I've never done one of these "best of" year lists, I'm not really sure why…
I wanted to give it a shot this year. During my time at The Rafael Film Center, I was exposed to a broader spectrum of films than previous years and I found it interesting how that would affect my outlook on this year for film. Which I felt to be incredibly stronger than previous years, mainly due to a certain kind of…push…for a definition to a changing climate of film expression. I saw a much larger amount of foreign and documentary film…a few of which made my top ten of the year. I like that about this year…I found so many new view points and new ideas, directions and innovation. But what I noticed, that interested me the most was the large amount of honesty in film, or at the very least the attempt to bring a deeper level of honesty. The stories this year we're overwhelmingly personal.
I am also including my "worst of" list…and my "Yet to see" list. Just to give some perspective as to where my priorities have been swaying for films this year. I'll be writing a discussion of each section in the coming days as separate posts, a little closer to the actual end of the year. At which point I'll adjust them for any films I've seen between now and then.
Let's start.
My Best of (or favorite of) 2013
In no particular order except for #1 My tenth spot is reserved for a possible film I have not yet seen this year. Which there are many.
1. Before Midnight
2. A Hijacking
3. The Act of Killing
4. The Spectacular Now/ The Kings of Summer
5. All is Lost
6. The Hunt
7. Stories We Tell
8. Prisoners
9. The Wolf of Wall Street
10. ****
Honorable Mentions. Films that were very good, but just shy of exceptional.
1. STOKER (so so close to making my top ten)
2. Spring Breakers (I appreciated it more than I actually liked it)
3. MUD (one of the more solid films this year, just didn't hit my gut as hard as others)
4. Only God Forgives (perfect example of failing upwards)
5. The Lords of Salem (Zombie is so close with this one, beautiful to look at)
6. Man of Steel (so many good elements that didn't quite come together, and the destruction was way overboard)
7. War Witch (an extremely provocative film that gets too caught up in mysticism)
8. In The House (I love French cinema, this is a delicious little pulpy tale dressed in suburban clothes)
9. Don Jon (a really good first directing try for Mr. Levitt, that ultimately lost me in the end)
10. **** (saving for the end of the year just in case)
My Worst of (or very least favorite) 2013 in no particular order at all. There were a lot of bad movies this year, but to me these are the worst of the worst. It's incomplete just because I didn't quite feel the other "bad" movies are bad enough to include…or I just want to wait incase I see something else truly terrible. But these put me into a state of disgust.
1. Kick-Ass 2 (atrocious, embarrassing. I'm in agreement with Jim Carrey's decision to not promote this)
2. Runner, Runner (I don't think I've seen poorer writing for a star vehicle like this, I laughed out laud at the dialogue delivery)
3. Thor : The Dark World (a movie to serve a purpose but without enough weight to stand on its own, worst Marvel film yet.)
4. You're Next (Amateur, dressed as innovative, ultimately boring)
5. White House Down (the Channing Tatum one) (blah, cheesy and pointless)
6. Aftershock (just gross, and for no reason at all, I failed to see the point of why this even exists)
7. The Purge (I hate films that do this sociological experiment to justify violence, we already have one "clockwork orange"…why even try)
8.
9.
10.
Notable films I have yet to see this year.
1. Wolf of Wall Street *Check
2. Labor Day
3. HER *Check
4. American Hustle * Check
5. Inside Llewyn Davis
6. Paradise Trilogy (Hope, Love, and Faith)
7. Gravity
8. Captain Phillips
9. Blue Caprice
10. Fruitvale Station *Check
11. To The Wonder
12. Upstream Color
13. Blue Jasmine
14. Short Term 12
15. The Great Beauty
16. Hobbit 2 *check
No comments:
Post a Comment