by Kyle Wells I probably spent more time in cinemas and saw more movies this year than any other before. My friends and family knew not to bug me Tuesday nights because I would be in the theatre. I went to two film festivals, using my holiday time for one. Some might call it a lack of a social life, but I call it devotion and integrity. I knew at the end of the year I was going to have to write a list of best movies for the people and that I would be held accountable. Imagine the pressure.
That being said there’s still a number of movies I haven’t had a chance to see, mainly due to limited releases being hard to track down. Highly praised movies I’ve thus far missed out on include Blue is the Warmest Colour, Short Term 12, The Act of Killing Her, The Great Beauty and others.
Those I did see, and there were many, helped convince me 2013 has been an extraordinary year for film. Sure, it was a lousy summer movie season but the number and variety of impressive films this year has been staggering. This is the first year in many where I believe every film on my list to be truly great.
10. Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne
For a year full of movies about excess, the strong, silent and quietly hilarious Nebraska was a welcome break. A great late-career performance from Bruce Dern and a wonderfully colourful supporting cast helped Alexander Payne tell this heartwarming, but never sappy, tale of a father/son road trip, small town quirks, one heck of a good punch to the face and $1 million. Actually, now I think about it, Nebraska is sort of the Spring Breakers for Mid-Western Americans over 80.
9. The World’s End, directed by Edgar Wright
Among disappointing blockbuster summer fair (Man of Steel, Elysium) actually came some great mid-budget entries, including this third film in Edgar Wright’s so-called Blood and Ice Cream, following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The third turned out to be the best, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost out to conquer a 12-pub crawl and a force bent on taking over the world. Fast-talking Pegg is a wonder to watch and the movie as a whole is wonderfully silly, well written and full of laughs.
8. The Conjuring, directed by James Wan
James Wan’s The Conjuring is about as good as a mainstream Hollywood horror movie can get and holds the distinction of being one of the few I wondered if I would be able to get through. Its set up is simple, but its pace is unrelenting, taking the house of horrors trope to new, frightening levels. This isn’t a bump in the night, this is an explosion, full of gripping tension and horrific sights.
7. The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese
Ah yes, the most divisive film of December, if not the year. Is Martin Scorsese’s three hour, hell-bent-for-leather opus of drugs and Wall Street scamming in the 1990s a brilliant satire or a deplorable celebration of depravity? Can’t it be both? The power of this astounding film is in both its epic, ridiculous, mind-numbing scale and its resistance to assign blame. In so being, the film raises questions of how much our own American Dream culture, and therefore ourselves, promotes and props up wolves like Jordan Belfort, who is now developing a reality TV show.
6. 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen
2013 was a big year for movies about the struggles of African-Americans, with three major releases, including the commendable Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Fruitvale Station. But the best of the bunch came from British director Steve McQueen, whose no-holds-barred look at the soul-crushing depravity of slavery made for one of the most powerful films of the year. Featuring a staggering performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave isn’t a film I particularly want to see again, but it’s one everyone should see once.
5. Stories We Tell, directed by Sarah Polley
Technically a 2012 release in Canada, Stories We Tell is Oscar-eligible for 2013 and I didn’t have a chance to see it until this year, so I’m counting it. We already knew Sarah Polley as a great narrative director (Away From Her, Take This Waltz) but with this fascinating and touchingly personal documentary she proved even more her capacity for thoughtful, inspired takes on what it means to be human. In turns funny, thought provoking and compelling.
4. Stoker, directed by Chan-wook Park
I love a seedy little Hitchcockian crime movie, and Chan-wook Park put out one of the best since, well, Hitchcock, with Stoker. Beautifully filmed but a nasty bit of work all the same, Stoker is a captivating watch, one part film noir, one part erotic coming-of-age tale, all parts engrossing, filled with lovely cinematic flourishes and knock-out performances from Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman.
3. Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by the Coen Brothers
The Coen Brothers are, rightly so, rated highly among contemporary directors, and in my opinion they’re never better than when making simple, character-driven tone pieces of hard-luck souls trying to navigate a baffling world. A Serious Man is perhaps the best example, and Inside Llewyn Davis follows a similar path. Davis is a great film for its performances, especially Oscar Isaac, for its music and for Ulysses the cat, but mainly for the grace and patient, puzzling beauty the Coens bathe it all in.
2. Spring Breakers, directed by Harmony Korine
I must say I thoroughly enjoyed thinking of all the teens and tweens unknowingly lining up to see the new Selena Gomez movie Spring Breakers, totally unaware of the nightmarish, Dubstep-drenched vision of youthful decadence Harmony Korine had lined up for them. Some mistook the film for vapid exploitation, but I have trouble understanding how anyone could see Spring Breakers as anything other than an intense, troubling, invigorating piece of confrontational art, and the most modern film of the year.
1. Before Midnight, directed by Richard Linklater
How lovely that the best film of the year can also be one of the simplest. The third film in the Richard Linklater/Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy Before … trilogy, turned out to be the best, a loving portrait of a committed couple working through the complexities of romance and life. It is a film of conversations, primarily between two people, but in its maturity and honesty the movie finds beauty, depth and, of course, a love truly invigorating to watch. An inspiring use of cinema.
Well there we go folks, another year down the hatch. I’d say we should meet up soon, but I’ll probably be at the movies.
