only God Forgives sent me into a trancelike state. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to everyone--this is cinema for the patient, and the squeamish should steer clear--but Only God Forgives was the dark horse of the year for me: a movie that I expected not to like but that blew me away regardless.

4. Iron Man 3

Iron Man 2 crapped the bed. It has since become maligned as the very worst film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (though I find it far more watchable than Thor: The Dark World). As such, it wasn't so easy to get excited for Iron Man 3--until one thing happened. Shane Black.

The choice of Black to write and direct was nothing short of inspired. He's a guy who had been out of the limelight for a while, but was once considered the most desirable up-and-coming screenwriter in Hollywood. He poured his DNA into the Iron Man universe, infusing the franchise with the snappy dialogue, quirky comedy, and strong structure that it so needed. Add in some of the MCU's best special effects yet, some of the most engaging combat of the year, and a surprisingly hefty set of themes, and you make Iron Man 3 the best of the Iron Men.

My (old!) Review.

3. Gravity

I don't deny that the dialogue in this film is too sappy for its own good. I will argue, however, that it doesn't matter all that much. Gravity is the current final word in visual, spectacle-driven storytelling, the kind of storytelling that cinema has always done best. As such, you arguably won't find a more cinematic experience from the year of 2013. I learned a lot about visual storytelling from watching this film. But Gravity isn't for learning. It's for transporting you, thrilling you, and making your breath catch without you even realizing it.

My Review.

2. The World's End

The culmination of the Cornetto Trilogy! If you went into The World's End expecting more Hot Fuzz, you may have been disappointed. This movie is simply not as gut-bustingly funny as its predecessor. However, it just may be Edgar Wright's masterpiece, perfecting the formula he's been developing for a decade, and delivering a mature story about aging, addiction, identity, conformity, friendship, etc. etc. etc. The World's End is in many ways an awkward movie, but so is growing up. You won't find a more subtle yet hilariously overt exploration of what it means to be an adult this side of the end of the world.

1. Upstream Color

Movies are a visual medium. Nonetheless, most films tell their story with dialogue, allowing the onscreen visuals to be the icing on the cake. Already a few movies on this list confound that formula (All Is Lost, Gravity), and here we have a third. Upstream Color is a complex multilayered story told almost entirely through gorgeous images. There is dialogue, but it functions more as window dressing, an extra layer of context to bolster what you are seeing at any given moment. It's background noise.

That is just one of the many, many things I love about Upstream Color, the second directorial effort from auteur Shane Carruth, eleven years in the making. The first is the brilliant procedural time travel allegory, Primer, the most complicated time travel movie ever made.

But Upstream Color is not clinical, or procedural, or mechanistic. It is a whole new beast: organic and luscious, mysterious and evasive. Carruth (who also wrote, starred, AND composed the soundtrack...) has reinvented his style to make what is flat out one of the most visually beautiful movies I have ever encountered. It's a movie that haunts you. Some people might find it opaque or alienating, but for me Upstream Color represents the height of what cinema can strive to accomplish. I've avoided rewatching it because my first experience was so rapturous, but I think it's about time to dive back in. I have a feeling this is the kind of movie that keeps on giving.

0. Her

I messed up. Somehow, after I finished compiling this list and writing the blog post, I realized that (due to a confusion I had about release dates) I left out the single most enrapturing movie I saw released in the year of 2013. That movie is Her.

These days it is incredibly rare for me to experience a genuine outpouring of emotion. Her managed to open my floodgates more than any movie since, I don't know, some Pixar film I saw four years ago. This is one of those rare movies in which every single facet--production design, screenplay, performance, cinematography--is flawlessly calibrated to the exact frequency needed to tell the most effective story that the movie wants to tell. I apologize for that convoluted sentence, I'm struggling to find words to describe the effect Her had on me.

I try to embrace all film genres, but I usually struggle with romances. Their sentimentality, their naivete, their twee tone, their simplistic structure all bug me. In addition to all that, I'm in one of those grumpy cynical bachelor eras of my life, where most love stories strike me as a crock of nonsense. Nevertheless, against all odds, Her swept me away.

It helps that it's not just romance. It's sci-fi! Drama! Comedy! Fable! Dystopia! The list goes on.

Her is my number 1 (number 0?) movie of the year because it meant so much more to me intellectually, viscerally, and emotionally than any other film released in the year of 2013. As I said in my review, it's one of those movies that I want to watch with everyone I ever love. If that doesn't make a list-topper, I don't know what does.

My Review.